(Link to video)
Meteos is a puzzle game released in 2005 that received general praise from video game critics, and was developed by Q Entertainment and published by Bandai and Nintendo, and was designed by Masahiro Sakurai. The game has many different planets, each with different field sizes, gravity and visuals.
"It was a dark time... The existence of all planets was threatened by one: the evil planet Meteo. A stream of phantasmagoric matter flowed endlessly from the planet. This matter -called Meteos- crushed life and stole the sparkle of the universe. World after world fell... But then, by chance, three Meteos of the same type aligned. Fusing together, they ignited, firing the other Meteos in space! A defense strategy was formed: the civilizations of each planet launched counterattacks by fusing Meteos in different ways. Thus the last, desperate stand versus Meteo began. The Metamo Ark -a warship made of Meteos ore- set off as a bastion of hope, with the fate of the entire universe resting on a lone civilization's valor." -the game's intro
This TAS aims to get the True Ending of the Multi route Star Trip, which consists of reaching the top most Meteo node, called True Meteo, and beat it. The difficulty comes from the fact that in Multi, almost all fights will have missions, which you will need to complete in order to go to a higher node. Beating the mission leaves you the choice to go either up or down, while failing the mission (while still winning) forces you to go down.
This run beats the current WR for True Ending by about 3 minutes 30 seconds, and the Any Route WR by about 40 seconds, both WR being done on the easiest difficulty.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: DeSmuMe 0.9.9
  • Bus-level timing off.
  • Aims for the fastest possible time
  • Plays on the hardest difficulty
  • Gets the true ending
  • Saves the universe extremely fast

Comments

The goal of each battle is to destroy every other planet (yeah we save the world but destroy every planet on our way, I don't get it either) and be the last one standing. The main gameplay is using the touch screen, you can drag meteos up or down, and the goal is to line up 3 (or more) meteos of the same type in order to ignite them. By chaining lines, the launch power become stronger and allows to send more meteos. Annihilation (death) is caused when a column without burned meteos gets too high for too long. As the game progresses, meteos drop faster and mercy time reduces, making large stacks becoming incredibly risky, however for a TAS, it obviously is not. The "Speeder" (the thing in the bottom right, idk its name), when activated, makes meteos drop faster, and is overall very useful to rack up many meteos fast to send.
As we progress in Star Trip, meteos speed increases, making later fights harder to survive. For a TAS, this is useful, since the later fights are the shortest in the run due to the abundance of meteos.

Stage by stage comments

H2O Planetaries (21.53)

Surprisingly the longest battle in the run. 1 frame was wasted before starting the Star Trip in order to get Geolyte instead of Oleana, the latter being more floaty and slower overall. The mission here is to win under 2:30, which is quite easy to do, even at the highest difficulty (if you can survive). There's actually nothing to note about this fight. We clear the screen twice to defeat both planets really fast. However, I think there is probably a bunch of time to save here. Getting the AI to die can be extremely annoying, since sometimes I send them garbage earlier and they don't die, even if it is only 1 meteo less.
Since I go down even after beating the mission, I lose 1 frame in the selection. However, I think it was worth.

Molten Hellions (13.88)

This fight was actually incredibly surprising. Firim might be one of the best planets to play, since the launches are fairly strong and the field is small. Managing to not clear the screen, I wait a bit to have more meteos, enough to actually destroy Hotted. However, failing the mission would bring me to Stray Planet, which is a 1v1 against Jeljel. The problem here is that the AI in this game is _a lot_ stronger in 1v1 matches, and I simply couldn't destroy them (or at least fast). I had to beat the mission here, which is to send 100 meteos. With 5 seconds left and 38 meteos to send, I barely had enough time to clear the mission before Hotted gets destroyed, giving me access to the Mechatropoloids.

Mechatropoloids (18.98)

Grannest's gravity is a bit special. Chains do not make the launch more powerful, instead being as strong as the base launch. Megadom's gravity is a bit worse in my opinion, where chains are less and less powerful.
Anyway, after taking care of Megadom, Grannest decides it does not want to play anymore and just decides to die, leaving me with a bit of time. I decided to completely fill their board before they die. Note that if I sent meteos earlier, they would actually die later. Mission was to clear the board. Don't need to say I completed it.

Dimensionals (18.79)

This is the first 4 way fight of the run, and thankfully it was done on Gravitas. Gravitas's gravity is very special, the first chain does nothing, and the second chain blasts the whole stack off. This makes for a very fast paced battle, since I do not have to wait for the stack to touch the ground before linking more meteos. The mission here is to send 50 burned meteos into space. It's actually the easiest mission to clear, even on the lowest difficulty you might accidentaly clear it.
And I failed it. Since I go down, I do not waste one frame, the higher fight is actually really bad for TAS. The failed mission also shows the efficiency of TAS.

