somewhat infrequently (perhaps 20%) I'm getting the warp to level 16 with no clock flashing bug. you saw this in my 14:11 speedrun a few days ago. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what fixes it.
Assuming I can figure it out, my new preliminary report looks as follows:
no gate skip: 10:58.
gate thief: 9:38.
The new optimal Gate Thief route includes (stable) video corruption on level 4, so it's a fun little challenge to jump through that level in the dark. It's pretty easy though. :) The corruption is cleared up by the logo trigger, which activates Fat Gate Thief. So 16-20 is visible with no issues. There is an alternate trick that allows for clean warp, but it comes with Kill Button deactivated.
I will try to upload complete speedruns for Gate Thief & No Gate Skip today.
Problem solved. I've got a stable warp to levels 4 + 16. The level 4 warp now behaves like the 6 & 8 warps, where only 5 - 10 minutes is run off the clock, so after warp 16, we're still near 70 minutes left.
The Gate Thief version awards Invincibility #1. But I've still got some testing to do. Updates coming soon.
It looks like Gate Thief will be close to breaking 10 minutes now, and No Gate Skip may be close to 12 minutes.
I found some fun video corruption while testing the Warp to Level 18 Checkpoint. As you can see, the Warp to Level 18 Checkpoint will not be a big time saver. It beats Gate Thief #1 on the First Half by 27 seconds, but the Gate Thief gains back about 27 seconds on the Second Half. So it is a decent time saver for a No Gate Skipping run, but probably not enough for a universal individual level record. As yet, I have not found a setup where this Warp is receptive to the various Gate Thief sprites, but I'll continue to test.
Anyway, these two videos were a lot of fun to make, I hope you enjoy them. The glitch here requires that Jaffar is already defeated, so I used Debug Menu to beat Jaffar and then Jump Back to Level 18 for the glitch. I also used Debug Level Jump throughout, to avoid levels with the Princess Cut Scene, as that would fix the corruption, and the effects would be lost.
This video glitch looks really cool in some rooms. The Walls and Columns are visible, but everything else is invisible -- Gates, Floors, Panels, Traps. And the glitch also eliminates all Sound Effects, so only Music is playing. This takes away the sound of traps, as well the Prince's Footsteps, which are usually helpful in tracking your position. Also, no audio confirmation of a Gate Opening or Closing, or a Loose Panel Falling, etc. So in some cases, this makes for a challenging setup. Lots of fun playing it!
In the first video, I played through Levels 17, 18, and 19. Level 18 & 19 were very fun to play with the visual limitations, and the fun flurries of color in the background, especially during the Boss Fight on Level 19.
In the second video, I played Levels 6, 12, 15, and 20, with visits to 8, 10, 11. Take Note of Level 20, it was quite beautiful, and the Vision of the Princess was partially visible. After 20, I circled back to Level One for some additional corruption, a Warp to Level Six, and a visit to Levels 5, 18, and 20, demonstrating the alternate corruption.
Link to video
"Setup + Awesome Corruption -- Levels 17, 18, 19"
Link to video
"Awesome Corruption -- Levels 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 20"
Here's a screencap of the Vision of the Princess in this glitch mode. You can see the original art was slightly bigger than the window, so now you can see more of her arm.
https://i.imgur.com/gPhLPQN.jpg
And a sample of the action on Level 20!
https://i.imgur.com/lRuUlms.jpg
I just finished a decent speedrun for the new "no gate skip" route. 14:11.153. Better Sprite 2a setup, and somehow, no timer bug on level 16, which means I got to keep my Invincibility Mode. I forgot I had it, and didn't do the invincibility shortcut on level 18. It saves less than 1 second though, so no big deal. I had a couple of mistakes on 2, 4, and 18, and I still haven't done all my practice on level 19 yet. I don't know if there's enough room to save 12 more seconds, and break the 14 minute mark, but I'll certainly try!
I don't think the u-turn underneath the crusher on level 4 is possible, because of the different hitbox for this sprite animation. But I may just be doing it wrong. I don't know. Anyway, certainly some room for improvement, but this is a good start.
