(Link to video)
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Game objectives

  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Uses game-breaking glitches
  • Achieves credits early

DelayFFObjectGlitch

DelayObject is taken out from bank2 (usually bank6, instead) when NMI interrupts the process of objectFF. Object 00-FF appears in the Iceman stage. FinalFighter discovered that $600 was executed, when DelayObject55 appeared. We increase the number of instructions executed in one frame by manipulating music, drop items and Rockman's action so that NMI interrupts the particular process in the frame.

Instructions

ObjectFireDelay is manipulated by DropItems. $23 increases every frame, and DelayObject55 may appear when $23 is 55.
$002355
$060054F8504D54F8F8
$065000AC21006B1700
$06F01B3C3E1B3D3C20
DelayObjects is taken out
$002356
$060054F8504D54F8F8
$06503CAD221F6C1800
$06F0033C3E013D3C55
DelayObject55 calls $600 
0600: 54 F8 NOP F8,X               ; Y of Rockman = 54
0602: 50 4D BVC $0651              ; Y of Rockbuster1,2 = 50,4D
0650: 3C UNDEFINED (NO USE)        ; ObjectFireDelay of DelayObject3 = 3C
0651: AD 22 1F LDA $1F22 = #$0A    ; ObjectFireDelay of DropItems = AD,22
                                   ; ObjectFireDelay of DelayObject1 = 1F
0654: 6C 18 00 JMP ($0018) = $C460 ; (instruction of StageClear)
                                   ; ObjectFireDelay of DropItems = 6C,18
                                   ; ObjectFireDelay of DelayObject55 = 00
                                   ; Input of Controllers = $0018 = 60,C4
C45E: A9 00 lda #$00
C460: 85 31 sta $31(CurrentStage)  ; <-- Jumped here
C462: 4C 0C C1 jmp $C10C

History

  • 11/01/21 - FinalFighter found DelayObjectFFGlitch.
  • 14/04/29 - FinalFighter read about the article of SMB3 ACE TAS. [dead link removed]
  • 14/04/30 - FinalFighter remembered that some objects had called a RAM address. http://www.yuko2ch.net/rockman/JumpAddressList.txt
  • 14/05/01 - Creation of LuaScripts. FinalFighter and pirohiko confirmed by some cheats that DelayEnding in IceManStage was possible.
  • 14/05/08 - We began to work on a new TAS.
  • 14/05/13 - New TAS completed!

Detailed article with some pictures (written in Japanese)

[dead link removed]
こちらには日本語による詳細な解説・図説があります。

Special Thanks

  • Shinryuu - He looked at and encouraged our TAS.
  • cstrakm - He discovered the DelayWaterCurrent. It led to the discovery of DelayObjectGlitch.
  • Inzult - He verified DelayObjectGlitch with the real NES.
  • Tekepen - Explanation of 6502 was helpful.
  • Kureyuni - Explanation of undefined code of 6502 was helpful.
  • AlphaBeta, NinjyaSuperK, Vagla, Bisqwit - Rockman1's analysis data were helpful.
  • adelikat, Nach, Dwedit - The problem of Old PPU of FCEUX was solved by them.
And...
  • Thank you, everyone of TASVideos.

P.S.

Rockman went to the Iceman stage and felt like going back home. It'll come out after the credits that Rockman actually doesn't complete the game. Press start after the credits, and you'll see...
The next is renewal of Rockman2!
Nach: So this is quite a TAS to deal with. No matter how I handle it, someone is going to want to strap a bomb to my car. I'm surprised I even have the guts to judge this run, as some of the comments leave me feeling the heat of the fire and gasping for air. Hopefully, now you'll understand why I did not rush to judge this, and I'm sorry for the delay.
On the one hand, most of the gameplay is cut, and all we're left with is a quick jump to the ending credits. On the other hand, only a single icy level is played (with a different single level marked as completed). This run crashes part of the game mechanics as the previous run does, albeit a bit differently, and that run's glitch usage's doesn't beat the game in a flash.
Now, unless you were living under a rock, inside a bubble, or in a wood shed for the past few years, you saw the previous run, loved it, and don't want the previous movie obsoleted. The completion state is also controversial, as to whether the game is really completed or not, and possibly this run should be rejected.
I personally tango to my own metal, and like to handle things in a shocking and most electrifying manner, although fairly so. I find the cool thing to do in this situation would be to create a new branch, but being mindful of the issues, not the one you were thinking. This is setting a new precedent, one which may require further recategorization of existing movies, and that's okay.
I deem the following branches viable:
  • All levels completed using every technique available (the currently published run).
  • All levels completed without using the magnet beam, which incidentally is responsible for most of the glitches seen in the above branch, and is also deemed impossible by the creators.
  • A quick as possible run (this run).
This kind of branching also helps with other problematic games we've seen like Super Mario World, Super Mario Land 2, Super Metroid, and Kirby Super Star, which incidentally, all those games actually report some sort of completion percentage.
Accepting this run for the new low completion branch for this game (which also happens to be game-end glitch or whatever we're currently calling it).
Guga: Processing...

