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Spawn for the SNES is beat em up/platformer by Sony Imagesoft that challenges the players with tricky level design. Swarms of enemies, and cheap bosses. Some of the actions in this game require superhuman timing and skill.
Luckily tool assistance can show how a superhuman could beat this game only in a couple secords short of a half an hour.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Snes9x v1.52-rr
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Skips Bosses to save time
  • Abuses Programmer errors and glitches
  • Kills enemies only needed to progress
  • Takes rare items to save time

Comments

I would like to first go off saying this game was terribly brutal to TAS. It took numerous days upon days to finish this fully. This was a challenge for me, but I really wanted to beat this in a well polished fashion. For the numerous people who have heard of this game that haven't been able to see anyone complete it or even master it.

Stage by stage comments

NYC Rooftops

Luck manipulate the enemy spawns, so I don't get the crowbar guy in the beginning due to his large hitbox radius. Use special moves throughout to keep it entertaining. Pretty much pre anticipate their moves via save states.

OvertKill Part I

First boss battle. Pretty much demolish him, and pre jump to the spawn energy icon

Alley

Run past most enemies, then kill the rest during the hold sections. First prescene of gunman with some lousy flame hair cut. Throw projectiles at the slow moving characters.

Overtkill Part II

Pausing and unpausing on the first frame of a start of dialogue skips it here. Saves some time before and after the fight.

Alley Jump Course

Time my jumps on the first possible frames, and move diagonally for most except the top.

Alley Target Practice

Pretty much this section is Opertation Wolf in reverse. I jump on the first couple before they lock onto to me.

Warehouse Elevator

I just plow down everyone with special moves until I reach my destination.

Redeemer Part I & II

Autoscroll level where I beat up Redeemer to start a certain amount, because he can heal if his is less than that amount. Proceed to beat up some mannequins then beat up him soon after out the window. Lastly I give him no chance to attack.

Insane Asylum

Maneuver to fall all the way to the right and hit the exit fast as possible. Dodge some bullets and finnese the jumps and float to avoid all the lasers at perfect timing. Take damage from a turret to get a boost and a fire to fall faster. Do the screw kick near the end with the spikes to change my hitbox temporarily and get extended reach away from them.

Violator

Time special moves to attack at the first chance I get.

Darklands.

Abuse the fact that if you jump on the 2nd last frame before falling off an edge. Giving Spawn even more extended reach of how high or far he can go. Jump at the right amount of pressure just to give Spawn barely enough reach of where to go. Manipulate luck to make a fire bird fire early to jump earlier than attacking or maneuvering the flame bird.

Fire boss

Have to attack his flames out. Sometimes they all go out and sometimes some go out. It's something that seems to be programmed that way.

Spider Cave

Typical long waiting sections. I try to beat defeat all the enemies quickly. Had to maneuver in one section to avoid getting hit, but yet get where I wanted to fast.

Giant Spider

Anticipate where it's going to go and pre ready my attacks just in time for when it reappears.

Church

Takes some damage on a few spikes to save time. Wall climb where it's only neccessary to get to where I need to. Fend off wave after wave of enemies.

Knight Boss

Attack him first with some specials then just screw kick him the rest of the time for it generally deals similar damage.

Slime Cave

Probably the most suicidal stage in this TAS for me. I risk drowning in sand to go through the barracades faster.Run away from a spider and whenever I jump it jumps too oddly enough. Helps me get away soon.Try as much I can to get through the wall climbing section fast enough.

Tri-Head Demon

This ugly boss is the most cheapest boss I have ever seen. I wait for a bit to get an opportunity to teleport after killing the first head. I then use numerous save-states to find a safe spot that I don't get crushed in his two attempts to kill me. I use my necroplasm bomb specials on the middle head. Lastly use what specials I can with massive spin and screw kick mix ups.

Egyptian Maze stage.

Abuse the extended reach glitch to get to some higher platforms. Take a detour at a secret room to get some more energy later on. Take a shortcut and some minor spike damage to get to next section. Take some damage from the evil sorcerer demon's shurikens to get boost to some unreachable platforms.

Tied Down Demon Boss

Probably the most lamest boss I've seen. Use a special within the battle but it doesn't seem to have much effect.

Boss Rooms

Grab a spawn icon and take a shortcut that goes to Mad One directly instead of fighting all the other bosses. I have to fight what appears to be a Mario and Luigi reference in the form of demons lol.

Mad One Boss

Pretty much screw kick this guy badly. Malebogia sort of helps, but he seems rather enthused with his right hand.

Final Boss

Saving what I had left over. This boss is pretty much done for.

Other comments

Audience would enjoy seeing some fast paced action and dodgy maneuvering
Suggested Screenshot: 5772

turska: Judging.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3644: Cooljay's SNES Spawn in 29:55.08
NitroGenesis
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Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
I'm voting no. The run is clearly not very optimized.
    *You mashed start to skip the intro. That was sloppy. *You abused Spawn's more powerful moves, even though the dash attack is faster and kills enemies anyway. *Some movements are clearly not frame precise, like the wall jumps. *At the end of some bosses when the Spawn icon is falling, you can use the flame uppercut to reach it much faster then a regular jump. *Sometimes, you waited in place for an enemy to walk toward you, then beat him up. You could've ran toward him and beat him up. That could've saved time. *Not related to the quality of the run, but your amount of rerecords seems pretty low for a 30 minute run.
To prove these theories, here is a WIP that saves nearly 10 seconds from the first level, simply from better precision. It still isn't very optimal, so you could beat it. This game would make an OK TAS because it has a decent amount of variety. I encourage you to redo, and make new posts for WIPs, instead of editing your first one, because people will not notice your post if you just edit.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... blech, bitter!
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TASVideos Grue wrote:
om, nom, nom... blech, bitter!
My poor bot, look what you did to it >_< *Nach hands Grue some Tums™.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Cooljay
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Joined: 5/1/2012
Posts: 468
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NitroGenesis wrote:
I'm voting no. The run is clearly not very optimized.
    *You mashed start to skip the intro. That was sloppy. *You abused Spawn's more powerful moves, even though the dash attack is faster and kills enemies anyway. *Some movements are clearly not frame precise, like the wall jumps. *At the end of some bosses when the Spawn icon is falling, you can use the flame uppercut to reach it much faster then a regular jump. *Sometimes, you waited in place for an enemy to walk toward you, then beat him up. You could've ran toward him and beat him up. That could've saved time. *Not related to the quality of the run, but your amount of rerecords seems pretty low for a 30 minute run.
To prove these theories, here is a WIP that saves nearly 10 seconds from the first level, simply from better precision. It still isn't very optimal, so you could beat it. This game would make an OK TAS because it has a decent amount of variety. I encourage you to redo, and make new posts for WIPs, instead of editing your first one, because people will not notice your post if you just edit.
I was unsure if it would be boring if I beat everyone with regular attacks and dash. However watching your WIP. It seems the quality holds up the same if not better, and slightly faster. Canceling for now. Thanks for the tips btw.