Topic by NekoMan

Posted: 7/5/2007 2:17 PM

Post subject: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers - The Movie

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NekoMan

Joined: 7/5/2007
Posts: 6
Location: Newfoundland, Canada

Here's a small WIP that I made a long time ago. This is the third time I did the first two stages of the game because of massive time-savers that I kept finding, and I know it can be improvable, mostly from more precise enemy hitting and better boss fights. This is done with Billy/Blue Ranger, because of his long reaching weapon and short kick animation. I crouch and attack a lot because his standing combo attack is a flurry of geekfist as Billy and a long piketwirl as Blue Ranger that takes several frames more than just crouchattacking multiple-hit enemies to death. It may also prove better to throw enemies in some places, although it is slow. As an example, the throw in the first stage proved was useful there, because I killed the two enemies instead of hitting one, walking over and hitting the other. It doesn't seem to do that much damage, though. So it might be best to use throws for enemies that take only a single hit to kill. So, yeah. Here it is. Using Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (US).smc Suggestions/Comments/Etc. welcome and appreciated.

Posted: 7/5/2007 4:50 PM

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Sir_VG

He/Him

Player (39)

Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower

For the most part, from casual observation, it seems pretty good. Couple things I would question at this point. 1 - Jump attacking the weakest putties, which could be faster than standing and attacking. 2 - Using the barrels in Stage 2 to damage enemies, if possible (I don't know...test it). 3 - Using the morphed form bomb. 4 - On the shielded putties (where did that come from? Those weren't in the series...), try not to knock them down too fast. The ones in Morphed form near the end of Stage 2, you knocked down twice without them dying. Possible to attack, pause, then attack more w/o sending them flying? 5 - Anticipate the 2nd boss' positions. You seemed to be surprised a few times. Not too bad a run though. But damn Billy looks awful in this game. Though I guess it's funnier to watch him go from a fat kid to suddenly taller, thinner, and super buff in morphed form.

Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing

Posted: 7/5/2007 5:16 PM

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NekoMan

Joined: 7/5/2007
Posts: 6
Location: Newfoundland, Canada

First of all, thank you for refreshing my memory that they're called putties. 1) Billy jumps like he's using an air guitar, and I would have to test to see if it's faster, although I doubt it. When I was testing things out a little, it seemed that jumping doesn't give enough forward momenum to warrant using, and I can't immediately remember as i'm writing this if it takes a few frames to move once Billy touches the ground or not. 2) The barrels can be picked up and thrown, I think, but the throw animation for inanimate objects is longer than attacking them. 3) The bomb is LONG. It'll clear the screen, but you can't move while using it. I guess for it to work you have to stay in a cool pose for a long time. If it was more of a Contra-style bomb, that'd be great. 4) Unfortunately, when Billy becomes Blue Ranger, he loses the ability to kick things. When you connect any number of hits, and then hit twice more he'll still do the overhead swing. The only way to counter this is to miss, which is hard to do when surrounded. 5) It does look like that, but the problem with that is the boss phases in, and when you frame advance that, he's still invincible even though he's done teleporting until 1-2 frames before he starts his attack, so he's not immediately able to be hit first. So when I look surprised, i'm waiting for that moment. Or at least that's what it looks to me. Thanks for the comments, and i'll do work on level 3 when I get around to it. I also noticed that I had forgotten in that WIP I was using the standing combo for area 1 as Billy. That was when I was trying to splice in a better Area 1 and keep the rest of my progress, and kept screwing it up. Also, I love the way one putty dies in Area 2.

