(Link to video)
Hey, happy to be back and bring you another TAS of my favorite game to TAS, Mega Man X6, in this occasion I have something special, and it is a TAS where I control both X and Zero with the same controller.
This is my first attempt at this kind of TAS and definitely it has been an interesting (and sometimes frustrating) learning experience, definitely going to work on more of this in the future.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 2.4
  • Beat the game using both playable characters (X and Zero) with a single input
  • Beat all 8 main mavericks (aka All Stages)

Encode with commentary

Comments

Mega Man X6 is a game developed by Capcom for the PS1, typically known for being rushed and poorly designed as it was developed in a year. Many parts are pretty unfair to a casual player where you can't advance certain spots by not having a particular armor or character.
I have already made TAS of this game in all shapes and forms, but in this occasion I have something different which involves using both X and Zero in two separate screens and control them with the same input, few TASes of this kind really exists and righly so as they are particularly challenging to create.
Aside from the technical difficulties that involves creating a TAS of this kind, it is challenging to control both characters as they have a pretty different playing style. X likes to shoot from a distance and Zero likes to come close and slash with his saber. This means they both have different approaches for platforming and fighting enemies and bosses. X also can use multiple armors but in this case only the Falcon Armor us used.
Something worth explaining is that normally it is not possible to use Zero from the very beginning of the game, you normally would need to unlock him first, this means an alternative was needed for this to truly be a "Two Characters, One Controller" TAS, and that is where the Mega Man X6 Tweaks projects enter.
It is a software mainly developed by acediez which allows you to patch the american V1.1 version of the game to do a lot of crazy stuff, one of them being unlock and use Zero from the very beginning by entering a code in the title screen. So two versions of the game were used:
  • The original ISO which is used for X
  • A patched version of the above ISO that allows you to use Zero from the beginning.
Since the original ISO does not have the patch, the code inputted allows it to get Black Zero once you unlock it the traditional way.

How to reproduce

  • Find and Download online the Mega Man X6 (USA) (v1.1) ISO
  • Download the Megaman X6 Tweaks Patcher.
  • Download the corresponding Tweaks Profile.
  • Open the Megaman X6 Tweaks Patcher, load the profile and load the BIN file of the ISO and click Patch.
  • Download and install the BizHawk Prereqs v2.0.
  • Download BizHawk v2.4.
  • Download the BizHawk movie file.
  • Open BizHawk, load the Tweaked Megaman X6 CUE file, and then load the movie file.
Tweaks Performed (Only for Zero): General Tweaks > Unlockables > Code #2 unlocks Zero from the start = Checked

How I made this TAS

TBA

Tricks and Glitches

TBA

Final Comments/Thoughts

This has definitely been a wild ride with lots of learning and lots of frustration, but the end result made it all worthy. I definitely plan to do of this in the future. So stay tuned :)
Want to give a huge shotout and thanks to all the member of my Discord Server where I usually stream, it was nice having y'all join me and glad you were willing to be there, you made making this TAS way more enjoyable than what it would normally be.
Huge shotouts to the BizHawk team, I cannot imagine how many people were able to do this kind of TASes before TAStudio but it makes it so much easier to visualize the input while you work on it and ensure you are in sync, I cannot see myself doing this without it.
Shotouts to acediez and all contributors of the Mega Man X6 Tweaks Project, the software you made open up so many possibilities on what you can do in the game, without your software, it would've been way more difficult to make this happen.
Finally, huge thanks my Youtube followers, you inspired me to do this and to continue TASing as a side-gig, if not because of you I would stop doing it. If you like the content and want to support me please subscribe to my Youtube Channel and watch the content.

