Some new strats from the RTA community.
FB1 - new Solo Sonic level wrap, that combines a zip from the platform and the knux level wrap:
Link to video
LR1 new method for Sonic to get into Knux's path for the level wrap:
Link to video
Also in LR1 - Monitor Clip Alternative, which should save some time on the TAS with a method that doesn't get a monitor bounce:
Link to video
I just got done watching the (relatively) new Sonic 3 and Knuckles “Sonic” TAS. I don’t know if anyone has pointed it out before, but there is a potential way to optimize LBZ on any non-knuckles run that has been utilized in many speedruns.
Is there any good reason we don’t use a save file and play on “no save” mode, because this does require it to progress.
It’s shown off at 12:24 in the video below.
Link to video
It is puzzling to me as it is ~60s faster in raw time, and about 25s faster than what’s currently done in the Sonic any% TAS.
Gens doesn't support soft resets in TASes so cannot utilise strats that need a reset to load a save file. And BizHawk currently doesn't have all the useful tools that TASers use (Camhack, solidity viewer, etc etc)
That's the branch with the lowest entertainment rating, and it's slower than Knuckles 100%, which can be considered "true 100%", since Sonic is a sub-optimal character in that category.
Hard disagree here. Knuckles' 100% is faster than Sonic's because Sonic has to essentially do 5 more levels: Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary (both of these Knuckles has alternative versions of that are very short in comparison), Death Egg 1, Death Egg 2 and Doomsday Zone - all of which Knuckles doesn't play at all. Not to mention other levels were shortened for Knuckles.
Also, Knuckles doesn't really get access to any new glitches in his super or hyper forms (from what I can tell from the TAS anyway). Sonic at least does in Hyper Sonic form.
Maybe if branches are an issue then maybe the different TASes could be concatenated, become "All Character" TASes of the same playstyle (e.g. a 100% All Character TAS, would contain 100% for Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles).
This run is technically quite impressive, but the problem is that it's a new branch, and we already have quite a few of them:
http://tasvideos.org/Movies-127G-RatingE.html
I watched most of them side-by-side level-by-level, and I can say that this branch doesn't fully look similar to any of the existing ones, only some parts look close, to some of the existing branches. Yet we can't be expanding this indefinitely.
Interestingly, the lowest rated branches are the 100% ones. But while Sonic 100% is "the worst", it's 1) full completion, and also 2) still quite different from this run.
From singular branches we have Knuckles and Tails. Both resemble this run in some areas, also I'd theorize that if they are redone now, they will look closer to this movie. However Tails is rated really high, so I'm not sure which we can sacrifice.
I do expect any% to look a lot like this run if it's redone too, but what about singular Knuckles and Tails? Which of them will differ from this run more, if all the new tricks are applied?
One thing to note here (which may not hold any weight), is that this TAS is the closest to the main category that speedrunners use; the Sonic & Tails ones are essentially "2 Player" ones, and the other characters have very few runners, so is probably the most appropriate in terms of viewers (and runners) looking to see how the TAS does things for ideas etc.
The main difference is that we can bring Tails along (but his AI can only be manipulated by 1p controls), but many choose not to.
Accepted or not, this TAS (and its journey) has been a centrepiece of discussion in the RTA community.
In my honest opinion, while using soft resets to skip cutscenes does save time, it would be very annoying to watch. Perhaps it's one of those things that'd be considered a speed/entertainment tradeoff?
I think it'd be hard to justify it as a speed/entertainment tradeoff, Launch Base alone the TAS takes just over 3 minutes to complete (from the LB1 title card to the MH1 one), in RTA runs this is ~1min 50s.
This is possible because the game saves that the zone is completed after the Act 2 countdown has completed, meaning we can do things like this: https://youtu.be/GccTQXjuoNo?t=1102
In Sonic 3 standalone, being able to soft reset also allows for this as well: https://youtu.be/7p8PQEgsptQ?t=646
Without a soft reset, that would be a softlock, and the LB one would be a death and time loss.
With the resets at MH->FB and SS->DE included the TAS is taking upwards of 2 minutes longer than regular runs, and is for sections where zero input is necessary.
I like how with every new Sonic TAS that comes out, the levels make less and less sense :) I like the way the two Carnival Night acts are beat here
One question I've had for a while is there a reason the Sonic 3 TASes don't reset the game to skip Launch Base 2 or the cutscene at the end of Sky Sanctuary?
It's essentially down to using Gens for the TAS, you cannot TAS soft or hard resets on it, so a TAS needs to be continuous from power on.
Switching to BizHawk would allow the TAS to take advantage of those resets, however, Gens is still used mainly because of the tools available for Sonic TASing which you can see in this thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8827
Most notably the camhack (allowing you to see what Sonic is doing "off screen"), and the HUD, which gives TASers a lot of information on what is going on currently, e.g. Boss or character iframes remaining, whether control lock is in effect (and for how long), etc.
