Submission #3800: Dooty's SNES Congo's Caper in 19:37.66

Congo the monkey and his girl, Congette, were in the jungle minding their own business when a magic ruby dropped out of the sky and turned them both into half-humans. To make matters worse, the ruby also spawned a demon-kid who grabbed Congette and took off.

Eye Of The Beholder brought this game to my attention when I was submitting a run of Timecop. A few days later an almost complete run was in my hands, just a final battle to do and it would be submitted. Then Omnigamer found a way to start rolling instantly and that forced me to restart the run from scratch. A few days later and an improved run with the new trick were almost done, even the submission text was being written. Then, another time saver was found on stage two. I could have simply written this one on the known improvements section of the submission text, but instead I decided to restart the run once again. In one of those restarts, I decided to take damage to save time, now I’m playing around a little bit more, collecting more items and betting on the Slot Machines. And here it is; a project that I thought would take a week to complete, given the simplicity of the game, proved to be a real challenge. As always, I hope you enjoy!

Since Donkey Kong Country 3 I’m testing each game I play looking for reset tricks, and this game also benefits from this trick. With the reset trick it is possible to skip the Data East and the De Act Team logos.

The fastest way to travel in this game is by rolling. To roll you must press Down when Congo is descending a slope. And the fastest way to start rolling is with the instant roll trick. To perform it, reach a slope and then press Down for one frame, Right+R, also for one frame, then press and hold Down. Congo will roll immediately instead of sliding for a long time and then rolling.

Sliding for at least one frame sets the rolling flag and it keeps set until you stop moving. This is a very welcome feature as you can’t always reach the end of the stage simply rolling, sometimes you’ll have to jump, fall or swim. So as long as you keep moving you can start rolling again by high-jumping into a wall; keep pressing against the wall or the opposite direction if you want to go the other way, a higher platform or a low ceiling; press Down again one frame before you enter walking animation.

To perform the Keep Rolling trick by jumping into a wall or a low ceiling, you must avoid hovering at all costs as it cancels the rolling animation. But by hovering two frames before you reach a slope, it’s possible to enter in rolling animation and keep rolling, even if the slope is in the wrong direction, by wrong direction I mean ascending.

A useless trick if you want to save time by performing it, but good for those waiting periods. Congo can’t pass the screen boundary; it is instant death for him. But if you time it right it’s possible to make the screen force him into the wall, easier if he’s rolling, and he will zip up at a high speed. You’ll need an autoscroller stage to perform this trick though.

One frame before your attack animation end, you can extend its duration by pressing Up+B. Good to show off during long fights, but pretty convenient to end the input early, saving a few frames.

You can finish this stage by simply rolling, but there’s a kind of glue on those blue floating platforms which slows Congo down considerably, looks like it’s on the cavemen heads too…

This stage was redone three times; the first time because I was not succeeding to perform a Keep Rolling trick, thanks to Eye Of The Beholder for figuring out that you must roll or slide first and keep moving to be able to do this trick, the second because of the Rubies I have to collect to turn into Super Congo in the next stage and the third, the one you are about to watch, because of a shortcut found by Omnigamer.

Without hovering, this stage can be frustrating to play; it’s easy to get hurt by those snakes when you try to hang on them. It’s also frustrating because you must wait for the same snakes to stretch into the right direction, and they are really slowpokes. That’s the reason why I turn into Super Congo here.

The first mid-boss of the game, although not hard to deal with, it can make you waste your time trying to deal more damage to him; you simply can’t! Yes, the bosses, and the mid-bosses too, have hit points instead of health points, so, no matter what kind of attack you throw at them you’ll only take two hit points from them each time. The exception to this rule is the mecha-dino in Fossil Canyon; four hit points each.

Manipulate your luck to find the best pattern for the boss fights can be time consuming and frustrating. But not with this guy; he always start on the right side of the screen and after a few hits go to the left. He doesn’t have any attack that makes him invincible for a longer time, but if he throws his bombs you can finish the fight on the right side. No, it’s not a good thing; when he reaches the left side of the screen you can hit him sooner.

