Game objectives

• Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.8
• Primary objective: speed
• Uses deaths to save time

Background

Game mechanics

Level-by-level comments

Stage 1 (Town)

• The very start of the game, outside the house has remained the same since the very first TAS for this game. This time, I decided to take a closer look and managed to save one frame, which translated to 4 frames from a better transition to the inside of the house.
• The inside of the house has also remained unchanged since the very first TAS of this game. One of the first improvements I found when starting to play this game again was that you can jump over the lights and damage-boost through them. This resulted in a save of half a cloud platform cycle, or a time save of 107 frames. Worth mentioning is that 'Thing You Know' left a comment for the youtube encode of the current submission saying you can jump over the lights. I saw this after discovering it on my own, but still thought it was interesting.
• Better beetle spawns outside the shop saved 12 frames. However, 28 frames were then lost from a slower shop entrance. I spent quite a bit of time looking into different beetle spawns to see if the delay at the shop entrance could be reduced, but without success.

Stage 2 (Stormdrain)

• By taking an intentional hit against the first cavern monster, the second cavern monster fight could be sped up. The new method has some downsides as well, but overall this section was 4 frames faster.

Stage 3-4 (Graveyard)

• Note for future reference: if you move a bit left during the drop at frame 18331, you can start running to the right before the next jump and thus clear the gap with a smaller jump than jumping from a standstill. A smaller jump means less air-time and more time for screen-scrolling. I was able to be 10 frames ahead at one point, but then literally everything was unfavorable (screen transitions, sub-pixels and enemy placements) from there and I finished one frame behind the submitted movie. With better game knowledge, it's however possible that this could be converted to an actual time save.
• New route through the tower saved 36 frames

Stage 5 (Afterlife)

• 18 frames saved by faster route to the first ticket that was collected (ticket #4)