Darkman425 here. I'm writing most of the submission notes for CUI since I am a native English speaker and knowledgeable about this game's mechanics.
Introduction
Mega Man: The Wily Wars had a troubled development. This full set run shows how much can be broken in the game's state with a lot of fun zips and glitches. Unless you're Mega Man 2 for some reason with exactly one proper place to do zips.
For the breakdown of who did what:
- CUI did the majority of the work, making most of the inputs for Mega Man 1, 2, & 3.
- jc564's inputs from their Wily Tower publication was resynced to BizHawk 2.9.1 up to the Wily Machine MD fight and used here. The final boss fight input couldn't be used since the resync work was too much due to the different lag between GENS and BizHawk.
- NemoRuby's inputs from their zipless improvement for the Wily Machine MD fight was used in place of jc564's inputs since it was already well optimized and synced fine.
- Darkman425 mainly did minor work such as changing to save file 3 and resyncing the entire input to save roughly 10 seconds, and some minor adjustments to the end of some Wily Castle bosses to transition to the next level sooner.
As both jc564's and NemoRuby's inputs were taken from their TASes in this TAS, they have been included as co-authors for this submission.
Run notes
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
- Takes damage to save time
- Heavy glitch abuse
Mechanics and techniques
There are a few additions and corrections that need to be discussed.
Jumping VS Walking, revisited
It turns out that, unlike NES Mega Man 1 & 2, it's generally slightly faster to jump constantly rather than walking in Wily Wars. This is very clearly noticeable in Guts Man's stage with CUI's comparison video:
https://youtu.be/sqHKR9JA0qs
Underwater movement
Mega Man moves a bit slower underwater. For the parts without sliding, jumping out of the water whenever possible is faster than being in the water.
Zipping to the right
Normally, the game ejects Mega Man to the left if he's ever caught inside level geometry. Alternating left and right inputs instead has the ejection push Mega Man to the right.
Zipping tools of the trade
Magnet beam and Rush Jet enable the ability to clip into and zip through the level geometry by having a temporary floor push Mega Man's hitbox through ceilings. Magnet beam can still be used off screen and is used to ascend to higher areas than intended, allowing for further zips in higher parts of the map. Rush Jet despawns when off screen which adds some limitations to mainly horizontal zipping, but Rush being present under Mega Man is useful for maintaining zips when there's a thin ceiling.
Item 1 can't do a zip due to despawning when close to a ceiling. Item 2 can't do a zip due to not having the capability of moving vertically enough to enable a zip. Item 3 has exactly one spot where it can enable zips since it lets Mega Man grab a ladder off screen high enough to get caught in geometry in Mega Man 2's Wily Castle 4.
Zipping into boss rooms
Zipping into boss rooms is used to skip the door opening transition, keep control in boss rooms, and attack bosses as soon as their hitbox is active rather than the intended start of the fight. The downside is that weapons can't be swapped out so they must be equipped before the transition. This is more limited outside of the Wily Tower than you'd think but it's definitely helpful when it is available.
Faster level transitions
Level ending transitions start as soon as Mega Man lands on solid ground. A fair amount of levels have the last movements adjusted such that Mega Man is either on the ground when a boss dies or lands on solid ground as soon as possible.
Game saving and reset timing after finishing a game
The game automatically saves after Mega Man defeats Wily and lands on solid ground. During the initial pause due to saving, a frame perfect reset can be used to get back to the title screen and select the next game quickly. Note that doing it a frame too early will delete the save instead. The consequence of this is that this makes syncing inputs between games easy as the game always starts with the same RNG seed from the title screen.
Level notes
There's quite a bit, so do click the tabs for the respective games in this TAS. CUI has also provided a comparison video for the Mega Man 1 & 2 sections since they're fairly close to the zipless TAS. Mega Man 3 is completely different so a comparison wouldn't be fair and the Wily Tower section is straight taken from the other TASes with credit.