Stay in the platforms as long as possible is a good idea here, unless they’re going in the wrong way. If there were a way to start rolling in this stage it would be great; there’s lots of rubies at the bottom over the spikes.

Lots of opportunities to use the keep rolling trick here; after the first shaft by jumping into a low ceiling, by taking damage on the second shaft and another low ceiling at the end of the stage.

I almost forgot; to keep rolling by taking damage you must first hover for at least one frame.

The most difficult boss of the game! I’m not just trying to scare other TASers willing to improve this run. Well, okay I am. But this boss is as hard as nails, not to defeat of course, but to find the best pattern. If you still want to improve this run, here is a tip; manipulate him to teleport to one of the lower corners of the screen, by doing this you’ll be able to finish the fight before his next teleport.

A really short stage if you know where the hidden exit is. For some time I thought that those hidden exits were warps, but they are just this, hidden exits.

By performing the instant roll trick at the beginning of this stage, you can save two frames to reach the point where a duck underwater trick is needed, but then you’ll lose 90 frames to reach the bottom of the water. There are three exits in this stage; I picked the fastest one for obvious reasons. This is the last one of those pseudo warp stages.

What can I say about a really long autoscroller stage? Even worse, a really long autoscroller stage where you are limited to swim just left or right with a few obstacles in your way? Well, fast forward the damn thing, I won’t blame you.

Here’s another long autoscroller stage. At least in this one you’re not handicapped, there are enemies to deal with and even a boss fight! About the boss, he likes to throw things at you, swing in his hook shot and laugh. What a poser! But he’s not hard to beat, and let me tell you, I like him.

They see me rollin, they hattin… Yeah, the joke’s already used somewhere else, but it fits in this stage too; rolling once taking damage twice and that’s it, stage complete.

Autoscrollers stages seem to be an obsession for the developers of Congo’s Caper. This one at least is short and somewhat varied. It was also here that the hover 2 roll trick was found.

Here’s a very small stage.

But not this one; platforms, enemies, a mid-boss and a boss fight to keep me busy for a very long time. In one of my wips I got to this stage and then restarted the whole thing to implement an improvement on stage 2. After the mid-boss, you may notice that I stay in the middle of the screen, it’s not a mistake; going all the way to the right too soon locks the screen. About the boss fight, it’s always an easy fight against him; he doesn’t have any special attack, needs no manipulation and have few hit points.

I wish I have another ruby to spend here; it would make it slightly faster. But if the ruby must be released before you can get it, it’s not worth catching.

Another stage you can complete by simply rolling. The Slot Machine didn’t cooperate with me, sadly. I tried spending some frames to win something but after so many tries it wouldn’t be worth the tradeoff.

The keep rolling trick by jumping on a lower ceiling was not working here; the lower ceiling is not so low in this stage. In plain frustration, I was jumping to and fro when Congo attached to a wall and began to roll. The fastest solution so far to this stage was there. Again, I got no luck with the Slot Machine.

Despite being one of the last bosses of the game, he’s the easiest of them all. In my first wip, I attacked the bats as soon as possible, but it’s not needed and even wastes time. Also, the best spot to kill Dracula is in the middle of the screen.

It’s not possible to roll over the spikes on this stage; no matter how many rubies I have, it is instant death or Congo transformed back to his monkey form in a glitchy white screen.

Take damage seems to be the best change I made after all the restarts; this stage is a lot slower if you have to avoid damage at all costs.

Almost there!

The longest boss fight on the video game history, well at least it is the longest boss fight I ever made. It has three phases; a rematch with the Demon-Kid, a really tough fight against the Dragon Lord and it ends on a fierce battle against a capeless Dragon Lord.

Eye Of The Beholder, for suggesting an improvement of this game and for feedback on the forum. Omnigamer, he found almost all the tricks you’ll see in this run. Thank you, guys!

Frame 62338, 65225

FractalFusion: Looks good. Accepting for Moon publication.

Ilari: ... Don't ask how I got this to sync...