Emproved my last submission of that by 00:34.38 seconds.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.6 TASEditor
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Glitch abuse

Levels

Same as in previous submission, but now I considered that pressing Right just before the pre-level lag starts, you gain 2 pixels. The game has no X-subpixels, and Y-subpixels don't alter randomly as in the first game, so subpixels were not optimised here. X-speed is always 2 ppf.
If you are blinking from being damaged you can't scroll the screen up. This means even when you can damage-boost up, you still have to wait until you stop blinking.
On the other side, there's a moving platform in clock tower level that starts moving down and left once you spawn it with screen scrolling. FiskerN lost a bunch of frames waiting for it to go up again to be able to reach the platform above. I instead take damage to prevent scrolling too fast anf spawn this platform at the very moment when I'm over it already, so I jump & reach the upper platform easily.
Though this caused the last in-level elevators to start movig later. I mean, I make the screen scroll up til the end later, and it scrolled right then later too. The result is some lost frames because I had to wait while the last elevator goes up enough. I tried to scroll the screen so fast that I would be able to jump on that last elevator BEFORE it goes down. but a silly couple of pixels didn't allow me to reach the last platform that early D:
Much time was saved thanks to picking less R/R icons. Each icon costs 4 frames on he countdown.
Also, I reduced random lag by random jumps and taking damage, as well as by route changes.
Somewhere you could pick boxes to go further faster, where these boxes are on your way. But it almost always causes lag, and while you don't lose frames picking them, the throw animation is quite long.
In Western World there are these falling stones when you ride the wagon. It falls when the screen reaches some point, and after you activatad its fall you shall release Right to let the stone fall. The strange thing with the first stone in all 3 rooms is that you shall release Right a couple of frames sooner to make the stone fall faster. And you press Right then sooner again, than if the stone was falling normally.

Hidden balls and stones

Originally the glitched ball was discovered by Spiiin and we didn't know how to pull several balls in a row from that platform, because you need to fall to the void, hold to the right, sliding down the left corner, and press Right+B to pick it. You need something to damage-boost you off the hole. You can use the Rabbit himself or the water drops for that. I didn't try this glitch out originally, but goofydylan8 made an awesome work to have as much balls as he liked. Remember the water flushing you off the plate platforms? Let it flush you off and at the first frame of fall press Right. You will dive into the block and would be able to stand on the block below! Just jump from it with a new ball.
Then as you fall back, you need a correct frame to press Right again, to dive into the block without being flushed.
Actually the game really has much hidden objects, but almost none of them is reachable. Lomax found them all and here's his report. See the video below in the thread!

Bosses

Take 2 bytes of global timer ($2d and $2e), add them to the current value of $6b, this way you get the current RNG value (saved to the latter address again) that is updated each time the boss or any other random enemy reads from it. This means the bosses don't have the full pattern. each move is random and separate.
  • The first boss is manipulated to jump on the lower platform that makes him reach the bottom sooner as he dies, thus the end comes sooner.
  • Bosses 2 and 3 have no randomness that can affect the fight length.
  • The Ghost Witch room was entered 3 frames later to force her to drop 2 balls first. Then I delayed her disappearance each time by damaging her as she reachs the left side and is going to fade out. That makes her to read the different value from RNG and make the move I need. In my previous submission I got all the chain of her moves perfect and applied no delay, but here I lose 87 frames.
  • The Ostrich drives away once in most cases, but I press a game Pause to change the time he reads from RNG and change his moves. Now he never drives away. And I couldn't make him drop the gears closer to himself at the last hit.
  • The Cat needed only one Pause to refuse any walking at all! Now he just throws 4 cards from the second floor, jumps down and throuw the rest 4 instantly.
  • The Crocodile was forced not to ride randomly seeking. but 3 fast moves he does here didn't look avoidable.
  • The last and the most interesting boss, FatCat Robot. He has 10 HP. After he is damaged 5 times, he blows each time he gets down, that causes insane lag if he does any boss move during that. But in the first half of the fight his boss moves are faster than if he lands in the middle or to the left, where he can do nothing at all but clicking his jaws.

    So in the first half I make him to keep to the right and provide faster moves (each one was tested each time), not causing lag, the second half I keep him harmless and less laggy (left and middle sides).

    And the hardest thing with him was that acribatics and dances, dunno if they would please anyone :D BTW, I sacrificed only a few frames of lag on these antics, preventing all lag I could
The movie ends after the countdown where I need to pless Start fo advance.

