Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Link to videoBK2 File (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
The start of this stage isn't much different than the first. The monkeys aren't required kills to clear a path, but they like to follow you around and their deaths help reduce lag slightly. The creepy pagoda geisha snake things get ignored because they blast out a wide arc of lag-inducing fireballs when hit.
The first vertical section is a little ugly. It's filled with a large number of laggy enemies, but most importantly, it introduces the Tengu. They're easily one of the biggest optimization hurdles for the first half of this level. They cause a decent amount of lag, so they should be dealt with ASAP. Unfortunately, they like to get knocked off-screen and occasionally waste time being invulnerable up in the air. To add further insult to injury, you can damage them as they're first dropping onto the level, but sometimes they will reset their health when they land. Just terrible.
The two you encounter in this section kind of stick you in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation on account of their horrible spawn locations. They're right at the edges of the screen and are already planning to fly right off of it. Instead of waiting around in an area that's already laggy without them, I opt to just double dash through. Keeping them off-screen at least reduces their impact on lag.
The first cyclops is a piece of cake at 1024 hp, though juggling the Tengu to keep them off-screen makes things a little tricky. Eventually they stop getting knocked back by shots and swoop in to fire. Fortunately they waited to do this until I had both them and the boss very nearly dead.
The next horizontal section has monkeys and bamboo seedlings out in force. It's nasty laggy, but viable kills that don't keep you waiting around are scarce, so time is best spent setting up a very precise double dash past the final seedling blockade towards the bomb.
Unfortunately the stage is a little too eager to move upward on the next transition to vertical, so I'm forced to anchor Rocky near the bomb while I kill the Tengu plus the homing seedlings that just followed the dash. Of course, one Tengu plays hard to get at the very bottom edge of the screen, so I'm forced to wait briefly for him to circle around before I can finish it off. The bamboo miniboss won't spawn unless all Tengu are dead.
I'm not happy with having to briefly halt my forward momentum again for that Tengu, but try as I may, I couldn't find a good way around it. Waiting back near the bottom would have brought that Tengu back in the air (requiring more waiting) and walking further up would have put him swooping across the bottom of the screen and/or up in the air again.
Fortunately, that's the last of the difficult-to-optimize sections, so now we can have some fun. This starts with sprite delay glitching the bamboo miniboss and a quick bomb kill. He's got 1792 HP and his susceptibility to bombs is a bit odd. If you hit him with a bomb while he isn't attacking, he'll soak up nearly all of the damage with his arms. However, if you wait until he starts shooting out the seedlings, he'll take up to 1600 damage. I was hoping for more damage, but his skinny hitbox seems to be preventing that. Regardless, there's just enough time before the seedling attack for Pocky to make up the difference, so it went about as fast as it would have with a more potent bomb anyway.
EDIT: I was mistaken on this boss's damage-taking strangeness. The arms and attack animation have nothing to do with it. Instead, this boss has a one-time animation with abnormally long invincibility that occurs following the first hit. Dealing the normal shot portion of the damage first and then letting loose a 1600 damage bomb is still optimal as far as I can tell, but I figured this would be worth updating for the sake of accuracy in case anyone goes back to read this.
Right after the bamboo miniboss is a trio of Tengu who are finally kind enough to spawn in a position that lends itself to killing all three immediately. The upcoming canyon area is easily the most crowded and laggy area of the stage, so it's imperative that they all die here. Once that's done, a well placed dash (credit to Mr_K and PJ again for this one) makes short work of the canyon and brings me right up to the second cyclops. This one has the same HP and similar behaviors to the first, though the cramped area and his stronger predisposition towards movement (like occasionally charging to the bottom of the screen) add a little bit more complexity.
