Zoda's Revenge: Startropics 2 in 54:36.94 by the Ferret Warlord

• Aims for fastest time
• Takes damage to save time
• Uses glitches
• Manipulates luck
• Does not use any out-of-bounds glitches or other methods to skip to end credits

• Blade: Attack cycle of 19 frames

• Shockwave: Attack cycle of 13 frames

• Other weapons used: Attack cycle of 19 frames

• All listed attack cycles are shortened by 2 frames when airborn, except when landing, where it's shortened by 1 (although in practice, the landing attack isn't shortened at all). While this improves the DPS for all weapons, their relative rankings do not change.
  • You can squeeze in up to three Blade attacks per jump, and up to four Shockwaves per jump.
• The Spiked Ball sounds good on paper, but in practice it's a liability during regular play. The game will not generate a new volley until all other player generated attacks have been cleared from the screen, leaving Mike to be a sitting duck. Under tool-assisted conditions, it is a great asset, as it will tear targets to pieces if they are near a wall, and can be supplemented with Shockwave attacks if they are not.
• When attacking diagonally, weapon speed is like movement speed: it is simply the x & y vectors added together. However, attack distance is shortened, in order to more accurately depict what attacking diagonally is like.
• While your choice of weapon is dictated primarily by which has the greatest DPS, it is sometimes to your advantage to switch to a lower DPS weapon for various reasons:
  • range
  • positioning
  • hitstun
  • reducing the number of attacks delivered
  • reducing the time spent in an attack cycle
  • some targets will only take damage from some weapons

• Void Walking: The biggest one performed during dungeons. Discovered by Sonikkustar. The dungeons have a set of tiles that act as bottomless pits, and will kill Mike should he land on one. However, if you take damage the exact frame you'd fall into the pit, the game will let you walk on that tile for as long as you are standing on it. This opens up a whole array of shortcuts.
• Corner Boosting: Commonly found in other games. If the player is moving parallel to a corner, the game will push Mike over if he's not far enough into the wall. Also used for shortcuts, although it's ocassionally used just as a speed boost.
• Pig: Discovered by Randil. In addition to the eight standard directions, the player can face a ninth, glitched "direction" that I call "pig." When you press up, down, and left at the same time, Mike will stop in his tracks, face right, assume the "hurt" pose, and turn into a pig when he attacks. Used sparingly for:
  • Air braking: This is the only way to completely stop in mid air. Used in case extra precision is necessary.
  • Combat: When the player attacks in this "direction", the projectile is generated one tile to the right and several tiles up relative to Mike, and is sent flying to the right. If you're at the bottom of the screen, you can attack monsters that are at the top. Used twice.

• It is possible to go out of bounds in the Monkey Pits of Chapter 3, where you can interact with an array of glitchy tiles. One of these tile can send you to the end credits. However, the nature of these tiles is very, very random, and I do not have the experience or know-how to properly optimize this method.
• If you defeat Zoda Y1 Redux too quickly, the game will crash. I've seen it where the game will crash straight into the end credits. However, if I did not go with a skip-to-credits glitch much earlier in the game, why would I do so that close to the end? It felt arbitrary.
• "But Mr. Ferret!" I hear you say, "Mr. Scaryice found a glitch that skips the final few bosses! Why did you not use that?" That is a good question! The problem as I see it is that the glitch Scaryice found puts you in an "out of bounds"-like state, where Mike will be interacting with a series of glitchy tiles. One of those tiles happens to bug itself into being the cave exit. In my view, this glitch is very similar to the one that could be performed in the Monkey pits, just a) much weaker b) much later. Applying a much weaker version of a glitch I did not use much later in the game did not make sense to me, so I went ahead and completed the boss rush in its entirety.

Stage By Stage Commentary

Chapter 1: The Exposition

• Simple expository banter between a few characters and the player, setting up the rather nonsensical premise (seriously, where did the "magic words" come from, and what's the Oxford Wonder World have to do with anything?). No real gameplay to speak of. By the end of it, Mike accidentally timewarps himself back into the stone age, because any good time travel story begins with cavemen.

