Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
The only way to lose is to hit the gong with a 2-star rating or lower, so it's about when you want to give up rather than actually failing.
Also if you don't play the game for a few days, you get angry letters on the Wii message board, but I don't think you can ever lose any customers.
That's good to know. There are some more interesting hairstyles and Easter eggs further into the game (like fireflies in the dark and playing bells), but after a few cycles I think it'd be too repetitive to be an entertaining movie.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
fsvgm already got it, but the easy way to that folder is right-clicking the game on Dolphin's game list -> Open Wii Save folder. Saves a lot of headache when you have multiple games.
And then delete everything (banner file is just for storing the title info and preview image as far as I know and it gets recreated when you reopen the game, so it's not an issue if it's deleted).
If it's still needed, my Dolphin folder: https://mega.nz/file/pWZUVajJ#Jqjih-UNCgQsh6I2qdd82grq8CDkasB8zvVVJ7bhkG4
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
In Graphics settings:
Backend: Vulkan (using RTX 3050 if GPU is relevant)
Enhancements -> Internal Resolution: 3x Native
In Config:
Disable Dual Core
In Controllers:
Set GameCube controllers to None
In Wii Remote 1, set Extensions to None
*Enable Speaker Data
*As a big side note, I thought there would've been a big problem here. Clean install wasn't working, desyncing at savefile creation (the save took a few extra frames to create itself). Original install also wasn't working.
I played with settings that I maybe changed (including Dual Core on, adding Nunchuk extension, adding GameCube controller), and eventually it started working again on the original install.
I then went back to the clean one and only changed Speaker Data and it worked. Turned it off again, and it still worked... There isn't a chance that just playing it over and over changes how fast the save creation runs, right? I'm really confused and would need a more technical person to help.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
AngerFist wrote:
Does anyone know if his run is submittable? Echoing the same question a few have asked before. I read the description of the youtube clip but no mention if this run is ready for tasvideos.
Unfortunately not, as it turns out it was done on a bad dump. Someone had asked him on one of his WIP posts (https://youtu.be/hVRbGtyb4rk?feature=shared), but he said that he only found out the game was a bad dump when it crashed on Lanayru Twilight. Trying the inputs on a good dump didn't get past the title screen.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Not every track has a shortcut like that, but there has just been a new discovery that gives three more tracks a more interesting ultra shortcut.
Link to video
FighBat found it's possible to clip inside a wall after going up a little step if you have boost speed and a good angle, so you can fall off the edge. A very good angle can bonk and get some extra height off the wall. A very very precise angle (and a couple frames of drifting when going off the edge) is enough to get bonked high enough to be able to fly back over the finish line's checkpoint and get a lap skip.
This is also possible in Rookie Beach, and likely possible in The Chillout, which is a bit of a shame because that already had one of the coolest shortcuts. But there might be a limit to this strat as it's been hard to get the clip without first doing a full lap - maybe jumppads and upside-down boostpads add some kind of tilt.
Speaking of theoretical tilt, there was this potential idea for Flood Area back when I had started, but for some reason doing this trick leads to downwards tilt when falling off an edge so you end up with less air time, whereas going through a full lap ends up getting upwards tilt off the edge to be able to lap skip.
Link to video
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
It's been a while. Mulling over whether to pick this up again, but in the meantime some more helpful things if anyone else wanted to try.
Firstly a TAS of Breeze City, one of the shortest tracks due to a simple ultra shortcut:
Link to video
This was done from a savestate on Dolphin 5.0 stable, with Wiimote & Nunchuk. I uploaded to a filesharing site instead of straight here because it's got a few savestates of a decent size: https://mega.nz/file/IXJDEJZY#fim68gNrafyw0HjxjEIkz0aMJMQ_p3Ss1wMGm8Enz7o
The savestates include: a starting one (but not dtm.sav so need to load another and then playback from this), the ending one, and a savestate of a really low jumppad jump for research.
This TAS gained a bit of understanding of what happens with the Turbine Canyon short jump, but not enough to really easily replicate it. It has something to do with bonking against the wall, and the angle against the wall when jumping (which did slightly change height when making slight adjustments).
Also, a trick in Rookie Beach to save at least 1 second per lap if you have enough energy for a boost each time:
Link to video
I will also edit this post with my original orb route for each track if I can find it, although I didn't think enough about trading off some speed using drifts to grab more orbs.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
CoolHandMike wrote:
So you are making deliberate choices for entertainment while doing things as fast as possible for the achievement of "Perfect Day" and you mention how the game does not truly have an ending. Also from your notes so the class should probably be Alternative or maybe Playground. I thought the silly haircuts were amusing, but I did like the flag haircut best.
