This TAS improved 35 frames than the previous one. The main improvement comes from the second and third stage. Before the third stage boss, we got a 40 frames improvement, equivalent to 5 frame rules. But because of the bad RNG, we lost 5 frames at Stage 6 and Stage 7. All this thanks to our deeper understanding of the game mechanism.
Stage2: We saved 21 frames in 1st tunnel. The HP of the mechanism is 8 points, and we killed it in 9 frames. This technique comes from the control of shared bullets. Previously, we thought that only by hitting the enemy or mechanism with bullets can make the bullets be layered. And then we found that by sharing bullets can also layer bullets. We started using this technique in the pacifist TAS that we submitted this year. This technique was used to avoid lag in pacifist. Later we realized that it could also be used to improve any%. But this technique is not easy to control, especially in the second stage, 1p and 2p's bullets fly with different speeds.
Stage3: In the position close to the boss, we used special jumping method to make 1p exceed 2p. By this way we saved 15 frames. The principle is to use 2p rolling screen to make 1p jumped higher. Because of the characteristics of the game, 2p can't exceed 1p.
Up to now, we saved 36 frames in total. Because of the 8 frames rule, we must find out other 4 frames improvements. This became our biggest problem. The Boss 2 fighting has 2 frames improvement, that's what we knew before, but because of the frame rule we didn’t done it in the previous run. Slowed 1 frame of the 1st jump in stage 3, this will save one frame for the next jump. Finally, we made a continuous jump on the last mobile platform, saved 1 frame, this almost leads us to the result of exhaustive efforts.
Screenshot suggest 29423F
Samsara: It's been a while since I've seen a Contra TAS, so seeing what you two have done with the game was an absolute treat to watch. I really enjoyed how subtle some of the playaround stuff was: It shows that great care was taken into making every frame of the movie entertaining, even down to the input on the title screen mimicking the explosion effect, which is something that most people watching the run would never notice. The quicker tunnel section also adds some much needed brevity to the slowest section of Contra, making the pacing just that much better. Fantastic work!
