Tutorial
0:14: I fall down to teleport to the next screen and cut some walking. Same at 0:17.
0:24: Jumping into the teleporter this way saves a frame, because the top part of it sticks out more to the left.
World 1 (Prehistorik 2)
World 1 is all about cycles: up-down moving mass in the second screen and toggle blocks later on. Cycles restart when you reload, so by reloading at the correct times I minimize waiting for cycles. The strat I used allows me to go as fast as possible and touch the first toggle block (at 0:56) the last possible frame. After that, I reload by hitting a save on the left screen, so when I get there, the mass is at the highest point possible to pass.
1:06: Obviously, it’s faster to build speed beforehand to cut a corner: general principle in optimizing movement.
1:08: There is a wall to the right that doesn’t let me go until I am at the bottom screen.
1:13: Being as high as possible lets me start moving sooner, before the spider disappeared.
Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty has 100 HP. Double Shot doesn’t work on her: if two bullets hit her on the same frame, only one will count. So I have to be careful and make sure I don’t waste any shots this way. This boss is very complex because of her movement and her distance to the player, so it's very hard to optimize.
Hello Kitty cycles up and down throughout the fight. There is a cutscene skipped by pressing S (same in other bosses), but timing S doesn’t affect the cycle. After (2 + ¾) cycles from the start targeting phase begins: she will be following you on the vertical axis. Later she will stop and fire a beam. After that, she continues cycling (the cycle was still going in the background: she teleports to the current position), while attacking you.
Before targeting phase I’m cruising through platforms on the left, firing bursts of five bullets, which hit her as soon as possible. It is beneficial to be closer to her when you shoot, because it takes time for bullets to fly. The rightmost point is the bottom, but I can go there only when targeting phase starts, otherwise I will lose damage.
Targeting phase is where it gets speedy: at the bottom I can stay a lot closer to her and fire bursts rapidly. The usual strat is to get back to platforms before the beam in order to survive it, and continue shooting her up there after. Instead, I manage to survive down here: I get Kitty stuck low enough to jump over the beam.
After targeting phase, she appears on her way to the bottom, and I deal 3 more bursts before she dies. It is preferable to kill her at the lowest point because she falls down very slowly. Here I kill her in the middle, but it’s still faster than waiting for the next time she gets down.
Like in Tutorial, hitbox of the exit is weird and I save a frame by jumping like that.
World 2 (Kirby's Adventure)
2:17: I land on the edge of the cloud to active it earlier, instead of jumping to its middle (between two spikes).
2:45: Kracko Skip. I found this skip in the process of making, it took a lot of manual brute force, but was worth it in the end. This jump was known to be possible only with Sonic. Turns out, it can be done with Dark Boshy too. It skips Kracko miniboss on the next screen as well as the shaft after, in total saving ~46s.
First, you need to get in this exact position, shown on the next image. In
this video I showed a setup that helps to get the correct alignment, but in TAS I do it as I go by moonwalking a certain amount of time to bounce on the cloud in the right way. As explained in "Character Sprite Manipulation", you have to shoot to make his legs straight, so you don’t touch spikes.
After that I jump for exactly 5 frames, which is high enough to go over the spike, but low enough not to bonk on the cloud.
Next, to avoid dying on the other side, I shoot again for the same purpose: to straighten up Dark Boshy’s legs. But it’s not enough, I also have to face left on this specific frame to fully avoid the spike (this is because Boshy's sprite is slightly not symmetrical, so by turning you basically move one extra pixel to the right, which sometimes lets you avoid touching spikes like that). So, I moonwalk here for one frame. Finally, after that I hold right and appear on the other side.
It is worth to note that there exists another skip found by eelusion: after Kracko you can squeeze yourself through the clouds in a precise way to skip the shaft and a lot of walking after, which saves ~10s, but in TAS it is obsolete because of Kracko Skip.
2:57: Instead of triggering a beam that would destroy the wall, I can just savejump over.
3:09: Kirby jump. Normally you are supposed to go back, but you can jump over it. Note that the difficulty (or maybe, possibility) of this jump depends on Kirby’s animation cycle, which resets on reloads. In real-time speedruns people reload at a certain point to set up the animation cycle properly.
3:12: You are supposed to wait for the spider to come down second time. But if you are quick, you can make it to the save and reload.
3:18: You can jump on the spike edge here. RTA strat is to savejump.