Chapter 2: The Cavemen

• The game opens up with Mike being dropped off by a clan of cavemen, whose children are being abducted by a local monster known as Yum-Yum. One of the cavemen will give you your starting weapon, a Stone Axe.
  • The awkward walking pattern during the overworld is due to the snowfield having holes in it that will take you to a short, randomly selected dungeon sequence. Better to go around them.
  • While in the cave, you're supposed to meet with a pre-historic Picasso and take note of his drawings on the wall, as they provide a clue for the coming dungeon. Obviously, we have foreknowledge here and won't need to.
  • The dungeon is a simple, action oriented one with a puzzle at the end. Not a whole lot to say, except you'll get to see a few examples of void walking applied throughout.
  • The thing that makes fighting the bears awkward is that their attack animation protects them from airborn attacks.
  • One navigation puzzle at the end and we have our first boss fight.
• Boss: Yum-Yum
  • A cave troll that's been kidnapping human children to feast on. He's too distracted with the pig he's eating, so he doesn't get a chance to do anything in this fight. Otherwise, he'd try blowing bubbles at you. 90 hit points to defeat.
  • After killing Yum-Yum, you meet up with a bunch of kidnapped children. Here, we use a glitch I think was discovered by Producks. Basically, pressing "Select" to bring up the chapter you're in right as the children rush up to will cause them to run ahead while their dialogue plays out, saving a few seconds of waiting. This was the only place I found that this glitch is useful.
  • We locate our first tetrad and continue on to Chapter 3.

Chapter 3: Cleopatra

• Chapter 3-1 sees Mike planted right next to the Nile, where he is tasked with retrieving a pizza for Cleopatra from the other side of a cave.
  • Remember those parts of the first Startropics where you had to speak with a bunch of random people for no reason in order to progress? They decided to pull that crap here for you to be able to talk to Cleo.
  • At this point, I have the option of picking up the Dagger. I decided not to as the path takes you a bit too far to make it worth it, but the timing is rather close.
  • The dungeon is a simple action affair. Nothing to really mention, although the room where the screenshot for Sami's run was taken from is mostly skipped due to a corner boost.
  • However, there is one apparently empty room I take a suboptimal path through by going diagonally. That's because it isn't empty: there are enemies that are camoflauged with the floor that I am avoiding. You can see them if you look closely.
  • The cyclopes are exactly like the bears in Chapter 2, but things are especially awkward this time.
• Boss: Scorpion Queen
  • She just slowly saunters aroudn the room, unless one of the smaller scorpions gets killed, at which she launches a small spread of projectiles at you. She is a "short" monster, so jump-attacking to reducing cooldown time will not work here. I will fully admit that this fight is sub-optimal: better RNG control can cause the smaller scorpions to stay out of the way, meaning fewer attacks getting soaked up by them. 96 hit points to defeat.
  • After killing the Scorpion Queen, Mike hops on a camel and retrieves the pizza, for which he is given passage across the Nile, and has his weapon upgraded to the Dagger.
• Chapter 3-2
  • Normally, the player would head south to the pyramid, only to find it blocked by some magical gate, leave, and be told by some NPCs that weren't there before that there's a magician to the north. Again, this is a TAS, we have foreknowledge, so we just head north first.
  • The Monkey Trials will find Mike being lead by a monkey through three hedge mazes and two short dungeons. It is during during these dungeons, called the Monkey Pits, that the player can Void Walk their way out of bounds, and perform a glitch that crashes the game into the end credits. Clearly, I do not do this here.
  • During one of the mazes, I perform the same Select Glitch done at the end of Chapter 2, mostly to show that it won't help me here.
  • At the end of the Monkey Trials, we learn that the monkey we were following is a talking monkey, and he gives Mike his magic attack, the Psychic Shockwave. We will use this to enter the pyramid.
• Chapter 3-3 takes place inside one of the Great Pyramids. A few navigation hazards, some combat, nothing terribly special.
  • At this point, the Dagger has a higher DPS than the shockwave.
  • The forcefield in the beginning and the green zombies later are vulnerable only to the Shockwave.
  • This level marks one of two times I use the Pig to attack an enemy.
  • At roughly frame 53,500, you'll see me make an unnecessarry jump while crossing some disappearing platforms. This is because when a platform disappears, it cancels an active void walk and the player dies. I made the extra jump to delay when the platform disappears so I won't die in the short time I'm void walking in this room.
  • Towards the end of this dungeon, we encounter the only time a "magic" item is needed to complete a level. You need to find a flute and play it in a certain room to summon some snakes, and killing the snakes opens a door to the boss.
• Boss: King Tut's Burial Mask
  • A long time ago, I once heard someone say that bosses like this are the kind of thing that makes people think video games are stupid, in reference to a similarly themed boss found in Salamander.
  • As the mask starts far away from the player, I pull out the weaker Shockwave for its better range to start dealing damage and switch back to the Dagger after it gets closer. This method saves a handful of frames. 80 hit points to defeat.

