Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos, 10 frames faster...?
The improvements
Most of this movie is the same as [4353] NES Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos by Xipo, Scumtron & Samsara in 09:12.34. Please read the submission text of that run for more details on the majority of this run.
Two bosses (the stage 2 boss and the second phase of the final boss) were improved, by 4 frames and 6 frames respectively. Some of the entertainment throughout was also redone.
The updated strat on Jaquio (2) is actually the RTA strat, which is functionally identical to the strat used in the published run except the first fire wheel is performed facing left. This still hits Jaquio and allows the subsequent fire wheels to be performed 2 frames earlier. Because we face left on the first cast, the fourth cast has the fire wheel from the second shadow performed to the left as well, meaning it leaves the screen earlier, allowing the final cast to be done 5 frames sooner. One frame needed to be added to resync the third phase, bringing the total improvement to 6 frames.
Some thoughts
The existence of the Jaquio strat was brought up in the YouTube comments of the published run about a month ago, but it took me (Samsara) until earlier today to see it and investigate it. Thankfully it was the second to last boss of the game so it was really easy to implement and resync, though I still don't feel quite right implementing a "cheap" improvement like this without touching the rest of the movie. Either way, given the history of this game and the insane level of optimization on it, knocking out another 6 frames still feels pretty good. And then xipo comes along with another new improvement, so we're up to a solid 10 total frames, which feels even better.
Special thanks
- xipo, of course, for making pretty much the entirety of the published run and the stage 2 boss improvement
- GoddessMaria, who is no longer streaming at the time of editing this submission, and who is cute <3
- This YouTube comment for alerting me to the existence of a faster strat on this fight
Suggested screenshot
man i dunno ask me later
Update
Scumtron is now added as a co-author. While he had no active involvement with the creation of this run, Xipo and I both feel his contributions to previous runs warrant co-authorship. My original omission of his name was a mistake, and I apologize.
GoddessMaria: Judging.
GoddessMaria: Setting to Delayed per the author's request~
Samsara: Replacing my own dang submission file with a further 4 frame improvement, courtesy of xipo.
GoddessMaria: Excellent work on optimizing this even further, xipo & Samsara! Another improvement to a tough game without sacrificing entertainment and the audience agrees.
Accepting as an improvement to the previous movie.
EZGames69: processing!