Little Lancelot is an NTSC port, made in 2019, of the original NES game The Legend of Prince Valiant, apart from the difference in framerate, which makes this game run faster, there's no other differences with the original, which is why I decided to TAS this version instead.
Game Objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes intentional damage
- Takes intentional deaths
Tech
Avoid jumping
Each jump costs 2 frames due to the animation of jumping stopping movement for 2 frames, so its important to avoid jumping when possible.
The score screen
Between levels, a score screen counts the resources you ended the level with, like health, tokens, lives, etc.
Because of this, its important to end the levels with as little resources as possible.
A death is taken on Level 3 for this reason specifically, since the death itself loses some time in the level, but without that live you gain back the time in each consequent score screen. That's the only death that is taken for that reason tho, couldn't find any other. There is one that could work at the end of level one, where if you die after the second bat boss, the scroll continues while dying and puts you slightly ahead in the level, but since dying refills your health, that loses enough time in the score screen to make it counterproductive.
RNG manipulation
In this game, RNG is dictated by a few variables that change value every frame, the value at which is changes tho can be manipulated by player input, so it can be changed easily by adding some Selects at certain frames to get what you need.
Not everything can be manipulated this way tho, some things, like barrels, have set cycles that are not RNG dependant.
Jump off ladders
On Level 5, there's some spots where I jump off ladders in a weird way that looks suboptimal, this is because you can't jump off ladders if you are too high up the ladder and there's a platform, but if you jump too low you don't reach the platform you are jumping to.
It turns out there's a pixel, where its just right and if you grab the ladder and jump off of it at that sliver, you make it.
There is one ladder in Level 5 that this is not done, which is because that platform has more collision, so the sliver doesn't exist there.
High jump on ropes
You can grab higher than you'd think on ropes, you do slide back down quickly if you grab high, but if you jump off you do a normal jump, but higher up, which can be beneficial. Jumps in this game are short so most of the time its not that useful, in Level 3, for example, there's many situations where it could be useful, but the ceiling is way too low.
Levels Overview
Marsh
A simple level, for the first two screens there's some obstacles tied to cycles, so I kill some enemies to preserve health and avoid jumping in other sections.
The bat minibosses are manipulated to be defeated as early as possible, turning around takes time, so the first bat is manipulated to have a pattern that doesn't need you to turn around, in the second bat tho, since you need to make the stone platform cycle mid fight, defeating the bat without turning around is not possible.
Then, the boss of the level, some kind of dragon thing. It's manipulated to stay close to the ground, since its not possible to shoot projectiles while jumping.
Forest
This level is one of two shooter levels, in this one, the game scrolls by using the Dist resource, which you get by shooting enemies, or bonuses, and there's also certain enemies that will stop the scroll until you kill them. Enemies also have some RNG as to when exactly they decide to get out of cover, so its manipulated so the enemies that stop the scroll appear as early as possible.
Also, you can only shoot after the reload animation of the previous shot is done, so it's importnat to make the first shot as early as possible and make sure you move the cursor over to the next target to shoot it at the first frame possible.
Viking
This level is much more maze like than the last, and introduces one hit traps.
In the bear fight, it could be possible to make the bear stay on the center by making it do the dodge animation, in which you can hit it with the B attack, tho it does less damage than the A attack. This is not worth tho, since when the bear dies, it moves to the left and falls off, so it's better to kill the bear as left as possible. This fight and the viking fight are done to open locked doors, btw.
In the viking fight, it doesn't have that problem the bear had, so if it were possible to make him stay in the center it could be better, but that's not possible, where he moves is not set by RNG, but by where he is and where you are, you can only manipulate the delays it makes and what attacks he does.
Ship Battle
Second shooter level, in this one you are in a ship and can shoot out of multiple cannons, you can move between cannons by pressing L/R + B, tho there's a delay after shooting a cannon where you can't move between cannons.
In this level, when a ship is shot, a new ship spawns on one of the edges of the screen, which ship and where exactly depends on RNG, so its manipulated so a ship that can be destroyed by only one shot and where it can be shot as early as possible appears every time.
It's also important to get all our cannons destroyed too, so some delays are necessary, since cannonballs deload when they go offscreen.
This level is also the reason the rerecord count is so high.
Camelot
In this level, a new tye of enemy is introduced, those which, if you bump into them, they hit you and push you back, there two kinds of these, the knights with lances, which can be jumped over, and soldiers that shoot projectiles, these can't be jumped over, so killing them is necessary
There is an instance, where there's so many stuff loaded in, that one of these enemies that can't be jumped over loads late, enough for us to walk past him
This level also features two intentional deaths, this are done just to warp back to the entrance of the room, tho less lives also save some time in the score screen, which is nice.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
Preference of official games over bootleg clones of those official games doesn't need to be explicitly mentioned, because it's the exact meaning of the first bullet point. We don't want rules to be too wordy. And it doesn't mean preference of official releases matters for any other unlicensed games, because the rest are not clones of similar official ones on the same platform. Even unofficial ports to other platforms are fine.
