As always, I have provided a release package on my sourceforge project. It includes the movie file, spreadsheet, and Ram Watch file.

Emulator

This movie was recorded on our emulator BizHawk and should be used for encoding and playing back this file.

Improvement

This is a 587 frame improvement over my previous TAS. The majority of the improvement came from using the hidden fairy at the beginning of the level. Thanks to TaoTao for pointing out this secret!
Some other frames were saved by more optimization on the final boss.

Warped run? what?

Like the previous run, I use a code (reset the game 13 times) to initiate a level select. The really long gray screen at the beginning is from me "mashing" reset as fast as possible. Yes, this is a "cheat code" but was deemed acceptable. Partly because it is mentioned in the instruction manual and mainly becuase the alternative is to have a 37min, repetitive auto-scroller that offers little that this shorter run does not.

Goals and input ending.

When to end input is by no means trivial in this game. There is a surprising number of choices.
  • Earliest possible input ending - end input after the last shot necessary to kill the boss, delays the true ending since the ship should be at the bottom of the screen (and with minimal lives) for the fastest true ending
  • Earliest possible ending, fastest possible input that does not delay this goal - requires getting the ship to the bottom of the screen with as few lives as possible during the death animation
  • Earliest ending, no death - your lives count down and added to your score before your ship flies off the screen, thus the fewer lives the better, and during the death animation there is a chance to manipulate a death, so this option delays the final ending
  • Earliest possible ending, end input at this time - generally we don't wait unnecessarily, so this is not preferred
The option I went with is option 2 for two reasons:
1) I generally think this is the better option in games as it leads to the most entertaining results
2) It adds the most strategy to the process since I have to manipulate enemies to be on the screen during the death animation and die from them, it also adds strategy since I have to do this as fast as possible to end input as early as possible
HOWEVER, I have a possible speed/entertainment trade-off in that I don't minimize points (in an attempt to minimize lives) during the level. I don't want to do this because it is an auto-scroller with minimal entertainment value as is. I don't want to exacerbate the problem for fraction of a second of non-input game completion time. I could have chosen a no-death goal but in this case the death adds an extra layer of strategy that I don't like taking out for the sake of a cleaner goal.
Overall, I find that any of these decisions has their merit and there isn't a definite correct answer. The choices I made were a decision. One that I personally find gives the most TAS-value to this game.

Why is this a good game to TAS?

1) Zanac is underrated in its amazing music. I rank the music easily in the top five all time NES sountracks. It is equal, if not superior than that of the megaman series or the castlevania series. The one downside of the warped run is that you don't get to experience all of the tracks. 2) This game features hords of enemies but absolutely no lag. Considering this is one of the older NES games, this is quite impressive. Especially when you consider some of the newer, "more advanced" games lag when ANYTHING happens in the game (*cough* mm3 *cough*). 3) The game is a VERY fast auto-scroller, this helps keep the interst going.

Engrish

This game is on of the more classic examples of video game engrish. The title screen features "game desinded by". You don't start on "area 1" but "arer 1". Not technically engrish but it is also interesting that destroying the alien boss makes you MESSIAH of earth :P

Summary

  • Uses BizHawk 1.0
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Uses deaths (new category)
  • Genre: shoot-em up/auto-scroller

