feos once told me this game (and Mega Turrican) are codec poison, so let's make publishers deal with it.
On a more serious note, I should let the publishers know that this encode was copyright claimed due to the end credit music. Just a heads up.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.4.1
- takes damage to save time
- takes death to save time
- uses hard mode
Super Turrican is a game I dont know how to describe, or how to explain the plot. But what I do know is this game is pretty brutal sometimes. However the only reason I even did it was due to a newish glitch that lets you clip into any wall, which saves almost 3 minutes from the current publication (12,465 frames in total). I will get to these tricks in the stage by stage.
The other things I should mention is the powerups. there are 3 different powerups for your weapon. for the majority of the run we are using the Red powerup that gives us spread. the blue powerup is a straight fire, and yellow is a bouncing bullet that can bounce off walls. each time you collect a weapon powerup, it's damage will increase up to 5 times, and it seems that these upgrades carry through even if you pickup a different weapon. The only way they get downgraded is if you die, and it only downgrades you by one damage.
The other important powerups include a shield that lets you roll through enemies with no knockback, bombs which deal damage to everything on screen and mostly useful for boss fights, and health refills.
One befitit to dying in this game is you can refill your bomb count. The game can only display 3 bombs at a time on the hud, but you can realistically carry as many as you want.
World 1
Throughout the game, there are hidded platforms that appear if you shoot them. they can sometimes lead you to secret areas that contain 1ups and secret exits. You can also shoot them again to get some item drops, which we do that in 1-1 to get a red weapon upgrade.
The green laser is used to freeze enemies, but it can also be used to destroy blocks like at the end of 1-1.
in 1-2, it shows the first instance of wall clipping. the way it works is if you shoot the laser and alternate turning without shooting the lazer, it makes the character move to the right by a few pixels, and for some reason it doesnt check to see if you are near a wall. it can get really easy to softlock the game using this trick. also when you are in a wall, you can repeatedly press the jump button to zip up walls.
for 1-3, we skip an entire boss fight by clipping in the middle of the stage.
World 2
possibly the shortest world in the game. almost all of the exists for every stage are very close to your spawn position, so we can easily clip our way to the exit.
for the boss fight, you have to destroy the turrets before the actual boss can show up, which is why I dont immediately enter the boss room, as I need to get far enough right to shoot the turrets on the right side.
I also take a death on this boss as he dies so I can refill my bomb count. luckily for this game, death isnt as much of a time waster.
World 3
the only world that was really difficult to optimize. the biggest hurdle with this stage is conserving your rolling for when you need it most. I also try to pick up some bomb upgrades here and there if they're close enough.
World 4
stage 4-1 has the only instance where you can clip into a wall and fall straight down.
stage 4-2 has nothing of note other than my attempts at playaround
stage 4-3 also nothing of note other than the exit being very close to clipping territory
Possible improvements
there are some known improvements that could be added early in the run, unfortunately though they cause some major desyncs around world 3. I tried my best to make it work but this game can be really bad with consistent enemy behavior. stuff like during the wall clip in 1-3, you can avoid taking damage from the enemy on the ceiling by waiting for it to fall. Other things inlcude small optimization things like jump heights and stuff.
What will really help improve this game is knowing what causes the screen to move and stall, as it can mess with enemy behavior.
special thanks
I'd like to thank Sonikkustar for his LOTAD of this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQTZ9qsfLg If it wasnt for him, I would not have been inspired to pick up this game. A good majority of the route you see here was done in his LOTAD, and I did my best to improve it as much as possible.
I'd like to thank the other TASers of this game, both dark_rocco and Cardboard. Their published movies were a good source of useful tricks to look for.
I'd also like to thank d4gr0n who is the current world record holder for both Super and Mega Turrican, and who ran Mega Turrican at AGDQ 2019.
other things
I have confirmed this movie to sync on lsnes, so if anyone wants the file for that I can link it here.
we also recently started up a discord server for Turrican speedruns, I am hoping it gets more people interested in the series as it's an incredibly underrated speedgame. if you wanna join here is a discord link (I hope I'm allowed to do this):
https://discord.gg/5EgGZX4
Thank you so much, I hope you enjoyed the run.
Memory: Optimization appears good.
This movie has quick movement, intense action, and entertaining glitches. The ball form really keeps the movie... rolling. The audience also expressed support for this movie.