King DeDeDe
DeDeDe has 75 HP, Double Shot doesn't work. In this miniboss you play Simon Says, and if you are right, you get to shoot him for a little bit (who would have thought: if you are wrong, you die!). Right half of the screen kills you, so you can’t get much closer. In RTA beating him in 3 cycles is hard, but you can get consistent at it. In TAS I managed to do it in 2 cycles! 8 bursts + 3 shots at the first cycle and 6 bursts + 2 shots at the second. I had to do a lot of weaving back and forth to hit him earlier. It took me several attempts before I could deal enough damage for 2-cycle.
In this intermission before Ryu I do a speed boost (thanks BBF for the strat). In bosses rooms you can get stuck in an edge by jumping from below (try it yourself: touch the right side of any block, tap left for a frame, and jump). This is exactly what I do here. After that I hold right to move up and I get stuck in a block above, which lets me do a speed boost.
Ryu
Ryu has 150 HP, Double Shot works. Soon enough after pressing S he will fly to the left, and you can destroy him there in no time. You can see that I jump very high right before mashing starts: the goal is to be as high as possible, so I can start shooting as early as possible, following him down the way.
World 3 (Cheetahmen II)
4:43: The cheetahmen trigger is right here, I don’t waste any time.
4:47: Intended way is to jump over them on the next screen. I can do it here and be the fourth in the convoy, which is faster by a few frames.
4:56: This strat has been known for a while. It is hard to execute in real-time because after touching the block, usually you will not make it there and fall down.
5:08: The easiest way to be sure you are optimal is to not release right, which is what I do in the next 3 RNG screens.
5:23: Very nice skip of two jump replenishers. I fired here for the same spike-sprite-collsion reason (although maybe it’s not worth having a random shot for saving 1-2 frames).
5:28: On this screen red ball is symmetrical to you. If you touch a spike, you die; if the ball touches a spike, you die; and if you touch the ball, you die! Taking the right at 5:30 is very tight (watch where the ball goes). You are also not supposed to jump two spikes at once down there.
Mario
Mario has 100 HP, Double Shot works. He falls down on you right away, so I kill him in a blink. I also save some frames by being high, but I have to make sure by the time he reaches me I already have some falling speed, so I don’t shoot above him.
Still, we have to watch this long cutscene. At the end I hit him first frames possible, the cooldown is exactly 1 second. By the way, did you know that eggs don’t kill you?
World 4 (VVVVVV)
World 4 is skipped entirely, credits to irelandofendor and Yagamoth for finding this skip. This world’s theme is VVVVVV and it has a mechanic of switching gravity instead of jumping. Because of asymmetry with Boshy’s vertically flipped sprite, if you load a save when the gravity is up, you will appear slightly below the place where you saved. And if you switch gravity to up right before saveloading, you will appear stuck in the floor. This trick is done in that spot, where on the right screen there is a save. After that, if you move up in the floor just high enough to be able to shoot again, you can repeat this trick, and this time you will get out of bounds.
If you fall down in other worlds long enough, you will hit the bottom and die, but in this world you can fall as long as you like. The boss portal is infinitely large, in fact, the portal doesn’t have a hitbox, it’s actually a check "if the coordinate is bigger than this value, teleport him to the boss". So, if you go right in the void for long enough, you will get to the next boss.
Biollante
Biollante has 230 HP, Double Shot works. For the first ~2 seconds your damage doubles: she will lose 2 HP every hit. You would expect me to jump down to her immediately and mash like I did in other bosses, but unfortunately I can’t do that until her tendrils go away, they won’t let me survive for long enough down there. In addition to that, at the beginning her animation is rapid, and you can’t find a spot where you can deal damage continuously: next animation frame you will either die, or appear far away from the hitbox.
After she explodes, there is a cutscene, which can be skipped by muting sound (Ctrl+S).
World 5 (Wario)
7:46: I reload here for two reasons. 1) It restarts my music after I unmute sound. 2) It’s faster to savejump instead of jumping from the bottom.
I tried to fit through the top, this is the furthest I got.
8:07: This is the first speed boost I did in this TAS (Ryu speedboost was added later), and here I examined how exactly they work. Now, everything I'm doing here is popping out of the platform from below, it might seem like a contradiction: you don't really come out of the side of anything. It turns out, you actually do. The collision of this platform is not a box, it's the sprite itself. I outlined the collision in red in this picture.
What happens here is that Boshy touches the bottom part of a circle with the top of his triangle, and then leaves it on the next frame.
It actually counts as “he left the side of it” and, thus, gives a nice boost up to 5 px/f.
