Improvement of 73 frames.
Basically lots of frame improvements added up.
1-1 Bamboo Area
1 lag frame reduction.
1-2 Ninja House
1 lag frame reduction. Slightly better jump up from the pit but not sure that resulted in enough to lose a frame.
1-3 Samurai
1 frame improvement on boss. I jump up high on the first two kunai, with good height you can hit him as early as possible twice.
2-1 Waterfall
8 more kunai acquired
2-2 City
Boost Damaging 3 times instead of only once. Dagron found an unusual property of how your double jump will sometimes go through ninjas that are also double jumping. I do not specifically use that, but instead I manipulate the enemies to get an even higher boost. Also found that double jumping right before getting hit boosts you a couple pixels higher. One thing I also realized was that this game actually has invulnerability frames a little after being hit although the game gives no indication whatsoever. There is also a very strange scripted(?) ninja that comes flying in from off screen. He seems invincible until he is standing. I don't think there is any other such "special" enemy units in the game besides this one. Almost like an idea they never fully realized.
2-3 Disco Ninja
1 frame improved. I use the left side to attack this time to get into a slightly better position.
3-2 Airship
1 frame saved. Found how to use the Air Walk glitch to barely reach the elevator. Found a way to get popped out of the low floor to the right just as it goes up. Used an odd down input twice with no down in between, found that was the best way to do it. It resets the x speed, but then I can jump. This removes the previous wait from before.
4-2 Forge
Worst area ever. The lag changes whenever you make any improvement since objects fall differently. Maybe 1 frame?
4-3 Hulkinator
What a gigantic pain in the ass. He can hold one of two weapons. A car or an engine block. We need the engine block because it is smaller. However he has blocks of frames where he will hold one or the other. So what happens is if you want any frame improvements to be realized you need to then find additional frame improvements for him. Also he is the single largest frame save in the TAS. By positioning carefully I am able to to a double jump and spray kunai. I have to get over the boss since once you spray once, you run out of kunai "slots", and each additional one needs time to "recharge". But when they recharge they start filling in the one that shoots downward. The idea is to hit him as rapidly as possible so they recharge as fast right before I collide with him.
6-1 China Town
Was able to make a lamppost with the air walk glitch. This removes the previous neutral inputs.
7-2 Industry
Better movement through the ceiling (floors?) of this industrial area. Slightly higher fall distance, but the extra speed you get from being pushed left with the additional movement speed makes up for it.
8-2 Maze
Slightly better movement when clipping into the ceiling to pop out. I reduce the time I do the crouch before getting into the ceiling. Got the hidden 50 kunai pickup since I used more kunai this time which helped save some frames.
8-3 Neo
This is a couple frame increase. I have this as completing it as fast as possible. however I realized that my previous submission was one frame slower than it should be to kill the boss. And it takes more frames to get into that position. Even though I shaved off some frames from the boss this submission it nets negative. I prefer to kill the last boss as fast as possible.
Samsara: Nice little improvements, solid optimizing. Accepting as an improvement to the
published run.