NK improved 8 frames going to Echigoya and somehow improved 2 in the fight. O_o Still 48″ in-game.
Whelp, I was about to make an encode for level 1 but then I remembered to test an idea I had of a “new” way to dash and now we potentially have to redo the whole level. Edit: explanation: while running forward, instead of doing Nothing,Up,Nothing,Up for a dash, you can Up+Left/Right,Up,Nothing,Up and usually save at least 2 frames because you kept walking forward more. The way this works is because the input for a dash is Up,Nothing,Up, but if you’re already holding down Up to run forward, the game doesn’t read it as a dash, so you have to “reset” your input by pressing a different direction (or nothing). Up+Right/Left works but so do Down, Right/Left or any other movement combination; sadly it must be a movement so Up+L2/R2 doesn’t work as a reset.
Also another thing on optimization: infinite jumps are faster than walking, so I’d expect that doing them ASAP is the fastest way. The way infinite jumps work is by pressing the jump button at a specific frame near the end of the jump’s animation; so long as you get enough air time for the animation to progress to that frame, you can do infinite jumps. Before we kinda theorized that you needed to jump from a high place or something but that’s completely wrong, all you need is enough air time for the animation to get to the point where you can jump mid-air, which basically means that you can do them wherever except for on flat ground.
Item tests ending stage 2 in the same way (rank cheats):
Thug: +2 Lightfoot Scroll, +1 Poison Rice = 3 total, manipulable
Novice: +3 Lightfoot Scroll, +2 Poison Rice = 5 total, manipulable
Ninja: +1 Lightfoot Scroll, +1 else = 9 total, not able to manipulate
Master Ninja: +4 Lightfoot Scroll, +1 else except +3 Poison Rice: Shows 4 in RAM, but it turns into 3 at item selection… = 14 total (1 is actually removed because LS cap at 3), manipulable
Grand Master: +2 everything, +1 Fire-Eater Scroll = 19 total, not manipulable
It seems like the best rank is Master Ninja, which can give +3 Lightfoot Scroll (maxed? tried cheating to 5 and 255, but it still got cut to 3) but also many of the other items which are also useful (Shuriken, Mines, Grenades). Grand Master is pretty good, but probably should never be gotten… +1 Lightfoot Scroll saves a lot of time and the extra Shuriken/Mines/Grenades probably don’t make up for it.
Edit: is this the RTA WR?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW3DwDB6KBY
Which tells me it’s still improvable, just like Katanal should still be. :( Still 48″ in-game. Movie: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/16686535046609811
TASing tip for the future: Down+Left/Right seems best done only on 2 frames before running forward.