This topic is for the purpose of discussing #259: prower's SNES Mega Man X 3 in 43:35.52

Some mistakes here and there, but a great run which should definitely be published. The most consistent mistake would be that on the bosses which require using X-buster, a dashing uncharged shot does as much damage as a level 2 shot, without having to sacrifice time after the boss' recovery.

Agree with Blechy. I just love that Saber. :)

Some mistakes here and there, but a great run which should definitely be published. The most consistent mistake would be that on the bosses which require using X-buster, a dashing uncharged shot does as much damage as a level 2 shot, without having to sacrifice time after the boss' recovery.

I know that the dashing X-Buster thing exists in X and X2 but it's fixed/doesn't exist in X3, as far as I can tell. Just tried to do it against Blizzard Buffalo and it didn't work. Thanks for the compliments though :)

I was wondering if it was indeed removed- great then.

First post, let's hope it doesn't end up sounded stupid, heh... Excellent video, I enjoyed it thoroughly. However, I do have a few questions: (1) When battling Volt Catfish the first time, you use the item from Tunnel Rhino just over halfway through the battle. I understand that this is to interrupt Volt Catfish's move that gives him a lengthy period of invincibility. However, I don't understand why you only began using it then as it seems to deplete his health as fast or faster than the X-Buster. Is the item from Tunnel Rhino actually slower prior to Volt Catfish's low health attack pattern? (2) In the battle against Vile, why do you access the menu to switch weapons? (3) In the vertical shaft following Zero's near destruction, you pause before jumping to the final snail. Is this intentional or just a minor slowdown? Again, awesome video, very impressive, I would definitely recommend it.

First post, let's hope it doesn't end up sounded stupid, heh... Excellent video, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Thank you :)

However, I do have a few questions: (1) When battling Volt Catfish the first time, you use the item from Tunnel Rhino just over halfway through the battle. I understand that this is to interrupt Volt Catfish's move that gives him a lengthy period of invincibility. However, I don't understand why you only began using it then as it seems to deplete his health as fast or faster than the X-Buster. Is the item from Tunnel Rhino actually slower prior to Volt Catfish's low health attack pattern?

I'm pretty sure this is the case. From what I can tell, Tunnel Rhino's weapon makes Volt Catfish invulnerable for a long time, much longer than the X-Buster does, and even longer than it takes for the X-Buster to recharge.

(2) In the battle against Vile, why do you access the menu to switch weapons?

The L/R buttons won't work while a destroyed piece of Spinning Blade is in the air, and I think it was faster to go to the menu rather than wait for the piece to disappear, then switch to the X-Buster and start charging.

(3) In the vertical shaft following Zero's near destruction, you pause before jumping to the final snail. Is this intentional or just a minor slowdown?

It's intentional, I don't think the the jump could have been made earlier.

Again, awesome video, very impressive, I would definitely recommend it.

Thank you again =)

Other than a few extra shots here and there, this looks pretty good. Of course, I don't know the game that well, so I'm looking forward to Boco's analysis. I suspect there is room for improvement though.

Of course, I don't know the game that well, so I'm looking forward to Boco's analysis.

I have never played X3 and I do not plan to watch this movie or any other movies of this game before I can buy a copy and play through it. I may be already spoiled story-wise due to the manga and the script and the like which I've read, but the gameplay is still a giant mystery to me.

I have never played X3

O_O I have just been amazed... (Though now, it's no wonder you didn't post in this topic yet correcting someone. Heh.)

I think the reason why the votes are so high but people are unsure about publishing it is because, in my opinion, the route and time are not really a problem so much as the style- shots are missed, bosses blink(albeit very briefly), seemingly unnecessary hits are taken, etc. And I think that the vile battle would be quicker without the pause- you could probably spend the time in which the claw goes off the screen to charge up, and THEN switch to X-buster after. This way, you are spending the pause time on charging, and vile is spending the pause time on recovering. Also, for the volt catfish fight it seems like you can use tunnel rhino's weapon while catfish is in the midst of recovering from the X-buster hit(this happens for the first rhino shot). Can you use this more often? I don't know much about the game, does the upgraded X-buster give additional attacks to other weapons as in X1 and X2? If so, in X2 massive time would be saved in a minimalist run by getting the X-buster upgrade, I wonder if it would be the same here. If there is an invincibility charged shot, it's possible the vertical shaft after zero's death could be ascended very rapidly. If not, is it possible to take damage from the flying rocket shooters in order to ascend the spikes and make the next snail appear sooner? Very entertaining self-scrolling scene by the way.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it impossible to charge anything besides the X-buster if you don't have the upgrade? EDIT: Something I'm going to point out. Is it really faster to kill Byte? If you finished him off with the X-buster, you wouldn't have to wait for him to finish exploding.

good point. edit: I was watching the video again, and I noticed that vs the boss to the intro stage, a dashing x-buster does indeed take off 3 units, while an undashed shot takes off 2. If you say this was not the case for blizzard buffalo, perhaps dashing now adds some fraction to the normal 1 damage, rather than an additional 1. So that when it is used on that first boss, who has a weakness to the x-buster, it is multiplied by 1.x instead, and gets rounded up to 3 rather than down to 2. Don't get me wrong, I still definitely think this video should be published.

