i had played this when i was growing up so a speed run was the obvious choice. wondering about routing, weapon choices, boss strats and just what i should look for in general. Times and stuff like that. Is emulating it an option with the solar patches without disallowing the run?

Answers would be greatly appreciated.

Emulating is a thing. In fact, i plan to separate console and emulator runs if there's a lot of both.

So yeah, using the patch is allowed, for the sequels, a patch is not necesserarily needed depending on the game, so if there's runs of each type (emulator with patch, no patch / sunlight except from items, console with blacklight), i'll separate them also.

Routing... well... so far i routed the dungeons route for any%, but besides that i'm kinda lost, so far what i've noted:

• Avoid C ranks, you don't get any items wich end up making the endgame way too hard, also not having any item makes you lose time (no speed fruits to speed up, no bananas to speed up puzzles)
• B Ranks are enough, item-wise
• Weapon-wise, iirc i use the 2 frames you get at the beginning, then i'm supposed to get another one (it's very powerful, and sends enemies far away, but you have to be right-next to them), at some point there's yet another frame that can be taken, basically a better version of the one at the beginning of the game.

Boss strats: So far not much there, for the Count, it's mostly about making sunlight usable during the fight and luring the count on it, the fight can be really fast but it's also kinda random at the same time.

Carmilla: Basically setup the mirrors near her tail so she hit herself, at this point you should have some grenades that you can use while she's wasting time aiming the wrong mirrors. The fight causes a lot of lag though, it's kinda bad.

Sabata: So far i'm stuck on him, i just can't beat him at the end of the game, even with items it's really tense.

So yeah, that's pretty much it...

So what's to look is... well not sure, i guess a way to speed up some rooms, puzzles and bosses. A safety strat for Sabata at the end could be useful i guess.

I wanted to note all chests to only take the ones needed, but there's so many, i gave up.

So yeah, i routed some dungeons with items, some of them are improvable i guess, but basically it's just "take this door instead of the other one" and "use that item in this room to save more time"

Alright, now things to avoid during a run:

• Getting caught too much, leads to C Rank, less items, screws up route and make dungeons harder later.
• Wasting grenades while using the patch, it's dumb, but i do it often, depending on where you shoot it, grenade causes lag too.
• Using Dark Banana / Purple Banana, it CAN be useful, but it makes you lose life very quickly at the same time, unless it's a boss fight i think it's not a good idea.

So yeah... that's it i guess, i'm not sure what else to say.

Anyway, these might help:

http://pastebin.com/nsgMzFp0 - Basically this is what i written when routing the world map, it has all dungeons that i've gone through, with importants things you get from most of them, and what to do (kinda), it might helpp to start.

http://pastebin.com/fpDUca1u - This is my route, it doesn't says much, it's mostly the dungeons i go through, what things i can get, and puzzles solutions.

Also, about the patches: Personnaly i try to not max the sunlight when not needed (dialogs), to avoid Overheats. In the sequels it also helps keeping the items, otherwise they can be rotten earlier than planned.