Game objectives
- Emulator used: gens_11a
- Aims for: Fastest completion time
- Takes damage
About the game
High Seas Havoc is a quite basic jump'n'run that starts of pretty easy but becomes very challenging towards the end.
Havocs abilities are:
- Damaging enemys by jumping on their heads (has no effect on bosses)
- Damaging enemys with his sword (can only be used when jumping)
- Rolling on the floor (rarely needed)
Apart from that the game contains a power up that gives havoc a speedboost of one third of his usual speed for the rest of the level (mostly I obtain it as fast as possible).
Unlike some other games (sonic for example) horizontal momentum is not lost when hitting walls. This makes optimization easier when passing corners.
Since the game seems to have no glitches at all and the fastest routes through the level are pretty obvious, the only thing one can do in a TAS is optimization. This prooved to be a bit tricky on some occasions. Some bosses for example can be killed faster when delaying the first hit for a frame.
Time table
I will compare my run to maTOs, since it's the fastest TAS of this game I know of. He doesn't take any damage to save time, so I marked the differences which are partially due to me taking damage in italics:
| Level | maTO | this run | difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Cape Sealph | 2015 | 1913 | 102 |
| 2. Pirate Ship | 3710 | 3639 | 71 |
| 3. Otarucean 1 | 2343 | 2335 | 8 |
| 4. Otarucean 2 | 5300 | 5251 | 49 |
| 5. Burning Hamlet 1 | 5282 | 5230 | 52 |
| 6. Burning Hamlet 2 | 8572 | 7546 | 1026 |
| 7. Mt. Chester 1 | 4742 | 4564 | 178 |
| 8. Mt. Chester 2 | 5834 | 5743 | 91 |
| 9. Frozen Palace 1 | 5348 | 4954 | 394 |
| 10. Frozen Palace 2 | 6678 | 6362 | 316 |
| 11. Mt. Bernardo 1 | 3545 | 3535 | 10 |
| 12. Mt. Bernardo 2 | 8446 | 8224 | 222 |
| 13. The Final | 8170 | 8017 | 153 |
(Times were measured from the first non-white frame to the first white frame)
Things that might look unintentional but are not:
In General:
- I jump into goals, even if they are on ground level. For some reason this is faster.
- When jumping up a ledge, I press against it, since this (unlike many other games) builds up horizontal speed.
2. Pirate Ship
I use the barrel at the beginning to reach the speed power up earlier. In order to do so as fast as possible I use havocs attack, which changes the collision box slightly.
When Bernardo (the boss) dies, the game waits for him to slowly swim to the left. Since he runs faster than he swims, I planed the fight to get him to the left side of the screen. For the same reason I kill him a few frames later than possible, but earn more frames from not having to wait as long afterwards.
4. Otarucean 2
I don't get the speed power-up as fast as possible, since this would make me take a longer route.
The Boss also had some strange behavior which meant that hitting him at the first possible frame for a certain hit could cause a longer invulnerability.
7. Mt. Chester 1
At 0:39 ingame time I don't go to the right as fast as possible to prevent the boulder from starting to move too early.
8. Mt. Chester 2
Jumping over the ledge at 0:26 ingame time would be 3 frames slower, so I don't.
At the boss area I don't kill the first 2 birds, since this enables me to kill the last 4 of them faster. The Boss spawns when all birds are dead/off-screen, so this is actually faster than killing all of them.
Also If you hit the boss at the first possible frame, and continue to do so, he will stay in place and do nothing, but you will have a much longer fight since for some reason his invulnerability is much longer then.
11. Mt. Bernardo 1
In the beginning of the level, when getting the speed power up, I wait for the platform on the left to flip. If I would not do this I would have to take a lower route through the level which is longer.
Sugested Screenshots:
turska: Judging.
turska: Solid run, fun game, good audience response. Accepting for publication.
feos: Processing the publication...