Mega Man X5 in 16:51.08 by Noxxa

This run is 456 frames (7.60 seconds) faster than the current published run by Atma. The improvements come from various minor optimizations, including intentionally lowering rank to lower some bosses' health and handling the bosses better in general.

About this game:

This game, the fifth game in the X series, is about a giant space colony that's about to drop down on Earth, and you need to collect 4 pieces (from the first four Mavericks) of a giant laser cannon, which can be used to blow it up. Usually, it fails and you need to get 4 pieces (from the final four Mavericks) from a space shuttle to use that instead. Here, though, the laser blows it up in one shot without any pieces collected. (Which, in real time, has a 1/16 chance of occurring). This instantly unlocks the final stages, which are therefore the only stages needed for completion. Of course, this being an X game, expect loads of instant death spikes, wall jumping, dashing and challenging bosses, and Sigma as the final boss.

Tricks used:

  • Slash Dash Cancel (SDC): First hit of a triple jab (which doesn't activate invincibility) can be cancelled with a dash, which can be cancelled into another slash. Repeat for lots of damage.
  • Turnaround SDC: By turning around while doing the first hit of a triple jab, Zero will automatically do the second slash in the other direction. It's faster than normal SDC, provided it's actually possible to hit with it.
  • Lowering ranks to save time: Boss levels in this game determine the bosses' health, and these are (partially) determined by your rank, so lowering your rank intentionally makes some boss battles shorter. These include Rangda Bangda W, X and Sigma's first form.
Because of this, Zero ends up with a SA rank instead of the published run's GA rank.

Table of improvements

Stage nameframestotal
Intro Stage1515
Luck manipulation419
Zero Stage 1928
Shadow Devil1543
Zero Stage 2649
Rangda Bangda W68117
Zero Stage 37124
Ultimate Armor X10134
Sigma Stage0134
Burn Dinorex19153
Dark Necrobat0153
Shining Hotarunius22175
Volt Kraken25200
Tidal Makkoeen5205
Crescent Grizzly26231
Spike Rosered21252
Spiral Pegacion21273
Final Sigma W37310
Gamma Sigma146456

Stage-by-stage comments:

Intro stage: Saved 15 frames by better precision, and destroying one enemy instead of avoiding him. Alia's constant interruption is really annoying...
Luck manipulation (Sigma Head): ...but not as annoying as this. It takes a while for the RNG to deploy a new 'set' of numbers for the cutscenes (in which the RNG doesn't change, barring some exceptions here), which makes the boss fight take a bit longer than it should. Nevertheless, I saved 4 frames here. Enjoy the cutscene-heavy part here.
Zero Stage 1: The first of the Zero Virus areas. It has a blue background, and is a harder version of Quick Man's already notoriously hard stage from Mega Man 2. And the boss, Shadow Devil, is a harder version of the notoriously hard Yellow Devil from Mega Man 1. Because of this people hate this stage a lot. I saved 9 frames on the stage by taking damage from the Ride Armor enemies on a better spot, and 15 frames on the boss by using turnaround SDC. I take damage during the boss fight which may be seen as 'sloppy', but I do this to prevent Zero's rank from raising, to save time.
Zero Stage 2: This purple stage is modelled after the first Sigma stage from the first Mega Man X game, and the boss is a harder version of the second fortress boss from the same game. I save 6 frames from minor optimizations, and 68 frames on the bossfight by the boss level drop giving it less HP (saving one hit on the always-aerial green eye), as well as more optimized SDCing on the blue eye. I also rearranged the order at which the eyes and nose appear, to make it more entertaining with no time loss.
Zero Stage 3: The red stage. It's full of spikes, and fairly short. Not much to note here, aside from me taking damage in a different place, saving 7 frames. Maverick Hunter X is manipulated to dash forward and use Soul Body instead of standing at his starting position. The level drop allows me to destroy him before Soul Body hits here. Instead, it ties (intentionally), keeping Zero's rank low. I saved 10 frames in total on the bossfight.
Sigma Stage: Ah, the obligatory boss fight revisits are here, and they have maxed out health, meaning that even with SDC they take a while to destroy. I didn't gain any time in the stage itself. Individual comments on the eight bosses:
  • Burn Dinorex: Manipulated him to shoot fire from the wall instead of air-dashing down. Saved 19 frames.
  • Dark Necrobat: No change, and no time gain.
  • Shining Hotarunius: Manipulated his vertical location better, giving me more opportunities to SDC him. Saved 22 frames.
  • Volt Kraken: Manipulated him to drop earlier, and used turnaround SDC on him. Saved 25 frames.
  • Tidal Makkoeen: I hit him faster at the first part, but since he needs to be above a certain height to not crash into me, the loss was practically gone. Instead, I used the saved time to do a triple jab on him, saving a few hits after that. Saved 5 frames.
  • Crescent Grizzly: Used more opportunities to come close for faster SDCing. Saved 26 frames.
  • Spike Rosered: Didn't delay hits (this delay prevents his health from getting low enough to clone himself, costing time) - letting himself clone himself, but be beaten faster anyway. 21 frames saved.
  • Spiral Pegacion: Optimized the first part's SDCing. 21 frames saved.
Sigma Stage (part 2) (Final W Sigma, Gamma Sigma)
I don't pick up the health capsule because spending time manipulating the first form wasn't needed nearly as much now (there's only one frame of delay now): this, along with the rank drop, save 37 frames on Sigma's first form. The second form, Gamma Sigma, is improved by 146 frames. I don't exactly know how; I assume he spent less time phased out, letting me hit him more.

