"Destroying Angel: Reap & execute divine judgment upon el Aguamundo"
Goal: Maximum Score
- This is accomplished by achieving all kills and maximizing kill count during bonus timers.
Result:
- Score: 210200
- Enemies killed: 60+49+47=156 (Maxed)
- Bonus Chest Kills: 45+45+35=125
- Max kills in a row: 60 (Max combo is not achievable due to time required to gather enemies before 2nd and 3rd bonus chests. This does not impact score.)
- Rank: 5 Stars (Maxed, Granted for scoring at least 60000 points)
About The Mercenaries
Mercenaries is unlocked by completing the main game. It is a timed minigame with the objective of scoring the most points before time runs out. Per the intro of a map "Eliminate as many Ganados as you can before your evac chopper arrives! Successive kills will result in earning you more points!" Initially only Leon is selectable. There are four other characters playable when unlocked after scoring 30000+ points in one of the four (unofficially named) maps:
- Ada from the Village (Stage 1)
- Krauser from the Castle (Stage 2)
- Hunk from the Base (Stage 3)
- Wesker from the Waterworld (Stage 4)
Each map starts with two minutes of gameplay time, and time extensions are spread throughout the map. Item menu, item grabs, and cutscenes do not consume game time. Gameplay ends when the player dies, or when time runs out (the player is "rescued" by a chopper).
Each map has three Bonus Chest timers. Each gives 31 seconds during which time extra points are awarded for each regular enemy kill. The majority of effort put into this TAS was spent optimizing the Bonus Chests, with kills being registered with few frames to spare.
Wesker is the best character for achieving Highest Score in this stage. The enemy AI is aggressive. Enemies run into the player's line of sight, meaning less time is wasted hunting, and more time is focused on killing and moving to the next objective. Wesker has the best weapon selection.
See Baxter's scoring guide on Gamefaqs for more details
HERE.
Spawning:
The enemy spawning is very complicated on this map. 10 ganados can be on the map at a time, and some single time spawn groups can place enemy count above 10.
The Waterworld utilizes a "Spawn Glitch" where for each respawning zone, if the player leaves the zone and there is only one Ganado left to respawn, when the player returns to that zone, five ganados will spawn in its place. In order to get all 156 kills this glitch must be utilized for every spawn zone. This is the reason for hovering around a spawn zone border, jumping between zones and getting kills needed to activate the glitch. More info can be found in Head Minerve's video
HERE.
Manipulations: The reason for number of Re-Records:
Luck (RNG) is based on actions the player takes. RNG was manipulated throughout the run by trial and error. A little RNG manipulation was used for ammo (handgun ammo and hand grenades). RNG manipulation achieved the following:
- Critical Headshots- In high scoring real-time runs, the pistol is only used to shoot barrels and to get emergency kills if Rifle and Magnum ammo runs out due to unreliability. With a Crit probability of about 50%, TAS effectively turns it to 100%.
- Desirable Ammo drops, primarily Hand Grenades used for blowing up groups of enemies, and handgun ammo.
- Plagas (gorey monsters which randomly pop out of the necks of some ganados) were not allowed to appear, except at end for entertainment while waiting for last ganado.
Enemy AI was manipulated to:
- Keep them from damaging Wesker
- Make death despawn fast or slow depending on what is needed for spawn glitch.
- Get them in position for attack.
Enemies:
- Ganado: Standard enemy, easy pickings with the handgun. They wield either hatchets, stun rods, shields, crossbows, rocket launchers, dynamite, or their bare hands.
- Mr. Salvador: A giant double chainsaw wielding foe with high health. Two appear. Best dealt with at a distance.
Wesker's Arsenal:
Firearms:
- Silenced Handgun: Primary weapon used in this TAS, it shall hereby be known in this write-up as the "TASER" CANNON (don't forget the quotes). The silencer is usually discarded in high score runs to free up more space in the weapon inventory (attache case), but it is kept here for aesthetics, except where I temporarily remove it when I need Ganados to hear the shots. It is the fastest and weakest gun, quick to draw and lower. It's effective for getting critical headshots against Ganados, and stunning Ganados for melee attacks or follow-up shots (used only while waiting for final enemy to appear). It cannot shoot through any enemies.
- Killer7: A powerful magnum. Primarily used for shooting through shields, getting double headshots and for getting delayed kills at start of bonus chests. Limited ammo. Quick to draw and slow to lower. 3 enemy penetration. Body shot kills register when body stops moving.
- Sniper Rifle: The primary weapon in real-time runs due to its power, instant kills, and 5 enemy penetration. Very slow to draw and slow to lower, making its use in this TAS limited to getting a double kill at end of first bonus chest, followed by finishing off the second Mr. Salvador.
