Firebird - Hi no Tori Hououhen, a Konami adventure shmup. Goal is to collect the 5 "keys" then you can fight the final boss. It is intended you go thru the stages at least 2 times as you collect more tablets to open more doors and you find the correct path thru.
But I noticed that when you die the screen centers vertically where you died, likely a safeguard to stop you from getting caught in a death loop against a wall. So by dying at the bottom of the screen you can move backwards against the screen scroll. In my run I take 13 intentional deaths, which allows me to skip looping the stages many times, and I'm able to collect 3 of the final keys on my first time thru the stages, only briefly warping back to stage 3 at the end.
I've got a map of my route if anyone is interested, just let me know. Fastest playthru I found was 27 mins, so my route cuts 15 minutes off that.
I also found some kind of crit on the final boss, I don't know for sure what causes it. My theory is that I'm hitting the boss on the same frame I'm killing one of the shurikens, so the "death" of the shuriken is transferred to the boss. I have a clip but I have kill the boss immediately on the right side as soon as the fight starts.
Boss crit -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ca6dukNhX4
RTA run -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofAVE1evZAo