In-game ending stats:

Play Time: 5' 43"
Hunter Ranks:
X: B
Zero: SA
Enjoy the run!

FractalFusion: Accepting as an improvement to the published run.
Aktan: Processing... may take a bit..

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2690: Noxxa's PSX Mega Man X5 in 16:51.08
Joined: 9/1/2005
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I just finished watching this, it was pretty damn good, and I like the improvements that you found. The only real gripe I had with this movie is that while you improved it, you still didn't manage to avoid the wait on the cutscene to manipulate a working cannon fire. Though I suppose if you can work it out, you could improve it further. Regardless, I will easily give this a yes vote as it's a well done TAS.
Rolanmen1
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Whoa, never knew you were working on this, i was planning to do so, but god bless that i didn't even started. Anyway, it looks pretty optimal, unless you could make the enigma scene without waiting frames, but that seems so fffffffff tiring. Yes Voted.
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Zero only, No X, Final Destination. Voting yes.
#3201
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Shameless holding space for future encode. I'm guessing it will be great =p. Edit: Sorry, life been keeping me busy. Will work on this real soon.
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Well done, yes vote.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
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Finally got to see this. Pretty good, man.
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I watched this run and compared the in-game stage times at the end of each level. What I found confused me. Atma's Obsoleted TAS Intro Stage: 28.88 seconds Vs Black Devil: 46.18 seconds Vs Rangda Bangda: 1:00.96 Vs. X: 40.98 seconds Mothrayas's Current TAS Intro Stage: 29.23 seconds Vs Black Devil: 46.18 seconds Vs Rangda Bangda: 1:00.23 Vs. X: 41.45 seconds Somehow, despite the frames shaved off, two of the stages are slower than the obsoleted run's, and one is exactly the same (46.18 = 46.18). Is the in-game timer not reliable for individual stages, and only the final time (5:43) is accurate? Edit: In addition, the enemies defeated count is rather strange as well. As with the previous TAS, very few non-boss enemies were destoryed, thirteen in all, one less than the previous's fourteen. Yet the Virus Purple (Zero Stage 2) indicates 16 (sixteen) defeated enemies, when only 8 (eight) suffered that fate in the stage itself. Even if we count the three eyes and one nose of Rangda Bangda, that only adds up to twelve. What's going on there?
#3201
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Posts: 3960
Aktan wrote:
Here is an HQ encode:
This seems to not currently be available for download; the movie file is not found. Any idea what happened?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
sgrunt
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Derakon wrote:
Aktan wrote:
Here is an HQ encode:
This seems to not currently be available for download; the movie file is not found. Any idea what happened?
The link's slightly wrong. Try http://www.archive.org/download/MothrayassPsxMegaManX5In1651.08/mmx5-tas-mothrayas.mp4
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Ahh, thanks. Subtle difference, that. The run looked good! I always liked the style for the virus stages, so it's not such a bad thing to have them be basically all there is. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Noxxa
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sameasusual wrote:
I watched this run and compared the in-game stage times at the end of each level. What I found confused me. Atma's Obsoleted TAS Intro Stage: 28.88 seconds Vs Black Devil: 46.18 seconds Vs Rangda Bangda: 1:00.96 Vs. X: 40.98 seconds Mothrayas's Current TAS Intro Stage: 29.23 seconds Vs Black Devil: 46.18 seconds Vs Rangda Bangda: 1:00.23 Vs. X: 41.45 seconds Somehow, despite the frames shaved off, two of the stages are slower than the obsoleted run's, and one is exactly the same (46.18 = 46.18). Is the in-game timer not reliable for individual stages, and only the final time (5:43) is accurate?
In-game time counts until Zero stands still in his standard animation; slash animations still count for ingame time (but not real time); ground slashes take longer to finish than air slashes, which explains the loss on the intro stage and Shadow Devil. I also take damage right after some battles, which also extends the animation time after Rangda Bangda W and X. Final time should be the same as all individual level timers combined. Haven't looked at that, though.
sameasusual wrote:
Edit: In addition, the enemies defeated count is rather strange as well. As with the previous TAS, very few non-boss enemies were destoryed, thirteen in all, one less than the previous's fourteen. Yet the Virus Purple (Zero Stage 2) indicates 16 (sixteen) defeated enemies, when only 8 (eight) suffered that fate in the stage itself. Even if we count the three eyes and one nose of Rangda Bangda, that only adds up to twelve. What's going on there?
The game counts bullets as defeated enemies. I destroy some of Rangda Bangda's green eyes' bullets while hitting him, increasing the killcount.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Sir_VG
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Once again, we have a published game still stuck in the workbench, it seems...
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1547] PSX Mega Man X5 by Noxxa in 16:51.08
Publisher
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Derakon wrote:
Aktan wrote:
Here is an HQ encode:
This seems to not currently be available for download; the movie file is not found. Any idea what happened?
Oops, I just noticed these messages as somehow after the server move, I don't get notifications about threads I watch anymore. Anyway, yea I forgot to fix the links after I changed the x from capital to lower case. Let me do that now.