FractalFusion's Pokonyan!: Henpokorin Adventure (ポコニャン！： へんぽこりん アドベンチャー) in 6:40.
Emulator used: Snes9x 1.51 v6
About the game
Pokonyan! is based off old Japanese anime and manga Pokonyan!, which is about a magical tanuki (raccoon-dog). Tanuki are widely believed (in myth) to have shapeshifting abilities. But for some reason, this tanuki (Pokonyan) eats a lot of fruit and ends all his sentences with "nyan". And is not a cat.
Anyway, the story starts off with Miki having all her precious candy stolen by five good-for-nothing squirrels (actually, they're supposed to be kitsune, but I still call them squirrels). It's Pokonyan to the rescue! Of course, you never actually see this because I skip the intro cutscene, but trust me, it's there.
The gameplay is almost designed for children. It is impossible to die, and there is no concept of damage in this game. You can get hit, but that's about it. The game includes a timer, yet nothing happens when it runs out. Of course, it's still possible to go quite fast through each level, so it makes for a good TAS.
Since Pokonyan needs to have a healthy diet, he must collect (at least) 15 fruit in every stage. Of course, I aim to have exactly 15 since any more would lengthen the sequence at the end by a few frames per extra fruit.
The physics in this game are a bit weird. First of all, Pokonyan has a double jump. Now Pokonyan goes faster when he runs off a ledge. Normally, jumping from ground slows you down, but when jumping in mid-air after running off a ledge, he maintains very fast speed. Furthermore, after hitting an enemy, Pokonyan may take an additional mid-air jump (think Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) double-jump, except not a glitch). This leads to chaining jumps off of enemies to go far.
Pokonyan can drop down to the area below by down+jump. This is useful in a couple areas, but nowhere else, since it drops speed.
As a magical tanuki, Pokonyan has four transformations, but since it takes a prohibitively long time to transform, the only time this issue comes up is on the third squirrel boss fight, which I will describe in the level info below.
Run notes
Oct 20, 2011: I did a test run on Snes9x 1.43 v17. Took about 7:30, but it was sloppy.
Oct 21, 2011: 1-1 to part of 3-2
Oct 22, 2011: 3-2 to 5-2
Oct 23, 2011: Wrote some stuff here, and tested 5-3
Oct 24, 2011: Finished 5-3.
Level info
1-1
Already, this level isn't very easy to TAS despite being one of the first ones. It took a while to figure out a good route to get 15 fruit.
From now on, pressing A (or any button, really) will speed up Pokonyan's eating animation.
1-2
There's a lot of fruit up in the clouds, and not enough down below, so I go up there even though a few jumps are necessary to get up there.
1-3
Well, this level wasn't so hard.
Oh, and the dreaded squirrel of doom shows up. Dunno, doesn't really remind me of a squirrel. But of course our tanuki kicks its rear end over and over. With that, Pokonyan is rewarded with some candy.
2-1
Easiest level ever.
2-2
For some reason, this level reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog. We'll get to more hedgehog references later. But anyway, those walking enemies tend to get in the way. When both rails slant down, I manage to stay on the middle section by slowing Pokonyan very slightly, but it causes a slowdown when he lands. It's better to take this route, though.
2-3
Lots of options here. This route seems rather good.
The squirrel here warps around twice as often as the first one. It dies just as fast. Figuratively, of course.
3-1
This level is a bit more challenging, more like 1-2. The music in this world is nice, though.
3-2
An underwater level! What really happens is that you get unlimited jumps as long as you are underwater. Otherwise, there is pretty much no change to the physics. Unlike most other underwater levels, I like this one. Especially since it's easy.
3-3
Not too bad of a level. It's easy enough to get 15 fruit. The hard part is, of course, the squirrel boss.
When hit, this squirrel morphs into a snowman, makes icicles appear, throws its head, then rolls across the screen. I didn't know a squirrel could do that. Maybe it's a tanuki in disguise.
Of course, when its body rolls across the screen, I can get some free hits in. But since the snowman transformation and its antics take a while to do, I have the opportunity to do a tanuki transformation of my own.
Apart from normal tanuki form, there are three animals Pokonyan can transform to: kangaroo, bird, and hedgehog. Of these, the hedgehog is the best one to deliver hits since its bounce is the lowest of them all. OK, the bird doesn't actually bounce, but that's not good since I have to make a big jump then.
So yeah, Sonic the Hedgehog is now in this game. And thus the snowman gets owned. I take a hit at the end just for fun. For whatever twisted reason in this game, it actually saves time. Like, 6 frames.
4-1
This is fruit heaven. Furthermore, setting a chain of enemy jumps is no problem at all. Be prepared for some flying around.
4-2
Similar to 4-1. I need more levels like this.
4-3
This level is tricky. There's actually some lag in this level due to all the objects. I manage to get through with some trickery, and even obtain a star.
This squirrel doesn't even warp. Pathetic. Time to lay the beatdown on it, while running backwards.
5-1
We're actually getting to some hard levels! I had to plan carefully to get the 15 fruits I need to beat the level, while maintaining a fast speed with all the jumps.
Unfortunately, the nearby rabbit is not amused and proceeds to do unmentionable things to Pokonyan just as it cuts out.
5-2
This level is by far the hardest to TAS for me. I had to manipulate a rabbit to jump, but had to press the other direction for 4 frames, which also causes a delay later when I land from the chain jump. I couldn't manipulate this away. So I decided to leave it in.
You'll notice that it's quite difficult to get 15 fruit in this level, and I have to go out of the way at the very beginning just to come close.
5-3
Anyway, the game is almost done. One area was tricky, where I had to hit the spring to launch Pokonyan to the top. The passage below is blocked. After collecting the last fruit, Pokonyan disposes of the last squirrel. This one has a lot of attacks, and takes 11 hits, but dies quickly enough.
That's all for now.
turska: Solid run, good audience response, dangerously furry. Accepting for publication.