8:12: Two boosts add up together, so here I get a second boost up to 8 px/f! This boost is the simplest example: you just get inside of a platform from below, and leave the side while holding down.
8:30 and 8:36: Another “you can actually stand here” place. There will be a lot of them.
8:45: I reload here to set up spikes, so I can pass them quickly. I tried to save time by jumping to the right of the spike on my way up, but it doesn't seem to be possible.
Sonic
Sonic has 105 HP, Double Shot works. This is the boss that every single casual player gets stuck on for a long while. Most people quit the game right here. The reason is his second phase, where he flies around at a high speed. He targets you in a weird way, and controlling him can be very difficult: this skill is very specific and takes a lot of time to learn. Besides that, Dr. Robotnik fires rockets at you, which are hard to avoid because you are focused on Sonic.
To get to the second phase you have to deal 15 damage. Usually you can deal 5-10 damage on his first rolling rush, after that there will be an 8 seconds long avoidance section. Then he shows up again and you can hit him and get to the second phase. Turns out, it is possible to do 15 damage right away and skip this avoidance. The first burst hits him on the first frame possible, after that I fire the second burst and immediately turn left. Then, just at the right time I jump and shoot another burst facing to the left. That was very difficult, as I had to find a perfect spot: not only I have to survive there, but also make him absorb the last burst entirely.
In the second phase I managed to kill him very quickly. I tried to stay close to him as long as I can, so I can mash. I believe the first high jump helps to get him back quickly, then I just try to "ride" along with him.
World 6 (Castlevania II: Simons Quest)
9:12: I take the right here, so I slow down much less.
9:17: I reloaded to set up skeletons for that jump: it’s very precise and can only be done with a quick double jump. You can also see me twitching between the spikes: I would touch them if I didn’t do that.
9:27: This jump for some reason looks slower, but it’s faster.
9:34: I air jump lower, so I land earlier and jump over the ferret without releasing right.
9:43: A nice strat that also used in RTA: enter the screen asap and bonk here, don’t have to wait anywhere.
9:52: Same jump as at 9:17.
9:56: The intended route here is going down and playing 2 minute long Gradius section. People discovered that you can skip it by savejumping and landing on the rightmost block. However, since this is a platform, you can make this speed boost instead. It is very precise: not only you have to accelerate to 6 px/f, but also get a chance to jump. Saves around 8s over savejumping.
Skeleton King
Skeleton King has 160 HP, Double Shot doesn’t work. Two lightning at the start kill you, you have to jump over them, but you can fire a burst in-between. After that, I just weave back and forth, so I shoot at the rightmost position every time while avoiding projectiles. I had to redo the fight because I couldn’t beat him before he went down.
10:42: I hit Blob at the first frame possible to start the cutscene, but then I need to avoid the hulk arm. This strat is possible in real-time (first done by jay_cee), except that it’s easier to keep the platform higher and then jump back to safety.
World 7, first half (Milon’s Secret Castle)
11:14: I reloaded here to set the elevator higher, but still possible to reach. Jumping on the spike edge is a little bit faster.
11:58: I slow down a little, so Count won’t overreach a block later.
12:04: I wait a bit, so Count hits the third block later (and higher). I need this so he can hit the last block at the rightmost position. Usually, Count can only reach the left side of the last block, which is not enough for the next screen, and you have to wait for him to bounce on this block again. But here I can go right immediately.
12:09: I have to wait for him to bounce again and making him jump at the lowest point saves some frames.
12:23: Usually people jump from the third block, but I’m so fast that I can’t jump over the spider without waiting here and it’s just faster to use the fourth one instead.
Over the span of 20 days I spent ~10000 rerecords on the first 3 screens. The reason is Screen 3, which has two cycle-based sections. The top cycle has a 40 frames period, and it truncates your possible arrivals to the middle cycle. The middle cycle is exactly 9 times longer, and to pass you have to wait for this cycle to finish (if you arrive at the perfect time, you can just go, but if you arrive 1 top cycle later, you will have to wait 8 top cycles before you can go).
As usual, these cycles reset on a reload, so by reloading at the correct place you might save time. I’ve tried all possibilities, and the best I could produce is reloading in the middle of Screen 2, after that I arrive 3 top cycles before the perfect time for the middle cycle (so I had to wait ~120 frames more than I would wait if I got the best outcome). Before entering the second half I had to slow down for a frame to manipulate enemy bullet spread, so I can survive without slowing down.
