(Link to video)

Attributes

  • Aims for lowest real time / frame count
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Glitches into warproom

Overview

This is an improved any% TAS of Hagane, which improves the currently published run by 33827 frames after discovering a rabbit hole to travel through time and space.
In this game, it's important to optimize both Hagane's positioning and the screen's positioning, as it sometimes triggers important events faster if the screen reaches certain area earlier.

Version choice

  • NTSC-J was selected for this project, because I discovered that after pressing "start", main menu fadeout lasts 60 frames less than on NTSC-U version.
  • NTSC-J also contains an undocumented hard mode code, which I discovered, which can be useful for tasing hard mode without SRAM preparation. No codes were used during this TAS.
  • NTSC-J loses 0-2 frames during stage loads vs NTSC-U, but it doesn't occur frequently enough to make it slower.
  • Even if the whole game is tased without warps, NTSC-J still wins over NTSC-U by over 30 frames.

Movement, tricks & glitches

Movement speeds

  • Sliding = 3 pixels per frame, lasts 32 frames. 1 frame of walking is required between slides. By far the fastest movement method. Cannot be performed on upward slopes, so reverse tumbling is usually the best alternative for clearing those.
  • Reverse tumbling = 3 pixels per frame, takes 3 frames to initiate.
  • Spinjumping = 3 pixels per frame, lasts 48 frames. Loses variable amount of pixels before and after use depending on room structure.
  • Walking = 2 pixels per frame BUT moves screen 4 pixels per frame if Hagane isn't at the edge of the screen. All 3-speed moves only move the screen 3 pixels per frame, so this is often used to shift the screen forward right before an auto-screen-scrolling cutscene.
  • Tumbling = same as walking.
  • Midair = 1 pixel per frame.
  • Hanging from ceiling = same as walking.

Wall climbing & zipping

When Hagane is using the grappling hook and moving backwards, collision detection is disabled. This can be abused to quickly climb upwards by rapidly entering walls and jumping off of them before they eject Hagane out.
Alternatively, ejection can be used to quickly zip forwards during over-or-underhanging edges. Zipping is the fastest way to move, but is not the fastest way to advance the screen's movement, as the screen only moves 1 pixel per frame forward during zipping. Therefore, it is sometimes faster to not zip and maximize the screen's movement speed instead.

Screen-squishing

When Hagane is using the grappling hook and moving backwards or is being hit by an enemy (see stages 1-2 and 2-2), screen keeps moving towards that direction, no matter what. Even after a wall ejects Hagane out, screen is not adjusted accordingly. This makes it possible to squish Hagane between the screen and the wall, making it possible to get out of the map in several locations, and perform new advanced zips. Moreover, it removes the requirement of over- or underhanging ledges to start a zip. To keep hagane alive inside walls, you must mash jump at least once per 5 frames.

Ground zipping

Although very rarely useful, it is possible to perform a minimal zip forward by performing a midair downward kick on a declining slope, and then performing a frame-perfect ground slide as Hagane lands. This saved 1 frame in stage 1-1.

Stage 1-4 zipping

During stage 1-4 it is possible to zip by facing backwards and letting the autoscroll push Hagane through walls.

Screen-adjustment-cutscene trigger skip

An interesting mechanic that was only implementable in stage 1-1, as there's a certain height where the screen-adjustment-cutscene will not trigger anymore. By spinjumping above the trigger in order to push the screen further much faster - with 3 pixels per frame speed as opposed to the usual 1 pixel per frame (auto-scroll) speed - a bunch of frames will be saved.

Lag reduction

Whenever lag would be caused by sliding, spinjumping usually reduces it, while also almost being as fast of movement. Other techniques include staying crouched and eliminating as many enemies from the screen as possible.

Categorization

Being able to access the warproom shortens the game considerably, as about 70% of the usual gameplay vanishes. Thus my suggestion is to have "warps" and "warpless" categories separated. Perhaps a "warpless" TAS should also be played on hard difficulty.

