Post subject: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (any% or 100%)
Joined: 2/24/2009
Posts: 21
Two things before you start reading: 1. I type a lot 2. I haven't tested the game much with the emulator as of this post I had a route for Spyro 2 for several years now which was posted on SDA and has been optimized by me and various others over the years. I figure that, since there is not even a SINGLE Spyro TAS run on the site (though it has been discussed often), this might be a good start to a bigger speed run future for Spyro. In my opinion, if the series was more popular, Spyro would make for a VERY competitive game to run because of the crazy amount of possible gem routes, especially for 100% runs. Anyways. The only testing I have done with this game on an emulator was for only about 30 minutes. Currently, a friend is borrowing my copy of the game, but when I get it back (tomorrow or the following day), I will test it out more thoroughly. The only thing that might hold me back is technical issues with the emulator. The route is pretty simple. The run will mainly be me getting all of the talisman throughout each level. There is no way to skip this step. You can skip to Autumn Plains without getting a single talisman but the whole room around Gulp's entrance is solid and cannot be glitched past. I thought perhaps you would only need the talisman from Autumn Plains to access Gulp and not the ones from Summer Forest (since, when played legitimately, you are supposed to have them) but that's not the case. So, I am required to get all the talisman from Summer Forest and Autumn Plains. However, I can skip just about everything else, including Moneybags. Off the top of my head, the abilities I will need to pay for are Swim (for getting past Aquaria Towers and Sunny Beach) and Headbash (for reaching Ripto without collecting orbs). I am not 100% sure if I need climb or not. I can skip the part you must climb to reach the second half of Autumn Plains, but I do not know if it's required for any other levels. Skipping Moneybags will minimize the amount of gems I will need for completing the game and will reduce the amount of sidetracking that is necessary. However, I cannot (or might not want to) skip Moneybags each time. For example, paying Moneybags a measly 100 gems in Aquaria Towers will be faster than swimming and much safer. I don't even know if there's a way to swim past the sharks and I am not going to worry about it because 100 gems isn't a big setback. I can easily make that by collecting random gems in my optimal running path. REQUIRED GEMS Swim: 500 Submarine: 100 Headbash: 1000 Two Levels in AP: 400 each (I think) Total Gems: 2400 From what I remember, all other occurrences with Moneybags can be skipped. These include the Glimmer bridge, Aquaria Towers wall, Crystal Glacier bridge, and the Magma Cone elevator. I am not sure if paying Moneybags for access to a speedway is a good gem investment so I will need to test my gem collection in my route before making a decision. Aside from skipping Moneybags and collecting talisman, I will be cutting corners as much as dragonly possible. I will have to test various possible movement increasing techniques that would definitely make the run more interesting. Since all the tricks in my preliminary route were discovered on the console, I will need to also test any possible new tricks that might be manipulated using the emulator. One in particular has to do with the "super jump" technique in Hurricos. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5_V8t63udE I will have to do some frame advance and memory testing to figure out what exactly causes Spyro to jump like that. It appears that he is in his falling animation when moving vertically so I guess that's a good place to start. In addition to those glitches, I can also skip many large portions in each level and possibly even more if I can find some new tricks with the emulator tools. This actually concerns me, since a large chunk of the run might be the level loading screen. It reminds me of the Resident Evil 3 run where it is just Jill opening doors throughout. Time will tell. Well, I pretty much covered as much as I can. I will probably have many changed opinions when I actually get to testing the game. My show comes on in 25 minutes so hopefully one of the ten Spyro fans on this site reads over this and offers any type of support to motivate me.
Joined: 12/10/2007
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Location: Oregon
I would love to see a run of this game, this was one of the best PSX games in my opinion.
MezzoDragon
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Joined: 5/27/2007
Posts: 120
Since you mentioned 100% run in your post, Sizux, is there a chance you will do a 100% run after this one?
Joined: 2/24/2009
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MezzoDragon wrote:
Since you mentioned 100% run in your post, Sizux, is there a chance you will do a 100% run after this one?
