Optimized the damaging part and the boss of Area 3 - Old Capital. Should be faster than my old Snes9x WIP. I did accidentally clip off the track for a brief moment near the end, but the amount of slowing that resulted thankfully did not cost me any frames, so I left it in as I would rather keep my boss progress.
... And I made some progress into Area 4 - Grass Land. Halfway through, too! And that one "fluffy snowball" that looks like I missed, flying past me to the right is actually hit by my charged shot. There is a solid explosion sound, and my score increases, that's your clues.
The part I stopped at has these growing plant towers of sorts... Difficulties:
- These have 3 HP each
- The lowest segment can't be reached by normal shots
- A charged shot skips the HP check (1-hit kill) for upper segments, but does 2 damage to the lowest one
- I can "double hit" with a charged shot, but it requires particular timing
- The upper segments do not exist until I get real close
- And won't spawn if I destroy a lower one too quickly
- The 12 objects limit is reached very quickly by these things
- Oh, and I have more of those "fluffy snowballs" halfway through
Why, hello there, puzzle. I expect difficulties optimizing my score.