Submission Text Full Submission Page

Main Story Line:

A kingdom built of crystals came under attack by the reptilian troll-like Saurians whose leader, Zok, desired the powerful crystals protected by the Empress. Zok broke into the castle and reached for the crystals only to see them explode into pieces and fly to Earth.
After being thrown out the back door of a New York City club, an awful rock band known as the Rock Detectors found the five magical stones which gave them troll-like appearances and special skills (not the least of which is playing good music). This put them at odds with the music-hating Zok and his henchman Zink, collectively known as The Protectors.

Stone Protectors:

  • Cornelius
  • Maxwell
  • Angus
  • Chester
  • Clifford

Game Objectives

  • Aims for fastest completion
  • Aims for Any%
  • Plays on Easiest Difficulty
  • Uses a Special Move
  • Genre: Side-scrolling beat 'em up

Easiest Difficulty Reasoning

This run was done on the easiest difficulty for two reasons:
  • 1. The game can be set to a higher difficulty, but the game will not reward a different result, even if that result is to change how hard the game is.
  • 2. to beat the game faster, enemies have lower health and don't take multiple hits to kill.

About the Run

This TAS was done to improve my non-submitted TAS of 30:02.5 Overall better performance and better movement as well throughout the movie. This TAS beats the current RTA record by 4 Minutes and 4 Second, with a time of 28:23.46

Character Choice

In this TAS run, I have chosen Chester as my character. Chester is the strongest stone protector, amongst all of the others. Chester has a good reach with is Keys, has a decent special move called: Saxophone Twisters, which kills all on the screen (or off-screen) right away, although not all enemies/bosses die in one hit.

Levels/Stages

  • Snowy Village - No Comment
  • Crystal Mine - You can hit the boss multiple times without having to wait for 10 frames to punch, this is the only boss that it works on (to my knowledge).
  • Downward - Lava Boss is pretty cool or ... hot
  • Beach Party - Tackle Jackle likes to tackle ... not sure what jackle is though
  • Forest of Mythrandir - Cool music, ghost boss, stun-lock
  • Bizzar Bazaar - Frank has a gun MonkaS
  • Approaching the Castle - Zink again?
  • In the Castle - Sucker Puncher ... Sucks
  • The Laboratory - "This is my lab, and THIS is my Laboratory!"
  • Throne Hall - Last Boss, nothing too special here, stun-lock rinse repeat.

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Posted: 8/8/2019 10:42 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6480: Technickle's SNES Stone Protectors in 28:23.46
Posted: 8/9/2019 10:42 AM
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Spikestuff
They/Them
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Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
Flash TASer of 2022 PSX TASer of 2016
Deliberately overshooting input is deliberate, input fix for ending is here (11784 frames (03:16.08) saved from ending input earlier). Looking at the input, I have no idea what to say about this TAS. It leaves more questions than answers. When setting for the special move you're putting in more input than you should, it's 6 frames not 15 (actually 10 since the trailing 5 is ignored). So the execution is slower than it needs to be. What are the character differences, you didn't go into that. What's the advantages/disadvantages does this TAS have over 2 players, cause there's a lot of cleanup work that looks like it would've been alleviated by a second player.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Posted: 8/9/2019 11:04 AM
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mklip2001
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Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Not one of the better beat-em-ups on this site, unfortunately. Repeated use of the saxophone special is really boring. Maybe a 2-player run would have much more potential for interesting movement. However, I agree with the choice to use easy mode here, since hard mode would probably just lead to slower strategies with no better entertainment.
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.
Posted: 8/9/2019 11:06 AM
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r57shell
Player (98)
Joined: 12/12/2013
Posts: 378
Location: Russia
I might be wrong, but it doesn't seems to be even nearly optimal. Many questions arising when you see combo: hit + this special move against single enemy. Is first hit just to avoid enemy hit you? If so, I don't think it's impossible to make special move at same frame as enemy appears. In autoscroll where you move down, there are often enemies spawn and able to walk a bit before they get hit with special move.
Posted: 8/9/2019 9:28 PM
Post subject: @Spikestuff
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Things I need to fix for this: 1. It's interesting that I didn't realize that sooner with the special move needing only 6 frames, however I believe (I could be wrong still) but, it does take 40 frames to activate every time it needs to be used. I will go back and fix that if need be. 2. Character Differences: Chester is the strongest, All other characters have a medium attack power, I haven't messed around with Maxwell, Clifford, or Cornelius. I have, however done playthrough with Angus, and I do believe that he is a good companion with Chester, becuse of his attack range. 3. I have done a two player TAS of this game before, I just haven't recorded any 2 player input for a BK2 yet. Which I will also do.
Posted: 8/9/2019 9:50 PM
Post subject: @mklip2001
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Two player TAS would have less speical moves and more kicking and puching, however, faster enemy deaths because of tacked on damage caused by two players hitting the same enemy multiple times.
Posted: 8/9/2019 9:51 PM
Post subject: @r57shell
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
You would be correct! Very unoptimized and I can fix this for sure.
Posted: 8/9/2019 11:56 PM
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mklip2001
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Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Good luck, technickle! If you want to get feedback on your run as it is being made, you should create a forum in the discussion boards (SNES area).
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.
Posted: 8/10/2019 2:28 AM
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Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2642)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
Flash TASer of 2022 PSX TASer of 2016
At a "Stage Completed" screen you can hit Start to transition to the next screen sooner. Your input lets it play out. That's 238 frames. It may seem small, but there's 9 levels (excluding final). That's 2142 frames (00:35.64) improvement thanks to a free timeloss.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Posted: 8/10/2019 2:40 AM
Post subject: @Spikestuff
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Oh nice! I didn't know that was possible, because I always thought it was an automatic transition, and it didn't need to be tampered with. However! Now that I know that this is also possible, I will implement this into the new TAS.
Posted: 8/10/2019 3:11 AM
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Spikestuff
They/Them
Editor, Publisher, Expert player (2642)
Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6438
Location: The land down under.
Flash TASer of 2022 PSX TASer of 2016
You should seriously learn your own speedgame. You could've done a simple check out of curiosity and you didn't. Especially with the first level which has a good chunk of lag frames at the "Stage Completed" screen and you could've seen what pressing Start (or any button) would've done. None of this surprises me that you didn't. What surprises me is that you did this very method on your speedrun but didn't do it on your TAS. Like how? We can technically state that your speedrun is faster than this TAS at every "Stage Completed" screen.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
Posted: 8/10/2019 3:31 AM
Post subject: @Spikestuff
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Sorry about forgetting pressing start at "stage clear". You are right I should of known all of this, since I do speedrun this game normally. Sorry that I've disappointed you in every way possible, and I shall take my losses, as the worst TASer of all time.
Posted: 8/10/2019 6:49 AM
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TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... sweet!
Posted: 8/10/2019 9:10 AM
Post subject: Re: @Spikestuff
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Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1416)
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Technickle wrote:
I shall take my losses, as the worst TASer of all time.
Oh sweet honey child, you can't begin to imagine what we've seen here. As long as you work to do better, you'll be fine around here.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 8/11/2019 4:21 AM
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Habreno
Joined: 5/23/2014
Posts: 162
"worst TASer of all time" Puh-lease. Not even close to that. Don't put yourself down so much. This isn't SMB in like 7 minutes as some guy recording their speedrun and claiming it's a TAS. So ya forgot about a couple things? You know what? You realized it and are going back and fixing it. Keep on rockin' and lookin' forward to your next submission of this!
Posted: 8/11/2019 5:05 AM
Post subject: @Habreno
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Technickle
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Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Thanks, I really put myself down sometimes, especially when someone else thinks I can't do something perfect the 1st time. I am a human being, and I DO make mistakes, even if those mistakes are obvious ones.
Posted: 8/11/2019 7:36 AM
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feos
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NES TAS of 2011
The only mistake a TASer can do is not fixing mistakes that were already made. If it's been fixed, it's not a mistake, but experience! Just actually take your time and study the thing.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.