Emulator details

  • Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43v12 (beta 10)
  • Sync settings:
    • Use WIP 1 timing

Details on the run

  • Aims for Fastest Time
  • Uses Death as a Shortcut
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Played on Hardest Difficulty
  • Spins around

About the run

I seem to return to this when I'm bored with stuff, this time it is 173 frames faster than the old run. The reason I did it besides boredom was that I noticed an embarrassing mistake when watching the previous run, so I had to go fix it. This was not using the spreader on the first boss, I didn't do it last time because you got way to many points from the boss when killing it with that gun, but as long as the last shot is something else that doesn't matter, which I didn't think of at the time. I also somewhat underestimated its usefulness on level 2, and 4. Furthermore, last time I wasn't able to find position addresses for the overhead stages, but this time I managed to do so.

Improvements

Level 1 - Nothing. Switched homing missiles for the spread gun though.
Level 2 - 34 frames. The position addresses helped to make more sense of this level, both the overhead levels are completely ridiculous to optimize. This is pretty much purely from better movement and turns, I also got luckier at the end of the level and didn't have to wait in order to get a bomb.
Boss - 28 frames. Solely from using the spreader instead of the laser for the larger part of the battle.
Level 3 - Nothing.
Level 4 - 7 frames. One from not having to manipulate a frame in order to get a C from the first blimp, and the rest from dieing in a different way. The only possible way I see no make this level faster would be to get killed by the 4th bikes gunfire instead of the 5th, but if you do so you have to detonate the bomb earlier, and because of that, the last bike rider won't be able to kill (he will survive with a few hp left at best).
Level 5 - 36 frames. I found out that the first bug hole could be destroyed through the wall if you pressed up against it and had a good angle, this saved 5 frames or so. The rest is simply from moving around better through the level, and also destroying the last bug hole faster by shooting with the machine gun at it after the three Crush missiles has been fired.
Boss 2 - 69 frames saved. I noticed that the damage from the Crush missiles depended on when you fired it, from where and what angle and so forth. And it turned out that you could do a lot more damage to the boss with them if standing really close while still invincible (and delaying a frame sometimes, and moving around a little). This made the battle very hard do optimize. There where also a unfortunate side effect because of this. Since I had to be up close for the first half or so of the battle, it was not possible to manipulate the path the snake took very well. Basically whatever you did he would get around you in a half circle, or stop and cover the eye (because after the point where his path would not be affected very much by you moving, there where too little time left on the invincibility counter, so it was not possible to get on the other side of the snake and survive). Still this didn't cost much time, especially not in comparison with what was saved.
Level 6 - Nothing. I turned around on the same frame that I detonated the bomb and ended the movie, because for some reason an enemy popped up too early on the left side, making it impossible to get the extra life at the right moment. This didn't cost any time though.

