This topic is for the purpose of discussing #320: Neofix's Genesis Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi in 14:04.68

My only complaint is the excessive shooting on the bonus levels. Regular levels look really nice. Boss fights feel slow but they don't appear to have any "mistakes." Seems like a good movie to me.

I thought it was a boring movie, but that's not entirely Neofix's fault. I haven't played the game but it looks like it's really clumsy and slow. I do think you took some unnecessary damage in the cave levels at least. And the bonus stages could have been done a lot better. You should also jumpkick the enemies as much as possible instead of shooting/slashing because it doesn't seem to make the character stop.

There's no "damage" in the game. You can touch most enemies and "bounce" off, just like the original Shinobi. A hit in this game is death.

You should lead in consideration that each player has an unlike style he play. I like of he throw many stars in the bonus. That is my personal taste. OK?

but neofix, this site's movies are not about author's taste, they are about being interesting and fun to watch for as many people as possible. and it's more impressive a run without missing shots than a run with irregular shooting, which would look just like a normal person playing.

There's no "damage" in the game. You can touch most enemies and "bounce" off, just like the original Shinobi

Well then, I think he bounces off the enemies unnecessarily and even in the wrong direction.

I must agree with the others on this.. Some things are done a bit slow. Instead of jumping down after rescuing some hostage you could instead just jump of the side, think this would save some time, not 100% sure though. Also, in the bonus stage you should have 100% accuracy instead of firing stars all over the palce, thats what I do when I play it regularly, using a turbo fire, hehe. :D Oh. And at the last boss, woulden't it save some time when he only has 3 health points left to throw in that jitsu spell to do some additional damage? And try to do more damage so that he dies faster. Otherwise I don't think you should use any jitsu spell at all. Makes it alot cooler. Also try to avoid bouncing on enemies. Jumpkick as mentioned earlier.

Ooh. Neo-Shinobi. I need to play this game at some point. Round 1 • No real comments here. Decent destroying of the boss, though. Maybe use the Jitsu on him when he's near death. . . Round 2 • I think I see why he was bouncing off the enemies. To make sure they didn't shoot him, and to give himself a slight moment of invincibility. • Jumping off the side might've saved you some time, instead of jumping down, as previously stated. Round 3 • No real comments for Round 3. • Clever. . . Knocking her off the platform like that. . . Round 4 • You took an unnecessary hit off of one of those crouching gunmen, I notice. One bounced you into another one's head. • Did the wind Jitsu even help against the Fire Wheel? Round 5 • Room 4: Damn, that's a lot of red ninjas. • There has got to be a way to speed this last battle up. . . Bonus Rounds • You shoot too damned many Shurikens. Also, does it knock you out of the Bonus Stage if a ninja hits you? Might save you some serious time. . . My Vote: Meh. Reasons: It's a good speed run. Only a few mistakes were made. However, the game seems a tad repeatitive. . . Advice: Jump-kick more, maybe? I dunno.

I haven't watched this time attack in about a month, but this is a definite no vote. There are numerous things that can be done faster. -In round 1-1 you end up with 2:36 on the timer, I have managed 2:40 on an actual console. The main reason why you are so slow is because you switch between the upper and lower parts of the stage too much. -I'm a little hazy on this, but I don't think the jump kick was abused enough. There are two reasons to abuse the jump kick: -you maintain forward momentum while taking out enemies. -it takes out the shielded guys who throw discs at you. -you shouldn't miss so many shurikens on the bonus stages, anyone on a console could do what you did on the bonus stages. -I'm positive the 4th stage boss can be killed much faster by locking it into hit-stun. When the boss gets hit, your shuriken will go through the boss, meaning you can time a shuriken to hit the boss again when it is recovering from hit stun. -There is probably a bunch of little stuff I could mention, but I don't remember this time attack too well. -there was some stuff I liked, like how you dealt with the 3rd boss. Joseph Collins: Wow, you are reviving a lot of old workbench submissions. -The bonus stages last until the very last ninja disappears from the screen, no exceptions (I think you confused this with the arcade version of Shadow Dancer). -Using the ninjitsu to kill the first stage boss would take at least 3-4 seconds for only 2 points of damage. I doubt it would be faster. -Yes, the final battle is slow, but maybe with some frame perfect timing it is possible to get more hits in when the boss is vulnerable. If you're thinking about exposing the weak point earlier, it isn't possible, the pattern of the final boss is fixed. (edit) I realized the final boss does vary the rate at which he spawns the ninjas, so the final boss battle can be manipulated. EDIT: Stage 1-1 done at 100% speed can be found here. I should probably attempt a time attack of this game, but I don't have the patience and I'm too lazy.

Joseph Collins: Wow, you are reviving a lot of old workbench submissions.

That's because I'm trying to clear out all the old stuff that isn't locked. Page 3 was clear for about two submissions or so. . . And since no one's told me to knock it off. . . ^_^;

The game isn't at what I would consider the highest difficulty level--but maybe it's just me. (I consider the no-shuriken mode + level 3 to be a higher difficulty level than just "plain" level 3.) Also the opening menus could be sped up. As far as I know, this is the fastest way to get into the options: * Press start immediately after frame 0:01:34. * Press start again immediately after frame 0:02:31 * Press down immediately after frame 0:02:42 * Press start immediately after frame 0:02:43 * You can start executing menu commands after frame 0:02:44. (And yeah, I'm working on my own Shadow Dancer video, too, but it's a pacifist run.) --edit: All frames were off by three.

I think this submission was made before gens had frameadvance and a frame counter. But I dont know. It is accually a nice run. But it can be improved alot.

This movie was made obsolete as of a few days ago as well, wasn't it?

Er, yeah. I just did a Shadow Dancer run that's thirteen mintues, zero seconds and six frames long. Neofix has done some _awesome_ runs (Spiderman vs. Kingpin, Strider). Alas, this particular submission, which misses many chances to save time, isn't one of them. I have a feeling that if Neofix ever gets a chance to redo Shadow Dancer that he'll break the 13 minute mark and turn in a movie with a time of 12 minutes, 50something seconds. Heck, he might even find a glitch that gets even more time off the clock. On a side note, I can guarentee that it will take a major glitch to get a run under 12 minutes. Almost all of my time in the 13+ minute run is spent * walking forwards * jumping forwards * stuck in a fixed scrolling stage (all four bonus stages and the Statue of Liberty scaffolding elevator in level 3-2), * waiting for the stage intro to finish or * waiting for the final boss to become vunerable. All of these are, as far as I can tell, necessary activities. There's not that many places left to find a faster route unless one can find a bug to exploit.

Yeah. It should be canceled or rejected if you ask me.