Yep... I was about to knock about 15 seconds off the first level. Maybe another second can go, I'm not really sure.
Frame advance in the conversations was the bulk of the improvement. I've finally gotten the hang of using it. Also, taking advantage of the fact that walking in a diagnal doesn't slow down your horizonal or vertical movement makes some parts go a bit quicker.
I'm starting to mess around a bit with this game. It looks kinda fun, and has a wide variety of elements. I was able to do a trial run of the first chapter in just under 5 minutes, and I think I can improve it by about 5 seconds are so. Question being... would anyone be interested in seeing this?
I've beaten DW3 on an emulator without a single save. You would just have to start the town early and drop by later to pick up the orb. The town grows with normal passing of time (actually, probably with character steps).
If you want to go nuts with it, feel free to beat the game several times in a row, you'll notice the password changes more often than not, depending on score, armor, and weapon. I liked that code because most of the entries were on the first line, and it was pretty efficent to enter. But experimentation will be called for if a 'perfect' run is to be achieved.
This one was kinda tricky... one more firebounce, and the boss would have moved to the bottom of the screen (since that was where I would have ended up when it 'closed up'. It was faster to hang out up top, then I just shot it enough that 1 more firebounce would finish it off.
I look foreward to seeing your expert run on this. I might give it a shot next week as well, just to see what it will look like.
Much improvement - having never played the game, I have to wonder why it takes so long to beat the boss of stage 6. I'm sure there's something to it.
The boss of stage 6 can only be hit when those 'brains' are exposed, which is done with a set time. The only way to speed it up is to hit them as soon as they appear, and with 3 to work with at the same time, I think I hit them rather well.
Also, you miss some shots here and there. It's obvious you used the turbo function...
No turbo was used at all. The issue with the autofire is that 2 shots come out at a time unless you are both VERY quick and rather lucky. Even then, the threshold between firing no shots, one shot, and two shots is rather slim. I remember about 5 missed shots during the game which were done in areas that even with the missed shot, it was still better than my other attempts. If this one gets published, I'll just start working on the expert level (since there seems to be some clammering about it), and it will probably be done at a slower speed as it is.
I haven't watched submission yet but if there really are missed shots they should definitely be fixed. I hate unnecessary missed shots in time attacks almost more than anything.
Watch it anyway. It's fun to watch the robot dance (in the few places I had the time to dance.)
I'm making another run of this... should shave about 20 more seconds off and leave it at about 12:00 flat.
I might try expert mode next, I'm still unsure as to if it will really be a better movie or not because you will have to advance a good deal more slowly.
I am using the fireball more, I found that it saves a great deal of time in stage 5 when you need to dodge the lasers.
Also, in stange 1, the time it takes to pick up the armor and walk into the "blocking robot" is greater than the time it takes to fireball-kill it.
I grab the 'P' for stages 6 and 7 for 1 simple reason: the stage 6 boss. It takes TWICE as long to kill him with normal shots, and that's simply too much time.
Fireball-killing the stage 5 boss is fun, but harder than the movie makes it look.
It takes a bit of luck to be able to kill the first turrent of the stage 2 boss before it hits you with it's laser. I think in my current make of the run, I manage to kill it both in stage 2 and stage 7 the quick way.
If anyone here knows exactly how the fireball-bounce works and how to do it consistantly, please tell me (where you flip gravity, and when you land, you bounce a bit (maybe 1/4 screen) ).
Anywho, haven't watched it yet, but as discussed in the other run's thread, it's generally agreed upon that Gravity Fireball would be useful throughout the entire run. Is there any reason you chose to avoid it?
The only things you really have to kill are the bosses, and the 'P' upgrade tends to kill them faster. I could probably incorperate the gravity upgrade a bit more intelligently against the 3rd and maybe 5th boss.
I liked this one better than Haze Rever's. Definitely a little smarter. However, you fail to use the armor on the fourth boss, it kills him in one hit.
For some reason, the armor would only kill the top part. It kinda caught me off gaurd as well. I just decided to avoid killing the top and bottom parts.
I'm considering doing a speedrun of this game (it's between this and Metal Storm)... I just wonder if I'm even in the leauge to do it. I was able to get through the first 2 stages in just under 3 minutes. I'll try to get a testrun done in the next few days and see what time I'm looking at.
Some notes about the game:
1) Like many NES games, shooting while jumping is best
2) Jumping should only be used when necessary, as there are pauses when jumping (a much bigger pause if you jump straight up or down)
3) There are hostages to save, but only 1 is required for each stage, and it has to be a specific one.
4) I don't see much use to getting hit in this game, many hits will kill you, and those that don't kill you don't seem to speed you up or lift you enough to get you to another platform.
This will go much faster once I figure out how to quit for a day and pick up where my movie left off the next day. I'm not good with the details of FCEU.
Anyway, I would be most appreciative if those who are familiar with the game could give me any pointers or some idea as to how long the speedrun should take.