Submission #1019: Baxter's NES Arkanoid "warps, demo glitch" in 04:36.58

Nintendo Entertainment System
warps, demo glitch
FCEU 0.98.12
16595
60
4000
Unknown
Arkanoid (U).nes
Submitted by Baxter on 3/18/2006 11:02:47 PM
Submission Comments
  • FCEU 0.98.15
  • Uses Warps and Cheats
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Uses Death
  • Aims for Fastest Time
Let me start of by stating this: This movie is not an attempt to obsolete Genisto's Arkanoid movie. (I am planning to do a full movie of the game)
To playback this movie make sure:
  • To set the second player input to 'Gamepad' instead of 'Arkanoid Paddle'
  • To use the US version
  • Probably FCEU 0.98.12 and higher will work, but 0.98.15 will work for sure
Note that the movie won't desync if this is done... not even when you think it desyncs. Let me explain what's going on:
There are two main cheats in this game:
  • Pressing start+A will teleport you to the next level. (this only works for the first 16 levels)
  • Holding A+B and pressing select 5 times, will allow you to continue from the level you died. This second trick is of importance.
If you wait long enough at the title screen, you will see the story of the game. If you wait a little longer a demo will start playing. The computer controls the arkanoid paddle, but the player is in control of the "A"-button. This allows you to launch the ball, and to shoot if the computer happens to pick up a power up like laser.
The demo will play 5 different levels if you wait long enough:
  • demo 1 = level 14
  • demo 2 = level 15
  • demo 3 = level 23
  • demo 4 = level 30
  • demo 5 = level 5
Level 30 isn't influenceable with pressing A, because of the nature of the level. Level 23 (the third demo) however is influenceable! By pressing A at the right frame, the computer picks up the laser power up, which gives you even more influence on how the demo will end. The computer is programmed on staying underneath the ball, but if you change to laser, or from laser to something else, your arkanoid paddle will shrink for a short moment. With the right manipulation this enables you to die in the computer demo. The computer will go game over and you will be at the title screen again... pretty neat, but why would you want to do that?
As said before, there is a cheat (holding A+B and pressing select 5 times) to continue from a game over. This means you can continue from the place where the computer demo went game over! In this case level 23. Completing the levels this way is even faster than using the regular level skip cheat.
This glitch to gain access to level 23 very fast was discovered by FODA. Thanks again!
For the levels that follow (all numbered differently since level 23 is seen as level 1 now) I use warps most of the time. The blocks that give you powerups are determened by the game, and aren't manipulatable (certain blocks will always give you a power, others won't ever). However, which powerup a certain block gives you is manipulatable. Getting the warps all the time required a great deal of luck manipulation. This movie aims for the fastest possible time, using all possible means.
The movie stops at the last hit. Stopping the movie earlier would have been possible to complete the game, but you would be able to keep the movie from finishing by pressing start after input time, so I stop the movie after the point of which this is possible.
Hope you enjoy this weird movie :)

Bisqwit: Short movies are yay to encode. Processing.
Bisqwit: Ack, it desyncs at me (for real). So I guess I actually need to patch my FCEU after all. Now, where to find that patch and a summary of changes...

Truncated: Putting it on accepted for completeness sake, and so that other encoders won't miss it.

Baxter: Cancelling this, I can improve it.
Last Edited by on 1/1/2022 6:13 PM
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