Speedrunning Guide, 3 Lives, Normal, Any%

Speedrunning Sword of Sodan Any%

Speedrunning Sword of Sodan

So, I don’t know lead you to this bad decision, but ok.  Here is how you speedrun Sword of Sodan.  And I apologize.  Thanks for The Spelunker for the GameFaqs & Goati_ for the route described.

First off, potions you need to know (Selecting more than one potion at once does more stuff)

Red – Increase Attack Strength
Orange – Kills the closest enemy
Blue – Increase Health
Red & Clear – Extra Life
Red & Orange – Flaming Sword (Attack strength up temporarily) [Clear & Orange is Flaming sword too, but shorter time]
Blue & Clear – Shield (Temporary invincibility, but won’t save you from instant kill traps)
Blue, Clear, Orange - Destroys All Enemies
4 Clear potions – Warp to next level (Won’t work on Levels 6 & 7)

Before I go into the full details, one thing to note is that the screen scrolls slooooowly, so make sure you try and stay as far right as you can in certain areas to make sure the screen in continuously scrolling to the end of the stage.  Drink red potions to boost your power (unless you have no lives and hope for a red/clear combo).  If an enemy is on top of you, press Up & Attack (Upward slash) and it will shrug them off sometimes.  Also, your health will refill at the beginning of each stage (small blessings).

Level One – Jump and grab the red & clear potions, then make a big jump to the far right of the screen and thrust (Right and attack) at offscreen enemies.  Your objective is to keep scrolling the screen, kill the enemies, and drink any potion that is not clear, as you want to keep four clear potions.  At the end of the level, if you have four potions and one isn’t clear, drink it.  

Level Two – If you drank the extra potion, there will be a free clear potion at the beginning of the level, so grab it.  You want to follow the same procedure as level one, while dodging the spikes as best as you can.  Make sure you have four clears before this level end, otherwise, reset.  [TRAP – At the end of the level, there are three concurrent bigger spike pits with two  spikes coming up on the left and right side, and the middle not doing anything.  If you stand on the middle, it will be an insta-death.]

Level Three – Drink the four clear potions at once to warp.  This is a long level and the warp saves you a ton of time.

Level Four – Jump to grab the blue potion and do a long jump to the right and keep doing the thrust attack to keep zombies from spawning.  This will save a TON of time and lives from having them spawn and do damage to you.  If a zombie spawns behind you, save him until the end of the level and destroy him by doing knee jabs (Down & Attack).  Any other attacks will repel them and waste more time.

Level Five – I will tell you the Luck based routes and then the No-Luck based routes.  First, the basic thing of the leve is that there are pits, which you can barely see with a bluer tile on the ground.  The goal is to skip the first two pits and jump into the third to warp to Level 6.  If you fall into the first two pits, the warp becomes null and you’d have to reset (as the level is hard enough being full of giants).  LUCK #1 – Kill the flying enemies and hope one will drop a clear potion.  Use the Blue & Clear to get shield and kill the giants with upward slashes (Up + Attack and when knelt, Up + Attack from a slight distance to hit the head hitbox).  Immediately go into the third pit.  LUCK #2 – Get an orange potion.  Try to separate the two giants and use the orange potion to get one giant down and chop the head off, and then go right into the second giant quickly and fight.  Go after the third pit quickly.  NO LUCK – Try to separate the two giants as best as you can and take them out.  If you’re lucky and kill them quickly, you can reach the third pit before the third giant comes, but more than likely you’ll have to fight the third.

Level Six- If you died anywhere in the first five levels, this is your chance to redeem yourself.  The first area has about 50 flying demon things that you need to kill before you proceed.  Kill them all, hopefully getting a quick flaming brand to start out, but you must finish the battle with one of every potion.  LUCK BASED: Collect Orange/Blue/Clear and use a clear all wipe to destroy the bats.  NOT LUCK BASED: A safe bet to take the least amount of damage during this is go to the very far right of the screen, turn around, and do upward thrusts (Up+Attack), killing most demons and taking the least amount of damage.  YOU WILL NEED A RED/CLEAR/BLUE/YELLOW AT THE END OF THE BATS.  After the demons are dead, jump to the far right of the screen and do regular thrusts to kill a wizard offscreen.  You’ll know he’s dead when the words “Watch out for Fire” appear.  

At this point, pray that you have a lot of health left for the next area as it is all trap laden.  [GROUND TRAP#1, the fire will come at you on the ground.  Any jump will save you from getting hit twice from the fire and taking damage.  GROUND TRAP#2, you will see a little spike on the ground, so avoid that area when it comes, as the spike will come up shortly and instantly kill you. CEILING TRAP – You can barely see on the top of the screen a row of blocks appear.  After a couple seconds, a column will come down, crush you and instantly kill you.  If you hit the sides of it, it will only do damage, but it’s best to just avoid altogether.]  After you get through those traps, there are the lava pits and the platforms.  The best way to guarantee a successful jump is to jump on the platform as soon as it appears, so the screen edge will save you from going into the lava. Be wary of doing the first platform and hear for the audio cue.  AS SOON AS YOU HIT THE SECOND PLATFORM, drink a blue & clear potion for shield, as Ground Trap #1 can still knock you into the lava.  You will have enough shield to get you past the third platform.

Level Seven – Boss #1 - Welcome to one third+ of the speedrun.  You’ll have to fight a big brute of a boss whose weakness is a blob belly when it turns red.  You want to keep pushing him right, so jump as close to him as possible and duck, as his melee attacks are always too high to hit you.  If you are far away, he shoots from his belly and you have to do a high jump to avoid the random projectiles.  When his belly is red for an extended period, get close and do an upward thrust to get two hits on him and kill and demons quickly before they become a nuisance.  Things to note: He will keep spawning two flying demons who can give you potions.  If have no lives, try and get extra lives.  If you can create the Flaming Brand potion, make it.  Hopefully, you will end the battle with a shield mixture.    Boss#2 – Get as far right of the screen as you can and thrust!  If the wizard starts to cast spells, and if you have a blue & clear potion, use shield and continue thrusting into the wizard.  After it runs out, do knee jabs quickly to prevent him from casting spells.  Do this enough and he’s dead!!!

Useless potion combos: 
Clear + Red + Blue + Orange = Death and a warning “Winners Don’t Do Drugs”
Blue + Orange = Poison

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