I could see it being Alternative, yeah. And thanks; the flag was probably what I spent the most time on, especially due to the leaves swinging about - I had to plan out which ones to paint to make it look good once they stopped moving at the end.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
CoolKirby wrote:
Well, that's a shame, but I kind of assumed so after all this time, like you said. Would you mind uploading the .dtm to userfiles? This could help someone else learn the inputs and redo it.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
If it wasn't obvious by the lack of activity in 2 years, this project's dead. But I'm briefly resurrecting the topic because a) I never posted The Rig and b) I've encoded the entire Shima League into one video as work-no-longer-in-progress:
Link to video
The reasoning for properly cancelling is:
1) This TAS isn't as optimised as it could be. And it looks stiff at times without a good flow of movement.
On top of that, there's a ridiculously precise trick I stumbled upon in Turbine Canyon that gets a shorter jump from the jumppad, saving nearly 0.6s per lap. I couldn't replicate it despite a lot of effort (and attempting to use RAM watch), so I moved on without it: https://youtu.be/YqC5Act2vK4
Plus, this run uses Classic Controller, as I wasn't sure how reliable Wiimote was for TASing when starting out. Classic Controller's analog only has 64 values for each axis, whereas even the Nunchuk has 256; much more possibility for fine tuning.
2) DivisionX and FighBat had said a while ago that they had messed around in the vehicle & colour select menus and somehow the tournaments only lasted 2 or 3 races instead of the intended 4. So, if this is a reliable manipulation, this "All Leagues, Ion class" TAS would be obsolete, and even more unoptimised. Would be nice to have All Leagues use that manipulation and then have an All Tracks using Time Trials.
So if anyone would want to try it in the future (I might come back at some point?), it'd be better to start over again, on a more recent revision (5.0-2428 for this one). I have some useful notes but I don't know if text files belong in userfiles so I've put them in a pastebin instead: https://pastebin.com/ye7D9cb3
And also a playlist of clips and stuff that might be useful, including sick glitchy physics that can make for a shortcut in Storm Creek that may not be faster but is definitely entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNOUOE9YHiMQlBpEkCp2Z0li0CAS4hxWz
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Turbine Canyon: 41.90
Optimising the skips was interesting, as small changes in flight and landing could make almost half a second of difference, landing especially because you have to be going the "wrong way" across an invisible checkpoint before the line in order to count the lap.
Now it's onto The Rig, the last track of the Shima League.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
0/10 no zigza- what the bloody hell is this swimming tech? And the zip in L13?
Solid yes vote.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Flood Area: 42.28
Second track done, and it's the first of many with a major skip.
EDIT: That run uses a new orb route. With a couple of strats to get two extra orbs (one before jumppads and another before corner skip), there's a 4th boost possible at the long semicircle chicane (when also getting a third in the group at the start, and two with the corner skip).
The old route used a jumppad skip. With that old route, this skip would have only been slower than the intended way by ~0.3s, which was a small enough loss to make it an entertainment trade-off, to prove yet again that sometimes you don't need jumppads.
However, the new route opened up an extra boost to save more time, and the jumppad skip would be even slower if I tried getting that 4th boost in - I'd have to boost at the start to avoid wasting 2 orbs by picking them up when the meter is full, I'd use a boost to be able to do the skip, but then I wouldn't have any boost to regain speed after the skip (the skip requires you to brake hard so you can land on the track). This would've made it ~0.3s slower than the 3-boost route, so ~0.6s slower than going without it.
Alternatively, I could have picked up a couple of orbs at the end, but because of how the end works - waiting in the air for 3 seconds to be respawned - it would have only saved a few frames if any.
If you want to see the jumppad skip, you can watch the old TAS here
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
So Wii Shop's shutting down soon, which means a few great WiiWare games will never be seen again unless they get remasters or there's some fan-made shop. This is one such game, a great futuristic racer with a phase-shifting mechanic powered by a boost meter, which gives it some micromanagement. There's also a generous airtime system that lets you skip a lot of track, and a checkpoint/flagging/position system that can be manipulated for even more skippity skips.
I've started TASing it, with the current WR holder, DivisionX, helping with orb routes/boost routes and strats. Unfortunately, some of the strats (including the three biggest skips) aren't possible with what you're given when starting a new file, so I've made a verification file that unlocks the fastest vehicle, Kan Y, and the fastest engine class, Ion. Hope that works out, I understand dirty SRAM can be a bit messy.
