Introduction

One day I thought about how different a Sonic any% run would be without Tails’ help. Long story short I decided it would be worth making this tas. I made the whole thing from scratch and made absolute sure I saved every single frame I can. Overall I had fun making this run despite the pain and suffering it made me endure and am really pleased with how it came out.

Emulator and Tools used

  • Gens Re-Recording 11b + Camera hack + Solidity and Terrain dysplay
  • Sonic TAS tools

Movie objectives

  • Aims for fastest in-game time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses deaths to save time
  • Abuses programming errors and glitches
  • Manipulates luck and enemy positions

Timetable

ActIn-game Time
Angel Island 10:40:55
Angel Island 21:14:51
Hydrocity 10:39:16
Hydrocity 20:22:20
Marble Garden 10:34:37
Marble Garden 20:03:24
Carnival Night 10:29:19
Carnival Night 20:39:17
Icecap 10:56:45
Icecap 20:00:00
Launch Base 10:33:46
Launch Base 20:26:37
Mushroom Hill 10:33:37
Mushroom Hill 20:40:34
Flying Battery 10:45:26
Flying Battery 21:05:43
Sandopolis 11:04:51
Sandopolis 20:48:47
Lava Reef 10:47:43
Lava Reef 20:20:52
Hidden Palace0:26:40
Sky Sanctuary0:52:17
Death Egg 10:58:56
Death Egg 21:36:23
Total16:52:46

Time lost to deaths

ActIn-game Time
Hydrocity 20:05:21
Launch Base 20:00:00
Death Egg 20:04:29
For those of you not familiar with the formatting of the in game timer it goes Minutes:Seconds:Frames with 60 frames being the equivalent of 1 second. I did add the time lost to deaths to the total time.

Level comments

Jumping from a roll

Before I get into the level comments there’s a couple bugs I want to point with how the game handles jumping from a roll. The first one being the game uses Sonic’s taller standing hitbox instead of his rolling hitbox. The other one is you have no aerial control. While these aren’t exclusive to Sonic it does make up an important part of his movement.
It’s possible to regain air control by doing any double jump action, even if it does nothing in the case of regular invincibility and super sonic. This is why you’ll see me using insta-shield a lot without actually hitting anything.

Angel Island 1

This level was actually done by Aglar who saved 13 frames over my initial attempt and made it like a good first level for the run.
0:11 : Saved a few seconds by using this loop zip strat WST found.
0:31 : To give you an idea of how serious I was about the optimization of this tas. I used a kind of movement tech usually only seen in Sonic 1 tases where I do a 1 pixel zip off the wall by rolling over my horizontal subpixels. I did this to get a small speed boost off the wall before jumping on the rock.

Angel Island 2

0:18 : By taking advantage of a few mechanics I was able to do a diagonal clip through the flipping bridge.
0:23 : With careful movement I was able to save 5 frames with this loop zip.
0:27 : Hitting a badnik while going up (or the bottom half of their hitbox if falling) eliminates some of your vertical speed, so I aimed for the Rhinobot to get a faster landing.
0:30 : Unfortunately because there’s a small bump right at the entrance of the tunnel Sonic can’t maintain spindash speed here like can with the other 2 tunnels. Only with the lightning shield he can do it but I wasn’t able to get a tunnel jump out it.
I had to sacrifice 7 frames in order to do the bridge cutscene skip. If it weren't for this the time for the level would've been 1:14'44 instead I could say this was a speed/entertainment trade off because of the ingame time goal but to tell you the truth it would’ve felt wrong not to do this glitch in a tas.

Hydrocity 1

Without Tails Sonic is unable to do a level wrap. Oh well, that just means Sonic will have to go fast instead. A better optimized (and obviously altered to not include big rings) version of the route used in the Sonic 100% run was the way to go here.
0:18 : So here’s something bizarre you probably didn’t know about the speed cap. It’s only a horizontal cap of 16 pixels per frame (the exact speed a red spring gives you) and it doesn’t keep you from building up more speed past this. This is what allowed me to jump so high off the wall.
0:24 : I was able to greatly improve this ramp clip by getting sonic to land instantly at the zipping height.
0:29 : For some reason jumping the frame Sonic rolls into a badnik boosts his jump. This allowed me to make it onto the ledge right behind it a few frames sooner.
0:31 : This seemingly pointless braking was actually done to trigger the quick death during the act transition. This wasted 11 frames which was no big deal considering this death saves in game time unlike the Angel Island 2 bridge skip.
0:33 : Since you don’t need exactly 0 speed to spindash on normal tiles in S3K I’m able to spindash on steep slopes.

Hydrocity 2

Since Tails isn’t here Sonic has to do the offscreen boss kill himself. I used the same technique from the act 1 boss to get a fast kill.

Marble Garden 1

The level wrap was already a huge improvement for this level. Thanks to the first clip right after the level wrap I was able to get the boss to spawn at the first possible frame. Then I saved a few more seconds by hitting robotnik the frame he disappeared after “breaking” the ground like in the ring attack.

Marble Garden 2

No >:C

Carnival Night 1

By replacing both carry clips with spindash clips not only am I able to actually do the level wrap from Knuckles’ area, but also save several seconds. Also found a faster 1P strat for the boss.