I have been experimenting with the emulator and with the any% route and realized that it is harder to get the required gems than I thought. I was under the impression that I would have close to enough gems just by running through the levels with the optimal corner cutting/area skipping, but I was off by a large amount. I may consider doing 100% instead. For 100%, I was thinking about drawing out each map on separate pieces of paper and marking every single gem location so I can easily plan it with pen and paper. I would imagine that most levels can be completed in one visit using glitches and I would have to experiment with other tricks to do this with the levels that are not currently possible (such as reaching the turtle soup game without climb on the first visit to Sunny Beach). Traveling back to the level and going through the loading screen for both entering and leaving the level is a serious time waste so you understand the importance. I don't know much about memory searching, but I was able to find the values for Spyro's vertical location, which I used to determine at which frame it is best to dash when performing the dash jump (or double jump, however you want to call it). More height means more distance. I was trying to find the value that activates Spyro's swimming mode (which I assumed was a Boolean value) but I ended up finding some weird value that changes the tint of the game and does some other freaky stuff. Finally, I experimented with the "proxy jump" in Hurricos by recording myself performing the trick and then replaying it frame by frame, watching the button input and movement of Spyro, but I was unable to determine what actually causes it. I believe it is when Spyro briefly gets caught on the button and being pushed under--apparently, when Spyro jumps at the right time, the jump is registered at being below the location where the button jump was pressed and the value is reset to 255. I am not sure, though. The combination of emulator sound issues, the complexity of Spyro's movement and the lack of motivation means this run will take a long time to finish. I probably should have picked an easier game to run for my first TAS, but we'll see what happens.
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Joined: 5/13/2009
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is there a run of this game up on SDA? if there is, even though it is for the console, it would save you a lot of time in route planning.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
MezzoDragon
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The SDA run is great to watch. However, it has mistakes that can be easily avoided with tool-assistance. I wonder how much time will be saved due to not being hit and such.
Joined: 2/24/2009
Posts: 21
There is no Spyro 2 run on SDA, but there are runs for 1 and 3. Since the route I have been planning on and off for the last 4 years is any%, I will have to take some time to plan a 100% route if that's what I will be doing, which is likely the case. I have been very busy lately so I did not do much testing, but I will get back to trying new tricks and stuff eventually. When I do have a route for 100%, I will post it, which will make it much easier for people to comment and criticize. Until then, giving me any tips will help, but if it is a trick that is very popular or very obvious, I will probably already know about.
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Joined: 2/23/2008
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Location: CA, USA
I did try TASing this game a little while back and got decent results, though I'm not sure of all the tricks the game has to offer. Glimmer 100% Colossus 100% The route planning for the gems is probably the toughest part of this game. For any% we need 2400 gems or so correct? Then this just comes to testing each stage (since all of the first two worlds are required) to see what gems are best to get while obtaining the tailsmans of each world. I would also think you would need a higher gem count from the first three stages so we can get swim and not need to reset or something to get back from the castle. I am in favor of an any% run if we can come up with a solid route and completly test glitches like that "super jump."
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Joined: 8/26/2006
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That was pretty nice. I've not played through this game in years so I'm can't really comment on how optimal it was but you were getting cool results out of that jump glitch. Hopefully you are considering making a full run :-) I think that any% would be wise for a first bash at this game, 100% might become a little too epic from the planning perspective.
MezzoDragon
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I'd watch both your runs, Bobmario511. They are amazing. I hope to see more soon.
Joined: 2/24/2009
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Bobmario511 wrote:
I did try TASing this game a little while back and got decent results, though I'm not sure of all the tricks the game has to offer. Glimmer 100% Colossus 100% The route planning for the gems is probably the toughest part of this game. For any% we need 2400 gems or so correct? Then this just comes to testing each stage (since all of the first two worlds are required) to see what gems are best to get while obtaining the tailsmans of each world. I would also think you would need a higher gem count from the first three stages so we can get swim and not need to reset or something to get back from the castle. I am in favor of an any% run if we can come up with a solid route and completly test glitches like that "super jump."
Those are some nice videos. I see a few spots you could optimize but overall they are great. I have been thinking about both any% and 100% runs and have thought about how to tackle both. Since this is my first TAS, if I were to do any of them, the any% would definitely be easier. The original problem I had with any% was how to collect gems with the least amount of side tracking. After much brainstorming, I finally have an solid idea. Basically, I am going to draw out all of the purple (5), yellow (10) and pink (25) gems on each level. I am going to mark them all with something. I am then going to draw a line from the start of the level to the finish. I will take note of which marked gems are closest and examine how many other gems are near it before determining if I should get them. So far, I have just been counting the number of purple, yellow and pink gems and came up with an interesting figure. In Glimmer, Colossus and Idol Springs, the purple and yellow gems total exactly 250 each level. Each level also has 400 gems total, so they make up for 60%. If we assume that I will always get 60% of the gems in each level (and that the isolated purple, yellow and pink gems are made up by collecting green and red ones) then we can determine how many gems can be made through this. Of course, this is a wild assumption and won't be the case but let's think about it for a minute. 10,000 gems, minus the four levels I won't enter in Winter Tundra (1600) and the four speedways (1600) comes to 6800. 60% of that is 4080. I need 2400. That essentially makes a linear route possible. Getting 500 gems from two levels for swim will mean more sidetracking, but for the the submarine I have plenty of levels to get gems from, and head bash is way late in the game, so this run may be enjoyable to watch. Anyways, this is just an assumption so we'll have to see what happens. I am still working on the run slowly, but I believe it will get done on of these days.