Chapter 4: London

• Chapter 4-1 opens up with us meeting Sherlock Holmes, getting arrested for daring to walk around at night, subsequently breaking out of the lowest security prison ever, and then chasing Zoda through some sewers.
  • One potential improvement in the overworld section would be to manipulate the cop into moving in a different direction. Up would be best, but to the side would some time regardless.
  • A large chunk of the first section of sewer is skipped using a corner boost to reach an otherwise unreachable platform.
• Boss: Zoda's Brain
  • Zoda dumps a large, brainlike thing that creates those tentacled things seen during the final boss of the previous game onto a platform sitting in the water. The objective here is to attack it while jumping across a series of disappearing platforms, and jumping onto it's platform after killing it to trigger and grab a door opening orb. This boss has no way of attacking, but touching it is a one hit kill, and the disappearing platform can be tricky to deal with. 64 hit points to defeat.
  • I tried and tried and tried to find a way to trigger the door orb without killing the brain, but had no success.
• Chapter 3-2 takes place in another section of sewer. It is comprised of some platforming segments with some navigation challenges.
  • I wish to point at that, during the first platforming section, I am seen walking on the edge of a conveyor belt against some water. Normally the conveyors are supposed to drop you into the water if you get to edge, but being in a walking state prevents that. I am literally toying with death there.
  • During a later platforming area, I grab some Spiked Discs for use against the boss. The only time loss incurred here are the frames spent opening the chest. The platform at the bottom cannot be reached during this cycle.
• Boss: Zoda X
  • This guy randomly teleports around the room, performing one of two attacks after each teleportation. The strategy here is to make him appear in the bottom center - all other positions take longer for him to appear in-, and begin pumping him full of Spiked Discs. I need him to do the flame pillar attack, as that keeps him from teleporting away, and Mike needs to be positioned on the screen so that the flames aren't blocking my attacks (for whatever reason, the flames are positioned not on Mike's position in the room, but on the position of his sprite on the screen). 127 hit points to defeat.
  • During his death throes, Zoda X briefly transforms into the monster he became for the first game's final fight. I'm guessing the developers intended you to fight him in this form, but ran out of time.
  • After Killing Zoda X, we meet up with Holmes again, who deduces that, as this guy called himself Zoda X, there must also be a Zoda Y and Zoda Z running around somwhere. Oh joy.

Chapter 5: The Gold Rush

• Chapter 5-1 opens up with Mike wandering into a gold mining town in the Old West. A tetrad was located in an old mine, but has since been blocked off by a landslide. We'll need to grab some TNT to blow it open, but first we need to speak with someone in the north part of town before the TNT guy will let us have some.
  • The cliff face has several holes you can blow open, but only one will lead to the main dungeon levels. You're supposed to get a hint in town about where to plant the TNT relating to a cactus with an unusual graphic, but in my experience, the hint is worthless.
  • In these dungeons, there are chest mimics. You're supposed to attack them with Shockwave, as attacking one with a Dagger will cause them all to turn into berserk coins. But the coins have less health, so berserk it is.
• Boss: Boulder Cyclops
  • This guy is standing next to a pit that can be void walked across. Next!
• Chapter 5-2 opens up with some jackass giving us an upgraded Shockwave. Now the Shockwave has the higher DPS of the two weapons.
  • The dungeon is straightforward, nothing special to remark on.
• Boss: Ghost Miner
  • When he strikes the ground with his hammer, he becomes invincible, while Mike gets stunned for several seconds, even if he's airborn. This stun can be prevented. 96 hit points to defeat.

