Welcome this is Shinryuu's revisited Mega Man 6 project!
Also this is my hidden Xmas present.. Have fun watching!
Intro
Guess what guys I did while I was stuck in Rockman 2 and had too much free time! Again the time has come when another Mega Man game has fallen even further. This my new run aims for a better entertainment and speed values, making this run was impressed by my own imagination and other Mega Man games and their authors. I planned this movie strategically from the beginning to its end to be sure what things are good to use in this run. I worked on this run the most during the summer because I had much more time to spend. This run beats the previous run by 7, 55 seconds!
About the run
I was not able to avoid making this submission which was caused by numerous little techniques (few frame(s) there and there), strategies and optimizations I found out so I decided to start everything from the beginning because I've always wanted to make optimal possible movies. This time subpixels (X,Y), charge counter and lag values are optimized, sometimes I had to search for a good positioning (+to lose few frames) to attain faster time later on. So its not a good idea to aim for a highest values every time because you'll just end to meet your own grave before you even notice it, I recommend to test few low subpixel value combinations.
Movie required much time to play trough cause my previous movie was really optimized in the end and I had to face much more different luck manipulations, randomness and optimizations than in the past, that’s why my run included some weird/cool looking movements. I played and tested every stage with a different subpixel positioning to see if it is possible to gain few frames in some rooms. Working on this run was really exciting and much funnier to finish through when comparing to my previous experiences because my previous version had good, almost perfect manipulations throughout the run so I had to find many different ways in variable timings to solve puzzles to go forward and continue my progress and to surpass over my previous version in some places. I was really amused by manipulations (in stage data) because they were slightly more different than before and had more extra lag spots inside. Though I was able to solve these situations by some "little" changes in the end, but Blizzardman stage is selected 1 frame later to attain perfect manipulation and timing to its end, I wonder why that happened only there, check the Stage information section for more information.
Note: This game is really broken so even pressing left+down, right+down while sliding can produce some lag (caused by objects and your stance which are in a collision) sometimes even to manipulate enemies (even without lag, also see Flameman room #3's oil part).
Goals
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Manipulates luck
- Abuses programming errors in the game
- Uses no passwords
- Collects extra lives for fun (how many you can find?)
Interesting facts
- Mega Man forces himself to face left to save time and for fun when possible to.
- Mega Man slides and stops all the time to save time.
- Mega Man won’t shoot bullets so fast as possible because it saves time.
- Mega Man will lose time to gain time or aim for equally fast time and for entertainment.
- Mega Man will jump one frame earlier than he should to under the roof and ladder parts.
Improvement list
| Gained | Difference | |
|---|---|---|
| Windman | 79 | 79 |
| Flameman | 194 | 273 |
| Blizzardman | 11 | 284 |
| Plantman | 21 | 305 |
| Tomahawkman | 5 | 310 |
| Yamatoman | 15 | 325 |
| Knightman | 0 | 325 |
| Centaurman | 8 | 333 |
| Mr.X Stage 1 | 1 | 334 |
| Mr.X Stage 2 | 14 | 348 |
| Mr.X Stage 3 | 23 | 371 |
| Mr.X Stage 4 | 52 | 423 |
| Dr. Wily Stage 1 | 9 | 432 |
| Dr. Wily Stage 2 | -2 | 430 |
| Dr. Wily Stage 3 | 39 | 469 |
| Dr. Wily Stage 4 | -4 | 465 |
Game's engine, techniques and glitches
Weird randomness
Have you ever wondered why you can't perform something like you did in the previous movie? Here's some kind of answers for you. Even if you had the same manipulation, movements etc. there must be something that fails in the beginning or in the middle of the stage. It's just something you can't avoid so don't get rushed by these. It seems that every stage has own manipulation percents. If I recall correctly Blizzardman does have the lowest randomness count in its level data and other stages does have many other combinations.
Subpixels
Sadly Mega Man 6's engine rewrites subpixel values to "0" every time when level is beaten and after that every stage starts with 204->76 subpixel positioning. There are also other great uses for subpixels when you are testing something with them because you can sometimes land on platforms 1 frame earlier, subpixels were used throughout the whole run. (Example, see all ladder parts and beginning of Flameman stage).
If you want to get high values while sliding on the platforms for subpixels or actually maximal as possible you just need to slide and stop and so on so many times to make subpixels to change and after that you'll have to remember to slide regularly so the game will keep your values like you wanted. Subpixels are used every place as possible. Sometimes they are avoided to save time.
How to zip through corners
I got really impressed by finding this trick.. I happened to wonder why I was able to climb stairs one frame faster than I even should to. After some time of investigation I found out that if you turn (right or left and jump) one frame earlier than you can jump and grab the ladders and press one frame for (left or right) and press (left or right) after that you'll get pushed by 1 frame forward by the corner. This trick is not used in many places because it appears to be that you'll have to get extremely great luck to gain time, even if you climbed the stairs faster there is a high change to get equally the same time caused by your Y position.
