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At last, it's finally over. After about a week of obsessive TASing (really, I didn't stopped this in the whole week except Sunday), here it is, my Wonder Boy in Monster Land movie.
This game is about a lad and his quest to save Monster Land from... well... monsters. Vicious monsters, taking orders from Meka (Mecha?) Dragon. This game is originally an arcade game, and was ported and cloned to several systems, like every Wonder Boy title (except Monster World 4). The main difference about this version and the others are the gigantic HUD in arcade/pc engine version, so big it consumes most of the screen, making the game screen itself way smaller, fewer musics and a new boss.
I love this series, so I tried to do a run of any game. And... That's it.

About the movie:

  • recorded on Dega (rerecording) Version 1.15
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Take damage to save time
  • (ab)uses luck manipulation
  • contains two minor Speed/Entertainment tradeoffs.
  • besides that, aims for fastest time

General comments:

About game physics

  • Walking is a pain. The hero seems to always walk in slippery grounds, and it's very frustrating to make him turn as fast as possible, for example.
  • Every monster have HUGE hitboxes, so most of the time you don't have much room to maneuver. At least, it's easier to hit the bosses, except the blue-flying-thing and the final boss (oh joy).
  • This game contains damage boost. Although it isn't faster than level-2 boots, at least can be used as an extra jump, and its easier to pass by some enemies.
  • You can't control the jump height. You can (partially) control its direction after-jump, but you can't control its height.
  • There's two ways of finishing a level: opening a door locked with a key (almost always provided by the boss) or killing the boss.
  • Jumping is faster than falling. What's why sometimes I land just to jump again.

About the Speed/Entertainment tradeoffs

  • I fought the SMS-exclusive boss. He gives you 10 thunderbolts, a magic that can hit everyone in the screen, and causes lots of damage for some enemies (including the final boss). I'M NOT SURE if making this choice makes the movie longer.
  • In some rooms, it would be faster to just walk above the ceiling, like Super Mario Bros' 1-2. It is avoided.

Equipment and items

  • You have 4 kinds of gear for your hero: Armor, shield, boots and sword, with 4 or 5 different power levels. Besides the sword, you can buy (or, in some very rare ocasions, get from a enemy) in shops.
  • There's a catch in the shopping system: All shops only sell 2 items per visit. To get the last one, you must buy the second one.
  • I only buy/get the boots, since they make the hero's movements faster and the jumps higher. This is the reason why almost all attacks in the second half of the game cost me half my energy bar, since I didn't bought the armor.
  • I also use the following items: gauntlets (gives a power boost), cloak (makes you invincible for a time) and flying shoes (makes you float).
  • To get a sword, you must defeat a boss.

Luck manipulation

  • I tried to get the best possible outcome from getting coins/bags of money
  • The crabs, the small knights and that strange enemy that keeps himself buried can give you gauntlets, cloaks, magic and other items
  • the "octopus" can give me almost everything except keys. Including the level 3 shoes =p

Programming errors

Probably unique to the SMS version, if you press left and right at the same time when you jump some wild things can happen. It must be noted that you must jump, not fall, to make this glitch work.
  • ignore collision detection from platforms/floor, making you fall as far as the edge of the screen; When you get to the bottom, depending of the stage, can make you:
    • reappear at the top of the screen
    • warp to the next/previous room
  • Losing all your hearts at once touching an enemy
  • No flinching when you get hit by an enemy projectile
  • Literally ignore death; as long as you don't get hit while you got no hearts without using this glitch, you're alive.
...and that's it I believe I covered pretty much everything here. Hope you like it =)

Special Tanks:

  • Xebra, for his submission. It helped me a LOT, specially with luck manipulation questions
  • AngerFist and alden, for feedback
  • The admins, for...administrating... stuff. And making the site go up and above.
  • and you! thanks for playing!

