Submission #10368: Krasio's NES Fire 'n Ice in 58:28.089

This Fire 'N Ice (a.k.a. Solomon's Key 2) TAS saves ~30 seconds over WR, ~100 seconds over the previous fastest TAS, and ~300 seconds over Randil's TAS, using the current WR speedrun routes, and including pausing to reach the fastest possible cycles in even boss levels.

Emulator used: BizHawk v2.11

I believe Fire ‘N Ice doesn’t have versions (like updates, not regional versions) other than just the prototype and the release version, so I didn’t include the version number in the game version details. No emulation settings were changed, apart from using the most accurate emulator in BizHawk, NESHawk.

Fire ‘N Ice is a 2D NES puzzle game that has 101 levels in any%, in which you have to beat all 101 of them in a row, and 50 bonus levels that are not part of this TAS. The base mechanics are walking, climbing onto one tile high walls (or climbing into pipes), falling, placing and removing ice, pushing ice, and pausing the game. World 4 introduces pipes that take you from one side of the pipe to the other. World 6 introduces jars that get lit on fire when a fire falls on top of it, (with the fire not getting destroyed,) and lit jars melt ice that get pushed onto them or fall onto them, and kill Dana if he walks on them. World 8 introduces stones that get pushed one tile at a time instead of sliding until running out of ground or hitting a wall like ice does, unless the stone is on top of ice, in which it slides until the ground is no longer ice, or it hits a wall. Stones also stay on top of fire jars without melting, and extinguish flames without melting like ice. The boss levels of Fire ‘N Ice (every level ending in 10 in any%, or every level ending in 5 or 10 for the bonus levels) are either scrolling levels, or moving enemy levels (with the one exception being the final boss against Druidle, a unique kind of boss level).

From power on, the time all TASes start at, this TAS is 58:28.050, and from the RTA start time, the second frame of the start text being the color that it stays after pressing start, this is a 58:26.100 TAS time. Either way, the end time is the same one listed on SRC’s any% rules (which is one I wrote to be slightly more specific, but also the one used by everyone prior), being the frame that the fifth ice block you hit Druidle with disappears. I'll use the RTA start time to compare to WR, and the TAS start time to compare this to previous TASes.

This TAS is 29.833 seconds faster than ZodaNOR’s current 58:55.933 WR, 1:41.567 faster than tas_suki's 1:00:09.62 (assuming this means 1:00:09.617) TAS: ( Part 1 & Part 2 ),* and 4:58.283 faster than the fastest TAS on the site, the 1:03:26.333 by Randil.

*although this isn't directly comparable due to the longer 4-3 and Druidle 10-10 in the JP version, it's most definitely still faster by a long shot

I won’t go over the time improvements over the individual world WRs, the IL WRs, the IWs and ILs of the any% WR, or IWs and ILs of either TAS, as this is either already covered in the descriptions of my individual world TASes, or not worth covering to me.

For every level that isn't an even boss level (2-10, 4-10, 6-10, 8-10, and Druidle 10-10), I used the fastest route I know, and the one I'm most familiar with, the current any% speedrun route used in ZodaNOR's 58:55.933 WR.

One speedrun strat that I brought into the TAS that hasn’t been featured in any previous TASes, as it was discovered to save time in the speedrun a few months ago, is gameplay pausing (and spawn pausing). Spawn pausing refers specifically to pausing the game during the spawn animation, as this is the longest animation that gives you a long time to pause*, and it was discovered before gameplay pausing, which is just pausing during any and all other animations Dana does during gameplay. The benefit of pausing during Dana’s animations is that Dana’s animation will finish before the pause comes into effect and Dana doesn’t move anymore, but the scrolling screen, moving enemies, and the fire coming from Druidle’s wand all pause immediately. This allows Dana to get on earlier cycles, as your movement continues while the cycles are paused, and this saves lots of time.

*unimportant for TAS as you can pause and unpause at the perfect times no matter the animation

I created my own routes from scratch by pausing at every single animation (with a few exceptions to make the cycles perfectly line up, as it's better to have a few animations you don't pause during, and/or animations you don't pause for the fullest possible time, and make it to an enemy at the perfect time to extinguish it, than to pause at every possible time and wait around for the enemy to meet you), and this made Dana reach earlier cycles and save plenty of time over the previous routes.

Originally I thought the scrolling screen would pause while ice is moving, so in 9-10, where whatever route you do, as long as it isn’t incredibly terrible, you’ll be waiting a few dozen seconds for the scroll to let you reach the end of the level, so I tried setting up the ice so it moved for the shortest possible time. The only time scrolling actually pauses is when the game is paused (this is only helpful in 13-5, a bonus level, though), so this weird looking 9-10 route is the same speed as basically every other 9-10 route, you don’t need to follow this particular route.

Likely every level is improved over Randil’s TAS due to the time save strategy found by tas_suki, which I also implemented in my TAS, where you input at the first possible frame, instead of input buffering from any point after the last input you made.

This is most apparent with what I coined “suki-turns” where the crouched turn animation gets cancelled, although it seemingly still takes 12 frames to turn, it does save time.

Another time this is quite apparent is when input buffering your next input keeps Dana in the same frame of the animation for a while before it actually starts the next animation, but when you have the input at the first possible frame or a few frames earlier, the animation starts earlier than this. As for the reason why, I do not know.

There’s a chance I’m missing a few levels with improved routes, but I’m 90% sure that the following is correct:

For suggesting a description and screenshot (I assume this means screenshot in the thumbnail), I don’t have much of a preference of a description, probably just take whatever you find important from this tasvideos description to put in the youtube publication description. For a screenshot, maybe Druidle 10-10, the final boss, as Druidle is pretty iconic and could make the thumbnail look more interesting than any other level.

I’d like to thank the following people:

Hope you enjoyed watching this Fire ‘N Ice TAS, I had a good week making it.

Samsara: Claiming for judging.