Stage by Stage comments

  • 1-1: +-0
  • 1-2: 925 frames were eliminated (1-3's exit touch is used as the comparison point). With a clever use of screen-squishing it was possible to zip-skip the frog miniboss, and also get out of the map and reach stage 1-3 and its exit in a marvelous way! It appears, that stages 1-2 and 1-3 are connected into the same level, which made this possible.
  • 1-3: Huh, where did 1-3 go?
  • 1-4: Autoscroller... surely unimprovable or? Wrong! Letting the autoscroll zip Hagane through the floor/wall near the stage's exit saved 4 frames!
  • Boss 1: +-0
  • 2-1: +-0
  • 2-2: 1000 years were saved here (~32837 frames, this one is off by 10-20 frames due to NTSC-U vs NTSC-J stage load time differences) by using the newly discovered screen-squishing technique. I discovered that there exists a warproom within stage 2-2, which normally is only reachable by using a NTSC-J exclusive config menu code. Being able to select a level means Hagane can travel through time and space straight into the final boss!
  • Final Boss: Better lag reduction saved 5 frames.

Thanks to

  • Omnigamer for providing various useful info about the game.
  • Previous TASers (Tiger & Heisanevilgenius) for having something to compare against
  • ED

feos: Judging...
feos: Added branch.
feos: Replacing with a 537-frame improvement.
feos: While using the level select room would be banned if it was done via intended sequence, glitching into it is fair play unless all it does is making gameplay easy (see the bottom of this post for more insight).
In this run, the player quite obviously clips through the wall, and the level select room happens to be embedded into the level layout directly. I didn't notice any inputs that didn't look like regular movement to enter the wall.
[3763] SNES Hagane by Sniq in 13:12.84 is vastly different, and can't remain Fastestcompletion, and it also got good feedback, so we can have those 2 runs published side by side.
Accepting as a new branch that is now fastest completion.
EZGames69: Processing

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7182: Sniq's SNES Hagane "warp glitch" in 03:49.99
Challenger
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Very insane discovery! I'm surprised with it. Great work and Yes vote.
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
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Always a delight seeing level breaking glitches, even in games i never heard of. Yes for the amazing improvment!
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math. My things: YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
CoolHandMike
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That was Awesome! Hell yea! Hagane is one of those games that I really enjoyed despite its quirks. Great job finding that hidden warp room and getting into it!
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ok, that was real cool and i voted yes but the real question is : is it a warp room SMB3 style or a warp room earthbound style ?
nymx
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Out of the darkness, Sniq arises...The Grand Master of Optimization has returned.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
mklip2001
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That is some crazy glitching. As long as this doesn't count as abuse of a debug code or anything (like the GT Code in Super Metroid), I'm all for it. Those new zips are pretty impressive. It's a shame this is probably going to obsolete the current Hagane run, which is one of the most entertaining runs on the site for me. I figure the old run also uses some zipping glitches (even if nowhere near to the same extent) so there's not really much of a consistent argument for keeping it as the "low glitch" branch.
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.
EZGames69
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I personally believe this run should be in its own warp glitch category, as there’s a crazy amount of difference with this run and the publication one.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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Agreed. A normal mode run with warp glitches and a warpless hard mode run would be best.
mklip2001 wrote:
As long as this doesn't count as abuse of a debug code or anything (like the GT Code in Super Metroid), I'm all for it.
The rules have a specific provision allowing cheat or debug features built into the game so long as they're accessed in an unintended way, such as via a glitch. This is exactly one of those cases since the warp room that is normally accessed via a password (which wouldn't be allowed) is instead glitched into.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I noticed a major improvement and did one more big cleanup for the TAS, to push the time barely below 3:50. Here's a new lsmv: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RbtYTuQabiFwv7PdwzNO8AH6Ddu9v83O/view?usp=sharing
MESHUGGAH
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Oh my god, yes vote!
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
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Amazing. Well done!
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4510] SNES Hagane "warp glitch" by Sniq in 03:49.99