(Link to video)

X-Men: Wolverine's Rage in 11:31.19 by Noxxa

Surprise, another TAS! I've mostly been working on this as a shorter, simpler and easier alternative to my recent Game Boy Mega Man TASes (and faster paced to boot). This game is not as technically complex as those, so I've been able to create this run significantly faster than my recent other runs.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk v1.5.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time

About the game

X-Men: Wolverine's Rage is, naturally, a licensed game starring Marvel Comics' Wolverine. The game (which is the third X-Men game for Game Boy Color, after X-Men: Mutant Academy and X-Men: Mutant Wars) was developed by Digital Eclipse and released by Activision on May 15th, 2001. It plays like a standard run-of-the-mill platforming game, with Wolverine jumping, climbing and hacking his way through 16 stages and 4 bossfights against foes such as Cyber, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth.
Yeah, it's just a...really average platforming game.

Tricks

Notes about physics:

  • No acceleration. On both the ground and the air, Wolverine accelerates to running speed immediately.
  • Jump height is fixed, regardless of pressing or holding A for any amount of time.
  • Landing takes horizontal movement away for 1 frame. Thus, for horizontal movement, jumps have to be minimized.
  • Wolverine can't jump-slash after dropping off a ledge. This is why I sometimes jump off edges (to slash an enemy below) when it would otherwise be faster to fall off.
  • After falling for a certain amount of time, Wolverine becomes unable to horizontally adjust his position in the air anymore, until landing on ground. This may be noticed during some long falls.

Object boost/Enemy boost

Attempting to land on destroyable objects or enemies causes Wolverine to zip off to the side of the object or enemy. This is used everywhere throughout the run to zip Wolverine forward slightly.

Air slash hitbox

Doing an air slash in the air causes Wolverine's hitbox to change in odd ways - it seems to become smaller and further down. This allows Wolverine, for instance, to pass through enemies in a 4-tile high area. Generally, when an air slash is done that doesn't hit anything, it's done for this reason.

Ceiling clip

Doing a regular jump into a ceiling sometimes causes Wolverine to clip into the ceiling and zip down a few pixels. This is sometimes useful to make a jump shorter and land on the ground earlier.

Edge grabbing tricks

There are a few different actions Wolverine can do while hanging from a ledge; jump up the edge by pressing up or A, do a lunge from the edge by pressing away, or letting go of the ledge by pressing down; if Wolverine grabbed the edge from high enough, he can actually regrab the ledge at a lower point immediately afterwards.
The fastest way to go up a ledge depends on whether Wolverine needs to jump immediately after getting up the ledge, or to move forward. Under normal circumstances, the fastest way to move forward is just by jumping up the edge (up/A). To jump afterwards, the fastest method (to land on the ledge floor as soon as possible), the fastest method is to grab the high point of the ledge, press down and regrab (grabbing the edge about 8 pixels lower), and then doing a lunge up the edge. This allows Wolverine to land 1-3 frames sooner, depending on the vertical position where Wolverine catches the edge.

Rage buffer

Normally, Wolverine's special Rage ability is executed by mashing the B button, causing Wolverine to slash about repeatedly before executing the special move. However, pressing forward+B or down+B on the same frame causes the slash not to come out, so doing this movement repeatedly allows Wolverine to buffer up B presses and execute the Rage at once without slashing beforehand.

Stage by stage comments

Chapter 1 - New York City

Stage 1 - Street

  • This first level is really short compared to the following levels, basically serving as an introduction to the game. Not much to say about it.

Stage 2 - Alley

Stage 3 - Docks

Stage 4 - Subway

Boss 1 - Cyber

  • Cyber is a bit of an unique bossfight. He has 4 hit points, but once they reach zero, he doesn't die. Instead, he changes his attack pattern and starts running around. During this state, letting him jump off the building into a bottomless pit will win the battle.

Chapter 2 - Tokyo

  • Tokyo in general is defined by quite long stages, compared to the other three chapters. The stages are also a bit laggier compared to the others.

Stage 5 - Busy street

  • This stage is unique in that it has no grabbable ledges.

Stage 6 - Building

  • The samurai at the start has to be killed in order to be able to grab the ledge.

Stage 7 - Forest

Stage 8 - Dojo

Boss 2 - Lady Deathstrike

  • Lady Deathstrike has 8 HP, though she can only be hit twice every "round". After hitting her twice, she'll back up to the upper platforms (where you can't reach her) before coming down again.
  • I let Lady Deathstrike land as close as possible to the spot where she'll jump up to the upper platform (otherwise she'd run over to there, or to the other platform on the right side of the stage). I also let Lady Deathstrike land on Wolverine, so the collision clipping will put her a few pixels closer to the jump spot.

Chapter 3 - The Savage Land

Stage 9 - Jungle

  • Best theme of the game, in my opinion. It's a shame both stages with this theme (this one and the next) are so short.

Stage 10 - Village

  • Midway through the stage, I do a quite tricky jump which I think isn't even designed to be possible. This makes this a rather short stage.

Stage 11 - Waterfall

  • Second best theme of the game.

Stage 12 - Swamp

Boss 3 - Sabretooth

  • Sabretooth has 8 HP. This boss battle is very straightforward. Just hack up Sabretooth before he hacks up Wolverine.
  • This is the first time I use Wolverine's Rage technique (which is performed by mashing B). It's the most lag-free way to defeat Sabretooth during the second half of the fight.

Chapter 4 - Secret Lab

Stage 13 - Entrance

Stage 14 - 1st floor

  • This stage is fairly short, but really annoying with all the bottomless pits.

Stage 15 - 2nd floor

  • One of the shortest stages in the game is immediately preceded by the longest one in the game.

Stage 16 - 3rd floor

Boss 4 - Sabretooth & Cyber

  • Sabretooth and Cyber are fought consecutively as the final boss. Sabretooth has 8 HP and Cyber has 5 HP and is defeated like normal this time. Other than that, they both fight exactly the same as last time. (Cyber pilots a laser beam from above until Sabretooth is defeated.)
  • I use Wolverine's Rage on Cyber because it's again the most lag-free way to defeat him. And because he's a wimp who dies from full health after just one use of it.

Other comments:

Recommended screenshot:

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for watching!

Nach: Turns out this works with lsnes, so judging!

Nach: While this run seems to be pretty solid, the game is rather bland. The music is annoying, and the levels are overly simplistic and repetitive. Reception has been lukewarm. So while it was cool seeing Weapon-X in this kind of game, and a rather interesting set of final credits, accepting for vault.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4127: Noxxa's GBC X-Men: Wolverine's Rage in 11:31.19
mklip2001
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Thanks for the preliminary encode! That was an amusing little run. It's definitely way simpler than X2 Wolverine's Revenge (which I think is a much better game), but it's also shorter and less laggy. Wolverine's pose upon finishing each stage is priceless. The rage attack is pretty cool. The platforming is pretty repetitive, but the game is short enough to not get old. I think all of the music is pretty bad, but it works. It's a shame the bosses don't put up more interesting challenges. I decided on Yes, but this is a pretty close vote to Meh.
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.
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Patashu
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Nice TAS, vault for sure as the game only offers so much.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
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. ---- [2496] GBC X-Men: Wolverine's Rage by Noxxa in 11:31.19
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
It seems the publication has two movie files available for download, a BKM for BizHawk and an LSMV for lsnes. Was this a mistake? Or is this how runs will be published now that sync on multiple emulators?