(Link to video)
Rockman 4 Burst Chaser × Air Sliding is a fantastic hack of Rockman 4 made by Tsukikuro that was released in August 2014.
The patch can be found here. Apply to a Rockman 4 (J) rom.
At its core, this hack is a combination of ideas and mechanics from two other romhacks: Rockman 3 Burst Chaser and Rockman 5 Air Sliding.
Some of the more notable changes in this hack:
  • Mega Man's movement speed is increased
  • When jumping out of a slide, Mega Man retains slide speed (similar to dashing in the Mega Man X series)
  • Mega Man can slide in the air once per jump
  • You can quickly cycle through weapons with Select or Down + Select (or Select + Start to default to the Mega Buster)
  • Health and energy items refill without stopping the game (this is very important)
  • Boss AI and special weapons have been modified
  • New music and level layouts

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes damage to save time

Comments

I love this romhack and feel like the particular combination of new features offers very unique gameplay and interesting challenges.

Some general techniques:

Air sliding: At the beginning and the end of an air slide, Mega Man is pushed forward a bit. As a result, the fastest movement over flat ground is repeated 1-frame airslides. In addition, when starting a slide on the frame Mega Man lands on the ground the game will treat it as an air slide.
Balloons: I pick up the Balloon item in Drill Man's stage. With Balloons, I can climb rapidly to save large amounts of time in vertical segments and I can get extra air slides over large pits to save frames. Once I have balloons, RNG manipulation becomes a very big deal. Unlike in the original game, you can't land on a balloon once it explodes so you can't climb up narrow spaces by placing them in the wall.
RNG manipulation: Once I get balloons, I need to manipulate large weapon refills very frequently to replenish my ammo. This is particularly difficult with Mega Man's high movement speed; many enemies can't be killed soon enough for their drop to appear before I've passed where it will spawn.
Robot master kills: I make an effort to kill every robot master as close to the (horizontal) middle of the screen as possible; this minimizes waiting time before the end of stage sequence begins. Standing in the middle of the screen prevents additional waiting time. The early exit glitch (where Mega Man skips part of the end of stage sequence) from the original was removed for some reason.
Charge storage: If you quickswap to a different weapon while charging the mega buster, the charge status will be preserved. This can be used to instantly release a full charge after using other weapons or to charge a shot while also firing other weapons to clear out enemies.
Some useful RAM addresses:
  • 0330, 0318 : X position
  • 0378, 0360 : Y position
  • 0035 : Charge timer
  • 05CF : Boss iframes
  • 0347 : Boss X position

Stage by stage comments

Dust Man

I clear out two rows of blocks in the crusher section so I can keep using air slides. Thanks to this, I can barely escape without waiting for the crushers to rise at the end. A lot of work went into making Dust Man not use his sucking attack, which leaves him invincible for an annoying amount of time. Dust Crusher is a powerful weapon and is effective against many otherwise problematic enemies. It follows a convenient arc in this hack.

Bright Man

There isn't much to note in this stage. I use the 1 frame of input before the fight begins to summon rush coil to get the first hit in early (Bright Man will always jump high to start the fight). Flash stopper is nearly useless later in the run because it prevents switching weapons for 200 frames.

Skull Man

I can get the Wire item in this stage but I ignore it; it takes much longer to grab it here than later and there aren't many places to use it in the robot master stages. I start the fight with some charge shots to get Skull Man in the middle of the room before freezing him with his weakness. The fight is slower this way, but the stage ends faster. Skull Shield is a very helpful weapon that lets me deal with enemies right above me. In this hack, it can be thrown.

Drill Man

I get balloons in this stage. I use the 1 frame of input entering the boss room to spawn a shield early, which I can throw at Drill Man to get an early hit as the fight starts. Drill Bomb isn't very powerful and doesn't travel quickly, but its lasting explosion makes it useful for taking out certain enemies.

