Wow, so for the past four days I've been polishing and repolishing the first level, but I haven't really made much headway. I've learned a few things though, while comparing my new video against my old one:
- Flying takes up several extra frames, and so staying on the ground and killing enemies in your way (as long as there aren't too many to cause lag) is faster. It looks nice to only fly when necessary. This also makes for a somewhat more entertaining video. Unfortunately, opting to walk instead of fly seems to desynch my hippo fight no matter what I do, so no frames savable there, at least from what I can see. If I knew a little bit more about debugging, I could try to see what exactly causes the desynch. I have a feeling it has something to do with the way the game "bumps" Firebrand up onto a ledge when I'm flying at it a few pixels lower than the ledge (this happens twice, right when I collect the 20G and right when I'm flying over the last platform to hippogryph).
- The other major thing I discovered is that the floating platforms are very slightly manipulatable, especially the fourth (I think fourth) one, which I have been able to manipulate to appear about 35 frames earlier than normal. Frustratingly enough, this desynchs the Arma fight. I have tried to find alternate ways to defeat him, since he's easier to manipulate, but I can't seem to finish him off on the ground anymore. I've gotten him about an inch above the ground while delivering the last blow, but never quite as low as i got him in the previous video. The time it takes for him to flap his wings once takes a little more than 35 frames, cancelling out the saved frames from manipulating the platform and still making my first video still the faster of the two.
- I guess in my previous video, I wasn't hitting Y at the right times during the dialogue, and so I just alternate Y and Start to save frames there, except during the first dialogue with Arma, which I kept 3 frames longer, since this too seemed to desynch my Arma battle if I saved those 3 frames.
- After defeating Somulo the first time, depending on where you're standing, Firebrand will jump through the door at different times. Optimizing this only saves up to 10 frames or so. Oddly enough, I couldn't improve this from my previous video, because I happened to be standing in the right place in both videos.
In theory, I can save about 40-50 frames. In reality it looks like I can only save about 5 unless I can figure out why boss battles desynch. >.<
If you must watch the new video, which saves a meager 5 frames, this is it:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1028714405/Demon%27s%20Crest%20%28US%29.smv
I'll be working on the (hopefully) less frustrating 2nd level next. This will probably be my final run of the first level, unless someone wants to try to help me figure out why the boss battles are desynching.