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [157] SNES Mega Man X3 by prower in 43:35.52

Hello, some of you might know me for speed running a few games on SDA. I just finished running an X3 improvement (before the original has been released, heh) and I wanted to share some advice for anyone who would like to time attack this game. The tips I will be sharing will not be the typical don't miss shots or this section can be shaved off by a few frames because I think whoever improves the run will obviously optimize those things. Any references to examples or file space can be found here in the form of smv files. Quick note, none of those examples were done with savestates and slowdown, meaning they are not fully optimized. First off some mistakes Prower made: He makes some excessive use of the air dash, this is most obvious in Volt Catfish's stage, where the air dash keeps him up in the air when he wants to go down. In Blizzard Buffalo's stage, Prower does not dash jump off the first two slopes, which is odd because he dash jumps off of the other slopes. Toxic Seahorse can be killed faster, Prower's problem was that he tried to use frost shield right above Seahorse's head, which actually isn't optimal because right after he jumps into it, he'll be invincible to the next one. You actually want to place the frost shields high above his head. This is better explained in my little smv on filespace. I'm sure that is not the optimal height, but I'm sure the time attacker could figure that one out. In the conveyor belt area of Crush Crawfish's stage, Prower doesn't keep constant forward momentum, although it is possible to do so with Triad Thunder. Example is on filespace (it starts on the menu screen only because it makes it easier to record). Crush Crawfish can be killed faster, I'm not too sure how it works, but there is an smv up on my filespace account. Prower's route is slightly incorrect, you can use both ray splasher and spinning blade to hit Vile for 2 points of damage. This means the optimal route is to kill Neon Tiger after Crush Crawfish, then go after Vile. This will allow you to kill Vile without having to resort to the X-buster. Blast Hornet can be manipulated to shoot nothing, resulting in no slowdown. However, this might make the fight look really boring. The other mistake in weapon choice Prower makes is fighting the boss in the first Doppler stage, Godkarmachine O Inary. He used Parasitic bomb, which does 2 points of damage per hit, ray splasher does 3 points of damage per hit. This isn't a mistake more than a failure to experiment in the 2nd Doppler stage, you can skip a large chunk of the waiting by taking damage, then climbing up the spikes. Yes, I discovered this myself and I'm very proud of this trick. The trick utilizes a glitch which I call the Beam Sabre jump cancel, which is used to gain some height to shortcut through the last platform. The glitch is surprisingly easy to pull off. Basically just use an air dash (either one but only the vertical gets any use from this trick) and cancel the air dash by jumping straight up while attacking. With a little practice it should be easy to perform. Example of both the time saver and the Beam Sabre Jump Cancel up on filespace. You can cancel most of the post Beam Sabre recovery by switching weapons after you swing, allowing you to save those precious few frames you time attackers love. There is probably more stuff that I can list, but this is a mouthful and hopefully it will help a time attacker improve this run (which I will anticipate seeing).

Interesting stuff, thanks. I think this is the X run which needs the most improvement, and while I have no personal plans for it, I hope someone considers it soon.

Blechy what is your current project? Megaman X?

Sooper Sekrit project and then X2

Thanks Blechy, although I was kinda hoping you would take up X3, or maybe Prower is willing to improve his own run (cough cough)? Well, I missed a trick that someone can use to improve the run by a few seconds it is up on my filespace account. It is a trick you use taking the elevator down to Vile, you use the Vertical air dash to make the elevator disappear below you, allowing X to drop down without waiting for the elevator. Again, this is not optimized.

Maybe you should do it... :)

I was considering it, but X3 would be a tough first project for a time attack (you have to constantly make sure dashing and jumping is frame perfect). In addition, I prefer speedrunning on an actual console because I don't really have the patience for slowdown and rerecords (though I always enjoy watching time attacks).

One more smv is up on my filespace account. It features a new trick for Doppler Stage 2 based on the same concept, thus saving even more time. Thanks go to McBAIN for giving me the suggestion. Yes, I'm playing with 100% items (guess what my next run is :P), but everything I used should be doable in a pure speed time attack except for the double air dash at the end. If you are wondering about life, you would have enough, just your bar would be very low (not a big deal, right?) A few more notes for anyone who would like to time attack this game. -You can make Tunnel Rhino do only one invincible dash, maybe even zero if you tried hard enough. This seems to happen when he shoots lots of drills. In the elevator sections of Gravity Beetle and Blast Hornet stages you don't need to use a vertical air dash to go up, you can use wall dash jumps (it is really hard and I'm not going to make an smv of it, just trust me).

