"Your mission: Save the captured princess Lala from the Great Devils evil empire!!! You are the only one who can save Lala."
By collecting every heartpiece in the room a treasure chest opens with a pearl inside. If you collect this pearl a door will open and you advance to the next level. This game contains 50 of these levels.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: FCEUX
- Completes game as fast as possible
- Uses no passwords
- Manipulates luck (enemy movement)
- Abuses programming errors
Improvements
The total improvement over the currently published run is 610 frames (a little over 10 seconds)!
Level 3-1: 46 frame improvement (Zugzwang)
Level 3-2: 43 frame improvement (Zugzwang)
Level 6-1: 16 frame improvement (Zugzwang)
Level 6-3: 80 frame improvement (Zugzwang)(*)
Level 8-4: 112 frame improvement (Zugzwang)
Level 8-5: 138 frame improvement (Zugzwang)
Level 9-3: 41 frame impovement (Zugzwang)
Level 10-1: 16 frame impovement (Zugzwang)
Level 10-2: 64 frame impovement (Zugzwang)
Level 10-3: 8 frame impovement (Zugzwang)
Level 10-4: 46 frame improvement (Baxter)(**)
(*) After Baxter improved it first by 7 frames
(**) After Zugzwang improved it first by 26 frames
This will be the tenth Adventures of Lolo submission, which will hopefully lead to the eighth published version. The first few versions all had reasonably big improvements, but the latest few versions all had rather small improvements, made mainly to include some small improvement that had been overlooked previously. I might have said that those versions weren't particularly worth watching if you've seen the previous version... but not this time!
Eleven of the fifty levels are improved in this version, and not by small amounts! It totalled up to an improvement of over 10 seconds, which is a lot... especially considering quite a few people have looked at it for quite a few times. Not only are there many improvements... the improvement themselves are very inventive, and they might surprise you if you were familiar with the previous solution or the game in general.
As you might have noticed, nearly all of these great improvement were found by Zugzwang. He kept surprising me as well as quite a few other people with what seemed like a limitless amount of improvements for a TAS that could never have been expected to be this improvable. Without him, this version wouldn't be there... and if there were to be a tenth version, it wouldn't have been remotely as awesome as this one. Many thanks Zugzwang!
Also a thanks to the people who made suggestions for previous versions: Nitrodon, AnS, BagofMagicFood and Hanzou.
Note that this fm2 movie file, like the previous submission still also completes the game "Defenders of the Crown".
It's been a great journey. What started as a Speedrun for SDA a year and a half ago has ended up as this TAS run. I have joined two forums, met numerous people and enjoyed a game I love. Honestly, I couldn't be happier with the results. The most satisfying aspect has to be finding two communities that share a passion for these classic games that are so deserving. For that, THANK YOU.
For those of you that have not seen the forum which is the basis for this submission, I would urge you to check it out [/Forum/Topics/6882&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20|here]. The reason why I post the way I do is to have a chronological reference to mark the time and effort it took. Rather than discuss each level here, if you are intrigued for further detail I've modified those original posts. The four pages of posts, by mostly Baxter and I, are a pretty entertaining read. In hindsight, I enjoy the doubt that I found an improvement at all, turn into disbelief that I found another one. :)
It's been a huge learning experience as well. Up until my 8-5 improvement I played entirely in real-time on my NES. The last 8-5 solution I hadn't figured out how to reduce speed but did use save states. The last four levels I found would have been impossible to find in real-time. It amazes me that I had no idea how to make an fcm or compare frame counts when reading my second post. I guess we all start somewhere!
A count of hours I worked on these levels:
Level 3-1 20hrs
Level 3-2 5hrs
Level 6-1 5hrs
Level 6-3 15hrs
Level 8-4 15hrs
Level 8-5 40hrs
Level 9-3 2hrs
Level 10-1 20hrs
Level 10-2 10hrs
Level 10-3 30hrs
Level 10-4 20hrs
Total aprox 172hrs
(This doesn't include the time I've spent on other levels for my SDA run.)
These times are no exaggeration. When I would come home I would spend 2-3 hours an evening (early morning) testing variations. I easily worked more than a 10 to 15 individual days on 8-5. The next most time consuming was 10-3, two weeks. Which leads to my parting thought, however intelligent I am or how I think logic should prevail in finding a new solution, it is dwarfed by my intuition and instinct. How else can you explain spending two solid weeks on a solution you don't KNOW is there? Considering so much emphasis is always placed on planning and knowledge the idea is sobering.
A great thanks to Baxter who has most graciously made one more Lolo submission. I couldnt have done it without your help.
adelikat: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
ShinyDoofy: Will process...