CUI's Mega Man 1 comparison video with this submission and the zipless TAS:
In general, CUI adjusted where the RNG was upon level completion to keep stage score bonuses low. The lowest score bonus is 50000 although some 60000 score bonuses had to be used since the RNG is still as rigid as it ever was in Wily Wars.
- Guts Man
- This is similar to a zipless run but now slightly faster due to more jumping through the level. After grabbing the energy element, Mega Man is made to land on the blocks on the left to transition to the next stage sooner.
- Cut Man
- RNG couldn't get adjusted to 50000 points bonus without wasting more time in Guts Man's stage, so a 60000 bonus had to do. Mainly just movement optimization by jumping more often. Super Arm is equipped after taking a hit from a Flying Shell, with the i-frames being used to cross the spikes rather than jumping off of the right platforms.
- Elec Man
- Once again, a 60000 point bonus. Elec Man is done after Cut Man since the difference between a 3 shot fight and a 28 shot fight is at least 1500 i-frames. This follows the zipless route with extra movement optimization from more jumping until the Magnet Beam is obtained and equipped. In the last horizontally scrolling room, Mega Man uses magnet Beam shots to get a lot of vertical height before grabbing the ladder to start the screen transition. This is set high enough to go up two screens and reduce the need to go left. As Mega Man is set inside level geometry, he gets popped out left back into the normal level. The last two shots of Magnet Beam are used make the climb up to Elec Man faster. Once again, Mega Man lands on the blocks on the left after grabbing the Energy element to end the stage a bit faster.
- Ice Man
- This is straightforward so movement is optimized with more jumping in general as well as keeping out of the water. Note that some of the Peng in the first section are ignored since, while shooting them would allow for more jumping out of the water, their RNG rolls for item drops would affect the score bonus for Fire Man's level.
- Fire Man
- There isn't immediate movement at the start due to the lag generated by the Screw Bomber shots. Not moving immediately means the Screw Bomber on the top right doesn't start firing immediately to generate lots of lag. Magnet Beam is used to move vertically high enough to skip a room after the first section. From there it's movement and lag optimization.
- Bomb Man
- Fire Storm is equipped in the first room to destroy some Screw Bombers which avoids a lot of lag that they would have generated. Once again Magnet Beam is used to move high enough to skip past some vertical rooms.
- Wily 1
- Despite the lag that Thunder Beam generates it ends up faster to use them for breaking the Guts Man blocks since it takes time to throw them.
- Wily 2
- This level has the first instance of an instant refill from a large weapon energy drop off of a Blader near the start of the stage, mainly to get more Magnet Beam ammo for later. Unfortunate that the RNG caused an unavoidable bonus point drop but it's still better than the getting two of them as seen in the zipless TASes.
- Wily 3
- A damage boost into equipping the Super Arm is done in the vertical section of the level to get through a little faster. The CWU-01P machines are taken out with a 1-2-3-1 pattern which isn't any different time wise from zipless but is just a neat factoid.
- Wily 4
- This level has the first major horizontal zip across multiple screens since there's a workable ceiling to use here. This is achieved with the extra Magnet Beam ammo to move vertically high enough to get clipped into level geometry two screens above the start of the level. This also avoids the lag that the Screw Bombers would produce with their shots. You better enjoy it now since you won't be seeing one again until the Mega Man 3 section of this TAS. From here it's boss rush cleanup, instant refill for Fire Storm, and Wily Machine phase 2 skip with frame perfect jumping. The last jump is adjusted to land as soon as possible after the last shot to let the game save sooner.
CUI's Mega Man 2 comparison video with this submission and the zipless TAS:
Due to the general lack of proper zips possible, this follows the zipless route and mainly has movement optimizations.
- Air Man
- The last Lightning Lord is kept alive to adjust the RNG for item drops, avoiding an unneeded health refill. Pausing is used to clear the gap from the last cloud platform by resetting falling speed, avoiding needing to ride the cloud platform.