Chapter 6: Da Vinci

• Chapter 6-1 deals with Mike having to help Leonardo Da Vinci after the latter was attacked by Zoda Y. Apparently, Da Vince had a very interesting basement.
  • The NPC on the bridge has a nasty habbit of moving south, forcing you to move around him, but fortunately, he can be manipulated to move east.
  • The room with the weighted ball machines has a strange glitch in that, even though you have the Dagger at this point, you will throw Katanas. All other rooms in this dungeon have you throwing Daggers. Useless, but interesting.
  • Another potential improvement would be to corner boost off of some of the platform obstacles.
  • To get through the last two rooms, you have to direct the balls into the hole in the ground. Attacking the balls redirects their trajectory by 90 degrees.
  • Once you free Da Vinci, he gives you the Katana and a flying machine to travel to a nearby island. Now your Blade has a better DPS.
• Chapter 6-2 has you exploring an abandoned castle
  • However, the castle is not on the first island you land on. You have to get back onto the machine to travel to a second island where the castle is.
  • The castle floor is lousy with false floor tiles, with all but one which you to randomly selected short dungeon, the last being predetermined. If navigated properly, you only need to fall into two of them. The first I manipulate to be the shortest of the available dungeons, the second is hardcoded.
  • This chapter ends with Zoda Y showing up and timewarping you himself. No boss in this chapter!

Chapter 7: Transylvania

• This is the point it becomes apparent the developers were just phoning it in. It's just one cursory overworld map followed by a long dungeon.
  • In spite of the long and involved dungeon, there isn't much to talk about. Maybe I can mention that the ghost carrying its own tombstone can only be damaged by attacking the tombstone? It's a "shielded" type monster, which means it will only take damage by attacks that don't have a direction vector opposite to the direction it's facing. A few more monsters of this type will show up in Chapter 8.
• Boss: Zoda Y
  • Our first boss in two parts! Zoda Y1 teleports across the top of the screen, ocassionally unleashing bats and small projectiles. I open up using the weaker Shockwave in order to keep him stunlocked for long enough to prevent him from teleporting. 95 hit points to defeat.
  • Zoda Y2 is an alien owl that walks across the top of the screen, unleashing a steady stream of bats while sometimes stoppings to throw feathers at you while pushing you into the spikes. Heavy RNG manipulation to keep the bats away, but otherwise straightforward. 127 hit points to defeat.

Chpater 8: King Arthur

• Chapter 8-1 has us meet up with King Arthur, who charges us with the task of killing a dragon that's been bedeviling the kingdom.
  • The dungeon is a fairly short one. Positioning yourself properly before you fall through the floor is key here.
  • This dungeon ends with a series of conveyor belts, where you have to dodge some very damaging sword blades that shoot up through the floor. Some poor planning led to me blowing through two of them when I should have only taken one hit. More details in a bit, but that cost me roughly one second of time.
• Boss: Knight Rider
  • Hoo boy. Fast boss monster, fast conveyor belts... The key to defeating this guy is some very, very precise positioning. I have to wait for him to come back; you're not synched right for chasing him down to work. While waiting, you have to contend with the fast conveyors and some frustratingly placed projectiles that he launches. 48 hit points to defeat.
• Chapter 8-2 begins by revealing that Merlin was the jackass who gave us the upgraded Shockwave. After a short exposition dump, he upgrades the Shockwave one last time, making it the most damaging of our main weapons.
  • The dungeon is mostly a series of rooms where you have to kill all the monsters. Nothing to remark on, except...
  • The room with the moving platform is where my plans for the damage I took in the previous dungeon came undone. I was planning on grabbing the health pickup in the corner while waiting for the platform, but when I got to this point, I found a much quicker way through the room that would take additional damage and make grabbing the pickup not worth it. I found this game very tedious to work on, and it is not very hex-edit-friendly, so it was too late at that point. I end the level with one heart of damage, in total costing a little less than a second.
• Boss: Red Dragon
  • Normally, he can only be attacked while jumping, meaning I could only squeeze in three attacks per jump. However, his hitbox lowers itself while he's breathing fire, opening him to the full barrage of jump attacks. Two banks of 64 hit points, and one bank of 127 hit points, for a total of 255 hit points to defeat.
  • After defeating him, I show off a hit detection glitch with the spikes that are coming in: they won't damage you if you are walking when they appear. I'll off more of this later.
  • This chapter finishes up with Mica calling out for help. This leads us to the final chapter in the game, which I regard as the best one, if only because it reminds me of a better game.

