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I liked it, not as much as I thought I would though. I forgot that Cutman had a level.
The level of optimization was not quite as high as the existing run. Not enough to not be published imo, but noticeable nonetheless. Examples: Clear Points, Fireman boss fight end could be closer to the middle, maybe a platform that could be jumped over the top of the screen in fireman, maybe better dropping-off-magnet-beam in iceman, maybe killing Wily 2 boss closer to middle (not sure if explosion leaving the screen matters in MM1), maybe better boss re-fights in Wily 4 getting back to the exit hatch, maybe falling in cutman's level on the right despite spikes and using the beam to go left instead of going left on a couple screens above.
I'm okay with pausing for damage invincibility skip. Some boss battles would be really long and repetitive without it (Wily 1 definitely, Wily 4 maybe).
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I have a technical question about this (very impressive) run. In the first EAC TAS which jumps to the ending, I got the impression from the submission text that there was just enough time to add the instructions to jump to the ending before the game would have otherwise crashed:
I managed to somewhat bring a routine into that garbage shifting. I have 3 bytes at the start, then I execute a WAI, after that I execute another WAI so it has enough time to update, then I branch back to the first 3 bytes, which also have new input.
However this is very unstable, I couldn't even do that routine one more time, the shifting was completely different suddenly and everything was failing, so I had luck that it worked.
Am I understanding this correctly? I doubt it.. but if so, what was done differently to allow the input to continue for much longer / indefinitely?
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I think this game has so much more potential for an entertaining TAS.
The excessive clipping makes for a less entertaining run from the aesthetic perspective, and also makes the TAS so much easier that it's not nearly as impressive to me (and thus I am less entertained).
Each level gives a gold/silver/bronze crown at the end depending on how much coinage you got. This takes into account coins collected, diamonds collected, time remaining, and I think life remaining as well. When you get lots of golds, you open up some secret levels which are different from the rest of the game (this may also change the ending? I can remember).
I think a no-clip all-golds all-levels run would show off this game the best. Perhaps even "high score" ahead of fastest time (remember that a high score still encourages fast play)? Either way it would require a lot of planning.
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The run is of high quality and will certainly be published, but I disagree with the decision to forego stereo sound. To me, it is no different than a TAS of a PC game which doesn't use the highest-end graphics options. So I am throwing a meaningless 'No' vote on the pile.
Why do games on consoles that support stereo sound which also physically contain their own speakers even have the option to use monaural?
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GoddessMaria15, why are you attacking those who criticize your run? These comments you're responding to are not personally attacking you.
I voted "no" because there are several improvements that were suggested and demonstrated, leading me to believe that the overall technical quality of the run is not high enough.
Note: This doesn't mean I think you're a bad person. However, I do think that the few people rushing in to defend your honor in this thread (and you, to a lesser degree) are behaving obnoxiously.
Feel free to dismiss my opinion if you feel it is helpful to do so. I don't plan to continue any discussion here.
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With non-genuine apologies to SpikeStuff for "snipping", this p-muffin would like to offer a couple potential ideas for improvements:
- The amount of jump height used to quickly climb things doesn't seem consistent throughout the run, and even in some of the individual climbs of 7-1. Typically (though not always), there is a general technique that yields the best results for these kind of situations.
- In 4-1, it seems like if you jumped and fell to the rocket rather than running of the ledge to fall to the rocket, your downward momentum would be faster. I am now second-guessing whether that would get you to the rocket patch any quicker, though.
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Instead of snipping GoddessMaria, why don't you put effort and help add-on to the run by saving more time...
That would be why I asked instead of told. I don't care enough to try, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth mentioning. (Don't worry, I promise not to pull a Spider-Waffle and ask for credz.) Also, the fact that this run is an improvement to another submission does not somehow make my question inappropriate.
Also, had I (or you) looked at the gif in MasterJun's post, I (or you) would have seen that yes, this section can be improved.
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Eye-rolling over the game's voices reached critical mass when you used the key, and Peach exclaimed "just what I needed!". Thanks Dora, I wondered what the hell I was going to use this big giant obvious key for. Furthermore, now that I've figured it out myself, your confirmation of that fact has really helped me identify with your plight. I'm off to amazon to buy myself a Peach plush right now!!
In 7-1, could you have used the mushroom block to kill one of the sparks, so you could start your jump's duck-charge earlier?
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I thought I had an old post where I explained this idea, but couldn't find it.
Controllers on a system are polled for input 60 times per second in NTSC. This means that for some finite amount of time, say X nanoseconds, button presses will "register" for a given frame.
If, during these X nanoseconds, you press only left for X/2 nanoseconds, then press only right for X/2 nanoseconds, then what does the system register as the buttons pressed for that frame? If it's both left and right, then it follows that tool-assisted play could use left+right without the use of any special controller or controller modification.