I should clarify -- I made a post a couple weeks ago that I had a "console" run of 13:50 on this route. Remember, I have kept the distinction between runs that do or do not use a Console Reset Button. The reset button preserves the Kill Button, but resets the Prince's Sprite to default. For that "Console Reset" route, I activated Kill Button with a quick Warp to 8 and a console reset, which took about 33 seconds total. Whereas, here, I took 1:08 to setup a compatible sprite + kill button, with no reset. This 35 second discrepancy accounts for the difference. So far, I've been working from the premise that using the "reset button" is not allowed for official speedruns or TAS runs. I don't necessarily agree, so I'll just continue to work on both, and let the public decide which route they like better.
Link to video
"Speedrun - Warp 16 - No Gate Skip - 14:11.153"
Akuma, on level 1, it's possible to warp to level 4 on hole #4 of that map (located on page 5), but results on a few minutes left for this game. Do you know any other point where a warp to level 4 could be possible without losing much minutes? Because warping to level 16 decreases the timer, and with few minutes left...time up!
Can you post a video of warp to level 4? I was thinking about this the other day. Unfortunately, I've got 2 notebooks filled with warp pattern notes, and never wrote down the level 4 warp, so I forgot how to do it! Lol.
Once I can remember the basics, I will work on some alternate patterns, and see if I can clean it up. That time problem is definitely the biggest issue to solve.
I have a couple of funny updates too. I found a stable warp to level 8 which can be found inside level 3!
And I found a Warp to 18 Checkpoint. It is not a stable warp, but so far, I have been able to complete the game from 18 Checkpoint without a crash!
Believe it or not, it took a lot more work to figure out how to get the "regular" route for Warp 16. The previous route, for Fat Gate Thief, was basically the only variation I could find that involved "Kill Button." Every other sprite variation was being extremely uncooperative. The only two that had been working were Original Prince, and Trembling Prince (from hole #4), neither of which can have "Kill Button." So I was stuck playing through all Guards and Bosses, for a time of 16:50, as reported earlier.
But after a few more frustrating days, I've found one that works. An unfortunate drawback is that the route requires No Damage at any point prior to Warp 16. So this eliminates those little dropping shortcuts on Levels 3 and 4. They aren't huge shortcuts, but about 5-10 seconds each, so it's a shame to have to go the long way around at those places. Basically, if you take damage anywhere, even if you drink bottles to replenish the health, the warp will not work.
Anyway, now that I've found a good route without Gate Thief, I'll work on a quick speedrun. Hopefully it'll be under 15 minutes. Then I'll work on tightening up the other Warp 16, and see if I can get sub-12. After that, I'll probably get back to work on a good Gate Thief Warp 8 video with no Invincibility shortcuts, as the follow-up to my Warp 6 with Invincibility speedrun, which was a little over 20 minutes long. I think a good Warp 8 route should break the 18 minute mark. And lastly, I'll get to work on a Warp 8 run without Gate Thief. Should be at least sub-21.
Without further delay, here is the Warp to Level 16, complete in an official speedrun format. -- 12:11.405. -- It appears this route can be completed in 11:57 with a perfect run.
There are a few different sprite combinations that can successfully trigger warp to level 16, including the Default Prince. However, some will go to the beginning of level 16, while others will go to the Checkpoint. And many sprites do not work at all. Part of it has to do with the way the different sprites bounce off the wall, after attempting to climb. They will fall to different positions on the screen, when the screen transition & exit are engaged.
Also, some sprites will go to level 16 with Jaffar's status set to "already dead", as I have explained earlier. If Jaffar is "dead", and you exit a level, you will trigger the Konami Logo sequence, and suffer a delay. To avoid this, quickly die to reset Jaffar's Status, and then exit & continue.
The current setup seen here involves the Fat Gate Thief warping to the Checkpoint with lag and game clock display issues, which are corrected in level 17. Also, this setup does not produce any Jaffar status issues. One other point of interest; this setup gives Invincibility Mode upon Warp to 16. As you may recall from my previous lessons, you lose Invincibility Mode when you return to the main menu. But since there are no good Invincibility Shortcuts to take advantage of on this route, it's ok to lose it here for the sake of removing the lag and the game clock issue.