Demonstration:
Changing armors faster
You can change your armor 1 frame faster by pressing left+start at the first frame as possible when changing to power or to jet armor. I found that out somewhere around the end of my previous run and I didn't bother to fix them because it would be too much work and copypasting wouldn't be possible. This time they are fully fixed. In Plantman stage I was able to change from Flameman's weapon to Buster quickly by pressing right arrow and start one frame later. These techniques are used everywhere as possible in the run.
Random time losing caused by background animations and objects
What a poor game, yeah I found out that background animations, bullets and some not all monsters have something do with random frame losing. For example this heavily happens in Tomahawkman and in Knightman stages. (To test this yourself enter to Tomahawkman stage, TAS through first room and watch it with frame-advance to see what happens there, symptoms are random stopping and you can even stand on the air). For example in the end of Flameman's first room when flying enemy shoots its fire bullet towards to ground makes game to stop for a frame or two, this can be seen in a real time.
Dropping from cliffs faster
You can drop 1 frame earlier on the edge of cliffs by simply pressing A in a good timing, you have to be sure that your X subpixel is enough good when you land to be sure that it is faster by a subpixel or two. Also this technique is highly recommended to do in a different subpixel values if there is some lag when you drop and want to avoid them.
Dropping from cliffs faster in places where lag value is going to be high
This occurs in Plantman stage for example just after a first spring part, basically you should land to lowest platform around xxx96-97 but you can land there at xxx94 by correcting your position and not to press right at the edge of cliff at the first frame! Because it eliminates some lag spots.
Saving at least a frame in extremely rare places
For example see Mr.X Stage 1 the hidden route there I perform this kind of action in few places before jumping on the higher platform (slide->turn left->right or slide->turn left->turn right->jump). I think the best example can be seen where the huge energy refill is around 65440. Also I used this technique for fun because my timing was equal with it in many other places.
Charge glitch
There even exists a bizarre glitch that allows you to reduce your charging time on buster by sliding left and right all the time correctly which is really interesting and useful technique to use especially in Windman boss. If you start to load your buster without doing anything special it should took about 90 frames to perform, but if you begin to slide and charge your buster and continue left and right sliding further and further you'll be able to perform everything in 60 frames!! Interesting isn't it?
NOTE: If someone is interested to see how it works here's a memory address for a charge counter (009E, counter value will jump one extra frame by every second frame. 1, 3, 4, 6, etc.) Demonstration can be found from:
Walking towards to right side of the screen to speed up exploding bubbles!
In boss battles you can decrease lag by walking, sliding and jumping by going to right most part of the screen after or before boss is defeated at good time and position, everything is related to each other so you’ll just need to find the fastest way from the random puzzle. Also pressing right, left+down while sliding almost at every lag spot speedups bubbles.. But it helps really rarely because there are better ways to speedup them and to decrease lag (this was used in the Plantman fight for example.)
NOTE: Easiest way to check fastest route is by following exploding bubbles when they goes to off-screen after that just check what's the fastest frame for their disappearing. After that scene you'll have to confirm that there isn't any lag (or lag caused by sliding) around if you spot any you have to clean them off or in a worst case play that part.
You can also check some information about other known techniques from:
Copypasting.. Does it work?
In fact copypasting is almost impossible to perform in later MM games.. MM VI has more radically different engine than any other but still I wanted to make some testing to succeed and I did. If someone is interested about copypasting you should to start with Blizzardman stage (start stage in different frames->use copypaste) because that stage has really simple basics so copypasting wouldn't be a big problem there.
I was able to copypaste about 95% of Blizzardman stage into my test movie but last octopus dropped a refill and ruined my testing progress. (1 frame is sacrificed in level select screen to get perfect manipulation to attain fastest completion time) if you choose that stage equally fast as in the previous movie you'll lose 4+ frames during your journey caused by horrible lag and randomness that can't be even avoided matter of what. What a luck it also seem to work on Centaurman stage and I was able to copypaste first 3,5 rooms without any kind of problems. Rest of the copypasting did fail because of the unexpected lag.
Stage information
Windman stage
Windman is played first, why? Because there exists a weird glitch (found by me) that reduces your charging time on your buster even by 30 frames by sliding left & right!! But the main reason for level changing is that I though creepy lag affects to your charging time when you are sliding left & right, also Flameman battle does have much lag inside so I played it as a first stage in the previous run. But in the Windman battle there is much more space to slide and to charge your buster slightly faster than before, I'm sure you'll notice why I didn't slide all the time in some places that's why because I had to avoid going to any lag spots because stopping there will only cause a lag frame. This battle took about a month to perform and finishing out perfectly caused by thousands of different testing that was must to do. Also I had great luck when I entered to Windman's boss room, I didn't have to manipulate boss' movements at all by losing frame or two in lag spots to manipulate its movements, otherwise perfect manipulation pulled out.
