At the request of Dojiro in their recent 24:04 TG-16 run, I have split the two platforms into two separate leaderboards, and have moved both Dojiro's 24:04 and Amune's 30:27 into a new "Any% (TG-16) category.

Hopefully this will help invigorate a little bit more competition into this other version of the game, especially since they don't have to compete against the significantly shorter NES version on the same leaderboard.

Yup, this has been found before. Some of the older TASes use it to save lag-frames throughout the run.

It's possible on anything that's a one-hit KO object, such as the boiling water in Stage 3 or the spikes in Stages 4-6. The only use for it to save time realistically is to keep up with cycles, such as if you're slightly behind the bubble cycle in the video you posted Kuningas, or if you're slightly behind a cycle in Stage 5.

For example, I'm fairly consistent with getting a spike jump in Stage 5 if I'm slightly behind TAS cycle. Probably about a 60% success rate. It's pretty easy to get the timing for, but my "setup" for it greatly limits its utility.

So I encountered this during a run earlier today and was genuinely shocked by it, as I'd never seen this before.

Holding jump through a screen transition usually allows you to buffer the jump input, so that you jump on the first possible frame and gain momentum. This saves a few frames every screen transition and is best practice.

What I did here was hold jump into the screen transition, then once the jump started, I let go then immediately repressed and held jump, and it led to this SUPER JUMP

This works in every screen transition as far as I can tell, although it's much easier to perform on horizontal screens vs vertical screens. However, it does work on vertical screens. I just think the window is tighter on vertical screens, although I have no proof of that.

The Laser Climb in Stage 5 is the only place I could immediately think of where this trick would save time. But I wonder if there are other spots it can be used? Would be really cool if we could find a way to trigger it whenever we wanted.

I mean, thats the only difference as far as I am aware. I personally don't feel thats a big enough change to warrant a category split, but thats just me.

There aren't enough runners of the game to further divide the leaderboards, either.

I would personally vote no, keep it the same.

You want to stay on the ground for the fastest route, not the rooftops.

The reason for this is that while the screen is scrolling, you maintain top speed while jumping and landing along the same X axis. That is, starting and finishing your jump on the same level (in this case, the ground) and jumping immediately after you land will maintain the screen scrolling at the fastest possible speed the longest.

In your latest video, watch how much your speed drops when you jump off a rooftop and land on the ground. Your speed noticably slows down when you jump from a higher level and land on a lower level.

I'm on mobile and can't immediately compare times, but you can definitely improve the time by staying on the ground and jumping constantly without ever going up to the rooftops.

Try it again without climbing on top of the buildings and keep doing your frame perfect jumps, see how much faster it is. =) I don't know how much time is lost, but watch Pero's speed when you fall from the top of a building to the ground and you should see what I mean.

Good luck!

Thats what I thought, just wanted to make sure.

Thanks =)

Does anyone know the differences between the Famicom and US releases of the game?

The only thing I noticed was the health/powerup refills of 50 orbs on Famicom versus 30 orbs on US.

Are there any other differences that would make one a preference over the other? More/less health on bosses, faster cutscenes, etc?

Just looking for clarification on the timer start.

The rules state timer starts when you select "Press Start" on the title screen.

When you first boot up the game, the waterfall cutscene plays and takes about 12s to run through. When you reset the game, the cutscene is omitted and you're tossed right into the game. You have to power cycle the console to get the cutscene to play again, as far as I can tell.

The top 3 times by HanSan, faulteroyy and dreamofsha all play the opening cutscene, but 00greanbean00 starts from reset and skips the cutscene, saving 12s. His is also the oldest run on the leaderboards, though.

Just looking for clarification before I start running. A free time save of 12s at the start of the game is pretty huge, but I don't want runs to be retroactively disqualified if the rules change in the future. I also don't want to give up a free 12s time save if we don't need to run the cutscene either.

I wouldn't be against it since it may lead to some cool methods of handling certain screens/routing that limits backtracking, but I definitely think it should be its own leaderboard.

Updated previous post with a beginners guide. Ignore what I originally posted =P

I tossed together a quick Beginners Guide. It's not incredibly in depth, but it should show you a quick and easy route through the game without taking too many risk. I would also recommend watching the Intermediate/Advanced tutorial at whatever point you feel comfortable -- it has a lot of information in it, but it might be a bit overwhelming when you're first learning the game. I bounce between incredibly difficult strats and movements, and just basic knowledge of the game that might not seem obvious at first. It's useful information to have, but depending how you process information, it might not be the best place to start. I would personally start using it when you're consistently completing deathless runs, and get into the 14:45-15:15 range.

I would recommend:

1. Playing through the game on your own first, and learning the levels and how to move and how the enemies move, and how the bosses move. This will give you a basic understanding of the game, and what each section can throw at you. That way you'll develop a bit of an understanding of how to react and respond when you fail a couple of tricks or forget how to do something. Time it if you want, you should be able to finish the game in under 20 minutes fairly early on, probably within your first day of playing.

2. Watch the Beginner Guide I just posted. That'll give you an incredibly basic understanding of the game and how to finish the "speedrun" fairly safely. You can easily get a 15 minute time using the Beginner guide and not dying. Using the Beginner Guide safe strats, I think the best that you can do is probably a high 14 minute time -- probably around 14:45.

3. Once you feel you've mastered the main game, watch the Intermediate/Advanced Guide. It goes into how to reduce lag, how lag works, risky strats you can attempt, and the WR route. It also covers how cycles work, where you can save and lose time very easily, and a few spots you can save tiny increments of time that will add up over the course of the run. With the Intermediate/Advanced Guide and a good understanding of the game -- and good shrimp RNG -- you should be able to get a sub-14 minute time fairly easily.

4. If you feel the Intermediate/Advanced tutorial is throwing too much at you and you're having a hard time completing runs, watch KuningasEST's Marathon Safe run here: With a basic understanding of the game, it shows you how to consistently get a mid-14 minute time using a combination of safe strats and slightly riskier strats.

5. Start grinding for WR. =D

There is no Discord channel that I'm aware of, unfortunately. If you have any questions, DM me on Twitch and I'll see if I can help you out.

There are fewer enemies in some sections, enemies are placed slightly differently in others. Weapon placements are different in some stages as well as health drops (you can see this in the very first level, there are health drops and you can pick up the saucer weapon before the boss). Level layout and bosses are the same though.

I personally find JP an easier run of the game - there's less lag, more health, weapons are in slightly more useful places, etc.

I'm not sure if it's actually different or if its just my brain playing tricks on me, but the hitbox for the basic attack feels different too. In US its a frying pan swinging down, and in JP its your head dashing forward, and I do find that they have different hit ranges and arcs. That might not be accurate though and could be a perception problem on my part.