Uploaded June 2016 | Updated September 2026, 11 minutes ago
I decided to spend three hours trying to speed run a 15 minute demo. This is the result.
I consider the run to begin on 0:13 (as soon as the loading stops) and ends on 5:02 (as soon as the game fades out), which would mean an ending time of 4:49 if that's the case.
If the title screen and thank you screen count, then my time is 5:12
At 1:00 I kick the cannon to death and the triple stack at 1:35, I might be too used to the short hops in Aria of Sorrow, but the frame cancelling jumps in this Demo feels too clunky and unreliable to kill the cannons. There have been runs where I clearly slash the thing and inflicted no damage at all. It's much reliable just to kick it to death.
2:02 had rather weird movements, I thought I backhopped enough to drop of the edge, but I didn't, and instead circled around the shade for a moment.
At 2:29 I jumped in mid air after I fell from the platform. If I could do that reliably, I could of activated the monster sooner and save a few seconds.
Speaking of which, the monster that spits the three eggs at 2:30 ruined so many runs, I can't avoid all three reliably. It's definitely faster to go through them, I've done it before, but there's no way to guarantee it wouldn't ruin a run. I just found it easier to despawn it entirely by leaving the screen.
I mentioned using short hops against a flame cannon earlier. 3:32 is what I mean. By making a precise circular motion, I can perform small jumps and slash at the same time, landing on the ground cancels a few frames of the slash, which allows you attack an enemy much faster.
Short enemies like the flame cannon, it's frustrating to use this technique on them. Using it on a tall enemy like the boss is much more reliable, and feels much more fluid.
Short hopping in this demo is much different than Aria of Sorrow, it feels so inflexible compared to how fluid the Sorrow games are. At 3:44 I messed up my short hops, attacking the wrong direction for a few attacks. The timing is much more demanding, I can feel how different this new engine is compared to the 2D Igavanias.
I switch to kicks at 4:13 due to my target getting too low to the ground. That makes it much too annoying to short hop, so I just stand there and kick the thing. I mess up my movements at the end of the phase, but that was only because I mistimed how long it was going to last. I thought the boss was going to shift around again, so it threw me off when it didn't.
Overall, I made a TON of small errors, but I thing I did pretty well. Definitely as good as I'm going to get. I mostly screw up on the boss, but I also don't get to play it very often. I haven't practiced the boss very much, and this was the best run I had over the course of three hours, so this is definitely good enough. I don't intend on breaking any records anytime soon. My hands hurt.
Can't wait for the full release.
I decided to spend three hours trying to speed run a 15 minute demo. This is the result.
I consider the run to begin on 0:13 (as soon as the loading stops) and ends on 5:02 (as soon as the game fades out), which would mean an ending time of 4:49 if that's the case.
If the title screen and thank you screen count, then my time is 5:12
At 1:00 I kick the cannon to death and the triple stack at 1:35, I might be too used to the short hops in Aria of Sorrow, but the frame cancelling jumps in this Demo feels too clunky and unreliable to kill the cannons. There have been runs where I clearly slash the thing and inflicted no damage at all. It's much reliable just to kick it to death.
2:02 had rather weird movements, I thought I backhopped enough to drop of the edge, but I didn't, and instead circled around the shade for a moment.
At 2:29 I jumped in mid air after I fell from the platform. If I could do that reliably, I could of activated the monster sooner and save a few seconds.
Speaking of which, the monster that spits the three eggs at 2:30 ruined so many runs, I can't avoid all three reliably. It's definitely faster to go through them, I've done it before, but there's no way to guarantee it wouldn't ruin a run. I just found it easier to despawn it entirely by leaving the screen.
I mentioned using short hops against a flame cannon earlier. 3:32 is what I mean. By making a precise circular motion, I can perform small jumps and slash at the same time, landing on the ground cancels a few frames of the slash, which allows you attack an enemy much faster.
Short enemies like the flame cannon, it's frustrating to use this technique on them. Using it on a tall enemy like the boss is much more reliable, and feels much more fluid.
Short hopping in this demo is much different than Aria of Sorrow, it feels so inflexible compared to how fluid the Sorrow games are. At 3:44 I messed up my short hops, attacking the wrong direction for a few attacks. The timing is much more demanding, I can feel how different this new engine is compared to the 2D Igavanias.
I switch to kicks at 4:13 due to my target getting too low to the ground. That makes it much too annoying to short hop, so I just stand there and kick the thing. I mess up my movements at the end of the phase, but that was only because I mistimed how long it was going to last. I thought the boss was going to shift around again, so it threw me off when it didn't.
Overall, I made a TON of small errors, but I thing I did pretty well. Definitely as good as I'm going to get. I mostly screw up on the boss, but I also don't get to play it very often. I haven't practiced the boss very much, and this was the best run I had over the course of three hours, so this is definitely good enough. I don't intend on breaking any records anytime soon. My hands hurt.
Can't wait for the full release.
