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User movie #67353555113938561
Super suboptimal test that's even slower in some stages than this run, but it uses the much faster RTA route that uses the in-level bag warps (similar to SMB1 pipes), the spring superjump (makes all jumps able to go as high as a max height spring jump), and three instant stage clear glitches near the end of the run. Mostly made so there's something faster/better to refer to than the RTA record.
This submission can't work as an any% because it misses all three of these known tricks, it can't work as a no major skips run because it misses the warps and superjump, and it can't work as a glitchless run because it misses the bag warps.
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For future reference, we accept and even encourage necrobumping as a means of keeping information easily found in one place. Feel free to raise topics even if they're from 2004.
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Take your time. Remember that constant improvements hold up the judgement process. Let it be published and when you get the time, investigate that improvement along with any others that might pop up in the meantime.
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I'd recommend cancelling this run and working on a new, optimized version that begins from power on. As it stands, this would be rejected just for beginning from a savestate without a valid reason to do so.
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To me, it's a matter of what's purely possible in-game. I.E, the branchless run should be the extent of what is possible without outside interference. When you introduce ACE, save or memory corruption into the equation (that is, adding in things explicitly done with the console hardware that isn't necessarily relevant to the game), it makes more sense to branch it as such to make sure it doesn't compete with what can be considered a more standard any% run.
As long as stale reference manipulation (explaining it so that people don't confuse SRM with SRAM) is completely possible within the bounds of the game (no ACE whatsoever), yes it could theoretically obsolete the branchless run, but we would have to see it and decide for ourselves in order to be 100% certain of that. If it ends up being too similar to this run, it may not be published due to the redundancy clause.
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To put it as simply and bluntly as possible, the reason "game end glitch" is always a separate category on TASvideos is so there are... For lack of a better term, "normal" TASes of games still published and easily available to watch.
We are not SRC, nor are we any RTA community. We have to define a wide, generalized set of rules that apply to every single game that could end up getting published here. We can't make exceptions for anything just because the specific RTA community does it, because the specific RTA community doesn't have thousands of other games to worry about at the same time. In that way, giving the branch to GEG makes so much more sense, since it's clear that GEG can and will only ever compete with itself, as it should.
[4032] NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "game end glitch" by Masterjun & ais523 in 00:00.78[3922] NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "warps" by Lord_Tom, Maru & Tompa in 10:24.34
If GEG was explicitly treated as any%, the latter run would not be published right now. The current high bar of the publication history that includes the most iconic TAS of all time, the one that literally started the site, would have been obsoleted by less than a second of a title screen followed by immediate credits. Several incredibly entertaining runs would suffer the same fate. A precedent would be set that GEG can obsolete different branches, so we'd be inundated with new, extremely similar runs, just that the subframe input also codes in 100% completion or whatever. Heat death of the site soon follows.
Probably.
Another oversight that's now fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.
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One more thing to add onto the judgement that I'm also posting here for visibility: The prototype rule (i.e, prototypes aren't allowed if there is an official release) only applies to releases on the same console. Thus, this run is even more acceptable. Ya! Ya! Ya! Ya! Et cetera.
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It's just like Batman in that repeatedly pausing and unpausing causes you to not take damage. The published run kills and respawns that bat on 7-2 since doing so gives better positioning for the damage boost, but by quick-pausing we're able to get similar positioning without needing to respawn the bat at all.
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The Star should stay on the zips version, since it literally has the highest entertainment rating on the site, not to mention also being recommended for newcomers. I'll leave my thoughts on Stars in general for another discussion in another thread.
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I should've clarified that I'm asking more about overall entertainment than the actual rules. There are precedents for the patch and I should be able to decide the level of unique content on my own, but being confident on tier placement is still important to me as well.
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Looks good to me, though I think we need a little more clarification on "obvious" in that second bullet point. How much should be considered obvious here? If an enemy sprite is noticeably corrupted, but that enemy only appears a couple times over the course of a 15+ minute TAS, then would that be enough to warrant a rejection? Or would audio/visual glitches need to be everpresent and deeply hurt watchability for the run to reach that point?
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Looked into it. You just end input a frame later than the previous run does (which, honestly, my bad for not catching that). Previous run's final frame of input (71520) is the same frame the axe disappears, your run's final frame (71438) is the frame after it disappears. The axe disappears on this run 83 frames faster (71437). I've fixed the publication description.