Hot & Chillies (18.89)

Mission is to sent 50 meteos at once, fairly easy. After taking care of Dawndus, I wait for Freaze to send their garbage before sending mine, otherwise they would survive. They then gave up. For entertainment, I clear my screen right at the end. Otherwise not much to say here.

Rare Culture (19.56)

Another 4 way battle. This is the only fight that leads to Hevendor's Realm, which leads to True Meteo. This fight does not have a special mission. If you look at the top screen, it seems like I am only attacking Globin, however I am actually attacking the other planets. I really only sent 3 meteos to Globin, which actually lead them to their doom, for some reason.
The next fights are... really short.

Hevendor's Realm (11.67)

Hevendor's gravity is similar to Gravitas, but the first chain is instant instead of the second, making this planet even faster. I sent some meteos to all 3 Hevendors and destroy them in incredibly low time. I need to beat this mission in 2 minutes to reach True Meteo, but I only really needed 11 seconds.

True Meteo (12.51)

I start by making a screen wide stack and start sending some meteos to each Meteo, destroying them in very little time. You could consider this a variation of the Hevendor strategy, only on a more regular stage. The great speed of falling meteos makes the AI much easier to kill.
Final RTA time is 4:28.43 (if i'm not wrong), timed from when the Star Trip starts to when the victory screen after beating True Meteo fades out. TAS has one more input before finishing, which is to clear the ending screen to reach the credits.
Also we are now considered gods, I wonder why.

Other comments

I decided to not add superplay during the credit sequence, since I didn't really think it would add much to the run. Well here's a playaround for the TAS : Userfiles/Info/55483467089408472 There is probably a few places where time could be saved, maybe I didn't find the earliest you could beat everyone.

