Well, for starters, rapidly pressing face buttons (maybe shoulder buttons / D-pad too, haven't ever tested) throughout the end-of-match score countdown makes it tick down much, much faster - practically instantaneously. I don't see that done here. Could shave at least thirty seconds off this in real-time :)
Also agreeing with the sentiment that this game would be much better suited for a MKII-style "playaround" than a straight-up speedrun.
It's always cool seeing Not-A-Sidescroller TAS videos.
Just a note to whoever did the publication text: The flickering in this game has nothing whatsoever to do with emulation. Contemporary reviews of this game all mentioned it, and having spent hours playing this game on an actual licensed console, I can assure you that the emulation itself is spot-on. For whatever reason, Technos decided to use a flickering effect to indicate which player you were currently controlling, as well as which player on the enemy team you were currently targeting. This, in combination with typical NES graphic breakup from having too many sprites on the same horizontal line, is to blame for the rather trippy playfield graphics.
So yeah, I really wouldn't describe it as an "emulation issue".
A really cool run, and from digging around it seems a lot of work went into this... but man, the submission text is pretty lacking here... would be nice to know exactly what's going on in ROM/RAM without having to click through a bunch of old submissions and discussions to find a random YouTube that explains it.
Just my worthless opinion of course :)
I wish the submission text was a bit more detailed - I'm curious why you have to throw the Tangerines three times in the boss room. Once to get Blob out of the cage, once to... glitch Blob into the proper position to throw the third Tangerine and jump past the wall on the next screen?
What happens if you throw an Apple bean once the boss has spawned in the boss room, before leaving and re-entering? I'm assuming you have to leave and re-enter in order for the "if jack touches this region, initiate end-game" flag to be set?
I'm really glad the "Vault" has been implemented so movies like this get an automatic encode and listing. This run may not be perfect, but frankly I find a speedrun of a game like this much more interesting than Sidescrolling Platformer VII: Return of the Son of the Platforming Sidescroller.
Tangent wrote:
I'm fairly sure that quite a lot of time could be saved in this run. Mainly through better RNG manipulation.
Agreed. One thing to consider is the "<!(&/&X!" item, which will drain all health from another character - with proper RNG manipulation, this could make for a huge time saver, especially with Rooftop, Swimming, and Judo. It may even save time in Hammer Throw - I'll admit I've never tried to play Hammer Throw with low health, but if being at 0HP means a character can't get up after a botched throw, then this could be important.
Tangent wrote:
And as a side but related note, it won't generate the actual ending, but I'm fairly sure that picking Lincoln instead of Southside would be faster. Artie and Skip are both stronger than Crash, and Wheels is the fastest character in the game. It'd also let you RNG Noise on Southside as an opponent who has the least HP AND worst Def in the game.
True, but of course you generally want the "best ending" in a TAS :)
Even ignoring that, I'm not sure if speed (or HP, but that goes without saying) matters in a TAS. The only two events where speed would come into play are Hurdles and Rooftop - in Hurdles, it only affects acceleration (I might be wrong here, I haven't actually done the RAM search, but I'm pretty sure it's for all intents and purposes an auto-scroller, with speed only determining the positioning of the characters relative to one another - i.e., Zack vs. Dragon (71/70) taking the same amount of time as Spreck vs. Dove (112 each)).
Rooftop may be another story, I'm not sure if speed just counts for acceleration or not - if it is only acceleration, it'd only affect the start, since you can get max acceleration with proper polevault dismounts. You may well end up breaking even after considering the additional menu frames.
Jefferson might be a better "bad ending" choice, since Clint's increased power might make for quicker Swimming/Judo runs (and Hurdles, relative to Lincoln, if power affects enemy damage from being bashed with hurdle pieces), and selecting Spreck for speed events would be quicker than down-downing to Wheels.