Submission #6000: klmz's NES Conan: The Mysteries of Time in 04:59.77

Nintendo Entertainment System
baseline
FCEUX 2.2.2
18016
60.0988138974405
13634
Unknown
Conan - The Mysteries of Time (U) [!].nes
Submitted by klmz on 6/15/2018 9:54:59 AM
Submission Comments
Conan: The Mysteries of Time is a side-scrolling action video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System released in 1991. It was actually a port of an unrelated title called Myth: History in the Making that was released for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.
This game may just look slopy. Objectives are obscure, animations stutter, enemies keep spawning and refuse to die unless their current animations finish. Nevertheless, this run still complete the game in timely 18016 frames.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes samage to save time
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Manipulates luck

Pitchfork

The pitchfork is the most powerful weapon in the game, and required to destroy the Cerberus-like thingy in the first level. It's only dropped by the demon-like enmy in the first stage whilst only 1 pitchfork can be carried at any time.
I got and kept an second one on Stage 1 to use on the first castle guard in Stage 6.

Takes damage to interupt the current animation

A common trick found in many games. In this game it works very well as the damage-stun animation is shorter than the attack and landing anmations while enemies never stop coming. HP is never a problem in a TAS in this game.

Projectile Glitch

The game mixes all kinds of game objects together in the same pool but can fail to properly register and clear their attributes for collisions, leading to a glitch that Conan's projectiles can become "sticky" in a certain object slot turning every incoming object in it into a projectile that can damage enemies until it gets cleared. This finds certain usage eg. fighting the final boss with only one shot from Conan in the run.

Wall Glitches

Walls in this game have very imperfect collisions. Conan can stand-jump or run-jump through some.

Other Comments

Thanks to mtvf1 for the encode.

GoddessMaria: Judging...
GoddessMaria: Hmm... This game is quite low quality as it doesn't really provide anything truly interesting and game design itself is quite flawed. As for the run itself... While optimization is there, the entertainment factor is not. The audience reaction was either neutral or negative, which doesn't help either. Considering that entertainment value is too low for Moons, that leaves the Vault. Since this aims for fastest completion and doesn't utilize ACE, it does qualify to be there instead. Therefore...
Accepting this to Vault.
feos: Pub.
Last Edited by adelikat on 10/26/2023 12:08 AM
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