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Joined: 9/9/2006
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Would it perhaps be worth studying some of these glitch abuse videos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFLmWzXeZQc ; Crush Early Battle
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DDRKhat wrote:
Would it perhaps be worth studying some of these glitch abuse videos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFLmWzXeZQc ; Crush Early Battle
The problem with skipping to Crush is that you need all of the talisman from Summer Forest to reach Gulp anyways. You also need the swim ability for a few levels. So, unfortunately, that method is not of any use unless someone can find a way to reach Gulp without the talisman. I have already seen all of bob's Spyro videos and have seen/read about practically every Spyro glitch out there so all of them are kept in mind when making the route.
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Sizux wrote:
DDRKhat wrote:
Would it perhaps be worth studying some of these glitch abuse videos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFLmWzXeZQc ; Crush Early Battle
The problem with skipping to Crush is that you need all of the talisman from Summer Forest to reach Gulp anyways. You also need the swim ability for a few levels. So, unfortunately, that method is not of any use unless someone can find a way to reach Gulp without the talisman. I have already seen all of bob's Spyro videos and have seen/read about practically every Spyro glitch out there so all of them are kept in mind when making the route.
Alright. Thought I'd offer a suggestion. However if what your saying is true, can't that air-swim glitch get used on the overworld to get you where you need to go to? It's been ages since I played this and I can't say I tried to deliberately break it, so, I have no idea where you can clip out of the map etc.
A whisper in the wind~~
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Joined: 2/23/2008
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Yeah, sadly there isn't any known way into the gulp room yet, as the ceiling is solid. Only possible ways I would think of are clipping through the door somehow, but thats unlikely. As this game hasn't been TASed much, in positive there are many "TAS only" tricks still to be found. I have a few ideas in mind for flying but they will probably fail. Good luck drawing out the map for the higher value/less out of the way gems, I'm curious to see it.
Joined: 2/24/2009
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I have been testing a bit here and there with TAS tools and I have decided to just go with the glitches I have. If I can get a video out there to use as a base then maybe some competition will come and improve on it with new glitches. I know I have shown interest in both an any% and 100% run but I have yet to make a decision. If it will be an any% one, I already have a good route planned. I will let you guys know if anything changes. I am posting this to inform you guys that I am still interested in running this game but it is a huge undertaking for a beginner TASer and for someone who doesn't have much patience and can become unmotivated very easily.
MezzoDragon
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Try whatever is easier. Perhaps you should do an any% run before trying a 100% run.
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I started an any% run of this game, because I would like to know what are its limits (some useful glitches are like impossible to do in non-TAS runs), but because I am a beginner TASer, I need to know if my actual work is good or not, so here is the pxm file after complete Glimmer and Idol Springs : http://rapidshare.com/files/344015899/spyro2tas.pxm.html All the comments are welcome Note : for some mysterious reasons, sometimes the movie desync at the first gems of glimmer, but it's very rare if you play the movie after open PCSX and without run CD
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Personally, I would rather see a 100%. But then again, my overall preferences for speed runs is 100%, anyway. :3
MezzoDragon
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Doing an any% allows the TASer to experience the game before going for the harder challenge of 100% completion. Besides, everyone has to start somewhere, no?
Joined: 4/29/2005
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True. If the runner has no real experience with the game, then an any% would probably be best way to go first time around.
upthorn
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From what I've seen of the old PSX Spyro games, even an any% TAS is going to require a high level of familiarity with the game to be anything like decently optimized.
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Joined: 4/29/2005
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Yes, yes. I have played the first three by emulator, and unless you know exactly where you're going, you're gonna get stuck a lot.
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lapogne36 wrote:
I started an any% run of this game, because I would like to know what are its limits (some useful glitches are like impossible to do in non-TAS runs), but because I am a beginner TASer, I need to know if my actual work is good or not, so here is the pxm file after complete Glimmer and Idol Springs : http://rapidshare.com/files/344015899/spyro2tas.pxm.html All the comments are welcome Note : for some mysterious reasons, sometimes the movie desync at the first gems of glimmer, but it's very rare if you play the movie after open PCSX and without run CD
It still desyncs for me. You collect the few gems on the middle structure then miss the jump on the ledge, where it starts going crazy because of the desync. Could you record with to .avi and upload it? It looks like a good run and I want to see how you do it. Also, any% does require good knowledge of the game but it is easier simply for the fact that it is shorter. Longer TAS runs would require a lot more work (and, in some cases, a lot more planning) to do.
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.avi file : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KKYETTM6 and I have a very good knowledge of this game, of course skip all moneybags except swim, aquaria towers, zephyr, shady oasis and headbash (I will do some tests to see if we need headbash to swim in the air), so it's not a problem