Cove Harbour: 1:08.41
This first track took a long time due to new things being found halfway in and various retries to make a turn smoother but still fast. As a major-skipless track, it's one of the longer ones in the run.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
So freaking clean!
One thing that isn't entirely clear in this run is that, at the waterfall hovers, Fitter skips an objective marker. This means no objective markers appear for a while. In most levels (especially ones with elevators), this would softlock the game, however, in Jungle, it does something that makes the rest of the level both easier and harder.
Easier: It despawns three enemies at 3:30 (yet their conversation about 'the Agency' is still triggered), as well as a truck carrying a handful of enemies in the area at 3:40. In a TAS, these enemies wouldn't be a huge deal, but might have lost a bit of time and health as Fitter could have lost stealth to the truck enemies, spawning more enemies at the gate.
Harder: It despawns all checkpoints up until 4:29, as well as a large crate to hide in at 4:14, that also contains armour.
It's much more interesting and useful for RTA than TAS, but it's worth noting.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Unfortunately I couldn't watch the WIP because BizHawk runs so slowly on my low-tier laptop that half the inputs died :/
I'm sure it was great, but there is one problem that anybody wanting to pick this up should know - the fastest version is specifically NTSC-Canada; U is slower (as is J).
If you know about how the book and movie of HP1 were released in the US with mentions of Philosopher's Stone being changed to Sorcerer's Stone, you might also know that Canada got the original British content.
This also happened with the PS1 game; the US version was changed to have Sorcerer's Stone (and also other Americanised words like 'mom', and also had US English, Spanish, and German) while Canada had everything from the British version with Philosopher's Stone and languages of British English, French and German (I say British version instead of European because I've seen some European versions with different languages - maybe one of these languages might even be fastest).
In the process of localising the US version, something messed up somewhere, because it's slower due to text skips, and apparently there are some other unhelpful glitches. As the Canadian version got everything straight from the source, just with a faster frame-rate, it's got an advantage over the US version (don't know for sure, but could be 1min+).
Also, there has been a WIP on the Canadian version, but it's only up to the tutorial 'climbing' room with Nearly Headless Nick (before the snails). It was put on hiatus soon after Early 4-Eyes was found because there were also theories of a tutorial skip; the theories led to nowhere and the TASer hasn't returned to it yet.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
I second this^
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Bobthefloater wrote:
I'd like to see one for Sonic Heroes, if only for the insanely fast team vs. team battles. I defeated Team Sonic as Team Rose in under 3 seconds, and despite it being the easiest battle, the others may also be fast.
(Inset pithy Sanic joke here)
THC98 was working on the GC version, which is the same as the PS2 version (although PS2 runs the game much worse for some reason. It has more lag, dropped inputs, and hindering glitches like randomly falling through the floor). Dunno what happened to it though, but here's the WIP of the Seaside Acts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLE4kuKPBsI
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
I guess now's a good time to show just how much I love BizHawk right now.
This may not seem like much, but on psxjin and pcsx-rr, both Harry Potter PS1 games would never make it past the first page of the first cutscene/book, as the narrator would never speak. The game would still run, but there'd be no progress.
When getting to this cutscene in BizHawk, I have to admit my heart leapt when I heard Jim Dale start to speak.
(btw the bad framerate is due to my laptop: working with an Intel Celeron 540 over here, with a basic integrated Intel GPU, not really the best for, well, anything).
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Even though I've seen HDL break this game humanely time and time again, watching a TAS was really refreshing and entertaining. Yes vote.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Really entertaining run, especially the first 30 seconds of Stage 4 with the quick drops and jumps. It's a yes from me.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(29)
Joined: 10/11/2014
Posts: 21
Location: England
Amazing run, Nitrofski. Every Agent 9 mission was like watching a Michael Bay movie; it left me thinking "What the F is going on?". It was a Yes vote from the start.
Finished TASes: Bonsai Barber
Currently working on Super Mario Galaxy 2 Green Stars (not likely to be on TASVideos due to savestate anchor and no verification movie).
Cancelled but might return: FAST Racing League
This may not seem like much, but on psxjin and pcsx-rr, both Harry Potter PS1 games would never make it past the first page of the first cutscene/book, as the narrator would never speak. The game would still run, but there'd be no progress.
When getting to this cutscene in BizHawk, I have to admit my heart leapt when I heard Jim Dale start to speak.
(btw the bad framerate is due to my laptop: working with an Intel Celeron 540 over here, with a basic integrated Intel GPU, not really the best for, well, anything).