Submission #5036: Dashjump's GBA Sonic Advance 3 in 35:02.10

Introduction

Movie objectives

• Completion of the game without playing any level twice

• Death abuse if it saves in-game time (I couldn't find any opportunities to do so though)

• Fastest in-game time

• Fastest real time

Team/moves analysis

Common moves

• Spin dash: Crouching (tapping down) and following up with tapping A will charge a spindash. Upon releasing, the character will roll at a speed of 2296 (2 revs) or 1720 (1 rev). This is an essential move for instant acceleration, and is done at the start of almost every single level and boss.

• Jump: Pressing A makes your character jump. Throughout this TAS you will notice that I jump as much as possible when not in boost mode, because you accelerate faster in the air, and also because the maximum jumping velocity is higher than the maximum running velocity when not in boost mode. As with many other Sonic games, jumping downhill gives you more speed, and jumping uphill can give a lot of height.

• Roll: Tapping down when running will make the character roll. Depending on the situation, this can either speed you up (usually on downhill slopes), slow you down (in most situations), or let you sneak under certain obstacles. You cannot control your speed or change direction when jumping out of a roll.

• Trick: Both Sonic and Tails can do mid-air tricks when paired with the other character. The same applies to both Cream and Amy, although their tricks are irrelevant in this run. You can do a trick after hitting a ramp, a spring, or any other object which acts like a spring (like the Toy Kingdom balloons). As a minor bug, using a tag action after hitting any of the aforementioned objects will still allow you to do a trick after executing the tag action.

• Hammer attack: Any team with Amy as a partner can press B on the ground to perform a hammer attack (When Amy is the lead character, she can use her hammer attack in the air, and does not lose any momentum). This brings the character to an immediate stop. Hammering a spring will multiply both the horizontal and vertical speed given by the spring by 1.5.

• Tag action: All tag actions take 90 frames (1.5 seconds) to charge from scratch. The yellow circle which forms in front of your lead character only appears after 30 frames (0.5 seconds). If any action resets the charging while the yellow circle is visible, the tag action will take 60 frames (1 second) to charge.

Tails/Sonic

• Tail attack: Pressing B on the ground makes Tails do a tail swipe attack. This doesn't actually make you come to a complete stop like in Sonic Advance, but it decelerates you at the same rate as if you were holding the other direction. The actual effect of damaging enemies is pretty useless and never used in the run.
• Flying: Pressing A in a jump makes Tails fly at whatever speed he is travelling at the time you press the button, and he does not slow down unless you hold the other direction. When done close enough to the ground, Tails will immediately land on the surface - this is how I scale steps (like the ones near the end of Twinkle Snow 2) without slowing down. With the two abovementioned effects, this makes Tails/Sonic the most broken team in the game, as they are able to maintain ridiculous speeds for prolonged period of time (Twinkle Snow 3 is an excellent display of this). The bigger downside to this flight is that you gain altitude very slowly, unlike when you fly with Cream.
• Tricks: All four of Tails' tricks, unlike Sonic's, have an annoying animation time to wait for.
  • Up + R: Tails gains pretty considerable height (about a normal jump height), useful in a few situations.
  • Left/Right + R: Tails jumps sideways in a curved angle. A boost is usually used instead of the sidetrick.
  • Down + R: Tails immediately drops downwards, and you can control the landing with the left and right buttons. This seems completely useless, but when done close enough to the ground the animation is skipped entirely and Tails comes to a complete stop. I do this twice; once in Toy Kingdom 2, and once in Twinkle Snow 1.

Sonic/Tails

• Slide: Pressing B on the ground initiates a slow sliding animation which damages enemies, slowing Sonic down until his velocity reaches 0. Completely useless for the most part as holding the other direction will slow you down much faster than the slide can. However, if you hit a booster or fall off a platform mid-slide, the sliding animation is cancelled when you hit said object. This trick was useful once in Ocean Base 2.
• Tricks: Aside from the downward trick, the other three of Sonic's tricks don't take up any extra frames to perform.
  • Up + R: Same as Tails' upward trick, with less altitude and no amination time to wait for.
  • Left/Right + R: Sonic does a side spin, preserving whatever horizontal velocity he is travelling at that point.
  • Down + R: A slow downward bound attack. Similarly to Tails' downward trick, this can be used close enough to the ground to completely skip the animation. This trick was used once in Toy Kingdom 3.

Sonic/Knuckles

• Slide: Pressing B on the ground activates a slide similar to the one Sonic does when Tails is his partner. Except this slide is considered a power attack (ie can break certain walls which non-power attacks can't), covers a lot more distance and has a much cooler animation.
• Upward flame burst: Pressing Up + B mid-jump activates a flame burst attack, shooting Sonic upwards and damaging enemies (or in this run, the Ocean Base boss). Not very useful in any of the levels, but since this attack doesn't require any charging (unlike a tag action), Sonic/Knuckles is put to good use in the Ocean Base boss.
• Downward bound: Pressing Down + B mid-jump activates this attack, which is identical to the down-trick listed in the Sonic/Tails paragraph above.
• Insta-shield: Pressing B mid-jump gives Sonic the insta-shield from Sonic 3 (Genesis) and Sonic Advance 2 (GBA). Doing this after a spindash jump is considered breaking out of a roll, which both increases Sonic's velocity to maximum jumping speed, and lets him regain control.

Knuckles/Amy

• Glide: Pressing A mid-flight activates the classic Knuckles glide.
• Spindashing on walls: Knuckles can only spindash on walls when paired with Amy. Spindash + jumping off a wall, then followed by the B attack (spin-jump) allows this team to do a lot of ninja-like wall movements.
• Hammer: Pressing B on the ground activates this attack, which is described above under "common moves".
• Spin-jump: Knuckles doesn't spin-jump by default when pressing A. Pressing B mid-jump will rectify this, and unlike a spindash-jump with a team like Sonic/Tails, this move is considered as breaking out of a roll, therefore letting you control directions and accelerating you faster.
• Downward spin: Pressing Down + B mid-jump activates this attack. Would be completely useless except if you do it close enough to the ground, Knuckles immediately comes to a stop. Very useful for charging a spindash on the spot without braking by holding the other direction.

Amy/Sonic

• Hammer: Described above under "common moves", except Amy can do this mid-jump and save the animation time.
• Air dash: Pressing A mid-jump activates a slow air dash. I only use this to clip edges without wasting too much time.
• Hammer spin: Pressing Down + B mid-jump activates an attack which is similar to the downward spin with Knuckles/Amy. Also stops you immediately if done close enough to the ground.

Tails/Amy

• Hammer: Same as above, except Tails can use his hammer mid-flight which costs only 1 frame to perform.
• Fly: Tails gains a lot more flying altitude when paired with Amy, except he can only fly for 3 seconds as opposed to the normal 5 with Sonic.
• Spin-jump: Identical to Knuckles/Amy.
• Tail attack: Identical to Tails/Sonic.

Level notes

Boss notes

Route 99 Boss

Sunset Hill Boss

Ocean Base Boss

Toy Kingdom Boss

Twinkle Snow Boss

Cyber Track Boss

Chaos Angel Boss

Altar Emerald

Miscellaneous notes

Conclusion