Carnival Night 2

Was able to take Knuckles' any% tas route by substituting his glide with a bubble shield.
Because Sonic can’t move the signpost while embedded in the ground I had to choose between getting the signpost bubble shield monitor or using the zip while getting a bubble shield from the tunnel up ahead instead. Getting the signpost bubble shield turned out to be faster in both ingame and real time.
0:08, 0:16, 0:19, and 0:28: You’ve probably seen this in other Sonic tases but you can do stair clips with the bubble shield.
0:14 : So these moving barrels are on proximity based cycles, meaning they start moving from a set position as soon as they load. This particular barrel spawned at exactly 0:10:13 ingame time. I had to delay getting in the vertical tube by a few frames so that I could make it onto the barrel. Vertical subpixels were manipulated before the start of the level so that I could go over the barrel a frame sooner without losing time anywhere else.
0:21-0:26 : I can’t believe that after all these years the barrel of doom gave me trouble yet again. To make the clip work you have to use up the bubble shield bounce before being able to land in the wall. The problem is this greatly limited the positions you could start falling from to 16 pixel increments. After quite a bit of experimenting I found out that there was literally only one position that yielded favorable results.

Icecap 1

Found a way to do the boss clip without having to roll during the act 1 portion of the stage. This did make it a bit harder but I still managed to trigger the transition snow block the frame it loaded.

Icecap 2

Existence is but an illusion.

Launch Base 1

With the help of ram watch I saved a frame by getting the crusher to load a frame sooner (the first jump is what delayed it). Having the crusher clip me in the ground to the left instead of the right allowed me level wrap right away saving 9 frames.

Launch Base 2

Saved 1 frame with better camera manipulation before level wrap. Then proceeded to annihilate both bosses.

Mushroom Hill 1

So I accidentally discovered something kinda bizarre about the boss. Rather than having set spawn coordinates it spawns based on the camera position. This meant that it's possible to get it spawn lower than intended to get a faster kill. Another strange thing about this boss is that it checks for player position for the vertical lock, meaning I have to bring the lower the camera before doing the level wrap. Afterwards I have to avoid scrolling the camera down or else it’ll correct its height (yes this is why there’s no playaround here).
Conveniently this also allows me to use the trick where I get the first hill from act 2 to load on top of Sonic.

Mushroom Hill 2

So I’m not sure exactly who came up with the concept for this route, but I was the one to make it work. Basically you have to hit a pathswapper along the way otherwise the exit to the big ring room will be solid. My solution to this was to hit the pathswapper at the end of Knuckles’ area (shown in the screenshot below) and then clip into the walls again by doing a ramp clip like the one in Hydrocity 1. I was able to do this without slowing down the camera. Afterwards I had to wait a few seconds in the big ring room for the camera to catch up because I needed a red spring to load.

Flying Battery 1

Saved 1 frame by optimizing the first jump. Saved another from triggering the platform a frame sooner.

Flying Battery 2

After I jumped onto the ramp I turned around from inside the wall and did a vertical zip jump. This jump allowed me to trigger the pathswapper (which made the right half of the walls fully solid again) at the top of the rotating mesh and then land on the upside/down slope which allowed me to reach the top layer walls in the map which extends all the way to the end of the level. I’m happy that this new route also turned out to be faster than the other one.

Sandopolis 1

Originally I thought you could only clip into these slopes using a fire shield (which is still mostly true), but an rta runner named BenInSweden showed me a clip of him accidentally clipping into this slope without one. I was able to get a level wrap out of it.
In case anyone is interested here's the non level wrap version I made before it was discovered. Yes I am kinda sad this didn’t end up in the final run but at least it’s here for the public. Consider this a little bonus tas :)

Sandopolis 2

This level has been greatly improved with some new tricks and new routing saving 9 seconds in total.
0:00 : I will admit I kinda lucked out with the platform cycles. I had to start the level at a specific frame so that I could use the first moving column to stop myself by fire dashing into it which saved 4-5 frames over braking. Conveniently none of the other columns in the level got in the way either. This meant that I only had to tas the level twice (the first iteration was a testrun) to get the fastest ingame time.
0:08 : With precise horizontal and vertical positioning and speed I’m able to do a diagonal clip through this slide.
0:22 : It turns out Sonic can clip into the ground using this sand block but only if he’s in the exact center pixel.
0:30 : In order to do this loop zip while saving the most amount of frames I can I had to do the spindash that came before it within a 3 horizontal subpixel range.
0:39 : The way this loop clip works is quite simple actually. There’s a pathswapper that’s in line with the top of the loop. Once you swotch the terrain a part of the wall in the loop becomes non-solid. Normally you aren’t suppose to he able to get back down but you can basically do a stair clip by doing a low enough jump and not moving. I actually would’ve done this with the loop I did I zip off of but the pathswapper on that one is 2 way.

Lava Reef 1

Without Tails here I had to improvise, by Improvising the improvisation? In any case I was able to do the previously Tails exclusive stair clip with Sonic though precise positioning and speed along with the insta-shield to regain air control.
I also managed to clip through the collapsing platforms in the beginning of the level and the spindash elevator by abusing this lip in the terrain.
Just like in Launch Base 1 I used ram watch to make sure I got the crusher to load on the first possible frame.

Lava Reef 2

Saved 1 frame with better camera manipulation before the level wrap. I did try to save another after the second transport tube with some movement optimizations but all I ended up doing was getting a few pixels ahead.

