Various details
  • Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43v9
  • Sync settings: Use WIP1 timing
Detils of the run:
  • Any% item collection
  • Aims for lowest ingame time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Suggested screenshot:
91931 or 112962
About the movie
This is a Any% TAS of Super Metroid, the aim for the movie is lowest possible ingame time thus some realtime sacrifices are made to lower ingame time such as collecting certain items and using a route with more door entry's. The movie is 1477 frames or 24.6 seconds slower in realtime then the currently published any% run which aims for realtime but it is 5271 frames or 87.5 seconds faster in ingame time. The ingame endtime is 24:04:37 and item collection is 22%.
The reason why I choose to aim for the lowest ingame time is because in my opinion it is a little more entertaining to watch both because of the route and more variety in item use. The majority of the improvement came from the route change and the troizo skip, the rest simply comes from new strategies and optimization. It was hard to make this TAS, especially since it is my first one (aside from 3 other "test TASes" I made of this game before this) and Super Metroid is known to be quite a hard game to TAS. Without the help of other released TASes which more in depth learned me the uses of various tricks I would not have been able to make this.
There is (I think) a good chance this movie will not be accepted because I put a higher priority on ingame time then realtime but if that is the case I still hope that as many as possible will be able to enjoy it through SMV anyway.
Thanks to various persons (in no particular order)
Tonski: He was the one whos WIP's made me want to TAS this game, and he has always supported me.
Hero of the day: Have since the release of my first test TAS provided me with tips and help.
Moozooh: His two WIPs and his discovery of the torizo skip helped me alot.
JXQ: I used many strategies from his 100% run.
Saturn: Has invented many tricks which i have used, the shortest charge for an example.
Michale flately: The inventor of many tricks, the armpump and phantoon 1 round most notably.
Terimakashi: He raised the standard for SM TASes and his 00:27 TAS was what first made me interested in TASing.
Frenom: The first (from what i know) SM TASer.
Everyone (I don't know them all by name) who have produced and improved the tools that I have used, the memory watcher and all the snes9x improvements.
White Angel for having a godlike patience with me playing SM all the time.
Everyone whom I have forgotten are also Thanked, contact me if you feel that you deserve to be thanked.

Truncated: I think it is unfortunate that this movie aims for in-game time instead of real time. It cannot be published along with the current any%, because I do not think real/in-game time should be a valid differentiation between runs of the same game.
Therefore we are reinstating an old tradition at nes...tasvideos, to not publish an AVI or make a separate entry for a movie, but to link it from the current entry in emulator movie format only. Like I said to moozooh, don't think of it as a rejection, think of it as a non-publication.

Bisqwit: Setting the state to "cancelled" instead of "published" for technical and consistency reasons. It will still continue to be linked from the publication of that other movie.

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Warp wrote:
I envision future arguments of the type "hey, that supermetroid video was published, why not this one?"
http://tasvideos.org/136M.html http://tasvideos.org/146M.html http://tasvideos.org/165M.html http://tasvideos.org/245M.html http://tasvideos.org/249M.html http://tasvideos.org/265M.html http://tasvideos.org/311M.html "Hey, those Super Metroid videos were published, why not this one?"
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
P.JBoy
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btw. for all the people who favour less door transitions, Hero's has ~184 and Cpadolf's has ~211, a difference of about ~27 door transitions, ~1/7 more
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Now there's an idea for a supermetroid goal: Complete the game with the least amount of door transitions. :P
P.JBoy
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Warp wrote:
Now there's an idea for a supermetroid goal: Complete the game with the least amount of door transitions. :P
I SUPPORT THIS IDEA :P
Player (88)
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
Though I know you guys are just kidding around, a minimal door route would actually be almost identical to my route. The only exceptions would be that I would not collect the spazer, the wave, or the icebeam, and thus cut out only about 7 door transitions. Not collecting those 3 beams would tack on about 7 minutes to the entire run :P
They're off to find the hero of the day...