Next up is everybody's favorite raft auto-scroller. Not much to do here but play around and show off a bit. A small number of extraneous lag frames are spent from this point until the end of the level, but I think the entertainment routines that cause them are more than worth it. The video can generally speak for itself (especially if you watch the bk2 at 50-75% speed), but there are a handful of interesting technical points to note:
Kappas:
-- Kappas maintain the same life total from shore to raft, so if you damage them before they jump in, it will stick. However, if they grab you, they regain all of their health.
-- You can still perform any move while being grabbed, but any attacks will go directly to the kappa grabbing you.
-- The more kappas grab you, the stronger their total pull. You will overpower 1, break about even with 2, and quickly lose with 3.
-- If a kappa grabs Rocky and then Pocky walks into them, the kappa will switch over to Pocky. This doesn't work the other way around.
-- Reflected kappa crowns can do up to 32 damage.
-- It's very nearly impossible to kill a kappa before it jumps into the water. As the video shows, a well timed kappa crown can make it happen, but otherwise, with normal shots alone, you're stuck 1-2 shots away from a kill at best.
Bomb thrower:
-- 2048 HP, but not worth a bomb since you still have to ride all the way to the boss no matter how fast he dies.
-- The bomb thrower's bombs do 32 damage if reflected. Telling him to stop hitting himself repeatedly ends the fight about 20 frames earlier.
-- The targeted areas of thrown bombs does not appear to be manipulable, as the bomber has a set routine before he disappears.
-- When the bomber dies, he throws a crown at you.
Misc:
-- The laws of physics don't always apply on the raft. You can stand just outside the edges of the raft just so long as it isn't the top edge. You passively move up and down, but your Y coordinate doesn't change. Sometimes there is zero collision detection between the player characters. Packages containing food mysteriously follow in your wake.
-- No clue why some crabs just don't pop out of their bubbles. Shots, bombs, and position all appear to have no effect.
-- The Mandolin Lady was the first bomb-dropping sage in the RNG rotation for this stage. Even if she wasn't, I still would have wasted the frames to get her for that dog.
-- It turns out you don't HAVE to jump while riding the dog. If you change direction within about 7 frames, it won't jump. If you face it in a diagonal direction, it will actually slide along the ground in that direction until it jumps or you change direction.
-- I would have picked up the health in the chest at the second cyclops (to spend one less life on the boss), but it was much more entertaining to take it along for the raft ride (not to mention be able to zombie hover both characters).
-- The stage timer resets part-way through the boss. This appears to be related to one of the characters fully dying.
Finally, we're at the boss. As if the raft didn't take long enough, he's got one of the longest introductions in the game. No matter, at least the sprite delay glitch on him looks funny. He has 1280 HP and likes to go invincibile for a while after you deal 128 damage or more. As I explained in my previous post, I utilize melee and falling-off-the-raft respawns to do more than the intended 128 per cycle and cut the total number of cycles from 10 to 7. If you don't care to read that wall o' text, here's a quick breakdown:
4 cycles: 3 melee (12 dmg) -> 7 shots (124 dmg) -> 1 respawn (188 dmg)
3 cycles: 7 shots (112 dmg) -> 1 respawn (176 dmg)
(4 * 188) + (3 * 178) = 1280
Finally, in case you were wondering, killing the boss further to the left does not make the stage end faster. It's entirely determined by the time and health bonuses. Speaking of which... well, you'll see.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
That Octopus fight is amazing! I love it.
The middle section of this stage (I'll call it the bamboo forest I guess) is really horrible to optimize. Mr. K and I experimented with a large number of different dashes and strategies, and weren't really satisfied with any of them. The fastest method we found was to do an early double dash (like, right after the screen began scrolling), and then have me hang near the edge of the screen to collect the fire upgrade. Since I was farther behind, he was free to dash through without slowing down, since the wall of 5 sprouts doesn't spawn in time. I just damage boosted like crazy and suicided off a homing sprout so that my respawn killed the tengus.