Dive Man

The first stage of many where balloons make a big difference. Skull shields make quick work of the whale minibosses. In addition to the boss explosion, I need to minimize the time it takes for Mega Man's air bubble to disappear off the top of the screen to start the end of stage sequence. Dive Missile is not good. (It's fun, though)

Ring Man

I skip one miniboss with an air slide and need to kill the other. I fool around a bit with balloons during the Ring Man fight while making sure missiles are hitting him as soon as possible. Ring Boomerang is a very helpful weapon; it's strong and it travels quickly, making it much easier to kill enemies in a way that lets me get their drops. Additionally, the number of frames the projectile is on screen seems to affect RNG.

Toad Man

The currents in the beginning of the stage add or subtract one pixel per frame from your speed. I avoid being in currents against me while maximizing time in friendly currents. Wind only affects Mega Man when he is not sliding so I minimize sliding when with the wind and maximize sliding when against it. Rain Flush can be used in some places to kill several enemies and leave a drop in a convenient spot.

Pharaoh Man

This stage sees the most balloon use in the game. I jump before using rain flush to minimize the startup time (I end up needing to wait a few frames for Pharaoh Man to reach the middle, though). Pharaoh shot behaves similar to how it did it Rockman 4, but the held shot will sit inside Mega Man's hitbox. Luckily, it can't keep up with the speed boosts of air slides so I don't always need to take damage to hit with a held shot.

Cossack 1

From here on out, the game won't be giving me free refills so I can't use balloons everywhere I would like to. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't use a ton of them. I pick up the Wire item here, mainly so I can use it in the next stage.

Cossack 2

My favourite stage of this run. The stage has 3 sections that are meant to be done with Rush Jet. Naturally, I use jet in none of them. Eddie and the autoscroller sections are very convenient, letting me easily refill several weapons. It's barely impossible to get 5 hits in the first round of the Square Machine fight (by 1 frame).

Cossack 3

Like with the robot masters, I need to wait for the explosion of the second Cockroach to leave the screen to leave the stage, but I can't manipulate its movements. Waiting for it to finish climbing the wall and start moving along the ceiling is slower.

Cossack 4

I manipulate Cossack Catcher's movements to finish the fight with him in a position that minimizes movement at the beginning of the cutscene.

Wily 1

The fish section was very difficult; balloons make the game lag very easily here. I have some fun with a held pharaoh shot during the downtime in the boss fight.

Wily 2

Nothing too notable in this stage.

Wily 3

Nothing too special here either. I refight every robot master, but this time I don't get a free frame of input for early hits etc. and I don't need to worry about where they are when they die.

Wily 4

I enter the boss room 1 frame slower than I could to get a better third spawn in the boss fight, which lets me end input sooner. The final shot's debris finishes off Wily as soon as his invincibility period is over.

Other comments

I had a ton of fun making this TAS and learned a lot along the way. I hope you enjoy it.
The rerecord count that FCEUX put in the movie file seemed horribly inaccurate (under 3000), so I replaced it with a (probably very) conservative estimate.

Some screenshots:

[remove dead links]