- Crash Man
- Mainly more movement optimizations here and there.
- Quick Man
- Item 2 is used in the Hothead room to get through faster and positioned to keep one point of weapon energy. The last bit of weapon energy is used to jump over the first Sniper Armor on the way to the boss door.
- Metal Man
- Better Mole RNG placement meant the Item 2 usage at the start goes further than the zipless TAS. A different unavoidable Mole gets in the way to knock Mega Man off of Item 2 but at least it's over a rightward conveyor belt. From there it's straightforward with Crash Bomber being used to clear out the enemies quickly.
- Bubble Man
- Quick Boomerang is used to defeat a Croaker quickly rather than getting hit. Item 2 is used in the hallway with spikes to speed up horizontal movement over walking.
As a note, it's possible to pause cancel Mega Man's fall to get above the spike ceiling but this only kills Mega Man as the spikes are set too high to allow any sort of zipping without i-frames.
- Flash Man
- This is fairly unchanged compared to NemoRuby's zipless improvement route as there's not really any sort of special tricks to do.
- Heat Man
- Item 2 is used for most of the stage instead of using Item 3 for parts of the stage. This saves a bit of menuing and a bit of needing to wait for Item 3 to despawn.
- Wood Man
- Item 2 is used earlier for vertical height boosts and jumping over some Robo-Rabbits. Atomic Fire without jumping to dodge is used on Wood Man as it produces less lag than Air Shooter and jumping.
- Wily 1
- Item 2 is used at the start to get through a horizontal stretch of the first section as well as getting over the walls. Item 3 is used for most of the vertical climb upwards as the ladder corridors are thin enough to get the platform to despawn. This allows for multiple jumps up the ladders. While it wasn't quite possible to end the Mecha Dragon fight higher up due to the fireball pattern, minimizing air time when shooting the last buster shot saved a small amount of time.
- Wily 2
- An instant refill is used for Item 2 which is immediately used across the big spike pit. Two small weapon energy refills are taken for Item 2 before switching over to Time Stopper.
- Wily 3
- Nothing all that much different from the other TASes. The last jump on the Guts Dozer is adjusted to give Mega Man as much falling speed as possible when the last Quick Boomerang shot hits the the jaw.
- Wily 4
- Here it is, the only level with actual zips in it. Item 3 can be used to grab a ladder high up enough to clip Mega Man into a block, which can then be used to zip up and ascend out of bounds on the right. The level geometry allows Mega Man to do it in the next screen above. After that it's fairly straightforward where all of the Item utilities are used up.
- Wily 5
- It's the boss refights, which are fairly straightforward. The Air Man fight is sped up by pause canceling after getting hit by a tornado to get more Leaf Shield shots in sooner. Air Shooter is used on Wood Man since Atomic Fire shots are needed for a fast Quick Man fight. The second phase of Wily Machine 2 is skipped with a lingering Crash Bomber explosion.
- Wily 6
- Another straightforward level where movement is optimized with more jumping and lag management is used for the Alien. Once again the last hit is adjusted to get Mega Man to land as soon as possible after firing the last Bubble Lead shot.
The boss order is drastically changed to a Needle Man start for Rush Jet as soon as possible. Magnet Man is next to have Magnet Missile on Hard Man. Hard Man follows as there's the boss entry glitch available against him for a faster fight. From there it's following weaknesses.
- Needle Man
- Rush Coil is used to jump up ladders faster and get hits on Needle Man whenever he does a high jump.
- Magnet Man
- Rush Jet is used to zip across the ceiling of the disappearing blocks room and a few others. Magnet Man takes double damage from buster shots so Rush Jet is used to shoot Magnet Man while he jumps up. A short hop is used to land on the ground slightly sooner.
- Hard Man
- Rush Jet is used once again to zip across a fair amount of the level. Zipping into Hard Man's room with Magnet Missile equipped lets Mega Man get some early shots in to beat Hard Man a little quicker. While there's still 7 Magnet Missile shots that could've been used on Protoman the time switching weapons would've taken longer.
