Posted: 1/19/2013 9:53 PM
Post subject: Batman Returns
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honorableJay
He/Him
Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
After watching mikwyuama attempt to play this game at AGDQ (and getting frustrated enough to toss the remote) I've taken it upon myself to do an actual speedrun of this game. While I'm not going to TAS this game, mainly because I don't have the patience, I will be posting my progress here just in case someone else needs a good reference to start a TAS. I did search the forums before posting and could not find any topic for this game yet. My current best real time is about 21m56s, so pushing under 20 mins should be pretty easy. Most of the levels consist of running by as many enemies as possible, tanking tons of damage, and abusing death to refill health at key points. Despawning Certain enemies can be despawned (mainly the flipping clowns) by colliding with them at the top of your jump. The trick works due to the screen scrolling up after taking a hit. The enemy will fall down off the screen and immediately disappear. This can probably be done to many other enemies, but the flippers are the only ones I've figured out how to consistently do it with. Movement Normal walking is the slowest form of movement. Jumping seems to be the second fastest, with grapple swinging being the fastest. I'm not sure where gliding should be ranked though. It appears to be slightly slower than jumping but still way faster than walking. Jumping really becomes a good movement tool in Act 4 due to the sloped pipes. Quite a few areas can be passed quickly by jump spamming up a pipe. The boss fights can range from trivial to super cheap. The best example is the mini-boss in 2-1, the cheapest boss in the game hands down. He walks faster than you, his punch range is about 1.5x your own punch range, all of his attacks take away 2-4 health bars, and all of his attacks knock you backwards (which makes tanking damage just to hit him impossible). The only way I've figured out how to beat him is to use up all of the batclaws and homing batarangs I have when I reach him. If I die after using up all of my weapons there's no way to actually beat him. Smoke bombs don't stun him, batarangs don't deal enough damage, and the batswarm has too much of a delay to be used properly. Speakin of attacks, Batman has 4 normal attacks: standing punch, standing kick, ducking kick, and an air punch. Standing punch: very quick attack speeds, stuns enemies Standing kick: moderate attack speeds, can hit twice if timed right, each hit deals slightly more damage than the punch Ducking kick: same damage as punch, fairly quick attack speed, but higher delay between attacks than standing punch/kick Air punch: same as standing punch, but cannot be used until after the apex of Batman's jump Other Bat-isms with combat Batarang/Homing batarang/Batclaw can all destroy bullets fired by enemies. I believe the homing batarang can destroy a bullet and keep on going, but I haven't fully tested it yet. Bullets can also be blocked with a standing kick. When swinging, your extended foot can be used as a standing kick, i.e. it will hit enemies with the same damage as a standing kick and can block bullets. I'll post more once I've completely dug through the game. By the way, does anybody know how to dump the game's level graphics from the rom? I was hoping to make some maps to plot the fastest ways through certain levels, like 5-1, but I'm not sure where to begin.
Posted: 1/21/2013 3:34 PM
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honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
Well, this game is definitely a lot easier than I gave it credit for. It's possible to breeze through the game without going out of the way to get weapons. Avoiding fighting and just taking the damage constantly is also way faster than fighting in nearly every stage. http://ge.tt/7zkchzV New best time is 19:22. I still have a lot to clean up, but at least now I know shooting for 18 minutes is very doable.
Posted: 2/4/2013 3:40 PM
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honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
17:03 is my current best time, and I do believe I have every level mapped out. For a TAS there are definitely some major opportunities to cut down on the time, especially when it comes to abusing the swing mechanics (which just can't be done in real time consistently). Here's the twitch broadcast where I got the time. Skip ahead to 1:04:00. I would just highlight the run itself but twitch broke the highlight system, so anything I highlight has no audio.