Nach: I have mixed feelings about this hack. On the one hand, the levels weren't that interesting and the new features makes the game seem too easy. On the other, it offers a lot of opportunity for entertaining action, and the hack itself is decent. In the end, I'm left asking myself what's better for the site, and I think a TAS for this hack that's well done is the way to go.
The play on this was quite good, with only one or two questionable moments. Feedback was good too. Weakly accepting this hack as a viable TASing candidate, and accepting this run as first run for this game. However, since I'm only weakly accepting this hack, it should be replaced with a better hack which sticks to the same general ballpark of altercations for this game. (RM4I is such a massive hack and pulls in things from so many other games, I consider it to be in a league of its own, and not just a Mega Man 4 hack.)
fsvgm777: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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I voted meh. The airsliding feels like an unnecessary feature. Visually, the airsliding makes the run go really fast and for lack of better word, easy. Though I am sure it wasn't entirely easy tasing the game.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Joined: 9/22/2014
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Nice musics and skills. I like this hack very much. Yes vote from me.
BigBoct
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I liked it. Fast movement throughout and lots of enemies dying quickly. Yes vote. Also, what was the music from the Wily levels? I know I've heard it but am having a brainfart on where.
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Noxxa
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boct1584 wrote:
I liked it. Fast movement throughout and lots of enemies dying quickly. Yes vote. Also, what was the music from the Wily levels? I know I've heard it but am having a brainfart on where.
Wily 1 is Wily 1 from Mega Man 10, and Wily 2 is Wily 3 from Mega Man 7. I don't know what Wily 3 is.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Joined: 3/8/2014
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Really nice TAS, well optimized. The Cossack 2 strategy with the wire/balloon swapping is really sick. TBH this TAS is a lot more entertaining to me than the RM4MI TAS that has a star, it would be a shame to have this one meet the same fate as RM3BC..
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I liked this run a lot. Was a lot of fun. But I don't feel it offers enough changes to warrant publication. It would be equivalent to publishing a run of the original game with cheats, in my eyes. Voting No, sorry.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
mklip2001
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Wily 3's music is the Lufia II boss fight music when you're fighting the Sinistrals. It took me a while to figure that out. I believe Wily 4's music is from Double Dragon 3, such as in the first bossfight of that game. The Wily music is the best selections in the game, and every other track is ok. (I was amused by the Shadow of the Ninja music when you select a robot master though.) The hack's worst feature, I think, is the color palette. I find the colors pretty awful for most of the game. The level design could probably be a bit better; right now, it looks like there's mostly just a lot of spikes that you're supposed to air-slide over in predictable ways. However, it's certainly passable. I really like the weapon designs and the air slides. The game is quite fast, and it's pretty impressive. Nice job with boss fight optimization especially! Yes vote.
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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So this is what the cartesian product of Burst Chaser and Air Sliding looks like. Anyhow, the TAS exhibits a pretty large mastery over the game, making it through the stages at such a breakneck speed. Thanks to the spot-on execution, it makes for a very smooth and exciting watch. On the other hand, as this is a hack, it was explicitely made to enable fast movement without really changing much else about the core game engine. One has to consider if Rockman 4: MI, which features similarily fast movement using the Hell Wheel weapon isn't a better representative of this category. As far as entertainment goes, I'm voting yes.
Joined: 3/12/2013
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Voting yes. It's nicely optimized and enjoyable. Thought the 'it's a hack' part would be a bad idea, but we have hacks that only change level layout or character controls, having both is nice. Now I wait paitently for aa Soonic 1 Megamic tas... p.s. Yeah 4MI has a run on here, but megaman games are samey anyways.
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dont like hacks but voted yes
TAS i'm interested: megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched fighting games with speed goals in general
ars4326
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Gotta go fast! I liked it and gave a 'yes' vote. The music was very good and, like mklip mentioned, the sprites could've used some more...quality control. Not sure where this submission will end up, though (we've already got MM4:MI). Could it obsolete another hack, earn its own spot on the publication list, or...?
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Vote: Did you find this movie entertaining?
arandomgameTASer wrote:
I liked this run a lot. Was a lot of fun.
arandomgameTASer wrote:
Voting No, sorry.
mklip2001
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The way I see it, judge each hack on its own merits. If the hack is entertaining enough, it means people want to see it, and I have no issue with publishing it alongside. We shouldn't get a problem that way of too many similar hacks, because the more similar the hacks get, the less entertaining new ones will be. In this case, I think this run and the other MM4 hack are pretty different-looking. The air-slides and balloon usage make it stand out. Megiddo, I think the vote was "I think this is fun, but I don't think this merits publication." Technically, that vote is not answering the question the poll actually asks... but oh well. It's useful information for the judges.
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.
bjw
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bcas owns