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Posted: 5/13/2014 9:29 PM
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Techokami
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Joined: 6/23/2008
Posts: 160
RIP Rockman. And Mega Man, by extension. Yes vote!
Posted: 5/13/2014 10:25 PM
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Eszik
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Joined: 2/9/2014
Posts: 163
adelikat wrote:
Wouldn't this be such a case? The difference between the glitch used in this run and the glitched prominently used in the 12 minute movie is what?
Then we'll need an 'all bosses' run (not skipping any levels) or people (including me) will be really disappointed. But I think this run is different enough of the previous one to becomke a new category. And about the post-completion behavior of the game : last VVVVVV's run got published while the flip mode wasn't unlocked after the ending. I think this is a similar case.
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
Posted: 5/13/2014 11:27 PM
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Tangent
Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530
I'd say it's beaten and certainly worth publishing, but like the Mario Land 2 run, also about the opposite of entertaining from anything but a technical perspective and the entertainment value there is still iffy at best. The entire entertainment comes from a second or two of a glitch. Nothing before it is entertaining in the slightest and the execution is all but impossible for a layperson to digest. It's a moment of "what the fuck" but that's it. Also, for runs this short, I'm starting to feel like it's only a matter of time before someone codes a decent DP bot where all it needs is to be given a set of possible ending states and then set to go.
Posted: 5/14/2014 12:23 AM
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Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1404)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1977
Location: Making an escape
I am honestly growing bored and weary of speedruns like this.
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Posted: 5/14/2014 1:13 AM
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Fishaman_P
Joined: 10/1/2013
Posts: 98
Location: My Basement
This is the best lag manipulation I've ever seen.
Posted: 5/14/2014 1:24 AM
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ALAKTORN
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Player (99)
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
DS TAS of 2012
I don’t know how I feel about this, the game doesn’t look beaten, to me running credits is all you need to beat a game now? we’ve had lots of previous submissions which were rejected because they didn’t set some kind of game-ending state, but merely displayed a graphic, why is this different? sadly the examples are all over the place and I don’t remember the specifics of either, so I can’t link them; although the already mentioned Pokémon Yellow is one of them I think beating a game means that the next time you play it, you have the freedom of NG+, in this case it would mean playing right from the Wily stage, which doesn’t happen here I can’t agree with most posters in here
Posted: 5/14/2014 1:42 AM
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kazblox
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Joined: 5/4/2014
Posts: 29
Wow. No other sentence to say about this TAS itself but this: HOLY SHIT WE HAVE REACHED INTO THE FABRIC OF TIME AND BROKEN THE UNIVERSE OF NORMAL TASES THANK YOU FINALFIGHTER, SHIRYUU AND FRIENDS! THIS WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN DONE WITHOUT THE DISCOVERY WHILE DUPLICATING ITEMS I GIVE A FUCKING YES, YES YES YES!
Posted: 5/14/2014 1:54 AM
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Priam
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
I think this movie qualifies for publication. It accomplishes what a doing-what's-expected playthrough of the game does--it displays the "You Won!" sequence, complete with accurate music and general control (un)responsiveness. I do, however, think that this run shouldn't obsolete anything currently in publication. I don't feel like what happens during input after the end-of-game sequence necessarily has any bearing on whether the game's victory condition was completed. After all, this site is, in no small part, dedicated to fooling games into reacting to things in ways that they weren't intended to. Adding a requirement that a run should end the game in the exact same state it would have ended in a realtime, human-hands victory is arbitrary, and against the fact of a couple other successful publications (although I don't believe any of them are considered mainline publications for their game, it must be noted). It's an interesting implementation of ideas manifest in the game, and I'm impressed that what took a giant cluster of enemies to accomplish with the DelayStageClear phenomenon was invoked, in the end, with apparently a mere buster shot. It uses the damn music as a prop for the violence it does to the game's sensibilities! This is a high mark of the craft of TASers. If anything, the fact that it got the victory celebration and then still screwed with the game even after is a Cool Thing, something unexpected that I didn't know the game could be twisted to do. It is for these reasons that I vote Yes.
Posted: 5/14/2014 2:45 AM
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mtvf1
Skilled player (1150)
