Recorded on snes9x 1.43 WIP
The game is surprisingly shorter than I remember. And there are a lot of loading times ins the game as well. Besides that, the game is a nice action jump'n'run. There seems to be no way to increase horizontal movement, so precise jumps, especially in vertical passages are the main concern in this game. The bosses can sometimes take quite some time, mostly caused by the rather long time that you cannot hit them. (Up to 60 frames for some of them)
I take a few hits to speed things up, mainly during boss fights. There are two unnecessairy hits in the first air stream in 3-1, but it's hard enough not grabbing those stalctites, and the hits don't slow me down, so I'm sorry that I did not spend more time in that area because it would not have payed off. The hit in 7-2 is 23 frames faster than not getting hit there.
I'm not using any warps, although quite a few of the shortcuts I take can only be done with frame exact jumping. I don't remember exploiting any programing errors, either.
There are a few mistakes here and there, but most of them are not noticable running the game full speed. The ones I know of probably sum up to about 60 or 70 frames, which in my opinion is no reason to redo the run without further discoveries.

Truncated: This game has interesting physics and good action. Minus the boat levels, which aren't that long anyway.
Even though it is over-all well played, I doubt that the possible improvement for this movie is only 60 frames, or even only 120 frames. If I reject this, will the author make a new more polished version? Probably not, his last post here was about one year ago. Doing so, I doubt that this game would ever get any attention again, which would be a shame.
Therefore, I have actually decided to accept this submission (which I guess isn't a lot like me), in hope that someone will be interested in improving it in the near future.

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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #544: LLCoolDave's SNES Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel in 11:21.55
Joined: 8/12/2004
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I think for the most part this was well played, but I have a few questions. -Against the first green wall climbing boss, you jump and rapidly hit him twice, and then wait for him to walk down the wall towards you so you could punch him. Is this this really faster than jumping and hitting him again? -In the factory level you wait for a while to pull a red switch, what is the reason for this? -You only really start using the throwing stars near the end of the game. Would it not be faster to use them against the bosses in the beginning of the game? What comes to mind is throwing one at the far rock boss guy and beating on the close one, so you could effectively be hitting both at once. Also in the first battle against the flying boss, where you seem to wait for him to fly low enough for you to hit him.
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BoltR wrote:
I think for the most part this was well played, but I have a few questions. -Against the first green wall climbing boss, you jump and rapidly hit him twice, and then wait for him to walk down the wall towards you so you could punch him. Is this this really faster than jumping and hitting him again? -In the factory level you wait for a while to pull a red switch, what is the reason for this? -You only really start using the throwing stars near the end of the game. Would it not be faster to use them against the bosses in the beginning of the game? What comes to mind is throwing one at the far rock boss guy and beating on the close one, so you could effectively be hitting both at once. Also in the first battle against the flying boss, where you seem to wait for him to fly low enough for you to hit him.
Not only the spikes hurt, but the blue hammerlike part does as well. In fact, it's one of the few objects in the game that even the spin attack can't go through. I could have jumped into him again when he's coming down, but that'd be useless. The chain (and the spinning throwing star I use against the ax boss) do twice as much damage as the other attacks, and the boss takes exactly 8 hits. Also keep in mind that all bosses (except for the one in the jetpack) have a recovery time of 30 to 60 frames. That also explains waiting time against the flying bee. I'm still kicking him in the first possible frame. There's only one hit that is a few frames off, and that's because I had to get around his attack. The throwing stars are ineffective against most bosses. They usually just bounce of. The switch only works after the enemy has been dead for a certain time. I still push it the first frame possible.
Joined: 8/15/2004
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Are you able to fly forever? Or is it only available to you in some levels? It looked to me that flying is much faster than just plain running. Other than that, this movie is very good. Very entertaining and well-played.
Joined: 7/5/2004
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Location: Karlstad, Sweden
Ouzo wrote:
Are you able to fly forever? Or is it only available to you in some levels? It looked to me that flying is much faster than just plain running.