See my previous post, or view the YouTube description for further commentary on this particular run.
Link to video
"Fat Gate Thief - Speedrun - 12:11.405"
I've just recorded a speedrun video where I complete the game in 12:11.405, using the Warp to Level 16 with the "Fat Gate Thief."
I suppose I'm going to go ahead and share it, despite its not being perfect. (I am a bit of a perfectionist.) But I guess this is a pretty big deal, and y'all should know about it. Who knows what may happen tomorrow?
I'll upload to youtube, and then post it here shortly, with some stats and a brief summary.
It's a pretty sloppy run. I still haven't learned level 4 yet. Once I do the u-turn at the crusher, that'll save about 4-5 seconds. I made a mistake at the beginning of 17 that cost 4 seconds, and a mistake at the beginning of 18 that cost 3 seconds. And I gave up about 3 seconds between levels 2 & 3, playing conservatively. So it does appear that this route can crack the 12 minute mark with very tight play. I will certainly attempt to break it with some more practice.
The combined setup for Gate Thief and Warp costs about 1:32, whereas the Gate Thief savings on levels 18 & 19 combined is over 2 minutes, so it pays for itself.
This setup uses the same Warp Spot twice. The first time, it triggers the Konami Logo and shifts you to the Fat Gate Thief (very similar to Gate Thief #2, who has made a few appearances in my videos). This is not an illegal console reset. The proof is the Gate Thief. If you do a console reset, the Prince's Sprite is always reset to the default appearance.
The second time, you warp to Level 16 Checkpoint. This route results in severe lag on level 16, and continuous game clock display. So at the beginning of level 17, after progress is saved, I exit the level, and use "Continue" to resume, with the game clock display bug fixed.
I have found alternate setups to make the warp basically perfect, with no lag and no game clock issues. But they all take longer, and lose time relative to the savings. So the route I'm showing here is the best, for now.
I've confirmed a consistent "works every time" route to use the Warp to Level 16 with instant transformation into Gate Thief, and no "Jaffar Already Defeated" status, which simplifies things significantly. This Gate Thief is a very close cousin to Gate Thief #2. Two of his frame-perfect jumps will go through gates, and he can run through gates from the correct spacing. As it turns out, this variation seems to be a little more flexible on spacing for running through a gate. The interesting thing is that this one does not have a Sword. It's a Fat Guard, but he runs through the gates and jumps through anyway -- but only if the spacing is right! In some cases, the best approach is to collide with the gate, and then do a double-turn to run through.
I think I will share a sneak preview soon, of the second half of the run, starting from after the Warp, just as the prince is beginning to play Level 16 from the Checkpoint. (This Warp goes to the Checkpoint -- just like we have seen a Warp to the Level 6 Checkpoint in the past.)
As it turns out, this Warp to Level 16 is very rich, full of diversity and potential. I've already discovered some approaches that yield some very interesting results. In some cases, I've been able to warp without lag, game clock repetition, or the Jaffar Defeated Status. And I've found a couple of scenarios where this Warp ALSO transforms the Prince into a Gate Thief, which removes the necessity of separately preparing a Gate Thief Setup during the run.
There's still a lot of testing to be done, but I've already found some very good alternate routes, and things are starting to come together. My ultimate time prediction is down to about 12:05, so we're getting very close to the 12 minute mark. More updates coming soon. But I hope to have some more solid speedruns summited for Gate Thief Warp 6 and Warp 8 before I reveal the Warp to 16.
STAY TUNED!
I'm gonna go ahead and announce this little tidbit relating to the Warp to Level 16, so I don't forget later.
I have come across many warp glitches which result in Zero Time Remaining + Jaffar Already Defeated. However, this Warp to Level 16 is unique in being the first warp I've come across to result in Jaffar Already Defeated, with Time Still Remaining.
You would think this is a good thing, but it is not. It can cause a major delay, because when Jaffar is already defeated, you enter Level 20 on the Final Screen (NOT through the DOOR), in your immediately preceding position and action. This is fine when you are using Debug Menu to JUMP to Level 20, as can be seen in my earlier glitch video. But in official Speedrun and TAS conditions, you cannot use Level Jump.