Hidden Palace

Nothing special here. Although there is a 1 frame timesave I will mention because it was overlooked in the 2014 tas and nearly overlooked by me for this one. Apparently the vertical position you activate the teleporter from does affect how high it'll bring you up top.
0:16:14/79377 : oh no
0:17:29/79452 : oh no
0:19:01/79544 : oh no
0:20:33/79636 : oh no
0:22:05/79728 : oh no
0:23:37/79820 : oh no
0:25:09/79912 : oh no
0:26:40/80004 : oh no

Sky Sanctuary

0:23 :Just like the moving barrel in Carnival Night 2 the moving bar up ahead is on a proximity based cycle. I take advantage of this to manipulate its position as Sonic needs it to make it onto the ledge up ahead.
0:38 :I was able to considerably improve the landing on this hidden spring by doing a roll jump to bump into the ceiling. I had to initiate the roll with the minimum 268 speed (12+128+128) to spend the least amount of frames braking on the spring.

Death Egg 1

0:06 : Through a precise landing on the slope I was able to instantly zip in the wall.
0:18 : I used the spikes to clip me into the conveyor belt which in turn clipped me into the wall. I avoided getting crushed by panning the camera down to temporarily deload the spikes.
0:28-0:42 : I saved several frames here over the 2014 tas through some small optimizations.
0:46-0:50 : Freaking Redeye. The 1st phase nearly drove me insane. The final version you see in the run didn't take me that long to execute. It was trying to save more frames beyond that which made me want to use a toothbrush made out of Sonic's spines. I even asked Aglar if he could save any frames and he had no luck either.
0:54-0:58 : The 2nd phase was pretty fun though. It wasn't too hard to get a frame perfect kill here.

Death Egg 2

With a bit of experimentation I found a way Sonic can do the level wrap without having to pan the camera.
One thing I wanna point out about the Death Ball real quick. The speed of your spindash does effect how fast the spike balls fly up (down?), so I had to make sure the last one was hit at point blank range with a fully charged spindash to save the most amount of frames.
Right before transitioning to the final bosses I did a second spindash to trigger a glitch where the solidity there gets shifted to the left. I did the smallest possible shift of 32 pixels which is indeed the length of one block. This did waste 2 frames but I more than made up for that by getting a frame perfect kill on the boss.
There were some timesaves with the death egg robot as well. With the 1st phase I found a way to destroy every finger on the second pass. With the 2nd phase I used the same trick from the Tails tas (just executed a bit differently) to get a frame perfect kill.

Potential Improvements

  • Angel Island 2: As I mentioned in the level comments it is possible for Sonic to carry full spindash speed into the last tunnel with the lightning shield, but despite my best efforts I was not able to get a tunnel jump out of it.
  • Sandopolis 2: Theoretically you can save 1 frame after the second fire dash slope clip with better vertical subpixel management. Unfortunately in this run I wasn't able to get the desired results to save said frame.
  • Sky Sanctuary: This actually wouldn't have saved any time in this run because of the 4 frame rule the teleporter has but it could help for future runs. With the spindash-jump from the vertical screen wrap at 0:32 if you have low enough subpixels it's possible to extend the jump by a frame. Normally I would've done this anyways but the managing my vertical subpixels in this level was already pretty difficult.
  • Death Egg 1: There’s potential to save some frames in phase 1. The spikes made this practically impossible to achieve please, no more

Special Thanks to

  • Aglar: For his input on Angel Island 1 and his previous tases.
  • BenInSweden: For that slope clip in Sandopolis 1 that led up to the level wrap.
  • Chrezm: For the fast Sandopolis 1 boss strat. (yes it is the thing that saved the 108 frames feos mentioned with the file replacement)
  • Evil_3D: For finding the stair clips in Carnival Night 2 (originally used for our ring attack tas) and his other tases.
  • DMTM: For the first terrain clip in Marble Garden 1 used immediately after the level wrap.
  • Marzojr: For his guides on the Angel Island 2 bridge cutscene skip and quick death at the start of Hydrocity 2 and his previous tases.
  • WST: For the second loop zip strat in Angel Island 1.
  • Everyone else for their contributions and generally being awesome.

Suggested screenshots


feos: Judging...
feos: Replacing the submission with a file that saves 108 frames in Sandopolis 1. Overall time is the same though.
feos: We've researched the hell out of this movie and the situation it is in. This branch and [2741] Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles by Aglar & marzojr in 26:53.06 are the most similar branches of Sonic 3 & Knuckles that exist today. And this game has 8 branches already, if we don't count the S3K hacks. Due to massive similarity I was ready to reject this run, but arkiandruski suggested a brilliant solution: since this movie is faster than Sonic+Tails, in both in-game timer and actual gameplay duration, it counts as an improvement! I verified the times, and everyone agrees with this idea, so I'm finally accepting this run to obsolete [2741] Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles by Aglar & marzojr in 26:53.06. Stars and flags will be decided after it gets some ratings.
Stovent: Processing...

