The minds behind the Twisted Metal franchise are back with a blatant Crash Bandicoot clone!
Animorphs: Shattered Reality is a platform game where the protagonists have to save the earth from the Yeerks invasion. It features a number of aliens getting pummeled by a derpy grizzly bear.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.2.1
- BIOS (U) Version 3.0 11/18/96 A (sha1:0555C6FAE8906F3F09BAF5988F00E55F88E9F30B)
- Aims for fastest time. The Yeerks are invading earth and there's not time to waste.
- Taking damage to save time.
- Death abuse.
- Genre: Crash Bandicoot Ripoff (Platform)
Subtitles
A subtitled/commentated version of this movie is also available here: userfiles/info/46724856790566390
Abilities
- Jump: Press X
- Short Jump: Press X for 1 to 8 frames.
- Long Jump: Press X for more than 8 frames.
- "Split Jump": Press X without holding a direction.
- Attack: Only available while morphed. Press [].
- Boost: Only available in stage 2, 4 and 6. Hold X.
Comparison with WR
WR (32:37 with RTA timing) by skatemen222: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/227163480
(*) Time from the first black frame after loading to the first frozen frame at the end of the stage.
| Stage | TAS* | WR* | Delta | Delta (s) | C. Delta | C. Delta (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | 5170 | 5972 | 802 | 13.526 | 802 | 13.526 |
| 1-2 | 5088 | 6588 | 1500 | 25.298 | 2302 | 38.824 |
| 1-3 | 5032 | 5544 | 512 | 8.635 | 2814 | 47.459 |
| 1-4 | 7626 | 8270 | 644 | 10.861 | 3458 | 58.321 |
| 2 | 6432 | 6596 | 164 | 2.766 | 3622 | 61.087 |
| 3-1 | 3751 | 4165 | 414 | 6.982 | 4036 | 68.069 |
| 3-2 | 3911 | 4836 | 925 | 15.601 | 4961 | 83.669 |
| 3-3 | 5995 | 6453 | 458 | 7.724 | 5419 | 91.394 |
| 4 | 8220 | 8828 | 608 | 10.254 | 6027 | 101.648 |
| 5-1 | 4232 | 6110 | 1878 | 31.673 | 7905 | 133.321 |
| 5-2 | 3824 | 4717 | 893 | 15.061 | 8798 | 148.382 |
| 5-3 | 1907 | 2287 | 380 | 6.409 | 9178 | 154.791 |
| 5-4 | 1454 | 1520 | 66 | 1.113 | 9244 | 155.904 |
| 6 | 7768 | 8079 | 311 | 5.245 | 9555 | 161.149 |
| 7-1 | 3842 | 4769 | 927 | 15.634 | 10482 | 176.784 |
| 7-2 | 4979 | 6732 | 1753 | 29.565 | 12235 | 206.349 |
| 7-3 | 6181 | 7598 | 1417 | 23.898 | 13652 | 230.247 |
| 7-4 | 5804 | 7572 | 1768 | 29.818 | 15420 | 260.065 |
| 8 | 3111 | 3452 | 341 | 5.751 | 15761 | 265.816 |
Speed Techs
- Character Choice
- Rachel is the slowest character while walking but otherwise the fastest character in the game. When jumping on the first frame of touching the ground, you gain 2 frames worth of movement for every 4 jumps over picking Jake or Marco and 4 frames over picking Cassie.
- No Memory Card
- Not having a memory card inserted gets rid of a save screen on every stage selection at the cost of one screen when selecting New Game.
- Lag Management
- The game will occasionally lag when scrolling most likely due to the loading of a new section or assets. Usually, those lag frames can be mitigated or sometimes completely avoided by simply changing the position of the character in any axis. Some actions are also more likely than others to cause lag when executed like jumping on the edge of a platform, jumping on a tilted platform, taking damage and moving near a static object.
- Jumping vs. Walking
- When jumping, your speed is locked to the value it had in the previous frame for the whole duration of the jump. When walking, his speed will oscillate slightly resulting in an overall slower movement option by about 12% versus jumping on the first possible frame after landing.
