Finally, the ultimate Metal Storm run. It took a bit more work than I thought, but I've managed to improve my previous attempt by seven seconds. Qualitatively, I agreed with the feedback that being a fireball constantly wasn't quite as neat as I thought it would be, so I stay in robot form for most of this run. This, in addition to showing off a bit more should definitely add to the entertainment value.
As before, I put in a password to access expert mode, then shoot my way through this very difficult game as fast as possible. Along the way, I take advantage of quite a few opportunities to showboat. If you've played this game you know that the robot is a little slow and clunky, but I move along quite quickly and even do a little dance in celebration.
Cheez attempted a run of this game as well, but wasn't able to beat my previous time. However, I collaborated with him and incorporated any strategies he found to make different areas faster. In particular, he found a way to enter the password faster and also beat the first boss faster. Thanks to him for these tips.
The big technique improvement over my previous attempt is accurate shooting. Holding down B gives you a constant stream, but looking more closely, you can only have two shots active at a time. Furthermore, all enemies have an invincibility timeout of five frames. Thus, only one of those shots actually hurts the enemy. You can fire a shot every other frame, so in general the best case is to fire every six frames. The last frame can be earned by changing the distance between you and the target, which isn't always easy.
This took a lot of work to optimize, but the results are impressive. The gun becomes a much more effective weapon, allowing me to take out more enemies faster as I work my way through each level. Slowdown can be a major effect in some areas, so I gained some speed by doing this. Other times, I just kill as many enemies as I can for kicks. The second time through all the bosses I need to use the power gun, so this accuracy helps speed up those fights as well.
Some specific speedups:
On boss 1 I finish him before his spot comes in all the way. It seems that if you finish an area before touching the ground after a flip, the game doesn't set the flag which allows you to flip gravity again, so my old run had trouble doing this.
A lot of slowdown is avoided in level 2-1 by killing an extra cannon in the beginning. This is only possible because of the accurate shooting.
Boss 2 is faster due to an improved attack pattern and accurate shooting on the approach.
I sped up the forced scroll sections of level 4 by killing more efficiently with the gun. The boss is also killed a little faster.
Near the end of 5-1, I go a little out of the way to kill some of the laser cannons. This reduces the slowdown enough that it's faster than just walking through. Boss 5 also dies a little faster.
In level 6 my killing efficiency is pretty amazing, but it didn't net me any speedup.
Level 7 sees most of the fights go faster than before. Biggest speedups were boss 2 and the final...whatever it is.
See my previous submission for more info on my tricks and strategies.
Bisqwit: I'm unfamiliar with this game, but because the test
audience seems to like it, I'm processing it.