Submission #4613: DaJaWi's GBA Rayman: Hoodlums' Revenge in 13:44.53

Rayman: Hoodlums' Revenge for the GBA (Hoodlum's Revenge in the USA for some reason, despite this being grammatically incorrect) is a sequel of sorts to Rayman 3. The idea is that after Andre was released from Globox's stomach (spoilers!) he left a bit of himself behind, which is slowly corrupting Globox. At the same time the other Hoodlums are trying to resurrect Reflux - presumably to take over the world somehow.

The game plays as an isometric platformer, and on different levels you can control either Rayman for platforming segments or Globox for more stealth-like segments.

There are a lot of glitches.

About this run:

Punch Hopping - The biggest trick, and the crux of this run. The basic idea is that after every punch, if Rayman is in the air, there is one frame where Rayman can jump and gain extra height. From this he can punch and jump again, meaning he has no need to ever touch the ground. Props to got4n for showing me this was possible. This basic idea can be extended in a lot of ways to completely obliterate the Rayman levels.

This can obviously be used to get over obstacles (most significantly gates which would otherwise need to be opened - about 8 jumps gets you high enough to vault over each gate), but it also maximises Rayman's speed, because punching takes him over his usual maximum speed, and chaining them together so quickly stops the speed from ever dropping. In fact the fastest way of getting around tends to be hopping, punching twice, and then hopping again (essentially bouncing around in the air). There's some extra difficulty when cornering, and if you need to turn sharply you sometimes have to pause between each hop and before the next punch, which loses a little speed but angles you faster.

I wrote some lua macros to help me with the constant punch hopping, and more details of the trick can be found with the script: userfiles/info/20045914721864875

Water Hopping - On the frame you touch water it is possible to jump off of it again (you do still take damage however). This trick is almost always unnecessary since Rayman tends to punch hop everywhere, but there are certain times when Rayman has a powerup - and he cannot punch hop with a powerup - so this trick gets a couple of uses.

Dialogue Skipping - Almost every dialogue trigger in the game is activated by stepping on the ground in certain places. By punch hopping over the triggers these can be skipped. Also, there's dialogue at the beginning of every level that can be skipped if you jump up and start punch hopping within a 2-frame window.

Enemy Manipulation - If Globox is seen by an enemy he starts running away uncontrollably, so to avoid having to slow down it helps to manipulate the enemies so that they won't be looking where you need to go. The enemies always walk a set route though, and the only thing you can do is make them stop and look around occasionally, or jump and look around occasionally - there's no way of making them speed up. This means it isn't always possible to avoid having to wait. The actual manipulation is done just by taking slightly different routes through each area.

Enemies can be killed by drinking plum juice (and Globox's speed also increases while under the influence), but it takes so long to drink that it isn't worth it unless killing the enemy is necessary.

Fleeboosting - The best trick. Globox's top speed is when he is running away madly from enemies, but he always runs backwards through the level so it's rarely helpful. However there are a couple of places where you can intentionally be seen to backtrack more quickly. Because of how erratically he moves when fleeing though, it is infuriating to try and get it to work neatly.

Button Swapping - On the levels with both Rayman and Globox you often have to switch between them. When you press select the camera slowly moves between them, wasting a bunch of time. Also you tend to have to swap just after you've pressed a button with Rayman to open a gate for Globox to get through, and this has another camera cutscene to show the gate opening. By pressing select on the frame you press the button you can combine both camera movements into one, saving lots of time.

Lag Reduction - This game has a lot of lag. The routes through each level are usually chosen because of them having the least lag. There are a few other small things that can be done to reduce lag, such as avoiding points whenever possible since collecting each one gives a bit of lag. Also, on the subject of score, if possible every level is finished with 0 points because this hugely speeds up the scoreboard at the end of the level by skipping several textboxes.

The Globox levels tend to be more laggy, because you have to follow quite a strict path with many enemies around, and there isn't really much you can do to reduce it. What you can do is whenever you have to kill an enemy, kill them as early as possible (because enemies = lag), and there's also something I can do whenever I have to wait for an enemy. While standing and waiting I look away to some less interesting part of the level where there's less stuff going on, and therefore the game lags less, and I remain looking away until the enemy has gone on their way and I can start waddling on through the level again.

The Hoodlums' Revenge thread in the forums contains more detailed level comments, but I'll just cover the key features of each level here.

Fairy Council (Rayman): You can immediately see just how useful punch hopping is. Certain fences and walls are infinitely high, so Rayman cannot just move directly to the exit, but yeah.. pretty much none of the level is actually seen.

Clearleaf Forest (Rayman): Again, all skipped. Rayman has to jump a lot higher here, getting off the top of the screen, because of how high up the exit gate is (and Rayman needs to be about 8 jumps higher than a gate to vault over it). You can also see how difficult cornering is near the beginning of the level.

