Here is my submission of an improved Vectorman 2 movie, 33.6 seconds (2017 frames) faster than m-eighty’s run. I originally planned to try to do this concurrently with my first Vectorman movie, however I lost motivation for TASing for a while and this got put on hold for 3 or 4 months. But I’m back, and here it is.
This movie was recorded using Gens version 9z, and while it suffered desynchs at times during recording, it was mostly due to shooting a specific block and having it break while I’m playing but not having it break upon playback of the movie. I think I’ve managed to get rid of all the past issues thankfully. I played this on the hardest level, which starts you out only having 3 health points to lose, however I do pick up an extra one in level three that allows me to be a little more liberal with where I take damage (always to save time).
The time saved comes mainly from optimization in all levels, although big gains came from levels 2 (2 seconds), 5 (2 seconds), 18 (3 seconds) and 22 (18 seconds). Overall m-eighty’s movie was pretty good, I only had three or four route changes throughout the movie, and spent most of my time with minor frame shaving for each level.
There are, I’m sure, areas for further optimization, though I’m not sure how much (3-4 total seconds would be a reasonable guess, barring any new major sequence break). I’m still not quite happy with the block climbing just before Shadownose, and I know that Shout and Twist can be done a little faster because I could not get the “random” wind gusts to cooperate at all, although it didn’t cost me too much time. However I’m pretty certain that level 3 is nearly flawless, due to the amount of time I put into it. I hated that level with a passion.
Some general info about the game:
- Vectorman’s horizontal velocity will continually increase while he’s in the air, so I jump as much as possible (except on some levels). Also, I shoot up at a diagonal anytime I land. This is to preserve my horizontal velocity at 1024, otherwise I would slow down to roughly 860, and have to accelerate again until max speed was regained. Shooting in midair on the rollerblading levels also accomplishes the same thing.
- I intentionally run into some enemies, but at no time does it slow me down. In level 8 I avoid jumping (which slows me down very slightly) by shooting and then colliding with enemies, most times replenishing my health while I do so (major luck manipulation). Also, I damage boost quite a bit in level 20, just because there’s so many damn enemies on that level (also requiring quite a bit of luck manip., just for my health level to stay up).
- Turning around on level 19 doesn’t do anything except look funny (and it seemed to decrease the amount of airborne enemies that would spawn).
- Most bosses lose 16 HPs with a perfectly placed jump boost. I think the only boss that I didn’t maximize this was Shadownose (his very first vulnerable time only allowed me 12 HPs no matter what I did), and the final boss who would only take 12 points off, at best.
Thanks to anyone who gave me advice or helped out, specifically Mike/ m-eighty, Upthorn, moozooh, and adelikat. Any other questions I’d be happy to answer in the discussion. Enjoy!
- NOTE M-Eighty's movie terminated after pressing start to avoid the final score tally, mine terminates on the first possible frame where the movie continues to the game over screen. This will make my AVI slightly longer, the amount of in game time saved is 163 frames.
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots
of this movie and placed them here.
I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried
<Pics removed due to generally being too dark. I'll find some better frames>
Vectorman 2 (U) [!].gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list. <Pics removed due to generally being too dark. I'll find some better frames>
Truncated: Accepted as an improvement to our current movie.
adelikat: Encoding.