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Mega Man PC - the single worst game of the entire Mega Man series. Designer, programmer, graphics and sound were all produced by one man, Stephen Rozner. Here is a TAS. I'm... sorry?
  • Takes Damage to Save Time
  • Why God, Why?

The Order

Sonic is weak to dyno, volt is weak to sonic, and dyno is weak to volt. However, Volt is the only boss I use another boss weapon against. Also, dyno's stage has ants that can't be killed without sonic's weapon, so Sonic first!

The glitches

Perhaps not a glitch, but bosses have no invulnerability - this means they die, very, very fast to any weapon. I found one useless glitch in Wily's stage. If you die at the same time as a boss- before the camera restores to being focused on Mega Man, the camera focus movement gets saved, and loaded when you come back to life- thus, you end up visually inside a wall, but the game plays as normal - the level graphics are just offset.

Image information

Type: HDD, 16 tracks, 16 sides, 63 sectors.
Files table:
TimestampMD5SizeName
19900101000000e279105ded70975f48e6cd250f87b9731691/DREAM.DAT
19900101000000655e6cd494f221a5d51a78f067ebd6045851/credits.sta
19900101000000c542b80163c93425508cfa34ac202d1b9057/dyna.bin
199001010000002351d8ced157cb70da35c5220125876e15755/dyna.blk
19900101000000023cf41dd0602c4ab1f608eadd6d1c6d7547/dyna.frm
19900101000000f9d9292da48ba1e2ac25ff98e254ca304422/dyna.scn
19900101000000e3105cd357d5d7e5dfbb251ded531d0213478/logo.sta
199001010000007cfbf4cd4077094f871c4c8eddf36d0f14044/mega.frm
19900101000000ff9071df5dce52e725ae4cd458989400155524/megaman.exe
19900101000000672024254166e38c2fb010bba8ed5b7c20349/mm.exe
19900101000000c19cad187c6a846a385f0480078d9fb310336/pass.frm
19900101000000b3fda9ea7ce20e2d46c46d96197b33931985/secur.bin
19900101000000514083e553e63b43494f2cece144a19710249/secur.blk
199001010000001f000c5e6d3dd6a6dead254c7c70f7fa6335/secur.frm
19900101000000f8493c6458b1a50214a8fbf3afe215481145/secur.scn
199001010000003ddc9803f3fcc69b8b063fb319c53a8014907/select.frm
199001010000000de5c35abae598e9eb67905af379693b19911/skull.sta
19900101000000f032aaca80c216ba6b185cc215ad86788536/sonic.bin
19900101000000ed72ffe9c7f2f8ed1373f28162b1c03723163/sonic.blk
19900101000000f9d0e6d379d092f3fa1085d36e8c3be27359/sonic.frm
199001010000004ac393aaee5a76acee08d8326bba233c10630/sonic.scn
1990010100000042139ecc80072d3fd6f6376ded5fbc4610061/volt.bin
19900101000000617e5cf9c867f02ba524690cc3f4130a29842/volt.blk
19900101000000f0807c48e61bf9da87265bcd96180a9511262/volt.frm
1990010100000035a38e0c6c1a3b939784b9bbc7513a376845/volt.scn
1990010100000053bb187787911c73d25d5fc35a83fa1b12810/wiley.bin
199001010000001a7aec46f83b99080033c3eee2c5b21826414/wiley.blk
19900101000000cc8e9c7406230111db7f5bbc73d2029b21801/wiley.frm
199001010000002ea9719aa54c256f8614d6368879145d6047/wiley.scn
1990010100000044d094214f372051b3f3fa3836a1963d16670/wpnscn.sta
FractalFusion: This game is either not emulated correctly, or not speed-throttled correctly, or the AVI dump cannot be produced correctly. The only result is an unwatchable movie. Thus, rejecting.
adelikat: Unrejecting for reconsideration for publication to the Vault
Nach: Being quite familiar with this game both on a 3x86 16 MHz, and on much later CPUs, this game looks like it's emulated properly to me. The speed-throttling is left up to the user to decide. This seems to be a decent TAS. However the game is utter garbage.
Accepting for vault.
Ilari: Processing...

