[Quote from my last submission ^^] Hey! Before beginning, please forget me for my English, 'cause I'm French! This game was my favorite video game, since I was 6yo! Then, when I saw MattyXB's run, I told to myself "I've to do it!" So this run has to be better than hims ^^ It's only the beginning of the game I'll show you, because I'm making it only for some days. I created the movie some months ago, but it was just for testing the emulator, and try to understand the frames and others things. That's why the name of the creator of the movie file is Sarriel (it's the nickname I use on online games like Diablo 3 ^^). And after i saw that i did the best first fight I can, I continued to play with this movie. I want to say that I don't want to beat the run he did with warps and others, but the perfect run he did (1:33:09.43), without bug, doing all bosses. I think it will be the only run I'll make, then I want to do a perfect one, not a cheated! So, after some hours of playing, I realized that the beginning is exactly the same as MattyXB's, until some screens after Bogard's house. After this, the run became different than hims, 'cause I prefer to kill more monsters than Matty :) [/Quote from y last submission ^^]
Then… I don’t know what to do, so I’ll make a list of some whiles of the run :
The harder Boss fight : I think it was the first fight against Julius, with his clones. This fight was very hard because they are very fast, and they cast their Nuke-spells very often, then it’s very hard to move, hit them without being hit! It took me a long while to complete this fight.
The easier Boss fight : Julius 3rd! He has only one attack, easy to avoid, he doesn’t move, and we know where he will appear. Very annoying fight. :/
My favorite Boss fight : Davias. Very fun battle, ‘cause I like to fight with the chain, I love the music, avoiding fireballs was very fun, like all this battle =)
The most annoying monster(s) : Damn! They were Eye and Whirlwind-men! Each screen with these monsters was very hard, and needed to be manipulate, because they were always on the path I’d to take, and I lost a lot of frames because of them!
My favorite monsters : The Turtles of Floatrocks. They were fun to kill =)
The most annoying room : The room where I need to freeze two soldiers (in the Bone Cave). It was very long to get the good config’. The first time I did it, I was very happy, but later, I realized that I did a big mistake earlier in the cave, then I’d to retry nearly all the dungeon, and, this room. I really wanted to break my keyboard… ^^
The harder dungeon : The Ice Cave! This horrible Ice Cave! >< Very hard because nearly all rooms have an only path to go to the next room, and very often, monsters are on this path, and don’t want to move! Poke to the Snowman in the room with the bridge… I really hated him!
The easier dungeon : Strangely, it was Mana Temple. I nearly never manipulated a room. Only the Dragons were hard to fight.
Sometimes, we can see somethings who look like errors. Of course, there were no errors! An exemple… During the fight against the Mantis Ant, there is a while where I don’t move or attack. Of course it was possible, but it was the only way I found to manipulate him. If it was going to the bottom of the screen, I would loose time, then, I preferred to loose about 20 frames, to keep it at the top of the screen and kill it faster.
In all the run, I lost frames to manipulate the rooms, simply because I don’t know if it’s possible to do by another way! If you know, I would be happy to ear it ^^
You’ll see that some battles are the same than Matty’s. It’s because he uses the faster way to kill these bosses! Megapede is an example. There is only one place to be to hit him, and one way to hit him as often as possible, then, our battles are the same! Same thing for the Metal Crab or Julius 3rd.
Edit: To answer to KwyjiboPrime : I don't remember all the places I won or loose frames, but i can tell you some of them.
When I fight the Hydra, I could kill it when it was a the bottom of the screen. Matty had to wait it came back in the middle of the screen, and during it was moving, Matty couldn't hit the Hydra, then, he lost a lot of frames on this fight. This is the same thing on some bosses like Julius 3rd. If you play the movie, you can see that i hit him 2-3 frames before he disappears. Then he lose some HP, and the fight is faster.
Other bosses were manipulated very well (and very hardly). The mantis never comes to the bottom of the screen. It costs me some frames to do that, but killing it is faster. Then, i preferred to do it. And I think it's better to do a perfectly-manipulated fight. Same thing for the Kraken. It never attacks me, 'cause i manipulate it. One again, I "pay" some frames, to make the fight shorter. And after the fight, I begin to walk on the spikes. But I get my lvl 1 frame before dying, then I get all y HP and I can cross the spikes. Matty waited before walking on the spikes, then I got 8 frames :p
My main method to win frames was by killing the monsters. I always tried to kill monsters by doing something else. By exemple, when I break a wall, I try to kill a monster by the attack of the Star (or the mattock), or during the wall is exploding. I do that a lot of time in Floatrocks, because I've to use the Star very often, then I try to kill a turtle when breaking the rocks.
The other method is to kill more than one monster by hit. With the Star or the chain, it's very easy. I prefer to lose some frames to manipulate the room and having two monsters to kill by the same hit. That's why I get my lvlups faster. And being more powerful allows me to get back the time I loose when i was lvling-up.
For the one who want to try a run... Here is some tips ;) When you want to select an item (or a weapon) : Move the finger on it. Wait 5 frames, push A, wait 9 frames, push A. If it's a weapon, keep B pushed just after the 2nd A.
When you lvl up : When all is displayed : wait 1 frames and Push A. This will display "Select your growth type", but 1 frame before the message is fully displayed, the word "growth" is cut in half. This is the moment to push A. After the finger appears on "Power", wait 5 frames and push A. After the fingers appears on YES, wait 6 frames and push A. After all the new info is displayed, wait 6 frames, push A.
I tell it because it's very annoying to search this method. For the other tips, I prefer that challengers search by themselves =) It's the lovely side of making a TAS ;)
If someone needs advices, or help, you can PM me on the forum.
To finish, I’ll only say that I hope that someone will beat my record, to retry =) But not too fast please ^^
NOTE : The emulator is VBA-rr-svn421 NOTE 2 : I don't know why, but Matty's submission is not totally finished. The movie ends while the speech of the Mother. Then, I finished to record mine exactly at the same moment (2 frames after the last points appears).