I'm a little surprised that this game didn't have a thread. Due to the recent interest in the game B mode of the game, I decided to try and improve
my old game B run. With sergio89's stage 5 trick, and using known techiniques to manipulate fire rings on stage 1, I was able to shave off 41 frames from that run!
Here's the .fcm. Here are the details:
*I saved 14 frames on stage 1 by using the same method of manipulating the fire rings as the published run does. By moving 1 frame back when the ring X subpixel is <108, I push the fire rings slightly forward. By doing this trick 4 times, I am able to jump through the fire ring around frame 2500.
*I lost 1 frame between stage 1 and 2 because I end stage 1 with 10 more points.
*I gained 1 frame between stage 2 and 3 because I end stage 1 with 10 less points.
*I saved 1 frame on stage 3 due to getting better "randomness" (i.e. start the level with a better value of RAM address $0052).
*Using sergio89's stage 5 strategy, and optimizing it, I saved 26 frames on stage 5. That's 7 faster than sergio89's run. It turned out that RAM address $0099 plays a big role here - the trick is to avoid holding down right while swinging on the first rope, this will make $0099 have a lower value, which in turn will make the rope turn around sooner, which allows me to jump to the next rope slightly sooner.
While I'm already talking about this game B run, perhaps we should discuss whether or not a game B run should obsolete the published run. If you have an opinion on this, please make your voice heard in this thread so we can come to a conclusion eventually. :)
