I'm going to have to cancel my Wario Land 4 submission, as I won't be able to put in enough time to do the game justice. Sorry for the inconvenience.
However, you can only hover for a VERY short time on the NTSC-J version (with an exception). That's why it's not used for regular any%.
I thought I'd give you an update on the status of my games. I've had a busy semester (which is luckily coming to an end) so I've not been able to invest as much time in the games as I would've liked. My priority has been improving my times in Environmental Station Alpha and Yume Nikki, while staying consistent in Croc and Spyro.
Environmental Station Alpha: I've improved my PB by 2 minutes and 37 seconds since I submitted. Partially due to the new strats I mentioned in my submission, but in general the run has much better movement and no major mistakes. Consistency is not an issue.
Yume Nikki: I've improved a lot and am able to get sub 13 runs consistently, even with the bad RNG the game sometimes gives you. I expect to improve even more over the next few months.
Croc: Legends of the Gobbos: I've not been able to play this game much since I submitted, but with the few runs I've done beating the estimate has not been an issue. I've talked to Evert about it, and we both agree 1:50:00 would be a safe estimate. I plan on putting more time into this in the immediate future.
Spyro 2: I've not had the time to do runs of this game. I've brushed up the tricks and learnt some new strats that work better in a marathon setting, so I won't have any problems beating the estimate. I'll be trying to beat my PB with the marathon strats to get in some practice.
Most likely not arriving until the 25th
Hi Token. There's no up-to-date list of strats with explanations, but there's quite a few resources you could check out. RingRush's TAS submissions both have great explanations of most of the techniques used and descriptions of the individual levels. You can find them here: http://tasvideos.org/2991S.html (Any%) http://tasvideos.org/3482S.html (100%) The 100% TAS is the most optimized one, although they're both a bit outdated due to new strats. If you want to look into the RTA strats, check out my run or Evertrn's run. Also if you ever stream the game you'll most likely end up summoning me and I can help you out.
You can lower my estimate by 15 minutes if it helps.
Anyone interested in/with basic knowledge of Wario Land 2 are very welcome to provide co-commentary for my Main Story run. If you don't know a lot about the category I've written everything down and can send you the notes. It would be very appreciated since Nogatin won't be able to help me out with the commentary anyway.
I don't think my 40 minute estimate is too tight, I've done a lot of resetless runs that have all been sub 35, only expect that to go lower. 40 minutes may be towards the safe side, but mistakes can lose you minutes in this so I don't think it's too safe.
Getting very consistent at Wario Land 2 Main Story. I've been getting nothing but mid and low 3x:xx's lately. Today I managed to pb not once, not twice, but three times, beating the previous world record by 30 seconds. Due to a few new strats this can still go lower, but overall a really solid run.
Additionally I'm working on the commentary. Since the game requires a lot of my attention Nogatin has agreed to help me provide commentary during certain parts of the run.