Hello, some of you might know me for speed running a few games on SDA. I just finished running an X3 improvement (before the original has been released, heh) and I wanted to share some advice for anyone who would like to time attack this game.
The tips I will be sharing will not be the typical don't miss shots or this section can be shaved off by a few frames because I think whoever improves the run will obviously optimize those things.
Any references to examples or file space can be found
here in the form of smv files. Quick note, none of those examples were done with savestates and slowdown, meaning they are not fully optimized.
First off some mistakes Prower made:
He makes some excessive use of the air dash, this is most obvious in Volt Catfish's stage, where the air dash keeps him up in the air when he wants to go down.
In Blizzard Buffalo's stage, Prower does not dash jump off the first two slopes, which is odd because he dash jumps off of the other slopes.
Toxic Seahorse can be killed faster, Prower's problem was that he tried to use frost shield right above Seahorse's head, which actually isn't optimal because right after he jumps into it, he'll be invincible to the next one. You actually want to place the frost shields high above his head. This is better explained in my little smv on filespace. I'm sure that is not the optimal height, but I'm sure the time attacker could figure that one out.
In the conveyor belt area of Crush Crawfish's stage, Prower doesn't keep constant forward momentum, although it is possible to do so with Triad Thunder. Example is on filespace (it starts on the menu screen only because it makes it easier to record).
Crush Crawfish can be killed faster, I'm not too sure how it works, but there is an smv up on my filespace account.
Prower's route is slightly incorrect, you can use both ray splasher and spinning blade to hit Vile for 2 points of damage. This means the optimal route is to kill Neon Tiger after Crush Crawfish, then go after Vile. This will allow you to kill Vile without having to resort to the X-buster.
Blast Hornet can be manipulated to shoot nothing, resulting in no slowdown. However, this might make the fight look really boring.
The other mistake in weapon choice Prower makes is fighting the boss in the first Doppler stage, Godkarmachine O Inary. He used Parasitic bomb, which does 2 points of damage per hit, ray splasher does 3 points of damage per hit.
This isn't a mistake more than a failure to experiment in the 2nd Doppler stage, you can skip a large chunk of the waiting by taking damage, then climbing up the spikes. Yes, I discovered this myself and I'm very proud of this trick. The trick utilizes a glitch which I call the Beam Sabre jump cancel, which is used to gain some height to shortcut through the last platform. The glitch is surprisingly easy to pull off. Basically just use an air dash (either one but only the vertical gets any use from this trick) and cancel the air dash by jumping
straight up while attacking. With a little practice it should be easy to perform. Example of both the time saver and the Beam Sabre Jump Cancel up on filespace.
You can cancel most of the post Beam Sabre recovery by switching weapons after you swing, allowing you to save those precious few frames you time attackers love.
There is probably more stuff that I can list, but this is a mouthful and hopefully it will help a time attacker improve this run (which I will anticipate seeing).