Baxter: Accepting as an improvement to the published run.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3484: adelikat's NES Zanac in 03:16.11
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BizHawk? Wha?..
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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A new emulator? Why do we need two rerecording emulators that support NES games? Could you post some reasons this emulator should be used for NES/SMS/GG/PCE TASing instead of FCEUX?
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Is FCEUX development going to be abandoned in favor of BizHawk?
adelikat
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Yes and No. I should probably make a topic about that.
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NitroGenesis
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Don't call it BizHawk!!! Call it JizBird. I couldn't resist.
CoolKirby wrote:
Could you post some reasons this emulator should be used for NES/SMS/GG/PCE TASing instead of FCEUX?
Because Dega is a fucking pile of shit.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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syncs on BizHawk 1.0 publication quality encodes available upon request http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwg2_YrPi7w
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NitroGenesis wrote:
Don't call it BizHawk!!! Call it JizBird.
Yeah, why is it called BizHawk anyway?
NitroGenesis wrote:
CoolKirby wrote:
Could you post some reasons this emulator should be used for NES/SMS/GG/PCE TASing instead of FCEUX?
Because Dega is a fucking pile of shit.
But FCEUX isn't, so why should it be replaced?
adelikat
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http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12520 Let's use this topic for discussing why Bizhawk over FCEUX.
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You won't want replacing FCEUX once it's released and you try true TASEditor.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Nice run, but the death at the end kinda ruins it. Is that death really necessary?
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natt wrote:
syncs on BizHawk 1.0 publication quality encodes available upon request http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwg2_YrPi7w
I assume you used BizHawk for the encode. That being said, the size doesn't look entirely right. It's a bit smaller compared with fceux. I hope this won't be the new official guidline of encoding nes games.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
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Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
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AngerFist wrote:
natt wrote:
syncs on BizHawk 1.0 publication quality encodes available upon request http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwg2_YrPi7w
I assume you used BizHawk for the encode. That being said, the size doesn't look entirely right. It's a bit smaller compared with fceux. I hope this won't be the new official guidline of encoding nes games.
It's 256x240 with no AR correction. If you're asking about AR correction, it wastes time and is not important enough for temp (submission) encodes. Publication quality encodes get AR correction. If you're asking about framesize, it should be noted that the 240->224 crop is not at all consistent with our standard handling of other systems (especially PSX). But that has nothing in particular to do with BizHawk; both BizHawk and FCEUX can be set to crop or not crop, and it's always possible to crop in post-processing if that's what you want to do.
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c-square wrote:
Nice run, but the death at the end kinda ruins it. Is that death really necessary?
The death was to save completion time. Notice after, that the lives start counting down and you are credited with points for them.
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This was very good, and if the reason for the death was to save time, then yes.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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Nice improvement. Just in case, I converted the movie to fm2 and confirmed that it syncs on FCEUX 2.1.5. So I voted yes. But I have some anxiety to accept FM2/TAS movies simultaneously. I glanced at the code of BizHawk and found that its CPU emulation is not identical to FCEUX. For example, BizHawk does not emulate the RMWW (read-modify-write-write) behavior of RMW (read-modify-write) operations. In some tases, the difference of emulation may cause desyncs. (And indeed, my Double Moon Densetsu tas desyncs on BizHawk 1.0, although I don't know the cause)
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adelikat wrote:
c-square wrote:
Nice run, but the death at the end kinda ruins it. Is that death really necessary?
The death was to save completion time. Notice after, that the lives start counting down and you are credited with points for them.
I thought the lives countdown happened after the final input, and so wouldn't count towards the completion time. Specifically, the final input (and completion time) seems to be 3:16, whereas the lives countdown doesn't begin until 3:25. So, dying doesn't seem to save any time in this case. Am I missing something?
adelikat
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Yes, the countdown happens after the end of the input file, but NOT before the completion of the level. Like most every movie I make, I aim for fastest game completion, while also trying to minimize the input length. In this case I could have ended the input much earlier but delayed the completion of the game, and I chose not to do this. If you read my submission text, I explain the different options. There is a surprising number of possible ending strategies to this game!
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You're the messiah of Earth. Yes vote.
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adelikat wrote:
Yes, the countdown happens after the end of the input file, but NOT before the completion of the level. Like most every movie I make, I aim for fastest game completion, while also trying to minimize the input length. In this case I could have ended the input much earlier but delayed the completion of the game, and I chose not to do this. If you read my submission text, I explain the different options. There is a surprising number of possible ending strategies to this game!
Okay, I understand having Fastest Game Completion Time as a goal. I've looked over your submission text above and I can't find anything talking about completion options. Am I looking at the wrong text? Also, I noticed that you earned a lot of free lives by killing enemies and picking up smiley faces. If you're trying for Fastest Game Completion Time, then are all those kills and pickups absolutely necessary? Finally, your input concludes with a bunch of down commands. Could those be eliminated to get a shorter input length? Please understand, I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to see if I can't find ways you could make a good TAS even better.
adelikat
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Pressing down at the end is to get my ship at the bottom, so that the take off animation later happens sooner, again another sacrifice of input length for actual length. The enemies shot don't end up making a difference because by the time you get a 2 million bonus at the end, the extra points I got during the level are trivial. But I won't lie, I didn't do the exact math so it is possible that i could have avoided one less life maybe, by shooting less things. But shooting things is fun :(
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Thanks for the encode! (I haven't yet gotten a chance to set up BizHawk, and I'm not sure my computer could run it at full speed yet.) Anyway, as to the actual TAS, it's somehow much more interesting while only being a few seconds shorter. I think the weaving between enemies was much more captivating. The use of the fairy is a very nice touch. Also, I'm ok with the speed-entertainment tradeoff you made with the final ship death. There's no one clear reason to pick any method over any other, so it all comes down to taste. It's not like somebody could obsolete this movie just by stopping input earlier... that change would not be considered sufficient improvement to get accepted. I vote Yes.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
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I want to see a few more games done on BizHawk before I decide whether it is a good run or not. This run was great, but the whole thing is one auto-scrolling level. I'm not sure whether this is a good game to TAS though. Voting meh for the run.
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DrSaturn wrote:
I want to see a few more games done on BizHawk before I decide whether it is a good run or not.
What?
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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NitroGenesis wrote:
DrSaturn wrote:
I want to see a few more games done on BizHawk before I decide whether it is a good run or not.
What?
I think he meant "good emulator" instead of "good run".
DrSaturn wrote:
This run was great, but the whole thing is one auto-scrolling level. I'm not sure whether this is a good game to TAS though. Voting meh for the run.
The run is a well-done improvement, so since a TAS of the game is already on the site, regardless of the movie's entertainment value, it will be accepted anyway. That said, it's a good improvement (over 10 seconds!), so I'm voting Yes.