FuriousPaul's Castlevania IV Speed Runs

Super Castlevania IV Opening Title Screen

Super Castlevania IV (CV4) is a platformer skill game released on the SNES back in 1991. This game has an extremely high skill ceiling when it comes to speedrunning. I have spent a lot of time perfecting the speedrun for this game. CV4 is probably the most exciting project I have ever done so far, as I have huge sentimental value for this game and I'm very happy to get amazing speedrun times for it and help contribute to the speedrun development of it over the years.

My Personal Best (PB) Times For CV4:
CV4 Normal Any% in 31:47
CV4 Hitless% in 4 Hits (WR)
CV4 Hard% in 50:42
CV4 Low% in 1:12:16

SCV4 Articles:
My SCV4 Speedrun accomplishments
Super Castlevania IV's Top 15 Hardest Speedrun Strats
Difference between the Japanese and American version of SCV4
Super Castlevania IV at GDQs 2015 - My experiences!

Watch me do Live World Record Attempt Speedruns on Twitch.TV

In case you didn't know you can watch me do Live world record attempt speedruns for CV4 on my twitch.TV channel. I am currently treating Super Castlevania IV as a side project and I am only doing one no reset run a day (for the first part of my streams). I also do the weekly race for CV4 every Sunday at 1pm EST, it's usually very exciting and fun to watch. My current goal is to get a sub 31:40 (Any%) with no knockbacks and a 1 cycle chandelier. Simply go to my channel and click the "Follow" button to be notified when I go live.

My History With CV4

I beat CV4 "casually" over 5,000 times throughout my life. I was addicted to the game immediately when it came out back in 1991 and out of hundreds of other games I also played, CV4 has remained my most favorite casual game over the years. I beat the game casually an average of 4 times a week steadily over the last 25 years. It's been a huge stress reliever throughout my life as I always looked forward to playing it after school or work for relaxation..

After first speedrunning Doom & Quake in 1995 - 1997, I later learned in 1999 that CV4 is also a fun speedrun game as well. I had a nice jumpstart at it because I already beat the game casually over 500 times. I was the first one to speedrun CV4 (in 1999) and that run was done in 37:24. Here's an old forum post talking about my first CV4 runs I did.

From 2002 - 2014 CV4 remained as a casual game again (no speedrunning). I didn't start speedrunning it again until March of 2014. So far (for just Any%) I have spent 3 years from March 2014 - April 2017 playing (practice/attempts) for an average of 5 hours per day. That's close to 5,500 hours in 3 years. That's a LOT of time for just one game!

Spending a lot of time Speedruning my most favorite casual game of all time was destined to happen. I always had a strong desire to be good at CV4 and to beat it quickly with as few deaths as possible (even during casual play). I used to stream my casual play of CV4 on USTREAM before Twitch was invented. If there was one game out there I wanted to speedrun/master the most it would be CV4 for sure. I also have great passion for CV1,2,3 for NES, but CV4 just takes the cake for me. My long term goal is to master all the categories for this game.

CV4 Categories:

Any%:

Any% is simply beating the game as fast as possible using any means necessary, with CV4, this means damage boosts and only a couple of glitches are used to go faster. Any% is generally the most common speedrun for CV4. I have spent most of my time speedrunning this category so far.

I am currently doing about one or two streams per week with two no reset runs for each stream.

Here is a visual of my CV4 (normal any%) sum of best level segments of 31:23 (or Twitch Version).
Click here to see my full list of completed any% CV4 speedruns.
Any% Leaderboard (goes to speedrun.com)
Occasionally we do races for CV4 on SpeedRunsLive (such as the Sunday weekly races). Here is the Leaderboard for it.
My Sub 32:10 Hall of Fame Playlist on YouTube.
World Record Progression Chart (outdated since 2014, Hanage_Belmondo maintains this).
11 year old me telling you that CV4 is a GOOD GAME!

