Yes, I used to play this game religiously. Now there's pick-ups in the form of Power Stars, but I'm unsure as to which would be more impressive, a run that gets them all but requires about another 10 minutes to backtrack for them, or one that's pure speed.
Not too sure about glitches in this one but I know a couple I may be able to exploit such as if you crouch while running you slide, this may reduce the need for the shrinking potion which takes time to work. Also if you slide into a tunnel only Little Mickey can fit down and the tunnel goes right-to-left you can wiggle the d-pad to move through it without shrinking. Sadly I don't think there's any chance to use it before you have to get the shrinking potion anyway. The flute will probably get quite a lot of mileage, especially in a Power Star run. Plenty of moving platforms means that a few daredevil pixel landings will hopefully keep things interesting, as will a bit of dicking around on consant scrolling sections.
The criminally under-used 'slide' maneuvre will get a lot of show time because I don't think it has a maxmimum speed, also it looks cool. The Desert was pretty much the only level where you had to move down a slope as opposed to up one. I'd have to re-play to see whether you can do the Desert just by going straight down the cloud-shoes route.
Also I think the GG version will be more fun because you can't see as far, so some time-savings will require reactions to off screen objects.
Any comments?
Joined: 4/2/2009
Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
I was just playing around with this game because it was our Game of the Week at the orkut forum ... and the challenge of the week was: Beating this game with all 14 power stars... but in the end, I started thinking ... are power stars really necessary? So I played once in frame advance, with around 1000 re-records, and that's the result:
Land of Illusion in less than 30 minutes
(Dega 1.16 MAME core was used)
I'm not sure about anything except all simple actions take 2 frames to happen, but turning around, getting blocks, swimming, entering doors and high-jumping all take a random amount of frames to me ... +__+
I didn't try this trick to avoid getting the shrinking potion, but... I found it too useful for speedrunning at some levels O_o
Achievements:
- Glitched the rock boss;
- Took the hard path on phantom's castle;
- Got 0 power stars, of course (this gets the Best Ending and even more bonus score at the end!);
- Butted down one enemy without any room;
- Took damage on nearly all stages to save time;
- Colored a map;
- Lost all the air underwater and didn't die :P
I think Land of Illusion should get a TAS \o/
Actually, it should get two TASes ... I found out that you only need to backtrack once for stars, when you get the rope (4 stages to revisit) ... all other stars can be grabbed during the stage, .. it takes different amounts of time to get each one, longest paths are probably flower field and lake.. x.x
Nice to see this game's TAS.
I have some questions & remarks.
1) In levels with climbing damagetaking is usefull. F.ex., in Palace Ruins Stage instead of Honey Pot Jump;
2) Visually Crab Lord can be defeated faster;
3) This game have many waiting periods & nice music. Dancing is good choice);
4) You choose hardest path. May be fastest path is better?
It's testrun. You plan to continue?
Joined: 4/2/2009
Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
XYZ wrote:
Nice to see this game's TAS.
I have some questions & remarks.
1) In levels with climbing damagetaking is usefull. F.ex., in Palace Ruins Stage instead of Honey Pot Jump;
2) Visually Crab Lord can be defeated faster;
3) This game have many waiting periods & nice music. Dancing is good choice);
4) You choose hardest path. May be fastest path is better?
5)It's testrun. You plan to continue?
1).. Damage is one per stage, .. maybe better spots can be used, the ones I used were just humanly good choices... xP
2) I know it can, but.. +D
3) I know there is, but.. +D
4) All three paths are auto-scrollers, I just did it like this because.. +D
2-3-4) .. this was more like human playing with frame advance and one save slot .. I had this really great curiosity about what the game would show in the end when taking 0 power stars, and it turned out as a decent start for a real Land of Illusion TAS, which obviously can be improved, as I didn't put much thought on some details (actually all after craggy cliff is a little sloppy and hurried up) =P
I believe I can continue working on the optimised version, but there is one detail I didn't think through in any WIP yet ... how to dance to the music? If I'm frame advancing, I'm not listening to the normal speed music, I can just have an idea of what's being played, ... well, this could add over 9000 re-records of music testing,... xP
5) Yes.. =P
EDIT:
re1) I'll be re-testing events if I can, like seeing if he goes up enough when taking damage, trying to break laws of physics in up-down walls or water, and even attempting to not shrink and go through tunnels, I'm already testing and could gain 37 frames redoing the first stage, gained frames on the first sparrow-screen transition, less ducking at the gust, and discovered that I can make Mickey pose when ending a stage if I make him hit the wall and press the opposite side, he leaves stage some frames earlier than expected =P
Joined: 4/2/2009
Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
Jungon wrote:
I believe I can continue working on the optimised version, but there is one detail I didn't think through in any WIP yet ... how to dance to the music? If I'm frame advancing, I'm not listening to the normal speed music, I can just have an idea of what's being played, ... well, this could add over 9000 re-records of music testing,... xP
With the new emulator BizHorn (oops... keep forgetting the name) I can actually listen to the music while frame-advancing ... maybe it's the final technology for dancing to be easier to do!
...now I just have to solve the Lake Stage problem .... I'm not finding enough frames to get to the couple of blocking rocks in time to not wait for the tide.... @___@ maybe I should release a new WIP to show up the problem .. xP
EDIT:
OMFG, this new emulator shows that this game have 1 to 2 lags every frame +_+ this looks a little creepy, and it tends to be almost always 2 when there is ONE enemy on screen ._.
