Santa Claus Saves the Earth is a Christmas-themed platform video game developed by Ivolgamus and published by Telegames for the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance only in Europe. This TAS plays the Playstation edition.
On the 24th of December, only one day left before Christmas, an evil fairy named Nilam uses her magic copper (which is actually a pot) to send Santa Claus into an Enchanted Land. With only a few hours until Christmas, Santa Claus must travel through the lands and stop Nilam to save Christmas.
Objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.11
- Takes intentional damage
- Reach the end of each level, usually by collecting enough keys to open the final door
- Defeat Nilam on the 15th level as fast as possible
Movement / Strats
Ceiling Jumps: Jumping into a ceiling lets Santa jump again after bonking his head. Bonking his head gives Santa extra speed, so it's often faster to chain these jumps over long distances.
Ladder Jumps: It's not intended, but Santa's able to jump off a ladder if you press X before falling off. Ladder jumps are faster than climbing normally.
Level 1
Using the ceiling jump, Santa can go right over a gap he normally wouldn't be able to cross, and get the red key. From there it's a straightforward path to the ending.
Level 2
This one doesn't have any huge skips, other than using ceiling jumps to not have to wait for the moving platforms.
Level 3
This one has a pretty big skip: Santa can ceiling jump to reach the yellow key, and ceiling jump to the upper path. It also introduces the super-jump power-up, which lets Santa jump twice as high. After pressing the button to activate the moving platform, it's used to reach the first cycle with ceiling jumps. The green key is grabbed with a ceiling jump, and from there it's simple backtracking to the end of the level.
Level 4
We have to wait a while at the start for the moving platformers. Other than that it's mostly normal gameplay.
Level 5
Every 5 levels there's a boss fight, and each boss has 20 health. While the sack is technically the weakest weapon since it only does 2 damage, it has the perk of being able to hit bosses on every frame when they're supposed to have invincibility. Because of this, each boss is defeated pretty quickly.
The jester is hit with a tomato which doesn 4 damage, and the rest is done by swinging Santa's Sack.
Sadly, there's an unskippable cutscene after each fight.
Level 6
No comment.
Level 7
After ceiling jumping across the gap with a super-jump power-up, we can go down, grab the red key, and get to the red key area with a ceiling jump. The other cycles in the level aren't very nice though.
Level 8
After grabbing the green key, Santa goes back to the surface and runs all the way to the right, instead of doing whatever platforming nonsense is required in the cave below. He can damage boost across the spikes; turning the opposite direction right before you hit it sends you further in the direction you want to go. From there it's grabbing the yellow and red key, going into both of those rooms, and exiting through the green door.
Level 9
This is a level that doesn't require keys to reach the end. Instead, a switch has to be flipped, which unlocks the exit door.
In this one there's a skip that's just barely not possible... if it was, it'd save ~1:43. Right above the switch is the exit door, but even with a ceiling jump and super-jump power-up it's not possible to make it to the door.
Anyway, after flipping the switch, it's a simple run around the level until Santa can leave the level.
Level 10
In the previous level Santa picks up ammo for the Candy Cannon (the gray and very unappealing ball candy). Each shot from this thing deals 16 damage, so it's great that we have it for this boss only (SPOILERS! For the last boss, projectiles don't do damage!).
Santa deals 16 damage from firing the Candy Cannon immediately as the giant is on screen, and deals the rest with his sack.
Level 11
This one really sucks in casual play. You don't catch the cycle at the start of the level, so you have to wait 30 seconds for it to go to the end and come back for you to ride it. Thankfully Santa can ceiling jump across the huge spike pit. For the second one, he can ceiling jump across some of it; for the rest of the pit, he has to damage boost across it. He hits the switch that activates the moving platform a little later, and ceiling jumps back.
In the lower area, he ceiling jumps all the way to the left for the red key, then all the way to the right to use that key.
Level 12
The first area doesn't require a key to enter, but instead needs a switch to be hit. On the way back from htiting the switch, 2 big ceiling jumps are used to skip using the moving platforms to backtrack. And this time, the red keyhole is a bit of a walk away from the actual door.
Level 13
This one also doesn't need a key to be beat, as the end of the level is actually a power-up you grab. To get there though, a switch needs to be hit that activates a really long elevator.
Level 14
After grabbing the red key, a bit of a minor skip is performed. Usually you'd have to stay on the lower area and head left to activate the moving platform in the upper area, but again, Santa can ceiling-jump across everything.
Level 15
This boss can't be defeated with projectiles, only the sack. No problem though, given that the sack does 2 damage on the boss each frame.
Potential Improvements
- Better use of the "zipping" that ladders and buttons give you when grabbing / pressing them
Merry Christmas, by the way! This was supposed to be submitted on Christmas, but you can see that that didn't work out too well...
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Replacing with updated movie file, per author.
nymx: Ok...with the given trics/strats, this TAS is clearly beyond anything that a human can do. In this case, you destroy the
WR by roughly 13 minutes! Really good run. Great job on this!
Accepting to "Standard".