feos: Judging...
feos: This is a nice movie, and it got great feedback. This mode seems to be the best one to speedrun (even though others are also acceptable, as explained in the thread). Execution and routing make sense. The ending represents the game's plot goal, and it features the most challenging opponent, so it's indeed the best ending we can get. The credits playaround was also awesome. Accepting to Moons.
Spikestuff: ☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6376: Taechuk's DS Meteos "Multi Star Trip, best ending" in 06:50.39
Patashu
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Meteos was my favourite game as a kid (before I found Stepmania), and I loved grinding out really high scores in Deluge mode. I also remember how much of an RNG hell it was to do anything fast in the mission modes - this is so much hilariously faster than an unassisted run, well done. Yes vote! I'd love to see a category that takes on Deluge mode, since that's where the real challenge is, but I'm not sure what the category would be - max score, 32 planets sounds intense. 'fastest max score' might be more swallowable, and entertaining enough for moons.
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Spikestuff
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As for the credits sequence I think honestly it'd be nice to actually have extended input for publication just for screwing around and adding something more instead of just watching the credits roll.
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Taechuk
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As for the credits sequence I think honestly it'd be nice to actually have extended input for publication just for screwing around and adding something more instead of just watching the credits roll.
Do you want me to TAS the whole thing and post the file here afterward? Like, yeah I understand it could be a bit interesting to see actual TAS superplay since the whole run is just sending garbage to every planet as fast as possible and not ultra long combo (plus the Metamo Ark's playfield is super high, making a lot of possibilities). If it helps with the submission I can do it. Would I then need to cancel this submission and make another one after or will you be able to just change the file here?
Patashu
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I'd definitely love to see a credits roll superplay, since it would allow for different possibilities to the main game. You don't have to cancel, just post the new input file in this topic so an editor can make use of it.
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Plus it would be used as an additional file not a file to replace the submission.
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Patashu wrote:
I'd love to see a category that takes on Deluge mode, since that's where the real challenge is, but I'm not sure what the category would be - max score, 32 planets sounds intense. 'fastest max score' might be more swallowable, and entertaining enough for moons.
Maxing every planet is clearly the "correct" category (perhaps also including unlocking every planet along the way, rather than using SRAM? That'd add interest from managing the rare metals). I'd be entertained, at least; the way you reach a maximum score for the planet can vary somewhat from planet to planet (the exception would be if there are any planets which require a very slow strategy – Hevendor is an obvious possibility for that due to its excessively simple mechanics – but more commonly you're scoring so fast that the score counter can't keep up). I'm also curious as to whether there are any planets where maxing out the score counter is impossible; if so, then trying to score as much as possible could be a very difficult optimisation problem. The resulting run might end up in Vault, but I wouldn't care; it's an obvious 100% definition, so it'd be acceptable, and seeing the strategies would be valuable. Deluge is likely to be more interesting than Star Trip for someone who knows the game, because Star Trip is dominated by RNG about how badly the AI decides to screw up. When you're playing the game as a human, it's basically about trying to survive until the AI doesn't, which you don't have much control over (when the AI dies, it's typically for some silly/pointless reason rather than because you filled their screen, something which the AI can often survive!).
Patashu
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My thoughts are exactly the same as Ais's - this TAS entertains me because of the luck manipulation required to kill CPUs so fast, but to a non player it's not obvious how unusual this is, but a deluge superplay is obviously super human to any possible watcher. I think that it is not possible for a planet to not be maxable in deluge (the way the game is set up, you only lose when a column fills and has no dust in it, and a full column with no dust ALWAYS has a match you can make to form dust) but I am happy to be proven wrong.
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It depends on what the timer is like for loss with a full column. It seems plausible that after a sufficiently long time has passed, you wouldn't be able to form the match in a column quickly enough after it unburns (especially if this is happening in multiple columns at once); it's got to take at least three frames to move a meteo (tap old location, tap new location, release), and you have to move two meteos in the worst case, so that's six frames per column. Now do that somewhere like Hevendor, which has a large number of columns and doesn't let you make any hovering-meteo barriers to make it safe to not bother with a column for a while; you'd have to continuously rotate through the columns, making sure that no two columns ever unburned at once (or that if they did, you could manipulate a horizontal match involving them), as I'm pretty sure the late-game death timer is too short to make matches separately in every column. If it's possible to max out the score counter on Hevendor, it'll almost certainly take a lot of luck manipulation to do so.
Taechuk
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it's got to take at least three frames to move a meteo (tap old location, tap new location, release)
if you need to move a meteo for more than one space, you need to hold the new location for more time, one frame by space also sorry for the inactivity, i have got a lot of work to do recently, i do have a credits tas done, but i really don't think it is interesting enough and i don't know what exactly to do to maximise entertainment.
Patashu
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Taechuk wrote:
also sorry for the inactivity, i have got a lot of work to do recently, i do have a credits tas done, but i really don't think it is interesting enough and i don't know what exactly to do to maximise entertainment.
Things to try: * very fast screen clears * keeping a screen full of meteos around for a long time with staggered matches * making a lot of matches very fast * staggering matches to only barely clear a screen * lots of fast vertical matches * having a lot of separate stacks in the air simultaneously, then breaking them up or letting them merge * arranging the colours of meteos into artistic patterns
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Taechuk
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alright, sorry for the wait i've got something, and i wonder if it is ok or if i need to make it better Link to video file
Patashu
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A lot of setup for a hilarious ending you'll never see outside of TAS! I enjoyed that.
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Spikestuff
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feos, unless the author's intentions changed. The extended input was not meant to replace the submission file. Much like similar TASes that have extended input as a second file that haven't been replaced. Taechuk can obviously speak about their intentions of that input but that's where it stood last as a file that doesn't replace.
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Extended input that's not present in the published movie but only in the encode is only allowed if this input is trivial for a publisher to execute. Since in this case it's not trivial, and also it increases the overall entertainment, having it in the primary movie makes the most sense to me. Arcade Tetris also has this. That said, of course I'd prefer to know the author's preference!
