Submission #1490: Baxter & adelikat's NES Super C in 12:20.02

This submission is 348 frames (or 5.8 seconds) faster than our previous submission. The first four levels are completely the same to our previous submission, since there was nothing to improve there. The last four levels are completely redone. Time was saved over our previous submission by using death as a shortcut, and using a left+right bug to fire down while falling (more details at level 7 part of this submission). This means an improvement of 1164 frames (or 19.4 seconds) over Genisto’s run. Genisto did a really good job on making the previous version of this run, especially considering is was a Famtasia movie. You'll notice this movie uses two players, but we do think it should obsolete the current single player run. Using two players obviously saves time on the bosses, but also a lot of other time savers and strategy changes were made (which would have also improved a single player version) we included. A significant timesaver was not using S, since the bosses have more HP when a player has S. Instead, F was mostly used, which can be charged to do more damage than normal. A single player run could still not beat the two player version if these improvements were applied. Most of these improvements are listed below.

Note: Most of the submission text is copied from our previous submission text. The parts that are no longer true for this submission have been cut out, and new improvements have been added. If it just says “saved time”, it means that time was saved over Genisto’s movie. If we saved time over our previous submission, it will be mentioned specifically.

Jumping is faster than walking on diagonal platforms. Jumping doesn't cost time at all in this game (it did in Contra). If a boss is fought using the S weapons, he will have more HP (round 4/3 as much), so we didn't pick up the S. Instead, F appeared the strongest weapon. A boss can only take one hit each frame, but with F you are able to charge your weapon (by holding B for 33 frames) which will fire a bigger shot than normal. This will do 5 HP damage at once instead of just one (so technically saves 4 frames). There is only one F in this level, which is why the other player picks up an M. He also picks up the one R in this level. We would have given it to the player with the F, but R only applies to the weapon which was already equipped (and F appears after R). Picking up a new weapon cancels the R. Player two falling behind doesn't matter, since it's player one who makes the screen scroll.

We are finally able to pick up the second F here. With two charged F shots the tanks can be taken care of pretty fast. Note that the missed shots were to charge the weapons again. Moving diagonally is obviously slower, but has to be done once in a while. If possible it's done when the level was auto scrolling. Since we have two charged F shots, and with the right movements, we were able to destroy the wall and keep the screen scroll for the entire time. Bosses are pretty fast with two F's, especially since they have the same amount of health when playing with one player.

The first R is obtained for a player with an F. Bullets go even faster now (pretty neat, since F already had bullets that were travelling faster than the bullets of other weapons). We sometimes shot or jumped to manipulate the random enemies to avoid lag. Watching the lag RAM address was certainly useful to make sure not a single frame of lag appeared. The spider mini boss can only be hit once it shoots, but when this happened appeared to be manipulatable. Being close to him made him fire sooner. Like mentioned before, one player falling a little behind at the earthquake part has no influence on when the boss appears.

After a short horizontal part, the long vertical part kicks in. It was sometimes hard to avoid lag and try to do something cool at the same time. Note that the second R is obtained in a very sneaky way. Also watch closely when the second elevator is reached (turning off the frame counter might help). This boss was by far the hardest.

Finally a long vertical part which doesn't autoscroll. This level really lives up to its name this time! This is where a big improvement over our previous run was made by abusing death as a shortcut. It will be sometimes hard to follow up what exactly is happening, but that’s probably a good thing ;). We do lose both of our F weapons, so the boss is slightly slower than in the previous submission, but we saved a lot more frames than this by dying. Note that the boss can be hit sooner, but cannot be damaged sooner. In fact, hitting him before he was vulnerable appeared to slow him down in getting vulnerable.

We start out this level now without any special weapons, but we pick up an M and an F, so we end up with the same weapons as in the previous submission. The screen stopped scrolling for a few frames at the wall, but this was unavoidable. Here the boss cannot be damaged either until way after he appeared. We were even able to kill the snake before the second form of the boss was vulnerable.

The second M is obtained, and a R for the player which already had an M. This level was very hard. The big purple enemies needed to be manipulated to fire their bullets conveniently, so they wouldn't slow us down. Lag also had to be avoided actively. The additional bullets that were shot were for either entertainment purposes or luck manipulation. When you hold left+right+down, the player is able to shoot directly down, when walking normally, or when falling. Normally shooting when falling down is not possible, only when actually making a jump. Because it was now, we were able to do the green bubble part a lot faster than our previous submission. Xipo suggested using left+right input to show stuff off, and with this suggestion, it came to us that it could actually save time, so thanks Xipo, for the suggestion. Another R is obtained. A little time was saved on the purple plants by shooting down, which appeared to be possible. A lot of time was saved at the boss. Basically, first the belly must be destroyed and then the boss will sometimes open his mouth, which is when he can be hit. Since we had the advantage of two players, in combination with him having less health since we didn't have an S, we were able to kill him with his mouth only opened once. The boss couldn't be damaged before we started shooting. The bullets that hit the boss when falling down don't do any damage. In this new submission, we saved a few additional frames on this boss over our previous submission, mainly due to a different jumping strategy.

A level with two F's and an R, how cool is that? Another place where dying was possible to save time, which wasn’t done in our previous submission. We were a bit unlucky with having two players this time. Since with two players, the player ahead isn't centered, but walks a little to the right from the center. This is why the player in front reaches a certain point about 18 frames sooner, and has to wait for 15 frames because of this (and this is thus not noticable in a single player run). There were also a few frames saved on the final boss.

We thank genisto for his previous run and Xipo for pointing out the l+r+d bug. We also thank all who showed interest, such as JXQ, Moozooh and others.

Enjoy!

Baxter and adelikat

Truncated: In before lock! No, wait. This movie is accepted for awesomeness. Yeah, that's it.

adelikat: Processing...