As a major Metroid fan, I'm surprised that this game isn't more talked about with the many Metroid fans already here. I'm almost finished with my major TAS project, and I was wanting a new game to TAS (aside from my other 2 PSX TAS's), unfortunately by the sounds of it, Dolphin won't run very pretty on my crappy computer... But I guess I'll try later.
Anyway, I'm currently watching the 1:01 speedrun, and then later Miles 21% demonstration (I really find it unnecessary to watch the 22% if the only difference is getting the space jump). And I'll leave my input on some things if I can aside from whats already been stated. I'll edit after I finish both and leave my input here:
Note: I simply refer to secret worlds as oob
- The door load times from real console and emulator would be different right? If so, that saves at least a second or more waiting. Doing a HBJ could save the waiting time between bombs in spots where he does DBJ more than 1 time close to each other. We'd obviously not have to enter a save room to save, but it might help to heal. Rapid Missile Firing would be frame perfect and not delayed at all. Scan jumping would be asap, and optimal, beating Sparky's time escapes would be obvious, but I guess everything else I'm saying is already... With frame advance a lot of things can be done so that alone makes the Metroid Prime run in under 1 hour, but I guess that wouldn't be hard since 1:01 and 00:59 are only 2 minutes apart haha. I wonder if holding Samus off at certain points will allow things to load (like morph tunnel doors) so that you can go full speed ahead, but that's just assuming, it might be slower than just hugging the door til it opens. In sparky's video he hesitates by loading rooms to see where he is going (when he's oob after getting the charge beam) (I'm guessing, not positive if it's actually necessary to do this), and with TAS, we could (if it's not necessary to load the room to move on) just skip a lot of waiting time.. I loved the whole "fake spider ball" thing after Flaahgra. Magmoor is pretty standard. Phendrana... You'd think that there might be a way to get the wave beam without that annoying fight, but probably not from the way I've tried (and failed) so many times at it.. Skipping the boost ball is a no, as it's very worth the whole few moments it takes to get it (I'm very well assuming :P, if I'm wrong, don't hold me to it)... But same deal with the space jump, I don't see a reason why not to get it, it takes a few moments to get and it definitely beats morphing, bomb jumping, unmorphing (and especially on scan visor jumps)..
I enjoy sparky's route, but I recall that you can get the plasma beam as soon as you enter Magmoor Cavern's by doing the oob stuff, so that will save back tracking time for sure, however... It's most likely not faster overall... So most likely, scrap that idea... Back onto his route, this is a very good route, but I don't think a TAS that just removes human errors out of an already existing speedrun would be "AHH-MAH-GODZ SONICKS"... I'd actually vote Meh on it (even if I was the author). Though, someone did state that some new SW route in phendrana ends up saving time, Sparky said it'd save 5-10 seconds in a normal run (if you wanna find this, just check video 15), so maybe more in a TAS... Nevertheless, do there happen to be any "TAS only" things in Prime?
I think that we should use an SRAM, but only because of the ability to skip cutscenes... I prefer there being 2 categories ... 1 with sram, 1 new game, because the times can't be compared in my opinion.
Finally.... I'd just like to say, that I've typed a lot o_O