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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ais523 wrote:
I'm also curious as to whether there are any planets where maxing out the score counter is impossible; if so, then trying to score as much as possible could be a very difficult optimisation problem. The resulting run might end up in Vault, but I wouldn't care; it's an obvious 100% definition, so it'd be acceptable, and seeing the strategies would be valuable.
That's not how full completion rules work. If it's impossible to clearly complete "all X" things, there's no fullness in it. Also what is maximum score for a given planet anyway? Is it some known hard-coded amount which you can't overflow, or just a digital cap like 999999 (regardless of allowing or disallowing the overflow).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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I reviewed the endings. While True Meteo seems to be the best ending and the logical goal of the game, I'm not sure we want to declare it equal to full completion, mostly because there's so much you can do in this game aside from getting this one ending. The amount of modes available from the start is also stunning. Technically we allow each mode to be published separately, but I don't particularly like the idea of having 20 branches for Meteos, per mode and per ending (whatever the actual number would be). Simple Mode looks questionable as a speedrun achievement due to how easy it can be configured to be. Timed Time Wars make no sense to speedrun. Meteo Wars sound too similar to what Star Trip already contains. Deluge Mode sounds good as one where you play until it's impossible to advance (or until it stops changing). Am I missing other playable modes? If not, then it'd be either 3 possible branches for Star Trip, and a branch for Deluge. Start Trip branches could be done in one movie. As for actual full completion definition, I have no ideas honestly, and I'd prefer to leave this for future, whenever someone decides to make such a run.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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The amount of modes available from the start is also stunning. Technically we allow each mode to be published separately, but I don't particularly like the idea of having 20 branches for Meteos, per mode and per ending (whatever the actual number would be).
Simple mode is just some CPU battles with the ability to change some rules and planets. It is clearly uneligible for a branch. Deluge is a stamina mode, where the game ends when you fail. A "max out" (9 999 999) is theorically possible on every planet, but I feel like only one branch would be acceptable : "fastest max out". However we would need a verification movie for the unlocked planet if it is not a starter planet. Star Trip has 3 different modes, Straight, Branch and Multi. Straight is a series of 1v1 battles versus random planets with the exception of the player's planet. RNG manipulation would be important in this mode since every planet could be fought. It can be its own branch. Branch is like Straight but planets are pre-determined with their position, so some route can be faster than another one. It can also have it's own branch for fastest completion, regardless of the ending. Multi is a bit special in my opinion. Reaching the The Ascent ending (the true ending) unlocks Layazero so it is a special ending, the other endings not unlocking it. Furthermire, to reach True Meteo, you have to fight an additionnal fight compared to the other two endings, so if we have a single "fastest completion" branch of the Multi route, this movie is suboptimal for reaching the true ending. So for Multi we can have 2 branches : "Any Route" and "True Ending". And for Time War, there are 4 different modes, a 2-minute score attack, a 5-minute score attack, a 100 meteo sprint and a 1000 meteo sprint. Since they are all on different planets, maybe a TAS that clears all 4 with the highest score/fastest IGT could be accepted, but I'm not completely sure.
Extended input that's not present in the published movie but only in the encode is only allowed if this input is trivial for a publisher to execute. Since in this case it's not trivial, and also it increases the overall entertainment, having it in the primary movie makes the most sense to me. Arcade Tetris also has this.
Yeah that's fair, since it's not just an additional input to clear text boxes but a complete superplay. It's ok to have the movie file replaced by the one with the superplay.
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Taechuk wrote:
Deluge is a stamina mode, where the game ends when you fail. A "max out" (9 999 999) is theorically possible on every planet, but I feel like only one branch would be acceptable : "fastest max out". However we would need a verification movie for the unlocked planet if it is not a starter planet.
If that mode has no ending, we require playing all the new content that can appear and completing the most difficult variation/loop. Kill Screen is also allowed. http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#GamesWithoutClearEnding
Taechuk wrote:
Multi is a bit special in my opinion. Reaching the The Ascent ending (the true ending) unlocks Layazero so it is a special ending, the other endings not unlocking it.
You can unlock it differently ("Finish 1000 Meteo War in Time War in under 3:00"). Other endings unlock other things. I don't think that means special. Anyway, we only have a Best ending movie class, not Special ending.
| Anasaze Music      | Beat the branch route in Star Trip once.              |
| Cross Bomb         | See the secret ending in the straight route.          |
| Freaze Music       | See four endings in the branch route in Star Trip.    |
| Fury Hammer        | Clear Multi Route in Star Trip once.                  |
| Grannest           | Beat the straight route in Star Trip once.            |
| Able to fuse Meteo | See a total of 8 endings.                             |
| Vubble             | See all endings in the branch route of Star Trip.     |
Taechuk wrote:
Furthermire, to reach True Meteo, you have to fight an additionnal fight compared to the other two endings, so if we have a single "fastest completion" branch of the Multi route, this movie is suboptimal for reaching the true ending. So for Multi we can have 2 branches : "Any Route" and "True Ending".
I don't understand why it is suboptimal though.
Taechuk wrote:
And for Time War, there are 4 different modes, a 2-minute score attack, a 5-minute score attack, a 100 meteo sprint and a 1000 meteo sprint. Since they are all on different planets, maybe a TAS that clears all 4 with the highest score/fastest IGT could be accepted, but I'm not completely sure.
That would have to be entertaining enough and different enough from other branches to be published. http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#Moons_2
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Taechuk
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Anyway, we only have a Best ending movie class
Well it is pretty much the best ending and having an unlockable linked to it specially (even if not unique) seems good enough for me.
I don't understand why it is suboptimal though.
Because you have to play an additionnal fight, which easily adds 20 seconds at a minimum.
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That's just inherent to the goal, it doesn't mean it's sloppy (unless it's actually played sloppily).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Taechuk
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My argument was that if there was only a "fastest completion" on Multi, getting the true ending is suboptimal since it gets an additionnal fight. Of course, if we have both a "fastest completion" and "best ending", that problem is gone.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3968] DS Meteos "Multi Star Trip, best ending" by Taechuk in 06:50.39
Patashu
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Nice work! Finally Meteos has a TASVideos TAS.
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MarbleousDave
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That was awesome. Don't forget the next installment; Meteos: Disney Magic.