Now, there are obviously a lot of concerns with doing that in a TAS, because I'm pretty sure my suicide stopped the scrolling (which would automatically make it slower than just burning half a second to kill the tengus with your method). That'd also mean I lose a life early, which means I can't do it on the Octopus. There are two health refills that you skip (after bamboo and after cyclops 2), which might offset that death a bit, but I am still highly doubtful that our method would be faster.
Might be worth testing, but your approach appears to be the best way to go. Good work!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Thanks, and yeah, that area is just awful to work with regardless of double dashing or not. A quick YouTube comparison puts me about 2-3 seconds ahead of the RTA on the horizontal bamboo forest, but I still want to go back and try a lower lag strategy similar to what you did. Since I'm skipping powerups and could add in more single dashes (which might not blow past the lag threshold quite as badly) there's a small chance that it could at least break even.
Damage boosting over the seedlings with both characters (so to keep the screen moving as fast as possible) would probably be fine without the double dash eating a heart. The one or two health items available afterwards (from RNGing the left chest correctly and the bamboo boss) would easily offset that as you described. The suicide to kill the Tengu could potentially be worthwhile but would somehow have to fit its 200+ frames neatly into overlapping with the requisite time spent grabbing the bomb and spawning the tengu, all the while not interrupting the screen's transition to vertical. It may require more waiting beyond those events, but then again, so did my strategy.
It's difficult to ballpark any reasonable numbers here without trying, so I'll probably give this a quick shot before moving on to the next level. If it does wind up saving time, I'll have a tough question to answer in whether or not I want to give up the health-related entertainment items (zombie hover + floating the chest behind the raft) or my plans to avoid all non-self-inflicted damage.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Thanks, and yeah, that area is just awful to work with regardless of double dashing or not. A quick YouTube comparison puts me about 2-3 seconds ahead of the RTA on the horizontal bamboo forest, but I still want to go back and try a lower lag strategy similar to what you did. Since I'm skipping powerups and could add in more single dashes (which might not blow past the lag threshold quite as badly) there's a small chance that it could at least break even.
In our finished RTA, we didn't use the suicide in the bamboo forest. We found that strategy on site, but didn't find any good setups (and a good suicide relied on getting a late homing bamboo to chase me and not him...which was rare). We abandoned that strat in the interest of just finishing a run before we had to leave AGDQ. It did save a lot of time over what we ended up doing, iirc. In fact, watching it back, we didn't even use a double dash in our finished run. There was a good setup for a double dash that started right after the screen locked (after cyclops) and ended by the upper present with the red upgrade. I wish there was an easier way for me to test stuff 2P so I could make a video. :( Sorry!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
So yeah, turns out the lower lag strat is noticeably faster. Managed to shave off 160 frames without even trying that hard.
All it took was killing two more enemies (monkey + homing seedling) and then just single dashing instead of double dashing. After damage boosting over the seedlings (cost = 1 heart) I send Pocky to grab the bomb. I figure this is viable (if need be) because she's fine to 1-shot bomb the first stage 3 boss and Rocky can then manipulate the Tengu into dropping mid-screen to be killed immediately without suicide or otherwise waiting.
Considering that this leaves me with the same amount of health as before, I'll refine this a bit further and then try to patch it in.
EDIT: Improved to 191 frames.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Yea Pocky's bombs are pretty pathetic compared to Rocky, but it's still enough to OHKO either lich fight in stage 3 and either phase of the vampire in stage 5. Rocky should use the bomb on any other boss.
I'm glad the new strat is faster! Lag manipulation is immensely difficult in this game. Keep up the good work!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
PJ wrote:
I'm glad the new strat is faster! Lag manipulation is immensely difficult in this game. Keep up the good work!
Thanks again.
Turns out it's not just lag manipulation that's difficult. It seems that cleanly patching in input changes in this game is nearly impossible. The moment you make a moderate change to a mid-stage routine, the game goes all chaos theory on you.
