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This is an any% TAS of the SNES action-adventure game Illusion of Gaia, completed in 16:48 with TAS timing and 16:27 with RTA timing. It is about an hour faster than the current any% RTA WR by solarcell007, and about 3 minutes faster than my old WIP. By coincidence, this also happens to be a run where no damage is being taken.
The main strategy is to perform multiple mid-frame resets to corrupt save data in order to duplicate enough Red Jewels to warp to the last boss of the game and defeat it. This strategy is believed to not be human-viable due to extremely precise timing required per mid-frame reset.
A full technical explanation along with acknowledgments can be found on my blog: https://www.debigare.com/beating-illusion-of-gaia-in-17-minutes/
IMPORTANT: The dirty SRAM warning appears to be bogus, as the embedded SRAM is 0 bytes long. As all 3 save slots are filled uninterrupted using normal save and copy operations before the first mid-frame reset SRAM corruption, the initial state of SRAM should be irrelevant anyway.
Suggested publication screenshot: Frame 42673.
feos: File replaced with itself since the SRAM parser has been fixed for lsmv.
SmashManiac: Thanks! May I request to have the file replaced again with a newer version? I just saved 463 frames by using a shortcut I previously overlooked to reach the required triggers faster, and already updated my submission comments accordingly. The replacement file is available at https://www.debigare.com/files/IllusionOfGaiaIn16m48s.lsmv
CasualPokePlayer: File replaced with 463 frame improvement.
Samsara: Judging.
Samsara: Somehow the submission file ended up weird, replacing with a fixed version. Judgement coming shortly.
Samsara: Adding the "save glitch" branch due to the heavy usage of save corruption.
I've always remembered this game being a really interestingly told story, full of great characters, some ahead-of-its-time romance, and just that general great feeling of adventuring with your good friends and also sometimes turning into other men. Turns out I remembered wrong and the game was mostly just the title screen, a cutscene, and a boss fight with a BGM that absolutely slaps.
Either way, 15 years is never too late to make your first submission to the site (it took a lot of personal restraint to not make the "Welcome to TASvideos!" joke), and it's definitely not too late to have said first submission accepted as a new branch. I've relabeled the published run "100%" to fit that as well.
Spikestuff: Publishing.

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Posted: 9/11/2021 11:47 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7211: SmashManiac's SNES Illusion of Gaia "save glitch" in 16:48.69
Posted: 9/12/2021 12:00 AM
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SmashManiac
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Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 501
I'm not sure why the site complains about dirty SRAM. I'm assuming it's because the movie somehow contains a moviesram.srm fils with a length of 0 bytes. I have no idea how it happened. I tried copy-pasting all inputs to a new movie, but the emulator still complains about an SRAM of 0 bytes when I load it. If that issue can be fixed, I do not know how, but I'm assuming it won't be a problem. Please let me know if there is any action required on my part.
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Posted: 9/12/2021 3:46 AM
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nymx
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I"m not sure either, but that has happened to me a few times. Don't worry about that...a judge or admin will clear it out. Btw, nice to see your first submission here. As soon as I see an encode, I'll be voting.
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
Posted: 9/12/2021 4:43 AM
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Fortranm
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Link to video Interesting routing in principal and the one actual fight is decent. Voting meh for entertainment. Glad to see a run with this strategy being submitted at last! Do you plan to look into a similar route for Terranigma in the future?
Posted: 9/12/2021 5:58 AM
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SmashManiac
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I did look into it a little bit, as SRAM bit swap is indeed possible in Terranigma. However, the possible outcomes are not as broken as in Illusion of Gaia. The biggest potential time save appears to be the duplication of Starstones. I could also see some potential with duplicating Gems, Magirocks, stat-boosting potions or even re-spawning bosses for farming, but it's much less likely to yield any time save for these. As such, it's not something that I'm personally interested in looking into further than that, but I would definitely be interested in seeing someone else giving it a try! Thanks for the temp encode by the way!
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Posted: 9/12/2021 7:34 AM
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Fortranm
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SmashManiac wrote:
Thanks for the temp encode by the way!
No problem! Is there any possibility to change the player's location in the save file via bit swap to perform warping in either of the games?
SmashManiac wrote:
The biggest potential time save appears to be the duplication of Starstones.
One of them can be acquired much earlier than the other 4. Would it be possible to enter the final Act of the story right after getting the boat by duplicating this? Even if the story still needs to be progressed normally until the airplane is acquired so that Beruga's Tower becomes accessible, this could still allow skipping Beruga's Lab and getting the best weapon and armor earlier in that case. I guess this discussion should take place in the thread of that game if it were to continue though. :P
Posted: 9/12/2021 5:04 PM
(Edited: 2/13/2023 7:29 AM)
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SmashManiac
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Fortranm wrote:
Is there any possibility to change the player's location in the save file via bit swap to perform warping in either of the games?
I don't think I previously considered that possibility. Potentially, but only to locations you have previously saved at. I'm not sure if you could sequence break the game by going back to Crysta early though, or how hard it would be to do so while remaining strong enough to beat the last boss. I don't think it would work, but this may be worth investigating. EDIT: I forgot that the trigger to be able to fight the last boss is the end of the airship sequence, so you can't skip the game that way after all.
Fortranm wrote:
SmashManiac wrote:
The biggest potential time save appears to be the duplication of Starstones.
One of them can be acquired much earlier than the other 4. Would it be possible to enter the final Act of the story right after getting the boat by duplicating this? Even if the story still needs to be progressed normally until the airplane is acquired so that Beruga's Tower becomes accessible, this could still allow skipping Beruga's Lab and getting the best weapon and armor earlier in that case.