- Momentum Boost
- When riding a moving platform, jumping from it will carry their speed in every axis for the duration of the jump.
- Ledge Clipping
- When jumping with an apex near the edge of a platform, the game will sometime clip you on top of it if your hit box is close enough to the edge.
- Boost Meter Management
- When you power on the console, the boost meter will be full the first time entering an auto-scroller. It will otherwise remember how much boost you had when you finished your last auto-scroller even if you replay one of those levels. Furthermore, once depleted or under 25%, the boost meter will start filling back up to 25% where you'll be able to use your boost again. This 25% threshold is also very important because at the start of each subsequent "auto-scroller", you are unable to start moving until you can boost. So ideally, you want to finish the first two "auto-scrollers" with 25% boost to be able to move immediately on the next "auto-scroller". Resetting the console will put the meter back at 100% for the next auto-scroller.
- Damage Recoil & Target Locking
- During combat, it's possible to lock the orientation of the character with R1 so that you're always facing a specific enemy. There is also no distance limit that would break that lock as long as you hold down R1. Since you will always move backward when taking damage, it's possible to boost yourself on each enemy that you collide with or that hit you if you lock yourself onto an enemy and start moving away from it while locked. This is used in the bridge section of 1-4 and to reach a checkpoint outside a fight in 7-2 and 7-4.
- Invulnerability Frames
- Some enemies will be invulnerable for a set number of frames after getting hit. The number of frames varies with the type of enemy but is also implemented inconsistently as there are two Hork-Bajir with a fast animation while the rest of them have a slower animation. Additionally, if you're standing too close to them while their invulnerability timer runs out, they'll instantly do a counter-attack move that makes them invulnerable for its duration.
- Free Double Damage Hits
- When delivering the last hit on an enemy, you can sometime hold or press [] a few frame later that will make you do an attack that deals double two damage instead of one. Doing so seems to have a very long recovery before you're able to attack again. This is used only once in the second combat of 1-1 since it one-hit kills the second enemy.
- Glitchy High Jump
- When jumping on the very edge of a ledge, you can sometime gain extra height on that jumps. This also happens sometimes on tilted platforms.
- Checkpoint Abuse
- There are 3 checkpoints in the game that can be abused to skip part of a combat as they will respawn you outside of the combat zone. It's slower to do on the first fight of 3-2 because getting hit 5 times is longer than actually doing the fight but it saves quite a few seconds in 7-3. It also saves a few seconds in the first fight of 7-4.
Stage by stage comments
1-1
You're cycle bound 3 times during this level. The first time is the elevator after the first fight. The second is in the middle of the stage after the set of two crushers. The last one is the platform right before the second fight. Jumping down after the second fight saves a lot of time rather than riding the multiple elevators to get to the bottom where the exit is located.
1-2
The start of has to be really pretty much perfect if you want to clip the platform going away on top of the elevator. There's maybe a window of 4 frames to spare from the time the level loads if you want to make that cycle.
You can sometime be clipped up on some of the cogs saving a bit of time on each one. The most significant one is the last one at the top where it saves around 2 seconds.
I found that it's possible to skip the fight at the end of the level by jumping on the very edge of the platform until you reach the left side and perform an out of bound jump to turn the corner.
1-3
The first fight can be skipped with a very precise out of bounds jump much like in 1-2 saving about 3 seconds over doing the fight.
1-4
The first fight can be skipped by simply hugging the top wall and jumping behind the three pillars. While the second fight is unavoidable, it makes use of target locking to recoil yourself past each enemies until the game will simply unmorph you at the end assuming you just killed everyone along the way.
2
The first of the three "auto-scroller" stages in the game. The most important thing here is to finish the stage with exactly 25% of the boost meter or more to not have to wait at the start of 4.
3-1
The barriers can be easily jumped over making use of Rachel's smaller hit box while jumping. The large square platforms don't have collision on the bottom of them so they can be jumped through to save a bit of time.
