Posts for honorableJay

honorableJay
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Experienced Forum User
Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
Here's a really rough WIP for the 4th level. It's the likely candidate for my route since I don't have to rely on tp through the walls a lot. There is another route I'm debating where I start the level with full energy and use nothing but the topmost part of the level until the chasm to get past the barriers. The only problem with the route is the energy issue. Because I have to make 3 long teleports, it is required that I have a completely full energy meter by the time I get to the first long tp (at the iceman powerup). In order to do it this way, I have to drop down a few levels at the start of the level and smash a switch that will drop one of the barriers for me. This is another lovely example of energy management at it's finest. If I take the route in that video (with some minor tweaking of the actual platforms I hit, etc etc) I get to the chasm at roughly the same time as the other route, although this one is more dangerous. If I use the topmost route, I waste time with the start of level barrier, but have less of a chance of losing health along the way (aside from the planes) and with some good timing can make up the lost time with well placed air attack spamming. The downside is of course that I will be at the bare minimum to make the last tp in the level with nothing left over. The other thing to take into consideration is I need almost a full charge at the start of mojo's level for all the tp's. Granted I haven't gotten the orb glitch to work perfectly for me yet, so it's looking like w/e route I can get done the fastest will be the one to use IF I can count on the orb glitch. Oh we're not done yet, there's yet ANOTHER level to revisit, lvl 3. Apparently I've been sleeping on the job, cause Spider-Waffle found a lovely little tp trick that can save on waiting for the elevator in the second half of the level. He also figured out how to take Apocalypse down in only 3 hits. Combine these two together and it's a savings of almost 20 seconds. After entering the second half of the level, I have to go up one floor, high jump then tp up through the floor. Then I have to get on a platform (w/o moving right otherwise I'll trigger the Juggernaut fight), switch to Cyclops, have him use his really high jump (he'll bump his head on the ceiling) and quickly switch to nightcrawler then tp up through the floor. Another way is to have nightcrawler do a high jump, then 2 small tp's straight up. For Apocalypse, Wolverine's spin attack will take him down in 3 hits (which rogue can be substituted for at least 1 hit if wolvy is too weak to take the shots). However these are the drawbacks. 1) Doing the ele skip requires using more tp's which means more energy usage which ultimately means more time needed to recharge for lvl 4 (where energy is a really big concern). 2) If I use Cyclops to make the really high jump first, it'll save some energy with Night, but it means I can't use Wolvy against Apocalypse, so I'm limited to a 4 hit minimum fight (and Apoc wastes 4 seconds total from the time he becomes invuln to when you can actually hit him). So I can either use all my energy gettin to Apoc an use Wolvy to take the level down a lot faster, or wait for the ele and play it safe for the next level.
honorableJay
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Experienced Forum User
Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
yeah you gotta punch the switch in the danger room to change players. There's also a computer console (kinda looks like a radiator on steroids) in the upper right corner of the room that will extend the amount of time to pickup health orbs. As for the "glitch" with the power orbs, you have to have a second controller plugged in. I might do this just to make healing faster, but I'll have to test it to see if it's viable. Basically if you punch the switch to change characters a ton of orbs will show up (but only in the time between lvl 4 and 5) and if you have a second controller plugged in, once you choose your character they'll stay due to the game waiting for player 2. If anybody knows how to make them appear like this before lvl 5 plz let me know. I'll have to check that energy pickup in lvl 4 again, but I thought it was a health pickup and not an energy pickup. If it's yellow then I can't use it, but if it's blue I'll definately try the route again.
honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
Yeah that cyclops jump then tp skip on lvl 3 has to be frame precise. Every time I did it, even with slowdown, I'd wind up getting just a hair under the floor an drop back down. On top of that you have to remember that the more energy I waste with tp's the more orbs I gotta smash to recharge between levels, and that takes a lot of time. As for the 4th level, I have a decent path going now and can avoid most damage. Basically I stick to the mid/low paths until I pass the barriers, then right after the full energy pickup (blue X, which at this point I don't need) I take the platforms to the top level. From there it's easy to spam the air attack until I cross the chasm. Once I pass the chasm I gotta be easy with the spam jumping due to the stupid vats you can break open. The first barrier in this area I tp through the wall above it, grab the health, get hit by the enemy, then pass through the last barrier. As for Ahab, I found the easiest way (which is probably the fastest) is to use storm as soon as you see him, dodge his first blast, use Archangel next, then a final tp hit to finish him off. Rogue does roughly the same amount of damage against him as the others, but she doesn't always hit him and takes a while just to fly in, so Arch gets the pick there for backup. Wolverine doesn't deal enough damage to be viable here. If there was a way to hit him twice at the same time then he'd definately get some use but it doesn't look that way. The more an more I play these levels the more I'm starting to find out that NOT using a tp in every place possible seems to be the best option. One of the first things I did on the 4th level was to take the high route the entire time, but I kept running out of energy by the second wall and didn't have enough for the skips at the end of the level. The other problem I found with the high road are those stupid planes that come after you. It takes time to kill them all as soon as they come out of their portal, and it wastes just enough energy to make the longer tp's impossible. Btw, I haven't had a chance to test yet, but how does U+D/L+R affect the game? You think it could have some weird results with teleporting?
honorableJay
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Experienced Forum User
Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
well the reason I use the elevator on the 3rd level is I use my character switching for the Apoc fight, that's how I take him down in only 4 hits. Since I don't care about Wolverine until maybe the last level of the game (which he'll get full health anyway) I have him take 2 cheap shots from Apoc, then switch back to Nightcrawler. I use one tp hit, then take a cheap shot and finish him with Rogue. If I use nightcrawler the whole time I chance messing up using the support characters. Since I'm doing this for real and not focusing on a TAS run, I don't have the option of slowdown, but I'm pretty sure if you go into a tp state a frame before Apoc punches then immediately let go of the A button, you should be able to not get hit and also not hit him, which will make the support characters more viable. I'll have to test this in real time and see if it's a viable strat. The other problem is I don't want to waste too much mutant energy.