Firstly, I would like to thank Gen2000 for his excellent run with Alastor which can be found at Vortiginous.com. Without that, I doubt I would have discovered most of the tricks used in this run, especially for the various boss battles.

Most of the run is pretty self-explanatory, but there are some things that might look strange to someone not as well versed in the ways of the game, so I will explain them here...

• Joe the Hero: Most people do not seem to know this, but enemies will attack immediately if you are close enough, facing them, and dodging in the correct direction. Naturally I use this quite a bit in the beginning (after getting VFX powers it is no longer useful).

  The first Captain Blue fight is interesting... if he gets hit three times in a short span of time, he regains his barrier, but if there is a pause after every two, he does not. He always seems to get it back after the third set of punches, so I hit him three times there anyway.

  For Black Thunder, a brief pause between deflecting the two bullets causes both of them to hit (otherwise, it would still be "blinking" from the first bullet when the second bullet hit). Also, for some reason punching or kicking during a time between when a task is completed and when a cutscene starts causes the cutscene to start faster... this only happens twice in the game, though (here and after the first Joker in level 2).

• First shop: One set of Voomerangs for numerous bosses (which, plus the 40 found in level 2, last me until the end of the game) and Sliding, which is faster than running.

  Voomerangs eat Captain Blue for breakfast. Charles too. Not much else to say for the rest of the level...

• Some Like it Red Hot: For Captain Blue #3, I again use a slight delay to keep Blue from reactivating his shield aura (otherwise he would reactivate after being struck by the Voomerang for the second time).

  You would think that a giant bolt of blue electricity arcing from the ceiling would hurt, yet oddly it does absolutely nothing. Curious.

  After the Joker, I do the punching/kicking to skip to the cutscene faster thing.

  Fear the Mach Speed... for the Verdies, I found that hitting Slow at the right time causes a slow-zoomed punch to be executed somewhat faster, which I use for the first time here.

  Underneath the van are four boxes, two with 20 Voomerangs and two with 20 Shocking Pinks. It requires a slight pause after breaking each box before the items are actually attained, which is why I move somewhat jerkily. Also, I only need a few Shocking Pinks, so I skip the second box of them.

  The Rhino Hotel section is self-explanatory, I think. I use the faster slow-zoom punching thing a fair amount here.

  Right away in the Hulk Davidson fight, I take a few steps back. This is because he only has one attack that he can use to break the Voomerang combo (the overhead axe swing) and he will not use it if you are standing far enough away.

• Two Million Leagues Under the Sea: Ah, the VFX Turbo Charger. Finally. After this, V-points stop being much of an issue, so I stop getting coins from the slot machines.

  I like that there are so many infinite VFX bottles in this level. Makes everything much easier. Other than that... I use Mach Speed shooting a lot, as you may have noticed. It is somewhat more difficult than it looks, especially against Verdies (a few of them managed to fly into the foreground before I got them, which cost some time, I think... honestly I have trouble telling what triggers what in this level).

  The second part of the level is pretty simple. I absolutely hate that floating slot machine, but I managed to avoid screwing up. Other than that... nothing.

  Gran Bruce is pretty easy usually, but I walked into his rotar thing and messed it up. The fight is pretty short nonetheless.

• The Viewtiful Escape: Red Hot Kick occasionally proves useful against Another Joe, but not usually. Like I said before, though, V-points are not really an issue at this point, so I buy it anyway.

  Yay for sliding and jumping with Mach Speed. Both the pre and post-boss parts of this level are completed in less than half a minute.

  Another Joe is the only boss I fight without using Voomerangs. In fact, my strategy is pretty normal altogether. Gen2000's run used a strategy with Red Hot Kicks (er, Ultraviolet Kicks), but I rarely got that to work successfully, so I go with this instead.

  For the escape... you really would not think that jumping like a maniac with Mach Speed through a field of laser beams would work very well, but it does. The whole thing seems to be synchronized perfectly... like the first section, this is extremely short, taking only 21 seconds.

• The Midnight Thunder Boy: Mach Speed level 2 helps me get one infinite VFX bottle faster and is needed before getting Mach Speed level 3. Not much use other than that...

  Getting the flame retardant aura using Mach Speed punching allows Joe to run on lava, which is very useful... other than that the first part of this level is pretty self-explanatory. Jumping on the train at the end requires jumping to the side first or else the train will hit before you get high enough.

  When fighting the Gelby, I punch it once right away to make it attack more quickly. Fortunately, the Black Leaders decided not to knock me off the switch at the end... if they do, it completely resets the switch's timer and can waste a massive amount of time.

  The strategy I use against Alastor is one of my own creation and it works surprisingly well, since he is totally predictable in his actions.

• The Magnificent Five: Mach Speed level 3 is only for the ship destroying part of level 7. Afterimages are not that useful usually.

  What a stupid level this is. Oh well... I use the same strategies for all of the Raging Stones that I used against their normal counterparts aside from slight modifications due to different starting positions and/or more health. Oh, and I use Zoom against Charles this time.

  Fire Leo is rather hard to kill in one round. Even harder is killing him in one spin cycle, but I managed to pull it off, although he was dangerously close to the edge (if he falls off, he starts running and throwing rocks again). Fortunately, he attacked up the first few times, so I could do that infinite uppercut thing and bring his health down fairly quickly.

• Joe and Silvia: For some reason passing the second switch too quickly causes a major delay in the releasing of some Die Fighters needed to get to the third platform, so I just hang around the second switch for a few seconds. A similar thing happens in the next room, except with the releasing of Cromarties from the tank instead, so I walk in between the two tank areas. Unfortunately, I wasted way more time than I saved there because I totally screwed up the second tank fight. Gah.

  The rest of the level is pretty straightforward... in the Gelby area of the tower, I walk into the flames intentionally to get the Gelbies to show up (otherwise I would have had to wait until the flame stopped).

  Against King Blue, I figured 14 punches right away to be the best number. Any fewer requires another Voomerang and any more are useless since he regains his shield/aura thing after 16 punches.

  Voomerangs destroy Captain Blue yet again, this time with some help from slow-zoomed punches. He got away with just a sliver of health left after the last Voomerang hit him, but it was not too bad.

That is all I have to say about the run. I hope you enjoyed it.