I couldn't match the subpixels perfectly (off by 1 on 3 of the 4 values D:) following the bamboo boss, so due to that and/or other RNG factors, the next set of Tengu spawns were off.
The Tengu had to be killed in a different position in a slightly different way, so that threw things off further.
Without being able to match the subpixels (off by 2-4 no matter what I do at this point) for the double dash, the end of the dash put me in a slightly different position for the boss.
Even if I was able to match it, the cyclops's behavior RNG has been rolled differently.
The raft would have to be redone as well since its RNG has changed (necessitating all new entertainment sequencing and the possible loss of the shore kappa kill), so I think I'm going to proceed without it for now to maintain my sanity. In the meantime, in case anyone is curious to see the difference up to the start of the raft, the BK2 file can be found here.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Stumbled upon an awesome way to save a little time on the approach to the 1st stage 3 boss. Should be easy to execute in RTA as well.
In the area with several bats right before the boss, execute a vertical double dash lined up with either of the areas marked in red.
This boss intro appears to operate on two distinct triggers/events. The first of which is the forced "walk towards the door" event. This only seems to trigger when both the screen has finished scrolling and the characters have passed a certain vertical threshold (roughly in line with the skeleton on the left). The second is the "door slam and boss spawn" event with its threshold being in line with the door.
With the vertical double dash moving much faster than the screen, you wind up well beyond the initial threshold before it finishes scrolling. If that double dash lands you in either of the recessed areas between the trees and the building, you get past the second threshold as well.
All of this gives you the fastest possible approach to the boss area and jumps straight into the boss intro without having to wait for the forced walk event. Even better, with the intro interrupting your double dash, you don't even have to pay the health cost.
EDIT: You actually do lose the health from the double dash, but the health display won't show it until something else updates it again.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
That looks like a intresting thing, would it work to dash to either places without losing time as a Solo player? or is double dash needed? it could save me a whole second or so :)
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Akisto wrote:
That looks like a intresting thing, would it work to dash to either places without losing time as a Solo player? or is double dash needed? it could save me a whole second or so :)
Unfortunately this trick relies on outpacing the screen scrolling rate which single player can't do very well. Even if you solo dash at the most optimal time, you'll still land somewhere between the first and second threshold. All I can recommend is getting as long of a dash as possible as late as possible and land in line with the door to minimize the forced walking time.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
After experiencing out how difficult it is to go back and change sections of levels, I figured I'd post these videos in a more segmented manner from now on so more eyes can see it earlier and point out anything I might have missed before I get too far along. It'll also make the wall o text to go with each level a bit easier to digest.
So without further ado, here's Stage 3 up through the 1st boss.
Link to video
Level notes so far:
Zombies are far and away the main point of lag optimization in this segment. They have a moderate amount of health but also despawn the moment they come into contact with you (or sometimes just on their own if you're lucky. I go slightly out of my way on the first double dash so I can bump into those two zombies. This keeps things below the lag threshold and is roughly 75 frames faster than ignoring them with a more direct dash into the next section. The pumpkin head ghosts are also somewhat laggy but have way too much health to be worth killing.
The hidden sage on this one is slightly weird in that you have to go a little out of your way to shoot the back side of a grave. It takes some more time than usual, but bombs are still too valuable to pass up. For the RTA crowd, I don't recall which one I did it with, I did once trigger the sage from the front side of the gravestone with an upgraded weapon. It could save you a few seconds, so it's probably worth experimenting with.
Following the sage, it is possible (but difficult) to set up another viable double dash, but with the abundance of laggy zombies, it's just faster to walk and kill them. I don't send Pocky ahead while Rocky waits for the bomb because it would trigger more zombie spawns. After that, it's just setting up the double dash to skip the boss intro that I described above. Unfortunately, the sprite delay glitch doesn't appear to be possible here due to the forced jump and slide movements, though you can at least mess with the text box.
