Submission #9184: Potato's Flash A Koopa's Revenge 2 in 04:02.03

A Koopa's Revenge 2 is a Super Mario fan game set in a parallel universe where Bowser and company are the good guys, while Mario and his pals are pure evil. After defeating Mario and his cohorts in the first game, Koopa sets off to a distant land where a kidnapped Bowser is being held by a mysterious robed figure.

This TAS features an improvement over the World Record by 240 frames, or 8 seconds, through more optimized movement and menuing, as well as a few strats being implemented over the RTA record.

This run uses the 2.9 version of the game, being the most recent one released by the developer, in which he patched most of the glitches present in the previous version. However, there are still a few that have slipped through the cracks but they aren't present in this run, unfortunately. One change which impacts this run is that the final boss takes 1 more cycle to die compared to the 2.0 version, and sadly there is no way to speed up that fight. The pipe that takes you to the underground section in the first stage was changed, which saves a few frames. One final change is that 2-3 features an autoscroller after entering the door for the first time, which takes 206 frames to finish. Although this version is slower than the 2.0 version, I chose it because it is the most popular amongst RTA runners of this game.

The run begins in the airship, after you select the character that you want to play as. Ultimately, it doesn't make a difference which one you choose, it's all up to personal preference. I immediately pause and exit the level in order to get to the main map and enter the first stage, 1-1. I complete 1-1 via the secret exit, which takes me to 2-2. 2-2 is completed normally to get to 2-3, where I take the normal exit again. In 2-4 I take the secret exit which takes me to 0-1, where I take the secret exit again to warp to the last level, 5-3.

This is technically the first stage of the run which is supposed to act as a tutorial, but thankfully you can exit without losing any lives or the power-up state that you're in, so I exit the level right away and select 1-1.

The first actual level of the run. For the majority of this level and for subsequent levels as well I use the rolling ability. The reason for it is because even though it doesn't grant you any extra speed over walking normally, you have the advantage of being able to jump in the air while in ball form at any given point. Before entering the pipe that takes me to the underground section I do a big jump over the question mark blocks to have as much downwards velocity as possible, which saves a few frames over falling normally. In the underground section, I use the moving platform to jump off of and get on top of the wall to reach the secret exit.

This is a pretty straightforward stage, I run forward and enter a pipe which takes me to an underground swimming section. In order to gain a lot of height quickly while swimming, I touch the ground for 1 frame and by pressing jump and holding Up I launch upwards with a very high vertical speed. I use this to slow down as little as possible. At the end of this section there is a pipe which takes me right at the end of the stage, however, on the staircase there is a spiked enemy and there is no way to avoid it without slowing down, and because I need the power-up for 2-4, I grab a vegetable from the ground and throw it in order to clear the enemy and finish the level.

With precise positioning it's possible to jump in between the boo ring, so I do that in order to reach the door without going under the boos. Then, on the second trip, I take the same door again, and after clearing a secret room, I arrive at the end of the stage. This stage features one of the biggest timesaves over the World Record, because it doesn't go for any of the boo ring jumps.

First, I begin the level by backtracking to the sand area and enter a pipe which takes me to another underground section. By being in ball form I am able to jump before touching the ground and enter the pipe faster. Once I exit this section, I arrive at the end of the level, but I backtrack again all the way to the beginning of this room, picking up a leaf power-up in the process, because there is a pipe there that leads to the secret exit. In the final area, I avoid taking damage from the enemies and complete the level. This ultimately allowed me to skip the fire flower in the previous stage, which the World Record run gets to damage boost through the enemies in this level.

This is a secret stage which resembles the level 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros. I take the same pipe as in that game to warp to the end of the level, and I jump over the flagpole and enter the castle door which allows me to use the secret exit and warp to the final stage.

This is the last level of the game. Thankfully, just like all the previous levels, it also features a shortcut which skips most of the stage. By jumping on an enemy I am able to clear the wall on the right and enter a secret pipe. This takes me to a room containing 2 moving platforms which basically acts as a glorified autoscroller. Once the top platform is in the right spot, I jump and use the flight ability from my leaf to reach the question mark blocks at the end. I use the rolling ability again to enter the last pipe early. After entering the door, I arrive at the boss room, which features 4 phases. I take one final door and enter the final boss fight against big Mario. This is yet another glorified autoscroller, because there is no RNG involved and there are also no ways to speed up the fight, so I try to entertain while waiting.

As I was working on a different TAS for this game, I discovered that you can clip into the corners of certain blocks which therefore allows you to clip through the block entirely. This motivated me to work again on the Any% TAS and I managed to save a total of 84 frames over the current submission.

2-2 features the biggest change of the entire run. At the end of the level, I perform a corner clip into the staircase in order to fall down into the area that contains the Spiny power-up. In order to get out of this area I use a reverse wall jump which allows me to clip through the blocks and reach the end of the level. Even though I lose 0.5 seconds over the standard 2-2 ending, the timesave is made back up from having the Spiny power-up. This power-up allows you to accelerate to running speed instantly from a dead stop in the direction you're facing, which saves 4 frames over walking normally until you get to running speed. However, since there are so many cases throughout the run where I have to get to running speed, this results in a net timesave of roughly 44 frames.

Some smaller improvements include a different menuing strategy to reach 2-2, which saves 23 frames, faster menuing for entering 5-3 which saves 16 frames and also a 1 frame improvement for the menuing needed to enter 0-1.

Potato: I would suggest using frame 6666 as the thumbnail.

Potato: The .swf for the game can be found on the official website of the developer.

Potato: Huge thanks to GamerMate for helping me out with optimizations, especially for levels 2-2, 2-3 and 5-3. Without his World Record or his ideas for timesaves, this run wouldn't have been possible for me to make.

eien86: Claiming for judging.

eien86: I managed to remove some frames at the end of the movie, so assuming permission from the author, I'm replacing it. I renounce any co-authorship attributions.

eien86: The revenge of the koopa! This is a cool little anti-mario game. The author beats the game ~8 seconds faster than the current RTA WR. The movie looks sufficiently optimized, although I was able to shave ~0.5 seconds at the end with a better positioning (not claiming co-authorship).

Accepting to Standard

eien86: Replacing movie with a new one that the author provided and then I trimmed the ending inputs again.

despoa: Processing... To future encoders, for this run to sync, the argument --no-gui must not be used.