Memory
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EZGames69 wrote:
Memory wrote:
the content isn't THAT different between characters. Ultimately each character has about 1-3 actually unique abilities to each other.
Small things like that can lead to significant changes in both routing and execution. The lack of tails in Solo Sonic means that Level wraps cant be done in zones like hydro city for example. This gives Solo Sonic a chance to show what the fastest movement in that stage can look like. I dont think the focus should be on what changes were made to the Character, but how those affect the run overall.
Memory wrote:
There's also the issue that there's actually only 3 characters, but two of them can be used together in a single playthrough (Sonic+Tails).
I don't see what the issue is here. Both Sonic Solo and Tails Solo go though each stage differently. Sonic of course used alot of spin dashing, Tails uses a combination of both spin dashing AND flying. Tails is also able to perform level wraps on his own, and doesn't need Sonic to do them. With Sonic + Tails, it's the best of both worlds, while it also introduces very interesting glitches such as the Knuckles intro at the beginning. It's not like Sonic+Tales features all the content you can get from Sonic Solo for example, so I dont think it's that big of an issue here.
You're looking at this purely from a TAS aspect. As a casual player, I definitely would not feel the need to play all 4 character combinations. Sonic & Tails is not different enough to me from solo sonic or solo tails to warrant a separate playthrough. Or perhaps vice versa. Maybe I wouldn't feel the need to do solo sonic if I did Sonic & Tails. In that sense the character differences are minor. They matter in a more esoteric sense, which is noted in the rules to be acceptable, but that makes it identical to these so called "community defined" branches that you claim are so different.
EZGames69 wrote:
Memory wrote:
I am not strictly opposed to another branch being added but the idea that we should accept every option that a game provides is ridiculous.
Then it would be best to look at movies of each branch that the game provides under different rules. The current rules regarding branch limiting should focus on limiting community created branches, while a different set of rules should be made that focus on game provided ones.
Why? I have not once seen a good reason to do so.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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Minor differences is not an absolute term obviously. The absolute term is this: Any in-game option that results in inherently showcasing more than 50% of unique content, can be considered a separate mode, and can co-exist in Vault. If a movie is not eligible for Moons, 50% difference is what we need. For Moons, we don't require that much of a difference between branches. But they still should represent, let's say, as much unique content as possible. Unique techniques and glitches, unique routing, unique enemies or items. While we don't have up-to-date runs for every other branch, we can only directly compare whatever we have. I guess I'll end up watching them all again, and checking which branches have unique/similar routes in which levels. While I'm working on that, you guys can list unique elements in the runs we're comparing. That means, what techniques and glitches, items and enemies are only available for Knuckles alone? Tails alone? Sonic alone? Sonic+Tails?
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.
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There's a game resources page in case you didn't know it existed. It goes into great detail about the 3 character's various mechanics. However it doesn't necessarily say what you can do with them so I made this list of Sonic Tails, and Knuckles' various movement techniques. General: -The main differences between the characters comes from their double jump actions which greatly effect gameplay. These double jump actions allows you to regain air control if you jumped from a roll. This plays a huge role in Sonic’s movement. -If you land from the air you’ll start running. To go with this there’s aerial drag which plays a significant role in movement. If there is a low enough ceiling you can bump into it to avoid aerial drag. Sonic: -As a double jump action Sonic can insta-shield. Along with this there are also 3 elemental shields that replace insta-shield when obtained. This effectively gives sonic not just one but four methods of movement. -In some cases routing adjustments have to be made just to get one of the elemental shields. Insta-shield- Expands Sonic’s hurtbox considerably and makes him immune to damage for the duration. It doesn’t have any (direct) effects on movement. -The insta-shield does get used quite a bit for its intended purpose. -It’s also commonly used as kind of an on switch for air control since it has no direct effects on movement. -It's also the shield that gets used the most often in any% as it's the one Sonic has from the start. bubble shield- Makes Sonic go down at a fast speed and zeros out his horizontal speed. Does a bounce upon impacting the ground that goes higher than Sonic’s jump. -It’s sometimes used for falling faster if that saves more time than the bounce wastes (It is not used for this often because of the bounce). In some circumstances in some cases the bounce can be partly negated or even nullified altogether. -With the way it affects your movement it’s easy to do stair clips with them. If the bubble shield is present this tends to get abused heavily. Fire shield- Makes you go forward at a fast speed and zeros out your vertical speed. -Useful for getting over obstacles fast. Since it zeros out vertical speed it can be used to land instantly. -In less common cases it can be used to lodge yourself into terrain. Lightning shield- Gives Sonic a midair jump that doesn’t effect Sonic’s horizontal movement. Interestingly this also removes control over jump/bounce height. -Used mainly to reach high places or make jumps that are otherwise not possible. The amount of time this saves adds up a lot. -Can be used to bump into higher ceilings to negate aerial drag. Not used often in any% as such areas don't happen to pop up. -Like the insta-shield (although not as often) it also gets used only to regain air control. -Even though a use currently hasn’t been found for it Sonic can do stair clips that would otherwise be too high for him to reach. Tails: -He can fly which not only allows you to gain height, but significantly reduce his downward acceleration. He does get tired after a while (12 seconds to be exact) but this rarely becomes a concern in tases. -His Tails can deal damage while flying. Very useful for getting faster boss fights. -has a shorter hitbox than Sonic and Knuckles. Mainly becomes a problem for vertically traversing the inside of walls. -With his flight reducing downward descent it can be used as a way of maintaining speed across longer stretches in a level. This is one of Tails' main movement techniques. -His flight allows him to stair clip into areas that are otherwise not possible. This