Even if those were ported to BizHawk, Gens still has a bit of an advantage with having the latency compensation feature where you get to instantly see what your inputs are doing rather than having to wait for 3 frames.
kaan55 wrote:
Ah I was wondering how long it would take for someone to ask this. The main reason for this is gens has no soft reset input. Also I don't exactly know when but this didn't even become a thing until much later on.
After S3K runs changed from IGT to RTA-TB (removing time bonuses), Chrezm proposed it as a timesave in 2017:
Link to video
Also, thinking about it, CN might be quicker with the new S+T RTA route with some changes.
This is the current route in the WR, which is a 0:48, and 0:32
https://youtu.be/hK5cNdHoKoY?t=452
Known changes that can be made:
Tails can be manipulated by 1p Sonic to get a 0:42 in act 1, so a 2p controlled Tails should be able to knock that down.
Wheel glitch wrap from the platform under the wheel, should save ~4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZiz7upBvq8
Stair clip whilst in the ceiling (using 2P tails to cancel sonic's momentum rather than bubble shield in this video), should bring act 2 to under 30s easily.
https://youtu.be/92HNLFhlwj8?t=106
So worst case for S+T is probably a 38 + 29. :)
marzo, guessing that's a typo and you mean LBZ2 :D ... there is one in standalone S3 for Tails that we use, I think some people have tested it on S3K and haven't been able to get it to work.
But given in RTA S3K runs we just soft reset after defeating the 2nd LBZ1 knux boss to get to MH (I guess that's also a benefit of switching to BizHawk is you save frames in cutscene skips).
Here's the Standalone S3 Tails wrap (at 14:10 - Sonic is similar too in standalone S3):
Link to video
I doubt this will work as is, but might give ideas for getting something to work for S3K.
Kaan knows about these, but I thought I'd share them as others might not follow RTA/ILs as much.
Aside from Sando1. We now have a new skip in Death Egg 1 which might end up being RTA Viable:
Link to video
I also tested a theory of Kaan's for keeping the lightning shield, which seems to be frame perfect:
Link to video
And also have a Solo Sonic setup for Death Egg 2's level wrap, that for RTA purposes is faster than the S+T setup:
Link to video
Past few weeks have been pretty busy with this game :D
What happened to the microstorage?
I can’t check your run…
Seems like it's down. I've uploaded it to discord here:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/604653940411334695/604655252364591134/S3K_Sonic_alone_any14.gmv
The new Sando1 is something special, especially for us RTA runners, where we've been using the Tails manipulation for some time. :D
It was found thanks to Evil_3d's Knux video above, and with a random floor clip I got during a run (possibly race) back in March, I asked Kaan if they could be combined, turned out that Sonic just needs to get into the slope, and with good subpixels (which appears to be about an 85% chance), you get the level wrap.
I guess the other option is if someone wants to do a valid TAS or speedrun for "get best ending for all character variations". So the goal is to end up with 4 save files with all emeralds collected for S+T, S, T and K.
So you'd start out with clean SRAM, and start on slot 8 with whatever character can be optimally routed for All Emeralds then essentially use this to NG+ the other 3 variations.
Obviously soft-resets play heavily into it, so might need to get creative for Gens, I won't trigger Evil_3D or Kaan by mentioning the B word :D
We figured this one out, it's due to the emerald count in Save Slot 8, and what we have come to call "Zero Frame Loading" a save file. Where there is 1 frame prior to the data select screen showing on screen that you can load the highlighted save.
So isn't useful for TASs nor for speedruns now (as it has now been banned in the non-NG+ runs).
SuperSonic created a video showcasing it with all emeralds here:
Link to video
From the code what it seems like is the emerald loading is done based on where the "cursor" is on the data select screen.
After pressing start on the title screen it goes through and loads the emeralds in each save slot sequentially (to build the data select screen), but doesn't clear it after the 8th one, and it's at a stage where the "cursor" hasn't loaded the emeralds for the current file yet.
So that single frame allows you to load the emerald data from the 8th save slot into your current game - however, it doesn't do the counts etc so you can't transform. For that, it requires entering a special stage and failing it (or completing it), to save the emeralds to the current file, and then a re-load of the save file to actually apply being able to use super/hyper.
It also works in reverse as well, as I have had the reverse happen in All Emeralds runs, where this bug has caused me to lose collected emeralds - as my 8th slot had none.
It's very useful for building fully completed save files for all the characters, as you could just get all emeralds on save 8, and then just use this glitch to "copy" them to other save slots (by pressing B on the data select screen on the desired save file, and then zero frame loading again).