Allright, after
much work I managed to shave off another 18 frames from level 1. Some of the ideas I had didn't work out. One idea I had was to do like miau did in his movie and jump over the first banana skid (around frame 2000), which saved about 4 frames. However, I lost these frames due to bad luck and lag later on, so I didn't implement this.
Also, I found that miau's zipping trick is a little slower than the way I did in my movie, so I'm keeping it as it is. :)
Here's the WIP.
There are mainly two differences in this movie compared to the previous one:
First of all, I use an arrow to get up faster around frame 4000. This saved about 11 frames. The two enemies that I manipulated to drop big gas took a really long time and a lot of effort to manipulate. They just refused to drop any big gas. :( I managed to make them drop it after some time though, without wasting more than 3-4 frames manipulating luck.
The other change is the first boss battle which is now 7 frames faster. The strategy is different this time around - I keep to the low ground. :) Thanks to miau, I now have the memory addresses for both boss HP and their invulnerebility period. Using these, I now know that the first boss battle is frame perfect, unless someone finds a glitch or something to kill the boss faster than normally intended.
EDIT: I didn't want to doublepost, so here's a big edit instead:
First of all, you can forget about that improved movie I made, the one I posted in this post. It didn't work out with luck, and by "didn't work out" I mean that it wastes hugh amount of time to get a big gas refill. I needed a big gas refill from the second enemy on the second stage. This gas refill is crucial to get. however, I spent about 2 hours trying to get it, and my best attempt wasted 11 frames to get it. This means I'm only 7 frames ahead.
Then I reviewed my previous movie and saw that I had great luck overall, so I'm keeping to it. To put things short, even though the first level can be done at least 18 frames faster, I lose time beating it that way because of really bad luck on the next level.
I would give my right arm for the memory addresses that determines item drops...
In any case, I have a new WIP up. It beats the first 4 levels now, and is about 11 seconds faster than Walker Boh's run.
Here's the WIP