Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(112)
Joined: 9/7/2020
Posts: 4
Thanks, Kung! I'm not planning to TAS this anymore for now, but maybe again someday.
Takanawa, thanks for sharing your TAS. I did a quick comparison, and I see that your 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 are exactly tied with the 2015 TAS by Alyosha, Arc, & Randil. You did 1-4 faster than them, because you had a very nice boss fight! But it looks like my 1-4 was still 68 frames faster than yours.
Stage 1-4 is interesting. When the player enters the boss room, the boss will be walking or standing still depending on the value of the stage timer (at memory address 0014). If you get there on a typical pace (like the 2015 TAS), then he'll be standing still. If you get there faster (like Takanawa), then he'll be walking which speeds up the fight because you don't have to walk as far. But if you get there even faster (mine), then he's standing still.
Overall mine was faster, but I like seeing the minor differences we all come up with. There's so much flexibility in this game for different play styles.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
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Joined: 9/7/2020
Posts: 4
dave_dfwm wrote:
A question: Has a detailed analysis been done to determine whether a third arrow upgrade (acquired in 3-1) would save time? I realize this would really only be helpful on Medusa, which already has a shorter battle now. But how much time would it take to get this, and how much time would it save on the boss?
Good question. The previous TASers looked into this, and I also did my own time comparisons now because the Medusa fight has changed. We both concluded that 2 strength upgrades is optimal. I'll explain.
Pit's arrows start off doing 1 damage, and each strength upgrade increases that by 1. This means the damage goes 1->2->3->4->5. Going from 1 damage to 2 damage is very noticeable! But going from 3 to 4 isn't a big deal.
Medusa has 150 health, but it actually takes 1 additional shot after her health reaches 0. Assuming we use the double shot trick, we spend 34 frames on each shot (otherwise, it's 33). Here's how the new fight works out:
* With 0 upgrades: 76 shots * 34 frames = 42.5 sec
* With 1 upgrade: 39 shots * 34 frames = 22.1 sec
* With 2 upgrades: 26 * 34 = 14.7 sec
* With 3 upgrades: 20 * 34 = 11.3 sec
* With 4 upgrades: 16 * 34 = 9.1 sec
So the first 2 upgrades are very valuable, but the later ones don't help much. The 3rd upgrade would save 3.4 seconds during the fight, but it takes longer than that to get. Even the 2nd upgrade seems like a borderline case when the above numbers show it saving only 7.4 sec on the Medusa fight. It takes about 12 seconds to get. It's a close call, but I think it winds up being worth it when you factor in the other places where it helps (certain enemies and the 2-4 boss). Now that I'm thinking about it some more, maybe that 2nd upgrade just breaks even. It would be really close.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(112)
Joined: 9/7/2020
Posts: 4
Hey, thanks! I'm new to TASing, so I'm going to keep a close eye on the discussion here in case there are any questions. Here's my temporary encode:
Link to video