Therefore, in the course of normal play, you would go into the EXIT DOOR at the end of Level 19, the Prince would proceed up the stairs, and "hide" behind the background wall. Then, when Level 20 begins, the Prince is in the exact same position: frozen behind the background wall. With no ability to move, you must use the Select Menu to Exit. And when you do this on Level 20 after Jaffar has already been defeated, this causes a Logo Reset, which means you would have to wait an additional 25 seconds for Logo, Title Screen, Main Menu, and Continue to Level 20.
The solution is very simple: After you complete level 16, and progress is saved, you can use the Select Menu to exit Level 17 immediately, and Continue to Level 17 again from the Main Menu. This will reset Jaffar's status to be Alive, and then level 20 will behave normally when you reach it.
Another side effect of the Warp to Level 16 is the annoying continuous game clock display. Restarting level 17 will also remove this bug, and prevent further lag time throughout the rest of the run.
And the news keeps coming!! I just got a 16:51 with No Kill Button!
This is the simplest setup involving the Warp to Level 16, because, unfortunately, this is one of the warps that does not activate the Kill Button. For the other routes (mentioned in the previous post), I had to activate the Kill Button by using a different warp first.
This 16:51 is incredible! Of course it's quite frustrating dealing with Guards again, after 4 months of speedrunning with the Kill Button. But I did ok. The amazing thing was that I killed all 4 of the Bosses on level 19 with the jump trick (after the Brown Guard). I don't recall the last time I got all of them without at least one slipping through.
What a day! Now I gotta get it on video. :P
Ok, got some preliminary numbers for Warp to Level 16.
I performed a console speedrun of 13:50 today (no Gate Thief, no gate skipping). I'm a bit rusty on the non-Gate Thief routes, so it was a little sloppy. I can probably save another 5+ seconds, and get it down below 13:45.
I've also mapped out a route using the Gate Thief. Basically, after completing level 16, you would do a console reset, do the standard Gate Thief setup on level 1, and then continue to level 17. A nice speedrun by that route should be able to get around 12:25. An average run with some mistakes should still come in under the 12:30 mark.
So, it's official, the game can be beaten in under 14 minutes for now! And sub-12.5 minutes soon!
I may try to test this a little further, but it seems the Warp to Level 16 cannot be used to save time. You can skip ahead to 4:00 if you want to see the Warp immediately.
I have found two instances where the Warp does not go, but instead scrambles the sprite again:
One is a variation of the Wiggling Guard (which is itself a variation of Gate Thief #2 who has lost his gate-skipping ability), and the other to a new Gate Thief, #4.
This new Gate Thief #4 is also a variation of Gate Thief #2, with similar gate skipping abilities, although much more limited, making it completely inferior and not worth using. The animation effects are very cool though. While running, the Prince does his slow-stepping animation, so there is a kind of Moon-Walking effect that really messes with your perception of how fast he is running across the screen. LOL.
Whereas Gate Thief #2 can jump through a gate from about 3 different exact distances, only two of these seem to work for Gate Thief #4. And he cannot run through gates under any circumstances. It is rather disappointing that he is so useless, because the Sprite Scramble is an amazing thing to see. If I am able to produce him again (it's very tricky), I'll record a video. It includes the Guard, Fat Guard, Skeleton, and a Purple Jaffar. And many interesting movements. Also, the Level 17 Monster sports an amazing array of sprites, including Jaffar, the Elephant, the Guards Dragging The Prince, and the Guard Beating The Prince. When the Monster dies, the "Guard" gives the "Prince" a really good thrashing! LOL.
Getting back to Warp 16, it is a very uncooperative Warp Zone, mostly freezing the game, or locking out the controller. It has made for some interesting combinations though. In the video here, I used the Warp 16 hole and it simply reset to Main Menu, whereupon I started a new game, and did a drop down hole #2. This combination caused a brilliant video corruption that I captured, prior to continuing to mess with Warp 16. The video starts on Level One, after the Brilliant Video Corruption has been created. So I explored Level One for a minute, to showcase this corruption, and then used Debug Mode to jump ahead to Level 15 to continue testing.