Memory: Judging
Memory: Optimization seems good for the goal.
The run was received well for the most part. Multiple game runs have often been received well in the past and while this submission is not quite a multiple game run, the reception was just as positive.
The usage of a hack to allow for starting as Zero was a tad controversial in the thread. Some people sort of treated it as a form of cheating, but I disagree. It doesn't really make the game outright easier. In this context it was only done in order to allow this specific challenge at all. In that sense, this is a multiple game run with a hack of the original game as the second game.
However, I do not believe the usage of this hack should be at all acceptable outside of this particular challenge. The hack’s one change is allowing for the usage of Zero from the start. This is extremely minute compared to any other hack we have accepted to the site. In the context of creating this specific challenge, this hack creates an entertaining experience and I think that should be acceptable.
Accepting to Moons as a new branch/game/hack or whatever.
fsvgm777: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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Yes vote. Very nice idea. I've been thinking of doing Mega Man X4 "200%" but I have no time. Are you planning to do X4 or X5 TAS in the future? :D
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
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This reminds me of the first "bigame" TAS, although this submission technically isn't two different games, just Mega Man X6 and a mod of Mega Man X6 (to enable Zero). Did you use any special scripts to do this TAS? Or just turn on background input and do it slowly? It seems it would take quite a bit of effort to do this type of TAS, though certainly not on the scale of what Masterjun did (I can't believe someone was insane enough to actually do that). And I also didn't expect HappyLee to show any interest in any Mega Man X games. :D (I thought normally that Mario TASers stick with Mario.)
Rolanmen1
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HappyLee wrote:
Yes vote. Very nice idea. I've been thinking of doing Mega Man X4 "200%" but I have no time. Are you planning to do X4 or X5 TAS in the future? :D
Yes, my next planned TAS is X4 "X and Zero", still debating about Any% vs 200%, but given the uniqueness of this, maybe it is worth going for 200% althought, X will be significantly below Zero, but yeah, definitely going for X4 and then X5 and then all 3. Also, had no idea you had interest in X4, great to know :)
FractalFusion wrote:
Did you use any special scripts to do this TAS? Or just turn on background input and do it slowly? It seems it would take quite a bit of effort to do this type of TAS, though certainly not on the scale of what Masterjun did (I can't believe someone was insane enough to actually do that).(I thought normally that Mario TASers stick with Mario.)
Hey man, it's been a while, I thought you were not active anymore lol. I plan to specify the whole setup and process eventually. Basically TAStudio makes it easier to do and to ensure you don't make silly desyncs. I have 2 BizHawk instances with 2 TAStudio windows each with the corresponding ROM and with background input on so I can work on both at the same time. Once I finish each session I check if the inputs of both exactly matches.
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YOU SUBMITED IT FINALLY DUDE! :D Voting yes for this amazing run since I already watched it! Now, from technical side, I expect some debate on the use of tweaks but in my opinion it is worth it.
I still learn more about English. https://www.youtube.com/user/McBobX100
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Rolanmen1
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McBobX wrote:
YOU SUBMITED IT FINALLY DUDE! :D Voting yes for this amazing run since I already watched it! Now, from technical side, I expect some debate on the use of tweaks but in my opinion it is worth it.
Glad you pointed that out, I previously asked the judges about the concept and they said that if the patch is something simple it is a "decent idea", link to the response: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=504191#504191
Noxxa
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That was very nice to watch. Love how the two runs are synced up most of the time, it does a great job to highlight each character's strengths and weaknesses. Very entertaining, voted yes.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Voted yes. TASes of Mega Man X series are always my favorite. It's entertaining and exciting. I've heard X6 is a challenging game. In this tas, both X and ZERO are active. It's impressive. IIRC, this is the first bigame tas on PSX games, right? In that respect, it's very significant.
Rolanmen1 wrote:
Yes, my next planned TAS is X4 "X and Zero", still debating about Any% vs 200%, but given the uniqueness of this, maybe it is worth going for 200% althought, X will be significantly below Zero, but yeah, definitely going for X4 and then X5 and then all 3.
I'm very looking forward to seeing them.
Zinfidel
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I was captivated by how you approached each level, especially when X and Z desynchronized in their position and you had to 'massage' them back to the same place. I'm a sucker for inventive and out-of-the-box content like this, and your commentary was very good which made the experience overall very enjoyable. Yes vote!
mklip2001
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Every multi-game run is amazingly impressive, even though this isn't really multiple games ;-) It's actually easier to focus on both games when they are well synchronized, and it makes the different boss tactics for each character that much more obvious. That makes this run particularly entertaining in a different way from previous multi-game runs. I have no issues with using the modded ROM for the Zero game. The alternative would be to have an exact duplicate run with X for the first two stages until Zero is unlocked, and that would be less entertaining. I also liked seeing you get to fight the Zero Virus (that's his name, right?) with Zero. Very strong Yes vote.
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.
CoolHandMike
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This was an enjoyable watch! Really like these types of submissions. Yes vote!
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I'm not much of a Mega Man person, but this was really cool to watch, I always love these multigame runs. The encode with the commentary made it much easier for me to understand what is going on, that was a great addition. "Yes" vote from me!
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Spikestuff
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Sorry I'm going to the be the stickler here. I don't get why you used a tool to do something where you could've done and created a verification movie instead. If you call for sync issues when a memory card is placed well there's two NTSC-U revision differences and a single NTSC-J version they should be more than enough to help create a non-tweaked version. Alternatively you could've gone with the bios route as there is enough of a difference which will allow it to have an advantage. I'll show you with my favourite game example I usually have on hand, Tekken 3. I know, Tekken 3 is not Mega Man X6, sorry. But I've done this test with various other PlayStation games in the past. This file uses NTSC-J's two revisions and the NTSC-U version to select 3 different characters without changing the bios either (to be exact what I mean by this I meant between the NTSC-J versions since SCPH5500 and SCPH5501 are already different in that regard). To tl;dr that file with a set of images: Each version/revision was able to select a completely different character starting from Xiaoyu. If you want to prove any of this wrong all you have to do is create two separate verification movies saves that unlock Zero and then create a movie that fails to select both X in one version/revision and Zero in the other.
