Submission #5381: StarvinStruthers's A2600 H.E.R.O. in 09:51.01

Atari 2600
baseline
BizHawk 1.11.9.1
35415
59.9227510135505
24872
Unknown
H.E.R.O. (1984) (Activision, John Van Ryzin) (AZ-036-04).bin
Submitted by StarvinStruthers on 2/2/2017 6:33:06 AM
Submission Comments

FINAL INPUT FRAME: 35,414


first completed tas
very fun to make
will make more
upon initially completing this tas i accidentally discovered a glitch
this glitch ended up being useful for saving frames
glitch is referred to as "door skip" below

GAME OBJECTIVES:

  • delve into caves
  • blow up walls/doors
  • rescue 20 dudes

EMULATOR USED:

  • bizhawk 1.11.9.1

MOVIE OBJECTIVES:

  • fast

FLIGHT:

  • up input has a delay that tends to vary
  • down input has no effect during flight
  • descending in flight can be a waiting game
  • cannot drop bombs in the air

DROPPING RANDOM/EXTRA BOMBS:

  • drop as many extra bombs as you can if stage has under 6 doors
  • some stages require all 6 bombs for 6 doors (level 7-19)
  • only one bomb on screen at a time
  • cannot drop bombs in any of the final rooms
  • bomb count at the end of each stage is 16 frames per bomb
  • bomb drop during stage takes about 1-8 frames
  • don't drop the extra bomb in stage 20 due to inputs/time ending before post stage bomb count

BOMB SKIP:

  • some doors you can perform what i call a "bomb skip" on
  • to do the bomb skip you hover a minimum of 7 pixels over bomb
  • fly passed the door without waiting for bomb hitbox to disappear
  • there is a threshold where this will work or not depending on how long ago you were descending
  • bomb skip works on all doors in horizontal rooms with appropriate setup
  • i counted 36 bomb skips in this tas (possible more could be added to future tas)

DOOR SKIP (GLITCH):

  • some doors can be broken via a bomb placed on the previous screen
  • place bomb and move to new room before it explodes
  • bomb is carried to x position 147 on new screen <--BASED NRGZAM FIGURED THIS OUT
  • x position 147 hits the right side door in all horizontally linked rooms
  • there are 8 door skips in this tas (i believe that is the maximum amount possible)

STRATS PER STAGE:

level 1: drop 1 extra bomb
level 2: drop 3 extra bombs
level 3: drop 3 extra bombs - blow up wall/enemy at same time
level 4: drop 2 extra bombs - 1 bomb skip
level 5: drop 4 extra bombs - wiggle passed the turtle head this skips 2 doors (this is the only turtle head you can skip.. i know it's a snake)
level 6: drop 1 extra bomb - 1 bomb skip
level 7: (begin 6 doors and horizontal rooms) 2 bomb skips
level 8: 2 bomb skips
level 9: 2 door skips - 1 bomb skip
level 10: 2 bomb skips
level 11: 3 bomb skips
level 12: 3 bomb skips
level 13: 5 bomb skips
level 14: 3 bomb skips - 1 door skip
level 15: 4 bomb skips
level 16: 2 bomb skips - 1 door skip
level 17: 3 bomb skips
level 18: 1 door skip - 1 bomb skip
level 19: 3 bomb skips
level 20: (5 doors) 3 door skips

CAN THIS TAS BE IMPROVED?:

  • this is my first completed tas so yeah probably
  • there are probably a few frames i missed
  • optimizing flight movement is kind of awkward
  • could possibly add more bomb skips i might have neglected?
  • possibly more glitches i'm unaware of

THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW?:

  • this is a one hit and you're dead kind of game
  • there are no damage boosts you can do without dying
  • when you die, you respawn at that same area and continue on
  • i was really hoping death could be abused in this game to save frames
  • unfortunately dying takes too much time and was never beneficial in testing

feos: Replaced the movie with a trimmed one, also judging...
feos: So I examined the comparison video posted by FractalFusion and went to the frames where this run looked like it was losing frames. And it was... losing frames... due to falling longer. I tried improving this run in such places and I couldn't. The physics just got sludgier after heavy core improvements by Alyosha. So this run is no sub-optimal, it's a real gameplay improvement, as even with those emulation slow-downs in some places, the final time is still shorter.
Accepting as an improvement to the existing run.
I also looked at the bottom of all Moons movies sorted by entertainment, and the existing H.E.R.O. run is far from the bottom. This game also gets positive feedback once again. So I can't downgrade it to Vault, even though the actual entertainment ratings aren't 6+. It still seems the cutoff is fairly unreliable, and the decision is up to the real human. So Moons it is again.
Fog: Processing.
Last Edited by adelikat on 10/20/2023 1:08 PM
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