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Posted: 10/7/2011 2:01 AM
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Demon_Lord
He/Him
Joined: 2/20/2011
Posts: 80
Location: Chicoutimi, Qc, Canada
DarkKobold wrote:
This is the problem with any non-throttled game. In the programmer's defense, Hi-Tech Expressions basically gave it to one poor dude to do the sound, graphics, and gameplay. I'd love to do an interview with Stephen Rozner, the guy who programmed the game. He may be able to fill in some of the pieces, such as how the hell Hi-Tech ever got the license.
According to his Linked-In profile ( https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6201221 ), he worked for Capcom in 1989 and 1990, so I guess he had connections.
Posted: 10/7/2011 4:48 AM
Quote
Torn338
Former player
Joined: 3/27/2010
Posts: 270
I'm... honestly not sure what I just watched. The DOS Mega Mans were just bad, I've watched videos of them on youtube about this game, and even as a TAS, it's something I really wouldn't want to play/watch a video on (though I was just curious this time). Thanks for making this though, not that it was entertaining, but it was quite interesting (to show had bad it was mind you).
Posted: 10/7/2011 1:36 PM
Quote
Cheezwizz
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103
I'm laughing at how almost every fucking DOS tas just involves making the game run faster than intended thanks to the benefit of CPU speed. Surely you can TAS ALL these games at the default, recommended, intended, etc. speed that the designers had in mind when creating it? Or are you going to make TAS a joke?
Posted: 10/7/2011 1:44 PM
Quote
ShadowWraith
Joined: 8/7/2006
Posts: 344
Cheezwizz wrote:
I'm laughing at how almost every fucking DOS tas just involves making the game run faster than intended thanks to the benefit of CPU speed. Surely you can TAS ALL these games at the default, recommended, intended, etc. speed that the designers had in mind when creating it? Or are you going to make TAS a joke?
I'd have thought it was pretty obvious that the game running faster wasn't done intentionally. >_>
Posted: 10/7/2011 11:36 PM
Post subject: Fixed video link
Quote
Dada
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Link to video Thanks to Ilari there's now a Youtube version of this run.
Posted: 10/8/2011 12:15 AM
(Edited: 10/8/2011 12:23 AM)
Quote
Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Cheezwizz: From poking around the game' settings myself, I think there may not be a "default speed" for this game. The way it strikes me is that the guy making this just got the game to run at all, had the speed be CPU based, and handed some speed controls to the player for them to decide what speed they were comfortable playing at. Very bad design, and it makes deciding what to do here tricky. Put differently, I'm not so sure the guy intended any particular PC setup for this to run. (I kinda love submissions like this for forcing issues and sparking debates on what needs to be done)
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 10/8/2011 12:16 AM
Quote
Dada
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
That wasn't very uncommon back in the late 80s and very early 90s. Maybe CPU throttled applications were simply easier to make, and the setting is, like you say, there to allow people to set the speed to something comfortable.
Posted: 10/8/2011 9:48 AM
Quote
Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I enjoyed that 30 fps YouTube version. The encode was simply slowed down to 30 fps, right? Was the audio simply a stretch? The pitch is lower, when I thought it shouldn't be.
Posted: 10/8/2011 9:53 AM
(Edited: 10/8/2011 6:33 PM)
Quote
Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
Lex wrote:
I enjoyed that 30 fps YouTube version. The encode was simply slowed down to 30 fps, right? Was the audio simply a stretch? The pitch is lower, when I thought it shouldn't be.
The video is indeed slowed down to 30fps (giving ~42.8% speed). And oops on that audio. I meant to use tempo change (which does not change pitch) but actually used speed change (which also changes pitch). What I did to the audio was first to reduce volume, then reduce speed and finally to add delay to compensate for the logo being there. Oh, and I figured out the speed thing: * F2 increments a certain counter * F1 decrements the counter * This counter can have values 0-64. * This counter is located at 0x7EF bytes after X-position * If one skips config.sys and autoexec.bat on the standard disk, that is 0x40F16. * This counter determines amount of junk operations to perform on each frame. * The maximum speed game can run at is 1 ingame frame per 1 VGA frame ("1:1 speed") * The 1:1 speed is corresponds to running speed of about 1.75 screenfuls per second. * JPC-RR clockspeeds don't go low enough for this game to slow down from that 1:1 speed with 0 junk ops per frame. * Those junk operations are CPU-bound, so when the counter is large enough, clockspeed does affect game speed. * 64 junk ops at cpudiv 100 (10MIPS) is about 25% speed. * 64 junk ops at cpudiv 256 (the minimum, about 3.9MIPS) is about 10% speed. * At about 40MIPS (would be cpudiv 25) this game becomes impossible to slow down at all, always running at that 1:1 speed. Two demo encodes about effects of F2 (CPUDiv 256; encodes themselves haven't been slowed down): 8 junk ops, ~50% speed 14 junk ops, ~33% speed
Posted: 10/8/2011 10:56 AM
Quote
Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I think that might still not produce accurate audio. To be accurate, should each sound effect's length be the same as in the original video, but start at the same frame? This would require a re-dump at a throttled 30 fps, if possible. The sounds in the original video sound like they would be correct, but are just played more often than they should be, simply due to the speed of the gameplay. However, I haven't played the game so this is all just a guess.
Posted: 10/8/2011 11:08 AM
Quote
Cheezwizz
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103
I should just whip out my 386 and install megaman. That would pretty much solve everything.
Posted: 10/8/2011 8:08 PM
Quote
sameasusual
Joined: 5/19/2010
Posts: 259
Location: California
I think I still have the floppy disk with this on it. I always figured it was a bootleg, but I guess that wasn't the case.
