I wonder why I haven't checked out this thread before? I just watched your latest WIP, Sami. Really high quality, I must say. It's been quite a while since I played this game, but you seem to have found loads of shortcuts, I was almost annoyed in the beginning of the movie because you found so many "W-barrells" that took you to the end of the level. I kinda wanted to see you play those levels :) So to put things short, great job so far, I'll check back on this thread daily from now on. I hope you get another WIP up soon, Sami! :)
If you wanted to submit this, you may want to check whether using this "Hard Mode" code is allowed. I say this because it seems to not be harder, at least in my opinion. There are no DK barrels, but when I played, every time I died, I started again with both Kongs. This actually saves time because there are no DK barrels to avoid picking up, and plus you start with both Kongs. As far as the second level, the comparison is skewed because Blackpearl doesn't have to take the time to break a DK barrel there. He's now tied with Sami's level (1299 frames altogether), but 33 of those frames in Sami's run are spent waiting for Dixie to come out of the barrel. Blackpearl, what I find to be helpful when trying to beat a run is to watch the existing run, and write down frame markers of certain events (like passing a certain box, or killing an enemy) to break the level into segments, and then try to beat each segment. This way, if you are falling behind, you can precisely figure out where, and correct it easier. I also have no idea why Sami's getting desyncs for Blackpearl and vice versa. I'm using "Diddy Kong's Quest (V1.1) (U)", and the crc32 is "4E2D90F4" according to the "Play Movie" dialog box, and both of your runs play fine. Edit: Sami, would you mind editing your post above to make it not so long horizontally? (see my post above for instructions on how)
100% movie of this game would be great too!