This TAS uses the Memory Corruption glitch discovered by Biospark in 2018. It lets us skip about a third of the game, right after aquiring powerbombs. To know how it works, please see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnpelN7X11Q . The main difference between this video and the TAS is that we save when leaving sector 1, so that we warp to the destroyed hallway near the hangar instead of higher up in main deck.
For info about mechanics and RTA strats, etc, see the descriptions of the other fusion TAS's.
Some notes:
- This TAS is an improvement over an unofficial one I made in 2020 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WAp0Cgc3WE ), being over 12 seconds faster. This mostly comes from optimization, plus a few other minor strat differences.
- Because we don't fight the end game bosses, there's no need to collect any missile expansions as they save no time.
- RNG manipulation is more subtle in this than my previous TAS's.
- I take damage in the Zazabi fight in order for it be in the correct position. The formula for randomness in this game is partially determined from the enemies' position, so we can use that here to get minimum jumps.
- After breaking the missile blocks in sector 4 to set up the corruption, it's a little faster to go the left route rather than back through the morph tunnel to the right.
- We maintain a low hp for the very end of the game so we can die in one hit from a waver.
- There's a new clip in sector 6 after Mega Core.
- We don't need to encounter the SAX in sector 5 because the priority is to get OOB to corrupt the memory. Instead, we use bomb jumping to skip it.
Darkman425: Claiming for judging.
Darkman425: Changing the branch name from "Memory Corruption" to "warp glitch" as the glitch in question doesn't immediately enter the ending sequence. It does start at the end of the escape sequence with spawning in and then causing the death sequence of the Omega Metroid.
Everything before the warp glitch is performed is done very well. The RNG manipulations are definitely harder to notice. The very small changes from the warpless TAS to improve movement is also a cool addition to optimization.
Something that wasn't documented in the submission notes was exactly how the memory corruption works. Thankfully, the submission does link to the person who discovered the glitch, Biospark, where the video description explains how the glitch works and why about half of the game is played normally for the power bombs. With all of that technical information at hand I can confidently say this is incredibly well done and well researched.
Accepting to Standard as a new branch.
Note to publishers: this TAS has also been console verified as well.
EZGames69: Processing...
feos: Since save corruption is involved in the major skip glitch, we can call it "save glitch".