Started uploading the encode, I expect it will be up by tomorrow morning I will leave the link here so you can watch when it is uploaded.
Link to video
EDIT: Sorry but apparently had internet problems with my PC last night, so this morning the upload was stuck at 2%. So I started uploading again from my work, also updated the link above. Sorry for the inconvenience.
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/41358918608911493
Equipped everything I needed so I won't have to enter the Parts Menu again. Equipped the following parts:
1- Quick Charge.
2- Weapon+.
3- Buster+: X-Buster gets +1 damage, helpfull against the Mijinion and Yammark refight, also saves time in the final Sigma fight.
4- Energy Saver: Weapon Energy usage is reduced to half, usefull in the Gate fight and in the Boss Rush in the Final Stage.
5- D-Barrier: Doubles the invencibility frames after getting damage, helps everywhere overall to pass through enemies.
6- D-Converter: Converts damage into weapon energy, fills the weapon that has the least energy, really usefull in the boss rush.
7- Power Drive: +1 damage output while active, theorically should help in the final Sigma fight.
Gate 1: Mach Dash FTW, managed to use the Ice Block Glitch to save a lot of time in the magma auto-scroller. Nightmare Mother fight was really quick with Charged Metal Anchor with Weapon+.
Gate 2: Skipped the totems and used the Ice Block Glitch to pass through the pillars and save some time, really faster than waiting for them to crush me. Managed to get a faster High Max fight Mach Dash up and down instead of just up. Buster+ and Weapon+ helps to get through enemies quicker. Gate fight is pretty simple and boring.
https://youtu.be/hp4hqRDhtR8
Sorry but no. I really wanted to use it on Wolfang revisit, but he is just a worse option than Blade. The platforming with him is not great (although you can use High Jump like Zero but then Blade has can air dash up) and he does not get any weapon, making all boss fights slower, specially Dynamo. After I finish, I may do a Gate Stage Run with Shadow Armor for fun.
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/41157874416124982
Scaravich: The most annoying stage of them all, hard to pass through legion of enemies without getting damaged, Blade Armor helps a lot with its Air Dash (aka Mach Dash) wich let you dash in four directions, including down wich sometimes it is faster than just jumping down. Not much else to say. Also got Quick Charge wich I will be using instead of Ultimate Buster from now on.
Phoenix: Unequipped Ultimate Buster and equipped Quick Charge and Weapon+. Somewhat self-explanatory air dashes everywhere also used the Ice Block glitch to pass through Nightmare Iron blocks, though, sometimes it faster to just destroy them. Got Buster+ wich will help later and completed Shadow Armor.
Wolfang: Nothing much else to say, more air dashes (lol). Considered using Shadow Armor here but Blade Armor is slightly faster for the stage and way faster for the Dynamo fight.
So just Gate stages remaining.
Link to video
Basically, you can equip as many non-limited parts as you have obtained. You only need one open slot just press X and T when selecting the part, this will equip the part to the character but the slot will remain available. So with this, you can equip all 10 green parts + the 4 parts specific to the character with just one slot.
And in case you wonder, you can't equip X only parts to Zero and vice-versa.
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/41008431164658419
Sheldon: Had to unequip Ultimate Buster since uncharged X-Shots allows a way faster laser puzzle run since it can spin the mirrors faster. The laser puzzle cause too much lag because of all the objects onscreen at the same time, so I tried to not cause lag. Also used the Ice Block Glitch to pass through Nightmare Cubes, a nifty time saver. The Dynamo fight is a bit slow but can't do much about it without Ultimate Buster. Got in this stage some neat parts: Energy Saver, D. Barrier and Weapon Plus, I plan to use these later.
Shark: Equipped Weapon Plus wich allows X to do +1 damage using weapons that you get by beating the Mavericks, making bossfights faster. Figured out that you can pass through the extensions of the press by using the Ice Block Glitch just like you can with Nightmare Cubes allowing X to pass through second section of the first part very quickly (you can't pass through the press itself btw) and D. Barrier resulted being slower so I didn't equipped it. In the second part, I brought the Ride Armor along to do a neat glitch that MGXGOD discovered although, does not save any time. Also showed off most of X Weapons except some that would've caused the autoscroller to stop for some time.
