Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is an SMS platform game serving as the final entry in the Alex Kidd series. (Although, like High Tech World, it wasn't originally one... it was originally called "Shinobi Kid" and was a cute parody of the Shinobi games, much like Kid Dracula.) Alex Kidd must save his girlfriend from an evil being while battling many enemies from the Shinobi series. This TAS is a 403 frame improvement to the published movie.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 1.11.3
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Heavy glitch abuse
I've known a few improvements to the current movie for a while but was wary of implementing them due to my lack of experience with TASing. Eventually I decided to go for it because I didn't want my improvements to just sit there in the game's thread unused while the published run remained suboptimal. It turned out to be a relatively smooth process. I was worried at first that Dega and BizHawk's different emulation would pose a lot of difficulties, but outside of a few differences in lag and luck the emulation does not especially differ between the two, making it easy to compare with AngerFist.
The first trick I found came early on in the movie. When Alex Kidd is walking, he moves 1px-2px-1px-2px (and so on). When he transforms into a fireball, he moves 3px-3px-3px-3px, etc. and when his fireball form ends and he turns back to normal pressing right immediately resets his speed back to 1px-2px. However, by jumping as soon as Alex hits the ground without holding right, he is able to jump and maintain his speed for a short amount of time. This also works from the tornado and the downward slopes, but their effect is not as noticeable, only moving a few pixels more per frame.
This game has some zipping glitches, which can be achieved by hitting UP+DOWN/LEFT+RIGHT on ladders. Typically, they just send you off-screen, and you die, but it's possible to make them work to your advantage if you're precise. I tightened up most of them in this run, making attempts to zip closest to the exit as possible. In the level before the boss, it is possible to use the ladder to zip directly into the door, but this means we do not get the hearts and can not use a damage boost on the last screen.
My motivation for doing this movie was to simply update the published run with the tricks I knew. I didn't expect to find many savings in the other levels, but was pleased when I ended up discovering improvements in every level - some more minor than others, however. I expected this game to be more tedious than it actually was, and figured having to constantly check my work against AngerFist's would be strenous. Luckily, there were only a few instances where staying ahead of AngerFist was tough, so that turned out to be a nice surprise. :)
Thanks
AngerFist - for creating the original movie
CoolKirby - for some help and motivation
ars4326: Hello, RobynS. Very nice improvements made here! Watching them both side-by-side, the speed momentum saver and improved zip-glitching tricks (especially in the platform room, near the end) really stood out. The improved Heli boss fight looked good, as well. Good work here, and congrats on your first published run :)