- Top Man
- More Rush Jet usage to zip throughout. Notably, zipping out of bounds to the left lets Mega Man fall past a few screens without interruption. These zips also skip all of the Tama mini bosses in the way. Having Hard Knuckle here allows for knuckle bustering through the doors and punching Top Man long before he can spin for invulnerability.
- Shadow Man
- Having Magnet Missile available means using in Protoman to cut the fight time in half there. Otherwise this follows the zipless plan of using Top Spin for the rest of the stage.
- Spark Man
- A damage boost on Rush Jet allows for a slightly quicker horizontal zip setup at the start. One of the zips is used to scroll to the right rather than go up to the intended ladder. The vertical shaft that goes downwards is present in that direction so the zip cuts out 2 screens from the intended level path.
- Snake Man
- Rush Jet is used a lot to perform zips and to skip the Big Snakeys in the way. The vertical shaft just before the second Big Snakey has a small section where Rush Jet can be summoned. This lets Mega Man constantly use Rush Jet as a platform when climbing up the thin vertical shaft, saving time over climbing up normally.
- Gemini Man
- The RNG was aligned enough such that using Aglar's Gemini opening strat from the NES Mega Man 3 TAS was the fastest approach for the start of the level. The Protoman skip stops the level music but it also avoids waiting on a cutscene. Otherwise this is pretty straightforward with Rush Jet zips when applicable.
The Gemini Man fight has been adjusted to focus on the right side first. This results in a faster fight overall.
- Doc Spark
- Rush Jet zips are used to skip past the normally mandatory Doc Metal fight. Skipping past the room also re-enables the ability to switch weapons, which is needed for Doc Quick. Search Snake is used against Doc Quick since it produces less lag than Gemini Laser and Quick Man's pattern was cooperative.
- Doc Shadow
- Magnet Missiles are used to take out the Holograns over the drop platform section to heavily reduce the lag while platforming across the pit. Past that section this follows the zipless approach for the rest of the level.
- Doc Needle
- Rush jet is equipped from the start and used throughout the level. A zip is used to skip the Doc Air fight and go directly the the second half of the level. Knuckle busters is used to skip the doors to Doc Crash. Hard Knuckle shots are done on the left side of Doc Crash for a slightly faster fight.
- Doc Gemini
- The start follows the zipless strategy of using Needle Cannon for the first section of the level and for clearing out the Pole Eggs blocking the way. A Rush Jet sip is used to skip the Doc Flash fight. From there the same strats from the zipless TAS are used after the skip.
- Break Man
- lol this isn't a real level
- Wily 1
- A fair amount of Rush jet zips are used here, including one that zips straight into the boss room rather than having to go up and around the intended path.
- Wily 2
- Fewer Rush Jet zips here but they're used to speed up the short level a fair amount. Shadow Blade is used on the Yellow Devil Mk. II since it's possible to one cycle the fight with pause cancelling knockback taken from touching the boss.
- Wily 3
- Nothing fancy here, just using Rush Coil for climbing up ladders since there's not really any zips here. The real hologram Mega Man appeared in the middle which isn't the ideal spot but that's just how the RNG is sometimes.
- Wily 4
- The start of the level starts with zipping out of bounds to the left to drop down. Unfortunately the level transition out of the teleporter plays when entering the screen it's in, forcing Mega Man to a specific position. This means it's not quite possible to outright skip the boss rush with zips. So enjoy refights I guess.
- Wily 5
- With Shadow Blade, pause cancelling knockback, and frame perfect jumps, the second phase of Wily Machine 3 is skipped.
- Wily 6
- It's possible to hit Wily with Top Spin before Gamma's second phase is fully loaded. This competes the fight a lot faster than intended.
For the most part it's reused inputs so this is mainly to explain what's happening here since the older submissions don't have info there.
