Solomon's Key (NES, NTSC)

2014-02-05 08:55:27 am

First of all, I know there is already a topic for this game. I just looked in that thread and saw that it was mostly me rambling about the pal-version, so I hope it's ok if I make a new topic specifically for the ntsc-version.

Anyways, I'm first attempting the normal ending and then plan to go for the best ending without warps and without deaths. So the same categories as I made for the pal-version. My current best for the normal ending is 13:36. The gameplay was sort of in the lower range of what's acceptable and I have found improvements in a couple of rooms since then, so I'm hoping to improve it to ~13:30. I've started routing the best ending as well, but I have the feeling that there are a few more route improvements to be had once I focus more on it. Right now, it looks like a goal time of 29:30-29:45 would be realistic.

I haven't found any evidence of other western players, so I have created a page in the knowledge base, https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Solomon%27s_key, in case there is anyone interested in picking up the game now or in the future. So yeah, I don't really expect much feedback on the route, but now it's published at least and if there is interest, please don't hesitate to post feedback here. I'll try to keep the kb page updated whenever I find improvements.

Thread title:

First of all, I know there is already a topic for this game. I just looked in that thread and saw that it was mostly me rambling about the pal-version, so I hope it's ok if I make a new topic specifically for the ntsc-version.

Anyways, I'm first attempting the normal ending and then plan to go for the best ending without warps and without deaths. So the same categories as I made for the pal-version. My current best for the normal ending is 13:36. The gameplay was sort of in the lower range of what's acceptable and I have found improvements in a couple of rooms since then, so I'm hoping to improve it to ~13:30. I've started routing the best ending as well, but I have the feeling that there are a few more route improvements to be had once I focus more on it. Right now, it looks like a goal time of 29:30-29:45 would be realistic.

I haven't found any evidence of other western players, so I have created a page in the knowledge base, https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Solomon%27s_key, in case there is anyone interested in picking up the game now or in the future. So yeah, I don't really expect much feedback on the route, but now it's published at least and if there is interest, please don't hesitate to post feedback here. I'll try to keep the kb page updated whenever I find improvements.

Darkwing Duck

2014-02-06 09:01:08 pm

Highly Evolved

I still think that eventually you should do the corner jumps instead of bumping out the block above you. Will save time over the course of the run.

ktwo

2014-02-07 09:14:23 am

It's only to leave some room for improvement to the next speedrun generation. ;-)

Seriously though, you're of course right. I'm not gonna argue that slower is better... However, I'm simply not consistent enough with neither the rest of the game nor chaining together edge jumps. It's worth saying that in some rooms, I create more blocks than necessary on purpose. Arriving a bit faster to the top would only have me wait longer for enemies to get out of the way, resulting in no reward for the added risk. Basically, you need to go more or less all-in to arrive at the top a whole enemy cycle earlier to save time in room 31 and some others.

I will however say that there is no reason for me to project my limits onto others. I have therefore updated the knowledge base with alternative room solutions for room 28, 31 and 35 (the ones benefitting the most from "zigzag" jumping). The easiest was room 28. I had a roughly 10-20 % success rate for a gain of 1.5 seconds. It's otherwise a really easy room. The hardest was room 31. It took me more than 40 attempts in real-time (including a save state in the middle at the key) to record a video that was 3 seconds faster than what I'm doing at the moment. I'm not writing this to try to impress anyone. It's just to say that I'm way too inconsistent with the more advanced strats to implement them.

With more and more speedrunners joining in and spreading out to more and more games, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone else lays their eyes on Solomon's Key. I guess we'll then see if it's just my skills that are limited (very much possible) or if other people share my opinion of the difficulty. Right now, all I have to compare with is a bunch of Japanese times (only a fraction of which have videos). The best time is over a minute slower than me in the normal ending category, so it's pretty clear that they have some way to go before even starting to consider edge jumping. They're therefore not much of a reference for what's possible to do in real-time.

It's only to leave some room for improvement to the next speedrun generation. ;-)

Seriously though, you're of course right. I'm not gonna argue that slower is better... However, I'm simply not consistent enough with neither the rest of the game nor chaining together edge jumps. It's worth saying that in some rooms, I create more blocks than necessary on purpose. Arriving a bit faster to the top would only have me wait longer for enemies to get out of the way, resulting in no reward for the added risk. Basically, you need to go more or less all-in to arrive at the top a whole enemy cycle earlier to save time in room 31 and some others.

I will however say that there is no reason for me to project my limits onto others. I have therefore updated the knowledge base with alternative room solutions for room 28, 31 and 35 (the ones benefitting the most from "zigzag" jumping). The easiest was room 28. I had a roughly 10-20 % success rate for a gain of 1.5 seconds. It's otherwise a really easy room. The hardest was room 31. It took me more than 40 attempts in real-time (including a save state in the middle at the key) to record a video that was 3 seconds faster than what I'm doing at the moment. I'm not writing this to try to impress anyone. It's just to say that I'm way too inconsistent with the more advanced strats to implement them.