also helps him compensate for his shorter hitbox. Although this is not used often it usually does save a considerable amount of times in areas it is used. Sonic and Tails: -Allows you to play as Sonic and Tails at the same time with Sonic being player 1 and Tails being Player 2. -Tails can carry Sonic while flying. Because of this you not only get to use Sonic’s movement techniques, but Tails’ as well. -Tails is practically immortal. He can only die by falling into a death boundary or getting crushed. Even then he just comes back. -With their combined techniques as well as new ones Sonic and Tails can do stair clips in nearly any area. Despite not being used too often this can get stupid real fast. -Through a number of advantages you can generally do frame perfect, if not considerably faster boss fights. -Tails can easily clip into things by doing offscreen magic. Doesn't get used often in any%. Knuckles: -He can glide in midair. -he can climb walls (that aren’t objects) by gliding into it. You can speed up climbing by repeatedly jumping off and reattaching to the wall. -Letting go of glide in midair makes Knuckles drop down, and landing on normal tiles from this (on normal tiles) zeros out his horizontal speed. If he lands on an object he maintains his horizontal speed and doesn’t do the landing animation. -if he lands on terrain on the first frame of his glide the game treats that as if he glided on an object. This can in some cases be used to get a speed boost. -has lower Strength jump than Sonic and Tails. Although it's not often this can become a problem that needs to be worked around. -He can use his glide to quickly stop and initiate a spindash. This gets abused a lot especially in S3K. -The glide is commonly used to fall faster. -Thanks to the glide's properties he can clip into things from the top much easier than Sonic and Tails can. Used often to break levels. -by gliding into a monitor or badnik he can transfer his downward speed to upward speed allowing him to reach heights at fast speeds and sometimes get to areas that are otherwise out of reach. This gets somewhat commonly abused. -In some levels Knuckles has to through his own “exclusive” areas in order to progress. Sometimes he has his own starting points. -If you hit a boss (or something with the same properties) with the glide Knuckles automatically drops his glide. Used mainly for playaround.
Personman
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It seems obvious to me that there's a real market for all three solo-character runs, and they each deserve an any% branch. Beyond that I don't personally care what further branches are allowed, but it seems really silly to me to reject this run based on a hypothetical about a game with 100 characters. That's not what we have, we have an actual real game with 3 characters, a lively community, and a history of producing extremely high-quality & popular TASes.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
Memory
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Personman wrote:
It seems obvious to me that there's a real market for all three solo-character runs, and they each deserve an any% branch. Beyond that I don't personally care what further branches are allowed, but it seems really silly to me to reject this run based on a hypothetical about a game with 100 characters. That's not what we have, we have an actual real game with 3 characters, a lively community, and a history of producing extremely high-quality & popular TASes.
I was not arguing specifically in favor of rejection of this run, just explaining why the rule exists the way it does.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
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I've always felt like a solo Sonic run would be best suited for a low-glitch branch, considering the degree of carnage enabled by adding Tails. I'm sure there's an audience for a branch like that, and with the game already being broken every which way it's likely growing over time, rather than shrinking. The currently published 100% run by marzojr kinda fails to cater to it—both because the Chaos Emerald bonus stages inherently drop its entertainment value and because it only forgoes one zipping mechanic out of like half a dozen available. By this point, I've pretty much lost interest in glitched runs of this game; watching terrain scroll by every couple seconds while a character is teleporting or clipping through, and then watching a stage-end score tally/cutscene that is almost as long as the entire stage gets old after a while. EDIT: Note that I'm not specifically advocating for a category cap or anything like that. But if it is decided that we only have a total of 8, I'd rather have a no-holds-barred, maximum speed run and a low-glitch solo Sonic run which we still don't have instead of the current 100% and this run (which is, for all intents and purposes, a Sonic and Tails any% without Tails), because the latter two don't fully commit to a particular style of gameplay.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Existence is but an illusion. That was amazing to watch. To me this TAS has established a breaking point that asks for future non-glitch versions of it (being Sandopolis 1 the main example given by the author himself). It's the price to pay for the hard work on optimizing though. I laughed at the end of Marble Garden 2 because of Tails. Technically he came up just after Sonic's last relevant move (free the cage), so he didn't "help" in any ways on the entire run. Also it's fun to see him being brought to crushing death...
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There are 2 things we can do.
  • Just accept this movie to obsolete Sonic 100%. That's the branch with the lowest entertainment rating, and it's slower than Knuckles 100%, which can be considered "true 100%", since Sonic is a sub-optimal character in that category. That will still leave us with the same problem as we're having right now whenever someone feels like making a "low glitch" branch. We know Sonic TASers don't really care about it, and it's mostly for mere mortals like us to enjoy the game without hacks. I don't think it's fair to require an emulator hack to be able to appreciate the movie.
  • Obsolete Sonic 100% with Knuckles 100%. Obsolete Knuckles with Tails. Obsolete Tails with this run. That way we have a Knuckles branch as well as one full completion branch, and further single-player runs could obsolete one another based on technical novelty and entertainment. Then if someone invents a novel concept, be it "low glitch" or something else entirely, there will be a place for some more branches that are meant to represent entirely different play style other than "same single-char levels with some new tricks". This option preserves the most different concepts separated and advertises up-to-date runs. Sonic 100% is from 2009. Tails is from 2013. Waiting for all branches to be updated will easily require 10 more years.
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.
