Mighty_bomb_jack_(nes)

Category description

The basic premise of the best ending run is to collect the two crystals and 5 or more S-coins. After the king's room, Jack is sent to the queen's room (at least one crystal required) and the princess' room (both crystals required). If the S-coin requirement is met on top the crystal requirement, Jack will be sent to the Belzebut room after the princess' room. Finishing the room containing Belzebut yields the best ending. There are basically four possible categories when speaking of the best ending.

• With deaths and with palace room warps - will be explained in some detail below.
• No deaths and with palace room warps - similar to above, but instead of picking up the two S-coins in 16-1, pick up the two in stage 5. Also no death abuse after collecting the second crystal.
• With deaths and no palace room warps - this category has been shown some interest by Japanese players. While the Japanese version is quite different than the US version, the following run of the player with the best listed can give an idea of what the category looks like: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/1364143228?side_bar=3
• No deaths and no palace room warps - Similar to above, but no death abuse after collecting the crystal from the labyrinth of stage 12.
  

Note: There are four different endings in the game (one for saving the king, one for saving the queen, one for saving the princess and one for getting Belzebut). The ending when saving the princess says something about Jack marrying her and getting a kid. The best ending reveals that Jack is actually the king's son, meaning that any funky business with the princess would be kind of unfortunate...

Level-by-level description (with deaths and with palace room warps)

Room numbers refer to the pyramide map linked in Additional Resources.

Round 1

1-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEm4FKw7T4 - Similar to the normal ending route, but one more mighty coin is collected.
Palace room 1 - See the description for the normal ending (Normal Ending).

Round 2 to 5

No items are needed from these rounds, so the warp option in the palace rooms is used. See the description for the normal ending (Normal Ending). The only thing to note is that there are more A-presses in 1-1 compared with the normal ending run (5 iso 4 mighty coins). This needs to be taken into account when trying to avoid a skull spawn in palace room 4.

Round 6

Palace room 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_btrVvQSpqc - Very similar to the route in the normal ending run. Only the ending is slightly different.

Round 7

7-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWwHvgXXNc0 - There are many alternative places to collect might coins than at the beginning of this room, but this seems to be the fastest.
7-2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL3zPMTIs-E
7-4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrKvAVgwqXY - The jumps around the S-coin are optimized as to both dispatch of the enemies as well as not use more mighty coins than necessary. Half-way through the room, the bomb counter will always reset (see under P-ball in Game Mechanics). The bomb counter will be important in palace room 10, so the number of bomb points need to be counted from the reset point (luckily the bomb counter always reset at roughly the same spot). Near the end, a little bit of waiting is done until the enemy type is revealed. This information is used to adjust the enemy counter (see under "Enemy behavior and manipulation" of Game Mechanics) for optimal enemy spawns in 7-7 and 7-10. It can either by done during the jump to the room exit or directly in room 7-7.

• Bat - 0
• Bird - 1
• Fireball - 2
• Skull - 3
• Jellyfish - 4
• Lobster - 5

In the video shown, a jellyfish spawned and four extra A-presses were done during the jump to the room exit.
7-5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jcvAU-aag8 - Care has to be taken so Jack is still in the orange form at the top and can collect the sphinx without breaking the chest with jumps.
7-7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na2z1cds79Q - The enemy configuration in this room is a result of the manipulation prepared in 7-4. The other configurations either introduce risk or will have to be done slower.
7-8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhGsUk2z59U
7-9 (1st visit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an5bEcKTYsw - Transforming into green form too early adds a short animation that costs time when entering the door to 7-10.
7-10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IMd9inCERc - Note that all A-presses since the end of 7-4 have been controlled as to set up the enemy spawns in this room. Other enemy configurations can also be handled, but often introduce a time-wasting manoeuver. Birds are the best.
7-9 (2nd visit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxoM7nYyvp0

Round 10

10-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOalsYj2hOk - The important thing to remember in this room is to make sure the bomb counter is either 8 or 9 when entering the palace room. Several of the bombs in the previous rooms are difficult to consistently pick up/consistently avoid. Therefore, you have to keep track of the bomb counter and then adjust here in 10-1. In this video, two more bombs are picked up to raise the counter to 8 (the second one was picked up in the "correct" order defined by the game and therefore worth 2 bomb points).
Palace room 10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7OdGHQ6lDk - Interestingly enough, the room solution from the normal ending doesn't work here. Enemies will get in the way and end up wasting time. Enemies on the right side will cause problems here as well, which is why it's important to spawn the P-ball (steered by the bomb counter) at the right moment.

