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.
Village
- 25 vouchers will be missing to buy a skeleton scare in the shop. The only reasonable way to get them is to stomp on beetles. Either three red ones (worth 10 each) or one of the three more valuable types (worth 25, 50 or 75).
- Note Beetlejuice's position when waiting for beetles to spawn. When standing in this position, beetles spawning from the left hole will generally be in reach (and they will spawn on the right side of the hole). Beetles spawning from the right hole will quickly despawn if they jump right, but be in reach if jumping to the left, towards Beetlejuice.
- The boss is not consistent in a speedrun and requires good RNG. With only three scare attacks to deal with the boss, there is no alternative to playing aggressively. There are still a few different possibilities on how to approach the fight:
- Run right as the fight starts and attack once when in front of the right side of the fireplace. Quickly stop to halt the x-momentum. Short jump to the right (anticipating jumping over a potential attack from the boss) and then two more quick scare attacks. (this method is shown in the link above)
- Very similar to the point above, but jump to the right with full momentum after the first attack and adjust momentum mid-air so you land in front of the boss (and not crash into it)
- Ignore what the boss does and try to do three consecutive attacks without any jumps
'1' and '2' are close in terms of speed, so it's more a matter of personal preference which one to use. It's not trivial to calculate the success rate since there is quite a wide distribution of possible timings and shot speeds of the boss's attacks. However, disregarding execution mistakes, it probably lies somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2. '3' is around half a second faster, but also the riskiest of the three. The success rate can be expected to be around half of first two methods (1/5?).
Level 2 (Storm drains)
- The "intended" route after the first cavern monster is to continue up to the top of the level and then descend down to the second cavern monster. Manipulating the window position so Beetlejuice can jump directly right towards the second monster is a shortcut worth a few seconds and was found by 'bartaan'.
- Note the free umbrella scare at the first two cavern monsters
- The cavern monsters' attacks are random and more often than not, they will hit Beetlejuice during the fight. The further away Beetlejuice stands, the smaller portion of the attacks will hit Beetlejuice. Another mitigation is to take an intentional death by falling off-screen. The deaths of course cost time, but also ensure consistent fights. For demonstration, an intentional death abuse is shown at the second cavern monster, costing ~2 seconds.
- See the voucher section for a discussion about the purchases in the shop. This is the last shop visit, so vouchers are irrelevant from this point onwards.
- It's a 50% chance to jump through the octopus, not possible to control in real-time. However, remember to keep holding A during the knockback, to buffer the next jump.
- Note the use of the ogre scare's special ability to kill cavern monsters in one hit in the last fight
- It's possible to skip the cavern monster fights by not allowing the screen to scroll far enough. However, the boss door will not be open if not all three cavern monsters have been defeated.
- The sub-routine for the boss results in a higher chance of an attack than the first boss, so it's unlikely to get a fight without the boss attacking. Like the first boss, the best case scenario is a 3-attack fight.
Level 3-1 (Basement)
- To avoid getting hit by the second buzzsaw, minimum a 16-frame delay is required. Taking damage is in average ~40 frame time loss (or more if it happens to incur another continue). It's therefore well worth waiting briefly to avoid the damage and the potion can then also be collected without time loss as a bonus.
Level 3-2 (Kitchen and living rooms)
The room numbers refer to RAM-address $55.
Room 9 and A
- Spider damage can sometimes be avoided, but often it's going to cost too much time to dodge and it's better to just take a hit.
- There is an optional potion to the right of the one on the way, but it requires a detour of ~80 frames and is not recommended in a serious speedrun
Room B and C
[to be added]
The sweeper fight in room B is one of the critical points in a speedrun. While the sweepers' and potions' movements depend on RNG, they can be manipulated to a certain extent. The steps outlined below and demonstrated in the link are in no way guaranteed to work, but do exploit the sweepers' movement mechanics and have been developed to improve the chances of a successful 3-potion fight.
- Most of the time, one of the sweepers will home in on Beetlejuice from atop the sofa group (like shown here). In that case, it's important to throw a potion and try to get past it during its invincibility frames without getting hit. If Beetlejuice takes a hit, the sweepers will move away from him, resulting in a time loss of usually a few seconds. Sometimes, the sweeper will be stuck to the right of the sofa. In that case, it's recommended to throw a potion in its direction when above the sofa. That potion is still likely to deal some damage to the two sweepers in lower room.
- The quick left-right movement after throwing the potion was to try and bait the sweeper to move left and out of the way from the corridor to the next room. The RNG-element to the sweeper's movement does however not guarantee for this to work.
- Wait at the top of narrow corridor to bait the two sweepers below to follow Beetlejuice. The third sweeper will at this point hopefully be stuck in the lower left corner of the room to the right. The chances of this being the case increases if Beetlejuice isn't positioned too far above the corridor. There is again an element of RNG here, which makes this step non-consistent and there is always a risk of one of the sweepers getting stuck in the room below or the sweeper to the right escaping the right room pre-maturely and start chasing you.
- The most common scenario is that one of the sweepers from below comes up through the corridor. Beetlejuice can absolutely not take a hit at this point (or the sweepers will all disperse in different directions, leading to big time losses). The recommended course of action in this case is to move to the other side of the table and use it to shield off the sweeper from below a little longer. At this point, the sweeper in the right room is likely approach.
- There are two options for this step:
- Position Beetlejuice as shown in the linked video and throw a potion veritically. Regardless of the first direction change of the potion scare, it will stay inside top-left room, with a good chance of dealing damage to all three sweepers that should now be in the room.
- Move down to the lower right corner and throw a potion to the left. This will again ensure that the potion scare's trajectory will always be inside the top left room.
In both cases, it's important not to get hit before throwing the potion or there is a fairly high risk one or more sweepers will escape to another room, again leading to huge time losses. So if it looks safe, it's probably a good idea to throw the second potion of the fight as described in option 1. The advantage with option 2 is that if you manage to get there without getting hit, the potion throw will likely hit all three sweepers even before turning into a scare. And if Beetlejuice is hit when standing in the lower right corner, the sweepers' main movement direction will be away from him, so towards the top-left corner, where the potion scare will have a good chance of dealing additional damage.
- Move to the right room, preferably without getting hit (or risking the sweepers to escape into the lower room). While waiting for the second potion scare to exhaust itself, collect the three potions in here.
- Unless the sweepers are already on the way after having collected the potions in the right room, align Beetlejuice with the narrow corridor to try and bait them
- When the remaining sweepers are about to enter the right room, throw a potion from the position shown in the linked video. All potion scare trajectories thrown from here will stay inside the right room.
