Game:

Volgarr the Viking (2013)

Duration: 17:37

1,068 views

12

Still not sub 16, but still a nice improvement, with a lot of places to save time.

Feel free to watch live at http://www.twitch.tv/skiegh

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The Volgarr Dictionary:
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Mjolnir's Power: A power up hidden in a wall in each stage (and section) that grants the player the ability to unleash a powerful nova upon getting hit. It is the key ingredient to the speedrun, as utilizing it at the opportune moments is one of the biggest tricks to optimizing the run. The ability itself does massive damage, but does pause the screen which loses time. It also grants you the ability to jump in mid-air for covering greater distances.

Wood Shield (Vidr Skjoldir): Starting power up. Can block two hits before breaking.

Hammer Shield (Hamarr Skjoldir): First power up. Can block infinite hits, and allows you to charge a spear which penetrates weaker enemies and does 3 damage.

Helmet / Baldr's Protection (Baldr's Skjaldborg): Second power up. Increases Volgarr's attack speed by a dramatic amount. This unlocks Volgarr's fastest mode of movement which is to roll and spear in succession.

Flame Sword / Tyr's Flame (Tyr's Villieldr): Final power up. Doubles Volgarr's damage (putting it to 2 per swing), while increasing the hitbox on his attacks. This is crucial for both parts, the damage makes most enemies die in one hit, and the range makes hitting smaller enemies possible while standing.

Warrior's Spirit: The final "power up" is nothing but a life, one required to be able to partake in the Valkyrie Path. These pop-out on the 6th chest in stage with no hits. (You need to get all the power ups, two gold drops, and then the next chest will have a Warrior's Spirit.)

Game Paths: Volgarr is divided into two paths. The Crystal path which is the basic path of the game, with infinite life and stage skips (by walking left at the beginning of each level), and the Valkyrie path, which requires a Warrior's Spirit to access, has no level skip, and has finite lives to work with. The Valkyrie path is considered to be more platforming less enemies, while the Crystal is more enemies, less platforming. Though the Valkyrie path is hard due to it's lack of ability to practice, the Crystal path's abundance of enemies makes it tricky to progress swiftly.

Roll Canceling: A roll can be canceled into most anything, and like in Donkey Kong, Volgarr can roll off edges and then proceed into a full jump. It is Volgarr's fastest mode of transportation if canceled properly, while also granting him immunity to enemy's passive hitboxes while in use. (But not their active ones, so attacks still hit you.)

Blocking: Volgarr's shield can block anything but a select few attacks, and is immensely useful for saving a run in clutch situations.

Block Canceling: Simply the act of blocking an attack and immediately canceling into something else like a roll or a jump to not lose time from the push-back that you receive from blocking.

Reverse Blocking: The designers of this game were very particular with the frame data in this game, and as a fighting game player, I appreciate the touches they made. When throwing a spear, your shield for a few frames is behind your head, allowing you to block from behind. There is really only one unique and very dangerous situation where this can save a run if I'm on point.

Down-Canceling: The downstab Volgarr can use in the game can be canceled by pressing up or throwing a spear. By pressing up, you cancel it immediately, then do it again. Done correctly, you can do an obscene amount of damage really quickly. Since I am not a TAS, this has limited but useful uses in the game. General down canceling with spears I use consistently to make sure Volgarr does not get stuck in a recovery animation upon hitting the ground.

Spear Glitch: Occasionally, spears thrown against enemies will produce unbroken spears, where the spear is on-screen and on the enemy, but actually isn't there, thus, you fall straight through. This is devastating in certain moments and is quite the sour run killer.

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