Main improvements came from room #5 where I found a way to avoid annoying lag spots and the boss battle was slightly faster by abusing Mega Man's own buster weapon.
Entertainment note: There is a possibility to gain frame or few frames from room #6 to #7 but you'll lose everything little by little and in the second last room your last frame is lost, these "(NOT)improvements" were left behind because of the entertainment purposes, now the panda part in room #11 is much more cleaner and better to watch, this is fully tested so no frames are lost or gained.
Flameman stage
Okay, the legendary first stage is now played as a second stage. Nothing special was found from this stage though, just a better technique in room #4, found by my fellow TASboy AngerFist (didn't work correctly out in a previous version because of the major differences in manipulation and lag) Boss battle was really funny to finish by using Windman's weapon because everything went smoothly.
Blizzardman stage
I started this stage 1 frame later because I lost 4 frames in the room #3 because of the critical differences in manipulation. You will notice why I didn't do a (slide->shoot.. etc.) action to a first walrus in the stage, that is because your collision time with first flying enemy is exactly same and you are going to lose time somewhere around those two flying objects after completing whole walrus scene.
New technique is used in the room where the ship is, I was able to slide much more faster below the spikes by correcting and abusing my position. This action may look a bit stupid because there wasn't any other possibility to play it differently I just had to find a good spot and repeat (left, right) pressings to not to make any collision with the spikes.
Plantman stage
This time around doing this stage was incredibly funny because I had a bit different randomness in the beginning and I had to solve that puzzle in a different way. Strategically differences can be found at room#1, room #3, room#6 and from room#7 which saved time a bit, 6 frames in total. For a boss fight there is a strategy I found out after a week when I submitted my previous submission. You can manipulate Plantman not to jump its last jump. after that he runs around, as you can see there is a load of lag after beating the boss up however its still faster because you didn't have to wait for so long as the previous version did.
Boss note: You can only manipulate Plantman to run around when he's going to give some free hugs after shooting his shield off. You have to jump on Plantman in a correct position, after a damage you have to press left or right in a good timing to confuse Plantman's head to run all around. Well you can manipulate Plantman to run all the time from the beginning and he jumps only 2 times (first and last jumps) but because he appears to be almost left side of the screen it’s almost impossible to reduce lag and speedup those bubbles, so its even more slower than my previous battle.
Tomahawkman stage
Ninjas are beyond human’s imagination, right? One of the stages I really loved to play through because it wasn't painful to complete. Level is played through with a original buster, yeah I found out that background animations and gunner's bullets have something do with your positioning and random frame losing, symptoms are random stopping you can even stand on the air. Okay I got 6 frames from the first room by eliminating those spots by random positioning. The whole stage is optimized or mixed up with different subpixel values to save few frames if possible. There were almost none of differences if compared to my previous movie. Boss battle what some kind of similar but I had to lose frame or two before entering the room to change randomness and attain fastest completion time as possible.
Yamatoman stage
Yeah.. it’s time to punish some teddy bears! Same applies to here there is no strategic or any radical differences between this and my previous run. Still hundreds of different testing was used to find interesting things out such as getting better luck manipulation and distance to minimize and reduce annoying lag spots. Also this time around Megajet was selected 1 frame faster, see more information at Game's engine, techniques and glitches section.
And yet I wanted to find something out from the boss battle and I did succeed. I was able to improve it tightly by 2 frames. I used much more different strategy and beat the Yamatoman close to the right wall to reduce lag.
Knightman stage
Okay this stage is even more puzzled what I've ever imagined. Let's think that you have two movies and both of them does have exactly same pixels, timings and such important values, after that you'll try to copypaste something from your old run to avoid to work so much.. and once you're done and check your movie and climb up the stairs "TA-DA" something has just affected to your randomness. Also this stage seems to be 1 frame slower caused by numerous puzzles I went through. However I already knew what caused this but I wasn't able to avoid that (-1 frame), that's why I selected Blizzardman stage one frame later for a perfect manipulation. See Weird lag section.
Centaurman stage
Entertaining stage. In this stage I focused my strength to eliminate even more lag where it appeared to be possible caused by different kind of luck manipulations. This stage doesn't seem to be much different than the previous movie but still I tried to do everything differently as I could to. My time was equal when I entered the boss room but still I were able to be 10 frames faster after the silly boss fight caused by luck manipulation, good randomness and lag handling. I tried to make this fight a bit different than last time but with damaging Mega Man.. yeah!
