My first non-Mega Man X speed run! Hopefully you will like it. I know there are two other Contra: Shattered Soldier S-rank videos out there, but neither of them aimed for speed. The main reason why both runs (Psyrell's and Rouven's) are slower is because both players failed to abuse the flamethrower, which is by far the best weapon in the game. The charged up flame thrower shot not only has a lot of power, it also travels through the screen quickly, and it goes through solid objects (see my battle with the robot in stage 4). I know there is one area I use the flamethrower when it isn't the best weapon to use, and there might be a place or two where I underuse it.

For those of you who don't know the game very well, Contra: Shattered Soldier is mostly boss battles, meaning your time mostly depends on how fast you can kill bosses. Also to get an S-rank it is necessary to destroy every destructible non-respawning object (100% hit rate) in the game without dying. If there is a section that looks uneccessarily slow, obtaining an 100% hit rate is usually the reason why.

Although Psyrell's and Rouven's Contra runs were not fast, they both had some interesting tricks I used in my own run.

Rouven: Use of homing missles in the section right before the boss in stage 4, flamethrower positioning in the beginning of stage 6, and using the mine gun in the last area of stage 6

Psyrell: Using the flamethrower when Mr. Heli-Robo shoots the laser beam (in robot form), positioning when firing the the machine gun at the stage 4 robot mini-boss, and using non-charged flamethrower against the plant boss in stage 5.

Overall I'm satisfied with this run, I make a few mistakes here and there, but nothing incredibly costly to my time.

First of all, i would like to mention despite the game appearing to have 3 weapons, there are only two(plus charged versions of course). FULL STOP. :)

I now state all the mistakes/stuffups and you can assume everything else is perfect. :)

• First stage:
  Snake core - can be killed in one less jump if you are TAS-like
  Boss where he opens mouth twice instead of once (nothing you can really do about this you need completely perfect timing.) Missed by one full charge.

• Second stage
  Last turret of airship fires an extra bullet due to a mis-aim

• Third stage
  Accidental deaths at Cow and boss. Cow was fairly easy section whereas boss made an almost impossible jump (player two makes a tas-like jump whereas player 1 dies). IRONICALLY, if we had not died, we would have gotten an average of 85.8 and thus would have had to do levels 6/7. (i know we coulda killed less stuff in first 4 levels, but you gotta see the irony!)

• Third-fourth intermission
  33.4 seconds removed due to dodgy disk. 1.6 second fake load time (real time of non-scratched disk ~1.1 seconds) (Mike's note: it's true, I watched the original video)

• Fourth Stage
  As good as it gets

• Fifth stage
  Stopped at last propellor for a second because controller decided to count the shoot button as a double-tap.

I'd also like to thank the following people:

• Mikwuyma (Mike Uyama) for being my AIM whore, telling me a few tips such as not charging up for second last boss and timing the run. :)
• Radix for creating SDA
• ballofsnow for being an uber leet tech support guy who somehow isn't even a moderator.