Submission Text Full Submission Page
First off, I'd like to thank Hanzou, for finding a better strategy at Pro B. After shooting two enemies in pro B, the lag is virtually killed, and Hanzou's tactic shows that is actually 40 frames faster.
Of course I also knew about the lag, and the fact that it was stopped by shooting two enemies... but the route I had was pretty good, and first shooting 2 enemies would result in having to walk more squares. Also, the first two enemies would regenerate faster, causing trouble later on... these 2 things kept me from actually testing it. Fortunately Hanzou did, and he came to an improvement of 40 frames.
I changed Hanzou's route a little, by shooting the first 2 enemies in a different order, and picking up the hearts faster. I also had to change the route in the upper part of the level a bit to luck manipulate the enemies movement. At the end, my final version of Pro B is 17 frames faster than Hanzou's, so the total improvement is 57 frames. All other levels are played equally fast as before.
(THE REST OF THE SUBMISSION TEXT IS A DIRECT COPY FROM MY PREVIOUS SUBMISSION)
  • FCEU
  • Uses passwords (It's the only way to play the pro levels)
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck (enemy movement)
This movie plays the 4 pro levels in Lolo2 as fast as possible. The pro levels can be accesed by entering "PROA", "PROB", "PROC" or "PROD".
After Randils Adventures of Lolo 2 run, he made a test movie of the pro levels. Hanzou pointed out a level that could be improved, which gave Randil the motivation to really make a pro levels run. Ever since Randil made his test movie I wanted to make a pro level run sometime, and Randils pro level run made me decide to start it.
Both Randil and Hanzou continuously found improvements on the levels today, which gave me even more motivation. So I need to thank Randil and Hanzou, or I wouldn't have finished this movie today.
As for the actual strategy (and I don't want to sound selfish), I found out about everything myself. The movie improves:
  • 8 frames on selecting PROA
  • 723 frames on PROA, you probably need to know this level to understand what's going on (also read what Randil wrote in his submission text about this level).
  • 4 frames on selecting PROB
  • 408 frames on PROB, when I was working on this level, Randil posted a strategy that had the same idea as my strategy. Later Hanzou improved Randils strategy, but the version I had already finished was even a little faster than Hanzou's.
  • 6 frames on selecting PROC
  • 31 frames on PROC
  • 4 frames on selecting PROD
  • 1605 frames on PROD, today, Hanzou improved Randils stategy on PROD significantly. After that, Randil made an even better improvement, and then Hanzou saved a few squares on that version. I knew a small improvement at the beginning, but after having done that small change, I realized the entire enemy movement and such were different. So basically, Randil's and Hanzou's tactics were very good, but useless to me, since the whole level had to be played different. At the end, I managed to save a whopping 1605 frames on this level alone, making this level about 300 frames faster than the latest version Hanzou posted.
At first the levels seemed very bad for speedrunning, but now, there is almost no waiting time, and in this short movie various tricks are displayed.
Enjoy...
Baxter

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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #875: Baxter's NES Adventures of Lolo 2 in 02:25.42
Joined: 11/11/2004
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They just keep on getting better, it seems... :)
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Bahaha 3 different versions in a little over a day. I managed to beat the first three PRO levels on the actual cart back in the day, but never the fourth. Thanks for this!
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Joined: 10/14/2005
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Well done, again. I think it would make sense to publish this once the main Lolo 2 TAS is available as well. Hopefully this will motivate Randil to finish up the next revision of his regular levels run. =) -hanzou
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Joined: 5/31/2004
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Well, the regular levels run can still be improved by alot. Randil knows this aswell, and it might take some time to fully optimize the regular levels, since there are alot more of them. It took me 5 versions to finally get the Lolo 1 run I recently submitted... I wouldn't be suprised if something similar would happen to the regular levels run on lolo 2.
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Joined: 4/20/2005
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Location: Norrköping, Sweden
hanzou wrote:
I think it would make sense to publish this once the main Lolo 2 TAS is available as well. Hopefully this will motivate Randil to finish up the next revision of his regular levels run. =)
Is that some sort of hint or something? :) But actually you're right, I'm very motivated to do more Lolo 2 TAS at the moment. The thing with Lolo runs in general is that it's very hard to make one all by yourself, since people have so many different strategies. I think we proved this very well with this run, with me, hanzou and Baxter working hard on optimizing this run from 3.13 to this amazing 2.25. So with Lolo runs I think that if a few people are cooperating on a run, it can be vastle improved. The same goes for the regular Lolo2 run, most of the strategies are my own on that one, but since I'm not the best Lolo2 player nor the smartest person in the world, It's more than possible that a lot of levels can be improved. To sum things up, It's likely that I will improve the Lolo2 run very soon, since there is already quite a Lolo hype going on, and I would be very happy if anyone finds out more timesavers in the movie. I already know of a few that could cut down the time by around 12 seconds or so, but every little timesaver, even just 5 frames or so, is very welcome. I'll look into improving the Lolo2 run more tomorrow, and feel free to post any timesavers in the Lolo2 submission thread. :)
Player (20)
Joined: 10/14/2005
Posts: 317
Sup. Couple more concept demos here, and now that I've tried all four stages hopefully I won't be so addicted to these pro levels anymore. :) I agree the regular levels are a greater challenge altogether due to their quantity. New strategy on PROA: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/263/Lolo2-PROA_golbottom.fcm. By making Gol reappear at the bottom the second time, you can shoot him again sooner. Although PROA in is completed here only 7 frames faster than in Baxter's recent submission, much of the first part in this demo is completely unoptimized (including a totally useless wobble at the start as you'll see). If you can make an optimized version that better times Gol's reappearance it will be at least a few whole seconds faster. In addition, if the timing works right you can save another second by using Don Medusa to cover one of Gol's spots, and you could maybe save a couple more seconds if later parts sync better with Don Medusa's movements. The main drawback of this new strategy is that it removes the stylistic moment when Lolo fires away an egg while running straight at Don Medusa. Minimizing lag on PROB: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/264/Lolo2-PROB_minimizelag.fcm. This takes the recent update a step further by killing the lag as early as possible. This movie is 48 frames faster than Baxter's recent submission, although since the difference is small and this time I had to play carefully with frame advance throughout, it's not clear whether this improvement comes mostly from minimizing lag or getting completely different (and more convenient) Alma movements. Both movies are rerecorded from Baxter's submission that this thread pertains to. -hanzou
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Wow, what can I say... AGAIN 2 great finds... I should really take a look at all levels again, and see how to optimize your findings, and try if I can make some further improvements myself. Pro D is pretty random, so I might find something there. I'm very busy with other stuff upcoming week, so I'll work on it next weekend I think.
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
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Hey Randil, do you think we should start a new topic for a complete Adventures of Lolo 2 run where we try to get the best times by competition on a few levels at a time?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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That would be a pretty cool community project, actually. Imagine: You have the link to the work in progress so far, and have everyone experiment around and discuss how to make the next level the fastest it can go. Everyone could make their own version of the level using different strategies, and then look at the other peoples' movies to see if they missed anything. The one who finally ends up recording the best run of the level gets it added to the movie and recieves credit, and the final completed movie would have many credits.
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CtrlAltDestroy, hanzou started such a thread recently, here it is: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3029 And I agree totally with you, CtrlAltDestroy, I think that the endresult will be really awesome if this is an open project in which anyone who wants can participate. Even if you only have an idea for one level but are clueless on the other ones, you can still get your strategy imlpemented in the run. Cooperation on puzzlegames really pays off in my opinion! So if anyone has an idea on the regular Lolo 2 levels that isn't in my current run, go to that thread and post your ideas! :)