I present to you Wizards & Warriors 3: Kuros: Visions of Power done in 17:58 using FCEU.
- Aims for fastest time
- Abuses errors in programming
- Manipulates luck
- Takes damage to save time
The premise: Soon after the conflict between Kuros and Malkil in Ironsword, Malkil gets right back up and the two fight again for a bit. In the quarrel, Kuros is knocked out and the Ironsword is lost. Malkil, in order to recuperate, heads to the city of Piedup and overthrows the king. Kuros, in his subsequent wanderings, also comes across Piedup, so once again the two are engaged in conflict.
This game is much, much different from its more famous predecessors. The game plays out less like Mario Brothers with swords and more like Metroid in a medieval city. Combat has also changed a little bit: instead of swinging your sword in the generally direction you press, you stop and will stick your weapon in the specified direction. Some weapons have projectiles, although I only need one.
In order to beat this game, you need to go around and join different guilds to gain special powers. There are nine, but I skip three (Wizard 2, Knight 2, and Knight 3) thanks to a some tricks and glitches.
Damage:
I get hit eleven times during this movie.
- The gold and silver thieves hit me three times each. I left them rough me up a bit so I can use the invulnerability to get in their faces and wail down on them.
- I get hit twice running into the flashing man in the city. This, in conjunction with the hit glitch (see glitches) allows me to walk right through him, negating the necessity of the barrier staff and throwing axe.
- I get hit twice during the dragon, but thanks to some glitchiness, I don't take damage. Both hits were unavoidable, but the second one allowed me to pass through my platform (see glitches).
- I take one hit against Malkil. It's right at the end, and he hits me as soon as I get my last attack off, so it doesn't matter.
Glitches:
- Twice you will see me back track on a building's roof. This is to get a beehive to disappear, making it so that I don't need to get the fire staff early on. You can catch a glimpse of it after I save Julia.
- When you get hit, you will slow down if you press the direction you are being tossed. This was used in some boss battles and to get through the flashing man.
- During the dragon battle, if you get hit, you're supposed to pass through the moving platforms if you try to land on them. This was supposed to make it so that you had to beat him without getting hit, but if you hold down B, you will land just fine. I pass through a platform and land on the bottom one to deliver a quick attack at one point.
- If you try to duck on a moving platform, you will fail. However, you can still crawl (somewhat), and it has the same use as ordinary crawling (see tricks). I wish I had discovered this sooner than when I needed it, because it looks really funny since Kuros looks like he's tripping over his feet. Unfortunately, it's barely seeable when I do use it at the end of the dragon battle.
- When you get hit, you will take damage as soon as you hit solid ground. Moving platforms don't qualify as solid ground, so that's why I take no damage against the dragon, even though I get hit twice.
- If you are running and you press down and B on the same frame, you will keep your momentum if you let go of those two buttons on the same frame. I use this to position myself at the end of some bosses.
- When entering a wizard trial, you are on solid ground for a frame. I use this to get to a platform earlier than usual.
- I mess around a bit with some of the doors in the thief trials, like standing on one. Simple graphic glitches.
There's also a glitch that will allow you to fall through floors, but I'm beginning to think it's not possible to do at the one place it would be useful. In fact, it got in the way several times.
Luck:
- At one point is luck manipulated, and that's when I'm rescuing Joann. I needed to manipulate that archer to appear there so I could jump off of him.
General Tricks:
- Ducking will cancel out your momentum. I use this while grabbing the first money bag.
- Crawling is faster than walking for short distances. I use this quite extensively in combat and once in the secret passage.
- Getting hit gives you a period of invulnerability, but I already discussed where I used it.
- Some trial bosses can be made to dodge an attack. This may sound like a hindrance, but it often cancels out their attacks allowing me to hit them more before they strike back. The thieves lean back and the knights just stop attacking.
- Sometimes I weave in and out while jumping. Usually that's to give me needed momentum to make my next jump. Also, when jumping up some places, I time it so I won't run into the wall, thus allowing me to keep my momentum.
- It's best to try to get close to a trial boss when you destroy them so the walking animation won't be as long. I try to use that whenever possible.
- I take a small jump when approaching the worm. This is to force the screen to scroll faster at that point.
- This game is loaded with subpixel movement, and sometimes that leads to different results for something that doesn't look any different. Because of this, I sometimes let go of the directions so I can get the best results without slowing down.
- Pressing a different button every frame will make conversations go much faster than usual.
- People can be used as platforms. :>
Notes:
- If you let the game go beyond the legal jargon, the soft reset will take you to the title screen. However, I chose to begin my movie at the legal jargon because it simulates the "From power on" criteria the best. This lasts about seventeen seconds. Don't worry about when to start the movie, though, since it will always start there.
- I pause for a few frames in the first room of the secret passage at the end of the game. This is to give me the short running start I need in order to make that jump.
- Jumping will slow your horizontal movement down a bit. Because of this, not only must all my jumps be precise, but the "jump down a pit" trick doesn't work.
- I don't attack the thief statue guards as soon as I could so that they have an opportunity to get out of the corner. Otherwise, they would jump to the other side of the room and I would lose time because their invincibility runs out in the air.
- My method of attack against the gold wizard isn't any faster than my previously used tactic. It's purely aesthetic.
- The entrance point to the secret tunnels in the underworld is skewed to the right of the graphic. That's why I sometimes enter them while barely touching them and other times I have to be practically on top of it.
- It may look like I could have started attacking the wizards much sooner with a higher jump, but the platform is solid until a particular frame.
- Gold and silver trial bosses have a much shorter invulnerability period than bronze bosses.
- I don't destroy the bronze wizard as fast as possible. That's because I back off a bit to close the gap between him and me when I deliver the fatal blow. I didn't do that against the gold wizard because his shorter invulnerability makes it useless.
- It is necessary that I get kicked out of the third wizard once guild once. Only the thief can unlock the door, but I have to be a wizard to join. Because guilds are mostly automated, getting kicked out of that guild is simply part of the game.
- I delayed landing on the platforms when fighting the dragon so that I could get myself in a better position to attack.
- I destroy Malkil fast enough that he doesn't change tactics. This was fortunate, because he's much harder to manipulate when he does.
- This games has a wierd input stream. Most of the game's graphics run at 60 FPS, but the input stream runs at 30, meaning there's a dead frame every other frame, with the excpetion being conversations and menus where it's just fine. Sometimes entering a door or talking to someone will offset the stream, so sometimes I can only do things on even frames and other times odd frames. Also, usually in a game when you give an input command, it will do that command the next frame. In here, though, I've had the screen go black the same frame I enter a door.
- Don't let my ending score fool you. I scored exactly 15000 points (wanted, but unintentional). 450 of them just went to buying keys.
- Sometimes when I hear to the thief's song, I get Max 300's heavy rythm in my head. ¬_¬
Forgive the dullness of this game, which is unintentional this time. The challenge was very badly designed, but I'd say it's harder than the other two combined thanks to Malkil and the third wizard trial.
Major props go to scubed. If it weren't for him and his knowledge of the major glitches, this run would easily be twice as long and thrice as dull.
