Death and Return of Superman is actually a comic book series that was very polemic when released, 4 characters try to take the mantle of Superman and a discussion about what he represents and what truly embodies the Superman concept? Is it hope for humanity? Is it fighting crime? Is it slamming people into walls in order to find hidden bonuses? Is it his DNA?
Ground combos have 4hits if you mash super fast, the last one being a knockdown. You cannot hit enemies at the same time and this is a huge problem in this game, managing multiple enemies, so if you see a thrown enemy or object hitting 2 guys it's because i delayed it enough they wouldn't get hit at the same moment.
If you stop mashing you can restart the combo, however the 4th hit against an enemy will always knock down... unless you hit another enemy, this means you can infinite combo if you have 2 enemies around you! In later stages, enemies are more agressive, so i just knock them down if they're costing too much time to manipulate into the infinite setup. Getting hit seems to affect this in a way that is not clearly understood as it seems to help or hinder the 4hit count for some fights in ways i cannot explain. In general, I try to avoid knockdowns so i can keep hitting enemies until they're dead.
In air fights, the hits are all the same and the only thing that matters is the 4hit rule. Supermen are faster in the air but they cannot into move into or out of the Z axis when flying. The jump attack is also a faster form of movement that is less costly in terms of startup.
The 4 superman are basically the same, but they have different throw animations. Upthrow is the same for all, slamming against walls and sometimes a faster finisher depending on position because it's extra damage might be enough to kill some enemies. Later stages the extra damage seems to be lower. The wall slamming was extensively tested because there are items drops along the stages and because of this I found more super attacks to use in the TAS. The unoptimized movement in between the fights is actually RNG manip to avoid getting hit or making enemies come to me instead of chasing them.
Only superman and superboy have good forward throws that launch the enemies as projectiles. Backthrows are more situational and similar for most Supermen and the downthrow is bad as hell for mostly everyone, can only be used if you have to wait anyway. The pummel is less costly since it puts the enemy right back at the floor.
Stage comments.
Enemies are more passive and easier to get grabs at the start.
Third stage has a boss horrible for RTA but we managed to avoid his knockdown moves and fight him almost like a normal enemy, not using super attack unnecessarily this is a huge improvement.
Flying enemies can be thrown if they're low enough but it will eventually become a hassle. THROWS DO NOT RESET HIT COUNTER FOR KNOCKDOWN.
Autoscroll shooter i just shove my face into destroying enemies sooner. For Steel's last autoscroller i managed to avoid hitting bombs instead of the boss.
Enemies with projectile and chain hooks make me give up on doing infinites on later stages.
The road stages with red skies I managed to throw and manip enemies into bombs on the floor, including the boss!
Stage 7 and last stage is about breaking the floor with enemies before using super attacks. The super attacks are instakill for normal enemies on screen, only used when there are 3 enemies or if i found another super icon and can't bring more than 5. The original TAS was very good at suggesting super attack usage and I only did different with the extra bombs.
The original TAS was an inspiration to try this game so many thanks to supermanofky.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.