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[NesVideoAgent]

This is an automatically posted message for discussing submission: #1382: hero of the day's SNES Contra 3: The Alien Wars in 13:03.32

See details at: http://tasvideos.org/1382S.html

Submission status: published
Last edited by: DeHackEd

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The submission message follows:

Recorded using Snes9x 1.43+ improvment9

Emulator sync settings:

• Use wip1 timing

Movie goals:

• Aim for fastest time
• Play on hardest difficulty
• Control 2 players

Movie information

First off I would like to thank Ash Williams for his great discoveries in this game; he made a very nice run. At first I didn’t know if his run could be improved, but after playing around with the game I realized small improvements were possible. This run is 683 frames faster than Ash’s run, or about 12 seconds. Most of the time saved is from mini/boss fights, several frames being saved in almost every single fight. Additionally, several frames were saved on the title menu and score tallying screens. The memory watching function was excessively utilized in this run; it made optimizing each boss much easier. You may notice that both the players will occasionally merge together to form a grey looking player; in many cases this is done to keep the screen scrolling faster, to avoid lag, and to damage bosses quicker. Sometime is looks like I miss shots or continue shooting after a target is destroyed, this is intentional. In certain cases holding down the fire button will continue to do damage to an enemy even if no shots come out of the barrel.

Stage 1 (81 frames gained)

I use homing missile for entertainment value, killing more enemies without having to turn around. The homing missile is as weak as the default weapon, dealing 2 damage points per hit. Each guard tower is improved upon by hitting the core at better frames, and the boss is improved by few frames as well.

Stage 2 (12 frames gained)

This level is a pain, and tough to optimize. The same path is used as in the published run. I only gained a couple frames for this level, and I managed to gain a minuscule amount of frames in the boss fight as well. Fooling around when the boss is exploding is a bad idea because it induces extreme lag, so I go off screen and play pong with player 1.

Stage 3 (83 frames gained)

This stage had lots of little optimizations, other than the improved boss fights. The part with the wall crawling robot was improved by some frames just by staying close to the top of the screen, I don’t know if it was less lag or if it made the screen scroll faster. After the defeat of the wall robot, the climb to the top is more optimized than the published run. The jumping part inside the warehouse was substantially improved with a new route.

Stage 4 (252 frames gained)

The green tank mini boss was insanely difficult to get correct. The tank must be off the screen when it is destroyed or the lag produce from the explosion will cause half a second of delay. The flying grey men must also be off the screen when the tank explodes or more lag will occur, I managed to manipulate some of them not to show up at all. The mini boss that comes out of the hole from under the blimp was improved dramatically compared to the published run, simply by shooting him from an angle. A huge amount of time was saved at the blimp fight. Using memory watch I was able to more accurately remove the guardian bits to take out the blimp much faster, this saved over 3 seconds alone.

Stage 5 (70 frames gained)

Same strategy here as in the published run, gained over a second from more accurate movements. Not only was the level the most difficult to one to complete, but the boss itself was a nightmare.

Stage 6 (177 frames gained)

Well I made one incredible discovery here. The flying metal demon was always a 2 round fight until Ash Williams found that the bomb can make it a one round fight. Bombs cause a ton of lag though, so I was determined to find a new way of killing the demon in one round. I found a way of one rounding him without the bomb!! The timing absurd and the amount of factors in getting this to work is unimaginable. I managed to gain even more frames from Red Falcon’s first form. Many more additional frames were saved during the brain form.

Score tallying & title screen (8 frames gained)

Oddly enough the title screen will appear at different times depending on weather you loaded a save state before the title screen appears. The fastest way to make the title screen appear is to record a movie and not load any save states until the title screen has appeared. Not using save states is ok because the start button can be turboed on odd/even frames for both player 1 and player 2 controllers which means that every frame is pressing a button to advance. The score tallying screens also use the turbo technique to ensure the fastest possible transition.

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adelikat: Accepting as an improvement over the current published run.

Bisqwit DeHackEd: Processing.

[Zurreco]

STOP KILLING EVERYONE SO QUICKLY! Give them a chance :(

Yes voting like no one's business. Not even Dacicus' business!

[AngerFist]

God I hate that Dacicus...pain in the ass. Hey man, you there, thumbs up. Where do you wizzards find these improvements?? I thought Mister Williams run was perfect. Voted yes.

[Twelvepack]

Good improvment. Really good touch at the start of the level on the hover bikes.

Obvious yes vote.

[xoinx]

Good run with plenty of LAWL-factor. My only complain is that the split screen stages are done so fast they give me a headache :S Awesome stuff, YESSIR!

Truncated is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man. -- xoinx

[moozooh]

hero of the day wrote:

[VANDAL]

Good stuff, this is an improvement worth noting. I never really found this Contra to be that interesting (probably because I found it too hard and never gave it much of a chance) but after watching this run my interest is a whole hell of a lot higher than it was. Besides being absolutely fast, it also holds high entertainment value so great job keeping that up there along side speed. Yes vote.

[Blaise]

I liked the pong parody on level 2. I never would have thought of that. That was cute.

[Tombad]

Awesome. Especially the small dancing tidbit in the beginning of the driving stage was über.

Yes.

[JXQ]

I don't like the some of the style during this movie. I think the two-players-become-one is overused, though it may have to be to get optimal hits on some bosses.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you get three different musics to play during the final boss?

Either way, this run is quite good.

[hero of the day]

Thanks everyone, I am glad you all enjoyed the run. I am sorry for the amount of time spent with the characters overlapping, it was usually done for a good reason though.


JXQ wrote:

[Ash Williams]

Wow great job! I can't believe the amount of frames saved.

Thev wall crawling boss was a super pain in the ass for me because it seemed that each time I fought him it took a different number of frames to get to the top. It's good to see that you found a better way to get up.

The bird boss was awesome by the way. And if you found a way to save 8 frames in the score tally screens, well then this run is well deserved.

Yes vote; great job again.

[hero of the day]

Thanks Ash, it means a lot to hear that from you. Your run was really darn good and the routes you used in levels 2 and 5 were really well planned. I owe much of this run to you.

[mikwuyma]

Just adding another yes vote. I also think the two players as one is overused, but besides that the run is great.

Now I really need to improve my speedrun :-/

[JXQ]

Mikwuyma: I just watched your console run the other day, and I had a question about it. Was there a reason you didn't hold R to remain stationery while shooting up at an angle (in level 4, or at the final boss for example), or does it make it harder to shoot rapidly, or did you just not know about it at the time?

[mikwuyma]

I was holding R during my run. Funny how you mention stage 4 and the final boss, since those are two great examples of when I'm holding R :P. Look around 8:00 and 15:00 respectively.

Just out of curiousity, why did you think I didn't know about the R button? I used it a lot in my run IIRC.

[jaysmad]

I find it was pushed to the max or very close to it (if it isnt). I love 2 player runs, alot of calculations must be put into them. The style was nice and i loved the boss battles (extremely fast). Even though its already accepted, i just watched it twice and its nice. I vote yes.

[JXQ]

mikwuyma: It didn't appear that you were holding R. You were instead jumping to aim up and right, and in mid-air you were going to the right and then had to steer back left in midjump. Or during the part where the ship flies overhead - to shoot something you kept holding up-left to shoot, without holding R, because you were also moving to the left, and you kept moving to the right afterwards to avoid careening into whatever it was you were shooting.

Maybe you were holding R in mid-air, I don't remember how the aiming works then :)

[NesVideoAgent]

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This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.

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See http://tasvideos.org/787M.html

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[Spider-Waffle]

Agh, for christ sakes, hasn't anyone else noticed that on the over head maps you move 22% faster with dual vectoring?! I can't believe this still hasn't been used through out the two levels, it's really quite simple.