Tool-assisted movies

We recommend reading the author's comments for more information on the death warp glitch and other timesaving techniques used to make this improvement happen.

If you would like to see more of the game, we also have a glitchless Aria of Sorrow movie here.

In this movie the author abuses many glitches to take massive shortcuts in the game (including skipping an entire level). He also intentionally kills off the character several times in order to avoid backtracking.

Here, DonamerDragon obliterates what is normally a many hours-long game through heavy luck manipulation.

There is a movie of this game that does not use the warp glitch.

According to the author, this TAS of the game is a result of 10 months hard work and many years of research into this game.

The game is completed in three cycles: after each cycle, the time is reset to three days before a catastrophe that Link is trying to avert.

NOTE: There are some graphical problems in this movie. In particular, a cutscene at 18:20 appears completely white although it should just be dreamshaded. It is a problem with the video plugin used to render this movie.

This movie uses a variety of sequence breaks and shortcuts to complete the game using a minimal number of inventory and quest items. Even the most experienced OoT players are sure to find surprise in what is skippable in this game.

Also, JXQ has provided some interesting commentary on the movie. It might make the movie more entertaining.

NOTE: There is a short delay in the game every time the pause menu is entered. The delay is a known bug in the emulation and can't be avoided.

Turok has been famous for being the first fog navigation simulator of its time. The omnipresent fog was included to obscure the low rendering distance that was used in order to increase performance on N64's hardware, but it also resulted in a somewhat claustrophobic feeling throughout the game. To further confuse the disoriented player, the majority of wall textures are nondescript and repetitive, making it easy to get lost at times.

Disclaimer: Due to various complaints of motion sickness caused by the strafe-running technique utilized, the viewer is encouraged to keep an airsickness bag handy in case of sudden nausea.

See the author's comments for more information on this glitch.

This improves the author's previous movie by about 5 seconds.

This movie is 9:11 faster than Arc's version, mostly because of the utilization of a gameplay-altering glitch: pressing Left+Right simultaneously in order to make Orpheus move with almost unlimited velocity growth. The trick is documented at Battle of Olympus Tricks.

The route used in this movie is decided by a few things the hero (Orpheus) must do:

• Collect three fragments of love in order to activate the Tartarus entry.
• Get a key to access the second fragment's location.
• Get the Eyeball of Graeae to see invisible doors (to access the first fragment's location).
• Get a sword in Peloponnesus. It is needed to kill the three-headed guardian with respawning heads (Cerberus) in Tartarus.
• Collect 60 olives in order to buy the ocarina, which will be needed to cross the sea to get to Crete and Tartarus.
• Get a harp in order to call Pegasus. It makes the route faster.

This movie requires FCEU 0.98.12.

Maybe you thought Battletoads was a game full of amphibians, but it is actually full of bugs. Those beta testers really should have spent a little more time on this game...

As always, a bug on level 11 prevents player 2 from moving, so he gets a game over for that level. Player 1 plays level 11 alone and player 2 comes back for level 12. This is a bug in Battletoads itself.

This game is considered to be very difficult to beat.

This game is really fast-paced. Do a TAS of it, and… see for yourself. :)

This new version is 10.5 seconds faster than the previous movie by Randil. Much of the improvements come from a bug in the last level.

Interesting fact about this game is that Konami used to implement an unconventional way of piracy protection, in this particular case by making each hit or "wrong" collision in the game result in an instant death if you play it illegitimately. Apparently, this was how a large amount of people were used to play it in pre-emulation era, without even realizing Konami's little sabotage.

This movie by AnS is set up in a fashion that imitates this known handicap by playing the game in hard mode (accessing it through a password), where every hit counts as death. Other than that, it also improves the previous movie by 2 minutes 48.7 seconds, using several major glitches and a lot of small tricks explained in great detail in the author's comments.

This is a 18.55 second improvement over the previous movie.

This nine second improvement came from thorough lag reduction and a new glitch among other things. You can find more information in the author's comments.

Trivia: This game was released as Probotector in Europe with slightly modified graphics. It is also known as GryZor on some other systems.

This movie is 46.95 seconds faster than the preceding version due to better boss fights, a jumping glitch in lv 3, and the use of the spread gun. The ROM change counts for about 27 seconds of the improvement. Also, the author better achieves the pacifist goal by not killing the level 5 tanks costing about 9 seconds.

This game suffers from sprite overload very frequently.

This is the NES version of the series completed fast by the use of creative routes and of course maximum speed.