How does the Ride Armor Glitch works: Basically jump with the Ride Armor on one of those destroyable grey cubes (didn't tried on Nightmare Cubes) and just before the press is about to hit it, hop off it and the Ride Armor glitches into the cube, X must be next or in the Ride Armor once it hits the ground, otherwise the press won't glitch. If done correctly, the press will go higher that what it usually does, allowing this part to safe from being crushed.
Mijinion: Equipped Ultimate Buster again with Weapon+ using the Part Selection Glitch (not sure how this one is called). Nothing special besides crushing Ilumina with charged Yammark combined with X-Buster. Completed the Blade Armor, rescues the Maverick Hunters and beated Dynamo with Ultimate Buster and Laser Arrays. This method is faster by 59 frames in my tests.
Link to video
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/40833999006464667
Basically remade the Scaravich bossfight and since the next stage (Turtloids) did not sync with hex editing, I completely redid it, managing to gain some frames out of it doing minor improvements.
Scaravich Bossfight: 124
Turtloid Stage: 106
Overall: 230
Encode is up:
Link to video
How the scaravich glitch works:
It appears that when he stops and then starts moving again, any invencibility frames he had before moving gets cancelled (even though, it does not look like that visually). So you can just make him stop by damaging him at the beginning, then use any attack that would cause invencibility and when he starts moving he can get damange every frame. In this case, I used Charged Shot to trigger invencibility, after he starts moving, use Charged Yammark Option to wiggle into him. For Zero, you can use Ensuizan or Third Slash to trigger invincibility and then use Z-Buster, it will do 4 damage every frame.
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/39965824361669774
3 more stages, with this, all 8 Mavericks are defeated.
Link to video
Blizzard Wolfang: The Fire Nightmare Hazzard did affected me a little bit but the Blazing Blade Weapon was needed to pass the last part of the stage as fast as possible, since it helps me keep air momentum I used it + Air Dash to optimize it.
Equipped Ultimate Buster: At first I was skeptical about using this, for those who don't know, it allows X to only shoot charged weapons without charging them, but can't use uncharged weapons. This gives some pros and cons.
Pros:
Instantly shooting charged weapon without charging for 90 frames.
Instantly shoot charged weapon after switching weapons by pressing L1/R1 or by the start menu or by teleportations (like Central Museum Totems). (When doing this, the charge counter resets to 0).
Cons:
Can't fire uncharged weapons.
You can't change weapons while using some weapons like Charged Yammark Option or Blazing Blade, so you have to wait for them to finish.
There is a delay of frames when you shoot a charged weapon, probably like 25 frames, meaning after you shoot, you can't shoot anything else for some frames. (This is not a con of Ultimate Buster, but rather a game mechanic).
Ground Scaravich: Using Ultimate Buster I managed to beat some sections fairly quickly. For instance, Totems with charged Yammark Option (teleporting resets charging counter), and killing the totem enemy that teleports you back with charged Metal Anchor. (This could be done with Ultimate Buster, albeit, somewhat hard in some part). Also managed to beat Scaravich with Yammark Option instead of Laser Beam, because his weakness stun animation activate a glitch where you can hit him twice.
Rainy Turtloid: Saved some good time wich charged Yammark Option and charged X-Buster to pass though some heavy enemies. Also charged Blazing Blade also proved usefull to make a significant skip. Also the bossfight shows a significant save using Ultimate Buster. For some reason, charged Metal Anchor does significant more damage, but only the first one (most likely because of those green thing you need to destroy). And afterwards using charged Laser Beam.
Something worth to mention: My current published TAS (the "all stages" TAS) of this game is labeled incorrectly, it should be labeled "All Missions" like Flameberger did. Since unlike other megaman games, instead of stages, we have Areas, wich you visit most of them at least twice with different objectives. So when this gets accepted, it should be changed to "All Missions".
Also, im currently uploading an encode for this run, should be up by tomorrow.
EDIT: Encode is up
Link to video
Obvious Yes Vote. Very satisfying overall, and really surprised me with the Phantom and Blizzack bossfights, didn't believe you can swag them that hard.
And by the way, I did really know about dashing off ledges saves you a frame, but sometimes I avoided doing so because doing it would produce lag, as you said, it is a very laggy game.
Before I try 9000 times over, what's the cleanest way to dump this run to avi?
The movie published by the author should sync perfectly until the final boss fight a little bit after he gets a G (Super Grenade). Then use the savestate the author posted up there, and that should sync in the first try (at least for me).
New WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/37254871388955784
3 more stages done, went into Shark stage to clear the Wind Nightmare effect in Scaravich stage wich slows down movement and Phoenix Stage to get Ultimate Buster wich should speed up some sections, feel free to ask any questions.
Link to video
Here's a savestate right before Rootmars2 that I often used with moderate success. I know that making an encode with this emulator is an absolute nightmare. I don't know if HappyLee or mtvf1 found a way to make the movie cooperate or if they just tried again and again until it finally miraculously synced one time. I really wish there could be a better Arcade emulator.
Eureka! It synced in the first try, thanks for the savestate. Started encoding.
EDIT: Encode with nnedi3 is up, enjoy:
Link to video
Yes voted. Incredibly fun to watch, congrats on a very tedious TAS to do. Really enjoyed when Allen was just laughing in the middle of the massacre of clones lol. Also was really impressed by the fight with the final boss. Again congrats on this awesome TAS.
Btw, gonna make a separate encode with nnedi3 upscaling, will be posting here when it's done.
EDIT: Can't get it to sync unfortunately, even with the adittional movie file the author posted, as stated above my desync occurs in the final boss with one G not being fired (most likely caused by lag). Maybe it is worth a try if the author can upload some savestates and try with that.
Thanks guys. A couple of things I noticed after a quick experiment with the JP version:
You do save a lot of time with the soft reset, roughly 5-6 seconds each time (and this includes loading the game at the very beginning). However, I noticed that the enemy stats in the JP version are slightly higher across the board, and this slight increase is just barely enough to make a lot of strats that are possible on the (U) version no longer viable. I still think there will be a net time save with the (J) version, but I'm likely going to have to reroute a large portion of the early game.
I'm also not going to be able to use the previous runs for SRAM, although that can easily be fixed by using the run as its own verification in a second pass.
But while I'm starting from scratch again, perhaps the run should be ported to BizHawk? For more accurate emulation (although this will definitely cause some major time loss)?
In my opinion you should go with BizHawk, but that would also mean moving all the Lua Scripts (assuming you are using them) from VBA to BizHawk. And generally, the (U) version is easier when being ported from (J). And also, the RNG seed is different (at least, in FE7) in both (U) and (J), so take that in consideration.
I'm planning on using the ECG (enemy control glitch) quite frequently throughout this run, and it turns out that the (J) version has a (significantly) quicker soft reset than the (U) version, so I'm thinking about switching over to that ROM. Does anyone have opinions about that?
Yeah, go for it. As for the WIP, I liked it, keep it going.
I do recall having the same problem with Megaman X6 wich is why I have all my X6 runs on PCSX (of course, I will be using BizHawk).
If you remember, Rolanmen1, on 2013 I PMed you for the purpose of auto-holding in PCSX, because in that time, I wanted to use PSXJin instead of PCSX since it supports auto-hold function but due to the problem mentioned above, I droped PSXJin and was sticking with PCSX and trying to find a way to auto-holding or at least hold multiple buttons at the same time
Oh, now that you meantion it, I do, didn't remember it was from you lol
Lack of mentioning of the more superior emulator (of the time) PSXjin which does run this game.
I know that and also that the current Any% run uses PSXJin. I also tried to run the game with it but I had big problem that happens to usually while playing is that PSXJin, at a certain unknown time, it starts lagging every other frame which causes huge frame loss, but if I want to fix it I have to change some inputs, that as well costs a lot of frames, that's why I like to use PCSX more than PSXJin since that problem is not present and only some specific frames are lags which can be controlled and doesn't depend on the gameplay. I already asked for solution to that on PSX emulator forum on 2013 but no one responded.
Now, both of them will be obsolete, thanks to BizHawk that handles PSX perfectly.
I do recall having the same problem with Megaman X6 wich is why I have all my X6 runs on PCSX (of course, I will be using BizHawk).
Yes voted, it looks very optimized to my eyes and it's entertaining to watch.
About the Any% topic, I understand that this is very similar, but im not sure why pick Any% in favor of 100%. From the viewer perspective, I would rather watch this over the Any% because of the extra content it has.
In the other hand, McBobX, you should've submitted this way more sooner because now we have BizHawk (wich is way easier to TAS PSX games than PCSX and to encode). So not sure how the community will react to that. Nonetheless, loved watching your TAS and since you like to TAS for fun, I recommend you use BizHawk.