With more and more speedrunners joining in and spreading out to more and more games, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone else lays their eyes on Solomon's Key. I guess we'll then see if it's just my skills that are limited (very much possible) or if other people share my opinion of the difficulty. Right now, all I have to compare with is a bunch of Japanese times (only a fraction of which have videos). The best time is over a minute slower than me in the normal ending category, so it's pretty clear that they have some way to go before even starting to consider edge jumping. They're therefore not much of a reference for what's possible to do in real-time.

ktwo

2014-02-08 07:15:36 am

I improved the time to 13:26 and just submitted it. Darkwing, be gently if you decide to verify this :-), I'll admit that there were a couple of places where I opted out of edge jumping. There is still time to be saved in several places, but I'm gonna focus on the best ending now (which is kind of the "real" category anyways). If anyone wants to push the time lower, I'll be happy to assist with whatever experience I have with this game.

ktwo

2014-03-29 10:58:30 am

I just completed my first no-death speedrun of the best ending (no warps), so I guess time for a small update. This has taken me longer than I expected, but the advantage is that I have come up with small time savers along the way. It now seems like sub-29 would be feasible with a good run, but I'd be happy even with something just above 29. Anyways, the time of my completed run was roughly 29:15. Unfortunately, I missed a shortcut in room 47, which cost me 14 seconds. There were 4-5 seconds more of visible mistakes. I'll continue putting in attempts for now. However, due to personal reasons, I'm on a tight schedule for getting this done in the near future (or taking a longer break before getting back on doing attempts again). If I'm not successful, I'll probably just submit this 29:15.

ktwo

Edit history:

ktwo: 2014-07-27 05:26:42 am

2014-07-25 12:58:06 pm

I've been mostly working on improving my best ending run, but recently decided to mix it up with some normal ending. Unintentionally, I started to find one time saver after the other and my focus has been on the normal ending the last couple of days. Today, I managed to get all the new strats together in one run (13:16 or 10 seconds faster than the current sda-run):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gR39Epe6H8&list=UU3aoWgKmfZeXA5g4rZf9CNg

There is a really ugly spot in room 48 that I'm not happy about. I'm probably gonna go back to some best ending attempts now and mix it with some normal ending attempts as well. Hopefully, I have one more improvement in me for the normal ending run.

Edit (260714): Down to 13:15 now. I'm gonna continue trying to shave off another second or two in between best ending attempts, but no big deal if I don't beat this time.

Everhate

2014-07-27 04:15:00 pm

I didn't even think that big an improvement was possible on the normal ending run. Great job!

Been slowly trying to learn this game, only to remember how difficult it is. Cool to see you back to working on it.

ktwo

2014-07-28 01:15:36 pm

Thanks. I'm surprised myself at how much time there was to take off the old run by just coming up with smarter solutions (ok, it's a bit riskier as well). And it all came about in just a few days. However, I admit this has happened several times to me in the past as well (I have a long history with this game). I guess that's one of the reasons I keep coming back because there is always something new to discover and ways to lower the time. Think I'm gonna do some more attempts now. :-)

ktwo

2014-08-23 06:20:19 am

Time for a new update. I've been focusing on the normal ending run lately. I've come up with several new strats and some of them will be of use in the best ending run, so it's nice to practice them in a shorter run in order to decide which ones are consistent enough. Yesterday I managed to get almost all of them in one run.

There is a 10 second mistake in room 38, so the attempt is basically a failure even though it's a pb by 10 seconds. It's still a good demonstration of new routes since everything else went basically without mistakes. The only strat I missed out on was in room 21. It would save another second and a half, but it's so difficult that it's not something I reset over (as things stand right now).

I have a feeling that once I get a time a little under 13 minutes, it will be the last contribution from me in this category, period. In my previous runs, there have always been small stops and minor things that bugged me, but where I couldn't find a way around them. With the new set of solutions, I have managed to reduce that pretty much as far as I consider possible without starting to rely on frame perfect execution. The routes are now very straight-forward, so I have a hard time seeing where more time could be saved.

Once I get something I'm happy with in the normal ending category, I'll get back into best ending attempts. I think that category could come down to ~28:35 with the routes I have now (provided no mistakes, which isn't very likely). Some of the new solutions add risk though, so I'm not sure I'll implement all of them. But that's another discussion...

I've also updated the Solomon's Key page in the knowledge base, so it's completely up-to-date as far as my knowledge about this game and the routes goes.

That's it for now. Back to more attempts (maybe some streamed ones as well)...

Time for a new update. I've been focusing on the normal ending run lately. I've come up with several new strats and some of them will be of use in the best ending run, so it's nice to practice them in a shorter run in order to decide which ones are consistent enough. Yesterday I managed to get almost all of them in one run. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjHFmvAMj84
There is a 10 second mistake in room 38, so the attempt is basically a failure even though it's a pb by 10 seconds. It's still a good demonstration of new routes since everything else went basically without mistakes. The only strat I missed out on was in room 21. It would save another second and a half, but it's so difficult that it's not something I reset over (as things stand right now).

