Beetlejuice (NES)/Any%
From SDA Knowledge Base
Contents
Inventory management
Items in the inventory carry over between levels. The management of vouchers (for buying scares in the side view levels) and potions (for defeating enemies in some of the rooms in the overhead levels) can be done in different ways. It's therefore worth some additional discussion to go through the one shown in the route described on this page.
Vouchers
| Name | Vouchers | Accumulated | Comments |
| Key (outside the house) | +75 | 75 | |
| Book (house) | +75 | 150 | |
| Fly in the clouds (village) | +75 | 225 | |
| Beetle | +25 (or more) | 250 | |
| Skeleton scare (shop) | -250 | 0 | Almost mandatory to proceed |
| Fly (raft section, storm drains) | +75 | 75 | |
| Extra life | +75 | 150 | |
| Free umbrella scare (at the 1st cavern monster) | +75 | 225 | |
| Defeat 1st cavern monster | +7x75 = 525 | 750 | |
| Free umbrella scare (at the 2nd cavern monster) | +75 | 825 | |
| Defeat 2nd cavern monster | +7x75 = 525 | 1350 | |
| Buy scares option 1 (after the 2nd cavern monster) | -1x500-1x400-3x150 | 0 | One ogre, one umbrella and three birdman scares. This requires two shop visits. |
| Buy scares option 2 (after the 2nd cavern monster) | -2x400-4x150 | -50 | Two umbrella and four birdman scares. This option requires an additional 50 vouchers. There are several possibilities for this. For example killing more beetles (or be lucky to get a yellow one), jump on another fly or get it unintentionally by getting hit by the cavern monsters to get more free scares (each one worth 75). Since the purchases in this option can be completed in one shop visit, around 3 seconds are saved. However, The third cavern monster will have to be defeated by 7 shots from the umbrella scare instead of one shot from the ogre in option 1, which loses some time and adds a bit more risk. Finally, another menu trip is required against the level 2 boss to equip a birdman scare. Overall, option 2 can be expected to be around 1 second faster than option 1, but also adding a bit more risk. |
Potions
| Room # (see $55) | Potions | Accumulated | Comments |
| 8 | +1 | 1 | Can in theory be collected without time loss, but will in practice likely be a few frames slower. However, by delaying 15 frames, the second buzzsaw (?) can be avoided, which is a good trade-off. Collecting the potion within this delay should not be a problem in real-time. |
| 9 | +1 | 2 | On the way. Another potion just to the right can be collected for a cost of ~80 frames, but is not recommended when attempting an optimized speedrun. |
| 0xB | -3 +3 | 2 | The potions are used in a semi-random fight with sweepers. Using 3 potions is a realistic goal for a good fight, but sometimes more will be required. It's usually possible to collect the 3 potions in the NE corner without time loss. |
| 0xD | -1 | 1 | |
| 0xE | +3 | 4 | |
| 0xF | -1 | 3 | It's debatable if one or two potions should be used in this fight. Partly it depends on how the art pieces move, partly personal preference. |
| 0x10 | +1 | 4 | Beetlejuice will very often take two forced hits in this room. If that means Beetlejuice is down to his last health, the auto-scroller in the next room can be risky to get through and it might in that case be worth taking an additional third hit. If there had been a good opportunity to use a scare to get past the footballers' legs, it would have been worth it. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be a consistent strategy for it. |
| 0x11 | -1? | 3 | Throwing a potion here is far from a guarantee to avoid taking any hits. At least if the sweepers are separated, it's probably worth using a potion since there is otherwise a increased risk of taking two hits in this room. |
| 0x12 | 3 | The potion below the fly swatter is ~40 frames out of the way. Out of the optional potions not collected in the route shown on this page, this one is the least out of the way. | |
| 0x14 | -1 | 2 | It's common to take a hit at the start of this room, which will usually mean one or more legs getting stuck around the exit and a forced second hit. By throwing a potion, the first hit can often be avoided and it's less likely for any of the legs to get stuck near the exit. As a rare bonus, it potion can even kill one of the legs and thereby create a chance for a beetle. It's therefore recommended to use a potion in this room. |
| 0x18 | -1? | 2 | It's common to take two hits by the legs in this room. Using a potion can usually avoid one hit, with a rare chance of even killing the legs (and a chance of a beetle). The difference between using a potion in this room or in 0x11 seems fairly small, so it might in the end be a choice of personal preference. |
| 0x19 | 2 | There is an optional potion in the top right corner, which costs ~70 frames. | |
| 0x1D | -2 | 0 | Using two potions to take out the sweepers has a very high success rate (but not 100%). It's also possible that the first potion takes out both sweepers, but it's uncomon (10% chance?). It's a nice 5-second time save if successful though, so someone were to save only one potion for this room, one more could be used earlier, e.g. in room 0x11 or 0x18. |
Level 1 (Village)
Outside
- It's theoretically fastest to collect the key while jumping away from the cloud. However, the time difference between the different ways to collect the key are likely going to be overshadowed by execution inaccuracies. But on average, it should be a few frames faster to jump later from the bush to the cloud than landing too far left on the cloud and having to start with a more vertical jump to collect the key.
