Order of the Phoenix is a videogame adaptation of the 5th Harry Potter in the series. It closely follows the plot of the movie as Umbridge is appointed the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Potter raises Dumbledore's Army to defend against the dark arts. This TAS decides to instead corrupt save data to achieve a completed file in which Voldemort is defeated in record time, skipping an hour's worth of gameplay.
Game objectives
Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.8
Aims for fastest completion
Corrupts save data
Comments
Lead up to corruption
First we have to endure 45 seconds of just loading into the game. We select Dutch as the language because it's slightly faster than english. Then after finally loading in, we head off to the right where Dudley is and wait for the two tutorial textboxes to pass so we can talk to him. He starts crying because apparently we killed Cedric and runs off leading to us having to chase him. This chase section is quite funny because walking straight up doesn't mean Harry walks straight along the path and so we have to press L every now and then to stay on the path. This was particularly tedious to TAS and although I've spent most of my time on these 20 seconds, I'm not 100% confident it's completely optimal but that's not to say they are entirely sub-optimal as they might appear visually. The loads to go to the next areas all extend slightly to the left and so it is faster to run diagonally up to the left into the wall. This seems incredibly slow, especially under the tunnel but I can assure you this is faster than walking straight into the load zone. The next cutscene that plays is of Dudley being attacked by Dementors and we just have to mash A through this section. Now we get our first autosave and during this autosave, we reset the console 284 frames after the final A press. This is the first frame we can reset for Save Corruption to work, with the window being a total of 19 frames big.
Corruption
Resetting during this window while saving puts the game into an error state and instead of a saving a file that's just finished the underpass section, the game instead saves a game with all levels completed and all individual level collectibles at 255 which is way beyond the max which is usually 2-10 items. We also choose Dutch again as it is the fastest language for this section too. This brings me to my next point about where this TAS should end.
Without save corruption, the game doesn't really have a typical ending (i.e. credits after beating the final level) and instead spawns Harry into the Gryffindor Common Room and... that's it. This save corruption achieves a similar end, having beaten all levels including the final one and Harry is spawned in the Gryffindor Common Room, so already there's a bit of confusion. Furthermore, this file that has an almost ultra-100% file besides some other 100% requirements isn't permanent and will be wiped if the console is reset again. The RTA speedrunning community has made it so runs are required to gain another autosave so the file is secure and won't be wiped. The fastest way to do this is to enter the Room of Requirement, go up to the pedestal where you learn a spell and exit out of it, which is what this TAS does.
I'm unsure whether this can really be called an 'ending' or if it is, where it should end. I'll leave it up to what others say.
I'd also like to thank the RTA speedrunning community for helping explain some stuff to do with this run. Their information was very useful
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Two nitpicks.
Did you only select Dutch because the RTA speedrunners use Dutch to save time and not validate the time loss that can come out from selecting a language to running it back as a TAS?
But also. You wasted a frame selecting Dutch cause the selection wraps around. You can press up to select Dutch sooner than down.
The other nitpick is this and the RTA speedruns you're referencing select the shortest mission instead of the last mission where you are in the Ministry of Magic for a face off Voldemort's goons (which is also selectable as a note).
So to me, this is just ending at some random ass mission instead of the last one.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
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Spikestuff wrote:
Two nitpicks.
Did you only select Dutch because the RTA speedrunners use Dutch to save time and not validate the time loss that can come out from selecting a language to running it back as a TAS?
I remember for the second half of the run, dutch saved 5 frames over US English and it was also faster for the first half though I don't remember exactly by how much
Spikestuff wrote:
The other nitpick is this and the RTA speedruns you're referencing select the shortest mission instead of the last mission where you are in the Ministry of Magic for a face off Voldemort's goons (which is also selectable as a note).
So to me, this is just ending at some random ass mission instead of the last one.
The run doesn't aim to finish on the last mission but instead aims for a 'safe' file, one that is properly saved. Since the game has already been beaten in a sense, the shortest level is selected and played through to activate an autosave which makes the file 'safe'. It would also make sense to end the TAS on the final level although I don't entirely see the point since the game has already been beaten and it would just be beating the game for a second time
Spikestuff wrote:
You can press up to select Dutch sooner than down.
Not surprised I missed that but I will fix it, though there is a small chance it might not be faster in the end due to lag
EDIT: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638125172014194930 included that menuing improvement, saving 3 frames. It was more at times but loads and lag brought it down to 3. Currently working on an alternative TAS that completes the final level instead of the RoR in case that is the favoured ending
EDIT 2: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638138088715807082 does MoM instead of RoR as the alternative ending. It too uses dutch but I never did enough testing to confirm it was the language though it certainly beat english. In the little time I was able to do this, I ended up optimising movement but not finding a way to manipulate the fights so if there is time to save, it's going to be in language choice and/or better fights
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Are you interested in doing a no save corruption tas? I attempted one before this glitch was discovered, and movement was pretty hard to optimize. I just tried to avoid hitting walls. And some of the mini games were entertaining to watch.