P.JBoy
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What if you dispose of Spazer and Wave and just get Plasma, a charged Ice+Plasma is twice as powerful as a charged Ice+Spazer+Wave anyway
Joined: 8/7/2006
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Plasma is not on his route.
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P.JBoy wrote:
What if you dispose of Spazer and Wave and just get Plasma, a charged Ice+Plasma is twice as powerful as a charged Ice+Spazer+Wave anyway
Wave needed for a gazillion of speed tricks, Plasma only for two bosses.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
P.JBoy
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moozooh wrote:
Wave needed for a gazillion of speed tricks
Like what?
Player (88)
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Posts: 1057
Location: United States
P.JBoy, Like ShadowWraith said, it is not in my route. It is totally unfeasible to collect the plasma beam at all. The ~15 door transitions it takes to collect it is more than the slower spazer MB fight. Collecting Plasma also makes Ridley the last boss to fight instead of Draygon. I've done an absurd amount of tests, I am 99% sure that my route is the fastest possible route for real time. Almost 8 months have passed, and I have not even thought of a single thing to change in the route. The items collected will be the same, and the rooms will all be traveled in the same order. I am always open to hear other people's suggestions.
They're off to find the hero of the day...
P.JBoy
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I'm gonna remember you said that when you finally come to change your route
Player (88)
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hahaha :P Not gonna happen. If you want me to change it you need to provide cold hard numbers proving your claims. If I collect plasma, I would be going for in-game time. I don't go for in-game time.
They're off to find the hero of the day...
P.JBoy
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hero of the day wrote:
If I collect plasma, I would be going for in-game time. I don't go for in-game time.
That's like saying "If I wanted to buy this apple (in some game), I'd be using in-game money. I don't use in-game money." :P
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P.JBoy wrote:
Like what?
Pre-Draygon spark and big metroid skip to name a few, not to mention the general convenience of being able to hit targets through obstacles.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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moozooh wrote:
not to mention the general convenience of being able to hit targets through obstacles.
Nitpicking, but I thought TASing is not about what's more "convenient" but what is fastest. Of course in this case they may be the same thing. :P
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Warp wrote:
Nitpicking, but I thought TASing is not about what's more "convenient" but what is fastest. Of course in this case they may be the same thing. :P
Convenience in sense of doing that without numerous slowdowns to position yourself on a straight line of fire.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Player (88)
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
P.JBoy, the reason I said that is because it is indeed faster to collect the plasma beam for in-game time. If I was aiming for in-game time I would have collected it. If you don't believe me, just count the realtime frames if takes for Cpadolf to collect the plasma beam. My statement is true, collect the plasma = going for in-game time, don't collect the plasma = going for real time.
They're off to find the hero of the day...
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Posts: 2
Warp wrote:
I'm just not completely sure about the sensibility of the goal of the movie which, if I haven't understood completely wrongly, seems to be some kind of mix between minimizing the game's internal timer and real-time, without really perfecting either. The actual goal seems a bit undefined.
I don't post here much, but I disagree that the run has an "undefined goal." The goal is to complete the game as fast as possible (ingame time) with a reasonable amount of delays due to pause screens.
Bisqwit wrote:
*) I don't count numbers as entertainment. I only care about the audiovisual performance.
By this, the more optimized run should be more entertaining and this run is more optimized than hero's.
moozooh wrote:
1) it's faster than the current published one where they are directly comparable (by about 30 seconds overall, no matter ingame or realtime)
I also think that whichever is currently published (realtime or ingame time), in the submission, there should be a link to the smv of the previous publication of the run aiming for the other goal. Just my opinion.
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Vivi57 wrote:
I don't post here much, but I disagree that the run has an "undefined goal." The goal is to complete the game as fast as possible (ingame time) with a reasonable amount of delays due to pause screens.