- The jump to the door is optional. However, since the x-speed is constant and "up" can be buffered during the jump, potential time losses from moving the thumb from "left" to "up" on the d-pad are eliminated by jumping instead of running to the door. The door can only be entered by standing on the ground though, so jumping does introduce an unknown factor in the form air time.
House
Since the elevator clouds run on a fixed timer that starts when entering the house, the route can be adjusted to the possible cycles. The fastest way to get through the first section of the house is on a "late" 5-cycle cloud elevator:
https://vimeo.com/810479987
- Requires a flower at the first switch
- Requires "good" light timer in order for the third lamp to be unlit when passing beneath
- Requires somewhat tight timing when flipping the first switch or you won't make it back quick enough to catch the first cloud elevator in the "early" 3rd cycle
- Requires somewhat tight execution to catch the second cloud elevator in the "late" 4th cycle and the third cloud elevator in the "late" 5th cycle
Overall, most players will probably have a low success rate with this route since it both requires good execution and luck in a few places. If the third light is blocking the path to the first switch, it's probably going to turn into a 6-cycle (roughly 1.5s slower). As an alternative, one can damage-boost through the third light as well, which will also result in a 6-cycle cloud elevator:
https://vimeo.com/810480077
- Requires a flower at the first switch
- Damage-boosting through the third light makes it impossible (?) to catch the first cloud elevator in the "early" 3rd cycle, which means the execution on the ground floor doesn't have to be anywhere near as tight as when attempting a "late" 5-cycle.
- Catching the first cloud elevator in the "late" 3rd cycle isn't too difficult, but still requires fairly precise inputs. The second and third cloud elevators are easy to catch in their respective cycles though.
- Jump from the last cloud elevator directly to the cauldron (and not to the floor) to avoid an additional jump
The following link demonstrates a possible outcome ("late" 6-cycle, ~1.5s slower than a 6-cycle) if you don't get the flower near the first switch:
https://vimeo.com/810480020
- Requires the light before the second switch to not block your path for too long or you won't be able to catch the second cloud elevator in the "late" 5th cycle and consequently making a "late" 6-cycle impossible.
- The fish in the cauldron before the second cloud elevator is a risk factor that can't be controlled without the flower invincibility
It's possible to do a 6-cycle even without a flower, but it's unlikely since it requires almost perfect timing of the light before the second switch and luck with the fish in the cauldron right after. Even a "late" 6-cycle requires both fairly tight execution and luck in some spots. It's much safer to aim for a 7-cycle without the flower.
The last section of the house involves getting rid of an "urn with a bouncing smiley" that blocks the exit. If you got the flower before collecting the book, the urn can be ignored and it's only about flipping the two switches on either side of the exit. Note that the weight falling down when flipping the first switch needs to disappear off-screen before the second switch can be flipped. Without the flower, some time-consuming dodging is required both after flipping the first and the second switch. The videos above demonstrate both of these cases.
