Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
The overflow, maybe yes, but the softlocks you mentioned also happens in my run. In stage 3 I had to wait 20 frames to skip the text and my stage 8 has no music after the boss...
In any case, it's worth fiddling around with that overflow thingy, we may find a way to skip something with it, who knows?
But I came here to talk about my test on Stage 9; it's pretty easy to clip into those moving platforms, so I'm confident that I can cut some corners in this stage.
edit:
Sorry to bring more bad news, but you're right about all the places we can zip on stage 9 not being near Prometheus; I think my hopes were too high…
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Then for some final boss tips:
-The hitbox for his first form is on the ball he swings around. You should be able to finish the form in only 2 or 3 swings.
-The hitbox on the ball still acts as a part of the boss for the second phase. You can just keep shooting the ball while it's rolling on the ground and it will damage the boss so long as he's on-screen.
-You can shorten the boss's between-phase invincibility time by not killing the little robots that he spawns. He will only spend time to respawn ones that are killed between phases.
-I use the pause trick only once since it gives me just long enough to take out an additional phase while I'm on the ceiling. These would be the 3rd, 4th (Pause with flamethrower after he rushes at you), and 5th stages.
-If you can land on the boss's head after the first phase, you can dish out a ton of damage pretty consistently. The only problem is that you die instantly if he turns around.
-Taking on the boss with Havoc and level 3 Shot may be faster since you can get there sooner, and actually being able to jump allows you more opportunities to hit it. You can also be more precise in trying to not kill the small robos.
Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully it helps!
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Thank you!
It took a little bit longer than I was expecting, but here’s the completed run;
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/8430287772486359
I’m already working on v2, trying to glitch the text like you did in your, but changing the pilot’s name to any single character is not giving me the same result, there might be something else.
In any case, there are lots of mistakes to fix, unused tricks to try out and a little bit of fooling around to add, so v2 is needed regardless of that specific glitch, would be nice to include it though.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
I just watched, and I have to say that your final stage was pretty fantastic. Setting up for the pause trick on the final boss is not easy, and you made the other parts of the stage entertaining despite their monotony. It worked out to 14:50 if timed according to RTA standards; I have a ways to go it seems! That's about 3.5 minutes faster than the sum of my best splits.
As you said, working out the text issues is the first thing. Some other minor things I saw:
-You can fire the melee attack and the shot with Spider at the same time. Only one shot comes out between each melee cycle, but it's an extra 2 damage and saves about that many frames each time. Most notable at the start of 6-2 when taking out the cannon. Actually, this doesn't matter since you're bound by the moving platform cycle.
-I still don't know how to manipulate them, but abusing the bomb boosts on Stage 8 might help out.
I'll put down more things as I think of them.
Placeholder post. Quick encode coming soon (currently uploading).Link to video
It is currently unlisted, so you should only be able to watch it here or with the link.
A note on the text skipping: I don't know if it makes any difference, but I typically hold b while mashing Y to advance the text. I rewatched some of my older videos, and I don't always skip that sequence of text either. I'll play around with it a bit more... maybe it can be used during other text sequences too.
Thanks for the encode, Omnigamer! That was a pretty awesome run. Plenty of abuse of mechanics and dodgy hitboxes, and that pause glitch, which I'd not seen before.
I look forward to seeing the final run on the workbench. :)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Thank you, Derakon!
The routes are as optimal as possible, but movement can be optimized a little further, I estimate something around 100 frames can be squeezed in the new run.
Omnigamer wrote:
I typically hold b while mashing Y to advance the text.
Um... I only used B and A, but I'll also test other combinations as well, thank you.
oh, and around 02:59 on the encode the guy says: "They are destroying the generators" and then repeat the same text at 03:05...
the text in this game is really buggy despite the pilot's name. by the by, the name "Stone" is used 10 times during the game, so changing it is a waste of time since it takes 70 frames to change it.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Yes, the text is quite buggy. Beyond the mentioned issues with text events accompanied by BGM changes, text events can "overwrite" each other. This is actually the original, older way to do Stage 3: by waiting until the explosion sequence starts up (from all the generators getting destroyed), you can overwrite the "you have failed" text box with the "Good job, Stone!" event from starting to pilot the ship and thus do not fail the mission when you should. The new strats and Dooty's TAS get to piloting the ship much faster, so waiting for the explosion isn't necessary anymore. There are a couple other ways I have seen the game bug out:
-In stage 3, if the "They're destroying the generators" text appears at roughly the same time that you cross the threshold for the "Capture the ship" text box, they will both appear and cause some graphical glitches.
-If you pause just as a text event is being displayed it will also cause some graphical bugs.
-Unrelated to text boxes, but the graphics occasionally screw up a lot in Stage 5 against the giant cannon.
-The video below shows something very wrong against the last boss. I haven't been able to reproduce it, and I can't be certain it's not an emulator issue. Even so, very strange/funny.
Link to video
As far as I know these bugs are just aesthetic, but still worth noting.
