Oh, I didn't see that last post there. I've been reworking my WIP--I noticed that I screwed up big at the end, since my health was still full. Every quarter-heart drained during the 'Completed!' screen is 7 frames lost, and every quarter-heart given back is another 4 frames lost, or about 3/4s a second for every full heart remaining, and I was full! Using an interesting part of the left-right jumping glitch, I dropped my health to 0 using the larger snake (the smaller ones only drop it half) and tweaking my movements better I've cut off another couple seconds. I'll post it when I'm done with the stage proper.
If you want to see how my style and your style compare framewise, just open up the emulator twice and put the windows next to each other, one running one mmv and the other the other. In the Graphics menu, make sure the both emulators are showing the button states and the frame counter. Then just watch how I do and compare it to yours with the frame counter and frame-by-frame replay, and strategy will reveal itself to you.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/290853587/Wonder%20Boy%202%20-%20WIP%202-1.mmv
Here's the new WIP. Every part of the stage is improved over what I showed last time. Damage-boosting off the last snake like you did was a good idea; your run was just littered with good ideas everywhere, really!
Rewatching your whole run, I wondered about that Wizard that gives 10 lightnings. Maybe it really is worth it, but I'd like to use Memory Watch to check how much damage everything is doing to see for sure. Heck, maybe even skipping one of the swords saves time in the long run. Poking through the ram would be the way to go there.