Released on many systems, this game was so popular they even released it for cellular phones and made a board game. Even a hollywood movie has been made.

This new version by adelikat is 26.7 seconds faster than his previous effort. Most of the improvement became possible thanks to discovering an awesome new law of videogame physics: if two athletic guys kick each other in mid-air at the same time, both can fly over a huge distance at breakneck speed. We wish it worked like that in real life!

This is the author's 3rd version and is an improvement of about 28 seconds over his previous movie.

• All unnecessary random encounters have been manipulated into not happening
• The player dies several times in order to get transported back to the beginning
• Action commands are often intentionally not entered as soon as possible to manipulate critical hits and such

Note: The first AVI release of this movie had wrong author name in it. The AVI was replaced a couple of hours later. Download statistics of 91 downloads was lost.

Dragon Warrior is an epic RPG series which now spans 8 games across many systems. The second game greatly expands on the first to include a party of three heroes (all descendents of Erdrick and the hero of DW1) and battles that may include many enemies.
The world is much bigger and there are many big dungeons to explore as well. Luckily there are new abilities and items to make this easier. Enemies can randomly drop items when defeated and there is a lottery which is the precursor to the casinos which appear in each later DW game. Finally, you might notice that many of the enemies in this game appear in later games, particularly DW8.

The author has left detailed comments explaining this glitch.

This game is known in the TAS world as being a pain to play due to the RNG (random number generator) being much harder to manipulate than most other games. As a result, seemingly random actions throughout the game are actually intentional manipulation of the RNG to ensure favourable outcomes, such as avoiding monsters or good battle outcomes.

To give you an idea of how surprising this time is to most players, the previous run is about 24 minutes longer than this one. Even before that, any run that was under 3 hours long was deemed to be very difficult to perform.

The author intentionally kills off his party in order to save some travel time.

Note that this is a Famicom Disk System game. Read What is FDS for more information.

The game features an inventory and equipment and a spells system, all of which were rare to see in NES games when this game came out.

This is the 3rd published version of the TAS, now over seven minutes faster than the previous version.

The author has written comments describing all the planning and tricks that went into this movie.

Unfortunately only one of the warriors is actually a hero; the rest are sissies who died early on during the quests. Strange as this may sound, much time is saved by doing so since fewer commands need to be entered every time the player runs from a random encounter.

This version is almost 3 minutes faster than the previous movie, predominantly by the use of a computer program to assist in battle planning and by walking in no-encounter areas more often.

G.I. Joe (1991) is a platformer difficult because of its intricate routes and bosses, but the author makes short work of both. In particular, this movie sports some of the shortest boss fights of any game. It also provides entertainment through varied character and vehicle use (thankfully, the game still manages not to lag immensely even with all the action thrown in).

This is an improvement of 107 seconds to the previous movie by Ferret Warlord.

This movie aims to collect all the items to enter the secret 7th level after the level 6 boss. It accomplishes this about 56 seconds faster than the previous movie.

The game cartridge of Gimmick! contains a special microchip, FME7, which extends the number of sound channels in the game from 5 to 8, creating a more melodic soundtrack than in most other NES games.

If you liked this, be sure to check the other Gimmick! run that skips the secret items.

Note that the author dies several times in the movie to speed things up

Deign's movie here does not collect the special items required to access the secret 7th level which the other Gimmick!-run does.

This is a 30 second improvement over the previous movie by Nitsuja.

This movie beats Randil's previous movie by 24 frames.

This is probably one of the best illustrations on how to create art out of a simplistic and otherwise uninteresting game to watch.

What is also different about this movie is an extra warp which significantly shortens the game, and the use of a new tool (input macro) as described in the submission text. Bots were occasionally used to generate pseudorandom input while still avoiding death.

This movie makes Gremlins 2 look like it's just some avoid-obstacles-jump-and-walk platform game, which it really isn't at least meant to be.

This movie by Shinryuu is 3:10 faster than the previous TAS by Acmlm. Much of this improvement is gained by utilizing the various glitches in the game, which are also similar to the Mega Man series - using items to get into walls and move through them at fast speeds.

Most of this run features Link racing across Hyrule so fast that the screen can't keep up, inexplicably warping between places that shouldn't be connected, and collecting just three items, one spell, and one sword technique needed to beat the final palace.

Dark Link, the final boss, takes the same amount of damage no matter what level attack you have. This is especially convenient for the author because he reaches Dark Link without ever leveling, or, indeed, even killing another monster.

This is a 29-second improvement to the author's previous movie due to a different route choice and better manipulation optimization, see the author's comments for details.

This new movie, played by Shinryuu, is about 8 seconds faster than the previous movie by Shinryuu and Bisqwit. The major timesaver in this movie is:

• a zip+death shortcut in CrashClashman and Woodman stages

Other new tricks were also used.
Most of the techniques in this movie have been architected by Finalfighter and Morimoto.

See Rockman Tricks and the submission message for in-depth explanation and answers to various questions regarding this movie.

This game is infamous for its engrish, having comments such as "I FEEL ASLEEP!" and "UH - OH! THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!"

This movie utilizes quite a wide variety of game glitches and collects the minimal set of items needed to complete the game. The author has written a detailed list of all the interesting bits of this movie.

This movie aims for the best ending.

This is nearly a minute and a half improvement over the previous movie.

Also, the author made a switch from the JPN version to the USA, which results in a 5 second slower intro screen.

Items that can be obtained include boots which allow a double-jump maneuver, and a sword, which causes multiple hits when the character's energy is low. Bosses are defeated quickly by using this sword power-up, after taking enough damage to activate its extra power.

• Monday & Tuesday: Object crashing day
• Wednesday & Thursday: Window crashing day
• Friday: Moving objects crashing day
• Saturday: Daredevil day
• Sunday: Lawful day

The torrent file was replaced shortly after publishing because of error in file naming, and download statistics (256 complete downloads) were reset.

Aside from that limitation, this movie makes full use of all the bugs and glitches in the game which can be used to speed up the run. If you are wondering what really is going on in this movie, see the Rygar Tricks page for some info about the tricks used.

This is a 4 minutes and 43.38 seconds improvement to the previous movie.

This movie is a 46-second improvement to the previous author's movie due to usage of different path, the drug item and a left-right glitch.

We recommend watching the previous author's movie first to clearly appreciate the difference between the two movies.

Hiryu shows off some acrobatic tricks in this run, but the main highlight is the abuse of glitches that allows this game to be finished in under 6 minutes. The glitches are, not surprisingly, wall zipping and passing through locked doors.

Apart from the name, this game has virtually nothing to do with the arcade and Genesis versions of Strider.

Be forewarned, as this game contains many seizure-inducing moments.

The guy who has an infinite supply of ammo and who destroys worlds bare-chested is back!

This movie is a 19-second improvement over the previous version by Genisto.

In order to beat the game (the first quest, at least), Pitfall Harry must accomplish 6 tasks:

1. obtain the Raj Diamond
2. find the key to Quickclaw the Lion's cage
3. rescue Quickclaw the Lion
4. find the flask of medicine, which can heal Rhonda
5. rescue Rhonda
6. return to the starting point after completing the previous 5 tasks

This is the third movie by adelikat which improved greatly on the previous versions. In the precedent movie, time was saved with a glitch which allows Raphael to pick up items through walls, and figuring out how to get shurikens more often. In this, time is saved by changing the turtles less often and some scattered optimizations, including more effective luck manipulation.

Raphael is by far the fastest turtle, but he also has the weakest attack. He is used for the majority of the game, but in the boss-heavy final levels he is replaced with Michelangelo, who has a stronger special attack.
The special attacks consume health, but you can continue using them even with near-depleted life gauge.

This movie improves the previous one by over 3 minutes thanks to using two turtles and strategic approach to score and health management.

Due to the highly repetitive nature of this game, the hidden 9th input button (the console's Reset button) is used to warp to the last level. This results in an unsually long grey screen at the start of the movie. Starting on the final level with 3 lives and only the initial pea-shooter for a weapon normally makes the game near impossible to win.

The author takes advantage of frame perfect timing to upgrade rapid fire to the maximum in a single level; this allows for an improvement of 3 seconds during the boss fight.

Of course the movie doesn't involve Batman going through walls or dying to achieve his objective quicker.

This movie abuses death to a large degree to obliterate the game in record time.

This is actually nifboy's third movie of Cadash, and the first one considered worth publishing. This means that the author hasn't just thrown something together, but rather planned and optimized everything carefully.

Note that the author dies twice in the movie. Both deaths were of course intentional and saved time. For details about these deaths as well as things that were skipped, see the submission text.

This is an improvement of 3 minutes and 14 seconds over the previous movie.

More detailed comments about the run can be found in author's comments.

Another fun aspect is bomb-jumping, which allows both higher jumps and traveling vertically through walls. Almost the whole 2nd half of the game is skipped with this trick!

This is the author's latest version, improved by a mere 2.5 seconds.

This movie by