Submission #4801: xy2_'s DS Beyblade: Metal Masters in 07:30.41

Beyblade: Metal Masters is a well made cash grab of that cool anime kids watch nowadays.

Beyblade: Metal Masters's gameplay is similar to that of fighting arcade games, except it's in 3D! You can actually move in three dimensions in this game (though this isn't showcased.) Each character has different special moves, and plays with different beyblades, but all of them have the same basic moves.

Movement is done in 3D: you can go up, down, left or right. Movement is good because it's the only 'move' that does not affect the enemy's AI.
A movement dash is done by pressing the same movement key twice. It is as fast as the basic slash, but deals no damage. It is also the only other move that does not affect enemy RNG. Used twice against Ryuga.
Jumping (B).. well, jumps. Masamune can do a double jump, which is used once against Ryuga.
Flame (A) does a straight flame attack. Can hit ennemies in the air. Used once against Ryuga.
Slash (> + A) executes a dash, just like a movement dash, but it also deals damage. If you redo a slash shortly after the first has ended, you will do a flame slash. Flame slashes are heavily abused in the run: they last for a long time, have big knockback and make you go fast, making it the perfect tool for clipping ennemies out of bounds when next to them.
Smash (v + A) does a smash, dealing massive damage and high knockback. Doing it twice does a fire smash. Fire smashes are the highest knockback move in the entire game, but they are slow to set up and need to be very close to the opponent, so they are only used whenever absolutely necessary.
Ground Special (> + X) does an powerful ground attack that varies character-to-character. Gingka and Masamune have the two most abusable ground specials in the game: they have huge hitboxes, make you go fast, and last a long time. This is why we want them at the top of our party. Masamune can do a fire slash cancel, which is explained later.

Dash cancelling is a glitch exclusive to Masamune: by doing his Lightning Sword (ground special) when the flame slash animation is about to end, he cuts the end of the animation and casts the ground special right away. The advantage is that the flame slash hasn't finished taking effect, even though we cut its animation. As such, the fire slash and the Lightning Sword are both running at the same time, allowing us to have disgusting knockback. Used against most ennemies where it saves time.
Out-of-bounds clipping is done by being very close to a character at the edge of the field and letting a high knockback move (preferably a ground special or a flame slash) hit multiple times. The opponent will be hit multiple times and clipped out of bounds.

You may see something particular right off the bat: we wait a few frames at the Random button, then select instead of just selecting our characters. Why? Selecting characters takes a long time (can go up to 6 frames for each character), compared to going to the Random button and just manipulating RNG so we get our desired team (which gives us no lag!). The third character slot will be never used: we want Gingka first, to get his story, and Masamune second to abuse him. The LET IT RIP! section doens't go any faster if you do perfect input, so I play around a bit in those.

This first stage starts on normal terrain, which is good. Tetsuya starts by casting a ground special; we wait a few frames to make sure he doens't block, then do a double Pegasus Dash (Gingka's ground special) and knock him out quickly. Note that all fights are in 30 FPS (lag frame every other frame.)

Again, the AI here starts with an easily counterable move. We do a Lighting Sword, and since Ryutaro would counter the second one (and it would be impossible to get without waiting), we dash cancel and knock him out.

Kyoya is, believe it or not, the toughest fight of the run. We fight on Grainy terrain, which means we knock back ennemies less farther. He starts the fight with a shield, which blocks most of the knockback from our Pegasus Dash: we use it to get close to him. Because of grainy terrain, the perfectly timed dash makes him on top of us for a few frames. He will escape if he slips off the top of our Beyblade: doing a smash changes our hitbox a bit and keeps him just enough to do a flame smash and do massive knockback that he can't block. Afterwards, we flame dash, which hits him once with the tip and knocks him back to the edge, and finish up with a Pegasus Dash to clip him out.

Same strategy as Ryutaro, only changing the waiting times to manipulate AI. Note that we start with a double jump here: this is to confuse the AI, as he doens't know what to do next for half a second, which is just enough for us to stunlock Nile.

Our first fight on slippery terrain. Slippery terrain just makes knockback easier, and it easier for us to do a KO with a double Pegasus Dash, which is exactly what we do.

Wales fights for the land of the brave, and starts with a move canceller. This cancels whatever move we did: fortunately, we can just cast it back next frame. Same strategy as Ryutaro.

Same strategy as Tetsu- zzz..

Ryuga is the other tough fight of the run. He starts off with a dragon blast? (don't know the actual name) which puts him in the air instantanely to shoot at us. Fortunately, we can just dodge it with a movement dash (and not a slash to manipulate AI). We then prepare the Flame, which hits him as soon as he stops being invicible, and clean up with a dash cancel.

We start with a well timed flame dash, hitting him the moment his shield runs out. Afterwards, he is stunlocked, and we just do a double Pegasus Dash to clip him off.

This fight would have been really intense if not for the fact that you can just knock out Dino Agito.

.. Yeah. DS TAS of the year. Shoutout to Ready Steady Yeti for inspiring me to do a full TAS of this game.

Frame 7562, 11215, 13914, 18320 and 21439 in order.

ars4326: (edited in sync settings to submission comments) Judging!

ars4326: Hi, xy2_. To begin, the technical and strategic aspects of this run can certainly be more appreciated when compared to a standard longplay. Listing out the various attacks, glitches, and tactical choices also gave a clearer picture of the amount of work and research put into this. The battles altogether, however, did lean more on the repetitive side (entertaining ring-outs, notwithstanding). Overall, nice job and effort!

Accepting for publication to the Vault!

fsvgm777: Processing.