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While I would still prefer to just accept a new branch instead, I will say having Knuckles 100% obsolete Sonic 100% makes the most sense to me, out of the choices you gave. However, I don’t believe in obsoleting the other solo character run with this. Please dont do that. That’s only going to discourage people from tasing this game again.
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That's the branch with the lowest entertainment rating, and it's slower than Knuckles 100%, which can be considered "true 100%", since Sonic is a sub-optimal character in that category.
Hard disagree here. Knuckles' 100% is faster than Sonic's because Sonic has to essentially do 5 more levels: Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary (both of these Knuckles has alternative versions of that are very short in comparison), Death Egg 1, Death Egg 2 and Doomsday Zone - all of which Knuckles doesn't play at all. Not to mention other levels were shortened for Knuckles. Also, Knuckles doesn't really get access to any new glitches in his super or hyper forms (from what I can tell from the TAS anyway). Sonic at least does in Hyper Sonic form. Maybe if branches are an issue then maybe the different TASes could be concatenated, become "All Character" TASes of the same playstyle (e.g. a 100% All Character TAS, would contain 100% for Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles).
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There's also the issue that this run is the most optimized any% to date, so there is definitely a merit in that, but when the regular Sonic & Tails any% is inevitably updated with the new tricks from this run, the difference between the two will probably be the least pronounced among all the categories. Tails is mainly used for the skips, with the rest of the movement being identical, so most of the run is still the same, and there's a certain redundancy to that. So since it functionally is a lower-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, it should be published in a separate branch, but eventually replaced with a proper low-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, also played with solo Sonic.
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feos wrote:
There are 2 things we can do.
  • Just accept this movie to obsolete Sonic 100%. That's the branch with the lowest entertainment rating, and it's slower than Knuckles 100%, which can be considered "true 100%", since Sonic is a sub-optimal character in that category. That will still leave us with the same problem as we're having right now whenever someone feels like making a "low glitch" branch. We know Sonic TASers don't really care about it, and it's mostly for mere mortals like us to enjoy the game without hacks. I don't think it's fair to require an emulator hack to be able to appreciate the movie.
  • Obsolete Sonic 100% with Knuckles 100%. Obsolete Knuckles with Tails. Obsolete Tails with this run. That way we have a Knuckles branch as well as one full completion branch, and further single-player runs could obsolete one another based on technical novelty and entertainment. Then if someone invents a novel concept, be it "low glitch" or something else entirely, there will be a place for some more branches that are meant to represent entirely different play style other than "same single-char levels with some new tricks". This option preserves the most different concepts separated and advertises up-to-date runs. Sonic 100% is from 2009. Tails is from 2013. Waiting for all branches to be updated will easily require 10 more years.
So I’ve thought this over. Feos, I appreciate that you’re trying to get my tas accepted, but I just can’t bring myself to choose either of those options. Replace Knuckles with Tails and replace Tails with Sonic? What? When I first started this run I had no way to anticipate too many branches would be an issue. It’s not mentioned in the movie rules, nor did anybody warn me. The fact that this got so overly complicated to the point where you have to do this kind of trickery with the branches is really heartbreaking. Forget about me. What will our viewers think when they discover this on their own? What will they think when they find out Sonic any% somehow obsoleted Sonic 100%? The second option is even worse in this regard. All of this for what? To maintain some arbitrary branch limit? Look I’m not asking you guys to make a million new branches. I’m only asking you to make the one for this run, and not just any branch. The last one in a set. I mean you already have published runs of the other 3 any% categories. One more can’t hurt. Not only that but this’ll likely be the last new branch this game will ever get (I’ll get into glitchless/low glitch below). None of the other tasers are planning on making any new categories for S3K. Only improvements over existing ones. Also, take the Sonic 100% run for example. The fact that it’s old is the exact reason it should keep its own branch. With the Knuckles’ 100% run Evil_3D thought “hey this run seems interesting, maybe I should improve it”. Wouldn’t it be great if the same thing happened with Sonic’s 100% run? What about this Sonic any% run. Well I thought it’d be cool to have this published alongside the Sonic+Tails, Tails, and Knuckles any% runs, and keep pushing them all to their very limits. Regarding glitchless/low glitch runs. That actually ties into this topic. I was considering making some myself at some point in the future, but after this ordeal I’m afraid of what may happen if I do so. Like, you actually discouraged me from making these runs now.
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It seems like the desire to keep the branch count low is not doing anything productive except hurting the desire of TASers going forward, so I am not sure that the rule is having any desired useful effect.
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Out of curiosity, how a game with multiple branches affects the site negatively? About the sonic trilogy there isn't a lot of branches than you think. For example every character has the potential of 3 main branches: any%, 100% and glitchless, ring-attack is optional but it's very well apreciated, newgame+ I only see this one valid only as S+T/S solo imo, score attack would be a insta-reject to being very boring and repetitive. The main problem about the Sonic trilogy is the level-warp glitch (I tried doing a no level warps run in the past like Sonic 100% but ended in a controvertial state like this run but still acepted nevertheless), sadly every new any% will be a screen rolling simulator unless we think on rework the any% rules about this branch or maybe simulate Sonic 3 AIR bug fixes or just jump to the glichless branch.
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kaan55 wrote:
Regarding glitchless/low glitch runs. That actually ties into this topic. I was considering making some myself at some point in the future, but after this ordeal I’m afraid of what may happen if I do so.
