[Obsolete] Any% Hard - Kraid first vs. Ridley first comparison (TAS)

Channel:

Jakoliath

Subscribers:

665

Published on May 26, 2022 2:56:06 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeNgffqeI2w

Game:

Obsolete (2020)

Duration: 23:15

194 views

5

Kraid first on the left, Ridley first on the right.

With the help of samthedigital I've been able to narrow the gap between Kraid-first and Ridley first quite a bit. However, changing up the Ridley fight in the Ridley-first route from traditional to using the unrage setup (thanks to CScottyW for the setup and good RNG), the gap is still pretty sizeable.

For the Kraid-first route, some more aggressive strats in Kraid's lair saved a nice chunk of time, making it possible to grab a missile pack on my way out and still be 4 frames ahead of the old vresion. 34 missiles allows us to do a faster (and RNGless) Ridley fight, which saves ~500 frames (~7.62 seconds) over the traditional Ridley fight. For Ridley first, the Ridley fight has a lot of variance, due to it being random when he will spit more fireballs, i.e. allowing him take more damage without aggravation.

For Kraid-first, if you're skipping the e-tank in the room after speedway, shinesparking through the room saves 26 frames, and you can save 8 more frames (34 total) by doing a ballspark from the first platform. Skipping the e-tank means a slightly longer refill on your way to Tourian.

Assuming amazing luck in Tourian there shouldn't be any differences between Kraid-first or Ridley-first as far as the metroid rooms are concerned. However, with fewer supers and missiles in a Ridley-first scenario the Mother Brain room is significantly slower, especially for humans.
After breaking the glass (20 missiles) you need to refill to 15 missiles in Kraid-first and 20 missiles in Ridley-first in order to have enough ammo to kill Mother Brain.

It is human-viable to perform doubles or even triples on Mother Brain, which lets you hit an extra projectile (missile OR supers) before she closes her eye again. Basically, while her eye is opening, it is unable to close again, so you can shoot it with supers and the eye won't immediately close as it normally would. This saves a small amount of time for both categories.

After Tourian there is only one remaining place where the routes differ. In the Ridley-first route you grab a second Super Missile tank in Chozodia, the one in the lava shortly after Charlie; this costs a little over 9 seconds.

Despite these places where Ridley first is slower, it's not enough to close the gap. The Ridley-first is (optimally) faster by roughly 23 seconds. Assuming there are some minor optimizations I can still make to the Kraid-first run we could call the gap ~20 seconds. The conventional wisdom has been that the Kraid-first route is faster both IGT and RTA, and shockingly, with good luck, it seems that Ridley-first is the faster RTA route, much like traditional any%.

Details on the lengths of each segment and the exact time losses for Ridley-first in Mother Brain room & lava supers room can be found here: https://pastebin.com/5fmPWjhH

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