Yeah... Like I said, this is my first try at tool-assisted speed runs... Ever.
I spent a lot of time struggling to dodge the falling rocks/scales/whatever, and didn't continue shooting the entire time I was in range of the jewel, so it was just a little bit too slow.
Pretty much every battle there is a lot slower then it really could've been, until the later levels where nearly all the minor enemies were minibosses so I just used the orange cat suit to skip through them all... But it is complete, at least, and the 4th and 5th boss battles are fairly close to as fast as possible, I'm sure.
I suppose you could say it's more of a silly run then a serious one, but I guess that's part of what makes it fun.
The difference between the invulnerability spell and the cat transformation: The invulnerability spell takes longer to cast, requires you to be normal Jake, still lets you shoot while it is in effect, but only lasts a short while. The cat transformation is only invincible while jumping, can literally last forever at no cost, but leaves you unable to attack.
I'd say use the cat transformation whenever possible, only use the invulnerability spell when you need to be able to shoot while jumping and you simply must be invincible while you do so. As you've seen in my run, you can simply jump through the entire level with the cat transformation and you'll come up to the boss ready with the strongest possible attack, the only question is if you can hit it from the ground or not.
Yeah, so I got to the jumping crocodiles part, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to reduce the lag there. Maybe if I use the flying suit, I can shoot those eyeball fish while flying over.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Oh? There's lag there? I didn't notice. :S
I just got through it by cat suit jumping the whole way, avoiding letting them jump up under me... I probably could've jumped off them even while they were in the air jumping up under me, but I didn't really wanna try it.
They act as spike platforms in the air, I thought, and could thus be jumped from all the same. This is how it seemingly breaks through the cat suit's invincibility.
Also, I just noticed that as you went through the first boss battle, you let off a lot of shots that passed through the weak point and were 'blocked', doing nothing more then make that clink sound...
Sometimes a shot both hits and doesn't hit, because it's just on the edge of the invulnerability area or time. So you hear the clink, but you also see a point taken off the boss's life meter.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Okay, I'm still updating at http://www.geocities.com/ryan_ferneau/Totally_Rad_U.zip because filespace's server is being dumb. But now I've beaten Act 4's boss!
There were a few surprises along the way. I discovered that falling onto the side of a spike makes you pop up on top of it, reducing most of the wait time from getting hurt. I was going to do that a second time, but I needed the extra hit on the boss, and it turned out that that second fall onto spikes only saved 1 frame anyway. It was also lucky that the boss sinks into the ground and does nothing but his crystal toss attack when his health is low, because he was just about to back into me when that happened.
----
Hmm, now this is strange... It seems as though taking damage at the first bouncy ball guy in 5-1 makes the first pogo guy not appear.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Hooray, 5-1 is done! http://www.geocities.com/ryan_ferneau/Totally_Rad_U.zip
It turns out I didn't need to take a hit at the beginning; I just had to stand still in that spot for 8 frames. Hmm.
Well, now I have to get ready for that miniboss that's harder than the final boss.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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1 more boss fight to go!
So far it looks good. Seems like you have done a good job planning and testing various methods. I'm glad you were able to find some time saving spots to use magic and transforms. Those really helped with the overall entertainment in addition to being faster. Too bad the fish guy couldn't be useful.
That last boss made sure was ugly, it made me wonder if there wasn't a better way to do it but I have no ideas as to how.
Energy is a very limited resource in this game. You were able to manage it very well and take all the damage you could and pick the most profitable places. Good work. Assuming the last boss goes decent, this will be an easy yes vote for me :)
EDIT:
Well, now I have to get ready for that miniboss that's harder than the final boss.
No, sh*t! What is up with that mini boss being exponentially harder than the final boss? I always thought that was weird about the game. I spend many hrs/days/weeks trying to beat that damn mini-boss.
Hmm, I remember I didn't realize I could recover faster from a hit with the birdie transformation by "jumping off air" until the middle of the fight. Maybe I should take damage earlier rather than leaping over him and wasting more shooting time.
There's a lot of ways to do that fight that I tried... Earlier efforts involved luring him to the left side instead of the right side, as well as switching back to the original form to use double shots so I wouldn't have to wait until he walked back to the ledge.
But my eyes are getting a little sore, so I think I'll take a break now.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Here's the run with the whole game finished! http://www.geocities.com/ryan_ferneau/Totally_Rad_U.zip
Tell me if you see any mistakes, or if you can figure out how to stop the game from repeating the last frame for whatever reason.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
