Emulator used: Gens 9F NitsujaMod (Gens 9F compatible)

Emulator settings:

  • Controller 1: 6 button
  • Controller 2: 6 button
  • Allow Up+Down: Yes
  • 32X 68000 Bios: 32X_G_BIOS.BIN (File CRC is 5C12EAE8)
  • 32X Master SH2 Bios: 32X_M_BIOS.BIN (File CRC is DD9C46B8)
  • 32X Slave SH2 Bios: 32X_S_BIOS.BIN (File CRC is BFDA1FE5)
  • Sound: Enabled, 44100KhZ Stereo, YM2612 High Quality enabled

Categories

  • Does not use warps or passwords
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes no damage
  • Aims for fastest in-game completion time
  • Ignores semi-important goals in the game

About the Game

Knuckles' Chaotix is a Sonic game that doesn't feature Sonic. Also, the player is tied to a partner with an elastic band of 'ring energy'. Also, after each stage, the next level is selected via roulette. There are five selectable player characters, and seven partners chosen in between levels in a crane-minigame, making this the Sonic game with the largest cast of characters before Sonic Heroes. The player characters are Charmy the Bee, Espio the Chameleon, Knuckles the Echidna, Mighty the Armadillo, and Vector the Crocodile. The two additional partners are Heavy the Robot, and Bomb the Bomb. For this run I have chosen Knuckles as my primary character.

About the Movie

This movie makes extensive use of programming glitches and oversights to open up routes which would be impossible in normal play. This movie manipulates luck to create a better sense of continuity by playing each attraction continuously from start to finish. This movie avoids all damage without losing time as a result.

In-game completion times:

Introduction: 0:55:30

Speed Slider (Total): 1:31:31

  1. 0:09:56
  2. 0:11:71
  3. 0:11:66
  4. 0:09:95
  5. 0:48:43

Marina Madness (Total): 1:38:31

  1. 0:09:78
  2. 0:06:65
  3. 0:07:48
  4. 0:06:63
  5. 1:07:77

Botanic Base (Total): 2:46:37

  1. 0:08:20
  2. 0:22:71
  3. 0:24:70
  4. 0:36:11
  5. 1:14:65

Amazing Arena (Total): 2:13:52

  1. 0:16:15
  2. 0:18:16
  3. 0:15:35
  4. 0:21:05
  5. 1:02:81

Techno Tower (Total): 1:23:80

  1. 0:10:43
  2. 0:09:13
  3. 0:11:50
  4. 0:11:11
  5. 0:41:63

Final Boss: 0:59:71

Total Time: 11:28:32

Notes and Explanations

  • If you have never played the NTSC version of Knuckles' Chaotix before, this movie may desync. This is because the game lags in several places if there is no preexisting save data. This issue can be addressed by opening the rom, starting a new game in any slot (including the no save slot), closing the rom, and opening it again (to generate a blank SRM).
  • Many levels are completed with negative rings. This is because of the negative ring trick. The sole exception is Botanic Base 1, where the route simply didn't have enough rings to cover the cost of the calls.
  • Some levels are completed with rings. This is because the Negative Ring Trick only works if there is no secret bonus.
  • In Amazing Arena, a switch must be hit in each level, or that level will be failed when you reach the clear.
  • There are certain portions of the movie where I do something, the purpose of which may not be immediately apparent.
  1. at 16:47:56, in Botanic Base 3, I go slightly out of my way to pick up a Giant-size box. Giant-size causes the player's throws to be more powerful, and has a less well defined hitbox.
  2. at 22:36:54, in Amazing Arena 2, I stop, and don't immediately regain full speed. This is because I need to throw my partner at a certain angle so that I can perform zipping.
  3. at 23:39:44, in Amazing Arena 3, I have to exit the wall to the left in order to hit the switch.
  4. at 23:47:15, in Amazing Arena 3, I begin spindashing to the right inside a wall. This is to prevent the wall from pushing me forward, as I was already above the height of the goal.
  5. in Amazing Arena 4 and 5, I begin higher up than the goal-switches. As a result, I cannot use zipping to bypass the slow hover rides at 24:45:06 and 24:54:53
  6. at 27:48:02, in Techno Tower 1, I use throw-hovering to maintain my upward velocity.
  7. at 31:48:41, in Techno Tower 5, I hit the partner swap monitor, because it acts as an instant brake. I then make a slight use of the partner's ability to help gain tension faster for slingshotting.
  8. at 32:45:45, before the final boss, I swap partners to allow for faster completion of the boss.
Call
The act of summoning the partner. Costs 10 rings.
Call cancel
If the partner is thrown on the same frame he is called, the call animation is canceled, but 10 rings are still used.
Negative Ring Trick
If the player has negative rings when the score tally screen begins, it only ticks once, and tallies 0 points.
Secret Bonus
A score bonus of 10,000 points awarded for traversing some portion of the level. Tallied in the score tally screen. Cancels the Negative Ring Trick.
Slingshot
The act of using the rubber band to change directions rapidly.
Throw cancel
If the player jumps during the throwing animation, the throwing animation is cancelled, and the partner can be grabbed again immediately.
Throw hovering
During the throwing animation, the player:s velocity will remain constant unless stopped by a wall or other object. The throw animation is 9 frames long, and, in optimal conditions, can be performed once every 10 frames, effectively reducing gravity to 10%.
Zipping
What happens when a wall attempts to eject the player, but fails. In Knuckles' Chaotix zipping always occurs at 32 pixels right and 32 pixels upwards per frame, regardless of the direction faced. There are certain animations which negate the Zipping effect. They are, spindash, jump, and glide. No other animation I have tested will negate the ejection effect.

Truncated: Spastic glitching, entertaining tricks and high-velocity movement. What is there not to like? Well...
The big drawback is how incredibly long the cut-scenes and level select sequences are. The total time spent traversing the levels is listed as 11:28, which is only 33% of the total movie length. (Whoever designed that part of this game should be killed. Twice.) Judging from the votes, this doesn't seem to be an insurmountable bother to watchers.
It's almost so that I want to edit out all the level selects from the AVI, but maybe that's a little extreme. I will leave that decision to whoever encodes this, and just say "This is good enough to be published".