TASEditor 1.0

The rund definitely would be less fast and beautiful if I didn't have these features of TASEditor:
  • Auto-restoring the last cursor position
  • Branches restoring the whole movie
  • Markers with text notes
  • Lag display (red lines in the roll)
  • Copy/paste
  • Drawing input by dragging

Special thanks to

  • AnS for TASEditor (almost finished and almost perfect)
  • GoofyDylan8 for true frame war and ball glitch handling
  • Spiiin for discovering the ball glitch
  • Lomax for debugging the RNG and other things
  • FiskerN for original submission

Nach: Very nice run, well played. Accepting.

natt: processing


TASVideoAgent
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They deleted the version that I had voted on (site is not doing too well today), so I just want to say again Yes vote. The improvements over my published run are impressive. EDIT: I also wanted to say, since it isn't listed in the submission text, that while this is a 00:34.43 second improvement over his previous submission it is actually a 01:19.53 improvement over the current published run. Crazy improvements.
Cooljay
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Look forward to checking this out when I get home. Your battletoads runs were exceptional. If it's anything like those, then I'm certain to give a yes vote. Edit: Checked it out from beginning to end. Overall the run seemed very optimized. Would've loved to see some entertainment tradeoffs on the final boss to make it not seem as slow. However it does seem fairly fast paced which is good. I'll give this a yes vote as it still does meet the high standards expected.
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Впечатление от просмотра охренительное! Улучшение на 34.43 секунды - это что-то невероятное.. Манипуляция боссов кнопкой старт вообще на ура. Похоже, ты выжал максимум из движка! :D Только криворукий проголует нет, тут бесспорное ДА!) сколько времени ушло на весь этот процесс?
Experienced player (753)
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fiskerN wrote:
Впечатление от просмотра охренительное! Улучшение на 34.43 секунды - это что-то невероятное.. Манипуляция боссов кнопкой старт вообще на ура. Похоже, ты выжал максимум из движка! :D Только криворукий проголует нет, тут бесспорное ДА!) сколько времени ушло на весь этот процесс?
totally agreed
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Cooljay
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fiskerN wrote:
Впечатление от просмотра охренительное! Улучшение на 34.43 секунды - это что-то невероятное.. Манипуляция боссов кнопкой старт вообще на ура. Похоже, ты выжал максимум из движка! :D Только криворукий проголует нет, тут бесспорное ДА!) сколько времени ушло на весь этот процесс?
Translated for English Speakers: "Fucking great experience of viewing this. The improvement in 34.43 seconds is incredible. Cheers to the manipulation of the bosses using the start button I guess you got the most out of the engine! :D It's undeniable YES! how much time was spent on this whole process?"
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Cooljay wrote:
fiskerN wrote:
сколько времени ушло на весь этот процесс?
how much time was spent on this whole process?"
No idea, several days. Несколько дней.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
mklip2001
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Incredible. The card cat is deeply impressive. Nothing can make the big robot particularly interesting, but I'm very glad to hear it's a shorter fight. Yes vote.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
AnS
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Great, this 1P run of the game looks even more entertaining than current 2P version. And definitely more polished. Good thing there's 2 branches for this game.
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Nicely done! When you say you didn't optimize the subpixels, I suppose you mean there was nothing you could've done to save time fiddling with them? If you, in the first game, have a y-subpixel value of 0-20 (when starting the jump) you're able jump up 4-block high platforms by holding the a-button for 12 frames compared to the normal 13. I'm pretty sure you tested that something similar isn't possible in this game though.
feos wrote:
Only Aglar can improve this now.
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Subpixels alter every frame by themselves in 1st game, here you have 0 subpixels whenever you're on the ground. They only help to calculate the jump arch, but have nothing to do with the time you hold A button. Before starting that game I thought subpixels can be optimized anyhow, but then it appeared as mere 2-pixel grid you move in. Sometimes you can move 1 pixel per frame, but it is very rare case. But the ball trick needs that 1-pixel movement, you also can dive into any other object if you move 1 ppf, fall from its top and instantly press the direction towards that block. I discovered that possibility while testing a 2-player run, where the carried player's position may be affected to match the odd or even pixel position.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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Posts: 375
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feos wrote:
here you have 0 subpixels whenever you're on the ground.
Ok, it was even that simple. The first game sounds much more fun to TAS then, try it :)
feos wrote:
Only Aglar can improve this now.
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syncs on fceux 2.1.5
  File: Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2.nes
CRC-32: 91e4a289
   MD4: 86a771cda8d877f98e28dfcb1e827a0f
   MD5: e78eb3226a9e09113be319fee1a84f4d
 SHA-1: a60ba28aca558fe3527d46b0df33bdd038d4c635
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. ---- [2044] NES Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 "1 player" by feos in 15:13.80
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Oh,Nice Glitch and Luck Manipulating Pause.
Do the work.