This is a 2-player TAS of VP of Goof Troop, a Goof Troop ROM hack made by MoonLock. Goofy and Max are now on a journey to become pirates themselves!
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
- Aims at fastest completion time using both characters
- Takes damage/deaths to save time
- Manipulates luck
Similarly to Goof Troop ST, this movie took approximately a month to make. My approach to the TAS was roughly the same, but this time I was a little bit more careful when manipulating luck: I spent more time researching good RNG seeds for bosses, and making sure I could give Max some fruit whenever it was required (and possible) to save time. As always, I tried my best to make the movie entertaining during downtime, whenever one of the characters (usually Goofy) doesn't need to do anything specific.
Original game mechanics
In this section, I will briefly cover the game mechanics which are the same as in the original Goof Troop game (this is copy/pasted from my Goof Troop ST submission).
Goofy is the stronger/slower character, while Max is the weaker/faster character. In most rooms of the game, the general strategy is to let Max run to the exit while Goofy assists him by clearing obstacles and fending off enemies. In this game, the heroes can't attack directly; they can only throw items at enemies. Goofy does 5 damage while Max only does 4, that's why attacking bosses (and some strong enemies like cannons) with Goofy is preferred when possible. Each character can only keep one item in his inventory, except if the other character has lost all his lives; in that case, his item is transferred to the other character who can now keep two items. This situation can be useful at times for item management. Just like in some other Disney/Capcom games, RNG is only call-based: it is only changed whenever something in the game is making a random decision. Wandering enemies will typically call RNG frequently. RNG can also be changed by picking up objects (pots, barrels, etc).
New mechanics
This hack introduces some new mechanics:
- Green switches: these switches need to be held down to work, either by one of the characters or by a movable object (statue or anchor).
- Anchors: these carry-able items appear in level 5 and can be used to block projectiles or to hold down switches. They don't have much of a use in the TAS though because they're not really that useful (and one of the puzzles involving them is skipped).
- Shovel in level 3: the item itself is not new, but here it can clear mounts of snow from your path, and you can also use it to dig and find important items in specific spots. This is how you find the golden key in level 3.
- Titan's Mitt in level 4: it allows you to push armor statues by one full tile by pressing Y. I found a small glitch with it: if you move a statue right in the path of a kicked block, it can stop the block on a half-tile. This was used to solve the block puzzle in level 4 a little faster.
- Sword in level 5: this actually is the vanilla bell item which has been repurposed (and the animation has been changed too). With this sword, Goofy and Max can finally attack enemies directly! Goofy does 5HP of damage with it and Max does 4HP, just like with regular attacks. The range of the swords seems to be a rectangle in front of the character, which doesn't always match the sword's swinging animation.
Door transitions
After a screen transition:
- Player 1 will appear to the left and Player 2 to the right on vertical transitions (or at the beginning of a stage),
- Player 1 will appear at the top and Player 2 at the bottom on horizontal transitions.
This raises the question of what configuration to choose: should Player 1 be Goofy or Max? I skimmed through all the required door/stair transitions and noted down which ones would favor Player 1 and which ones would favor Player 2, and it turns out P1 Goofy / P2 Max wins by very little. Without trying out a full TAS with the other configuration, it is very hard to know for sure which one is the fastest though. I went for P1 Goofy / P2 Max based on my little study, even though it is clearly disadvantageous in the beginning of level 1 (but I think it still wins out in the whole game).
Stage 1: Beach
I deplete Goofy's lives so he can give the golden key to Max near the end of the level. After using the two small keys, you can choose to go to the left or the right, and the right way is faster (not by a lot though). The block puzzle for the golden key can be broken by having the two characters crush two blocks together!
In the boss fight, the two bees change RNG quite rapidly, so I get close to one of them at a specific time to have it chase me: this sets the RNG patterns for the next boss's moves. I managed to manipulate some nice bombs and barrels!
