Arumana no Kiseki is an FDS only platformer with an interesting grappling hook mechanic. Perhaps not surprisingly for a rather complicated mechanic like this one, it is abused heavily to clip through walls and most of several levels.
This run is an update of mmbossman's original, with improved boss fights, implementing the improvement missed in the original submission, and better control over scrolling in level 3.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
  • Beats the game as fast as possible

Improvements

Stage 1: mmbossman had missed an animation cancel in the original run, so this is the first thing I improved.
Stage 2: I saved a few frames on the boss.
Stage 3: I saved quite a few frames optimizing the climb, keeping the screen scrolling as much as possible.
Stage 4: nothing new, but re-syncing the boss fight was pretty tough
Stage 5: I made the boss spawn sooner, which saved about 10 frames.
Stage 6: nothing new
Total improvement: 102 frames

Other comments

I stumbled upon this run while browsing through this list. I noticed that this run had no youtube encode (despite it being the very first run.) Looking at the submission thread, I noticed the improvement right at stage one. Since I don't like seeing known improvements just sitting un-implemented, I decided to pick it up and ended up saving a bit more time as well. I guess you could say I like spring cleaning.
Re-syncing the spider boss was the hardest part, luckily brute force saved me, although it took many thousands of re-records to do so.

ars4326: Judging!
ars4326: Hi again, Alyosha. Very nice improvements made on mmbossman's 2009 run, which was already tightly optimized. Watching both files side-by-side, it was interesting to observe how the smaller optimizations added up, throughout the game. Great work, as you've been showcasing, and hope to see more improvements (by you and others) from the 'First 500' project!
Accepting as an improvement to the published run!
feos: Pub!

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4781: mmbossman & Alyosha's FDS Arumana no Kiseki in 08:24.64
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Good run, guys. It seems like saving time spent scrolling the screen would be an important thing to optimize, so I'm glad you were able to do that some. It's a Yes from me!
Mitjitsu
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I enjoyed watching it, yes vote.
mklip2001
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Nice! Stage 3 looks good. I wish the vertical scrolling could be that fluid, which would really make stages 2 and 4 more interesting. The spider boss fight was great. I have a few small concerns though. The faces boss of stage 3 seems a little slow... is there anything more powerful you can use on the left face when you move back to it? And on stage 5, it seems you should be able to enter the minecart on its left side to save a few frames, as well as leave it from its right side.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Alyosha
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The spider boss fight is the same as in the original run. I did try to improve but was unable to. It does make me wonder how mmbossman achieved that fight with such a clean input file, while I needed to fill mine with random select presses. The level 3 boss suffers from the fact that only one projectile can be on screen at a time, and they move really slowly. Bullets do 2 damage and the diagonal projectile thing does 3, so that is already the highest damage aside from bombs, which I would need to move much closer to get in range for, and it only does 5 damage. Getting in the mine cart uses the animation cancel, which requires a jump. So I will land and start moving on the same frame regardless of where on the cart that happens to be. At the other end, the hook can only hit things that are on screen, and only goes at one angle. If I move further to the right, there is nothing for it to catch.
mklip2001
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Alright, thanks for the answers. Good job.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
EgixBacon
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Heh. More like Zipping no Kiseki... Alyosha, you have been making some great optimisations on NES games so far this year! I know who I'll be nominating in five months' time. Yes vote from me.
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Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2909] FDS Arumana no Kiseki by mmbossman & Alyosha in 08:24.64
creaothceann
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Please do not upload 144p encodes... @_@
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Okay.
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Oh, right...
ars4326
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I noticed that Alyosha isn't credited along with mmbossman (co-author) on the homepage. Could someone fix this? edit: That was quick! Thanks a lot, fsvgm777!
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fsvgm777
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ars4326 wrote:
I noticed that Alyosha isn't credited along with mmbossman (co-author) on the homepage. Could someone fix this?
I've fixed it.
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Post subject: Rise from your grave...
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Huh, I had a movie published 5 months ago! Cool! Thanks Alyosha for the co-author cred, I probably didn't deserve it but I appreciate it!
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