In order to have enough bombs later on in the game, I can only afford to spend one on this stage (EDIT: see next post for bomb planning). Given the low HP and low lag of this first boss along with his manipulable nature, I decided to kill him normally. While he does start out at 1280 HP, he actually retreats the moment you bring him below 256 HP. After he disappears, another forced walk is triggered towards the re-opened door. Only one character has to be moved to the door in order to minimize the walk time.
I didn't spend a whole lot of time examining his behavior since he dies so fast, but he seems to follow a pattern like this:
-- Target a player and warp left or right to attack them.
-- If they're too close or too far, do the spinning blade attack.
-- If they're somewhere in-between, do the ice attack.
-- Warp again (not sure what dictates direction)
-- Do fire attack against the other player.
-- Repeat.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Also, speaking of bomb planning, it probably wouldn't hurt to share it here as well.
Rocky/Pocky bomb count per event
--------------------------------------------
0/0 Hard difficulty
STAGE 1
1/0 +1 @ sage (frog)
2/0 +1 @ chest (bridge)
1/0 -1 @ boss
STAGE 2
1/0 -0 @ cyclops #1
2/0 +1 @ chest (bamboo forest corner)
1/0 -1 @ bamboo miniboss (hit with normal shots first)
1/0 -0 @ cyclops #2
1/0 -0 @ bomb thrower
2/0 +1 @ sage (bomb thrower)
2/0 -0 @ boss
STAGE 3
3/0 +1 @ sage (grave)
3/0 -0 @ boss #1
2/0 -1 @ genie miniboss
3/0 +1 @ chest (canyon)
2/0 -1 @ boss #2
STAGE 4
3/0 +1 @ sage (falcon)
3/1 +1 @ chest (ship)
2/1 -1 @ boss
STAGE 5
3/1 +1 @ sage (furnace)
2/1 -1 @ boss (Phase 1)
STAGE 6
3/1 +1 @ chest (1st set of torches, right side)
2/1 -1 @ armor miniboss
0/0 -3 @ final boss (Rocky on Phase 1 + Rocky then Pocky on Phase 2)
I double checked all of the chests in stage 5 and couldn't find a 2nd bomb. I also combed through stage 6 for a sage, shooting everything from every angle and came up empty.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
i was hoping of you to find a position where i could use only 2 bombs to kill the last boss, i've managed to get the boss in red hp with 2 bombs atleast.
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
So, funny story about one of my earlier statements...
All of this gives you the fastest possible approach to the boss area and jumps straight into the boss intro without having to wait for the forced walk event. Even better, with the intro interrupting your double dash, you don't even have to pay the health cost.
It turns out you DO actually pay the health cost. The health counter just doesn't get updated to show this. The moment you get hit or spend another heart in a super/double dash, the health display will get updated to show the proper amount.
Akisto wrote:
i was hoping of you to find a position where i could use only 2 bombs to kill the last boss, i've managed to get the boss in red hp with 2 bombs atleast.
Unfortunately that will be a bit difficult with bombs hitting 2000 damage only under the most ideal of conditions and the boss having 4096 life. From my previous experimentation while planning this route, I've only been able to hit 1800 per bomb so far. I'll still try to improve that number, but even if it's possible, it will likely require a degree of precision that wouldn't be reliable in RTA.
That said, once I get to the genie, I may need to reevaluate whether or not it would be faster to use a bomb there or save it for the final boss. On one hand, bombing away the final boss statues takes care of 1040 damage (640 on each statue + 400 to the boss) and saves the delays from having to dodge fireballs from the statues and (likely) at least one attack from the boss himself. On the other hand, it doesn't appear possible to kill the genie (even with some manipulation) without waiting through at least one disappear/reappear cycle, so avoiding that wait and burning through all 1536 of his HP with a bomb might be a better play.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Decided to bomb the genie (and updated the bomb planning list above to match). After seeing how long the disappear/reappear takes and factoring the time difference in damage being done between the two bosses, it's about 175 frames faster. This number doesn't take into account the potential time lost while dodging additional attacks from the final boss, but I really don't think it will cost 175 frames. That, and the number is slightly on the pessimistic side with how I estimated the non-bomb genie kill.