Round 11

Palace room 11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdiCbC1I224

Round 12

12-1 (1st visit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGHD8BOqJ8o - The locked chests have an extremely weird, small hit box. It's way harder to jump off them than it should be (see the video of the 2nd visit). As a consequence, it's possible to run through them by approaching from a corner (shown here). Whether it's easier to jump off the chest or run through it is a matter of taste. Both are precise tricks. However, it's important to clear this room as quickly as possible. The spawning of mummies above the sphinx seem to run on a global room timer. If you take slightly longer time, there will not be enough time to pick up the sphinx without getting hit by a mummy.
Labyrinth 12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x0Lo1GvGoI - Most of these rooms are uneventful, so the whole labyrinth has been put into one video. The first event happens in 12-4. The enemy that is spawned will determine the actions all the way until the crystal room. Depending on the enemy type in 12-4 (bat in this video), a compensation of A-presses are done in for example the sphinx room.

• Lobster - 0
• Bat - 1
• Bird - 2
• Fireball - 3
• Skull - 4
• Jellyfish - 5
  

In the crystal room, all the other enemy spawns are either risky or not feasible without either wasting lots of time or wasting mighty coins to go into green Jack. A final comment is about the death. If jumping into an enemy from below, Jack is thrown up into the air. This additional animation can cost up to a second.
12-1 (2nd visit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSIsMNu6UcI - A short stop is done at the end to determine the value of the enemy counter. Depending on where in the enemy cycle it is, some extra A-presses in palace room 12 are needed (compared to the video shown for the normal ending). This will then ensure that palace room 13 is started with the right enemy value. Palace room 12. Same as the normal ending. However, the enemy counter needs to be adjusted before palace room 13. Based on the enemy spawn at the end of 12-1, the number of extra A-presses are:

• Fireball - -2 (done by going from bomb #11 to bomb #10 without any A-presses)
• Skull - -1 (done by going from bomb #11 to bomb #10 with only one A-press)
• Jellyfish - 0
• Lobster - 1
• Bat - 2
• Bird - 3
  

Round 13-14

These are identical to the normal ending run (use of warps).

Round 15

Palace room 15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGYKEur8f4 - The warp is not used and the room can therefore be cleared faster than in the normal ending run.

Round 16

16-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N35Sxq_hgxY - The death is taken on the flames to the left as opposed to jumping straight up. While this is slightly more out of the way, the death animation is faster that way.
16-2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLmwjLE-gCg Alt 16-1 and 16-2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igc1ry81hp8 - This alternative solution takes advantage of Jack's orange form to open the three mighty coin chests of 16-2 without any extra jumps. It saves roughly half a second, but is riskier than above.
Palace room 16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y17NvCahlE0 - Similar to the normal ending run, but coming from 16-2 makes Jack appear from the bottom left instead of the top left.

Round 17

17-1 (1st visit) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axk9Fw1HpBU
17-2 and 17-1 (2nd visit) are identical to the normal ending run.
King's room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJLyPCerSEc
Queen's room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcsdakVPjqc
Princess' room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBiWda4DQ9g
Belzebut's room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEAJihlajJ0
It's possible to make these rooms faster with less uses of green Jack, but it also makes them significantly harder. No consistent way of getting through them that way is known when writing this. One can also save time by standing on the edge of the chests/blocks and jump into the ceiling for quickly breaking chests/blocks. It does however require quite good positioning and introduces risk.