11 Individual Levels. As a note of reference,

Chapters 1-6 are part of the regular game, and Chapters 7-11 are the DLC

Hoping to bring an completed IL Table that's entertaining with the most technical and badass Character in this game because he's got a beard ;)

I guess before I comment about the runs themselves, I should preface ahead of time that these will be analyzed from the perspective of Julius. This may seem blatantly obvious, but it’s important to keep in focus just how important his signature move, Omnia Vanitas, is to shaving off time and what that means for him. Omnia Vanitas is basically the same as Akuma’s teleport from the Street Fighter franchise, providing invulnerability all the while traversing at faster speeds than Triangle Jumping (Constant Dive Kicking), and Ricther’s signature slide kick. The Omnia animation can be cancelled out early by Backdash Cancelling (BDC), and during the time in which it’s being cancelled, you can buffer another Omnia. This combination is known as Omnia Canceling.

Now that’s actually only the second fastest means of mobility on the game believe it or not. I’ll throw this out there ahead of time as I will NOT be using this method as it’s far too difficult to pull off consecutively & consistently and takes 10’s of hours of practice to get the hang of it. The fastest way of maneuvering is done by Fast Omnia Cancelling. To be brief, instead of cancelling with a whip shot then a backdash, you cancel with just Julius’s Whip before he turns around in his animation, and then during the whip animation within a matter of frames (single digits) input another Omnia by buffering the motion ahead of time. I used to be able to this consistently facing left in June of 2015, but have lost the ability to do it adequately since. Only three people I know of in the world who can do it consistently both ways, and they are: AANXAAN, a good CVHD buddy of mine who posted this on his youtube channel in 2014 and quite possibly brought it to light in terms of existence. Japanese player named Zwei0, also goes by rain zwei on youtube, and another Japanese player who plays on PS3 called “Song” on youtube. These players are a whole level above me in terms of technical prowess and more likely than not are some of the best players in the world on both Xbox 360 and/or PS3.

Anyways, now that I’ve explained why Omnia Vanitas is vital to speedrunning with Julius and how that puts pressure on him to get some of the fastest runs out of all characters, I want also thank PJ for his Simon runs and the strategies that go along with them as well as for inspiring me to finish this table after seeing him complete his (Including DLC’s) in ~July of last year (YW for Chapter 10 dude :P). Last but not least, here’s the primary setup I used for most of these runs and slight modifications in equipment and will be listed in parentheses followed up by the chapters they take root in.

EQUIPMENT

Fuma’s Helm
Berserker Mail
Sonic Boots (Fuma’s Greaves – Ch 1 & 3)
Retro Cloak
Fool’s Tablet
Fool’s Tablet
Berry/Mango/Mint Mousse Cake (Caviar/Foie Gras – Ch 2, 3, 4, 5, 7)

As for the Subweapons, I’ll list those for each of the chapters as they vary far more greatly making a universal list look more convoluted to follow.

TWO remaining important disclaimers to make, I’m VERY nitpicky and will more likely than not present many solutions for improvement that from a practicality standpoint are not plausible, but brought up to aid in painting a picture in what theoretically a best possible speedrun of a given chapter will look like. Also, the Fool’s Tablets always poison the user, but provide the highest INT boost in the game at 6 INT per Fool’s tablet.

B = Ricochet Rock
Up B = R. Axe
Side B = Ricochet Rock
Down B = R. Dagger

This is a decent run overall. Hitting the corner boost in the beginning would’ve saved a very miniscule amount of time off the corner if any. A fast corner boost would’ve cleared the whole gap in not having to latch onto that magnes point (Forgot to mention Julius can grab onto them a la Super Castlevania IV style), but what deters people from wanting to do that is the blades which I did an Omnia through immediately after that.

The timing to land in between those rotating blades is pinpoint accurate and very difficult to pull off. One possible workaround after fast corner boosting the gap with the merman would be to get slightly to the left of the platform while below it and do an uppercut, which yields invincibility frames until Julius reaches the peak of his jump and damage boost past the spikes. However this is luck-ridden as the blades might shoot you the other way to the left essentially causing an instant reset.

From here on out, the rest of the run is hoping for the best hitting the two corner boosts with the Grimoire (spinning book) in between them at the drawbridge preferably at widened angles which is in essence fast corner boosting. The game preserves your character’s speed going forward until either they hit an obstacle, land on ground, or pull back on their movement. To provide depth since I first brought this up without explanation before, you can change the velocity of your dive kick speed by tilting your joystick straight forward enough so that your character’s not moving, and then use the d pad to execute the dive kick motion itself.
After this, it’s possible to latch & detach off the magnes points and get to the platforms on top in the rooms with the pendulums, but it’s quite risky if you don’t have enough height latching & readjusting Julius so he’s directly above it and subsequently has enough height to clear the gap. The physics are a little weird when jumping from magnes points in that if you use your double jump when making contact moving forward towards a wall, the game cuts the double jump short and you in a sense clip and fall down from where you’re at in positioning.