So here's the next section:
Link to video
I revised how I approached the door after the first boss after I learned about the "hidden" HP loss of interrupted super/double dashing.
I originally considered just double dashing around wildly to kill the bats, but flawlessly knocking them around into each other wasn't as difficult as I thought and it felt more entertaining. I save 5 frames with the double dash at the door because it turns out it can get you past the screen transition threshold a little earlier than if you were to approach it otherwise. Regardless, both characters are needed at the door to proceed.
The genie is relatively easy to bomb to death and there are several positions it can work from, so it might be a valid RTA option if you have a bomb to spare. Even if you don't quite get the bomb right, chances are you'll still get him down to 135 HP, which can easily be dished out before he warps to another pot. Again, both characters are needed at the door to proceed, though the little dash trick from the previous transition doesn't appear to work here.
I also included what little I have so far of the canyon area so far mostly because I stumbled across an amusing (but slow) way to open chests. The rest of this level should move pretty quick.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Hahaha, I remember when Mr. K and I were playing, and we were pushing that basket around when it suddenly opened and I walked into the powerup. That was a tough lesson to learn. I'm glad it made it into the TAS. :P
I agree with bombing the Genie, and I love the way you handled the bat room! You are making excellent progress. Keep up the great work!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Stage 3 complete!
(jump to 1:30 if you've already seen the 1st and 2nd part videos)
Link to video .BK2 file (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
Even though it didn't take long to put this together, it was still an interesting area to work with due to the canyon shifting mechanics. Though try as I might, I couldn't beat the distance per shift cycle that you'd see in a RTA. Since the shifts are THE worst sources of lag in this area and I had some spare time between cycles, I optimized what I could. Some strategic pauses or 1-2 frame stops while walking during a shift saved at least 50 lag frames in this area.
On an unrelated note, there's also some wonkiness to the canyon shifting cycles, like throwing off your positioning slightly when moving that can occasionally ruin a precise shot or bump you off the path if you walk too close to the edge. That, and the characters occasionally act like they're getting hit or crushed at times when bumping up against moving canyon walls. Sometimes they'll even warp a few dozen pixels if you move at the right time. Using these could provide some minor entertainment to fill the time between cycles, but I wanted to keep moving as quickly as possible so I didn't bother this time around.
The 2nd worst lag offender is the jesters. Fortunately, they seem to follow a global timer of sorts for their move + attack pattern that applies before they even get on-screen. By carefully timing my approach to each of them, I didn't have to suffer through the lag of their attack.
I also tried to come up with a good place to burn a double dash but couldn't find one. There might be potential to do it right before the boss, but the additional lag or wait it would require would very likely be too detrimental. Instead, I just decided to take care of it while waiting for the boss to finish dying.
Not much to say about the boss itself since he easily goes down with just one bomb. The sprite delay glitch unfortunately doesn't seem to work on this encounter with him either (despite there being no forced movement beforehand).
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Ughhhh I wish I remember what Mr. K and I were testing years ago. We came up with a few double dashes at the section at 1:56, but it looks like your seam walking would be even faster than those. I honestly don't think we were close to skipping any cycles with the dashes, but this was a long time ago.
I really love your lag management in this section! The playaround/dancing keeps this really entertaining too. You are doing fantastic work! Keep it up!
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
PJ wrote:
Hahaha, I remember when Mr. K and I were playing, and we were pushing that basket around when it suddenly opened and I walked into the powerup. That was a tough lesson to learn. I'm glad it made it into the TAS. :P
I agree with bombing the Genie, and I love the way you handled the bat room! You are making excellent progress. Keep up the great work!