Clearleaf Falls (Rayman): The exit is so close to the start on this level that it will always take the same number of hops to get over it. The weird route I take is therefore the one that gets the fewest enemies on the screen and so minimises lag.

Infernal Machine (Rayman): This boss requires collecting the powerup and smashing each machine part. It takes two cycles, and the cannons at the bottom are left for the second cycle for two reasons - firstly they take fewer hits, and secondly the boss fires more plums later in the fight, which causes a lot of lag, so you don't want to be near it at the end of the battle.

Dungeon of Murk (Globox): ...And now you see why more than half the run is Globox. As well as enemy manipulation this level is filled with small optimisations, such as looking at the first gate before pressing the switch to avoid the camera cutscene, and crouching before pressing a lot of other switches so Globox doesn't slide so far (or in some cases to slide further). There are also sequences where enemies have to be killed to open gates, and they are manipulated to be close to the gates so as to skip the camera cutscenes.

Bog of Murk (Globox): This level requires you to drag teensies around, which is annoying for two reasons - firstly they add to the lag, making this the most laggy level, and secondly they run off if you are seen by an enemy, so no fleeboosting :( Again, enemy manipulation is the order of the day here.

Rivers of Murk (Rayman): Boosh.

Begoniax Bayou (Rayman): The quickest way to inflict damage on Begoniax is to keep punching her from up close, but the quicker you keep hitting her, the more madly she jumps around, so the battle ends up looking pretty frenzied! The dialogue trigger I skipped at the start is larger than the end level trigger, so I have to punch hop right up to Globox at the end of the level to avoid triggering the first conversation.

Hoodlum Moor (Both): The first level with both characters. Unfortunately you need both of them at the exit to finish the level. There are a couple of points in this level that I move so quickly through loadzones with Rayman that certain objects don't spawn until I am right up close to them, such as some of the switches. The most important time this happens is for one of the gates, which I get through before it appears, meaning I don't have to jump the requisit 8 times I would normally need to vault over it.

Near the exit with Globox I have three Hoodlums to manipulate in a row, all of which I need to make jump and look around at exactly the precise moment and position to get through in one movement. This might be my proudest achievement in the run. The only other thing to say is that every time I swap characters when not using button swapping I do it while the characters are as close together as possible to minimise camera movement.

Land of the Livid Dead (Both): More can be skipped on this level, because Rayman can use one of the powerups to break a lot of the gates Globox must get through. Also I kill one of the enemies to allow Globox to get through quicker.

Menhirs of Power (Both): This level is the longest when played normally, because you need to collect a bunch of tablets scattered over the level, but again here it is mostly skipped, I just have to open a path for Globox to get near to the finish, and then I vault over the exit gate with Rayman.

Pit of Endless Fire (Both): I'm not really sure what they were thinking with this boss. There are buttons for Globox to press and powerups to collect, but the boss dies in just two punches regardless. There is an interesting trick at the end though - The ending dialogue is on a timer, and I fall onto the starting dialogue trigger (which I skipped at the level start) at the same frame as the end dialogue activates. This has a few effects throughout the rest of the run: All conversations (including this one) are shorter (because it tries to draw the textboxes from the wrong dialogues and runs out) and there is an A in the bottom right corner. Also it really messes up the credits for some reason.

Clouds of Peril (Rayman): Level? What level?

This level is even faster than it would be because you don't even have to vault over the exit gate, you can hop around it. You can even skip most of this level without punch hopping by using a glitch where you jump out of the helicopter powerup (although this is obviously slower).

Heart of the World (Rayman): Surprisingly complex for a level that is completely skipped. The level is a huge maze of insurmountable fences.

Reflux's Fair (Rayman): The (now-shortened) dialogue at the start isn't skipped because the trigger is so big it's impossible not to activate when attacking Reflux. The quickest way to damage him is to get as close as possible, because it reduces the amount your fists fly around.

And now Reflux is defeated, Globox is saved, and both the characters now speak in some eldritch language for the closing cutscene because their minds have been completely destroyed in awe of the speed the game was completed (or really because of the earlier dialogue combine glitch).

Thanks again to got4n for showing me the punch hopping trick, without which this run would look... different. Also thanks to everyone who commented with suggestions or support either in the forums here or on youtube.

Potential Improvements - Ideally there would be some way of speeding up the Globox levels, maybe if a way could be found to clip through gates or keep the plum juice active for longer. Other than that, I'm sure more lag reduction could be done throughout, if a more intelligent way could be found of doing it that just trial and error like I was doing.

Known Improvements - A couple of seconds could be saved if I named my save file 'A' instead of 'DaJaWi'. I guess vanity has its price... :P

Noxxa: Judging.

Noxxa: Rayman's generally broken and speedy movement make this quite a good run to watch - it's a shame the Globox sections drag it down so much. Regardless, I think the run still holds up well enough overall, and viewer response seems to indicate as much. Accepting for Moons.

Guga: Processing...