Something like that, but I'm not sure about the details. This is information I got from Kretiar when he investigated this himself.
Fortranm wrote:
I guess this discussion should take place in the thread of that game if it were to continue though. :P
Be my guest! My blog post with the technical explanation for Illusion of Gaia could be a good start.
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Posted: 9/12/2021 7:41 PM
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nymx
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First, I want to mention that I was a fan of this game when it first came out. Although I never beat it, it does bring back some good memories. After watching, I was lost at how all this was being accomplished...but your submission answers the fact of what is happening to make this go by so fast. I haven't touched many games that can be glitched this way, but it is interesting to see how you populate your save data to obtain those red jewels. Well, this is a very good first submission. I am tore between Yes and Meh...but I will give you a Yes.
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
Posted: 9/12/2021 11:18 PM
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£e_Nécroyeur
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Arcade TASer of 2017 Arcade TAS of 2016 Exotic platforms TASer of 2014 Exotic platforms TAS of 2014
"Notable Improvement"?
Posted: 9/13/2021 5:05 AM
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Kung_Knut
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Although I didn't actually join until 2016, I've been lurking on TASVideos almost every day since 2005 when my first daughter was born (watching every TAS on the site with her on my lap (she's still watching speedruns, btw)). It always makes me happy when a "golden oldie" get his/her first TAS published. Congratulations in advance, impressive TAS, impressive work!
Posted: 9/13/2021 6:02 AM
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SmashManiac
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Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 501
Thanks for the kind words! I would like to clarify however that this isn't the first TAS of Illusion of Gaia on TASVideos. The current publication is for the All Bosses No Wrong Warp category though, and is barely faster than the current RTA WR of that category. On an unrelated note, I made a new movie with an improvement of 463 frames. The only difference is that I sometimes walk alongside the School's exterior wall after jumping off from its roof to reach my next destination instead of continuing to jump off all the way down to Seth's House every single time. If someone on the staff could replace the submission file with the new version I linked to in the submission comments, it would be very appreciated. EDIT: Thank you for updating the submission file with the newer version!
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Posted: 9/15/2021 5:57 AM
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scrash14
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Hi !!! 1st post , and finally registered after years simply silently watching !! honestly , this run looks great technically, but in terms of entertainment ... big meh :( Edit: wanted to vote, couldn't, I guess votes were already closed?
Posted: 9/15/2021 7:41 AM
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Patashu
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scrash14 wrote:
Hi !!! 1st post , and finally registered after years simply silently watching !! honestly , this run looks great technically, but in terms of entertainment ... big meh :( Edit: wanted to vote, couldn't, I guess votes were already closed?
I think the following information is correct: * You need to be 'newbie' or higher to vote in polls. * You need 4 posts to be 'newbie'.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 9/15/2021 12:05 PM
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scrash14
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Patashu wrote:
scrash14 wrote:
Hi !!! 1st post , and finally registered after years simply silently watching !! honestly , this run looks great technically, but in terms of entertainment ... big meh :( Edit: wanted to vote, couldn't, I guess votes were already closed?
I think the following information is correct: * You need to be 'newbie' or higher to vote in polls. * You need 4 posts to be 'newbie'.
Oh ok I see :) sorry for the stupid question !
Posted: 9/21/2021 4:28 AM
(Edited: 2/13/2023 7:57 AM)
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SmashManiac
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For those interested, I made a new temp encode which includes the the 463 frames improvement: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I9pV6z1MYqPn4lF7SZQlrZfTGBLP7-Fm/view Note that I'll probably delete it once this submission is processed. EDIT: File removed in favor of the official encodes.
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Posted: 9/21/2021 12:40 PM
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mklip2001
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Technically impressive, but the movie is basically just a glitched route to the final boss fight, and this final boss is pretty trivial compared to most bosses in the game. You don't even play through Gem's mansion when you get there, not that you could anyway (without the Pyscho Slider), but it cuts down on the entertainment value. Interesting to see this as a possibility, but the movie itself gets a No from me.
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.
Posted: 9/22/2021 5:28 PM
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Nicos
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
this run is technically impressive and i'm happy to see this game broken like that maybe adding a "Diary data watcher" to the encode to show what's happening behind the scene would help with the entertainement value. anyway it's a yes from me
Posted: 10/1/2021 4:31 AM
Post subject: Re: #7211: SmashManiac's SNES Illusion of Gaia "save glitch" in 16:48.69
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SmashManiac
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Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 501
Samsara wrote:
Either way, 15 years is never too late to make your first submission to the site (it took a lot of personal restraint to not make the "Welcome to TASvideos!" joke), and it's definitely not too late to have said first submission accepted as a new branch. I've relabeled the published run "100%" to fit that as well.
I only needed to find the right opportunity. ^_^ Also, thank you everyone in this thread for your comments!
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Posted: 10/25/2021 1:00 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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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. ---- [4540] SNES Illusion of Gaia "save glitch" by SmashManiac in 16:48.69
Posted: 1/11/2022 4:06 AM
(Edited: 2/13/2023 7:53 AM)
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SmashManiac
Player (12)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 501
I just realized that my movie doesn't have the Fastest Completion flag on its publication, even though I believe it qualifies. Can someone look into this?
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Posted: 1/11/2022 9:19 AM
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feos
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NES TAS of 2011
Added.
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.
Posted: 1/12/2022 12:15 AM
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SmashManiac
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Posts: 501
Awesome! Thanks feos! :)
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