- Weapon loadout
- The main difference between this and the zipless TASes in terms of selected weapons is that Time Stopper and Crash Bomber isn't used here. The zips used mean that those weapons don't need to be used to get through enemies and obstacles.
- Buster Rod G
- Magnet Beam is immediately used to zip upwards to the first horzontally scrolling room. Magnet Beam grows while the button is held, including while taking damage and sliding. Ths the damage taken at the end of the first vertical scrolling isn't an issue. Rush Jet is used to zip to the left past the Fan Fiend and zip right into an out of bounds section of the map. Magnet Beam is used to avoid falling down too early in the out of bound section. Once at the right position, Mega Man falls down back into the intended area of the map, with a bit of movement manipulation to prevent the Picket Men from spawning upon scrolling down. Knuckle busters were used to skip the boss doors and shoot Hard Knuckle at Buster Rod G. before he can do anything at all.
- Mega Water S
- Taking damage from a Shrink gives Mega Man the i-frames needed to use Rush Jet zipping across the ceiling of spikes without dying. Magnet Beam provides more vertical and horizontal zipping through the rest of the underwater section as it creates usable platforms off screen. Rush Jet is used to zip past the boss doors with Ice Slasher equipped to get early hits on Mega Water S. The boss is also manipulated to avoid the shield barrier attack since that requires a few extra hits to break.
- Hyper Storm H
- Magnet Beam is used to zip up past the screen. The second screen isn't immediately skipped as the second ladder provides a better horizontal zipping spot for the room above. After the section with the Hammer Joes, Mega Man uses the Magnet Beam to zip up and then to the right to enter an out of bounds area of the map. To the right of this area is a place to get back in bounds with the spike pit that Mega Man needs to fall down.
- Wily 1
- Hey, did you know that only enemies from Mega Man 1 show up in this level?
Magnet Beam is used to zip up and to the right for the start of level. There's some movement manipulations to despawn enemies that normally would be in the way, which also reduces the lag they would generate. Rush Jet is used to zip right to an out of bounds section of the map while Magnet Beam lets Mega Man zip right straight back in bounds and straight into the final room before the boss doors, albeit with the incorrect graphics. Rush Jet zipping and equipping Bubble Lead for the boss sips the door animation and prevents the door from loading in the boss room. This greatly reduces lag with one less sprite in the room and allowing Mega Man to stand on solid ground rather than the spring platforms generating lag.
- Wily 2
- Also did you know? This level only has Mega Man 2 enemies in it. Also of note that weapon energy always refills between Wily Tower levels so weapon ammo management is pared down to a per level basis rather than across the entire 4 levels of the Wily Tower.
This level goes by quickly with lots of Rush Jet and Magnet Beam usage for zipping. Rush Jet zipping and equipping Spark Shot is used to zip into the boss room without the door animations.
The boss itself has a weird quirk where shooting it on the last frame of its normal i-frames makes it vulnerable to more shots at normal enemy i-frames rather than normal boss i-frames. This can also be chained by firing another shot at the last frame of those glitched i-frames. With timed Spark Shot usage this means the boss never gets a chance to enter phase 2 of the fight where it bounces around the screen. Outside of the glitch, the first few bounces had favorable RNG with a low-medium-low bounce before the boss became vulnerable to the first Spark Shot.
- Wily 3
- You can probably infer what type of enemies are in this level of the Wily Tower. That's right, Mega Man 3 enemies populate this level.
Magnet Beam is first used to skip needing to ride the Top Man platforms at the start. Once in the
Returning Monking room Magnet Beam is used to zip to the right and up high enough that Mega Man can zip out of bounds after the vertical screen transition. Mega Man keeps heading right to get back in bounds in a later part of the intended level with the boss door despawned, which helpfully skips a boss door animation. A knuckle buster is used to skip the second boss door in the way. The refight against Buster Rod G is notoriously laggy whenever Mega Man is touching the ground so that's avoided as much as possible during the fight.