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bjw wrote:
bcas owns
mates This is it boys, the ~best rockman 4 rom hack~. The only negative is that you don't get to hear all of ring man's stage theme.
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For the poll option, I'm voting yes on the grounds that "yes, I found this run to be entertaining." Especially with the playback speed controls on the YT encode. Ultra Super Fast Mode 2 Turbo, The Game: The Movie: The Game. However, I do have some reservations. 1) As has been stated previously, the Air Sliding feels like an unnecessary addition to the game. Yes, that it is in the game allows you to refill RM weapons during Cossack 2 with almost depressing ease (I'm sure Wily would agree there), BUT I can count on one hand the number of cases where the Air Slide was even considered when the stage was designed, and none of those were in the RM stages. 2) Was it just me, or was everything unnaturally fast in the TAS as opposed to "just" Rock? Was this a documented increase in speed all around? 3) This is not going to be an easy sell to laypersons for the simple fact that it's not R4MI. I like it because it is accessible to Laypersons, but R4MI is established and - let's face it - more well known. This feels more like a niche hack showing off the hacker's ability to hybridize two other hacks' gimmicks, and as mentioned in point 1 is shows in the stage design.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
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yes vote.
Joined: 2/28/2009
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this TAS is a lot more entertaining to me than the rockman 4 minus infinity TAS currently published. i wouldn't advocate for this TAS obsoleting that one, but i hope it is published alongside it.
Joined: 3/8/2014
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Isn't the point of a Tool Assisted Speedrun to make a game both extremely optimized and to make it looks like its being done by a super player who's beating it with superhuman ease? This TAS does both of those things and as a realtime runner of the hack, it's pretty absurd (once again in the great traditions of tasvideos.org) to have people who don't even comprehend the basic mechanics determine what the game plays like. If you want to see how this TAS compares to a realtime run, here's my best and you can tell me just how easy the hack is and that's there's nothing special about the TAS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scir_f_aGJM
Joined: 3/9/2009
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I dislike the concept of adding an air dash when there really wasn't much call for it other than to constantly fly above enemies. It wasn't exactly worked in as a core game mechanic, just, to repeat what was said in http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14576 , made it look like a regular Megaman run on fastfoward with much less care and strategy needed since the modified dash jump was the answer 9 times out of 10.
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Tangent wrote:
I dislike the concept of adding an air dash when there really wasn't much call for it other than to constantly fly above enemies. It wasn't exactly worked in as a core game mechanic, just, to repeat what was said in http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14576 , made it look like a regular Megaman run on fastfoward with much less care and strategy needed since the modified dash jump was the answer 9 times out of 10.
Garrison wrote:
it's pretty absurd (once again in the great traditions of tasvideos.org) to have people who don't even comprehend the basic mechanics determine what the game plays like.
Joined: 2/21/2014
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Tangent wrote:
I dislike the concept of adding an air dash when there really wasn't much call for it other than to constantly fly above enemies.
Except this almost never happens because it's faster to kill things in your way and do small hops on the ground. Did you even watch the video?
Joined: 3/9/2009
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bittenfeld wrote:
Tangent wrote:
I dislike the concept of adding an air dash when there really wasn't much call for it other than to constantly fly above enemies. It wasn't exactly worked in as a core game mechanic, just, to repeat what was said in http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14576 , made it look like a regular Megaman run on fastfoward with much less care and strategy needed since the modified dash jump was the answer 9 times out of 10.
Garrison wrote:
it's pretty absurd (once again in the great traditions of tasvideos.org) to have people who don't even comprehend the basic mechanics determine what the game plays like.
Yes, yes. I just don't get the ethereal glory that is this hack and how its inner beauty is beyond my ken. I'm the filthy unwashed, unable to comprehend the ineffable greatness.
Megiddo wrote:
Tangent wrote:
I dislike the concept of adding an air dash when there really wasn't much call for it other than to constantly fly above enemies.
Except this almost never happens because it's faster to kill things in your way and do small hops on the ground. Did you even watch the video?
Yes, I was referring to what the hack changed; the times when it wasn't exactly like every other NES Megaman run on fastforward. So are you conceding that it mostly is like every other NES Megaman run except on fastforward then?
Joined: 3/8/2014
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Well you jump and shoot so it's clearly the same as every mega man game, actually it's the same as contra and bucky o'hare and metroid and etc. Making generalizations is pretty cool. Basically the argument is the addition of fast weapon swapping and instant refills makes item use a lot more viable and interesting than in Mega Man 4. Not only that, but the weapons such as dust crusher moving at an arc instead of a straight path means entirely different uses than in the original game or RM4MI. Honestly the hate and bias that romhacks get on tasvideos is pretty amazing to me considering the site host approx a billion vaulted tases with 200 rerecords versus actual good and well made tases of interesting content. Tradition can make a community stronger but it can also alienate audiences and cause stagnation.