I've started doing IL runs of this game.

I've found a few levels which I think can be optimised with certain strats specific to each level. Using these strats mostly eliminates the need to use pickups, which can be a massive time-save as you don't need to wait for good weapons to drop, and you're also not reliant on RNG to get good drops

These strats involve manipulating the enemy AI using the level geometry. By standing in a certain spot you can cause the AI to pathfind in the same way every spawn, using this to repeatedly get one hit kills without needing to move your character.

The first of these is on Swamp. By standing in the bottom left of the stage you can pretty consistently get 1HKs by knocking the enemy off the edge of the stage. Can be seen in my run below: I made a few mistakes on this run. I think if we manage to get all 5 kills on first hit then a sub-30 time is possible on this level.

The next is on Sumo Ring. I don't have a video for this yet as I'm still perfecting the movements. Stand on far-left of the ring as soon as the level starts. As the enemy approaches quickly move right, then immediately left and use heavy attack to knock them off the edge. EDIT: Got a quick video of the strategy. It can be executed faster than this. Allows you to get first kill within 2 secs of round start very consistently

I've managed to do this fairly consistently to get a guaranteed first kill on this level. You can repeat the trick to get the remaining kills but timing becomes tigther because after first spawn the enemy spawns in centre-stage rather than on the right.

There is also a bug I found on Sumo Ring. There is 1 pixel you can stand on to the far left side of the ring. If you stand here it looks like your character is floating. When you do this the enemy will just stand still because they can't pathfind to you. Pretty useless for speedrun but interesting nonetheless.

Finally is Ice World. Using this method I can get first kill within seconds of starting very consistently which is a massive time save on the level. You can then repeat a certain movement to get the enemy into perfect position to be knocked off-stage every single round. Again my execution is not perfect so still plenty of time to be saved on this! Same as Swamp, sub-30 is possible

I think we can create a fairly consistent movement strat for each level, then use this to potentially shave time off the current Full Game WR run. I feel like these strats eliminate some dependance on RNG for pickup drops, so we could improve per-level consistency for full game runs

there's a lot of setups like this that i've tried to incorporate into my full game run and i 100% agree if we can get them safely and consistently it'll improve overall speed and consistency a bunch.

the major problem i've faced is that which strong attack comes out is actually completely random, as discovered from looking at the flash code. there are 3 attacks that can come out when you press x and 2 of them have the ability to instakill like you've shown. the major consistency problem i've encountered in full game runs is that the cpu on the bottom row levels will often hit you with the same tech if you roll the 1/3 and just do damage, or outrace you to a weapon you can't contest.

i'm mostly bringing this up to let you know that it's not always your execution, it sometimes is just randomness whether you'll get the full combo off.

Thank you so much for this. I felt like my attacks were random and questioned the game at first, then thought it was my execution that was off I'm glad to hear I wasn't going crazy, and random attacks are actually something the game does!

It's a bit annoying knowing that though, because this means rng will always play a big part in whether these setups actually work

Thank you for the info 🌶

EDIT:

Thinking about it, it does make the speedgame more interesting because you have to weigh up the decision of either going for the X attack for a chance of instakill, or using a weapon instead which might be slower, but is much more consistent