Actually, Mike, your X3 run on SDA inspired me to remake my timeattack, even before I read any of this thread :P Really great run, by the way, and of course I was planning on including all of the tricks you discovered and used in that run. What I have so far you can download here. It's from start until about 1/4 of the way through Volt Catfish's stage, though since you say that you can manipulate Tunnel Rhino to only go invincible once, I'll probably try and redo him before I go any further. Some notes: - Overall, it's much much more precise and better-looking so far thanks to frame advance. - I get hit by one of the spiked balls at the end of Zero's segment in the intro because you lose only a frame or two if you get hit while you're gripping against a wall. I don't think the hit sound even plays. This is preferably to jumping to the other wall, where you'll lose a bit of height. - I do the little air dash "hooking" at the very end of a wall stuff a couple times in Toxic Seahorse's stage. The first time, not hooking just ends up with you landing on the platform below, so hooking is faster. The second time might be unnecessary, but it doesn't lose any time. The third and fourth times are in the big water area and they're used to bypass some stuff (if I didn't do the third hook, I'd be stuck behind the black boxes at the bottom; if I didn't do the fourth hook, I'd have to wait until I fell then jumped again to get across the pit with the spikes at the top). - Toxic Seahorse is definitely the high point of this run so far. He is very strange about when he will and will not allow himself to be hit, and I did a LOT of testing with this... I think the result is well worth it, though :) - Tunnel Rhino's miniboss might be slightly slower (probably not more than 10 frames at the most), but I thought the strategy of jumping into the body and spamming autofire was too sloppy, so I stood just outside him instead. Not quite as fast, but much better looking. - Tunnel Rhino only takes 2 points of damage from a tiny acid ball, as opposed to 3 points from a big acid ball. This means in my previous run, I ended up having to hit him more times than necessary. Oops :P Since he'll end up with 2 health bars left anyway, it does make for a cool-looking finisher. Again, I'll play with him some more and if I can get him to only go invincible once I'll redo him. I don't think you can make him not go invincible at all, since it seems like after he gets to a certain amount of health he goes for an invincible dash.

Wow, I really like what you have so far, the run looks a lot more fluid, precise, and less jerky than it used to be. However, there are some things I still noticed. -I don't really care about this, but you should probably hide the shots you use to charge up your buster by charging it while going through a door, or make sure the shot you use to charge hits an enemy. -In the very beginning, would it be faster to kill the first enemy and then climb up the wall using dash jumps? -I really liked that hit you took with Zero, is there any way you can do it more? -After you freed X from Mac your positioning was a little off and the game automatically forced you to walk a bit to the right before the cutscene was triggered. Also, wouldn't two shots take an extra frame to kill the robot holding X? Maybe you should use a charged shot. -In the beginning of Blizzard Buffalo's stage is there a way to kill the enemies and jump higher off the first slope, so that you land right on the second slope? -In toxic Seahorse's stage the first time you go up with the vertical air dash, why doesn't the little flying robot notice you? Is it because you are too low? (this isn't a criticism, more of a speedrunning question) -Is it slightly faster to climb up walls using non-dash jumps? Also, those stutter jumps are used to gain height, right? (again, not a criticism a speedrunning question) -It looked like you chose good places to air dash in Toxic Searhorse's stage, nice work. -When you fall down from the ladder just before Toxic Searhorse would it be faster to air dash or dash jump off the left wall before hitting the ground? -All I have to say against Toxic Seahorse is wow, I'm guessing he goes into hit stun after a while, which means you can't kill him in one barrage of frost shields. BTW, is this doable (at a slower rate obviously) at full speed with no rerecords? -I liked what you did against the drill boss, even if it is slower it looks a lot better than your last run IMO. -About manipulating Tunnel Rhino, it seems like he doesn't use the invincible dash when he shoots a lot of drills, try to make him shoot drills before you hit him with the shot that will trigger the invincible dash (hopefully you know he will charge with an invincible dash when his life gets low enough). Stuff for the future: -You did a decent job of manipulating Volt Catfish in your last run, but it seems like the best possible final pattern to get out of him before he goes invincible would be: jump, jump with bouncing, then the triple spark attack. You got jump then triple spark in your last run. -You should try out and see if you can take damage and climb up the wall with zero waiting in Doppler stage 2. -I never thought of this until now, but the explosion animation when you kill Byte takes really long, would it be shorter to hit him with buster shots? You would still get Godkarmachine (Bit, Byte fusion) if you did this. You should also try out if that new method of killing Toxic Seahorse is faster than Beam Sabering him, if nothing else, it looks faster. Don't be discouraged, I really like the improvements you made to this run. Slightly over a minute faster only this far is impressive and it looks like a sub-40 minute time is possible. You might not want to optimize this fully and make this a test version so you don't stress yourself out too much, then make a final version with everything optimized. EDIT: I tried out the Toxic Seahorse glitch at 100% speed, it works and I can take off roughly half his life doing it. Nice find Prower :D. I really want to see more from your new run because I want to see what else I can improve over my existing run.

wow, that was good find on Seahorse.