Please do! There are many of us who appreciate competently done low-glitch runs of games that have been thoroughly broken otherwise. I promise you that both feos and myself do. I will personally come and gush all over it in the submission thread. :D Also, while feos may propose unexpected (and occasionally disagreeable) solutions, he's always looking for input and is open to discussion. You shouldn't treat his proposals as the final say on the matter; in fact he is inviting further discussion precisely because the answer is not obvious and hence not yet decided. He's already said it before that the last thing he wants is players quitting over unnecessary decisions. So voice your disagreements, argue your case, and he will try to come up with a better decision.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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moozooh wrote:
Please do! There are many of us who appreciate competently done low-glitch runs of games that have been thoroughly broken otherwise. I promise you that both feos and myself do. I will personally come and gush all over it in the submission thread. :D
Oh really. Well in that case I think I will :) Don't worry they will be competently done. I'm promise you I won't go out of my way to justify questionable looking stuff and I do have a very good idea on what's intended. I was even thinking about doing them in Sonic 3 complete as that hack fixes a lot of bugs in S3K while also keeping the base game intact. Now that I think about it we can probably even use it as a workaround to the branch count. Maybe it's just me but I feel like we're getting slightly off topic with this. feel free to drop by the S3K thread if you wanna discuss this further. For now I want my submission here to get taken care of.
moozooh wrote:
Also, while feos may propose unexpected (and occasionally disagreeable) solutions, he's always looking for input and is open to discussion. You shouldn't treat his proposals as the final say on the matter; in fact he is inviting further discussion precisely because the answer is not obvious and hence not yet decided. He's already said it before that the last thing he wants is players quitting over unnecessary decisions. So voice your disagreements, argue your case, and he will try to come up with a better decision.
Yeah sorry about that. I'm still somewhat new to this and I will admit I did panic slightly. I'm more than okay with having further discussions on this matter. I feel like I should mention this. If I did have to choose one of those 2 options I'd pick the first one. Not only is it the simpler solution, it'd also cause less complications later on. Like if somebody does end up updating the Sonic 100% run that would only end up as a matter of whether or not that run should get a new branch. However even if it was in the wrong tone the point in my last post still stands. I just don't think it'd be a good idea to move around branches like that. I'd still prefer if a new branch was made for this submission.
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I'm a bit late. Just want to stress out: 1) Sonic has Death Egg 1, Death Egg 2 and Doomsday Zone. Knuckless ends in Sky Sanctuary 2) Knuckless has some different bosses. I don't know about tails. Personally, I would accept and go back to the problem when it become issue. Side note: Diablo II LOD on speedruns.com Any% Normal has 2*3*7 = 42 categories :) Only two of them are empty. But there is also Any% Hell and Misc.
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Tried to summarize opinions. This isn't getting easier at all. Both sides are really strong. If you feel there are more arguments regarding why or why not, please post. New branch
Something that might be reassuring is that this'll probably be the last new run in a new category this game will get for a good while. Could even be the last one altogether.
Low-glitch would be conceptually different enough to become a new branch. And there are no doubts about its support either.
Along with having multiple valid goal choices (any%, NG+, 100%, and ring attacks) it also has multiple characters which are all unique in their own way. Don't get me wrong I'm definitely not saying there should be a branch for every single possible combination. I'm just saying it's reasonable for a game like this to end up with so many branches.
I would vote for publication to its own separate branch, consistent with past precedent surrounding this particular game. While that precedent, itself, may be somewhat at odds with the way TASvideos likes to handle branches in general, I think it may be okay as S3K is one of the main entries in the entire Genesis library, partly because of the sheer amount of content that it has as one game spanning two carts.
I think the rule should really apply to limit the amount of community created branches for each game, not for branches offered by the game.
It seems obvious to me that there's a real market for all three solo-character runs, and they each deserve an any% branch.
These quotes basically mean that internal conditions available in this game are so inherently varied that huge branch count is unavoidable and justified. Some branches feel similar
As a casual player, I definitely would not feel the need to play all 4 character combinations. Sonic & Tails is not different enough to me from solo sonic or solo tails to warrant a separate playthrough. Or perhaps vice versa. Maybe I wouldn't feel the need to do solo sonic if I did Sonic & Tails. In that sense the character differences are minor.
By this point, I've pretty much lost interest in glitched runs of this game; watching terrain scroll by every couple seconds while a character is teleporting or clipping through, and then watching a stage-end score tally/cutscene that is almost as long as the entire stage gets old after a while. EDIT: Note that I'm not specifically advocating for a category cap or anything like that. But if it is decided that we only have a total of 8, I'd rather have a no-holds-barred, maximum speed run and a low-glitch solo Sonic run which we still don't have instead of the current 100% and this run (which is, for all intents and purposes, a Sonic and Tails any% without Tails), because the latter two don't fully commit to a particular style of gameplay.
I don't think it's fair to require an emulator hack to be able to appreciate the movie.
Solo runs may feel similar to casual viewers, despite the routing differences. I can't agree that experience and concept of the solo branches is fundamentally unique. Glitches also make camera hacks mandatory, because without them there's even less difference (or entertainment?) Why combine branches
Obsolete Knuckles with Tails. Obsolete Tails with this run. That way we have a Knuckles branch as well as one full completion branch, and further single-player runs could obsolete one another based on technical novelty and entertainment. Then if someone invents a novel concept, be it "low glitch" or something else entirely, there will be a place for some more branches that are meant to represent entirely different play style other than "same single-char levels with some new tricks". This option preserves the most different concepts separated and advertises up-to-date runs.
Why not
That’s only going to discourage people from tasing this game again.