- Wily 4
- Incorrect, this level doesn't have any Mega Man 4 enemies in it.
Rush Jet is used to zip to the right in the Mole room. The Protoman cutscene forces Mega Man to stop in place so there's no avoiding it. After the cutscene, Mega Man zips to the right out of bounds and falls down. Due to how scrolling works, the screen transition forces Mega Man back in bounds of the map, letting Mega Man zip back in the intended path. Rush Jet is then used again to zip past the second boss door.
For the first phase of Wily Machine MD, buster shots while riding Rush Jet use the same glitch as the Wily 2 boss. Due to the boss movements, the glitch had to be activated twice. Rush Jet is moved into position for phase 2 where the glitch is utilized again using Fire Storm. The third phase is played out normally with Elec Beam shots fired in a way that minimal shots remain on screen to mitigate lag. Technically the last shot could be used on the ground earlier but CUI added a stylistic choice for where to use the last shot needed to complete this TAS.
There is one small note. Frame perfect jumping between the second and third phases of the fight can technically allow Mega Man to hit Wily earlier than intended but jumping during the transition produces so much lag that the strat is slower overall compared to playing normally.
Potential improvements
- Starting with Guts-Elec-Cut first in Mega Man 1 could have the potential to save time with Magnet Beam in Cut Man's stage but it needs to be at least around a 1400 frame time save since that's the number of extra i-frames Elec Man will have from fighting him with two Super Arm uses and Mega Buster for the remaining 20 hits plus the extra time loss not having a block to stand on at the end of the stage. Magnet Beam can save a lot of time with vertical sections but it remains to be seen if it would save that much time.
- There was a way to end the fight against Hard Man faster that I found by not being airborne on the last hit while still being at the center of the room. This saves roughly half a second but caused desyncs with zips in Top Man since sliding likely affected subpixels and wasn't implemented due to the work required to resync everything past that point. There's a visual GIF of what the faster fight looked like: https://i.imgur.com/3ZIUnmT.gif
- Getting the RNG lined up so that the real Hologram Mega Man shows up at the top teleporter in Mega Man 3 Wily 3 would save a small bit of time due to teleporting out slightly sooner.
- The teleporter to the end of Mega Man 3 Wily 4 is to the right of the boss rush teleporters. If there was some way to get in there without completing the boss rush that wasn't an emulator only glitch, a huge chunk of time would be saved.
- Again as noted, jc564's inputs were directly ported. While they ended up being faster than CUI's tests before the input porting, I feel that there might be some frames that could be saved somewhere in there. It might be easier now since those inputs can now be checked with an actual input roll as GENS lacked such functionality natively.
Darkman425's special thanks
- BillBull, Frenom, kchrules, and jc564 who made Wily Wars TASes before I made mine in 2022
- The South Ease Asian Mega Man TASers for their interest and knowledge in TASing games and hacks from the Mega Man series
- CUI for contacting me on Discord to help them with this TAS
- The modern day TASVideos community for handling whatever silly things I decide to TAS for the past 3 years and counting
Suggested screenshot
Frame 63158: Mega Man having a normal one after moving vertically up enough to screenwrap the visible section.
eien86: A great Genesis remake/collection of the original Megaman games for the NES, plus an additional small game called Wily Tower. Even without the spectacular ACE skips in the originals, this movie contains pretty much all of the zipping goodness and optimal execution you may expect for this game (and the authors). The result is a much faster movie than the current zipless version (
[6632] Genesis Mega Man: The Wily Wars "zipless" by NemoRuby & Darkman425 in 1:37:19.85).
I was concerned about making sure the first three games were, in fact, finished. I thought this would entail reading the corresponding RAM values. However, it seems you can only access the last game if you beat the first three. Therefore, it can be infered that they were, in fact, beaten.
Accepting to Standard
It required not exploding one of the walls, so I'm not sure if will work with only the below wall intact while the main focus is lag reduction.
