Well, I've got more info that should help your speed run video. Since many of my old videos disappeared somehow, I wanted to point out some more tips, though you guys may already know these. First, about the water stages, it's best to stay out of the water as much as possible since water creates lag by inserting 1-frame pauses every several frames, so do whatever you can about this. In the Bubble Man stage, if you don't see the splash after exiting the ceiling, then you are considered underwater the whole time. Simply jumping off the screen will fix that. In the 3rd Wily stage, Item 2 can be used out of water to avoid the whole first part and save good time, and since you likely won't need Item 2 anywhere else, this is a good place to finish it up. Also, in the Bubble Man stage, not only can you take the famous ceiling shortcut midway through, but you can also take another, more dangerous one just shortly after that one. After you get past the second big fish to the screen where a giant frog spits three smaller ones, use Item 1 near the spikes, then jump as the frogs are jumping and take a hit just before you touch the spikes. You will be able to enter the ceiling without dying, and by quickly facing left, you'll get zipped through to the end of the water. Unfortunately, my videos of this trick were among those lost, so just look at that area yourself and try to see where I mean to do this at. I also have tips about beating the bosses and saving a few frames during teleportation. Although the frame count info was among the stuff lost, I do remember that it is beneficial to beat a boss standing at the highest platform in a room. This will save time during the teleportation animation, because he won’t have so far up to travel. Especially in Bubble Man’s room, you may want to get stuck in the upper part of his ceiling and blast him with Metal Blades, or if you’re fighting in the normal room, try to jump into the spikes just before you give him the fatal hit, assuming you can do so without wasting time doing it. You’ll get stuck on the spikes and have less of a distance between the top of the screen and you. Of course, these will only be helpful if you can implement them while still killing the bosses as fast as possible. I’ll try to remake videos showing this if you need more info. That's it for the hints so far. I think you already know to use Item 1 in level 6 to quickly get to Alien Wily, so I don't really have anything else to offer.
Now for some more questions I have myself...let's start with the weird beginning on any screen after you lose a life. You may have noticed through FADV that after 9 frames of blackness, the 10th frame shows the background being reset to the last save point, though it is often off center and screwed up, and sprites of images on the screen will be scrambled during this frame before they disappear. I'm curious if anybody knows why this "junk" frame always shows up. My next question is a minor one about the dragon in level 1. Actually I've got a few. If you've ever used Time Freeze at the beginning of the scrolling and jumped to where the dragon should appear at, you'll die upon touching the small area where it teleports to. Why does this happen? Also, if you've ever frozen it while it's coming up from the pit, you may have noticed that during the freeze, it's teleportation picture always changes sideways. Why does that happen? The next question is about the beginning of Wood Man's stage. I've already seen in a video that you guys know about the tree ceiling there. Why does this ceiling exist? Now for a few videos to demonstrate some more questions I have. In the zip file I just linked to are nsm2 and nsm3 videos that show a small portion of the Wily ship battle. What I am wondering is why Mega Man gets shoved down a good bit during one frame of entering the windshield. In the nsm3 video, he even makes it through completely unharmed! In the nsmhit video, it shows mega Man zipping through the ceiling midway, then has him taking a mysterious hit when he moves. Why does this happen? I notice that during the first frame of movement, the image of one of the shrimp displays, though it isn't touching him. From the loss of life he takes though, it seems he gets hit by a phantom shrimp, even though none are in the area. It seems that they somehow came from the beginning of the scrolling near the lantern fish and stayed with you. This may also explain the mysterious hits I took during some of the videos in Quick Man's stage during that midway ceiling zipping, like it came from one of the flames those tiki torch enemies throw. how do these enemies tag along? And one final question is about why animations continue when a collision occurs during a time freeze. An example of this is the nsmscrewed video that screws up the picture of the frogs. Why does this happen? Well, I doubt you read all that, but if you guys have any thoughts on those, drop me a line. Thanks for your help.
Link to the zip file:
http://www.geocities.com/kolechovski/mm2/morebugs.zip.zip
edit-apparently just clicking the link works this time.