This run is over 5 minutes faster than valagard's previously published run, and is still at the highest difficulty ("crazy hard"). The biggest difference is in the now-"kamikaze" boss fights, but everything else is faster too (even the auto-scrolling sections, apparently).
Sparkster is an extremely fast-paced, high-action game. I think the main character is a possum/rocketeer/knight. He can swing his sword, spin-slash quickly left or right, and get a high-speed rocket boost in any direction after a short charge-up time, among other things.
In addition to watching the charge-up meter and trying to use the rocket boosts at optimal times, I also have to watch out for the hidden "dizziness" meter the game keeps track of for the character, which makes the character become immobile and helpless for quite a while if I use the ever-useful spin-slash move too much. If you notice me walking sometimes when spinning would be faster, it's because I can't spin anymore without dropping like a rock and waiting 5-10 seconds to recover. Taking damage resets the dizziness to zero, however, so I take advantage of this a lot (especially in boss fights) to be able to spin more. (The spin move is the only thing that can prematurely end a boost or cancel the "freaking out" animation after a boost, and it cancels the "getting hit" animation, does decent damage, is faster than walking, and keeps me in the air, so you can see why that's always useful.) Also, a trick I use to go faster in horizontal sections is to rocket-boost along on the ground immediately into a jump, which maintains the rocket-boosting speed for longer than normally possible.
For boss fights: Rocket boosting / in-place-spinning into an enemy is the strongest attack, followed by spin-slashes and direct sword hits which are almost as strong, and weakest are indirect sword hits. So, I alternate between the former two attacks, keeping their respective meters in balance, and avoid using indirect attacks. The in-place rocket boost (twirling) does the same damage as a directional rocket boost, but it also makes me invincible for its duration. The spin-slash on the other hand is almost impossible to use as an attack without taking damage in the process, but that's OK because I need to take damage to use it as frequently as necessary and it even cancels out the damage animation.
Oh, and someone will probably ask this, so: The end-of-level bonus displays for some minimum amount of time, so ending each level with only 1/2 life is not faster than still having a few hearts extra, although having 100% health seems to slow it down as the points go over 10000.
This run:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Plays at highest difficulty
  • Takes (a lot of) damage to save time
Emulator used is the v6 available at: Forum/Topics/1816
Can also be viewed with Snes9x 1.43 WIP. These sound settings must be set: Volume Envelope Height Reading OFF, Sync samples with sound CPU ON.

DeHackEd: I'll take this challenge...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #588: nitsuja's SNES Sparkster in 19:36.22
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Looks good, voting yes. What is a GD3 file?
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
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Zurreco wrote:
What is a GD3 file?
I dunno, I think GoodSNES named it that, but maybe not - I'll change it to say smc. (It's the same ROM as before.)
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Though I'm not familiar with this game at all, I did watch the current version and it's clear that you just blow it away. Very nice.
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I never played this game or watched the previous submission, but what you have looks very fast paced and exciting nitsuja. Plus, it's an improvement so it's an obvious yes vote.
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The speed of this run/game is insane. Good luck getting the codec to eat this bisqwit ;)
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [315] SNES Sparkster by nitsuja in 19:36.22
Joined: 11/22/2004
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Nice. :) I'll watch this when I get home from work.
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Downloading now, most of the improvement was the boxing robot fight probley. Yeah I hate the flip counter, you can do 5 flips and freeze, or 4 flips with a 2 second pause, flip, pause, flip etc. (Edit) Like it, some parts are much faster, Boss fights are quick but brutal on your guy ;P. I can see where you saved time thou, Guess I am going to have to do my time attack over again ;D. BTW how did you keep the bot boss in the corner durring the fight? I kept trying and trying but I could never keep him locked in the corner without punching me.
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I didn't notice your edit before, so I'm responding to it now.
Valagard wrote:
(Edit) Like it, some parts are much faster, Boss fights are quick but brutal on your guy ;P. I can see where you saved time thou, Guess I am going to have to do my time attack over again ;D.
Good luck if you're going for it. Looking back at it, I think there are still another 10-20 seconds that can be saved compared to my run. I'm pretty sure my boxing fight can be even faster by quite a few seconds with a lot more luck manipulation, I didn't do a very good job of destroying various barriers as fast as possible, and having more health when starting some boss fights would've let me take more hits to save time (not dying on that rotating crystals boss was almost impossible with as little health as I had going into it).
Valagard wrote:
BTW how did you keep the bot boss in the corner durring the fight? I kept trying and trying but I could never keep him locked in the corner without punching me.
I think it had something to do with being all the way in one corner while auto-fire punching with the fist that's closer to the other side, while the boss is recovering from being pushed backward by a jet burst. I couldn't get it to happen as long or as often as I wanted to, but I think it's possible. Also, there's this one mecha-tank guy you had to get over in your run that was mysteriously gone from mine. I have no idea why he didn't spawn for me, maybe I somehow boosted over the spawn trigger.
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so this is the snes version of rocket man adventure? didnt know that! good run btw
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Ok, now this better be the Crazy Hard Difficulty Level rather than the Regular Hard Difficulty.
I like Doraemon
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Is it really necessary to bump year old topics? send a PM to the author if you need to know things like this
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I have a better solution: read the movie description. (What the hell, is it that hard? If I could be pissed off by something like that, I would be sooo pissed off.)
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I really am suprised how much thread neco-ing is permitted on this site. I could care less, but on some forums, this would be a bann worthy offence.
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I'm surprised that so many other board administrators care...
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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Discussion of published movies is not considered to be "thread necromancy". There are "Discuss this movie" links in the movie descriptions, so it would be quite unfair to punish people for using them.