Hey all, been a while.
This is a TAS project I started a couple years ago when I made a return to speedrunning this game. I wanted to see the limits of the category and also test out the best methods for killing each enemy, ending stages quickest, etc. The RTA runs of this game uses the Japanese version for quicker text within the game, so I decided to do the same for easier comparisons. I started this using Bizhawk 2.9.1, hope that is okay for submission.
Since there isn't a published 1P run of this game, there's not much to compare it to other than the RTA run. This clocks in at 18:43 (using RTA timing), while the RTA is a 19:07. Ill try to breakdown the techniques and strategies and also what is different compared to the 2P TAS.
Stage 1:
- Nothing really special here to talk about. Killing enemy's on the first frame possible. The screen won't start moving after each section until the last enemy has disappeared from the memory. So finishing an enemy while its in the air, it has to land on the ground with a short timer before it disappears. Most enemy's are finished with the "Big Boot" finisher, which occurs when an enemy is downed on the ground, and you dash into a "B" attack. regardless of how much health remaining, the finisher move works as long as they are down.
Rocky Boss Fight:
- The first real difference between this run and the 2P TAS is actually going through this boss fight, where as in 2P they can glitch finisher the boss in one hit you cannot in 1P. Used the juggling technique to keep Rocky on screen and then after 20 hits, finished him off screen to reduce lag from his rock body spreading out and causing sprite overloads.
Stage 2:
- Goal here is to not let the screen stop scrolling down as much as possible. The green snakes hitboxes are pretty weird and requires extreme precision and line-ups to hit multiple times with one hover toss. When throwing the hover down, its possible to hit them up to 3 times, and you can hit them up to 4 times with one horizontal toss. They take 4 hits to kill. However you can only hit them 4 times horizontal when they are far enough away from the wall so its not possible to do this every time and not have the screen stop scrolling. The Lazbot's shoot sparks that will kill themselves if they get touched by them. So the goal with those is to knock them into their own shots for a fast kill.
Bonus 1:
- In the early days of TASing this game, it was always thought that the pin counting at the end took extra time, but as Dooty discovered doing the latest 2P TAS, this isnt the case. So my goal here is to try and collect as many pins as possible with 1 player while still ending the level as quick as possible through death.
Stage 3:
- Turbo Tunnel, Nothing much to note. I found that completing each checkpoint on the furthest right of the screen, with exception to the last checkpoint, is quicker than letting them scroll to the far left of the screen.
Stage 4:
- Karnath's Revenge. One trick in this level that isn't shown in the 2P TAS is the quick glitch escape. on the last snake that appears in the 4th room, if you jump and duck into the very corner of the wall and snake, the level ends.
Stage 5:
- Roller coaster. I try to keep the rat as close as possible while maintaining a constant rhythm. Also found that getting hit from him at the last possible pixel before exiting the level, you will get the animated of dying, lose a life, however still proceed to the next level.
Bonus 2:
- Collected as many dominos as possible while doing so in certain order to RNG manipulate the game end text. Not 100% sure how exactly this works yet.
Stage 6:
- Rat Race, fall down as quick as possible hitting the bombs at the first possible frame.
Dark Queen:
- This fight also much different from the 2P TAS due to not being able to use the finisher glitch. I take damage as certain points to use Pimple's i frames to hit the boss more times.
Ending:
- Perfect text ending through RNG manip, and downing the UFO as fast as possible.
I wanna thank Dooty for his amazing 2P TAS, nice much needed improvement over mine and nesrock's.
Hope you all enjoy it.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
DrD2k9: Good looking run!
I'm no expert on this game, but from what I can find; it sounds like a run using Rash instead of Pimple would be at least slightly different due to the two toads having different speed/attack abilities. So I think a branch label for this run can just be left as "Pimple." Then if a "Rash" run is submitted in the future, it could potentially be published also.
Accepting to Standard class as a new 1-player branch "Pimple"
despoa: Processing...