Here’s an updated run of Katina
Link to video
“That’s a lot of hits!”, you might say, and you’re right! In fact, this score plus the new high score on Meteo means that the optimal high score route is now completely different from my published run. But it can always be better lol. At the very end even though I get the hatches to open before the core appears there are no enemies that come out : (
The only guess at this point is that the enemies have to actually start spawning before the core would actually appear. In order to try this out I would have to completely redo this level… again… and there are in fact limits to my perseverance.
I’ve been able to take a good break with the DTC contest, so the willpower to start over might come through, but that aside, I’m stuck between two options: I can either take Sector X for 397 into Macbeth 319 or I can take Solar 999 into MacBeth 319. The problem is that a run using Solar 999 would take over 2 hours to complete whereas the Sector X route would be 50 minutes (the same as the current published time). I would love to do both of these routes, but it guarantees that I have to redo all of Venom 2 because of RNG (and that’s assuming both MacBeth AND Area 6 somehow line up).
I’m currently working on the Solar route which is a nightmare since I can’t seem to pin down exactly where the lava arc’s hit box is. I need to get like 80 points before the first enemy appears :/
It has been discussed that my original submission would be more entertaining for a GDQ event since it uses the hard route Versus the new Meteo and Katina route.
With that in mind I am going for the absolute maximum score… So 2 hour video here we go 😅
{Obsoleted 425 Hit video}
With DTC 11 finally being over I could get back to this game. I learned partway through the level that the lava arc's hitbox is just a single point on the surface and in no way follows the actual animation. The lava mounds also have a hitbox that can only be shot once. I missed one in the beginning before I realized this, and I'm tempted to take another pass at this level, but I definitely need to take some time away. On a more positive note, I once again beat the old tas by so much that Solar (and not Sector X) is now part of the optimal high score route even without infinites.
Now for the 999! I did some testing and much to my delight I can get 8 hits on the lava arc every boss cycle. Each cycle takes 40.5 seconds to complete, but if you destroy the left arm it reduces the time to 33.3 seconds since he does 2 less moves. This strategy (combined with my much higher starting score) will bring the boss fight to a mere 40 minutes.
Link to video
Got an extra 8 hits using my improved knowledge of the lava arc hit boxes and making sure I hit all the lava mounds.
Now it's time for the real grind to get up to 999 points.
