#1807: Aglar's NES StarTropics in 1:01:32.37

This movie beats the current published one by Sami by 15056 frames (4 minuts 11 seconds)

Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.13 (watch it in 13 or 15, the game doesn't work at all in 16)
Aims for fastest time
Takes damage to save time
Abuses programming errors
Manipulates luck

Why this game

I decided to take on my first bigger challenge by trying to improve an already published movie. After some thoughts about which game to choose it suddenly just appeared to me - Why don't try it with one of my favorite games of all time, StarTropics!?

Game Plot

Mike - the main character - is a 15 years old base ball player who comes to visit his uncle who lives on a tropical island. But once he comes there he is told that his uncle has been kidnapped and it's up to Mike himself to bring him back.

Technical things about the Game

The game is quite similar to the "Legend of Zelda" games. You play it in two modes, one where you're in the tunnels - kinda similar to the dungeons in Zelda - where you face enemies, and are of course able to attack them. The other is when you're walking in less dangerous areas and your only action is to be able to talk to people. For more info, especially about the weapons, take a look at Sami's submisson page.

My thoughts of it

To me, the greatness of this game lies within it's difficulty. I promise that if you're playing it for the first time and don't use any walkthroughs or other cheats, it will take you a good time to get through it. It contains two of the greatest riddles (I think) in game history, even though one is kinda destroyed if you play it on emulator, and for most of the tunnels, you have to do something unexpected in order to get through them.

A small necessary spoiler

As we all know who have beaten this game, it has a great ending. However, in this run you want see it all since I'm abusing a programming error which cuts about half of it. I won't tell about it in detail but just don't wait for the full ending ok.

8 Frame Rule

This was a feature I discovered early in the TAS. It works about the same as the 21 frame rule in SMB. Basically it works in the way that the screen can only start to black out in a frame dividable by 8, sometimes it's differs by one frame but that's basically how it works. I think I managed to gain a few seconds by having the knowledge of this mechanism as I from here will refer to as 8FR.

Improvement

Gained 8 frames due to faster naming of the character (think 8FR helped a bit too)

Prelude

Coralcola: 96 frames gained due to some luck manipulation with the people.
Island Tunnel: 47 frames gained due to frame better frame optimization.

Dolphins

Octo's Lair: 326 frames gained, mostly because I didn't take the snow doll, very time consuming.
After the Tunnel: 6 frames lost due to 8FR.

Storm and Calm

Cave to Miracola: 152 frames gain mainly due to better result of luck manipulation.
Miracola: 40 frames gained due to forcing the people to go where I want them to!
Magma's Molten Tunnel: 128 frames gained due to beter strategies I would say.
Ghost Tunnel: 400 frames gained due to lots of luck manipulation!
Ghost village after getting the crystal ball: 64 frames gained cause I walked up instead of right.
West Cave: 40 frames gained by a better optimized walkthrough
Hermit's Mountain: 72 frames gained due to smaller improvments here and there.

Confession

Code sequence: 8 frames gined due to faster input of the code, actually I inputed the code 12 frames faster but then they paid a visit to Mr 8FR and where reduced.

Captain Bell

Bellcola: 96 frames gained due to... well, you can guess huh?
Captain Bell's cave: 435 frames gain by not taking the extra hearts in the falling bridge room and better handling of the bowling balls etc.

Reunion

Turboss Caverns: 612 frames gained (!) due to better strategies for about every room.
Big Rock Tunnel: 176 frames gained - strategies.

Alien Spaceship

Warp to Jet-Pack Jumper: 32 frames gained, slightly better boss fight.
Ostroid's Domain: 136 frames gains, simply by doing things faster:)

Final Battle

Control Center: Lots of frames gained!

The boss at the beginning is worth to mention. It could seem like it has different health every time you face it. Sami killed this with 52 shots, I killed it with 4:). Simply only one of the shots for each iteration takes damage. And after beating the last boss, prepare for a surprice - not very funny one, but indeed effective! I ended the input when the screen started to black out, thought it was best so.