About This Run
When Virgin Games approached Aladdin about starring in his own video game in 1993, he was naturally drawn to the idea, having just finished an extremely successful major motion picture. They even gave him full use a scimitar for the entire game! To his slight disappointment, he wasn't as agile or nimble as he was in the movie, especially when jumping around rooftops. Fortunately, I restored his faith in his abilities with this TAS, as Aladdin long-jumps and stop-runs like a madman on his way to save Jasmine.
- Aims for fastest possible time.
- Takes damage to save time.
- Uses death as a shortcut.
- Plays on highest difficulty.
- Abuses programming errors in the game.
- Genre: Platform.
This run is a 11,660 frame improvement over the previous run (3 minutes and 14.33 seconds).
If you're wondering about stray sword swings, they are simply there to avoid damage, as Aladdin is invincible for a short period of time while swinging. You'll notice this mostly when I'm running past swinging ball and chains.
The Run
Most time between levels was saved due to either faster bonus game canceling or skipping the entire bonus game entirely by not collecting any Genie tokens during a level. In-level time saved was mostly due to stop-running and more optimized movement with the following exceptions (don't read these if you want to be surprised):
Level 2 - The Desert
You need to chase down the Scarab to complete the level. The second time you are required to touch it, you usually have to go up and over the cliff and head back to the left to the cave it's in. If I duck and hit A, Aladdin will try to throw an apple, but what ends up happening is that he just reaches through the wall and touches the Scarab negating the need to double back for the Scarab later. Credit goes to stickyman05 for finding this.
Level 3 - Agrabah Rooftops
I save time here primarily due to the Long Jump (see Glitches). I use it to successfully save time three times. The first time I use it to jump across a rooftop (after finishing the section with the three floating ropes next to each other), you'll notice that I run to the right for a bit before running to the left. This is because I needed a running start to make the jump. I use the Long Jump two more times to skip areas soon after.
Level 4 - Sultan's Dungeon
Just in case it comes up, no, I couldn't jump onto any of those chains from the blocks any earlier, despite the fact it looks like I could.
Level 7 - Rug Ride
If you die three times here, the game will toss you out of the level in disgust and let you proceed. It's a lot faster than completing the level. Credit to Dwedit (heh) for bringing this up.
Level 8 - Inside the Lamp
As with any other springy thing in this game, dropping onto a Genie head while holding C as opposed to jumping on one will bounce you higher. Using this method, I don't have to wait at the first Column A for the hands to come floating down. I chose some completely different routes through this level as well.
Level 9 - Sultan's Palace
I skipped an entire section of this level by jumping over the pillar at the end of the second Carpet ride. I have no idea how I did this, but I think it might have something to do with hitting Iago.
Improvements
| Frames saved | |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | 466 |
| Level 2 | 564 |
| Level 3 | 1433 |
| Level 4 | 547 |
| Level 5 | 585 |
| Level 6 | 392 |
| Level 7 | 3082 |
| Level 8 | 1177 |
| Level 9 | 2070 |
| Level 10 | 949 |
| Misc. | 395 |
| Total | 11,660 |
Glitches
Skidding or stop-running
Thanks to Aqfaq for this ridiculously helpful discovery!
If you stop running a certain time during the latter part of Aladdin's running animation, he will skid to a stop. If you stop for only one frame (long enough to trigger the running animation) and begin running again, the X velocity of Aladdin's skid will be added to his running velocity, noticably increasing his speed for a short period of time. The stoprunning is as optimized as I can get it, and I can't use it everywhere for the following reasons:
- If there's anything harmful in my way (an enemy or spikes), I am forced to somehow react to it if I want to proceed. Unfortunately, doing ANYTHING (jumping, swinging the sword, throwing an apple, stopping completely, turning, landing from a jump, or even running through the enemy and taking damage) makes Aladdin begin his running animation cycle over again. So if there's an enemy in my way, there's no way for me to skid until I somehow do something to get past the enemy (which usually means running through and taking damage). This is why I can't skid as much as it seems I should during long flat areas with lots of enemies.
- There are surfaces that just aren't long enough to skid on, where Aladdin can't run long enough to reach the part in his running animation that allows him to skid, which is why I never use it when on smaller platforms.
- The skid doesn't work while Aladdin's running in the air any time he's running on Genie's tail in Level 8.
The Long Jump
This is an iteration of skidding or stop-running. It works the same way as stop-running, except you just jump as soon as Aladdin starts to skid. Aladdin's jump is extended by a bit, allowing me to shave enormous chunks of time off of certain levels (Level 3 in particular). I actually discovered the Long Jump first, and it was a precursor to Aqfaq's discovery of the Stop-Run.
Possible Improvements
A lot of the time, the exit of the level tends to be extremely close to the entrance, but blocked off by a wall or something. If there's a way to pass through, over, or under any of these walls (as I've demonstrated is very possible in some occasions), the movie could be sub 11 minutes or more.
In The Cave of Wonders, there's a wall blocking you from the monkey boss (the one right by the two health hearts), and to get rid of it, you have to climb a rope and hit a statue. I've reached the area where the wall should be before, and it hasn't been there, even though I hadn't hit the statue yet. I can't figure out how this happened, and I can't seem to recreate it, but if I could it would save a few seconds.
Thanks
- stickyman05 for the tip about Scarab #2 and being extremely supportive
- Dwedit for the tip on shortening the Rug Ride by a LOT
- Aqfaq for the discovery of stop-running
- and everyone who watched my WIPs
Recommended Screenshot
Any frames around 32885. Looks like this
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots
of this movie and placed them here.
I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried
Disney's Aladdin (U) [!].gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.
Truncated: Accepted as an improvement to the current movie. Nice finds.