(Link to video)
Lester the Unlikely? It's unlikely this TAS is going to be any good.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: <Put the emulator name and version here>
  • <List the objectives of your movie here>
  • <Another objective>
  • <And so on>

Comments

This is a 3,480 frame imrovement, although that's not counting differences in emulation.
One thing to keep in mind with this game is it's tile based, meaning there are certiant areas that Lester can stand up on. walking makes him move one tile at a time, while running makes him run 3 tiles at a time. if Lester is in between two tiles, the game will move him forward to be directly on a tile, this is useful when jumping because I can make Lester land in a way where he saves a tile of movement every time, this is also helpful for setting Lester up for certain faster movements.

Stage by stage comments

Beach 1

This first level is slower than the publication, but there's a reason for that. The old TAS took time to take damage at certian spots in the first level, when using damage boosts would be much faster later on in the game, so I preserve health and go through the level differently.
I also take the time to kill a crab and turtle, since doing so means Lester won't tiptoe away from enemies.
You might also notice I jump in some spots, that's to skip an animation where Lester will run away from enemies he first encounters.
sometimes you can crouch while falling, this prevents Lester from taking fall damage.
You can save 6 frames near the end of stages where you walk off the screen by jumping, as Lester has fast horizontal speed when falling (too bad there's not much use for this in a run)

Beach 2

Since we killed both the crab and turtle, it wont make Lester panic near any of the enemies, which means we can damage boost around some of them.

Cave 1

Lester will also get whiny if you are standing near a cliff, jumping on these platforms avoids this problem.
I jump near the bats to prevent Lester from running away.

Cave 2

you may not see it but I picked up a weapon, which is what allows me to get the jewel that opens up the ending, I delay climbing up near the bats to get favorable RNG so I don't take damage running out, this will save time much later in the game.

Totem Poles

I jump near the Tikis as it causes lester to get scared and stand in place, the 2nd set of Tikis will look at Lester and make him walk slowly around them, jumping avoids this.
I knock over the blue tikis since they will shoot poison darts at the player for an instant death.
While falling you can also avoid damage by pressing a pick up button, in this case I can do this to pick up the crystal that lets me move to the next level.

Burial Grounds

RNG can change if the ground gets consumed by the fire or not, minimizing jumping is ideal
We only have to put the first two skulls into the fire, and then I jump into the fire because Lester has had enough.

Village

In this level we only have to enter one of the final houses then jump out of a window to meet a girl who's father can help Lester return home.

Rooftops

falling on the ground will cause Lester to be captured, you can enter the next level by escaping this way, but it's way slower.

River

boring auto-scroller, I tried to do some fun things but Lester is such a dork

Jungle

Tarzan

Treehouse

I grab a candle to burn a rope to open a door because that's how doors work
I then grab the boomerang and jump on the door to exit the area because that's how doors work
any time Lester clips into something, he's stuck there unless he neutral jumps.

Monke

Monke take four hit
Monke go eh eh eh eh
Monke go down
night night Monke

Cavemouth

after getting a kiss from a girl, Lester suddenly feels more confident about himself, I wish I was confident about myself like he is right now (ladies....)
Use the boomerang to open the gate.

Cavern 1

I have to grab a torch here otherwise the cave will get dark and Lester will die because he's a little baby.
There is one area where climbing up one ladder will give me an invisible platform that saves 0.2 seconds.

Cavern 2

Only notable things are manipulating our tile placement to get a long drop down a ledge that avoids damage, and grabbing and letting go of a ledge to prevent damage.

Pylon

a tedious part of the game where you have to throw a boomerang at a rock to break it enough to continue through
however you can clip into the rock as if it wasn't there at all

Spider Level

Finally we get to do damage boosts that we set up in the first two levels.
The two spiders at the beginning take a long time to allow lester through, which saves a bunch of time.
The exit in the room with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAoDgCF-feg has a very long count down before we can do damage to it again, unfortunately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAoDgCF-feg keeps dropping down on Lester so he has to wait until https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAoDgCF-feg drops down so he can get out of the way and not take needless damage, we need our health for the final part of the game.

Lava Run

now the volcano is about to explode, so to get out of there, Lester clips through the ceiling to climb up the place.

Dock

This is the only place in the game where we can do one long jump down and not take damage, this happens if we land on a platform that will collapse, for some reason no damage gets taken when we fall.
We use the boomerang to get a pirate sword which seems to be faster than using the boomerang, no way to skip the pirates we encounter.
I jump before climbing up the ladder because for some reason Lester wont jump on the latter unless he does this.

Pirate 1

fighting pirates, and doing one damage boost.
I wait for the 2nd dynamite to explode before running past it.

Pirate 2

finally, the last of our health is used on this stage, as there's a very long section where there's multiple pirates we have to get past.
I was able to manipulate the pirates to be close by each other in order to run through them without having to fight one near the end.
On the final area, we have to use a cannon to blast open a door, then we need to grab a spoon and fill it with water. Only one area contains water, the other liquids will instantly blow up the dynamite.

final comments

Big thanks to koffingrockz who has provided a crazy amount of documentation for this game, which helped me get rid of tunnel vision when routing the TAS.

ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 43 frames improvement.
ThunderAxe31: Accepting as improvement of the current publication.

despoa: Processing...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7868: EZGames69's SNES Lester the Unlikely in 14:57.64
EZGames69
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Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3942)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
Just a quick note, koffingrockz has made me aware of a damage boost in Pirates 1 and 2 that would be at most 2 seconds improvement. I'm currently figuring out the logistics for it, will post an improved file when I get it situated.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1093
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
It was unlikely for me to vote "yes" on this TAS, but I did. There's just something very satisfying in seeing games like this being played so fast, games that are very slow and tedious in nature, relying on trial and error gameplay. Also, I'm still waiting for Lester to be back.
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Challenger
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Joined: 2/23/2016
Posts: 1033
I was aware of the old run years ago, but I forgot to watch it before, so... A silly game that includes a very silly character (the game title makes sense xD), animation & gameplay style which resembles Prince of Persia, and some broken physics... nice combination. The game itself looks boring, but the TAS actually made this game look good thanks to the great optimizations and some game-breaking sequences. Great work and yes vote.
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
EZGames69
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Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3942)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
Here's the 43 frame improvement, didn't save 2 seconds after all, but the changes to the pirate area resulted in a net gain of 43 frames: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638065774000639766
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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. ---- [5009] SNES Lester the Unlikely by EZGames69 in 14:57.64