This game is underrated.
Here are some quick notes from my RTA runs in 2014:
* Nearly all of the bosses except Zeed have no RNG
* Water magic is busted as you move faster and can perform more shuriken spread shots quickly.
* Having a high score multiplier increases your speed too, there are some strats that use the non-power up weapon to build meter faster.
* End of stage 5 boss and Zeed have a death animation skip
*The Afterburner segment has enemy hurtboxes that appear before the enemies themselves allowing early hits, we need a hitbox viewer to verify optimal timings quickly
*Stages 1 & 4 have intentional deaths to regain ninpo right after a checkpoint.
The emulator bizhawk has a problem with tilt/motion controls** that's used for stage 4, that part is an autoscroller though and my RTA run takes an intentional death before the end of the submarine cave segment to regain ninpo to take out the helicopter boss by using earth magic.
** according to people TASing other games.
Stage 8 is hard to get a perfect RTA run because there is only 1 power up and that's at the start of the level, I also remember the lack of ninpo so you can't go from start to finish with just 1 water magic. So the next best approach back then was to die near the end of the platforming segment to allow us to reuse water magic.
There is also the challenges mode which fortunately doesn't require tilting controls.
https://youtu.be/Va1loRQNLXo?si=I2UlgvXh9byubdOe
That was done on Citra in 2020 before having easy access to view frame counter to get a more polished run.
Optimal movement:
Originally, RTA runs could just get alway with using water magic and run to hold right but with closer inspection, performing a slide to a jump constantly is faster.
The following images are moving the character for 444 frames, all of them have the x0 score bonus so no extra speedboost from that part.
Water Magic = No | Movement method: Sprint, no slides | This is the slowest when you exclude just sliding only. It would require another 156 frames to get to where the Fastest movement method has reached in the same amount of time.
Water Magic = No | Movement method: Slide > Big jump | this is the 2nd slowest.
Water Magic = No | Movement method: Slide > tap jump | this is the 4th fastest
Water Magic = Yes | Movement method: Sprint, no slides | this is the 3rd fastest.
Fortunately, frame 444 occurs before slowing down due to landing on the ground.
Water Magic = Yes | Movement method: Slide > Big jump | this is the 2nd fastest.
Water Magic = Yes | Movement method: Slide > tap jump | this is the fastest method
but only just. Tap jump method touched the flames 6 frames earlier than the 2nd fastest form of movement and 190 frames earlier than the slowest form of movement.