Aaand I canceled. See the thread for details.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2334: OmegaWatcher's SMS Wonder Boy in Monster Land in 11:47.23
Twisted_Eye
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This is very far from optimized, so it shouldn't be published. However, you had a lot of great ideas and techniques. The lack of optimization made this difficult to watch. For example, after killing the Sphinx, you let a coin bounce over your head, forcing you to turn around and get it, then get back to grabbing the others before the stage can finish. These kinds of little things can be seen throughout the run, especially following that same battle, the next town part looks improvable. I love this game, and love that a TAS has been submitted. The glitch is fun, too--in your text, you said that you chose not to run along the top of rooms when possible using the glitch, when, really, you should use it because it's infrequent enough that the spectacle of just running along the top would not get old--provided that it's actually faster to go that way, of course. I like what you did here! It just needs a little polish and I think you've got it good.
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Ï agree with Twisted Eye mostly. You have what could be an interesting movie, but it looks improvable here and there. For example: - you end the game with 180 gold, yet seemingly spend time collecting gold after your last purchase - in the final castle you inexplicably land on a ledge while falling down, just to jump off it and continue down - boss hits do not always seem to be properly timed - jumps to get swords/keys from monsters have different timing (but maybe they become grabable (?) after a certain time? - you jump through the floor in the boss fight sometimes, why not use this to pick up the gold/sword/key as it appears?
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Twisted Eye wrote:
in your text, you said that you chose not to run along the top of rooms when possible using the glitch, when, really, you should use it because it's infrequent enough that the spectacle of just running along the top would not get old--provided that it's actually faster to go that way, of course.
It's not that infrequent, it can be used in all castles and a lot of the overworld, using the clouds. It's like Tails flying the stage. Anyway =p
Truncated wrote:
- in the final castle you inexplicably land on a ledge while falling down, just to jump off it and continue down
Jumping is way faster than falling
Truncated wrote:
- boss hits do not always seem to be properly timed
What do you mean?
Truncated wrote:
- you end the game with 180 gold, yet seemingly spend time collecting gold after your last purchase
I only collect gold it is needed. The castle's bosses don't give keys, yet you must get all coins
Truncated wrote:
- jumps to get swords/keys from monsters have different timing (but maybe they become grabable (?) after a certain time? - you jump through the floor in the boss fight sometimes, why not use this to pick up the gold/sword/key as it appears?
Yes, exactly. I can't get any item (including swords, gauntlets, gold, magic) as soon as they appear on-screen, I have to wait a little longer. If I jump too early, I'll "touch" the item, but I'll not get it.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ
Zucca
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Can someone encode this and upload to omploader.org for example? I've seen a speedrun of this game but never a tool-assisted one before. And yes... I've been waiting for this tas!
trazz wrote:
Killing the skeletons sooner or letting the skeletons live (unlive?) won't affect that at all.
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Well, I thought it was cool... sounds like another playthrough/optimization might be in order though :) I'd encode but I don't think windows dega makes avi's.
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
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alden, the windows build does create avi files by now. Check the WIP section on http://www.pcc.me.uk/~peter/dega/ and feel free to dig yourself through it.
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Zucca: Dirty encode - it ends 30 seconds after the input does. Nevermind, it desynced. That's the great thing when encoding over ssh and uploading before actually watching the result...
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ShinyDoofy wrote:
alden, the windows build does create avi files by now. Check the WIP section on http://www.pcc.me.uk/~peter/dega/ and feel free to dig yourself through it.
Hey, that's pretty sweet. Didn't know that that had been added. I pretty much assumed you couldn't do it because there's no record avi button. EDIT: Seems I was off topic too
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Well, I was able to compile this (required a bunch of fancy programs that made me feel like a hax0r :P ) but alas, when I run it it give a mysterious error. Thanks ShinyDoofy for trying to help me on irc! Maybe I'll try again sometime, apparently this version also supports good Game Gear emulation/recording. Sorry, that was a little off topic...
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
Ok. I redid this movie. I believe it's far better this time. I'm canceling this and I'll submit this one later (or would be better to post it in the WIP's forum before submitting?). I followed Truncated's idea of jumping through the floor in the boss as the coin appears, and I walk in some (2) ceilings this time =p
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... crunchy!
Zucca
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I'm looking forward to it. :)
trazz wrote:
Killing the skeletons sooner or letting the skeletons live (unlive?) won't affect that at all.