However, there was a different strat in my mind, and I spent a lot of time trying to make it work. The idea is to reload right at the first save (but as late as possible), and then not reload later on. The problem is that it is extremely difficult to survive enemies’ bullets and it requires some ridiculous luck (especially in that narrow spot at the end of Screen 2 where two soldiers attack you simultaneously) I’ve tried a lot of possible patterns by adjusting waiting time in the first half, and only once I actually survived it to Screen 3, but it wasn’t quick enough to get the perfect outcome, unfortunately.
13:01: I reload here for the spike-cycle at 13:12, as you can see, I barely make it past that spike, which is fast.
Megaman
Megaman has 90 HP, Double Shot works. He spawns right next to you, so it’s easy to kill him instantly.
World 8 (Megaman)
The main observation about this world is that you can stand on the very edge of a spike block. In fact, this is a 2 pixel window, which makes it easier to navigate. This world has three autoscrollers, and I managed to skip the first one (which is also the shortest one) using these spike jumps. Unfortunately, I couldn’t skip the other two.
13:40: I took the bottom route only for fun, it ties taking the normal route.
13:47: I walk off the spike edge here, instead of double jumping. After that, I can’t fall without a double jump, so I’m forced to do it. The same way you can stand on a spike edge you can bonk on it from below, and that’s what I do to make this double jump faster.
13:56: A small timesave with a spike edge jump.
13:57: I reload here for firebar cycles after the second autoscroller, so I can pass them without slowing down.
14:01: This is the jump that makes the first autoscroller skippable. It’s precise in alignment, and only possible at certain jump heights.
14:48: Obstacles start moving as soon as I enter the screen, so I get there the earliest time that is possible to pass.
15:13: Foot Holder pushes me into this block, and I perform a speed boost with it to land on a spike edge.
15:16: For some reason I can survive the spikes I touch at first 3 frames in Good Level Design Room, but if I turned right a frame sooner I would have died.
15:16: This jump is precise and saves almost no time. I tried to squeeze through other holes, but couldn’t.
15:19: Instead of double jumping between last two spikes, I do it earlier between first two, but I have to shoot to survive.
15:20: Right before I hit the bottom, I turn right for a frame, so I don’t touch the spike.
15:23: The usual strat is to fall down and air jump above the spike, but instead I double jump and bonk up there, and fall down dodging everything. It is faster because of the bonk that cancelled my double jump.
Shang Tsung
Shang Tsung has 150 HP, Double Shot doesn’t work. I start the fight as soon as possible to mash continuously. I try to stay close to him. His second wave is too high, so instead of jumping up there with him, I delay my double jump and fall down along with him, which deals more damage in total. Because I killed him before the floor vanished, in the cutscene you can still see pillars.
World 9 (Kid Icarus)
15:56: A platform next to this block allows me to get stuck in it and perform a speed boost of 5 px/f. I will be doing this a few times in similar places.
16:01: I reload here asap for Koopas on the next screen.
16:04: Travelling salesman problem. Koopa hitboxes are weird: sometimes you die for no reason, but other times you can go straight through them.
16:15: Credits to BBF for this strat. You can get stuck inside of a coin block with the right timing, skips waiting all these toggle block cycles.
16:18: A reload for cycle purposes.
16:20: You might notice I drop down and start moving left earlier, this puts me a block ahead compared to the naive way.
16:31: Fire room. It is very hard, unless you use Double Shot and use it smartly. There is a glitch: if you kill two fires at once, only one of them will split into two smaller. The RTA way is to stand on the left, jump and start mashing while falling down. Here, instead of stopping, I moonwalk, so I end up more to the right.
16:37: Block Puzzle Room 1. I tried to move the block straight up, but the spike won’t let me. So I used the intended box route, with small optimizations: jumping at 16:38 to land on the platform with no slow down, skipping an extra jump at 16:40, taking the right gap at 16:42, taking upper platform at 16:45 and a speed boost at the end.
16:46: You can jump on these boxes while moving horizontally. Rapidly spamming it allows you to “ride” them in this fashion.
16:51: Block Puzzle Room 2. The strat I used here is different compared to the normal RTA way. First block you touch is needed only to walk on it, but I found a way to use it instead of the one far away, which is faster by a second or two.
16:59: This jump works only at a certain jump height, usually you would just push that block down to the void. After jumping on it, I ride it as in the previous room and let it push me through the platform.