Last but not least, the ricochet rocks thrown at the top of the level into the boss room aid in aggroing the boss earlier as they traverse at a faster speed than Julius can. Fuma’s Greaves help kick in those couple of extra points of damage so Gergoth would break the floor faster or rather get set up to do so. It’s not the most important thing in the world if my backdash cancelling with the R. Daggers wasn’t as efficiently as they could be, because Gergoth only “Dies” after he recovers from his fall allowing for plenty of time to disperse of the other enemies and kill him.

B = R. Boomerang
Up B = R. Axe
Side B = Javelin
Down B = R. Dagger

I covered a lot of ground in Chapter 1 in addition to material that wasn’t pertinent about the run itself and was more just filler like explaining wide angle dive kicking / fast corner boosting, so hopefully these next entries will be more concise and straightforward. The room with the treant blocking the way could’ve gone better with a fast corner boost on the platform towards the right side of the room. Had this been implemented, I could’ve carried it forward with the corner boost following that room immediately afterwards where the succubus pretending to be yoko is and gained not only more ground, but in a smaller period of time too making it a nice twofold effect. Jumping onto the platform without bouncing off the Yorick is possible given the right positioning, height, and width of the dive kick, but it is very hard to do especially with all the immense pressure leading up to this point as well as for the next section.

It may look easy whipping up onto that magnes point from the platform with the Ghurka Master on it, but it’s deceptively difficult and frustrating to make because by that point, if you miss and have to wait for the Ghurka Master to bounce off his head grab it, you’ve wasted too much time. Towards the end, I slipped up and whipped and instead meant to Omnia after moving the switch to the Puppet Master, which costed a little time. That pathway to the switch might’ve been traversed a little more quickly if I stuck to Omnia Cancelling instead of banking on corner boosting. Last but not least, the boss is quite easy, and consuming a caviar/foie gras (+12 INT on top of the Berserker Mail’s hidden Multiplicative effect) puts him down in his place before he can get a puppet off to try and kill you in one hit by transporting you into the iron maiden should he succeed. Backdash Cancelling can be improved by swapping my attack and backdash buttons around. Through discovery, mashing face buttons (X & B on 360 controller) with both thumbs significantly improves the R.Dagger fluidity compared to the default layout (Which is what I use with the exception of Chat Cancelling in other Chapters including this one) because the triggers and shoulders have a delay in registration when it comes to this technique. Nevertheless, there were a few hiccups here and there, but still respectable overall.

B = R. Boomerang
Up B = R. Boomerang
Side B = R. Boomerang
Down B = R. Dagger

There’s a lot of waiting and not much running on this stage and as a result, I opted to go with Fuma’s Greaves to try and reduce the number of hits on the boss, Menace, by a few times, saving as many fractions of a seconds as I could. I threw too many sets of daggers (13) when only 6 sets were required to kill his middle weak spot, which takes 1.5 times as much damage compared to the other ones.  I slot rotated the R. Boomerang’s so more damage could sink in, and had I realized I only need to throw 6 sets of daggers at the proper intervals, I could’ve prepared more R. Boomerangs + throw the first trio I did earlier allow for more hits to land and possibly kill him without even having to go down to his kneecap and get the last couple of shots in.

Not much to say about the beginning except cave trolls sometimes jump over the daggers I throw at them to kill them unknowingly and the Imp sometimes ducks backwards right before you jump off his body causing a reset in the run.

B = R. Boomerang
Up B = R. Axe
Side B = Javelin
Down B = R. Dagger

I updated this run just today (4/13/16) and decided to give the new strategy of hitting the Fire Demon with an underpowered Julius a shot, and it paid off big time saving a time of 2.47 seconds from the previous run. By underpowered, his: Crosses, Ricochet Rocks, and Axes were at level 5; his Bible, and Knives at 6, and the Holy Water at level 1.  Besides that, I also was able to demonstrate fast backdash cancelling with the R. Daggers by swapping my default backdash and attack buttons (LB & X) around. I did this during the paint animation and the reason why is because there’s button delay between presses from either the Triggers or Bumpers, so the face button was substituted to do it instead.

B = R. Boomerang
Up B = R. Axe
Side B = R. Dagger
Down B = R. Dagger

Damage boosting with Omnia through the spikes is just as fast as fast corner boosting off the pendulums. Outside of that, missed corner boosts especially the one leading to death’s room because hitting that at a wide angle could’ve shaved off a couple of seconds for sure. Outside of that, I Omnia Cancelled too early at the section right where the Malachi was and as a result wasted a little time there. Most of my fails came from not being able to duck and slide near the switch then getting into the elevator shortly afterwards. Pretty simple level, and as a side note, I’ll try to keep these more condensed so your eyeballs don’t roll into the back of your head reading all these WOT’s and being like “Wtf dude” XP

B = R. Boomerang
Up B = R. Boomerang
Side B = R. Boomerang
Down B = R. Dagger

Missed some corner boosts, but was able to compensate with Omnia Cancelling through the Final Guards on the last stretch of the castle. Meant to whip diagonally on the first form, so a little time was wasted there, and outside of that, it was a decent chapter. Idk if it’s just me, but it seems like I always get hit by something when I do Omnia such as this chapter with the disc armor hitting me right on the edge of his weapon or jumping into the third form of Dracula while slot rotating R. Boomerangs. Uppercutting during this form could help here a little too.