#3201
Posted: 10/8/2011 8:18 PM
Quote
Cheezwizz
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103
here I am trying to play megaman on a broken keyboard while standing out of view. This is on a 386SX http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R12MZ6SXwyE
Posted: 11/29/2012 12:31 AM
Quote
Dacicus
Editor, Player (69)
Joined: 6/22/2005
Posts: 1050
No vote due to incorrect emulation. Also, Dynaman's stage isn't optimal: Jumping on the conveyor belts that are moving opposite to Mega Man (around 3:25 on the YT encode) would be faster than walking. DarkKobold does it properly a few seconds later on the conveyor belts.
Current Projects: TAS: Wizards & Warriors III.
Posted: 11/29/2012 12:59 AM
Quote
OmegaWatcher
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
Dacicus wrote:
No vote due to incorrect emulation. Also, Dynaman's stage isn't optimal: Jumping on the conveyor belts that are moving opposite to Mega Man (around 3:25 on the YT encode) would be faster than walking. DarkKobold does it properly a few seconds later on the conveyor belts.
if the settings are still incorrect, yeah, no
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
Posted: 11/29/2012 1:02 AM
Quote
Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Dacicus wrote:
No vote due to incorrect emulation.
Actually, it's not incorrect emulation. The speed it's running at is the high speed cap. It was designed for slower computers.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 11/29/2012 3:48 AM
(Edited: 11/29/2012 3:53 AM)
Quote
Dwedit
He/Him
Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
I see this is back now, but the encode still has bad audio. It looks like the movie was literally halved in speed, audio and all. Sound effects are at half pitch and half speed. (edit: was replied to before editing the post to indicate that it's not really half speed)
Posted: 11/29/2012 3:50 AM
Quote
Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
Dwedit wrote:
I see this is back now, but the encode still has bad audio. It looks like the movie was literally halved in speed, audio and all. Sound effects are at half pitch and half speed.
It is not half, it is ~42% speed. And apparently I didn't get the audio right when changing speed...
Posted: 11/29/2012 3:54 AM
Quote
Dwedit
He/Him
Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
The crazy thing is that the sound effects are the only part of the game that sync correctly on any CPU speed. Either way though, this game is next to impossible to accurately time it. I guess you just need to pick a frame rate and ignore any lag.
Posted: 11/29/2012 5:06 AM
Quote
Ilari
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1112)
Joined: 5/1/2010
Posts: 1217
Rookie of 2010 New systems TASer of 2010 New systems TAS of 2010
Dwedit wrote:
Either way though, this game is next to impossible to accurately time it. I guess you just need to pick a frame rate and ignore any lag.
The exact frame rate is IIRC 125875/1796 fps. And the gameplay is pretty much lag-free.
Posted: 1/1/2013 7:23 PM
Post subject: Movie published
Quote
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15542
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2247] DOS Mega Man by DarkKobold in 02:23.55
Posted: 1/2/2013 3:42 AM
Quote
OmegaWatcher
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
wait, wasn't a rule against actually unwatchable movies in the vault?
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
Posted: 1/2/2013 5:29 AM
Quote
FractalFusion
Editor, Expert player (2072)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282
Glitchy TAS of 2013 Gameboy TAS of 2013 PSX TASer of 2010
My usage of the word "unwatchable" in the submission is invalid for this purpose because it comes before the site publication reform. The usage is also incorrect as it was merely to emphasize what I perceived to be incorrect emulation causing the game to run "too fast". However, emulation is deemed to be correct, so this submission passes. Currently, the word "unwatchable" has devolved into a buzzword to indicate one's personal preference about a movie (i.e. entertainment). Usage of that word should now be avoided.
Posted: 1/2/2013 5:58 PM
Quote
North_Bus
Joined: 10/14/2010
Posts: 27
Location: California
I'm quite glad this showed up in the vault, after all. The brief summary in the movie link is misleading, though, as it states: "It was released in the US as part of a popular Mega Man + Street Fighter CD bundle, when Pentium II CPUs were standard." The game was originally released in 1990, both on a 5.25" and a 3.5" floppy (I still have both ^_^). The game played decently well even on pre-386 machines, as were common when it was released. (Well, it played well despite the crappy game -- you know what I mean.) The Pentium II did not show up until the end of the 90's (1997-1999). Personally, I liked this game just because it was new Mega Man content that I hadn't seen before -- and I actually owned it, as opposed to just renting the rest of the series from Blockbuster.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down
Posted: 11/4/2013 4:14 AM
Quote
jlun2
Skilled player (1737)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4979
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
GBA TASer of 2010
North Bus wrote:
I'm quite glad this showed up in the vault, after all. The brief summary in the movie link is misleading, though, as it states: "It was released in the US as part of a popular Mega Man + Street Fighter CD bundle, when Pentium II CPUs were standard." The game was originally released in 1990, both on a 5.25" and a 3.5" floppy (I still have both ^_^). The game played decently well even on pre-386 machines, as were common when it was released. (Well, it played well despite the crappy game -- you know what I mean.) The Pentium II did not show up until the end of the 90's (1997-1999). Personally, I liked this game just because it was new Mega Man content that I hadn't seen before -- and I actually owned it, as opposed to just renting the rest of the series from Blockbuster.
This was sold in a store? And people actually bought this crap? Here's my thoughts on that matter.
LLCoolDave wrote:
This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.
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