After watching that, I have a couple of questions.
First, that GameFAQs guide mentions the Flint Spear Head, which increases attack power. Does that item work on bosses at all, or only on normal enemies? Also, does it only work with the normal spear or does it power up the attack totems as well? If it works on bosses and/or powers up attack totems, that's the kind of item to manipulate (you did get some good luck manipulation to aid you though, I will admit).
Second, I'm curious, how interchangable are the Ice Ritual and Magic Forest stages? Meaning, could time (other than the time it takes to select the stage) be saved doing those two stages in a particular order? Right now, I'm somehow convinced there's a way to shave more time doing Magic Forest first.
Additionally, something I discovered in the guide regarding the Fire Test, in the section with the Firebirds and weighted platforms:
There is a hidden Magic Potion on the platform above the entrance to the next section. It's reachable from the weighted platforms.
How many frames are lost getting that rather than manipulating a Magic Potion (those restore-health-when-you-are-out items) elsewhere?
If I find anything else, I'll make sure to speak up.
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Thanks man, glad to see I'm not the only one interested in this game :D
As a matter of fact I have recently discovered that flint spearhead does affect bosses as well. (In the first run through I basically copied walker's route because I didn't know very much about the game). Bosses have a 75 frame invulenerability period. The flint spearhead will mean 5 hits instead of 9 with the basic weapon. Thats a 300 frame savings with only about a 30 frame cost of stopping and manipulating a spearhead.
The spearhead is as powerful as the optimal weapon is for each boss, 5 hits instead of 9 (the spearhead does not affect other weapons though). Because of this, I don't have to worry about having the right weapon for each boss. Therefore I have changed the route to: ice cave, cliff, woods, fire, forest. This way I can have the time saving spear in all the levels. The cloud is ncessary first because it saves loads of time in the cliff level.
As for the refills, I am making sure I have all 3 when I get to the boss. I am experimenting as seeing where I can get them optimially. In the new wip I get one in the intro level with a cost of about 15 frames. I should be able to get the last one from a random enemy drop without losing significant time.
I will post a wip of the new run after I complete the forest stage. This new run should be significantly faster :)