If it's only one of the directions, then there is more to controller input polling that I don't fully understand, which is very possible.
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I actually thought the graphics were pretty decent considering the available palette of barely a plural amount of colors. Though I imagine on an actual game boy with blurry screen syndrome, this was very hard to visually parse.
The clam boss music is from Blast Corps. Or maybe this came first? That was neat to hear. I guess Rare did both, so it's not completely surprising.
Edit: I might just be looking for it now, but it seems like there is a Battletoads-sounding track in one of the cave levels and a Snake Rattle & Roll track as well somewhere, but I'm not as sure about these as I am about the Blast Corps one. Regardless, I like a lot of the music.
Edit again (hello IRC!) It also sounds like the "Northern Hemisphere" track was remixed in Psycho Waluigi.
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Wow, you can still do the three-damage hits without the sword power-up?! How did I never test that? :[
The two-and-a-half jumping opened up some nice new shortcuts, and I'm happy that dying on the level 5 boss is now possible!
Nice job! This game is always a fun little run to watch.
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Hoandjzj, would you go into more detail about what has changed for v2.3? You know English better than I know Japanese (which is zero).
Did a missile elsewhere get removed to account for this extra pack? Or can you get 101% now? (I'm only halfway through the video currently) Did door transitions speed up in this version? Any other noteworthy or interesting differences aside from what you already mentioned?
I love how sequence broken this is, and how well this hack was designed. I often can't distinguish between "intended" sequence break and legitimate outside-the-box hack creator didnt expect that. Which is similar to Super Metroid itself.
Edit: It is 101%. Imagine the conversations Diddy and Samus could have!
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Animadverto wrote:
Genisto's Bionic Commando run was this for me.
Same for me. Well, there were a few "levels" of discovery for me actually.
[6] NES Mega Man 2 by Morimoto in 28:24.65
I found and watched it on Morimoto's website (I assume) after seeing the initial SMB3 that many people were introduced to TASing by, and was a lot more impressed by this one because I didn't expect MM2 to be able to be blown through in the same way as SMB3. Especially when Air Man was the first selected stage! And Mega Man just jumps on and off the big floating heads without a care in the world. Watching that for the first time was hilarious to me.
[268] NES Bionic Commando (Japan) by Genisto in 14:05.53
The first movie I watched after finding this site that blew me away. It legitimized the concept of "this can potentially be great for any game".
[351] SNES Super Mario World "warps" by flagitious & VIPer7 in 10:35.98
Once of the first runs I watched this it progressed, and it was exciting to see all the new techniques and ideas being tried and discussed. The Big Boo fight was far ahead of its time with its playaround - juggling two of the blocks while flying back and forth.
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I added Phil's and Aglar's data to the spreadsheet Cardboard and I used long ago. You can use the spreadsheet to compare any of the last five BC TASes.
There are more checkpoints than necessary for comparing most of these, but Genisto's TAS was on the (J) version which required us to measure the differences more specifically, so I just put them all in for later versions too, for no good reason.
Link
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It's always good to see this run tightened up a bit! I really appreciated the couple times where you swung backwards a bit to get a better angle for the next swing. Nicely done!
I wonder if there is any interest in a run that plays the rest of the levels. Might be better in theory than in execution.
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I felt like this run showed off TASing in the same way that NES Mega Man 1 does. The game universe appears broken more often than not. Mario seems to be able to move pretty much as he pleases. The high-level planning detail is impressive. There are a lot of fun little optimization surprises and stylistic choices throughout. I also appreciated the Easter egg or two in the controller input :]
The vote?
Well, there is no reason whatsoever to vote no, nor is meh a good enough option. I really do think a best out of ten system would be better, as I would of given it an 8 and in terms of percent I would have given it 92% (yes, confusing I know I'll explain why shortly). That might sound confusing but an eight is to signify that its not a high 9. Since I can't rate I'll simply have to vote yes.
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This was fun to watch! I forgot about the "King-size bed" the size of a large book.
I think that very small amounts of time can be saved by entering doors differently - if you have some "walking momentum" as you approach them, you slide forward as they open very slightly, and exit the screen 1-2 frames sooner.
Now this is may not even make a difference in such a long run where luck is involved, but I've noticed it in most HoD runs after mine and it visually bugs me.
(Also I haven't tried it in a while, so maybe I'm misremembering. But I have posted about it once before.)
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As before, very impressive and fun to watch. I'm glad you kept the slidey wheels in Area 6, and the boss fight in Area 3, and the dancing in Area 2's super-exciting-room, and the little hover boosts over the 1-block drops in Area 7 make me smile. I really liked the new way to die in Area 4, and I found the Area 5 boss fight to be vindicating. It's nice to see that annoying boss completely frozen!
Anyway, this is all obvious. But I was wondering if at 21:06, you could have jumped less in order to hit the water earlier, thus getting dive speed for a bit more distance?
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