Theoretically, Gate Thief #1 could get to this "Warp 16" hole fairly quickly during the course of his speedrun, but I have yet to find a good Warp pattern.
Link to video
"Warp 16 and Brilliant Corruption"
Before I get back to combining all these routes into another epic Speedrun, it's time for something fun!
Corrupt Level 20, bypassing the "Princess Cut-Scene", which would normally remove all video corruption.
This allows me to fight Jaffar while completely obscured by level corruption and sprite corruption.
Also, a fun glitch that causes the game to malfunction, by DYING AFTER THE GAME IS BEATEN!!!!!!
Link to video
"Corrupt Level 20."
And finally, the No-Invincibility version of Level 14. This is pretty standard stuff. I just combined the existing run with the TAS route. This is down to 405 time units, which is only 11 units (1.55 seconds) slower than the Invincibility Route.
405 time units = 57.17647 seconds, with "0:57" on-screen display.
Link to video
"Gate Thief #1 - Level 14 - No Invincibility - 0:57."
Level 13 updated Invincibility Route.
I used the technique from the previous video to show that the alternate Invincibility Route is actually a full second faster than the original route. I got it all the way down to 695 time units, as previously mentioned, with an on-screen clock display of "1:38."
Here's 695, with invincibility:
Link to video
"Gate Thief #1 - Level 13 - Updated Invincibility Route - 1:38."
Level 13 Update:
I finally got the spacing right for a U-turn after the first guard. This reduces the non-invincibility route (seen in this video) to 705 time units. If I am able to lose two more time units, and get it down to 703, the on-screen display will be reduced to "1:39". Although 705 = 99.5 seconds, the clock is rounded up this time.
In my next video, I will show the updated Invincibility Route, using this technique, and this route generally, with the Invincibility trick shown in the "Gate Thief #3" video for Level 13. That route is now reduced to 695 time units, and an on-screen display of "1:38."
Here's 705, with no invincibility:
Link to video
"Gate Thief #1 - Level 13 - No Invincibility - 1:40."
I've recorded an improved level 6 warp setup for Gate Thief #1, about a 20 second improvement over the setup used in my previous Full Speedrun.
Using an identical performance for the remainder of the game from that speedrun, combined with this setup, the result would be about 19 minutes & 56 seconds. A perfect run would be closer to 19 minutes & 46 seconds. As you will recall, this speedrun route included the Invincibility Glitch, which wasted about 31 seconds.
So with this improved Level 6 setup, and no Invincibility, this route has a potential low time of around 19 minutes & 15 seconds.
Also notice that I did the risky quick fall at every ledge in level 1. This is risky for human game play, because the slightest irregularity in spacing can cause the glitches in hole #2 to behave differently, and ruin the setup. However, it appears that in this attempt, I avoided any spacing issues. So here's proof that a TAS should be able to maximize Level 1 performance, as long as the correct results are achieved.
Link to video
"Gate Thief #1 -- Improved Level 6 Warp"
Ok, got the new route recorded. Takes about 3:45 to start level 9. From the above speedrun, you can see Levels 9 - 20 takes about 14 minutes.
So this new route has a potential low time of about 17:40 - 17:45.
A TAS might possibly be below 17:40. Perhaps 17:35 - 17:38.
Link to video
"Gate Thief #1 - Warp 8"
Gate Thief #1 -- Route Updates:
Simplified the setup, 20 seconds shorter, now only 2:05 to start Level 6.
However, figured out how to Warp to 8 without rescrambled sprite (successfully warps as Gate Thief). This setup starts level 9 in about 3:45 - 3:50. I need to run it a few more times to see what "perfect" looks like. At this point, it seems corrupted "brick wall" sprite and severe lag for level 8 is unavoidable, but everything is cleared and clean for level 9 when the Princess cut scene pops up. So only one dirty level.
So, first guess, looks like a savings of 1.5 minutes. This may be getting dangerously close to 18 minutes total!!!
Videos coming soon!