Posted: 7/8/2007 7:25 PM

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FrostyTheDragon

Joined: 6/7/2006
Posts: 53

Okay, I've been watching it and here's some things I have to say, as I'd been messing around with this game a while back (I contemplated TASing it but I'm not used to the tools well enough yet): 1) I recommend Kimberly over Billy for the first level. Her bow can shorten some parts of the second section by a second or two each because she can start shooting the arrow before the enemies are even on screen and hit an enemy on the opposite side (it really only helps with the gray and light green putties though). 2) In the first section, you should be jump-kicking the putties that can be taken out with one hit. I understand jump-kicking in normal form slows you down after the hit, but just jump-kick in a manner that the hit is as low as possible. This is another reason to take Kimberly - her jump-kick has a longer reach apparently. 3) I think your jumpkicks in morphed form, on the other hand, don't get slowed down when they hit. 4) Are you sure you shouldn't have tried to get the pair of shield-carrying putties on the same side in the factory portion of stage 2? You might have been able to use fewer combo attacks that way. 5) It might not be possible for Billy, but I recall Kimberly being able to land a full standing combo on the second boss. Since the last hit does as much as the rest of the combo (maybe more), that may be something to investigate. 6) Combined with the previous point, you can get his health so low that when he starts going into his random teleporting phase, a single bomb (it does roughly 13 hits, each being as powerful as a normal attack) will take him out. (Though at that point, two full combos may do the trick too. The best decision of bomb vs. two combos would probably only save a few frames.) There's some good of this, though, such as: 1) Pretty creative use of the throw to take out enemies as they're coming. 2) I agree that Billy should crouch for the last hit of a normal combo. 3) So you know the same trick I do for the three putties on the truck? Sweet. I don't know why it works (could someone with a memory viewer help here?), I just know it works. 4) I was going to say that bombing the first boss when he's down to just his head would be faster, but you luck manipulated well enough that it wouldn't have been. Forget what I said about Billy in an earlier version of this post - he certainly has a SLIGHT power increase in normal form. Don't know about Ranger form. Overall, it's pretty good, it just could use a little polishing here and there. (EDIT: In order to see this for myself, I tried beating your TAS WIP with a normal-speed playthrough of the same parts. I couldn't, which is a good sign.)

Posted: 7/8/2007 9:41 PM

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bkDJ

Joined: 7/26/2006
Posts: 1215

I'm guessing for parts where you need to move against a conveyor belt, the pause upon landing makes it not worthwhile to use the extra speed from jumping? There was 1 or 2 places where you just waled on those belts after clearing enemies and it seemed slow. Other than that and what other people have said, good job, I was entertained.

Posted: 7/9/2007 1:42 AM

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NekoMan

Joined: 7/5/2007
Posts: 6
Location: Newfoundland, Canada

I have been busy the past couple of days, so I wasn't able to pull it out and do some work on it. I really appreciate the comments, by the way. I did realize that Kimberly's bow would come in handy for her arrows, but I believed that when I tried her out her kicking seemed to be a bit longer. At the time, I wasn't really in the mood to test that out. I re-examined that part about the conveyor belts, and i'm not too clear as to what you're talking about. I'll probably edit this tomorrow when i'm not half-tired and take a closer look. My assumption as of right now is that i'm waiting for the "GO". Also, there's a good possibly, FrostyTheDragon, that I will go back and change those parts. There are a couple of parts where I just wanted it over with, and are obviously improvable when I go to the final movie. And, you are correct about #6. He does not warp out when the bomb is used. I tested it and when timed perfectly, he takes all of the hits from the bomb. That is a good timesaver because he just stands there. I forgot about using the bomb there because of the first boss; he jumps off-screen even when the bomb is being used and it didn't seem to do any damage to him when he's not on screen.

Posted: 10/2/2007 2:06 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

I'm doing a TAS of this (my first, actually) and I've got a couple observations. 1. Jump-kicking the weaker Putties definitely seems quicker, but when you're not in Ranger form, the hit causes some loss of momentum, so it's best to hit as late in the jump as possible 2. When you ARE in Ranger form, you can hold back when jump-kicking and you'll backflip off the enemy when you hit. This is a tremendous time-saver, especially when there are enemies coming from both sides. I also use this to smash the Stage 1 boss's face in instead of repeatedly positioning to combo him. (Except for his final form, because a combo is all it takes to finish him.) (I finished that stage at about 16,000 frames.) 3a. I'm not quite sure how to manipulate luck to get the Stage 2 boss to appear where you want him to. I'm about 80% sure it's to do with where you're standing and what direction you're facing, though. 3b. Once he starts flickering around the screen, it is indeed a good idea to Bomb him. He flickers 23 times before becoming solid, and the bomb will go off perfectly if you fire it the 6th time. It does take a few more attacks before it'll kill him, though. Here's what I have so far. Some critique would be nice. http://fast.filespace.org/Keita-chan/Mighty_Morphin_Power_Rangers__U_.zmv Yes, I know SNES9X is the emu of choice here, but I cannot stand it. I used ZSNES 1.51 for this. (The movie desyncs sometime in Stage 2, don't quite remember where, only that it was before the boss. I think this is related to use of rewind and state-load.)

