First I want to make clear that this run and the \"best ending\" run weren\'t done all by myself. It\'s mainly a co-operation between me and Hotarubi, a japanese regular speedrunner who showed to have some excellent sense for TAS as well. During the creation of this and the other Gimmick! run we took some breaks in our work, the longest being from the beginning of December up until 3 weeks ago when I took it up again. I tried to contact Hotarubi but he apparently hasn\'t been available to respond, and because he\'s not a member of this site I can\'t add him as co-author - something which I\'d like to be done as soon, or if, he joins some time later.
  • Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.28 (submitted an fm2 that syncs with FCEUX 2.1.4a)
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Uses death to save time (no life is lost however)
  • Heavy glitch abuse
This run beats my cancelled run by 2356 frames (~39 seconds) and the current published run by 3404 frames (~57 seconds). Never in my life I would\'ve thought such an improvement was possible when we started it since I only thought we would implement one new shortcut, instead it ended up in a cavalcade of new strategies. Depending of which new things you count as new strategies and which you just consider to be minor changes I\'d say there\'s about 25-30 new strategies (compared to the cancelled run). If you want to really see the changes themselves I suggest to first watch the cancelled run or current published run before watching this one.

Time savings: (CR = the cancelled run, CPR = the current published run)

LevelFrames saved over CRFrames ahead of CRFrames saved over CPRFrames ahead of CPR
Level 185858686
Level 210519010441130
Level 31805199518242954
Level 417821732673221
Level 5922265923313
Level 6912356913404
These improvement descriptions explain what\'s new since the cancelled run. It\'s explained only briefly but for surprise you\'ll might want to watch the run before reading it.
Level 1: Better precision and new strategies in more than half of the rooms, by more effective star toss and using an enemy as a platform.
Level 2: Better precision and a new glitch abuse by entering a pipe in a way the developers probably didn\'t consider you to:)
Level 3: Better precision, got one additional bomb in the first room only losing 1 frame, new strategy in the room before the underground, big timesaver by the waterfall and a huge timesaver at the boss.
Level 4: Better precision, lots of new strategies involving the star and better boss fight.
Level 5: Better precision, minor adjustment in the rooms before the first pipe, two new strategies in the room with lots of conveyor belts and better boss fight.
Level 6: Better precision, new strat for the warriors at the beginning of the castle, a new strategy in room 5 of the castle, a new interesting strategy for the first mini boss ghost and a new strategy for the second mini boss ghost. The big ghost couldn\'t be as fast in the previous run since its movement is controlled by a timer that starts at the beginning of the level, but not too much time was lost.
I start by giving you the any% run but the \"best ending\" run will show up very soon! Actually, it\'s here now!
Enjoy!

cpadolf: A very impressive improvement and a great movie. Accepting for publication.
Aktan: Processing... should be quick!