Stage 2: Forest
When playing casually, you are supposed to read three signs and deduce the correct path in the maze. Of course, I already know the correct way!
In general, block puzzles took a lot of effort testing all the variations I could think of, but that's one of the most interesting aspects of TASing Goof Troop games. The two block puzzles in this level were quite complicated to optimize. In the first one, I can cheese it (slightly) because I can have one character stay at the right side and kick blocks to the left, which wouldn't be possible with only one player.
For the boss fight, I did my best to manipulate Fire Bug to be as far as possible to the right when throwing the second wave of barrels at him.
Stage 3: Ice Caves
The general routing is not obvious for this level because both small key doors could be opened in any order. I think my route is slightly faster though, but it could depend on enemies' patterns. I managed to get some nice patterns with enemies so Max wouldn't need to take many hits or wait for too long. The green enemies in the cave (before getting the hookshot) are where I chose to spend Max's hearts; unfortunately, you can't get hearts on the way back so I needed to bait the enemies out of the way.
The boss is pretty great: finally, you get to fight the Rumblers without the lengthy earthquake animations! This makes it much more fun to TAS, but I need to be a bit careful to mitigate lag: whenever possible, I tried to get rid of some of the stalactites to reduce clutter.
Stage 4: Castle
After getting the Titan's Mitt, Goofy is surprisingly faster than Max to reach the next room: that's because he isn't blocked by a cannonball (and I didn't want to spend Max's heart there, it's better to do it in the OPEN switches room). In the room with the controllable cannon, I need to wait for the first bomb to explode before I leave the room (to create an opening in the wall) so I just have some fun killing the enemies and whatnot. The block puzzle with the statues was pretty interesting: I discovered that I could glitch the blocks' paths on a half-tile, which sped up the solve a little bit. Later, I get rid of Goofy's lives so he can pass his plank to Max. In the room where you have to break a window, I sacrifice Goofy to bait the fat pirate out of Max's path, which saved a couple frames. Surprisingly, getting the golden key with Goofy was one frame faster than getting it with Max, despite Max spawning closer to it (that's because Goofy takes longer to leave the room). After getting to the beginning of level 5, I had to redo the later part of the level to get a cherry drop for Max, which entailed a bit of tweaking to get back to the same RNG as before (so I wouldn't have to redo the boss fight).
The skeletons are similar to their vanilla game counterparts, except for the holes on the ground. This is annoying to TAS because there isn't that much room to manipulate RNG... One of the important aspects is, when one of the skeletons is killed, the other one should be killed quickly after to force a quick "stage clear". It was difficult but I managed to achieve it.
Stage 5: Pirate Ship
For the first part up to using the plank, I had to thoroughly test the two possibilities: should Goofy or Max get the sword? Max ended up being the winner. I used up Max's heart on the cannonballs (saving 72 frames). This was faster than using it on the moving spiked balls later. I had to be creative with routing because the top and bottom areas with switches can be done at any time, so I did them when it was the most advantageous (because of general pathing, or item management). I could skip an entire section by having Max pass over a hole with very precise movement (this is a well-known glitch from vanilla Goof Troop speedrunning, only possible with Max). Overall, this was the most complicated level to TAS because it entailed a lot of testing of large sections, and RNG manipulation to be bothered as little as possible by enemies.
For the boss fight, I have Goofy and Max swing their swords at the same frame such that Pete receives damage from both of them. This is very important, especially because he has a lot of invulnerability frames. Thanks to this, I only need a total of 7 hits to finish him off. I manipulate a seed where I only get one short tornado and a hookshot pattern where Pete doesn't move. What matters the most is that he never jumps out of reach to the top platforms, nor does he do any extended tornado.
Credits
The Goof Troop ROM hacking scene is about 3 years old and there are a few good hacks out there. This is one of them. Shoutouts to Zarby89 who made the Goof Troop editor and to MoonLock for making this hack.
Enjoy the TAS!