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/3/2007 5:10 AM

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zdude255

Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147

Solon wrote:

Yes, I know SNES9X is the emu of choice here, but I cannot stand it. I used ZSNES 1.51 for this.

zsnes is accepted here, it just hasn't been in much use because the addition of frame advance is fairly recent and most TASers have learned SNES9X before it was added to zsnes. The rules page says 1.42, but I'm not sure if that's because of 1.51 incompatibilities or a non-updated rules page. May want to look into that before starting a run you might want to submit. Or just replay the movie every now and then in 1.42 and hope it still works.

Posted: 10/4/2007 8:46 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Update: My run is up to the Stage 2 boss without desyncing, but he's giving me a huge amount of trouble. So far, I've beaten him five times and every time I've watched my run back to there, it desyncs almost immediately because he appears somewhere different from when I recorded it. Anyone know something I can do about this?

The rules page says 1.42, but I'm not sure if that's because of 1.51 incompatibilities or a non-updated rules page.

Presumably the latter...1.42 doesn't have frame-advance or rerecord support, so I imagine using it for TASing would be an exercise in futility.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/5/2007 3:03 AM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

Did you watch Deadstick's console run? http://speeddemosarchive.com/PowerRangersSNES.html

Posted: 10/5/2007 3:31 AM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

Solon wrote:

Presumably the latter...1.42 doesn't have frame-advance or rerecord support, so I imagine using it for TASing would be an exercise in futility.

He probably means 1.43, which is what about 98% SNES TASes are done with here.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 10/5/2007 4:05 AM

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laughing_gas

Former player

Joined: 10/1/2006
Posts: 1102
Location: boot_camp

moozooh wrote:

Solon wrote:
Presumably the latter...1.42 doesn't have frame-advance or rerecord support, so I imagine using it for TASing would be an exercise in futility.
He probably means 1.43, which is what about 98% SNES TASes are done with here.

No, he was definitely talking about ZSNES

Borg Collective wrote:

Negotiation is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.

Posted: 10/5/2007 12:16 PM
(Edited: 10/5/2007 1:05 PM)

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

JRL_ wrote:

Did you watch Deadstick's console run? http://speeddemosarchive.com/PowerRangersSNES.html

Haven't yet because I've been (VERY) short on drive space since reinstalling Diablo II. Picking it up now. I don't quite see how that's going to help, though. EDIT: I stand thoroughly corrected. Looks like all those optimizations I was going to wait on need to be moved to the forefront.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/5/2007 12:47 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

laughing_gas wrote:

url=http://tasvideos.org/Rules.html#ForSuperNes]No, he was definitely talking about ZSNES[/url]

Right, my bad.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 10/6/2007 1:40 AM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

What new strategies did you find, Solon?

Posted: 10/6/2007 7:47 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Nothing much that hasn't already been noted here; I think my most significant find was the jumpkick-to-backflip. I've only watched Deadstick's run to Stage 2 so far, but what I've seen was very informative...a few tricks I didn't know about, (Putties on the truck being the biggie), and after timing a partial Stage 1 run with Kimberly (to the morph point) I think he's right about her having the fastest run speed; I reached the morph point in at least 600 fewer frames than with Jason. (Though that could just be me doing things better.) When I get home, I've got a couple things I'll be doing. First, frame-checking to see just what the fastest way to kill the stronger Putties is. Second, timing if it's faster to use Kimberly's bow to kill weaker Putties, or if the jumpkick-to-backflip will work better. Lastly, a question to NekoMan: What were your frame counts when you cleared Stages 1 and 2? For Stage 1 (as mentioned earlier), I was at 16,000, and Stage 2 would have been around 36,000 if I had figured out how to keep it from desyncing. (Both of those were with Jason.)

