Unlike the other Jungle Book games for NES and Genesis, in which you are forced to collect gems, the SNES version is a straight forward platformer. Notoriously hard for those who've had it as a kid, most people never made it past Kaa.
- Emulator used: Snes9x 1.51 v6
- Beats the game
- Takes damage to save time
This run plays on the normal difficulty in order to make use of more damage boosts. The only difference between hard mode and normal is that Mowgli has 1 less life. The Japanese version does not have any gameplay change; the ending's words are removed in the japanese version.
I finally got around to improving this run after almost 2 years :)
Aside from the optimizing route with Harpa's mentioned improvements in the old submission forum post, I found a swinging vine glitch and wall clip.
Wall clips can be done by turning around quickly against a wall for 1-3 frames (optimal is 2) and then holding the direction towards the wall again about and repeating 3-5 times while jumping.
Improvements:
The Beginning - Found a missing frame
Jungle By Day - After the final damage boost, it was faster to grab on the rope and to jump straight to the spawned dragonfly
Kaa the Snake - Uses the route Harpa had found awhile ago (boost off monkey) and more optimized boss kill
The Tree Village - More optimized movement and skipped pushing a block with 2 wall clips
Parrot Ride - Saved the most time here; skipped the 2nd parrot autoscroller abusing the swinging vines and using a wall clip. Grabbing on the vine as it's transitioning off the map seems to glitch the player back to the beginning with part of the exit being accessible. It is a soft lock unless you wall clip to the ending (or die trying).
The Waterfall - More optimized movement allowed me to be able to catch a rock cycle.
King Louie - The route Harpa had found awhile ago is about 60f faster than the previous one used. Most of the time saved was from optimizing boss fight.
Collapsing Ruins - Saved about 6 seconds during the autoscroller by lengthening the amount of time during the 2 speed ups in the stage. Most of the time saved was from optimizing boss fight.
Great Tree at Dusk - Used a new route using wall clips
Jungle at Night - 2nd most time saved stage-wise from Harpa's route aside from a damage boost I added.
The Wastelands - Saved 131f on the boss fight, the rest were from more optimized route.
Things that could be improved:
There is one extra vertical vine I grab onto the beginning that is skippable in the final stage. However, later on at the fire damage boost, even with the same exact pixels and input I was unable to get the same desired boost (it normally pushes you backwards and wastes about 60f), which leads me to believe there are subpixel physics at work.
Optimizing boss fights are pretty demanding with all the animation canceling along with sprite management (and not dying), so it might be possible to optimize them even further but not for huge amounts of frames that this tas has over the previous one.
Lastly, I haven't been able to use the swinging vine glitch in other stages but it might be possible.
Frame comparison
Frames: (when start was pressed)
| Stage | Old | New | Total Saved | Indiv |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1279 | 1279 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 3997 | 3996 | 1 | 1 |
| kaa | 6461 | 6443 | 18 | 17 |
| 3 | 10831 | 10498 | 333 | 315 |
| 4 | 13875 | 13379 | 496 | 163 |
| waterfall | 21122 | 17890 | 3232 | 2736 |
| louie 1 | 26153 | 22621 | 3532 | 300 |
| louie 2 | 29271 | 25637 | 3634 | 102 |
| 5 | 49128 | 44899 | 4229 | 595 |
| 6 | 51872 | 47063 | 4809 | 580 |
| shere khan | 55064 | 49049 | 6015 | 1206 |
| last input | 59331 | 52962 | 6369 | 354 |
(From previous submission)
Basic Info:
Jumping is faster than moving. The speed oscillates in the air in the pattern of 3434343343434343 (a real headache). Regular running is just 3.
Damage: Bananas do 2 damage. Coconuts, red fruit, and fire do 6 damage. The yellow-brown fruit does 2 damage.
Bosses: When switching between phases, there is a downtime until the hp refreshes.
Kaa:
Phase 1 - 51 hp
Phase 2 - 51 hp
Phase 3 - 51 hp
Louie 1:
Phase 1 - 71 hp
Phase 2 - 51 hp
Louie 2:
Phase 1 - 71 hp
Phase 2 - 71 hp
Phase 3 - 71 hp
Shere Khan:
Phase 1 - 91 hp
Phase 2 - 91 hp
Tricks used:
PrsB: This is a damage boost trick found by prslol. As long as Mowgli is grounded, if you press b at the same time as he is damaged, you can get significant height depending on the object/monster used. All of the damage boosts only have a 1 frame window except for the first one in the 2nd stage that is only while using the mask (2 frames).
Banana Doppler: You can cancel Mowgli's attack animation by pressing a direction after firing. This allows you to attack at a much faster rate and allows for quicker boss fights. Max of 4 bananas on screen (lasts until it scrolls off screen or its hit disappears).
Fast Blocks: It is quicker to move blocks by mashing a direction rather than holding it.
Rope Jumps: The fastest method of climbing ropes is by jumping up them. This is done by pressing up, then releasing up and pressing jump.
Baloo Triggers: Not really a trick, but there are certain item patterns where if you collect them all, Baloo will come out and throw a mask to you. Masks give invulnerability for a set time.
Louie 2: Also discovered by prslol "Reverse CLC". At the end of the autoscrolling stage, by holding left, you can cause the game to continue on scrolling. If you were to press right before triggering Louie, you end up scrolling right back to the beginning of the autoscroller.
Stage-by-stage:
Stage 1 - I wouldn't have been able to figure out the setup to get that first damage boost (PrsB) without Tompa. Thanks Tompa!!
Stage 2 - Straightforward with 2 PrsB, skips about 2/3 of the stage.
Kaa Stage - The first vertical level.
Stage 3 - That vine jump might be 1 frame.
Stage 4 - Forced to run instead of jump to setup the damage boost from the snake. 2 autoscroller sections. Skipped a vine.
Waterfall - Second vertical level.
Louie 1 - PrsB and damage boost skips 40 seconds of the level.
Louie 2 - Long autoscroller. Louie is a lot harder here than in the previous level.
Stage 5 - The section with all the monkeys and bees glitched out part of the screen. I think it has to do with too many sprites being loaded.
Stage 6 - Precise jumps and 2 PrsB.
Shere Khan - Didn't damage boost through the boulders to abuse invincibility frames while killing Shere Khan.
Frames: (when start was pressed)
- 1 - 1279
- 2 - 3997
- kaa - 6461
- 3 - 10831
- 4 - 13875
- waterfall - 21122
- louie 1 - 26153
- louie 2 - 29271
- 5 - 49128
- 6 - 51872
- shere khan - 55064
- last input - 59331
RAM Watch:
7E0698 x-position
7E137A y-position
7E070A speed
7E077C boss hp
Things that could be improved: The only major way to gain time would be a different route through the stages. Rope handling and bosses might be able to be improved as well, frame-wise. It might be possible to skip pushing the block in the stage 3 (village). I -think- it's possible, but could never manage to figure it out.
Thank you #dkc!!!!!!
Shoutouts to DBJ for being the first person I know to beat Kaa, and Klosty for the first person I knew to single segment this game.
ars4326: Judging!
ars4326: Hello, Newpants 87. Outstanding improvement on your prior 2013 run! The parrot skip on stage 4 was a nice surprise, and it was especially nice to see that significant time was saved on the Waterfall stage, due to more optimized movement. Although the choice in difficulty was brought up in the thread, I can see the justification due to having an extra HP to perform more damage boosts (being this is the only gameplay difference between difficulties, as well).
Accepting as an improvement to the published run!
sheela901: Processing...