I'm glad to present you my TAS of Sky Blazer for SNES.
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- No passwords used
- Manipulates luck
- Genre: Platformer
Should work with any version of Snes9x.
Check WIP1 timing & Sync samples with sound CPU.
It took me quite a while making this TAS. This is my second submission of Sky Blazer. I cancelled the first one because I found glitches I had missed before. Certainly wasn't easy as this was my first real attempt at a TAS, and there doesn't exist a movie of the game anywhere. Anyway, I'm glad the way this movie turned out to look like.
The Game
Just an ordinary platformer with a Megaman-plot. First you fight a bunch of bosses to steal their weapons, then you fight them again and then, finally, the bad guy himself. You can somewhat choose the order of stages, but there's no need to change the one that is fastest to travel on map.
Gameplay & Glitches
The gameplay in general may look confusing for the viewer, since the fastest way to move is "zipjumping". By chrouching, punching and jumping, the jump starts a few pixels inside floor. Then pressing left for one frame, it zips me a few pixels to the right. This cannot be done always, hence I don't always do as low jump as possible. In later stages I start zipping longer distances too. But longer zipping in this game is possible only to left and up. Can't zip right or down. If it could be done to any direction, this run would get a lot faster, since it's possible to zip through floor, wall or even ceiling.
Also the texts are done as fast as possible, even if it may not look like it.
Stages in details
Intro stage:
I've redone this stage numerous times because I kept finding glitches that make me start all over again. I simply zipjump as much as possible, nothing much else to say really.
Faltine's woods:
Same as in intro stage. Zipjumping.
Temple Infernus:
I obviously take the shortcut since it's faster. But it doesn't feel fast enough so I force another shortcut through the wall.
The boss fight is improvable by jumping closer to the center. I tried to hex-edit it but unfortunately it desynced later.
Cliffs of Peril:
Autoscroller.
Tower of the Tarolisk:
Personally I like this stage a lot, and I spent a lot time TASing it. Every room is done quite fast, and it's more pleasing moving vertically.
The moving wall offers a lot of glitchy action, but again it's faster to just zip inside the wall.
Petrolith Castle:
This is the black sheep of the run in my opinion. It may not look bad with all the iceblock-riding and moving wall -ownage, but I was very unfortunate with luck manipulation. What enemies drop depends on the frame it's killed, so sometimes it might take like two seconds to get what I want. Panthers and the water thingies didn't co-operate in they I wanted them to.
The Falls of Torment:
I just dash through this mini-stage. Had to watch out for the water drops a bit because they cancel the comet flash.
Lair of Kharyon:
Usually I dislike water levels, but this one is nice when TASed. I was fortunate with luck manipulation, and yet again I took the shortcut and created yet another one through the wall.
The Sand Rivers of Shirol:
Long name for a short stage. I'm supposed to use logs and stuff that come down the waterfall. But I like dashing better.
Gateway of Eternal Storms:
Yet another mini-stage. Got a nice knockback boost from the first enemy to reach the top of cube. Other than that, nothing too special. A bit laggy for my taste though.
Storm Fortress of Kh'lar:
Winds as platforms, who would've thought of that! Also disables zipjumping (thank god). I tried to catch as much boosting winds as possible. Quite a lot of dashing here. The boss normally disappears before it can be hit, but it's possible to jump in the air the very first frame of gaining control. Thus, ownage is to take place.
Fortress Shirol:
Autoscroller.
Mt. Shirol/Caverns of Shirol:
I guess this is what happens when the game designers can't come up with a name for the stage.
One of the only places where I can properly zip left. Too bad games tend to scroll right more often.
Although punching doesnt do much damage, this way I can get the most hits at the boss before it goes invulnerable again.
Dragonhill Forest:
Done fast. I didn't know of the shortcut before I accidentally entered it. My old submission went the longer way. :p
The Great Tower:
I zip quite a large part of the first room. The room with moving wall is a glitchfest as always. In the elevator room I got a bit unlucky. If I don't kill the enemies fast enough, I can't get whatever they drop since the screen scrolls up. Also I can't enter the wall to reach the door faster, because the floor isn't willing to co-operate with me. The boss is wtfpwned as usually.
Raglan's Citadel:
Final stage. Starts with an auto-scroller, follows with refights and ends with the bad guys getting killed.
Most of the bosses are beaten quickly as Phoenix, but Tarolisk boss just needs 7 hits from whatever source.
I dash through the refill-room when I can.
Not much more to say, bosses done fast and easily.
Suggested screenshot: frame 17064
I hope you enjoy the TAS!
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots
of this movie and placed them here.
Oh! I also corrected the ROM name.
- You indicated
Sky_Blazer_(U)(12134).smc
- I updated it to
Sky Blazer (Beta2).smc
mmbossman: Great movie. My only gripe comes from the fact that you didn't use the (U[!] ROM that is available, but the entertainment value of this run far outweighs that fact. However, any attempt at improving this run needs to use the (U[!] version, or risks outright rejection. With that said, accepting this for publication.
Indeed, there were many entertaining moments and the action felt fresh.
Maybe I missed some detail, but couldn't it have been faster to use the Star Fire as the final hit in the "wall boss" refight? Now you used Comet Flash and it seemed that the three targets got hit in sequence as opposed to the possibility of hitting them simultaneously with Star Fire.
