Castlevania: LoS, New Game Speedrun WR (1hr 54min, Segmented - PC)

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, New Game WR speedrun, on PC. All skips and tricks seem to work exactly the same as on PS3. The main differences I noticed were that you can enter the menu while the yellow loading-circle is on screen and that the narrator's voice sounds glitched - it repeats and overlaps - when you skip the narration between levels. Also, loading times are much faster on PC.

Note: try to watch the whole thing; resource management, XP management and general tactics are very different from Full-power/NG+ runs. You might see some surprises along the way too.

twitter.com/findlestick

Run notes:
Time begins when I press 'start' at Besieged Village and ends as soon as the 'level complete' screen starts at Final Fight, my final time: 1hr 54min 13sec. Each level is one whole segment.

At times I avoid using magic or Holy Water etc. during combat as a resource-saving tactic for upcoming skips. I avoid infinite jumping directly to the end of levels unless it's the fastest tactic (Crematory Oven might be the exception? Haven't timed that one yet).

I carefully calculated how many enemies I need to kill in order to get Guillotine upgrade, Gauntlet upgrades and Wings upgrade. Note that I managed to get barely enough XP to upgrade both crucial Gauntlet upgrades by the time I needed them at Veros Woods, this was by design... a lot of work went into routing this new game speedrun.

0:14 Besieged Village
3:14 Hunting Path
4:47 The Dead Bog:
I killed at least ten Goblins and the Swamp Troll twice to get crucial XP for upgrades.

6:47 Big tree skip - if a Goblin throws a grenade after you do this skip, you'll get stuck at the Grip-point tutorial since the game thinks that the 'grenade tutorial' is permanently active. I kill extra Goblins before they can throw a grenade.

7:56 At the Swamp Troll - I restarted as the battle started for two reasons. The first one is to save negligible time skipping the short, 'jump' tutorial scene. The second (main reason) is that the Troll is usually more passive at the start of the battle if you restart, he sometimes takes longer in going to the tombstone he pulls from the ground. But I got bad RNG and he went to it nearly straight away, making my tactic mostly pointless. Wouldn't bother with in any future runs.

11:02 Pan's Temple
12:05 I restart as soon as the fairy puzzle is done, which skips the scene of the fairy flying around. This is worth it on PC due to extremely quick loading times when restarting.

13:06 Oblivion Lake

16:00 Enchanted Forest:
16:19 Getting to the 'Light Magic' tutorial too quickly glitches it, in that you can't activate Light Magic until the second enemy is killed and you take its orbs. So you have to do things in a slightly different order so you can progress, which takes just as long as normal, so that's no issue.

18:24 The 'Focus Scroll' can be skipped, the game automatically gives it to you later.

19:14 Underground Caves
You need to kill the first spider to get crucial XP, then you need to restart in order to backtrack to the infinite jump spot.

22:18 If you skip the 'Spiked Chain' upgrade, it's difficult to get the Shadow Gem Medallion later in the game.

22:44 Labyrinth Entrance
24:31 Waterfalls of Agharta
28:18 Agharta
29:11 Dark Dungeon
31:37 Sanctuary Entrance
32:25 Sanctuary of Titans
35:58 The Black Knight

38:59 The Three Towers
42:47 The Dark Lord of the Lycans
42:50 It's possible to skip this boss, but you'll get stuck later without the boots.

47:32 Mountain Fortress
50:31 The Crow Witch

52:04 Early Holy Water upgrade, although you don't get the upgrade straight away, you'll get it as soon as you get the Holy Water ability later.

55:48 Veros Woods
57:36 Wygol Village
58:11 Another early Holy Water upgrade, again... you don't formally receive it yet.

58:21 Although you can hit the final trigger from under the map, you need to return inbound to get the 'Stake' upgrade.

59:24 Abbey Catacombs
1:00:33 Abbey Library
1:01:44 Abbey Tower
1:03:26 Brauner
1:05:53 Castle Sewers

1:06:32 Castle Courtyard
1:08:33 Maze Gardens
1:10:52 Castle Hall
1:12:11 Refectory

1:13:22 Balcony
1:14:36 Electric Laboratory
1:15:51 Chromatic Observatory

1:18:35 Outer Wall
1:21:36 The Clockwork Tower
1:24:47 Olrox
1:25:31 The Throne Room

1:32:13 Bones Forest
1:34:09 Woes Moor
1:35:28 The Music Box

1:36:24 Titan Graveyard
1:38:19 Fire Pinnacle
1:41:31 Fire Cemetery
1:42:49 Crematory Oven

1:44:13 Necromancer's Abyss
1:44:35 Gigantic infinite jump to final areas: after many tests, this is about one minute faster than other New Game methods. Remember that I've skipped so much XP that the Necromancer fight takes much longer than during a Full-power\NG+ speedrun, I don't have Ultimate Light or Ultimate Shadow-attacks and I've got zero magic upgrades.

1:49:52 The Dracolich

1:50:29 Final Fight