mmbossman: Accepting as a dizzying improvement to the published run.
ShinyDoofy: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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Sir_VG
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Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
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Location: Floating Tower
It's faster then the current published run, and I see no mistakes. Easy yes vote for me.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
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Skilled player (1430)
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Ok
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Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
Thanks a lot! I didnt saw the previous TAS... so of course i sayd WTF a few times haha Very nice, yes vote, very fun how you can "warp" trought whole game, unexcepted!
Banned User
Joined: 8/2/2008
Posts: 420
Location: italy
I don't know why movies like this have to pass through the workbench, I'd insta-approve it without any doubt :) Very easy yes vote.
Gone.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I think I just figured out why the glitch occurs: when the game finishes fading out in a level, it checks to see if you have any lives left. If you do, it assumes that the fadeout was due to finishing the level; otherwise, you got a game over. Losing your last life starts a fadeout, then you gain a life -- voila! At least, this is my theory, not having examined the code for the game. Movie looked good; voting yes.
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Skilled player (1430)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Derakon wrote:
I think I just figured out why the glitch occurs: when the game finishes fading out in a level, it checks to see if you have any lives left. If you do, it assumes that the fadeout was due to finishing the level; otherwise, you got a game over. Losing your last life starts a fadeout, then you gain a life -- voila! At least, this is my theory, not having examined the code for the game.
That's the same theory I had (I wrote that in the video description on youtube to the run this one obsoletes).
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Player (88)
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
Great run man! Optimizing those top view levels sure are a pain. Doing it with 2 players is four times as fun, lol. Does anyone know, do the bosses have more HP when playing with 2 players? It sure seems like Cp was able to take out the level 2/5 bosses much quicker than I do in my run. Maybe the gun choice? or less lag?
They're off to find the hero of the day...
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Hey, there's hardly anything sing about in this run, reject. :P Honestly though, there isn't much to say aside from good job on the improvement. I like how you kept yourself centered on the second boss's eye despite how the AI works. I wonder if your fifth boss fight could be replicated to some extent in real time. Not like I'm going to try, I'm done with this game. Hero of the Day: Are you doing another 2-player TAS? If so, you might want to try out manipulating red brains against the final boss, using a bomb, and have both players shoot at it like crazy. I think the brains might be faster than the stones because there won't be anything blocking your way after you bomb the brains (the stones block shots). I was able to do equal (or nearly equal) damage in real time. I have no idea if bosses have more life in 2-player mode. P.S. I wonder if a run could skip all of the side-scrolling stages like this in real time. I have no idea how you would check your score though. :-/
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
yes vote for being faster than it's predecesor
mikwuyma wrote:
Hero of the Day: Are you doing another 2-player TAS? If so, you might want to try out manipulating red brains against the final boss, using a bomb, and have both players shoot at it like crazy. I think the brains might be faster than the stones because there won't be anything blocking your way after you bomb the brains (the stones block shots). I was able to do equal (or nearly equal) damage in real time.
as it's a TAS shouldn't he be able to shoot between the brains so he could avoid the lag created by the bomb or do they spin too fast ?(syncin' the missiles so they all pass in the spaces between )
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
Yes. Let's just move the line...
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Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
it's faster, and if the antics aren't more entertaining, they're at least as entertaining as the current run. a quick and easy yes.
Skilled player (1430)
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Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
hero of the day wrote:
Optimizing those top view levels sure are a pain. Doing it with 2 players is four times as fun, lol. Does anyone know, do the bosses have more HP when playing with 2 players? It sure seems like Cp was able to take out the level 2/5 bosses much quicker than I do in my run. Maybe the gun choice? or less lag?
The bosses have the same amount of hp. You do kill the second level boss in about 90 frames or so, IIRC I took ~110, I don't know about the 5th level boss, but we seemed to be about as fast there. Maybe double C isn't the fastest, perhaps it is better do have another weapon on the side. And it does lag a lot for you on those levels, so that could be it as well. But at least for the second level boss I' pretty sure it would be faster to have an S with both players, as you can fire it every second frame on the overhead stages (instead of every fourth), though the time saved might very well be lost from not having better weapons in other stages. Anyway, for the 2P overhead stages I was thinking that it might be possible to do one player at a time, and hex together the results, but I'm not sure of this because there seems to be a lot of randomness as far as enemy placement goes in these levels.
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Joined: 5/22/2004
Posts: 462
I vote no. I found the level-skipping glitch to be very un-entertaining. I was looking forward to seeing all levels of this game finished with ease. However, instead I saw the first 5 to 10 seconds of 4 stages and only got to see 2 stages in their entirety - and those were my 2 least favorite stages. Note: I didn't watch the previous run, so any improvement between the two runs is negligible.
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Dan_ wrote:
I vote no. I found the level-skipping glitch to be very un-entertaining. I was looking forward to seeing all levels of this game finished with ease. However, instead I saw the first 5 to 10 seconds of 4 stages and only got to see 2 stages in their entirety - and those were my 2 least favorite stages. Note: I didn't watch the previous run, so any improvement between the two runs is negligible.
There is a run that does that.... Anyway, great run, fantastic moves. I liked how you pick up the bomb the last second before moving on to the hovercycle level.
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Expert player (2578)
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Yes indeed! Great game, great run, but I wonder if there's a way to do this glitch with 2 players...
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Skilled player (1430)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Dooty wrote:
Yes indeed! Great game, great run, but I wonder if there's a way to do this glitch with 2 players...
I'm quite sure you can, but it would take longer to gather up enough points for both players to repeatedly do the skip than it would save to have two players on level 2 and 5 (these levels only take about 12 seconds from start to the last manhole getting destroyed, so at most having two players here would save 12 seconds in total, and maybe another 1-2 seconds on the bosses).
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Cpadolf wrote:
Dooty wrote:
Yes indeed! Great game, great run, but I wonder if there's a way to do this glitch with 2 players...
I'm quite sure you can, but it would take longer to gather up enough points for both players to repeatedly do the skip than it would save to have two players on level 2 and 5 (these levels only take about 12 seconds from start to the last manhole getting destroyed, so at most having two players here would save 12 seconds in total, and maybe another 1-2 seconds on the bosses).
why not first player only killing and getting points for the lifes, the second player would be then used only for the vertical stages and for the last skip, it would be the second player that would trigger the glitch (losing his last life & bomb for this) also nobody said that second player have to survive till the end... it would looks ugly but would be efficient
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Nicos wrote:
why not first player only killing and getting points for the lifes, the second player would be then used only for the vertical stages and for the last skip, it would be the second player that would trigger the glitch (losing his last life & bomb for this) also nobody said that second player have to survive till the end... it would looks ugly but would be efficient
In that case, you would have to kill of both players in the first level, but only give player one the kills, so to get in player two again in stage two you would have to commit suicide in stage two, then use a continiue. This alone probably costs more time than it saves in level two. this would also mean that you would not have any good weapons to finish of the manholes, and you would have two extra lives again so more suicides would be necessary. So that plan already fails at stage two. The only other thing you could do is to get enough points for both players in stage one, which would save some time later in stage two due to having both players, but this time would later be lost due to having to gather more points with player one later. Espcially if you would want player two for stage five as well.
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Cpadolf wrote:
Nicos wrote:
why not first player only killing and getting points for the lifes, the second player would be then used only for the vertical stages and for the last skip, it would be the second player that would trigger the glitch (losing his last life & bomb for this) also nobody said that second player have to survive till the end... it would looks ugly but would be efficient
In that case, you would have to kill of both players in the first level, but only give player one the kills, so to get in player two again in stage two you would have to commit suicide in stage two, then use a continiue. This alone probably costs more time than it saves in level two. this would also mean that you would not have any good weapons to finish of the manholes, and you would have two extra lives again so more suicides would be necessary. So that plan already fails at stage two. The only other thing you could do is to get enough points for both players in stage one, which would save some time later in stage two due to having both players, but this time would later be lost due to having to gather more points with player one later. Espcially if you would want player two for stage five as well.
ha i think i understood my mistake, you have to trigger a game over screen to alow the glitch so both player have to die ... but what happen if both players die at the same "glitch frame" but only player one get the life ?is the second player considered dead on the second level ?
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Nicos wrote:
but what happen if both players die at the same "glitch frame" but only player one get the life ?is the second player considered dead on the second level ?
Due to how the glitch works, I'm pretty sure he will be considered dead.
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Player (88)
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
mikwuyma, I am probably not going to make a new run anytime soon, though I am sure a few seconds can be shaved off the current run. I had redone the entire first stage, and managed to save time on the boss through lag reduction, but I lost motivation on the 2nd level. Unless player 1 and player 2 input and be played independent of each other and then hexed together, I have no idea how to make the overhead levels perfect. I realize you are probably correct, in that the stone attack is not the fastest for the final boss. It would definitely be worth looking into, if a new run is to be made by someone.
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Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
Cpadolf wrote:
Nicos wrote:
but what happen if both players die at the same "glitch frame" but only player one get the life ?is the second player considered dead on the second level ?
Due to how the glitch works, I'm pretty sure he will be considered dead.
and if both player trigger trigger the glitch ?
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Nicos wrote:
and if both player trigger trigger the glitch ?
Nothing special should happen. If you die with both players and one gets an extra life, you'll get to the next level with that player, if both players die and both gets an extra life, you'll get to the next level with both players.
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