Run Saber (SNES) beaten in 53670 frames, 14min 54.50sec
Run Saber is a pretty blatant rip-off of Strider, by Horisoft. It's still a lot of fun for that. Basic plot is that aliens have taken over the Earth, and the Run Sabers, two genetically enhanced soldiers, are the planet's only hope. This TAS, using Alow (the male Run Saber) clears the game in 14min 54.50sec, with input ending at frame 53670 and the final hit connecting 3 frames after.
This is an improvement of 1290 frames over my previous submission, which you can see here.
Abuses programming errors (funky hit detection in some areas)
Recorded using ZSNES 1.51. Significant options:
New Graphics Engine Disabled
Windowing Enabled
Offset Mode Enabled
All the stages are the same concept (Get from Point A to Point B, kill or avoid everything in your way) so there's no need to discuss them.
Future optimization possibilities:
Use two players? I don't see this helping too much.
Use bombs? Very doubtful; they take 300 frames to execute and you can't do anything during.
Take damage to save time? Also doubtful; hit-stun is pretty long.
Go for pure speed on bosses, never mind entertainment?
Jump from ledges instead of walking/sliding off more often?
Stage by stage optimization possibilities:
Stage 1 (Taj Base):
Nothing comes to mind
Stage 2 (Tong City)
Nothing comes to mind
Stage 3 (Jodvalley)
Better manipulation of enemy placement over the spike pit and vines early in the stage
Stage 4 (Grey Fac)
Nothing comes to mind
Stage 5 (Bruford)
Get the last hit on Red Saber while he's on the ground. (?) (See below)
Things Which May Look Like Mistakes But Aren't:
Stage 2:
Killing the two Cloud Surfers right before the boss. At this point, the screen had to be clear of enemies before it would scroll to the boss.
Stage 3:
Killing the Iron Lizard near the middle of the stage. There was no other way around him without taking damage.
Stage 4:
Killing the three Mutant Engines before the Iron Knight. I couldn't get them to scroll offscreen, and the screen needed to be clear of enemies before Iron Knight would spawn.
Stage 5:
Stalling the last hit on Flaming Orb Head. He doesn't begin exploding until he hits ground, so waiting until he was over the protrusion on the left made sure he exploded as early as possible.
Getting the last hit on Red Saber while he was still airborne. When I fought him and got the last hit on the ground, the Abomination's attack pattern wasn't as conducive to killing it quickly.
Thanks to:
Dromiceius, who pointed out that you can dash
Dyce, for his Run Saber FAQ on GameFAQs
VolcanoStormWind, who pointed out that you can dash along ceilings
Nach, for updating the ZMV checking script for ZSNES 1.51
Everyone who offered critique in the Run Saber thread in the SNES forum
BoltR: After double checking the situation with Bisqwit, i'm accepting this run for publication
Solon: Nach seems to think it's significant to playing the ZMV, so here's my sound settings.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
ZSNES? Wow... I didn't know it was already working.
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It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
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functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
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Bisqwit wrote:
It wasn't working for me, either. It was working before, so I was more than a little annoyed to have to deal with this schizophrenic behavior all over again.
My solution: 1) put the ZMV in the ROM folder. 2) delete ZSNES.CFG/ZSNESW.CFG. The default config worked where my old config failed.
Simple as... well, it's about as "simple" as planting a hot dog tree in your backyard, but it works.
I look forward to seeing the movie, but it's going to have to wait till tonight.
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
The movie played fine for me up until the 4th stage boss, and then desync. It seemed to be well played, and was fairly entertaining up to that point. I'll vote yes.
I am sure this run would have gotten more attention if Snes9x was used. ZSNES has better emulation quality, but for TAS making/playback it is a pain. A shame really.
I am sure this run would have gotten more attention if Snes9x was used.
Indeed it would have, I was about to download it a few days abo but I'm not ready to go through the hassel of ZSNES movie playback.
Take this as a note for future projects.
Well. I was finally able to watch almost the full first two stages, until it desynched on the final stage 2 boss.
I voted yes, because it looked very well done.
Finally I get this movie to work and I am voting Yes now. Thanks to Dromiceius, I've solved two emulation problems caused by old configuration files!
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Still working on Google Videoing it (I have really bad upstream) but Nach mentioned at the ZSNES forums that differing sound rates between users might be a cause of desyncing, and I always set my rate to 44.1 KhZ (it defaults to 22.05, I think); could someone try this out?
I watched entirely through your new version of this Run Saber TAS, and one word comes to mind : Amazing!
Because it's better than I could dream of for a TAS this game, and I did already see your first try at it. I put a yes vote for all your great precision and all your efforts to be entertaining, like those mad "very fast saber-hit left then right" near the end :D.
And about the desyncs problems, you don't have to bother encoding and uploading a video, because I already did so and put it on FileFront on my account here ( http://hosted.filefront.com/VolcanStormWind ). I hope it helps, and I can tell you that you did the most well-made version possible for a TAS of this game.
I downloaded Zsnes and tried to like it, but failed. :/ Movie name must be the same as ROM name? And they must be in the same directory? What the... that makes it impossible to have order whatsoever of your files.