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1057: upthorn's 32X Knuckles' Chaotix in 35:07.70
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
edit: So Upthorn had to send me his whole Gens.cfg file just to work the movie. Problematic, but whatever. I'm going to have to vote 'meh' on this. While I agree that it is fast, it isn't really entertaining. The levels are composed of spastic glitching that isn't really watchable, and I can't really appreciate the level of play because of that. Furthermore, I have some qualms with a few areas and how they were handled. You sometimes had to wait for Espio to fly out and back while Knuckles stood around. Your boss battle in the Botanic Base wasn't consistant (you sometimes were stuck in Robotnik to do max damage, while other times you missed that advantage. Finally, most of the time here is spent waiting for you to go from level to level. This isn't your fault, but that doesn't make it any less boring.
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Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Being quite familiar with the game, I'm shocked at just how many bugs there are in its programming. Extremely fast paced and interesting game mechanics make me give this a definite yes. The level transitions are a bit annoying though.
Voted NO for NO reason
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I liked your negative rings!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
I haven't watched the whole thing yet, so I'm not going to vote, but I watched the WIPs. The WIPs were good, and so far, this is better.
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
nesrocks
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Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I have watched it, and it's crazy. Watching more than half of the movie is skipping forward because there is little of actual gameplay. I'm not familiar with the game, but it looks pretty impossible to do on a console run. For that reason i'll vote yes.
Active player (432)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3516
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Voting Yes. Thanks to SprintGod who sent me a few files so that I could watch your WIP which was fast and gave me somewhat a headache (mean that in a good sense) :)
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
upthorn
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Posts: 1802
Zurreco wrote:
You sometimes had to wait for Espio to fly out and back while Knuckles stood around.
This only happens when the following criteria apply: 1) If I called Espio earlier, I would not have the angle and speed necessary to enter the wall. 2) Pulling Espio through after me would actually take longer than the call animation, if it is possible at all.
Zurreco wrote:
Your boss battle in the Botanic Base wasn't consistant (you sometimes were stuck in Robotnik to do max damage, while other times you missed that advantage.
While I do switch strategies in mid fight there, the reason isn't because getting stuck in Robotnik does more damage to him, it's because getting stuck in Robotnik takes less effort on my part rerecording to do damage the first possible frame. When I get stuck in Robotnik, he still only takes two hits on each pass.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Nsm
Joined: 5/26/2004
Posts: 39
where i can dl these bios files? =( i need to setup...
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Somewhere!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
billybobfred
Other
Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 76
Google "32X BIOS". That's how I got them.
I'm just a spectator. There was a time when I tried to participate, but I'm really lazy, so. she/her/hers
JXQ
Experienced player (749)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
You sufficiently broke this game. Although it sucks that the sequence between levels is longer than probably all the levels themselves. What happens if you walk to the left "exit" instead of right "play"? I also liked Botanic Base 1, where Knuckles turned into KNUCKLES.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
upthorn
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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 1802
JXQ wrote:
What happens if you walk to the left "exit" instead of right "play"?
It puts me back at the main menu, where hitting "start game" would start me over from the very beginning. If I could find a way to skip the between level sequences, I would have.
JXQ wrote:
I also liked Botanic Base 1, where Knuckles turned into KNUCKLES.
That actually happens one time earlier than that (the intro level), but you might miss it because it's gone about two seconds later.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Active player (277)
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Okay, is this ready to publish now?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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Posts: 296
Location: NSW, Australia
Another yes vote, just for the record. Much as I hate the fact that wall zipping practically dominates this game (not to mention sequences that are three times the length of the levels that follow), the precision is very high and that seems to be what it's all about here. Quick question: what's the point of switching to Heavy for the final boss?
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
mike89 wrote:
Quick question: what's the point of switching to Heavy for the final boss?
at 32:45:45, before the final boss, I swap partners to allow for faster completion of the boss.
I believe Upthorn said that Heavy was more or less immortal, thus why he leaves it standing there sometimes and it gets hit with no visible effect on it, but damages the boss.
upthorn
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mike89 wrote:
Quick question: what's the point of switching to Heavy for the final boss?
Heavy is invulnerable, which allows me to attack Stage 3 Metallix (with his beam) at the first available opportunity every time, whereas with any other partner, the partner would get hit by the beam, take damage, and be knocked back, losing all momentum, and failing to hit the boss. Heavy also makes the hand segment more entertaining to me, because of the way it swats him and knocks him away, but he takes no damage.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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Aha. Thanks for clearing that up.
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I would like to watch and judge this submission, but I haven't been able to get it running so far because of trivial problems. I'll ask for help in the IRC channel later and see what I can do.
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Okay, how soon?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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When I'm not out of town and it's not a traditional Swedish drinking weekend.
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Truncated wrote:
...and it's not a traditional Swedish drinking weekend.
I'm liking Sweden more and more every day!
Joined: 6/19/2005
Posts: 180
Wow. Definite yes. I'm highly impressed at this. Nice trick with the negative rings, too. Only thing I could even remotely see improvement on off the top of my head is hitting the roulette at the earliest possible frame and going at whatever level you land on instead of getting the same level 5 times in a row. Putting that aside, no mistakes I can see (it's moving so fast they're invisible anyway :P)
upthorn
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Actually, if I were just to hit the roullete at the first possible go, it could potentially cost me a lot of time on Botanic Base 3. (there's a gate I go through which is only open during certain times of day, and cannot be bypased via zipping. Costs about 20 seconds to take the long way round. There is MAYBE 1.5 seconds total lost to luck manip And since I was having to manipulate luck on the roulette anyway, it was simpler, and more entertaining to do each attraction from start to finish, for an insignificant delay.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
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I wouldn't mind seeing them more mixed up!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude