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[NesVideoAgent]

This is an automatically posted message for discussing submission: #1512: Dragonfangs's GBA Metroid Fusion in 1:13:26.73

See details at: http://tasvideos.org/1512S.html

Submission status: published
Last edited by: DeHackEd

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The submission message follows:

Metroid Fusion 0% by Dragonfangs, over 2 in game minutes faster than the published run.

• 1.7.2 re-recording v19.3
• Aims for fastest time
• Collects no items
• Takes damage to save time
• Abuses programming errors in the game
• Manipulates luck

Metroid Fusion is an incredibly linear game, not giving much leeway for any sequence breaking. Even so there are some minor route differences from the previous run. It is however, still a Metroid game and as such still makes for a great game to run.

The ingame time at the end is 0:40, 2 minutes faster than the previous run. This is somewhat attributable to new tricks and strategies found, but also to simply better precision.

Suggested Screenshot:

Frame 96440

This run gets a 0% collection rate at the end. This does not mean I don't take anything during the course of the run, the game only counts energy tanks and missile/power bomb expansions. Major upgrades (morph ball, speed booster etc) does not count towards this number, none of these are skipped. Nor can they be skipped due to Fusion's event system, getting anything out of order has very random results, getting plasma beam early, for example, unlocks level 1 doors instead.

0% has yet to be achieved in real time, as it involves an insanely precise shinespark in sector 3 (PYR). There is a vine on the way to the super missile upgrade that can only be destroyed by super missiles, a shinespark or the screw attack. This usually means you have to do a slight detour around this barrier, and on this detour is a missile expansion smack right in the way with no way around it. The shinespark required to skip it only has a 7 frame margin of error, for 3 full seconds.

As far as I know, all randomness in the game is related to the real time frame counter. But there has been strange exceptions to this so I'm not completely sure on that point. But this means that if I want luck to work out my way I have to slow down (or go faster, but I should already be going as fast as possible anyway >_>) so there might be some times where Samus stops for no apparent reason. I tried to hide this as much as possible, or if possible, waste the time during the talks with Adam since in game time doesn't flow then. But there are occasions where it's more visible than I'd like.

The most useful new trick that wasn't used in the previous run is the "Double missile shot". Basically, if 2 damaging objects hit the same enemy at the same time, they both do damage. This is necessary in order for the charge beam to work properly, since it actually creates 2/3 objects when shot. Now this normally wouldn't really have much use, but certain enemies (Core-Xs and Eye doors specifically) have very long invincibility periods between every attack, if you manage to hit these with 2 missiles at the same time they both do damage, skipping one invincibility period, essentially halving the fights. Now it's worth to note that I don't actually hit with both missiles at the same time on the eye doors, there's a single frame gap, but they have a pretty short closing animation where they're still vulnerable. Also the charge beam can kill eye doors in one hit if shot from point blank range so once you get that, using double missiles on the eye doors is useless.

Notes

• Constantly starting a spin in the air and then stopping the spin immediately pushes Samus's sprite downwards without actually caring about such trivial things as velocity or momentum. Although faster than the first few frames of gaining velocity during a normal fall, it's slower than a fall at full speed, limiting it's uses. It is useful for falling very short distances (such as the space in between several crumbling blocks) or through water.
• Morphing/unmorphing or exiting a spin jump nullifies all velocity, but exiting a spin jump still pushes Samus's sprite down slightly. This can be used to extend jumps horizontally, since you gain velocity faster horizontally than vertically.
• The wall jump in Fusion keeps Samus in a fixed direction, away from the wall she jumped from, for as long as you're still rising from the jump.
• There is a way to scale single walls by wall jumping of a wall and using the morph ball to get back to the wall slightly higher than where you did the previous wall jump. But due to how slow it is and how linear Fusion is it has very little usage.
• After acquire the Space Jump, you lose the ability to wall jump, and at the same time, any other move that otherwise results in a walljump (jumping from a hanging position, jumping from bars) turns into a normal jump.
• Shooting while turning around cancels the entire turnaround animation, speeding up a turn by quite a bit.
• Starting a spin and shooting at the same time makes the shot appear at the bottom of Samus's sprite instead of at the arm cannon.
• Morphing and shooting at the same time, or simply morphing with a fully charged beam fires the beam at the back of the Morph ball sprite.
• If a missile is fired horizontally or diagonally it can be pushed to the left/right by moving Samus in that direction. This speeds up/slows down horizontal missiles and curves the diagonal missiles.
• Plasma, Wave and Ice beams do damage every frame they're inside the enemy.
• The charge beam has a flare animation around the arm cannon when shooting, this flare actually does damage so shooting the charge beam at point blank is generally better, there are some exceptions though. Mainly Ridley where the beam itself does so much more damage then the flare it could be useful to fire it from a slight distance, and SA-X where the flare does nothing at all.
• Pressing R with a charge beam fully charged will fire the beam regardless of what Samus is doing currently, and allows her to keep moving where she would otherwise stop to fire (spin jumping, wall jumping, climbing on bars). But it also takes Samus one extra frame to charge the next beam compared to just releasing B.
• If, while speedboosting, you release left/right for a frame, press jump one frame and then continue to hold both jump and the direction you were traveling, Samus will do a standing jump while still retaining speed booster status and speed. You can also charge a shinespark when she lands with frame perfect timing.
• Zazabi (big jumping plant boss in TRO) has a certain minimum jumps it can waste before opening up for an attack, this number increases as the fight goes on. It doesn't have to waste any jump before the first part if blown up, it has to waste one jump before the seconds, it has to waste 2 before the third, and for the fourth and last part it never wastes any jumps. All in all, 3 wasted jumps is the bare minimum
• BOX, the security robot destroying the data room in PYR, is actually a boss. Dying in 3 seconds doesn't rob him of any dignity.
• Yakuza, the big spider, gets a random number when you enter the room between 1 and 4? I think. This decides how many times he has to "stop" before he'll start his second attack. "Stopping" includes finishing a cycle of ramming the floor and coming up again or being excessively surpsrised at Samus escaping his grip. So I get grabbed on purpose.
• After carefully planning the Nettori(chozo statue plant thing) fight, it turned out that the one missile I have left after the fight wouldn't have made any difference during the fight.
• Nightmare's face destroys the Plasma beam, so it only hits for one frame, which makes it weaker than the Wide beam would've been. Any time saved during the nightmare fight actually saves twice that time because he has to drift slowly to the right side of the room, so firing all my missiles did save time.
• The golden pirates right before Ridley can only be damaged from "behind". Now these pirates figure out what behind is depending on which way Samus is facing, so if they're facing the same way Samus is, Samus is apparently behind them, and thus they're damageable.

Thanks

I'd like to thank BioSpark and PJMan for being major helpers throughout the run.

I want to thank MegaFrost and Deign for supplying me with runs to steal stuff from.

I want to thank a lot of people but mainly moozooh and Angerfist for being great motivators.

And I want to thank you for watching.

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Truncated: Accepted as an improvement to the current run. Congratulations on your first published run.

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DeHackEd: ... and I'll take this one...

[P.JBoy]

I vote Yes

[moozooh]

I vote Yaargh

[BioSpark]

Been waiting on this forever ;)

EXCELLENT run. I've been redoing my 100% because of all the mistakes I noticed, but now this makes my run look even worse :P

Super yes vote.

[P.JBoy]

I love the ending (more than the beginning) especially the sa-x fight, though the nightmare fight was pure crap, I still managed to vote yes

Also you forgot the . in my name

[AngerFist]

Woha! The Swedish TASing club just got extended with another perfectionist :) Very happy for you, top notch run, it was a great show (really mean it) and congratulations submitting your first high quality TAS. Cheers and Im naturally voting yes.

[Shaded Spriter]

a yes from me as well. reading the submission text again I am not surprised that "0% has yet to be achieved in real time".

[jaysmad]

Amazingly well done. Very fast and mostly very entertaining.

Definitely a yessir!

[P.JBoy]

Hows about a recommended screenshot

[Mechuyael]

Watched it to the death of the Omega Metroid (if that's its real name) yesterday, even though I had a splitting headache. Voting yes.

[Dragonfangs]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.
Added a screenshot in the submission text.

[Sir VG]

You suck for getting 0% which I can't do on my copy of Metroid Fusion. 0% shouldn't be possible. BLARGH.

Yes vote.

[Jweb Guru]

I voted yes. While I don't particularly like the game (a linear Metroid game? Ugh), the TAS is so well-done that it's still an entertaining run.

[Saturn]

Very nice and thoroughly optimized run. I especially liked the really fast boss fights. It was also a good decision to use the Missiles at the death/exploding scene of the Omega Metroid after killing it with ice, to make it look you still hurt it with them, even if it wasn't the case. A plus in entertainment and YES vote!

[Dasrik]

Easy yes vote. Even though most Metroid fans aren't a big fan of Fusion, this is one of my favorite games and most favorite speedruns. Shouldercharging to skip the "unavoidable" missile pack is one of my favorite TAS moments.

You get a star from me !

[Qlex]

Very nice run, I really enjoyed how you blew Nightmare up, it really did sound perfect.

Yes vote.

[P.JBoy]

Being an "M" game shouldn't this be published by now, the older one was published in 2 days

[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/836M.html

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[P.JBoy]

What happened to the suggested screenshot?

EDIT: To add to that, the screenshot's not even in the movie

EDIT2: Heh, I forgot I could do it myself

[Blublu]

Rogue Security Bot defeated in 2 seconds was hilarious.

@52:49, I like how you show to the audience that this block is a powerbomb block and can't be destroyed by a normal bomb.

You make Nightmare look like a total cakewalk. I had such a hard time defeating it myself.

Overall, I would have voted yes if I had bothered to watch before the AVI was made. Very nicely done. See you next mission!