I have a feeling that once I get a time a little under 13 minutes, it will be the last contribution from me in this category, period. In my previous runs, there have always been small stops and minor things that bugged me, but where I couldn't find a way around them. With the new set of solutions, I have managed to reduce that pretty much as far as I consider possible without starting to rely on frame perfect execution. The routes are now very straight-forward, so I have a hard time seeing where more time could be saved.

Once I get something I'm happy with in the normal ending category, I'll get back into best ending attempts. I think that category could come down to ~28:35 with the routes I have now (provided no mistakes, which isn't very likely). Some of the new solutions add risk though, so I'm  not sure I'll implement all of them. But that's another discussion...

I've also updated the Solomon's Key page in the knowledge base, so it's completely up-to-date as far as my knowledge about this game and the routes goes.

That's it for now. Back to more attempts (maybe some streamed ones as well)...

ktwo

2014-09-26 08:35:33 am

I just beat my pb: http://www.twitch.tv/ktwo123/b/572265567 (not a single viewer, but it was streamed! :-) )
According to my local recording, it's just below 29 min, but according to wsplit it's 29:01. I'll have to look at it more carefully later on.
- I lost 3 s in room 30
- 4.5 s in 31 (but it's too inconsistent for me, so I'll normally not go for this time saver unless I'm behind)
- 21 s in 35 (death)
- 2 s in 35 (weird glitch - tried something, but won't be an issue in an actual attempt)
- 1 s in 44
- 1.5 s in 38+46 (pick up a fireball in room 38 for use in room 46 - doable, but not something I'm going to try for in an actual attempt)
- 2 s in 46

On top of that, there's of course always tighter cornering and stuff that could cut time if done faster than average on the course of a run. So overall, a run with no mistakes without the time savers in 31 and 38+46 would be very close to 28:30. I'm definitely not done...

PJ

2014-09-26 12:07:31 pm

Is PJ

Ktwo, your dedication to this game is incredible! It is very refreshing to see. Cheesy

Keep up the great work!

ktwo

Edit history:

ktwo: 2014-10-12 11:53:41 am

ktwo: 2014-10-12 11:53:02 am

2014-10-12 11:52:31 am

http://www.twitch.tv/ktwo123/b/577443356 (best ending in ~28:39, starts at 43:50)
I finally managed to get a run with no deaths in the best ending category. There are a few blunders that I wish I could undo, but I'm going to settle with this. With the room solutions I use at the moment, I was prepared for that not everything would go smoothly. I've had other attempts on a better pace getting deep into the game, this is the first no-death run since April, so it's not exactly like I can pick and choose... I'm gonna stop rambling here. I'm submitting this and will eventually move on to other games. I'm pretty sure this was the last speedrun for Solomon's Key from me (just shy of 5 years since I started speedrunning this game!).

Edit: Thanks PJ :-)

ktwo

2016-09-01 01:44:09 pm

It's been a while since this game was up for discussion, but now it's time to brush the dust off this thread again! (so I'm breaking my vow from my previous post)

Anyways, I picked up this game again a few days ago with the purpose to see if I could get consistent enough for a marathon. I only plan to focus on any% this time. I've already found a few new things and today I first matched the time of my SDA-run and then right after got another one that was only a few seconds slower. The first one might actually have been slightly faster, but it doesn't really matter. With the new strats I'm using, there were 7-8 seconds of execution mistakes. I hope I can improve my time by a few seconds in not too long.

I've also updated the entry in the knowledge base with all the latest room solutions I'm using.

ktwo

2016-10-05 11:59:20 am

Improvement:

It's a 12:53, so 4 seconds faster than my run here on the site. I have found faster room solutions worth more than that though, so the execution wasn't terrific in the new run. I'm gonna continue doing attempts and hopefully be able to lower the time by a 2-3 more seconds.

ktwo

2016-10-16 04:35:30 am

I just got a 12:50. It was a bit bitter-sweet though. The run was clean until the last room, where I choked/was a little slow, which cost me an enemy cycle worth 1.5 seconds. I'll continue playing until the end of the month, but maybe not as focused as I've been doing lately, so I see it as pretty unlikely that I'll manage to get a lower time this time around.

reality

Edit history:

reality: 2016-10-17 10:51:06 am

2016-10-17 10:50:43 am

Nostalgia Kills

Oh man I know that feeling. I remember getting a wr March28 and dropping 2 seconds at the end. Never tried again until September 17th, and then I did the same run again without that mistake within 2 days of attempts.

I recomend taking it easy, that last chunk will probbably nag at you, but it doesn't need to do so right away, I know lots of people who got fed up with their speedruns when they over-pushed.

Also room 39 and 46 are my favorite in your last recorded run.

ktwo

2016-10-18 10:55:22 am

Yeah exactly, it's not the mistake itself that bothers me, but the timing of it was just terrible. We'll see if something better comes out or if this is it.

In case anyone wonders about the video, it's submitted and currently in verification, so technically it's publicly available!

46 is my favorite too! There is also a backstory to it that makes it even more special to me (described in the run comments of my 12:57 run).