Goals
- Fastest completion (any%)
- Takes damage to save time
- Speed/Entertainment tradeoff
- Genre: Platformer
Done on BizHawk 2.2.2 with mGBA core. The Japanese version only saves 3 seconds in this speedrun, so I chose to go with the English version instead.
Context
I'm currently making a 200% TAS. I'm currently 40 minutes into a run that should be roughly an hour and 10-15 minutes long. I have all the parts with DK done in the 200% TAS, so I thought that making an any% out of inputs I already have would be good. Since this TAS is mainly made out of these inputs, I manually added the rerecord count of every room in the game according to what I have in the tasproj files that I used for testing routes and strats. Without those rerecords added, this movie would have 5143 rerecords.
The biggest thing that was found since PiePusher's TAS is the discovery of "speedgrinding", which is a technique used throughout the entire TAS to go faster. By alternating between L and R on every frame, you get the speed of the first frame of releasing a hand, but for every frame where L and R are alternating. Outside of that, there's been some more strategies found, and they will be discussed in the level-by-level description.
You guys asked it, you guys get it. In PiePusher's TAS, he takes a hit off of an enemy early on in his run, and it makes it so that you could hear the beeping sound of having low health for the majority of his run. People complained about it when his TAS got published, so I chose to not do that in my TAS, at the cost of losing half a second.
Banana usage
here are the differences in the banana usage between PiePusher's run and my run.
PiePusher
- Puzzling Pyramid 2 (10)
- Cactus Woods 3 (20)
- Necky's Canyon 3 (20)
- Engine 1 (30)
g0goTBC
- Ship of Souls 2 (20)
- Underwater Ruins 3 (20)
- Engine 1 (20)
My run uses 20 less bananas for the lack of fast bananas in the early game, and the lack of good boosts in the late game. I tried finding 20 fast bananas for a boost in Artillery 2, but I wasn't able to find enough bananas to save time with it.
Level-by-level comparison
Tutorial
Same thing really.
Banana bungalow
Middle route made better from speedgrinding.
New jump to the end platform, very precise.
Contraption Caves
We can now beat the kremling in the first screen, making the 5 bananas slow.
Tire bounce all the way to the orange pegboard in the 2nd screen, more direct way.
Puzzling pyramid
I don't go for a damage boost that would save half a second to not hear the heart beeping sound in the first screen.
We pass by the kremling on the third screen so that he gets to crank the switch for us!
Tropical Treetops
Same thing really
Congazuma
New quick kill that was found during the Diddy any% TAS. By going to the right of Congazuma after hitting him, he tries to go to the right, but can't do it since he's already on the right edge of the screen, the phase where he bounces one way while being invincible is skipped.
Cactus Woods
My run goes through the top of second screen. Very precise movement, and saves 0.3s over going under.
No more boost in the third room.
Madcap Mine
No more cranking of the third switch in the first screen.
No more cranking of the 2nd and 3rd switch in the third screen.
Treacherous Twister
Same thing really.
Necky's Canyon
We use the left route in the second room since we can beat the bird with speedgrinding.
No more boost in the 3rd screens, strats were found to make the boost save less than a second.
Fire Necky
Pie's TAS was waiting for all 7 rocks to be shot for whatever reason. 4 rocks is enough.
Tropical Treetops
Same thing really.
Ship of Souls
New boost in the second room to reach a hidden barrel that was recently found.
Risky Reef
Swapping Risky Reef and Kremling Kemp doesn't save nor lose time, PiePusher's TAS simply needed bananas from Risky Reef to boost in Kremling Kemp. Other than that, it's the same thing really.
Kremling Kemp
Same thing really.
Davie Bones
Got more damage in the first cycle, this allowed me to have a shorter 2nd cycle.
Getting 3 hits from the bottom-left spike is surprisingly tricky, it took me a long time to figure out a way to do it without having an extra rotation.
Raging Ravine
Major route change in the first room.
Even with better movement, it's still faster to wait for the kremling to shoot his bomb in the third room.
Ice Castle
Sliding on ice is much faster than speedgrinding.
Not landing in the second room is faster.
Underwater Ruins
Despite the first room being an autoscroller, I save a second there.
New skip requiring a boost in the third room, saves 6 seconds over intended route.
Cold Cold Forest
Using the middle route in the third room is faster.
Sassy Squatch
Same thing really.
Booster Barrel Skyway
Also same thing really.
Artillery
New canon bounce in the first room. Faster, and gets the 10 bananas.
Hull
Left path in third room is faster by 4 seconds.
Engine
New way of skipping the first room: "Hoo haw skip skip", less than a second slower than the original strat, but skipping 10 bananas makes it worth to do.
K. Rool
Attacking K. Rool during the race makes him go quicker. The speed ratio is roughly equal speedgrinding vs not speedgrinding.
2nd made faster by not letting a chance to K. Rool to attack, allowing us to attack him immediately after his invincibility runs out.
I aim for faster coin grab (RTA timing end), with minimal extra input time.
Shoutouts
Huge shoutouts to the DK: King of Swing community for being awesome and for the strats that have been found over the years, and I'd like to give these special shoutouts to these people:
PiePusher11: Amazing speedrunner and rival at this game. He helped with some of the earlier levels, as well as revising my work when I was showing some WIPs to the community.
Jeane: Found the "Hoo-haw skip skip", which saves many runs due to its easier difficulty.
FryingRyan27: Please come back, we love you.
Blunderstab: when's publishing a Jungle Beat TAS? ;)
ThunderAxe31: Judging!
ThunderAxe31: Although it could seem to lose time to che current movie in a couple of sections, it's due to different routing of banana usage and damage abuse, which turns out overall faster in this submission. Accepting as improvement over the current movie.
Spikestuff: Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.