Chapter 9: Return to C-Island

• Out of desperation, Zoda Z attacks C-Island, turning its citizens into wild boars. One fisherboy was spared because he was elsewhere at the time of attack, so he tells you what happened, and lets you back into the tunnels, where you play through an abbreviated version of the very first dungeon in the series.
  • Again, not much to talk about in this dungeon.
• Boss: C-Serpent Skeleton
  • Can be skipped by void walking. This means that this boss need not be fought in either game he appears in.
  • So having skipped the C-Serpent again, we make our way into the end game. Note that by the time Sami reached this point, I was already done with the game.
  • Before entering into the final boss rush, I spend some time grabbing some Spiked Balls in addition to the ones picked up earlier. I will be using nearly all of them.
• Boss: Yum-Yum Redux
  • This time, he has no pig to distract him. Not that it doesn't do him any good. I alternate between Spiked Balls and Shockwaves as he isn't close to any walls. 127 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Scorpion Queen Redux
  • The smaller scorpions got in the way before, but they are useful now for soaking up the third Spiked Ball, allowing me to use the Spiked Balls more often. 127 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: King Tut's Burial Mask Redux
  • Open up by using the Shock-Ball method. Once he gets close enough, you can use an invisible low ceiling to make it possible to attack more with the Spiked Balls. 127 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Zoda X Redux
  • Again, bottom center means less waiting for him to teleport in. We're up against a wall, so the Spiked Balls rip him to shreds. 127 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Ghost Miner Redux
  • The longer ranged Shockwave I have means I can begin attacking earlier, but I need to get into position so I can finish him off with the Spiked Balls. 96 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Zoda Y Redux
  • Okay, this is where things become interesting. You'll notice I'm being very suboptimal when attack Y1. That is because this fight will crash the game if he fails to release his second bat. The type of crash you'll get depends on timing, but I've seen him be locked in his death throes, Y2 get frozen in place, the game simply freeze with a garbled screen, or even go into the end credits. As such, I need to kill him in as few hits as possible, so he can release the bat as soon as possible. The Spiked Balls are perfect for that. 95 hit points to defeat.
  • Zoda Y2 Redux required an interesting setup if I were to hammer him with Spiked Balls. The main platform is too far away for that, so I initiated a Void Walk so I could stand right next to him. I needed to jump for the last two attacks because killing him immediately negates an active Void Walk, so I needed to kill him and immediately Void Walk off of on of the bats before they disappeared. 127 hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Red Dragon Redux
  • Sadly, in spite of the extra large sprite, his hitbox is too small to reliably use the Spike Balls on. This forces me to fall back onto usin the Shockwave.
  • Theoretically, I could land right in front of him and attack normally. However, this time around, the fireballs are spaced such that you cannot avoid getting hit. So, instead, I went a little to the side and Pigged him to death. Unfortunately, he begins moving just before you can finish him off like this, so I have to end the fight in a more conventional manner. Two banks of 64 hit points, and one bank of 127 hit points, for 255 total hit points to defeat.
• Boss: Zoda Z
  • And the final boss fight comes in three phases! Zoda Z1 consists of five of those tentacled things last seen in the sewers, wandering around a small room, ocassionally taking pot shots at you. Only one may be attacked. The main limiting factor here is the positioning of the other four, as they come together to form the second phase. 64 hit points to defeat.
  • Zoda Z2 opens up by firing a Turn-You-Into-A-Pig Beam during which he's invincible. He then begins floating around the room, unleashing small projectiles in your general direction while randomly firing off the Turn-You-Into-A-Pig Beam. We only get to see the first time he uses the Turn-You-Into-A-Pig Beam, as the Spiked Balls kill him too quickly. Two banks of 64 hit points, for 128 total hit points to defeat.
  • Zoda Z3 is a large lizard like creature who's attack pattern is almost identical to Zoda Z2, except he has a few more attacks he can use. We see none of these as he dies too quickly. One bank of 64 hit points and one bank of 95 hit points, for 159 total hit points to defeat.
  • I finish the fight tracing out the initials FW. Hey, a little vanity is okay.
  • After leaving the tunnel, we have one more little glitch to perform. Normally, Mica automatically talks to you after running up to you, but you can skip her dialogue and everyone else running off by simply walking to the left. Pointed out by scaryice.
  • The game ends when you talk to the village chief, who puts all the tetrads together, unleashing Mica's father onto the world.

Additional Comments

• Better luck manipulation during the Scorpion Queen, to prevent having to attack the little scorpions.
• Manipulate the cop in Chapter 4 into moving in a different direction.
• Use more corner boosting in Da Vinci's basement.
• Take one less hit during the sword traps of Chapter 8.