Solstice TAS any% by Randil
- Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.16
- Aims for fastest possible time.
- Genre: Puzzle/Adventre.
This run is 43 frames (0.717 seconds) faster than my currently published run. This is because of small improvements here and there, most notably the fact that I don't push objects away from me when I jump up to get them. 43 frames may not seem much, but it's a lot more than I anticipated when I started revising the currently published run.
Information about the game
This game needs some introduction to those who haven't played it: Solstice is a unique game for the NES. It's a puzzle-platform kind of game, in which you run around in a huge castle collecting staff pieces. You play as the blue wizard "Shadax", and your goal is to rescue the princess from the evil wizard Morbius. You do that by collecting 6 staff pieces and then enter the room where Morbius is hiding. You can walk up, down, left and right. You can also jump. You get killed if you touch an enemy or land on spikes.
There are also blocks in this game. Blocks usually fall down from in some rooms, and in some they just lay around. If you press the B button when standing on a block, you will pick it up. When you press B again you will release it. This allows you to carry them with you and use them to reach places that aren't possible to reach if you don't do this.
There are also potions in this game. In this run I only use 2 different kinds of potions:
- Purple potion: This will turn you invincible. The effect will vanish if you leave the room or die. When invincible, you can jump on enemies to get to higher places.
- Pink potion: This potion will remove all objects in the room, that means enemies, blocks and items. This is only used once in the run, to get rid of a spike ball that's in my way.
There are keys in the game too. Keys make new blocks appear in a certain room. I pick up two keys in this run, both create blocks that are necessary to advance in the game.
I pick up a pair of Magic shoes around frame 2700. These allow me to jump higher, and they're necessary to beat the game.
The making of this run:
This run was almost entirely made with the TAS movie editor.. I revised my run from start to end and found a total of 11 improvements in it. I then recorded each of them into an .fcm file. So now I had 11 new .fcm-files, each with a small improvement. Then I just glued all of them into the current run, using the TAS movie editor, and that was it! Movies for this game are very edit friendly, because Solstice isn't really a "random" game.
So once I had all the .fcm-files ready, editing in all these small improvement didn't take more than 2-3 hours.
Useful Memory Addresses:
There are of course more addresses than these that could be somewhat useful, but these are the ones I used when testing these improvements:
0031: Your current X-position 002D: Your current Y-position 0035: Your current altitude, that is pixels above ground level. 0020: The game accepts input when this is 0.
Thanks to:
- Maximus for his TAS movie editor.
- Lucid Faia on Speed Demos Archive for his runs. They're a good motivation and always fun to watch!
Closing
Solstice has had lots of revisions on this site. I am positive that the route I use is the fastest one, and now I'm also sure that all movements are frame perfect. Perhaps I'll have to eat those words up sometime in the future. :P
Enjoy the run, and the awesome music of this game!
Randil: I'm cancelling this due to known improvements. A new run will be submitted shortly!