Joined: 5/11/2011
Posts: 425
Location: China
GBA TASer of 2013
Yes, Yes. But some loser added "検索妨害" to the nico's tag. Can anyone remove it? I can search the movies from nico, but can't watch them.
Posted: 5/14/2014 2:47 AM
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SmashManiac
Player (12)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 501
For people saying that seeing "ROCKMAN HAS ENDED" on the screen counts as beating the game, here is a counterexample. That said, I agree with feos here. The ending routine plays out and behaves exactly as when beating the game normally. What is seen on the screen after pressing START are defeated robot masters flags, which are completely irrelevant to beating the game. I don't see any reason why this movie wouldn't be acceptable under those conditions.
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Posted: 5/14/2014 2:55 AM
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Kirkq
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
I haven't been keeping up with the precedent on these credits glitch runs, but it does seem arbitrary to choose "all levels appearing beaten" as criteria for beating the game. Like Finalfighter posted, if he could plausibly theoretically complete arbitrary tasks like making levels look complete with this method, would it really change anything? I generally think calling a game end routine which runs mostly normally and runs to the completion state is sufficient to say the game has been beaten. The question to me is something like "Are you convinced you just watched the ending of the game even though the levels don't look beat?" For me, Yes.
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Posted: 5/14/2014 3:37 AM
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Dyshonest
Joined: 9/15/2013
Posts: 154
It should be accepted because there is no doubt it does complete the game (what happens after credits is irrelevant. Look at our two minute ALttP TAS and how "complete" that looks post-credits), however... I don't know if it should coexist with the current twelve-minute run which uses similar methods to (mostly) skip two levels as opposed to the whole game. A glitch/warp-less runthrough seems to be the better companion to it than a run that only partially uses ACE/RAM corruption like the current twelve-minute run.
Posted: 5/14/2014 4:41 AM
(Edited: 5/14/2014 5:23 AM)
Post subject: Invalid run
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True
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
This run should be invalidated, because it does the exact opposite of what it should be doing on console. (thank you double dribble, you will not be missed) Instead of skipping to credits, this skips to the fucking PRESS START screen on a real NES. I'll edit the post with more drama and charged words later to make everyone feel better. edit: this is also one of the few runs with my new hardware; I can verify with my old hardware later but the run syncs and even does something to get back to the start screen so I imagine it's syncing fine... edit 2: nvm all hail double dribble
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Posted: 5/14/2014 5:08 AM
Post subject: Re: Invalid run
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Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4016
True wrote:
This run should be invalidated, because it does the exact opposite of what it should be doing on console. (thank you double dribble, you will not be missed) Instead of skipping to credits, this skips to the fucking PRESS START screen on a real NES. I'll edit the post with more drama and charged words later to make everyone feel better. edit: this is also one of the few runs with my new hardware; I can verify with my old hardware later but the run syncs and even does something to get back to the start screen so I imagine it's syncing fine...
Have you tried other Megaman TASes in console verification, and what are the results of those?
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Posted: 5/14/2014 5:12 AM
Post subject: Re: Invalid run
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pirohiko
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Joined: 5/7/2008
Posts: 187
Location: Japan
NES TAS of 2020 Glitchy TAS of 2020 Speedy TAS of 2017 NES TAS of 2009
True wrote:
This run should be invalidated, because it does the exact opposite of what it should be doing on console. (thank you double dribble, you will not be missed) Instead of skipping to credits, this skips to the fucking PRESS START screen on a real NES. I'll edit the post with more drama and charged words later to make everyone feel better. edit: this is also one of the few runs with my new hardware; I can verify with my old hardware later but the run syncs and even does something to get back to the start screen so I imagine it's syncing fine...
This movie works in Bizhawk. It means that DelayObject appeared if a game is reset. However, the game is reset if two controllers are not completely operated with the last frame. Is it inspected with two controllers?
Posted: 5/14/2014 5:15 AM
(Edited: 5/14/2014 5:24 AM)
Post subject: Re: Invalid run
Quote
True
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
pirohiko wrote:
True wrote:
This run should be invalidated, because it does the exact opposite of what it should be doing on console. (thank you double dribble, you will not be missed) Instead of skipping to credits, this skips to the fucking PRESS START screen on a real NES. I'll edit the post with more drama and charged words later to make everyone feel better. edit: this is also one of the few runs with my new hardware; I can verify with my old hardware later but the run syncs and even does something to get back to the start screen so I imagine it's syncing fine...
This movie works in Bizhawk. It means that DelayObject appeared if a game is reset. However, the game is reset if two controllers are not completely operated with the last frame. Is it inspected with two controllers?
Didn't even notice. No, was with one. Sorry, very tired. :( Let me try with the second one hooked up. OK, tested. That was it.
true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried
Posted: 5/14/2014 5:17 AM
Post subject: Re: Invalid run that is now valid
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True
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
Patashu wrote:
True wrote:
This run should be invalidated, because it does the exact opposite of what it should be doing on console. (thank you double dribble, you will not be missed) Instead of skipping to credits, this skips to the fucking PRESS START screen on a real NES. I'll edit the post with more drama and charged words later to make everyone feel better. edit: this is also one of the few runs with my new hardware; I can verify with my old hardware later but the run syncs and even does something to get back to the start screen so I imagine it's syncing fine...
Have you tried other Megaman TASes in console verification, and what are the results of those?
Unrelated, but the old MM1 wouldn't sync on modern FCEUX, MM2 syncs, MM3 and MM5 I can't remember, MM6 syncs up until a hidden platform in one of the last wily stages.
true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried
Posted: 5/14/2014 8:06 AM
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Ford
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It was short and it was weird. I liked it!
Posted: 5/14/2014 1:26 PM
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finalfighter
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Posts: 219
Location: Japan,Tokyo
NES TAS of 2020 Glitchy TAS of 2020 TAS of 2010 NES TAS of 2010 Glitchy TAS of 2010 NES TAS of 2009
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Posted: 5/15/2014 5:16 AM
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True
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
One of the reasons this didn't work at first is because I had a solder bridge between an SPI pin and a bodge wire for P2's latch line. It was barely a little flake, so I fixed it and now it works. This means 3 things: 1. The device works and code wasn't at fault 2. I'm blind 3. Praise Double Dribble Video sometime later. Can this be verified on MM USA with adjusting input frames?
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Posted: 5/15/2014 5:01 PM
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Lord_Tom
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NES TAS of 2018 NES TASer of 2016 NES TAS of 2016 Funny TAS of 2016 Glitchy TAS of 2016 NES TAS of 2014 TASer of 2009 NES TASer of 2009
Cool that this was found, the MM runs have always astounded me. I agree with adelikat, though, that post-credit behavior matters and that this run doesn't really beat the game. I'm no expert in MM1, so I'll use an example from the Legend of Zelda: Suppose a TAS jumped to the end-credits from Level 1, but afterward you reload the savefile and you're still in the first quest, with only 1 piece of the tri-force. In the Zelda case the game offers more obvious/visible feedback that the game was not really registered as beaten, but the same concept would seem to apply in this case.
Posted: 5/15/2014 5:27 PM
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GeminiSaint
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Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 192
Location: Argentina
Another game thoroughly raped. Kudos!
Posted: 5/15/2014 5:32 PM
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Aqfaq
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Joined: 4/8/2005
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Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Sega TASer of 2008 Lucky TAS of 2008
Maybe TASVideos needs a new category for "partial endings"? This category would include movies with various forms of partial ending sequences: * graphically glitched credits * credits without music * no credits, but game registered complete * credits, but game not registered complete
Posted: 5/15/2014 6:39 PM
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subanark
Joined: 2/8/2006
Posts: 60
I approve of this over one that beats the other non-wiley bosses. When you can execute arbitrary code, it is no longer clear what constitutes the game as being beaten. This is short and proves what it set out to prove as quickly as possible. Just like with SDA, each game should have it's own definition of what is allowed for which categories.
Posted: 5/15/2014 6:57 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
This is ACE, right? The TASer achieves total control? Assuming that, who cares what happens afterwards? It could be literally anything; the TASer has already "won" by breaking free of the limitations of the game's programming. As far as I'm concerned, ACE TASes end when total control is achieved; everything after that point is just them playing around and shouldn't count towards the run's duration.
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