This is quite a large improvement over my previous run. I'd
say about three minutes of it are taken off due to passing
up the Mermaid scale, one minute due to a willingness to
take more damage, and the rest due to miscellaneous
improvements.
The big improvement, passing up the mermaid scale, was due
to me realizing just how little water there was over the
course of the run. Add in the fact that there's a shortcut
right at the cave entrance and I'm able to skip the most
annoying boss in the game, Kraken.
Damage in the game can be divided into two types: 20 damage
and negligible damage. There are a couple points in the game
where I take a lot of negligible damage to avoid taking 20.
I also kill fewer enemies. While this results in me ending a
level lower than v1, which has some unintentional
consequences (I can't make the first two eyes after the gold
door collide anymore), but improves the run considerably.
Various tricks used, miscellaneous info:
- I can turn around mid-attack to hit enemies on both sides of me.
- Getting hit pushes me opposite the direction I'm facing, so I jump and turn around mid-air before I'm hit.
- The invincibility after respawning lasts a bit longer than after a normal hit, which is useful both times that I die.
- I was at first considering whether to buy an extra life in the first real town for 500 gold. I decided not to, and was surprised to find out I had less than 200 gold after buying the last sword!
- Roughly a third of the run is spent either in noncombatant areas (towns, etc) or transitioning between screens. Not the most exciting run, I know.
- I take a dip in the fire pool in the fourth world because getting hit by the fireballs coming down would actually do more damage. Go figure.
- One of the more-or-less meaningless stats that goes up when you gain a level is abbreviated "AGL" on the stats page. I presume this means Agility and the 6 AGL difference between levels is the reason I am unable to make the two eyeballs after the gold door collide, when I did it in my first version of this run.
- I jump over the two herbs at the very beginning because the time spent picking them up doesn't make up for the time saved by taking 30 damage.
- Amongst other things, Fighter walks faster than Mage, making him my choice for this run.
- I use "NIF" for my 3-letter name partially because I wanted to put my unique signature on this run, and partially because I absolutely despise "AAA" names.
- If you try to attack as often as possible, you'll swing but the enemy won't flash or take any damage. You actually need to wait a frame after you're done attacking in order to do damage again.
- I hate gnomes.
- I realized halfway through the run I don't need to do anything to make a zombie's torso explode, so I stab them as I jump over them just for the first time through. Once in a while a zombie will actually remain intact, so I still have to stab them sometimes. Either way there's no time lost.
Movie categories:
Takes damage to save time
Dies to save time (less of a shortcut, more of a "Hey, free
health refill!")
Genre: Action/Platformer
Phil: An interesting game but I saw some imperfections that need to be corrected before publishing a movie of this game.
Ex.: There's a place where you must wait for a platform but an eagle is there. The problem is you killed the eagle when the platform was
there. To save time, instead of waiting, you should have killed it.
There's probably some bosses battles that could be improved.