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Likely not, the run is quite a bit too long for my attention span and I can't say I actually enjoy the game. Although I haven't actually TASed much more than the bare minimum so I can't say no for sure. As for the movement, I've found, especially in the Ministry of Magic with flat walls, that walking into left walls is much faster plus it makes optimising movement a lot easier
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Spikestuff wrote:
The other nitpick is this and the RTA speedruns you're referencing select the shortest mission instead of the last mission where you are in the Ministry of Magic for a face off Voldemort's goons (which is also selectable as a note).
So to me, this is just ending at some random ass mission instead of the last one.
The movie must be complete
Your submission must beat the game, or reach the most suitable endpoint the game allows. Single-level or otherwise incomplete movies are not allowed. Examples of suitable endpoints are:
A definitive ending, such as a credits sequence.
This game doesn't have a credits sequence, but it has a cutscene that completes the plot.
If that's a much of an ending as we can get, it's what we should get. After all the goal of a movie is not to create a working save file, but to trigger the most reasonable ending. Sure some movies glitch the game so hard that including the entire ending becomes a problem, but they still have at least a part of it.
So I wanted to replace the submission with User movie #638138088715807082, but I compared it to the RTA record that includes that level, and some fights in that human run are quicker than in this submission. What could be the reason?
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:
So I wanted to replace the submission with User movie #638138088715807082, but I compared it to the RTA record that includes that level, and some fights in that human run are quicker than in this submission. What could be the reason?
While testing out different languages, I did notice there was a great variation in the enemy patterns. In fact, I couldn't win the fight while playing in english. There didn't seem to be a way to manipulate the enemy patterns from within the fight or from outside. There likely is a way but I was unable to find one, though I do suspect it has something to do with the frame the fight is loaded in on.
Hey, just to clarify why the ending point is at that point in RTA speedruns (obviously, RTA and TAS often have different rulesets so doesn't impact the decision made here).
With this game, there is a story progression to the game, and a post-story state, where the game considers the story of the game to be complete. This can be confirmed by the appearance of the Level Select menu in the Common Room. Whilst playing through the story, there is no level select and the game puts you through to the next level straight away. After you have beaten the story and the game flags that, the game then gives you the level select screen so you can go back to levels where you missed collectibles. When you do the save corruption, the game puts itself into a post-story state, so technically the game counts the story as complete. However, cause of the save corruption, the file won't remain unless you save the game again. Therefore, the intended reasoning of going into the Training level is that it is the shortest level that then allows you to save the game after, thereby putting the game into a permanent "end-game" state, where the story is marked as being complete permanently. It's less about all levels being complete, and more about the actual flag of story progression being set.
This was something that was voted on by the RTA community, and this timing method, and the allowance of SC in general, is still talked about here and there, but the consensus was to use this timing/end-time method.
Also, something that wasn't mentioned in the movie comments I don't believe? was that this SC only works if there is no SRAM already on the game, so the corruption has to be done from a completely clean cartridge for each file.
IMO do it feos' way, and skip through the cutscene super slow so people can read the text.
Otherwise it doesn't look like the game finishes.
Published TASes: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12Please consider voting for me as Rookie TASer Of 2023 - Voting is in December 2023My rule is quality TASes over quantity TASes... unless I'm bored.
Hey, just to clarify why the ending point is at that point in RTA speedruns (obviously, RTA and TAS often have different rulesets so doesn't impact the decision made here).
With this game, there is a story progression to the game, and a post-story state, where the game considers the story of the game to be complete. This can be confirmed by the appearance of the Level Select menu in the Common Room. Whilst playing through the story, there is no level select and the game puts you through to the next level straight away. After you have beaten the story and the game flags that, the game then gives you the level select screen so you can go back to levels where you missed collectibles.
Okay then screw the rest, the whole "safe save" thing is useless
Published TASes: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12Please consider voting for me as Rookie TASer Of 2023 - Voting is in December 2023My rule is quality TASes over quantity TASes... unless I'm bored.
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OtakuTAS wrote:
IMO do it feos' way, and skip through the cutscene super slow so people can read the text.
Otherwise it doesn't look like the game finishes.
There's no "feos' way", and I didn't mean to say that the dialog has to be slowed down. Skipping through the dialog is fine, because the cutscene containing that dialog is clearly already there, and it's all we need.
OtakuTAS wrote:
Okay then screw the rest, the whole "safe save" thing is useless
If some people need it for something, it's not useless. It's just not something TASVideos would require.
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.
If that's a much of an ending as we can get, it's what we should get. After all the goal of a movie is not to create a working save file, but to trigger the most reasonable ending. Sure some movies glitch the game so hard that including the entire ending becomes a problem, but they still have at least a part of it.