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/7/2007 12:35 AM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Update: I'm not so sure of Kimberly anymore. It turns out that at the point where the character runs off-screen for the boss transition, I was only 540 frames ahead of where I was with my Jason run (about 300 at the morph point), and most of that is probably due to optimizations I made with Kimberly that I saw in Deadstick's SDA movie. Furthermore, I think Kimberly's jumpkick actually does somewhat less damage than Jason's; I used the same strategy with her as I did with Jason for the Stage 1 boss (repeated jumpkick-to-backflip, occasional jump-slash to aid repositioning), and I ended up almost 1,000 frames BEHIND my Jason run (at the moment the character poses for beam-out.) I'll do another run through Stage 1 with Jason tommorrow, and if I can achieve similar results (framecount-wise) to my Kimberly run, then I'll stick with him for the whole thing. I also plan to see if I can get faster results on the boss by comboing him. Last: I'm just about convinced that the 4-hit combo is the fastest takedown for Putties, UNLESS you've needed to hit them before starting the combo (i.e. to get them positioned for a multi-takedown.)

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/7/2007 10:07 PM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

Well, Jason/Billy are better for a TAS in my opinion, but Kimberly is the best for a console run.

Posted: 10/11/2007 12:53 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Update: I did a second run through Stage 1 with Jason, ending at 15724. Then, I decided to try fighting the boss normally instead of using the repeated jumpkick-to-backflip. Doing that, Kimberly ended at 14513, and Jason (2nd run) at 14953. May need to put it on hiatus, unfortunately; my laptop's power converter is giving out and I have no idea how much longer it'll last.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/30/2007 11:11 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Haven't worked on this in a few weeks (power converter just got fixed), but I made some good progress last night. 1. Kimberly run through Stage 2 is finished without desyncing; she poses for the beam-out at 34,000 frames exactly. It seems as if running back and forth through the boss arena helps keep him from appearing in different spots on playback. 2. Run is currently at Stage 3 Part 2 (new area right after the morph point), and I've hit a bit of a dilemma; specifically, to keep the run as a "Takes no damage" run, or to make it "Takes damage to save time" due to the toxic fume pipes found throughout the remainder of Stage 3. Leaning toward the former, because IIRC this'd be the only place I'd be doing it, plus there are only a few pipes I can brute-force my way past.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/31/2007 6:40 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Another update: I stuck with "Takes no damage" and managed to get that segment of Stage 3 pretty close to optimal. Stage 3 is now finished, with Kimberly posing for beam-out at exactly frame 55784, which translates to 15.495--- minutes, I believe. Here's what I have so far. http://fast.filespace.org/Keita-chan/MMPR-KimberlyTAS-Stage3.zip or http://www.filespace.org/Keita-chan/MMPR-KimberlyTAS-Stage3.zip Zipped this time, so you don't have to deal with renaming the movie file to match your ROM name. Still using ZSNES 1.51.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 11/2/2007 4:50 AM

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JRL_

Joined: 9/22/2007
Posts: 56
Location: In UR Famicom

So is Kimberly the best?

Posted: 11/2/2007 1:51 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

Yes, I think so. I timed runs with her and Jason through Stage 1 and I'm sure Deadstick's right about her having better speed, and since everyone's damage is roughly the same, that's a pretty big advantage for a tool-assisted timeattack. She also has the bow in Ranger form, though there haven't been many places I felt it'd be more effective than a jumpkick-to-backflip.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 11/4/2008 6:49 AM

Post subject: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, The Movie

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MegaMan306

Joined: 11/4/2008
Posts: 14

This game still remains one of my favorite games I've played on the SNES, but a TAS version of this game would be amazing. I'm still in progress of making this happening and have a very very rough WIP on Youtube already. (My first attempt of making TAS videos. Stage 4 couldn't get uploaded due to very bad desyncing when reviewing the movie, couldn't fix it.) I'm making another improved WIP of this now (Stages 1 & 2 uploaded atm) until I'm sure I can do this in one recording session. http://www.youtube.com/MegaMan306

ϺϵɠɑϺɑɳƷØϬ

Posted: 11/4/2008 7:03 AM

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qFox

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands

Seems to me like you're being irregular with the powerup pickups. Sometimes you make one or two extra steps to get them, other times you simply ignore them when they are on your path. Was there a reason for that?

qfox.nl