A Boy and his BlogA Boy and his Blog

Posted on Jul 26th 2012 at 03:11:56 AM by (singlebanana)
Posted under Contra, NES, Nintendo, World Record, attempt

When we last left off, our brave hero had ended his second run with 1,463,900 points with 3 lives remaining.  On the following night, 7/23/12 I began a third run and ended with 2,208,300 points and only 2 lives remaining.  After a solid first run, costly mistakes and an increase in enemy forces had caused my lives to dwindle down and I was at the edge of having to start  over.  It wasn't long into my 4th attempt, that I lost my remaining lives and finished with a score of 2,259,200..........to make things worse, I died at that damn waterfall stage.

Not to be discouraged, took a break for the rest of the night and came back on Tuesday to do a few practice runs and get a better feel for the game, to memorize unroaming enemy locations, and to get a better strategy for the final boss fight (where I was losing a few lives sometimes).  I learned that I had a lot of success in keeping a spread gun and had learned where to locate one in almost every board.  I also found a better route in the Energy Zone and pretty much mastered the level by slowing down a little more and being a bit more patient around the flamethrowers.


Tonight (7/25), I sat down in my gaming chair and decided that my opening strategy was to attempt a "no death" run on the first run through and try to do my best to stockpile lives, since the game gets harder.  Though I had to reset the first time after losing a life on Stage 2, I lost only one life on my first full run.  I was a little miffed (the perfectionist in me), but decided that this was fine since I had accumulated 746,00 points and started my second run with 11 lives (stockpiling Cool.  The second run also went pretty well.  I lost a few lives on silly mistakes, popping up too early in bases and a knucklehead jump at the Waterfall boss; however, I managed to get through it with 1,497,300 points and 15 lives (stockpiling an additional 4).  I'll take it.

Though I was getting a little fatigued, I decided to give it another go.  My third run started off pretty well; there were some deaths that couldn't be prevented (i.e. crouching under fire, while roaming enemies run up behind you), but I was playing pretty solid and made it through the Snow Field, Energy Zone, and Hangar with no deaths.  I made it to the end of the Alien's Lair without dying, but lost a life in the battle pretty early and lost my spread.  I tried to gain a foothold, but lost 3 lives total in that fight, which was a bit discouraging.  However, at the end of the run, I had accumulated 2,242,300 points and now have 18 lives (banking an additional 3).


I'm always skeptical about pausing, since I never know if I'll reenter the game with the same attention to detail as I had before.  Since it's my only copy of the game, I can't really warm up on another TV and I can only hope to be as sharp was I was tonight.  It might be beneficial to watch some end boss strategies, since I am still losing a few lives there and could possibly stockpile a few more with better play.   


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Comments
 
Might I suggest warming up on an emulator and using save states for the more difficult areas you need to master? You own the title, so it's legal. Also, there's a pattern to the spread that allows you to fire it insanely fast - I'll link you the current Contra speedrun so you can see it in action:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/Contra.html#Contra
 
wait, dude... are you planning to submit a score to TG or not? At first I thought you were, but all this pausing between runs makes me think that you do not plan to do so.
 
No, I'm not planning to submit a score......yet.  Just seeing if I can do it for fun.  There's a possibility I might submit one down the road.  If I can do it once, I'm sure I can duplicate it.
 
I love watching speedruns.  The Contra speedrun is interesting to me, especially since in order to prep for the run you do multiple playthroughs just to stock up on lives.  Now bear with me (it's been a while), but after you beat the game does it go back to the intro screen (scrolling Contra logo) or just to the Stage 1 sign?  Is that when you would start the tape for the speedrun?
 
It does not go back to the title screen after the playthough, but straight back to Stage 1 after the credit roll.

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