Granades:
The character runs faster with a grenade equipped, however switching inventory takes time so this is rarely used unless a grenade is actually needed for use.
- Flash Grenade: Used twice for stunning enemies. Can also kill plagas. Kept in inventory for increasing run speed when no other grenade is available.
- Incindiary Grenade: Lingering area of effect. Only used to damage first Mr. Salvador. Kills register very slowly.
- Hand Grenade: Used for taking out large groups and for killing enemies outside player's line of sight. Vital for maximizing Bonus Chest kill. Kills register instantly in immediate blast area and slowly otherwise.
Aiming:
- Analog Stick: Most Precise (Slowest), Has radial conversion (i.e., full right tilt with full up tilt will result in slower movement right than full right tilt alone).
- D-Pad: Faster than full tilt A-stick. No radial conversion.
- D-Pad+Analog Stick: Used in combination aiming is quicker than either individually. Constructively using this technique, the Rifle can swing 180 degrees in the time between shots. Used during immobility period after firing a shot to turn toward next objective, and is preferred method of aiming (fastest).
- C-Stick Quick Aiming: Tilting C-stick left or right and pressing R will cause the player to rotate while drawing a weapon, which is faster than turning with the weapon drawn.
- C-Stick Multi Turn: A C-Stick turn can be interrupted by releasing R for 1 frame, and holding R again. This can be chained together for very quick turning over large angles.
Iterative Optimization: The Cooperative Pursuit of the "Perfect Score"
Real Time Runs:
- 98KRAUSER's 203900 former World Record on PS4 HERE
- dxm8975's 205400 World Record on PS4 HERE
Major kudos to these players. It takes pure memorization and timing to get the spawning right, something even using TAS was very difficult to overcome.
Potential Improvements:
- There are timing aspects I don't understand. At the end of the second bonus chest, I had to wait several seconds for the next spawn glitch group to appear, which cost 2 or 3 bonus kills (600-900 points).
- During the first bonus chest, there was a time I had to wait a few seconds for spawn groups. There may be better use of the time but I couldn't find any.
Highest Score Links:
Cyberscore This site was briefly used before Shin's site for some players like myself
Shin's Site(No longer exists?) This used to be "the" place to log Mercenaries High Scores and Main Game Speedrun Times.
Special Thanks to:
- Dolphin Developers, who made available the amazing Tools execute this Tool Assisted Score-Attack.
- SoulCal, whose amazing captioned Full Game run taught me many tricks.
- Capcom, for making such a great game!
Playing the .dtm file on Dolphin:
Use Dolphin 5.0-10833 with included dsp files.
Do not use 3x, 5x or 7x internal resolution, or a desync occurs before the start of the second bonus chest.
Use the following memory card file with Mercenaries and Wesker unlocked:
MemoryCardA.USA.7z. You may need to export its contents to GCI folder to get the files to read.
Verification run to generate above memory file:
- Full instructions are HERE
- Verified by Fog here.
Play this Mercenaries:Waterworld submission on Disc 2. It desyncs on Disc 1.
Other info for judging/publishing:
There is no way to change the RNG in the initial menus. The gameplay was reset in order to begin at correct spawn point (on the tower). An alternative would have been to create a modified verification movie to manipulate RNG so Wesker starts on the tower on first attempt.
Suggested Screenshot: VI 8082 (Ganados flying).
Native aspect ratio is 4:3 letterboxed to 16:9. Please crop out the letterboxing if encoded.
slamo: Replaced the movie file with a 68 frame improvement.
slamo: Another excellent optimization effort on this one. It beats the highest known non-assisted score and it does it very efficiently.
As with the Village run that I judged, this movie is save-anchored and not Vault-eligible. Therefore, it must offer different enough content from the other Mercenaries runs to be published. I feel like the overall level layout is more open and vertical than the other maps, which presents a significantly different challenge than the other movies, so I believe it can coexist with the other Mercenaries runs.
Run syncs from beginning to end with the provided instructions (I did have to export the files from the provided memory card).
RE4 speedruns/TASes always have the same effect on me: They just make me wanna play RE4 again, every single time. Mercenaries was never really my thing, but the TASes make me really appreciate how much planning goes into maximizing the score. I love how smooth the killing segments look, the rapid headshots (as have been said before) and the careful grouping of enemies for grenades were a treat. The grenade stuff in particular, the grouping was like a buildup to the exact payoff you want as a viewer... Or the exact payoff I want as someone who just likes seeing many zombies explode at the same time.
Yes vote, great work!