UPDATE: I researched the non-Invincibility routes for 13 & 14 today. So far, level 13 is +13 units (1.835 seconds), and level 14 is +11 units (1.553 seconds). I might be able to get 13 down to +12, in which case we'll be looking at about 3.247 seconds added to the speedrun, against which 34.774 seconds is removed for skipping the Invincibility glitch.
That would be an improvement of 31.5 seconds, for a potential 19:35 total, or better!
Videos for 13 & 14 coming soon, and then I'll get busy on a non-Invincibility full speedrun.
Well, I guess it's time. Here's the World Premiere of the Gate Thief #1 setup, with an official speedrun time of 20:15.993.
Below the video, I will provide detailed stats, comparing the speedrun times for individual levels against the "perfect" times from my previous videos in this thread.
Gate Thief #1 is basically acquired by performing the "Rainbow Prince" trick, demonstrated in my previous video, followed by simply jumping into the wall (normally a fast level 8 warp). In this setup, instead of warping to level 8, the game returns to Main Menu, and the Gate Thief is active.
To conform to Speed-Run rules, I also needed to perform a trick in level 2, as demonstrated in a previous video, to regain access to Level 1 for a Warp to Level 6.
A faster setup can be done with Console Reset Button, by first doing a Warp to Level 6 checkpoint, completing level 6 to save the level 7 progress password into memory, and then reset the console. After aquiring Gate Thief, simply "Continue" progress to Level 7, which is about 10 seconds faster.
Another highlight of this video is the World Premiere of an independent Warp Glitch found inside Level 8, which grants Invincibility Mode! Of course, in this case it hurt my time by 31.5 seconds, because it takes 34.5 seconds to do it, and only saves 3 seconds in shortcuts. But still a fun secret for casual play! Now you can always grab Invincibility Mode, no matter what you're doing.
So, without further delay, here it is! I hope someone will make a TAS!
Link to video
STATS:
setup:____02:25.531.
inv8:_____00:34.774.
lvl 6:_____00:55.349__(+0)
lvl 7:_____00:59.184__+16.
lvl 8:_____01:22.559__(+7)
lvl 9:_____00:58.664__+1.
lvl 10:____01:26.332__+1.
lvl 11:____01:03.345__+3.
lvl 12:____00:39.682__+1.
lvl 13:____01:50.380__+11.
lvl 14:____01:03.280__+1.
lvl 15:____00:51.824__+2.
lvl 16:____01:14.317__+1
lvl 17:____00:39.023__+4.
lvl 18:____02:11.399__+5.
lvl 19:____01:31.789__+4.
lvl 20:____00:28.571
total:_____20:15.993
(estimated) In-Game Clock Time Loss for Levels 6-19:
57 time units = 8.047 seconds. (Due to making mistakes.)
The times for each level are here indicating Real World Time, by examination of video frames, from the first frame of the current level, to the first frame of the next level.
The marks after the time indicate how many In-Game time units I was behind (by decoding the passwords). Remember there are 7.08333333 time units, or "frame rules", per second.
So, with a "perfect run" using this exact setup & route, I could theoretically get my official Speed-Run time down to 20:08.040. However, you may be able to notice that I voluntarily wasted a lot of time on the Select Menu, to make sure everything could be seen and understood clearly, since this had to also act as a tutorial.
I estimate that another 3+ seconds could be saved with quicker menu action throughout the run. So maybe 20:05 is perfect for this configuration. Without Level 8 Invincibility, perhaps 19:40. We shall see!
oh yeah, lol, here's a silly video of me beating the game in 1:12 without using passwords on the Continue Page. Everything you need for this run is provided for by performing the simple warp to Level Zero. This warp automatically activates Kill Button, which you can use to kill Jaffar quickly. And it also activates Debug Mode. A side effect of the warp glitch is that it temporarily disables the START + SELECT function. But then you can just input the Debug Activation Command to fix START + SELECT, and then use Debug Menu and Level Jump to move to Level 20 immediately.
Link to video
completed in 71.716 seconds.
edit: lol, this video has already been obsoleted. I think I should be able to beat the game in about 47 seconds, using a different (quicker) warp to activate Debug.