17:05: This blue "vine" speeds you up to 5 px/f. You might have seen a few of those in World 7, but they are useless back there. Solgryn made an intended use of them in World 10, though.
17:10: I wait ~2 frames here to get a good spider wiggle animation that lets me survive it on the left.
17:13: I touch the teleporter just like in Tutorial, but this time I save 2 frames!
Ganon
Ganon has 150 HP, Double Shot doesn’t work, but it doesn’t matter since Solgryn left a developer key (the number 1 on the main board) that puts him in a certain attack.
World 10 (Ninja Gaiden)
17:42: Another place where you can stand. This time the window is 1 frame, and you also must face left.
17:46: A similar spike edge jump keeps my double jump, so I don’t have to touch the ground again.
17:49: I keep the speed of 5 px/f from that vine. But I have to slow down to 4 px/f on the next screen, otherwise I'll bump into the wall on my way down. Still, this is enough to skip all the waiting in this room. The action starts as soon as I shoot first Banshee, so I delay it as much as possible, so I can just fall straight down.
18:01: Another spike edge. Well, at the first glance it looks like there is a lot of space to stand. But if you look close and remember that hitbox = sprite, you can see why it’s tight.
18:04: Normally there would be a red wall on my way, but because I’ve already switched to green and haven’t died, it’s gone. Moreover, I save time on the next screen as well.
18:06: This spike edge jump skips the left vine.
18:07: That vine jump is also possible in RTA, and not only it’s faster, but it’s also easier than other strats!
18:30: This skip is a well-known trick, also done in real-time speedruns.
18:55: It turns out it’s possible to land on a spike edge right at the bottom, that saves around 7s of waiting for pillars and moving with them.
19:00: Again, if I died on my way from the toggle room, there would be a red wall blocking, and in fact, the previous skip would be useless. But, the switch was green this whole time, so it's open for me.
19:03: I reload here to manipulate RNG at Missingno. The time it takes to find it in the grass is also random, and here I had a quick one.
Missingno.
Missingno. has 100 HP, Double Shot works. His attacks are random, I manipulate RNG to get Recover: it’s the only attack that lets me deal damage right away. After I kill him I press Q to die: it skips a little waiting.
World 11 (Mario Desert)
Unlike World 10, this world does save the switch color in save files.
19:22: Save Hovering. Explained earlier in "Tricks/glitches" section. This one skips two screens below that have a switch.
19:39: Instead of sliding off, I jump to get falling speed beforehand. Then, I land on a spike edge and regain my jump, which is faster than bouncing.
19:57: You are intended to switch to green and reveal blocks here. But it's possible to perform this jump and skip going around for the switch. People have also done this jump in real-time, but not on a good pace.
20:04: That previous tough jump saves time here as well: I don’t have to switch to red.
20:09: Credits to eelusion, who told me you can get up at the left side of the cactus.
20:15: It’s funny how you are taught save jumping right in the Tutorial, and the only place where it's required to finish the game is here, in World 11.
20:19: More Save Hovering. This time it skips the Final Tower, which is ~70 seconds long.
Final Path
20:24 I reload so I can pass the first firebar.
20:28: This jump is hard, but it puts you ahead of the firebar.
20:48: Because of the jump earlier, the firebar cycle here is bad, so I have to reload. Lucky it's just possible to make it.
Solgryn
Phase 1. Solgryn’s first form has 50 HP, Double Shot works, so it’s very easy to beat him quickly. Because I killed him on the left, his sprite will stay mirrored in the remaining phases. I get stuck in stalactites so I can jump up earlier.
Phase 2 starts with a span where you can damage him. This damage accounts only for his fourth form, and if you deal enough damage you can skip Phase 4 completely. Then, a bunch of orbs will spawn at random places. Soon they will start flying towards you one-by-one. You have to hit Solgryn’s shield with these orbs for exactly 7s (350 frames). What matters here is not the amount of orbs that hit him, but the total time orbs spent touching the shield. If two orbs damage him at the same time, only one counts. I’ve gone through many possible orb patterns by waiting before entering Phase 2, it took me 11605 rerecords in total, and this is the best I could get. Theoretically it can still be at least a second better if I could get rid of all periods when no orbs hit him. But anyway, it’s way faster than any human has ever done and I’m satisfied with this.
Phase 3. As soon as I enter Phase 3, I’m on a timer, so I can just wander around. Phase 4 (Gradius) is skipped because I already killed him during Phase 2. The movie stops slightly before entering gradius ship. 8.4s later, the final cutscene starts.