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+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
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Noxxa
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Spikestuff wrote:
If you want to prove any of this wrong all you have to do is create two separate verification movies saves that unlock Zero and then create a movie that fails to select both X in one version/revision and Zero in the other.
There is no "verification movie file to unlock Zero" possible, you can normally unlock him mid-game for a given playthrough. That's why the tweaker is required in the first place, to be able to start a run with Zero at all.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Rolanmen1
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Spikestuff wrote:
Sorry I'm going to the be the stickler here. I don't get why you used a tool to do something where you could've done and created a verification movie instead. If you call for sync issues when a memory card is placed well there's two NTSC-U revision differences and a single NTSC-J version they should be more than enough to help create a non-tweaked version. Alternatively you could've gone with the bios route as there is enough of a difference which will allow it to have an advantage. I'll show you with my favourite game example I usually have on hand, Tekken 3. I know, Tekken 3 is not Mega Man X6, sorry. But I've done this test with various other PlayStation games in the past. This file uses NTSC-J's two revisions and the NTSC-U version to select 3 different characters without changing the bios either (to be exact what I mean by this I meant between the NTSC-J versions since SCPH5500 and SCPH5501 are already different in that regard). To tl;dr that file with a set of images: Each version/revision was able to select a completely different character starting from Xiaoyu. If you want to prove any of this wrong all you have to do is create two separate verification movies saves that unlock Zero and then create a movie that fails to select both X in one version/revision and Zero in the other.
Your statement is pretty reasonable, but as Mothrayas already stated, you only get Zero on the given playthrough, and in this game you don't get a character select screen similar to X4 and X5. Typically to unlock Zero you would need to beat the Intro Stage and an alternate area of any of the main 8 stages and then fight Nightmare Zero with X. So there is no way to start the game from the very beginning with Zero unless you use a tweaker. Apologies as this should've been in the submission description, I got a little lazy but I will make sure to update it with this information.
fsvgm777
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I also have concerns with the tweak that needs to be used in order to play as Zero from the beginning. From my understanding, the tweaks patcher allows one to customise a large variety of stuff (which I won't really get into detail). From my understanding, it effectively hard-mods the ISO with whatever tweaks you have selected. I'd consider the tool itself as using cheats, and thus shouldn't be allowed IMO. As an aside, Zero is still referred to as X in the dialogue.
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Rolanmen1
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fsvgm777 wrote:
I also have concerns with the tweak that needs to be used in order to play as Zero from the beginning. From my understanding, the tweaks patcher allows one to customise a large variety of stuff (which I won't really get into detail). From my understanding, it effectively hard-mods the ISO with whatever tweaks you have selected.
Yes, the tweaker allows you to change a lot of stuff in the game and creates a copy of the ISO selected hard-mods the changes into the copy. Although, if any other change was added other than the stated in the submission notes, the game would no longer sync with the provided movie file. This is also repeatable either by using a profile that I provided or by manually selecting the tweaks.
fsvgm777 wrote:
I'd consider the tool itself as using cheats, and thus shouldn't be allowed IMO.
It depends on the context, if I were to claim this works in the original game but in reality it doesn't and only works on a tweaked version, then yes, it is cheating. But in any case, IMO, this isn't much different than TASing a patched game that takes a real game and apply changes on top of it. Aside from it, such TAS would NEVER be possible without the tweaks (which is unfortunate).
fsvgm777 wrote:
As an aside, Zero is still referred to as X in the dialogue.
Yeah, that only happens in the Intro Stage because normally it is not possible to use Zero in such stage, after this point, Zero is referred as Zero for the whole game.
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The best way to think about this is that it's a 2 games 1 controller run. One of the games is Mega Man X6. The other is a hack of Mega Man X6 in which you start as Zero.
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Voting yes for the run and allowing an exception for the use of a hack to allow starting the game as Zero.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Post subject: Mega Man X6: X and Zero triumph with the same inputs
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I like the concept of clearing multiple game instances as different characters with the same inputs. Hopefully our feedback will outweigh the need to modify the game in order to play as Zero in the intro stage, which normally can't be done in X6.
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To my knowledge, this is the first movie we've had which does something like this. Quite novel to see a game can be beaten with different characters using the same input. In Mega Man X6, both our heroes have a light-saber in this one, so it does allow the Mega Men to have a similar move-set. The movie on the one hand shows how the two are same for most of it, but then it also shows how they diverge with their special weapons, yet still remains synced while only ~6 minutes lost due to it. The levels are played for the most part identically, but then the boss fights use the special weapons to their full potential, so just viewing it casually, doesn't look like you intentionally handicapped one of the characters in order to make it easier to maintain sync. Great job!
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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I've just verified that it syncs on emulator (both for the normal Mega Man X6, as well as Mega Man X6 with the Zero Tweak). BizHawk 2.4 appears to be required (doesn't sync on 2.5.2).
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. ---- [4506] PSX Mega Man X6 "X and Zero, all stages" by Rolanmen1 in 45:26.47
Fortranm
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http://tasvideos.org/Movies-C2020Y.html I suppose this movie should be given the same label.
fsvgm777
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Thing is, it's still the same game, just played with a different character. So I don't feel the tag applies here, cause the way I see it, it's meant for completely different games.
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