The fact that this got so overly complicated to the point where you have to do this kind of trickery with the branches is really heartbreaking. Regarding glitchless/low glitch runs. That actually ties into this topic. I was considering making some myself at some point in the future, but after this ordeal I’m afraid of what may happen if I do so. Like, you actually discouraged me from making these runs now.
It seems like the desire to keep the branch count low is not doing anything productive except hurting the desire of TASers going forward, so I am not sure that the rule is having any desired useful effect.
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.
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Watched the non-camhack encodes for the 4 branches (any% and singulars). If we ignore slight difference in how the main zip is set up in a couple acts; out of 23 acts in S+T:
  • Sonic has 15 acts that look identical to S+T
  • Tails has 13 acts that look identical to S+T
  • Knuckles only has 6
  • Sonic and Tails have 8 similar acts
  • Sonic and Knuckles have 7
  • Tails and Knuckles have 4
  • S+T has 4 unique acts
  • Tails has 9 unique acts
  • Knuckles has 11 unique acts
  • Sonic has 5
Evil_3D wrote:
Out of curiosity, how a game with multiple branches affects the site negatively?
The general goal of branches is to represent content that is as much different across branches as possible. If we don't aim for that, we end up with 20 branches for every mildly popular game, and there'd be little to no difference between most of them. It results in overall clutter and drowning in tons of arbitrary rule variations that only people who RTA or TAS a given game can enjoy or understand. The Moons tier's target audience is not only people who actually work on games, but also regular viewers, the casual crowd, anyone curious. It doesn't mean we want to ignore the TASers of course. In the end we want to make it pleasant for both camps. So whenever the branch count for some run is unusually high, we seriouly ask ourselves if that's clutter already, or maybe there's some more room for unique content. From the list above, any% is the least unique, Sonic is the most similar to any%, and Knuckles is the most unique. Tails is more similar than unique, still quite different from all others. So how am I gonna solve it? Several people prepared to see this run rejected, several people said it'd be very bad to combine branches, several people said singular branches look similar, and now after measuring everything we currently have, Sonic is the least unique singular branch. I guess the only thing we don't know is which branches will have different routes in what acts if everything is redone using all the new tricks. Here's what I have:
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.
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Isn't that part of the beauty though? Seeing which levels aren't the same and how each character handles each scenario in their own way with their own tricks. Anyways seeing as feos compiled this data I will compile some of my own with updated strats. I just need to work out how I should do so first. This could take a while.
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feos wrote:
So how am I gonna solve it? Several people prepared to see this run rejected, several people said it'd be very bad to combine branches, several people said singular branches look similar, and now after measuring everything we currently have, Sonic is the least unique singular branch.
What about this idea, though?
moozooh wrote:
So since it functionally is a lower-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, it should be published in a separate branch, but eventually replaced with a proper low-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, also played with solo Sonic.
This way the run gets published, kaan55 is happy, and and the branch is put to good use (at least in perspective). Since a low-glitch run would also be solo Sonic anyway, it can be easily repurposed with little further justification necessary (especially if kaan55 does it himself and/or a new S+T any% is submitted by that time). Since a low-glitch run would barely overlap with any other category, it'd have to be a separate branch anyway, so might as well start it now. You can even preemptively put it in the verdict that a low-glitch Sonic run would be able to obsolete this one.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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moozooh wrote:
moozooh wrote:
So since it functionally is a lower-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, it should be published in a separate branch, but eventually replaced with a proper low-glitch, more-sightseeing any%, also played with solo Sonic.
This way the run gets published, kaan55 is happy, and and the branch is put to good use (at least in perspective). Since a low-glitch run would also be solo Sonic anyway, it can be easily repurposed with little further justification necessary (especially if kaan55 does it himself and/or a new S+T any% is submitted by that time). Since a low-glitch run would barely overlap with any other category, it'd have to be a separate branch anyway, so might as well start it now. You can even preemptively put it in the verdict that a low-glitch Sonic run would be able to obsolete this one.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Like both branches are gonna be drastically different from each other. I don't know and that's exactly why I'm here actually. Feos can we set this to delayed. At least until my semester for spring 2020 is over? Despite the classes being online it's not exactly a pleasant experience for me partially due to some mental health issues I have (don't worry I've been getting better). When I first submitted this I had no idea this would become such a big issue, and by extension a stressful ordeal for me. To make things worse it seems that I now have to compare each individual level of all 4 any% categories only for a chance at getting a new branch. Don't get me wrong I'm all for the discussion, but it's not something I wanna deal with right now. So if it's alright with you I'd like for this to get set to delayed. You guys can feel free to continue discussing this.
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The movie won't change, and as you said we can keep discussing it, so I don't think setting it to delayed is going to affect anything. We can just wait, while talking occasionally.
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.
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feos wrote:
The movie won't change, and as you said we can keep discussing it, so I don't think setting it to delayed is going to affect anything. We can just wait, while talking occasionally.
Oh yeah you’re right. I’d be okay with you just waiting. As long as you don’t accept/reject my run during my absence.
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I just watched the run, and it was very enjoyable. Yes vote for a great TAS!!!
kaan55 wrote:
I made the whole thing from scratch and made absolute sure I saved every single frame I can
Imagine another TAS improving this one by a lot of time, haha!!! Good job though!!
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