Buster Busts this busted game by busting the busted controls and glitches. (Also yes Mega Man fans, this IS a buster only run :P)
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.4
- Contains Speed/Entertainment Tradeoffs
- Heavy Glitch Abuse
Many of the improvements come from much better optimization and new glitches.
This run would be faster if I used the Japanese release because of faster text and faster boss fights, however the latter is because japanese doesn’t contain hard mode, so I felt it wouldn’t be right to use it.
Stage 1
So this game has 2 different jumps, one is regular jumping and the other is a drop kick. The drop kick give Buster a bit more speed than normal movement, however if you just press the drop kick button by itself, there is a bit of time before buster actually moves faster. Instead I can time my jumps and drop kicks at a fixed tempo to maximize my dropkick speed and minimize the time it takes to get there.
Though this is not the fastest method of movement, that is the dash. the dash is limited but can be used really well in many cases. I can jump as soon as the meter runs out to preserve some speed, though jumping dash speed is not as fast as running speed is. you can also keep some movement by sliding after a jump. I have to avoid doing this too much since I lose a frame for each slide I do.
Near the middle of this stage in particular, there is some weird movement discovered where you can jump off a wall and have dash speed, but still allow your dash meter to fill up at the same time. this makes the library section faster. there is also a tech known as bunny hopping, but with a different meaning. you can cancel a dash warmup if you press the opposite direction, when you do that you have one frame to jump in the air. this makes getting up to certain places much easier and faster.
in the art gallery I use a trick that allows me to walk with dash speed but not use the dash meter at all. if you run up to a wall and press dash, jump, and the opposite direction at the same time, you can trick the game into giving you dash speed. if you jump out of this state it cancels out.
For Dizzy, you just have to make sure he eats the food as soon as it comes out. I also was able to manipulate him to land closer to Buster to end the stage faster.
Bonuses
Bonuses can be very long, so we want to go with the faster bonus. In this case it's the Hampton bonus. we can get the Hampton game every time and make him fall into the pit of misery.
Stage 2
The jumprope section does not care if you actually jump over the rope, the game only checks to see if you completed a single jump. once you are done, the game makes you walk over to the Donkeys before giving you control again. we can skip this by dashing right before we finish our last jump.
The Train is the longest section of the game by far, nearly 5 minutes of autoscrolling action. I tried my best to make good playaround but got extremely bored by the time I made it to the Train engine.
while it is an autoscroller, there are some things done to save time. for one, the 2nd time you have to run on ground, there is a weird glitch that happens where if you jump high enough, the game does not stop doing the fast scrolling for as long as you are holding the down button. I can extend this a bit by dashing and sliding some more. if I do this too much, the floor becomes instant kill. (this also causes background graphics to screw up for the rest of the stage)
The other weird thing is on the moving logs, if you hold down while standing on them, they make the scrolling go slightly faster.
the ending of this stage where they are trying to outrun the train is automatic and requires no inputs.
Stage 3
In this stage, there are platforms that spring you up if you stand on them, when that happens a ball will jump up and land and send you flying. however if you're quick enough, you can slide into a platform that is going up and get a spring jump that way.
for the boss fight, we want him to throw nuts, he can either throw lightbulbs or nuts. what he throws is dependent on Buster's position.
there is also a glitch in this stage where if you hit the boss fast enough, the boss music does not play. I decided to keep that music in as a speed/entertainment tradeoff
Stage 4
simply jump low enough to have maximum running time.
we get hit at the end to avoid a bonus of over 99 stars for getting a touchdown from kickoff.
Stage 5
in the first area you can take a balloon and float up to the top, but we have bunny hops to use so why not use those?
this also contains an autoscroller, though not as long, no loss here.
for the pinball, you need to collect all the dots to open up the end, however for whatever reason you cant exit until you have the door open animation, and then fall down to a paddle. it is really strange.
the other section is just running up as fast as possible.
Stage 6
we need a key to get into the ship, to get there fast, we use bunny hops again to get up to the area where the key is. we can also use the wall glitch and use that to reach the end
for the autoscroller, you have to be behind some walls to avoid damage. I sometimes duck in places to reduce lag frames.
In the area with the big ball, I can perform a clip if I enter the “ceiling floor” in a specific way. This saves 10 seconds.
for Darth Duck, you have to make sure he get's hit by the beam as soon as possible to avoid him going too high up. when that happens he will be invincible until he lands on the ground.. some spots I couldnt get him low enough.
I would like to thank the RTA community for finding a whole bunch of new stuff since I picked this game up.
Namux - who ran this game at SGDQ 2017, and is probably the best at doing the bunny hops
Akiteru - who found the majority of the new glitches and tricks.
Twisted Eye - The author of the previous tas.
thank you and I hope you enjoyed my tas
Side Note: I am upset that I went over 42069 rerecoreds.
Suggestion for screenshot (frame 19413):
ThunderAxe31: The response to this submission was very warm, which is to be expected with all the new tricks and glitches implemented, while on the other hand the published run is 13 years old and it's showing its age.