That "reasonable" is precisely what makes the goal undefined. How do you define "reasonable"? One difficulty this imposes is to decide what kind of movie could perhaps obsolete this one. If someone submits a movie with a shorter in-game timer completion but longer real-time completion, would it be acceptable? If yes, how much longer in real-time can it be before it becomes unacceptable? What if it's the other way around, ie. shorter real-time completion but longer in-game completion? Acceptable? Not acceptable? If acceptable, how much is too much? If the answer is that it's left to the judges to decide, then it means that there's no clear, well-defined goal in the run, but it's just a performance which is estimated by a panel of judges on a "feels better/worse" basis.
Player (209)
Joined: 2/18/2005
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This is a great and very well optimized run. You did a great job for your first serious TAS, Cpadolf. I'm really impressed. I especially liked to see the optimized early PB/glitch through ceiling tech in the LN spike room during the escape, which was spoiled by hero. You also are entertaining during waiting scenes. I still think it's best to publish both runs alongside each other, because they aim for completely different goals. As suggested before, it would at least fit in the "concept demo" section. I liked this run and vote yes, provided it won't obsolete heros run.
Warp wrote:
That "reasonable" is precisely what makes the goal undefined. How do you define "reasonable"? One difficulty this imposes is to decide what kind of movie could perhaps obsolete this one. If someone submits a movie with a shorter in-game timer completion but longer real-time completion, would it be acceptable? If yes, how much longer in real-time can it be before it becomes unacceptable? What if it's the other way around, ie. shorter real-time completion but longer in-game completion? Acceptable? Not acceptable? If acceptable, how much is too much?
Very good point, actually. Since I work on the same kind of run, I want to tell you my goal, which I think is pretty solid and definable: Here are the priorities I'm aiming for in such a run, sorted by importance: 1. Getting a 0:23 completion time (impossible to reach by aiming for realtime only) 2. Getting fastest possible escape times in Ceres and Zebes to set a universal record that is easy to see on any emulator 3. Collecting all the important items that give variety, increase entertainment and speed up the actual playthrough on cost of some realtime delays (HJ-Boots, Space Jump, Plasma etc.) 4. Avoid the Pause screen completely (possible due to point 3) So to answer your question of which run will absolete the other, I would take the lowest possible realtime run that still gets 0:23 and meets the above conditions. Pretty clear goal, isn't it?
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
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Saturn wrote:
4. Avoid the Pause screen completely (possible due to point 3)
If avoiding the pause screen saves time (real-time), then that goal is a bit moot, isn't it? Anything that saves time should be an *implicit* goal to aim for, without having to explicitly state it, IMO. It would be a bit like saying "one of the goals of this run is to not to stop for no reason, which would waste time". That's not really a *goal*, it's a self-evident tactic to make the run shorter and doesn't really need to be specified explicitly. If, however, avoiding the pause screen actually makes the run longer (in real-time) and it's done just for the sake of "avoiding the pause screen", then it sounds like an artificial goal, which I think the rules speak against. There's no big value in a "goal" like that. It doesn't really add to the run. (If avoiding the pause screen made absolutely no difference in the length of the movie, then it would be a curiosity, and I suppose it would be just ok. However, I believe that's not the case here?)
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It was done because excessive use of the pause screen is only a very minor in-game time gain and also very unentertaining. (Two pause screens to de-equip/re-equip High-jump Boots for a 3 second room, for example.)
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IMHO if using the pause screen a few times can make the run shorter (in real-time) then it's not annoying at all. It would bother me more that the run would be longer just because the pause screen was avoided. But whatever.
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Ok I'll explain why the pause screen abuse should be avoided. If no restrictions for the pause screen existed then it could be used surely upwards to 50-100 times in a run, this would make it maybe 30 frames-1 second faster ingame time and several minutes longer in realtime plus removing a lot of entertainment since each pause screen results in a 3-4 sedond break in the action. Thus I think it's a good goal to avoid the pausescreen. EDIT: Also Saturn, now that you have seen this what ingame time do you think you would be able to achive (given that nothing new will be discovered)
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
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Well, using the pause screen makes the video longer. Thus it's logical that it should be avoided. As I said, a self-evident thing, isn't it?-)
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