The FAQs are wrong in that regard. They also state that to access "Basketball Mode" you need to complete the game without using a continue; this is also false. You will always be forced to play Stage 8, and Basketball Mode will always be unlocked after you beat Stage 9-2.
They might have been confused since it is called a "Secret Stage" in its opening cutscene, but it is not actually secret at all.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Hikaruon wrote:
you skip the stage "The Tower".
Too bad it was just a mistake, it would be nice if we could somehow skip that stage, oh well...
anyways, I'm having some fun with them texts, nothing that saved time yet, but I'll keep trying :)
a little update on the progress of v2; Stage 1 done, 99 frames saved.
edit;
stage 3 done, 244 frames ahead.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Thank you!
Stage 4 is still the worst stage to TAS, I guess it's the lack of a defined way to complete it...
This time I killed even more enemies, but it's 55 frames faster and I'm now 299 frames ahead.
edit:
Stage 5 done, the pause trick saved quite some time there, 693 frames ahead now.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
The pause trick with Ballistic? Do you use it with the power roll then? I remember that it's active for a few frames, but not enough to make it reliable in real-time. I do know there is a glitch where it will not cancel after running into an enemy though, so it can do a lot of damage. I haven't been able to reproduce it (I might not know all the conditions) but it's present in the trick videos from Nilusxy. It might save you some time if it's easy to set up since you wouldn't have to pause and unpause, it would just be a constant hitbox. The only description for it was to use the shield right before connecting with an enemy, but again I have not been able to make it work.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
"La Bola Blanca", I can't make it work either... so, no, it's just a normal charge pausing for a few frames.
by the by, there are lots of tricks on their video that seems impossible to reproduce,
it would be really nice if we could contact those guys to get more details about them.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Some of them may be emulator-specific, which wouldn't help us much. I tested most of the tricks and could get all but the Ballistic charge to work on console. If you have questions on specific tricks I can try to explain them in more detail.
EDIT: To clarify, I mean that I tried the individual tricks. The crazy switch glitch setups and some of the other misc glitches that mess with the tilesets on Stage 7 I didn't mess with.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
I'm not at home right now, so I'll bring some screenshots of the ones I think would be useful tomorrow.
But for now, around 4:27 on this video, Drache inside a wall, would come in handy on Stage 8...
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
For that clip in particular I think they set it up similar to how you can get into the secret area in Stage 9-1. Leaving the Drache in its dive form shrinks the hitbox a lot, and then using the other player to push him in should can cause that clipping when the player releases dive. The other thought is that they may abuse the elevators for it. For example, exiting on the very edge of the elevator and re-entering while it is holding the mech mid-wall.
If they use some other method to clip in, then yes, we really need to find out what it is ;)
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Weird, the screenshots of the Media Player Classic are all black on my computer, so I decided to test the same stage as seen in the video;
It is ridiculously easy to clip on the walls of a two player game! You’re right about the elevator, but almost all of the diagonal ceilings are easy to clip into just flying toward them.
So, there are glitches that will only work on a two player game; others just need more experimentation.
I think we already have what’s needed to finish the single player game as fast as possible, would be nice to know how to execute these tricks though;
1 – Ballistic with its infinite damage charge.
2 – Nitro controlling the ship on sage 3.
3 – Skip the text like you did on your 19:24 run.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
I tried playing around with a few things regarding the text skip. It doesn't look like I actually do anything different than normal in the video, and I wasn't able to replicate the behavior on emulator. This makes me think that it's not a certain input or combination of inputs, but rather something getting screwed up in memory earlier in the level/game. That also means that it can probably be done at other points in the game too, although I think there are only a couple points where there's any significant amount of text after the player name. I'll keep trying things and let you know if anything turns up.
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Oh, sorry, I was playing Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and for some reason, couldn't stop... but I'm back to work on Metal Warriors again.
The text skip and the corrupted sound/music really seems to be related to a memory mess up; stage 3 has no music on the new run.
I guess we'll have to wait until it happens to track it down, but as you said, it won't save that much time anyway.
In any case, a better boost on Stage 6 put me a little farther ahead, 846 frames ahead up to Ballistic.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Actually, could you post your WIP for what you have currently? If the music messes up in the run I can use that to compare with a non-messed up version and figure out which things aren't getting set correctly. We might be able to figure out the Stage 2 and 9-1 text bugs from it.
The progress is looking great! Just a bit more to push the total below 15 minutes!
Joined: 6/2/2009
Posts: 1182
Location: Teresópolis - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Here: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/8806805396373444
I already pushed the last switch on Stage 6, 880 frames ahead, but this time I have a Speed Boost item, so I expect to save some time still in this area.
edit;
and it saved, I'm now fighting the bosses of Stage 7, 1135 frames ahead.
edit
Working on Stage 8, I'm looking for a Gravity Item near the start of this stage.
edit:
No use, the only random crate is close to the end, worse, guarded by a turret and a wall...
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