Posted: 2/5/2013 2:10 AM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota
I look forward to seeing the finished run. This game always kicked my ass as a kid.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Posted: 2/14/2013 9:16 PM
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honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
15:29 Well I found a few more tactics, and a new way to despawn. Apparently the game can only handle about 4 enemies on screen at a time. Get a few enemies to chase after you and it's possible to stop enemies from spawning as you advance. This really helps in Act 3 by keeping just in front of the flipping clowns since it has another unintended side effect: the flame spitting devil clowns can't always shoot fire if there are too many enemies on screen. Even though I still have to take a shot to get by them, it's from contact damage, not fire damage (so about 1/2 bar compared to 3 bars, nice trade). Too bad it only works for the first fire attack, but that's enough time to get by. I also figured out that in the right situations smoke bombs are really overpowered. Any enemy that gets caught in the blast is frozen in place and all collision boxes are disabled for 5 seconds. Any hurtboxes that aren't projectiles still stay active, so you'll have to avoid those. Most projectiles are immediately despawned, but I believe ONLY if they're also caught in the blast. Right now the biggest areas to abuse smoke bombs are 3-1, 3-4, and 5-1. There are other areas I could use them, but my current route doesn't leave too many extras to use.
Posted: 3/20/2017 11:37 AM
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maTO
Skilled player (1485)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Sega TASer of 2009
Here is my WIP1. Rom is Batman Returns (World) which could be same as (U)[!]. I really should stop using these obscure versions... Boss memory adresses: 00FFDEF6 00FFFE5D 00FFDF70 Two statue miniboss: Left statue normally releases a cog (4939) that will hit me. I was very lucky to find on my first try a movement pattern that prevented that happening. I couldn't replicate that or didn't want to spend too much time finding how it happened. Otherwise this part would be improvable by 10 frames (jumping over the first cog instead of dodging). After statues when jumping into house your last jump can't be a high jump or you will pick up batarangs and have to wait 60 frames for screen fading. Hastily done test run was finished in 11:59 so this will be close to 11:00. Would like to see honorableJay's run if there's something I have missed.
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Posted: 3/26/2017 7:26 AM
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maTO
Skilled player (1485)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Sega TASer of 2009
Second WIP. Just before the boss of act 3 I kicked an enemy and jumped through its hitbox. Then I had to look if I had missed using this trick before. In 2-2 mall, at 12500, the bomb throwing guy can be passed 44 frames faster but not thanks to this trick. So, I'm redoing from there. Luckily didn't have to go any farther than halfway what I had done so far :)
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Posted: 3/30/2017 5:51 PM
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maTO
Skilled player (1485)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Sega TASer of 2009
Third WIP where first four acts are completed. In circus robots (3-3) I went back to original kicking and saved the rope weapons for the 3-4 boss. Homing bats are not much slower in 4-1 clown than rope weapon so it was the best place for that.
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Posted: 4/14/2017 11:51 PM
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honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
Didn't know someone was working on this, I'll have to get caught up. As for my finished run, it's up on SDA. http://speeddemosarchive.com/BatmanReturns.html There are so many areas that can be improved (especially the final Penguin fight) but hopefully it has something you can use. *edit* .......................sometimes I hate TAS :D
Posted: 4/16/2017 7:20 AM
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maTO
Skilled player (1485)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Sega TASer of 2009
That was impressive speedrun, honorableJay, Too bad Penquin was one or two hits short of being beaten in that cycle. Using homing batarang climbing Gotham mall was a nice technique for speedrunning. In 1.3, after the final climb, stay left and you don't have to destroy the other gargoyle statue. In 3.1 gliding over the first pit should be easy in speedrun. As for general info of the game, short jump is not as fast as longer jumps. Here is the complete run I have not yet submitted.
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Posted: 4/16/2017 4:41 PM
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honorableJay
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Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
Stage 5 was definitely a treat to watch. The ending was a bit weird, although I do understand nothing needs to be done once Penguin is taken down. How did you get Batman to grapple straight up so quickly? That's one of the more annoying parts of running the game because you have to hold up for so long. I only caught it in a few spots (stage 3 train mainly), but would you be able to save time in some of the Penguin fights by abusing attack canceling more?
Posted: 4/16/2017 8:21 PM
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maTO
Skilled player (1485)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Sega TASer of 2009
Sure, I thought about ending too, but it goes to credits. So why make the movie longer. To grapple up faster crouch first. Attack cancel doesn't help if enemy takes damage every 10-12 frames.
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)