The evil genius, Silas Volkmire, and his sidekick, the Dark Queen, have kidnapped the daughter of a well-renowned scientist and Zitz, one of the awesome Battletoads. Now the remaining Battletoads, Rash and Pimple, must rescue the two captives and stop the deadly duo from fulfilling their plans to control the world.
Objectives
- Takes Damage to Save Time
- Best Ending
Do you know how do I choose my runs to TAS? Do I search for old runs? Runs with few rerecords? Runs from TASers that I dislike and want to take some sort of silly revenge? Do I have a dream that one day all of the SNES runs will belong to me? Do I have a desperate need for attention and I would work like crazy on a run, just so it would be on the front page for a few days\hours? Well, one of the previous alternatives apply to one of my other runs, but none of them to this one; I was trying to watch the published run on the emulator and faced a lot of sync problems, so I decided to update it on a newer emulator.
New Tricks
Two Birds With One Stone
I'm playing the 2 Players A mode, the frogs can hurt each other. At first I thought I would have to waste time to avoid the other toad, but it's not possible to hit the enemy and the other frog with the same attack, so I abused that to hit only the enemy.
One Hit Kill
Not really new if you have already watched Battletoads and Double Dragon by feos. Anyway, crouch with one frog and attack with the other. In stages that you can't crouch, you must knock the other toad down first.
Undocumented Warp
Another new trick that's somewhat old, oh well... stand on the tail of the last snake and you will finish Snake Pit on the left side. Not used in this run due to a faster solution.
Bonus Tally
In bonus stages it doesn't matter if you collect pins\dominoes or not, the amount of time you will wait to calculate your points is the same. Okay, it's not even a trick but I think it's at least new.
Stage 1: Dark Volcano
The only beat 'em up stage of the game and since there's not so many of "them" to beat I thought it would be a good idea if the frogs beat each other in waiting periods to add a little bit of entertainment.
Boss: Rocky
The one hit kill trick was not working not matter what, and if you watched my first wip you saw the fight as it's supposed to be fought. But TASers are persistent beings and when I was fighting the Dark Queen I felt the need to try Rocky's fight again. The solution; sacrifice one of the frogs to take advantage of the invincibility period.
Stage 2: Hollow Tree
There's not much to do here to save time as it's kind of auto scroller, but on the published run some enemies are not killed fast enough, and it gave a little advantage in this stage.
Bonus Round: Bowling Pins
From T-Bird; C'mon 'toads, it's bonus time! Collect the whites to win a life, avoid the skulls as they mean strife! I don't know what he means with "strife", but I still need those skulls to finish this bonus stage faster, it would be nice if the frogs could hurt each other though.
Stage 3: Speeder Bikes
I never managed to beat this stage back in the day; hard to memorize and avoid all the obstacles and long, too long. I will not complain if you fast forward this part of the run.
Stage 4: Snake Pit
This is where good part of the total number of rerecords come from; I spent quite some time trying to find short cuts here, sadly, the only one I found is really close to the end, but it saved more time than the glitch to finish the stage on the left side.
Stage 5: Tracktors
Despite being a long stage it's really easy to do, change directions three frames before the next turn. The obstacles can be avoided on the first or last possible frame, the first possible frame is preferable only on "Rail Out" sections. Rash is eight frames ahead of Pimple, so, do something with Rash, count six frames and then repeat with Pimple, simple as that.
Bonus Round: Dominoes
Another one of those unwanted bonus stages, luckily this one is short.
Stage 6: Rat's Race
No graphical glitches this time, sorry. On the comparison chart I said that this stage is 1481 frames faster now, but this chart sums stage+boss or stage+bonus, I think you figured this out already but it's good to mention to avoid misunderstandings.
Boss: Dark Queen
Watch memory addresses in this fight is quite complicated as it's random; press a different button or direction before the fight and prepare yourself to search for a new address. But the one hit kill trick eliminates the hassle, a little bit of the entertainment is also gone though.
Boss: Silas Volkmire
This is the man to kill if you want the good ending! Spoiler: After beating a game that is so hard on some sections, the designers should have come up with at least a static picture with the toads and the girl they just rescued, but no, there's just a stupid text saying that the boss escaped!
Possible Improvements
I've quoted a line from T-Bird, on the Bowling Pins bonus stage; it's neither present in the published run nor in my run. So, what? Well, I haven't figured out how, but it may be possibe to manipulate what the Dark Queen and T-Bird say between the stages so you only have to skip shorter text. Also, PJ posted a video on the forum of him skipping the first stage with a glitch on console, you bet we tried to reproduce this glitch on emulator, as you can see we didn't succeed, but a run featuring that glitch would save tons of time.
Special Thanks
feos, for his awesome Battletoads & Double Dragon run, the one hit kill trick and most of the style of my run was inspired on his run, but also for feedback on the forum, thank you. PJ, his SDA run is also amazing and his tricks inspired me to find new solutions to solve parts of the run that otherwise would be a lot slower, thank you. FODA and Vatchern, the way I finish some enemies is a carbon copy of their strategies, thank you guys!
Apologies
I said on the forum that I was posting less wips due to people not commenting every time I released a new one; it was childish on my part. Not commenting does not mean not watch or support, I realized that now and so I'm sorry. I hope you have enjoyed the run. See you... mm... well, still don't know which one will be my next run, but whatever it is, without your support it will be meaningless, so see you there!
Suggested Screenshot
[dead link removed]
| Stage | Frames Saved |
|---|
| Dark Volcano | 722
|
| Hollow Tree | 52 |
| Speeder Bikes | 56 |
| Snake Pit | 522 |
| Tracktors | 68 |
| Rat's Race | 1481 |
| Total | 2901 |
|---|
Nach: Let me start by saying that this is an absolutely amazing TAS. Also, thank you so much for taking a game off my list. I'm especially pleased to see it done on an emulator which doesn't have huge emulation flaws.
It seems the game wasn't hard enough, so you had to up the difficulty with fighting yourself! Segment after segment, you made it look way too easy. Skuzz was completely left in the dust. The Snake Pit was your personal workout room. The Dark Queen after meeting you decided she'd rather play with Billy and Jimmy, they're less violent. Also, best ending, terrific.
I'm accepting this game, and giving the previous one the boot. The spiked boot. Or the concrete fist, whichever works for you.