Mr. X Stage 1
Suicide time! This stage is a bit silly because there appears to be some variables there and there. Lag was the main thing I need to shave totally off. Also in some places I had to compare and try to get closest subpixel positioning because there were some differences. In the hidden route I had good luck in my opinion and was able to change in to power suit even faster. This time around the boss battle is 1 frame slower caused by lag in the beginning because they shot their bullets down few frames sooner..
Mr. X Stage 2
Okay let's say this is a easy stage with some weird problems. First I was in the hell of the lag frames that I didn’t even see in my previous movie. After all my playing are equal in many cases and that began me to think if there is some kind of rules that won't let you to do something faster and blocks it. It seems that I was able to abuse that falling bridge place a bit to gain few frames there and there. I really recommend you to test almost all of your positioning and see how they are related to lag and random stopping (they happens because of the object's edge) but you can avoid some of them.
Boss fight is not anything special but you'll have to find yourself out from that annoying lag puzzle that is surrounding your playing. So I tried to find a good spot to eliminate lag like I did in my previous movie but this time I found more advanced way to play with to save 12 frames over my previous version. This boss battle is really risky because almost every piece of your movements generates extra lag and your hit may delay easily like 1-10 frames away. I had to play this boss few times through and compare my other versions and I ended up with this one.
Mr. X Stage 3
This must be the core of Mega Man 6's randomness, lag and other variable things... This stage was much more challenging to play through what I did remember or imagined. I just had to keep my eyes cool and test everything properly before continuing anything. This time around I had even more better luck manipulation and I was able to turn it to 23 frame lead! Also I abused the moving platforms like I did in the Mr. X Stage 2. I took couple of frames from the boss battle by sacrificing frame before entering the boss' room.
Mr. X Stage 4
This stage is a bit similar than previous stage but not so challenging, in fact this stage is really simple to handle. As usual I tried to perform different kind of strategies to find new things out, most of them are based on the new, different randomness. I gained almost all of the time from the boss battle because there is a possibility to shorten animation screen time. You'll just have to defeat Mr. X in a correct position and place yourself at X value = 127,128 or 129, three of them are correct values to land.
Dr. Wily Stage 1
An interesting stage with different kind of variables. I followed my previous steps and tried to optimize and change everything to see how the dragon boss will react, it turned out finely and I was even able to shave even more lag from the boss battle with my incredible luck! When I was going to enter to the boss room I had just to lose frame or two to succeed for a perfect battle.
Dr. Wily Stage 2
Here we go again. This time around I had much more problem with the lag than I did in my previous run and test movies. Because of the bad randomness I had to lose 2 frames. I even tried to compare some different subpixel positioning if they would help me progress but they didn't. Also before entering to the long last room I dropped 1 frame earlier from the cliff not to lose even more time.
Dr. Wily Stage 3
This is the climax of the wily's fortress where the entire robot masters lies ahead. As usual lag shaving and luck manipulations are the top priorities in the boss fights. Battles are somewhat looking same but there is a new technique used in Plantman's battle and it looks most likely same as I used in the Plantman's stage. This time around that technique saves almost up to 30 frames!
Dr. Wily Stage 4
Short but somewhat epic stage and this ends the Mega Man series NES era after finishing Dr. Wily and his crazy plans to rule over the world... at least for some time. I tried to find many different strategies out from the boss battle but I still ended up using the same strategy as in the previous movie because there were nothing to do. Mhh, there were also other manipulation problems that couldn't be fixed until you lost frames in the previous stage. I had critically bad luck during the stage and the battle so I had to lose 1 frame somewhere in the boss room to complete that vending machine 1 frame later (caused by Y positioning) and in the boss fight I had to lose some time to get good manipulation. In the end this stage was 4 frames slower.
Bonus thanks goes to:
- AngerFist for finding better strategy for Flameman stage that worked out this time.
- Cardboard for finding improvement/technique from Mr. X Stage 4's boss that shortened animation time.
- Adelikat for giving me subpixel address to improve things even further in many cases.
- Baxter for giving charge counter and lag addresses.
Special thanks goes to:
- Kopernical for making historical and enjoyable runs in NES era.
- Kyrsimys for being a part in Mega Man 6's history.
- AngerFist & Adelikat for their run that amazed me and inspired my own progress.
- Bisqwit for a great community.
- Sami for supporting, watching and commenting my work.
- And to all TASvideos users and movie watchers.
Thanks for reading, watching or whatever!
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots
of this movie and placed them here.
Oh! I also corrected the ROM name.
- You indicated
Mega Man 6 (U).nes - I updated it to
Megaman VI (U) [!].nes
adelikat: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
ShinyDoofy: Processing...