PJ wrote:
Ughhhh I wish I remember what Mr. K and I were testing years ago. We came up with a few double dashes at the section at 1:56, but it looks like your seam walking would be even faster than those. I honestly don't think we were close to skipping any cycles with the dashes, but this was a long time ago.
I really love your lag management in this section! The playaround/dancing keeps this really entertaining too. You are doing fantastic work! Keep it up!
Thanks again for the encouragement and interesting anecdotes about some of the nuances of this game from your and Mr. K's run.
I had opened a few chests previously while experimenting with double dashes, but didn't think much of it at the time since the dash itself deals damage. Popping it open by just walking was more or less an accident while just messing around waiting for the shift. If it makes you feel any better, I walked right into the powerup the first time too :-). Once I saw it was possible, it was too amusing to not include.
If anything, that area with the seam is where I think the best chance to skip a cycle might be, but the best I could manage was getting the leading character pushed into the green slime by the moving wall and promptly falling off the edge. I found a few double dashes in the seam area that worked okay, but unfortunately the lag they caused was a bit high and they didn't sync very well with the jester. I didn't really even consider trying to walk that edge until I started trying to single dash through, and even then, I half wasn't expecting it to work, so it made for another pleasant surprise at the time.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
So, I just realized I'm a bit of a dummy and didn't think about using zombie hovers in the canyon. I gave it a quick test and it looks like skipping a cycle just past the seam is possible (if a bit messy, at worst). Time to go revise :D
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Zombie hover is totally OP.
Link to videoUpdated BK2 file (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
Unfortunately Pocky had to sacrifice herself to make this happen because there's no room at all to edge-walk past that last skull. It's definitely worth it though, because skipping that cycle saved nearly 500 frames even with the additional lag.
See also: dying but not really dying at 0:45, thanks to the crazy interrupt properties of the green slime projectiles. Here's what I think is happening:
-- Green slime shoots projectile
-- Projectile starts to transition between flying through the air and hitting. In this state, the projectile disappears for 1-2 frames but is still possible to stop with melee. At the end of this time, anything the character is doing will be interrupted regardless of whether or not the projectile sticks.
-- I melee while squeezing through a very tight spot between the slime and the wall.
-- Rocky's hitbox shifts or grows as melee occurs, causing me to take damage from coming into contact with the slime.
-- The melee still counts towards stopping the projectile from sticking.
-- As mentioned before, even though it doesn't connect, the projectile still applies its canceling properties which halts both the melee animation and the death animation.
-- With the death animation unable to complete, Rocky proceeds through the rest of the level with 0 hearts. This is confirmed by him receiving no health bonus points at the end of the stage.
-- If Rocky gets hit again, he will still die.
All this aside, there are some really weird things that occur on this stage when you separate the characters between the shifting rocks and one of them dies. At one point, I was messing around with leaving Pocky behind and she died by way of jumping off the edge. In order to bring her back for the death animation, the screen has to shift down so she could drop back onto the level outside of the moving rock formation. While this was occurring, Rocky was able to leave the top edge of the screen. As I dashed upwards repeatedly, I saw his shadow loop through the non-moving screen 2-3 times before I fell off something and he returned to one of the pathway edges on the screen. I have no idea what to do with this or if it's even helpful (since the game partially relies on screen position for several triggers and it's not moving here), but it definitely warrants further investigation at a later date.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
This boss intro appears to operate on two distinct triggers/events. The first of which is the forced "walk towards the door" event. This only seems to trigger when both the screen has finished scrolling and the characters have passed a certain vertical threshold (roughly in line with the skeleton on the left). The second is the "door slam and boss spawn" event with its threshold being in line with the door.
With the vertical double dash moving much faster than the screen, you wind up well beyond the initial threshold before it finishes scrolling. If that double dash lands you in either of the recessed areas between the trees and the building, you get past the second threshold as well.
All of this gives you the fastest possible approach to the boss area and jumps straight into the boss intro without having to wait for the forced walk event. 
