Post by josh_l.

Here I am again with El Viento, over 30 seconds faster this time around:

Gens .9f
aims for fastest time possible
takes damage to save time
abuses programming glitches
Genre: platform.

More info about the game can be found at my first submission of it: right here!

Stage 1:

There's an obvious missed shot near the very start. However, it was intentional; somehow it affected the biker's movement so I could duck below it.
The four mobster cars are sort of a "mid-Boss" and must be exploded before you can continue. This time I get through them MUCH faster than I did in my first published run, though ideally, it should probably be timed so the fourth car explodes just as you reach the edge of the screen, if that's possible. Something to try in a third attempt, methinks.
BOSS: Only real strategies are to stay as close to it as possible, use the fire magic as much as possible, and to try to avoid shooting its projectiles as it takes up more time than just getting hit by them.

Stage 2:

this stage is just weird. Lots of the timesaving is done by jumping in the right place and trying not to jump any more than necessary.
The main improvement in this stage is I only need to jump once when crossing the broken bridge at the end this time; I dash across the rest of it. I also changed my strategy in the "spinning platfrom" area a little.
BOSS: She's one of the few bosses that can't be attacked constantly. She CAN be hit by two shots at once (a boomerang and fire magic) if timed perfectly, though. This is verrry hard. Once she's defeated, a dragon rescues her and carries her off. She's out of view as this happens in both my movies.

Stage 3:

I like the start of this stage 'cause my pre-emptive strikes of the first several enemies looks really cool. =) The fat guys are more annoying then they seem, because not only do they have a ton of hit points, but the bottles they throw have a wider collision field than they should, and they tend to push Annette back when they touch her. Compared to my previous movie, I managed to affect the direction they throw their bottles in a way that's easier to avoid.
The dragon mini-bosses are hard to optimize because it's hard to figure out how to affect their movements so they can die faster. I figured getting the dragon on the right to come out earlier would help, because you can't stop it from hiding for a few seconds. My most obvious error in the movie happens here; I thought I had hit the right dragon with my fire magic, but I actually hit one of the fireballs, which caused its hit points to increase. Arrgh! I didn't notice this until I got far into the run. Starting over just isn't an option with an emulator as tempermental as Gens, but I DO have a reason to make a 3rd attempt sometime later, anyway. Despite this error, I got through the mid-boss fight faster than in the previous movie anyway.
The water magic (given to you by the dragons) is needed to get past the fireballs, which is a pity since it's almost useless otherwise. Imagine how much time I could save if I could skip the boss fight entirely!
BOSS: The cell is really hard to have an optimal fight against, for obvious reasons. I tried to kill it without a single wasted shot this time, and it's hard to say if I succeeded in this area, but I DID kill him significantly faster than in my previous movie anyway. Should be noted that a bug in the game makes his life meter fluctuate depending on the type of attack used against him. It confused me at first 'cause I thought I was doing damage to him just by striking his "gel", but no, the red nucleus is indeed his only weak spot.

Stage 4:

I kick the Octopi area's ass this time, compared to the first movie! Just thought I'd say that. This time I destroy the hang gliders AND as many of the bombs they drop as I can, and slice right through all three OCtopi without getting knocked back.
If you're wondering, it IS necessary to kill the hang gliders. If you miss them, they follow you, continuing to drop bombs, which not only interferes with the OCtopi fights, but also creates enough sprites on the screen to slow the whole game down! Yikes!
The endless, bizarre warehouse area is the hardest level to optimize, period. Lots of precise jumping, dashing, and charging of special moves is involved! It felt really good to get this stage over with! I use a few new strategies in this attempt; you'll notice I go very slightly out of the way to collect two medicines on the way to replinish my health. This is why:
BOSS: The boss always unleashes an attack after being hit a certain amount of times. It's very hard to avoid and takes off a ton of damage. In the first attempt I had to pause a bit between attacks to keep from getting killed, but this time I had more health, and was able to keep the attacks pretty steady until I was a hit away from dying in the very end. I was also able to use the water spell! Yay!

Stage 5:

Stages 5-7 are rather short and boring compared to the previous four. The programmers must have ran out of time or something. This, combined with the fact that I really had the strategy down at this point the first time, made these three stages tough to optimize further. Between the three, I ended up shaving off three seconds. Oh well... it's better than nothing!
Unlike in the previous attempt, I kill all three plants this time. Go me.
BOSS: Special attacks don't harm it, and its bubbles will steal your boomerangs! Using the Fireball spell will destroy the bubbles and release them, though. In a time attack, with the help of slow motion, it's just a matter of avoiding his bubbles entirely, of course.

Stage 6:

Short but annoying. And it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to kill the boss faster. I tried to do a few things differently, and couldn't even shave off a second, but I'll take what I can get here. I do think the timing of the wind attack against the batch of guns before the boss came off almost perfect.
BOSS: Only boomerangs hurt it, and it can only be hurt inside its box, after the boxes stop moving. More or less a "brain-teaser" boss... but its movement is not random; it's static. After playing the game enough times, I pretty much had "right , left, right, right" memorized. ^^;

Stage 7:

Shorrrrt. The wind spell destroys everything. I still managed to find a couple ways to do things differently. Again, gaining even a second is an accomplishment here; the boss fight mostly helped me with that.
BOSS: Kind of annoying since he makes you wait at the start. Unlike in my previous attempt, I don't try to be entertaining or anything. That was just annoying, so I waited patiently this time. It turns out that just charging up the Homing spell and using it is the fastest way to kill him. It made the fight LESS fun to watch than it was in my previous attempt! But... It's faster. What can I say?

Stage 8:

Finally, one more long stage, though with a boring, repetitive layout compared to the others. The enemies are just plain irritating too. Bats pop out from nowhere and chase you, and the collision field of the spear guys is horrible.
Oh, but what's this!? Annette has discovered a new trick! When you see it, it may shock you! The trick caused me to finish the run five seconds faster than I expected to. Not bad at all!
I have to wait for an elevator in the second part of the stage, stalling the action for a few seconds. It's a real heartbreaker, but there's nothing that can be done about it.
BOSS: Restiana, the cutie you fought at the end of Stage 2, has become an unwitting sacrifice whose body becomes a vessel for this horrible spiky dragon thing. The movement of the last boss is completely preprogrammed and static, so forget about trying to affect its movement to keep it from hiding its weak spot below the ground like an annoying little coward. You got to make the best with what you got! The fireball spell really hurts, so basically I used it as much as possible, hitting him with weak attacks as I waited for my magic to charge (if I could). It's hard to beat this boss quickly due to its high hit points and aforementioned cowardly hiding, but I'm sure I did the best I could.

Truncated: I can't see why this hasn't been accepted yet since it's an improvement over a previously published version. So I'll do the right thing and put this on accepted in hope that someone will get to encoding it in the near future.

Congratulations on being my first accepted submission. :)

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