Avoiding lag from pressing the "run" button. In order to initiate Pan's running, the Y button must be pressed and held. Unfortunately the Y button is also linked to his sword attack, which causes ~20 frames of delay. I discovered a clever way of avoiding the sword attack animation sequence. By pressing the pause button hitting the Y button and then unpausing, the game thinks that you were already holding the Y button before you paused the game. As a result of this trick there is no attack animation. You will see the game quickly pause and unpause at the beginning of every stage, in total the tricks uses 3 frames.
Ledge detection tricks are used in a couple of instances. Basically if a slanted ledge is too high for Pan to reach, you can reverse directions in the middle of the jump and when Pan does his flip, he will catch onto the ledge.
In level 3 I use damage boosts from a couple enemies to reach platforms which would be otherwise unreachable. This trick saves an absurd amount of time. Probably ~20 seconds saved compared to the traditional method of climbing the level.
I discovered one nice little sequence break during the game. In the final level you see me land on top of some spikes, and then run and reach that exit door. Normally a person would not be able to reach that door, and it requires frame precision to get enough momentum to make Pan jump far enough.
DeHackEd: Reformatted. I think this was the submitter's original intent.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Firstly: There are two Hook (U) ROMS, (2648) and (29252). You should list your submission as Hook (U) (29252).
This was a very well played submission compared to the last Hook submission I saw. However, the boss fights were really boring, and some of them (skeleton boss, hawk boss) seemed a bit improvable. I'm giving this a yes vote.
That's a lot better. (I'm still not convinced this game is good running material though.)
In the dark cave, the slope with the people on barrels where you have to jump over a pit of spikes looked strange.
Airship, skeleton and bird bosses also looked improvable.
Other places it looked like you could have landed earlier to be able to start running earlier.
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1058
Location: United States
In the dark cave, it was impossible to get past the pirate on the barrel, so I opted to stay behind him instead of getting hit. I slow down in the middle of the jump, and yes it looks slow but there is no other alternative.
Skeleton boss requires that Pan run a certain distance and turn around in order for him to throw is head. I ran the minimum distance allowed and when turning around pan slows down considerably. Jumping over the skeleton and landing also requires pan turn around again, which looks slow. I do not think this battle can be improved.
The airship battle was frame perfect for the first 2 hits; the third hit was delayed to manipulate the pirate to come out of the right hand side of the ship. If I swung any earlier, the pirate would come out of the left hand side.
For most human players, the bird boss is best beaten using flight from tinkerbell. Flying around and hitting the bird takes a lot of time, so I chose to attack without flight. I have to take hits in order to get the bird to face the correct direction, it may look sloppy but I did not see any other way of quickly defeating him.
The game is pretty colorful, and the music is ok. This is good.
Parts looked improvable but I'm guessing they aren't. Most notably were areas that it seemed you could take more time running to full speed before jumping on the 2nd-to-last level.
Unfortunately, the bosses are boring and much of the play is slow just because of the game, and this is enough to sway me away from yes vote.
I give this a meh.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
I thought this run looked good. It seems that you took care to grab only the needed amount of pixie dust or whatever to fly for just the right amount of time.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I agree with this. Even in the new 2 minute improved run, I couldn't help but think there isn't much that this offers beyond a speed run. This game isn't a terrible game for a TAS but not a particularly interesting one either.
Like guybrush said, it looks improvable, but I wouldn't be able to confirm it that it is true. Still, the fact that it LOOKS improvable makes it less interesting.
The autoscroller level was a drain. There were several other spots where the game was particularly dull.
Overall I say this is a no. And I am not convinced that a run of this game could get a yes vote from me (though I'm not ruling it out).
This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.
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[572] SNES Hook by hero_of_the_day in 15:13.42