3-2
It's possible to get hit and recoil into the checkpoint which is outside the fighting area to not have to fight the Kaa at the start of the stage but it takes longer to get killed than doing the fight. I tried looking for a place where the game would instantly kill you but I couldn't find one. It would save a few seconds if it was discovered.
Doing alternating hits on the enemies in the second fight saves around 2.5 seconds compared to killing them one by one.
3-3
I nicknamed this stage "Death Plane Central". On either sides of every elevator is a death plane making most "obvious" jumps impossible. Jumping down the first elevator at the end of the stage saves around 5 seconds while jumping down the second one saved around 24 seconds.
4
The main obstacle in that stages are the frogs that just wait to snipe you out of the air with their tongues. Unfortunately for them, they have really bad necks and can only looking up so flying under them makes you effectively invisible. The bees can also periodically damage you until you boost away from them but with some smart boost they can't catch you at all. Like in stage 2, you want to end this stage at or above 25% of the boost meter.
5-1
The first three fights of this stage can be skipped with some well placed jumps. The first fight you just need to hug the right wall. For the second fight, you need to jump across the gap onto the left ledge and ride it until you're half-way down the icy field. The third fight is the hardest of the three. You have to jump over the broken gate and land past the sign. Skatemen222 discovered it was possible to jump through the left side of the slide skipping a 10 second section that would otherwise make you go down the slide and up again
5-2
The easiest fight skip in the game, you just stay near the edge of the building and walk to the exit of the stage.
5-3 and 5-4
The two shortest stages in the game. You just go right and that's pretty much it.
6
The webs in that stage have VERY deceptive hit boxes making some of them really tricky to pass through. Other than that, it's the only stage where the boost meter can be use without restriction at the end.
7-1
The main time-saver here is the momentum boost you get from the crates allowing you to move 3 crates per cycle instead of just 2. I found an unused trick at the end of the conveyor of crates that gets the camera stuck on top of the shaft while you're falling down which disables collision for all the objects below. Alas, the exit isn't directly at the bottom of the shaft so you just fall to your death. If a clip could be found to clip the platform to the exit it would save around 15 seconds.
7-2
One of the only two instances of check point abuse. I take 2 damage from the bucket of molten cheese and 1 damage from the best-buy employee zombie in the second to be at 2HP entering the third fight. The enemy deal 1 damage each so I get recoiled into the checkpoint on the first hit and die on the second one. The crushers at the bottom all have an invisible wall in front of them which is the only thing preventing just jumping on the edge for that whole section. It's also possible to sometime jump through the crushers as they are descending but it's very inconsistent.
7-3
Doing back-and-forth hits in the first fight is the fastest way to complete it. For some reason, those guys have a very short recovery after getting hit. At the very end of the stage, it's possible to unload the ground where the elevator is and fall to an horrible death. Shown here: https://clips.twitch.tv/RealZanySpaghettiKappaClaus
7-4
The last one of the checkpoint abuse. You just get hit and die to the crusher. The only way to get to the elevator on time and save 2 seconds is to jump on top of the crusher and across the two beams on top. The tilting platforms do some very wonky things with your jump. They will sometime make you do a jump that has about twice the height of a regular jump.
8
Just stand in front of the boss and stun lock him until he's dead.
Special Thanks
- killaqo: For his moral support at times & an asshole the rest of the time.
- Skateman222: For checking my first version of this and pointing out 5 seconds of improvement. Also finding the slide skip in 5-2.
- Keizaron: Finding pretty much all the skips in the game and telling me that the fight skip in 1-3 was possible.
- GT Bicycles: For still being in business.
Suggested screenshot (frame 68399 or 14874)
Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: This is a well done TAS. However, the action does get somewhat stale and repetitive over time, with large parts of the action really just coming down to repetitively jumping over or through places. Ultimately, there's just not much in the way of creative action or movements that would make a movie like this really stand out. The lukewarm viewer response also seems to reflect this. On the whole, it's not really enough to make a Moon - as such, accepting for the Vault.
Noxxa: Also, replaced movie file with a subtitled version (movie input is unchanged).
Stegosaurus: Publishing.