I can answer that one. No, you can fly in every level. I was just thinking the same thing why he didn't use it more often, cuz it really seems it goes faster. I was surprised at the last boss how u managed to finish him off so fast :O Really nice! I like this game, you who haven't played it yet, try! It is much more difficult than it seems.. Can't believe he made it in only 11 minutes :D
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I just tested it on the beach. Flying, then falling onto the ground and running again => reached a mark I set at the same frame as just running or including jumps. Flying, then jumping out... same frame. So I thought that maybe if I fly totally horizontal, it might be faster. Tested it on that long stretch in 3-2 that I just fly through on my vid. Guess what? Saved 15 frames on the stretch running. That could be due to better air control and time I started to dive, because looking back at it, that wasn't optimal in the run. So I hereby conclude: Flying and running are just as fast, although flying SEEMS to be faster. So all in all that leaves me at about 90 frames of mistakes I know of, and probably about 30-40 frames of not so great plying in the first few levels. Those 2 seconds won't make me redo a 11 minute run, so unless something that saves time is discovered or a better route is found, this is going to be the final version. Therefore, I give it my personal approval as well; to me this is done for now.
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This game is pretty fast and smooth, it makes for a nice timeattack. It's definitely played with style and skill here. However, if you know there are mistakes you should fix them. It's been my experience that every time I redo a run the improvement is much more than I expected. Make a spreadsheet with the framecount at the end of each level to compare to your old run and you'll know you're always improving. If you really don't want to redo everything, it may be possible to redo parts and hex in the changes, but for an 11 minute run it may be easier just to redo it.
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its desynching for me in different places -_- what configs have u used?
<small>My big signature was cleared by admin; i should read <a href="http://tasvideos.org/ForumRules.html">forum rules</a>. But... who does?</small>
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I enjoyed watching the run. I'd like to see an improvement with more God-like playing, but this is certainly much faster than any person will be able to do single-segment! This game is tough to do fast!
Current Project: - Mario Kart 64
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daniayaw wrote:
its desynching for me in different places -_- what configs have u used?
It played fine for me when I used WIP timing, Volume Envelope Height Reading, and Sync samples with sound CPU, and turned the other options off. Those are the standard settings to expect for most runs made with Snes9x 1.43 WIP. About this run... I don't know. It can clearly be done faster but it's hard to tell by how much, and it's of decently good quality already. The boat-riding scenes were a little boring, though.
Joined: 8/13/2005
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(Another one that I'm watching kind of late.) This run is pretty impressive to me, for the first few levels I was amazed at how fast this game can be. The jumps also look very precise and make for good little shortcuts. I think that the author has a pretty good idea of how great an improvement can be made... but then I sort of agree with TheAxeMan that if you know the mistakes, you should try to fix them. I give this one a yes vote, but even if it's two seconds I'd like to see the improvement.
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Bumping topic so that people become aware of the judgement. For decision and justification, see submission text.
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This movie desyncs for me. Here, precisely. I'm using the WIP option as it should be...
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Plays trough for me with WIP1 timing, VEHR, and Sync samples turned on. I don't think I have anything special turned on except for that..
Joined: 2/5/2005
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Location: Germany
Ah, yeah, the stone boss. They acted weird when I was recording the TAS as well. Had to record the fight 3 or 4 times until I got one that wouldn't desync for me. I'll try and see if I can improve the run this week as I don't have anything to do (but, on the other hand, do not feel like doing anything either), but I can't promise if I can keep through with it. So, for the boat levels, can you think of any way to make them more interesting?
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Well, what do you know. I thought you were gone for good. If you do get the motivation to take this submission a few notches higher, cancel this one. I think you can do it even though it is set as accepted. If you can't, just write so here and I'll fix it. Boat levels, no idea really. As for the desynch, repeating what I said in irc, Volume Height Envelope Reading has to be ON, or the movie will desynch in that exact place which Bisqwit showed us. Also, there won't be any music in the stages.
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. ---- [525] SNES Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel by LLCoolDave in 11:21.55
Joined: 6/4/2005
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A decent run. Everything I look for in an entertaining run. I could see potential for improvement but maybe I'm just seeing things wrong. Good and fast, colourful, cute and destructive. 8/10
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I'm so glad this movie got accepted, it's one of my favorites actually :)
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Funny to see this get published. I was just doing screenshots of the game at another site... I'm gonna have to watch this later.
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Does anyone know if this game has warps? The author refers to them in his submission but I'm not sure. I'm asking because I would like to add "does not use warps" to the category list if there indeed are warps in this game.