Submission #10213: CoolHandMike, Bloopiero & EZGames69's Arcade Legend of Hero Tonma in 04:05.249

[Warning: There are flashing lights in the first five seconds of the encode.]

Although the PCE port of Tonma has been given much more attention on this site, the game was originally an arcade cabinet! The transition to console was relatively faithful, but there are quite a few differences under the hood that required their own approach. We'll go over some of the more notable ones.

First, and most obviously, there aren't any strange motivational essays between levels in this version. These were long-winded and unskippable, so their absence accounts for a large chunk of the time difference between the two runs, although we do lose some comedic value. Each instance of this is about 580 frames saved, or 3500 frames across the whole run. That's nearly a minute; actually more than the total time difference! However, we lose a lot of time back to this version running at a lower framerate - about 20 seconds. If you do a little math, that may seem to account for everything, but there are still a lot of points where we lose and gain different amounts of time for more interesting reasons. Here's a handy table.

At the end of stage 1, there are two enemies placed here which aren't in the PCE version. We have to dodge to avoid them, adding a few frames.

For stage 2's boss, all of these platforms are much wider - due to the screen in general being much wider - which means that the old method of attack doesn't quite work. In an optimal fight here, the dragon stops in midair, so we can't rely on the upper platform to keep us in the correct spot. The dragon also had this behavior in the PCE version, but it just wasn't possible to fire fast enough to get the kill without falling first, so we preferred it to stop in a position where we could be still and press our faces together in peace.

In stage 3, an enemy runs in from the right where there wasn't one, letting us bounce on them instead of the one in the trees.

This isn't strictly a timesave, but the route we take in the PCE version isn't viable here. There are a lot of enemy placement changes in this stage, and actually a lot more enemies in general, probably removed from PCE due to it being a much laggier console. Weirdly, though, this guy is also here from stage 4.

I don't know how he wandered into the forest. Usually enemies stick within their themed levels. I guess he's lost.

It's also no longer possible to bounce on this enemy, losing us a few frames back.

The reason why is universal - in this version of the game, you can only bounce off of the very top of an enemy, not anywhere in the middle. It's not a huge deal here, but it becomes very relevant in stage 4, with these -

and these -

Our climbing pattern heavily relied on mid-bounces off of the two of them, so we have to land on a lot more ledges and take much higher jumps. This is also true of the one that appears in stage 2, and a few other enemies throughout the game, but the change is most noticeable here.

Some of the blue enemies are also placed differently, meaning that we can't directly move to the right where we did before. In return, though, there are now a bunch of barrels here for no reason.

This isn't a perfect replacement, but it's neat.

In the boss fight for this level, the wider screen cruelly betrays us once again, placing the two bosses much further apart and making us walk.

They also take much longer to appear and disappear, though, which means we still have the time to position ourselves effectively.

Stage 5 is the one with the most meaningful gameplay differences. At the very start, we're still limited by how long it takes for the requisite enemy to spawn from this door -

But! unlike in the port, the protective nature of the P item doesn't insta-kill the guy that comes out of this. That means that instead of needing to stay on their left, we can drag them with us using that aura, speeding up the setup for the upcoming skip by quite a bit.

This helpful difference is immediately balanced out by a less helpful one, though, as in the Arcade version of the game, you cannot jump out of one-block gaps.

If I had to speculate, I'd say that the PCE version calculates horizontal movement before vertical, while Arcade does the opposite; regardless, it was very useful to be able to do this. We have to take an alternate path through this part of the level, but later on, there isn't really an alternate path to take here -

If we did it as intended, we'd have to lure an enemy over to bounce off of, wasting upwards of two seconds. Hoping to avoid that, we discovered the only glitch in the game! If you fall off of a ledge and immediately let go of the direction you're holding, Tommy ends up clipped slightly into the wall. This means that, after falling a certain distance, you can turn around to stand on a non-existent floor.

And, helpfully, you can in fact jump off of this faux-floor, allowing us to take the same path as we would have with the ability to jump regularly here and skipping the wait.

You might expect us to do the same trick in the other two places where the PCE TAS takes advantage of one-block jumps, but it's not possible here -

and it's not any faster here -

Sad.

As previously mentioned, this version of the game is also much less prone to lag. This means that we can take the lower path here, where the PCE run jumps onto the falling blocks for the sake of lag reduction.

This avoids an extra jump, saving 2 frames, along with the remainder of the lag that was here or anywhere else in the level. Very convenient.

The boss here, though, is much, much more annoying. He's recessed further into his head, making his stones incredibly frustrating to avoid or power through in the way that we originally did, since we can't easily destroy them as soon as they come out. This is made even worse by the fact that his hitbox is narrowed vertically, meaning that both on the ground AND at the peak of even our shortest jump, we shoot straight past him. The bullets don't even home in on enemies anywhere near as aggressively as they do on console! It's not impossible to optimize, but you'll notice some strange gaps in our fireball shooting pattern as we desperately dodge and weave.

This is because the game only allows a certain number of projectiles on screen at once (depending on your weapon upgrade level, which we've maxed out by this point), so it's often better to hold off for a few moments instead of shooting at a time that would send too many bullets past the boss' hitbox to linger around. It looks weird, but it works.

Stage 6 is roughly the same, but with some more adjustments for not being able to bounce off of the middle of enemies. The boss is a bit interesting, though, since it doesn't take time to slowly rumble onto screen like in the port - it's just sitting there from the start, albeit intangible until you actually start the fight.

This means that, since the optimal position to jump to is determined by how the pre-boss screen scroll works, we don't have much control over where we start the fight. So, we're forced to start out by killing the left one, even though the right one is faster on PCE by letting us avoid its projectiles more easily.

In the PCE version, it's also two frames faster to kill the gorgon on the left as they're sliding towards each other at the end. I don't actually know WHY it's faster; it just makes the next level load two frames sooner. This isn't the case in the original, and we'd have to waste a frame to be able to do it anyways, so we don't.

Now, the final boss! This is actually the largest change between the two consoles, as the two fights are completely different - the PCE boss could still theoretically do most of these attacks with his hands if we waited around long enough, but it's pretty trivial to defeat him before that happens, since the weak point ball never disappears, and there aren't any of these lesser demons flying around the room. In this version, we actually have to engage with his patterns a little. Each time the ball appears, it's a good idea to start out some distance away so that you can fire as early as possible, then approach quickly as you shoot off more bullets to squeeze as many hits as you can into the short period of vulnerability. This isn't possible on the second go-around, since both sides are blocked off with attacks, but on the third hit, we're able to start out far enough away that it's as fast as possible for both early input end and defeating the boss - no tradeoff required.

Anyways, that brings us to the end. Thank you for watching and reading! There is no end to these submission comments. As long as you have courage, hope, and dreams, "TAS" will always be in your mind.

Darkman425: Claiming for judging.

Darkman425: Input file replaced with a 29 frame improvement by the authors.

Darkman425: Much like the PC Engine version, this is short and well optimized. It's also neat seeing how different approaches were needed between the two versions and how well it's handled. Nice work!

Accepting to Standard.

Publisher's note: maybe consider asking what the authors want for the name entry screen after the ending for the encode.

inconsistent: Processing...