The movie also desynched on fourth (I think) boss. Although they probably exist somewhere, I can't find fast forward, show input, and frame count...
Honestly I see don't why we should accept movies in this format. It should at the very least be deprecated.
----
Enough about that. About this movie: to me it looks unoptimized throughout. Perhaps this is just how the game works. But there are noticeable delays between boss hits. And do all attacks do the same amount of damage?
You mentioned 2player mode, and that this wouldn't help. I think it would at least help in the entertainment area, but probably also timewise (unless there's something I'm really missing). You would only have to stop half as often to kill enemies and could score faster hits on some bosses.
I was able to play back the movie. I like the action, so voting yes.
It sometimes desyncs, sometimes not. I found out that it is less likely to desync if turbo is not used excessively.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
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Joined: 11/3/2004
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Well, I had the same desync problems. For me it was the level four boss I think.
The boss fights that I did see were highly dubious. Often there is time between when the boss gets done blinking and when you attack him again. Many of these times it looked like you could have easily hit him sooner.
As far as the entertainment value of the game, I'd say it is pretty decent. A good quality run certainly be publish worthy.
I highly question the use of ZSNES though. Seems to be a fine emulator for playing but lacks some really crucial tools/features/customizability required to make optimized TASes. Things like the inability to choose the name & location of movie files, frame display, input display, memory viewing.
Unless I can get the movie to sync to the end, I can't make a decision on this run.
Well I finally got around to try attempting to watch it (sorry it took so long Truncated), and actually managed to get it to play all the way through.
There was a few things that stuck out to me though as what might be poor optimization:
Why do you sometimes do the jump kick going downwards and sometimes just fall normally? (Level 1 comes to mind especially)
In the level where you were running along top of buildings, near the end of one of the sections, there was a jet of fire that shot straight upwards. It looked like you tried to jump over it and then realized you couldn't, so instead you used that spinning move and went through it. As a result, you needed to wait to land before jumping again. Why not just use the small jump here?
On quite a few bosses it doesn't look/feel like you are hitting it as fast as possible. The brain(?) boss while you were riding the jet and the guy with the red saber stick out in my mind most right now. Against the jet most of the time you hit it while it's off the screen, but one (or two?) hits are delivered after it gets back onto the screen knocking it off again.
As for the red saber guy, he is kept flashing from invincibility for most of the fight. However, there are a few times that he stopped flashing between hits for a frame or two.
During the elevator climbs in the last level, it seemed as though you weren't 'prepared' for the screen to start scrolling right the first time, and as a result you weren't moving or next to the right hand side of the screen when the scrolling started. Is this an artifact of the game, or are my eyes fooling me?
There are probably more small niggling things which I am forgetting, and while it doesn't look like the most tightly optimized TAS (as adelikat said, maybe it's because of zsnes), there is nothing too offensively wrong with it. However, as it's done with zsnes I would like to bug Bisqwit about how to handle it before actually changing anything with the submission.
Why do you sometimes do the jump kick going downwards and sometimes just fall normally? (Level 1 comes to mind especially)
No particular reason, just felt like changing it up.
In the level where you were running along top of buildings, near the end of one of the sections, there was a jet of fire that shot straight upwards. It looked like you tried to jump over it and then realized you couldn't, so instead you used that spinning move and went through it. As a result, you needed to wait to land before jumping again. Why not just use the small jump here?
I just checked that, and trying to spin-jump through it results in getting hit. I'm pretty sure I was able to get over it because either A, going into the spin shrinks your hitbox; or B, I just got lucky.
On quite a few bosses it doesn't look/feel like you are hitting it as fast as possible. The brain(?) boss while you were riding the jet and the guy with the red saber stick out in my mind most right now. Against the jet most of the time you hit it while it's off the screen, but one (or two?) hits are delivered after it gets back onto the screen knocking it off again.
As for the red saber guy, he is kept flashing from invincibility for most of the fight. However, there are a few times that he stopped flashing between hits for a frame or two.
The fight against the jet's brain was pretty weird...it seemed to have varying invulnerability-cooldown times.
As for the Red Saber fights, I was concentrating on making those look cool, and sacrificed a bit of speed in the process. I'd guess I didn't lose more than a second or so.
During the elevator climbs in the last level, it seemed as though you weren't 'prepared' for the screen to start scrolling right the first time, and as a result you weren't moving or next to the right hand side of the screen when the scrolling started. Is this an artifact of the game, or are my eyes fooling me?
I'm pretty sure the screen scrolls at the same rate no matter where on it you are, so if I'd been all the way to the right when it started, I'd've had to get all the way over on the next set of elevators to get the screen to scroll all the way, which would mean taking time to get back to the left.
I do appreciate the critique and that you watched the run; I'm not sure if I'll do another run (working full time is really hard when you're not used to it) but you're certainly giving me a lot to think about in case I do.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Can you please post your full sound options you used when recording this movie? Rate, Filtering, Low Pass, etc...
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I thought that these games which look great as screen captures but where the character animation sucks big time were exclusive to the genesis, but it seems that the snes isn't free of them either.