My Any% PB history:

You can see the progress I made during the 1.7 years (March 2014 - April 2017) at an average of 5 hours per day. Here is a quick rundown of some of the biggest time hurdles in the game (the lower the cycle number the better):

Stage 4 Zip saves 10 seconds.
1 cycle chandelier saves 4.5 seconds over a 2 cycle.
1 cycle mummy saves 6-11 seconds over a 2 cycle.
Slogra can be killed from 6 or more cycles. Each one is 2.7 seconds.
Dracula can be kill from 6 or more cycles. Each one is about 5 seconds.

Date	PB	Zip	Chandelier	Mummy	Slogra	Dracula	Comments
01/06/17	31:47	yes	1 cycle	1 cycle	7 cycle	6 cycle	PB
10/01/16	31:48	yes	1	1	7	6	-
08/16/16	31:55	yes	1	1	9	6	Only about a half sec faster.
09/07/15	31:55	yes	1	2	7	6	First sub 32!
08/18/15	32:01	yes	1	1	8	6	-
05/12/15	32:03	yes	1	1	8	6	-
04/17/15	32:05	yes	1	1	7	7	Cool new strats.
03/07/15	32:06	yes	1	1	7	7	Quest for sub 32:10 DONE!
02/14/15	32:18	yes	1	1	10	6	Quest for sub 32:20 DONE!
12/30/14	32:24	yes	1	2	7	6	This reclaimed WR from Joe.
11/24/14	32:28	yes	1	1	8	7	This reclaimed WR from Joe.
11/13/14	32:36	yes	1	2	8	7	My first World Record.
10/30/14	32:45	yes	1	2	9	7	-
09/22/14	32:46	yes	1	2	10	7	1.5 months since previous PB.
08/05/14	32:49	yes	2	2	9	7	-
07/08/14	32:52	yes	1	2	8	7	First Sub 33!
06/29/14	33:01	yes	1	2	9	7	16 sec PB, WR pace 8-A.
06/27/14	33:17	yes	1	1	10	7	-
06/23/14	33:19	yes	1	2	10	8	Died at stage8 stair jump.
06/19/14	33:23	yes	1	2	9	10	Was going WR pace on 8.
06/02/14	33:28	yes	2	2	9	8	-
05/28/14	33:37	yes	2	1	13	9	-
05/24/14	33:47	yes	1	2	9	8	-
05/13/14	33:50	yes	2	2	11	8	-
05/04/14	33:57	yes	2	2	13	7	1 second PB.
04/24/14	33:58	yes	2	2	10	8	Sub 34!
04/17/14	34:20	yes	2	2	10	10	-
04/10/14	34:31	yes	1	2	14	9	First 1cycle chandelier.
04/06/14	34:42	yes	2	2	12	9	First PB with stage4 zip.
03/29/14	34:45	no	2	2	13	9	-
03/23/14	35:13	no	2	2	12	8	Tied with Funcdoc
03/21/14	35:59	no	2	2	13	9	First deathless run!
03/16/14	37:40	no	2	2	13	10	1 death.
03/14/14	40:19	no	2	3	17	11	3 deaths.
03/13/14	40:29	no	2	2	12	10	5 minute PB!
03/12/14	45:56	no	2	3	15	9	10 deaths.
01/08/14	50:26	no	4	3	20	14	Last casual playthrough.

Hitless%:

Beating the game with as less hits as possible, this also means no damage boosts. Hits come before time in this category. I came up with this category and was the first one to run it. It is very challenging and addicting. I do think a hitless run is possible with this game, but it's gonna take me a lot more practice and attempts to pull one off. PB History:

10/5/14 - 36:00 - 4 hits (WR)
10/1/14 - 35:54 - 6 hits
9/30/14 - 36:08 - 10 hits
9/29/14 - 37:34 - 17 hits

Low%:

No whip upgrades or subweapons allowed. So I have to use the leather whip only through the whole game. The only other things that are allowed are: invincibility potion, meat, and bombs. Bosses are actually a challenge in this category. Here is the Low% Leaderboard. PB History (only did one attempt so far):

5/20/14 - 1:12:16 (PB)

Hard%:

Once you beat the game on normal you are presented with hard mode. Hard mode basically means more enemies and most of them take more hits than usual. The bosses are the same as normal mode however. Here is the Hard% Leaderboard. PB History (only did one attempt so far):