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'Ey, what up, it's ya girl Sam "I need some opinions" Sara. As you can see,
Due to the nature of this game being an unreleased kinda sorta prototype of Punky Skunk, I'd like some more audience feedback on it. You know the drill, CasualPokePlayer casually poke-provided an encode, please give it a watch, a vote, post your thoughts here, Like, Share and Subscribe, hit the bell to be notified of future judgements and don't forget to support me on Patreon. $10 backers and above get to see my judgements three days in advance! This post is sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends.
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[1759] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow "all souls, inbounds" by Kriole in 24:56.10
I'm going to, as the Judge who obsoleted it in the first place, recommend that it be removed from the obsoletion chain and republished as a new branch. Since the decision, I've felt more and more like I made the wrong choice, and so at the very least I'd like to invite some discussion on it as a way of taking responsibility for my mistake.
PROS:
* It was and still is one of the most highly-regarded movies on the site, sparking a debate at the time of whether or not it was worth keeping as a published run. I let the run's fate fall purely to the thread feedback, and the "voting" was close enough (10 to 7 in favor of obsoletion) that I should've kept waiting/asking for more feedback to provide a more clear answer. I also feel like I misinterpreted the feedback at the time as "it has to be one way or the other", as opposed to "I have a preference but I don't actually mind either way", which should have been accounted for as that would most definitely have pushed me to not obsoleting the run.
* Because the run actively avoids zipping of any kind, the routing is completely different, which I believe makes the run stand on its own next to the other published AoS runs. Of the five runs currently published, two of them are a separate character (Julius), and two of them are extremely heavily glitched (any% and the currently published all souls). The closest analogue is the zipless any% run, and due to the soul collection, the routing, fighting and entertainment are still very different between the two runs.
* The run absolutely still holds up by today's standards, and due to the sheer amount of luck manipulation involved, a potential improvement to this category (which I doubt would ever come due to the fact that this run was obsoleted in the first place) may take months or even years to complete. The run is still being watched and talked about to this day, which is what prompted me to take another look at it in the first place.
CONS:
* While this is a zipless run, there are two things about it that make it much harder to define as a separate category. One: It is not glitchless. Two: It does not avoid sequence breaking.
* The run uses a glitch where it triggers a level-up on the same frame as collecting a soul, combining the two messages and saving around 1-2 seconds by not having the game pause twice to process both individually.
* The Floating Gardens can be accessed far earlier than intended by exploiting an intentional game mechanic. The game will push you up onto a ledge or platform if you land JUST short of the very edge. Due to the shape and positioning of the platform leading up to the Floating Gardens, this is possible to trigger there by just double-jumping and approaching the edge of said platform. Normally, you need to collect the Undine soul from the Inner Quarters to be able to walk on water, but the platform is just low enough that a double jump from the water can trigger the edge-of-ledge grace.
* Due to these, it could be argued that the obsoletion still makes sense, as the currently published "all souls" is putting glitch use and sequence breaking to much better use than this run. "No zips" could be the category, and we do have a published "no zips" run of a different game, but we also just obsoleted a "no zips" run with a zipped run.
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Submission file has been replaced.
This comment is sticking with me, though. Would it be possible to provide an input file demonstrating some of these time saves? Or, better yet, maybe you and Lobsterzelda could actively work together on an improvement/new submission? Perhaps it could be a Batman situation, where this file is accepted knowing that an improvement is in the works but will take a fair amount of time to complete.
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Stage 7 is the most frustrating stage to slide route because the enemies are placed in exactly the right way to be inconvenient to optimal damage boosting. I tried about 10 different ways of going through (on top of the routes taken in the previous runs, of course) and only two of them managed to make it through without dying right at the end. The one in the submission ends up duck-jumping over the final log, so we're going into the auto-walking section 1 subspeed increment slower than we would if we had slid in, but at most this only loses a frame or two, and taking damage later to be able to slide into the cutscene loses much more time than this (my best attempt was 10 frames slower, even with sliding at the end).
Also, to clarify more on the input file time and the inability to end input early in this run: Hell Chaos decided it wasn't going to spawn on the optimal side of the screen for the 4th and final cycles. Our way of dealing damage every cycle is starting with a slide then following with two or three punches or kicks, as it minimizes the time spent between attacks. Two punches/kicks before sliding would lead to a time loss, as we can't kick twice in the air and land into a slide, and even if we could it wouldn't save any time anyway. Since we deal 9 damage in the first cycle and Hell Chaos has 40 HP, we only need to deal 7 damage in the final cycle, meaning we can land a kick and immediately input a slide afterward, carrying Rick through and killing the boss with no further input.
The problem is that you don't lose control, and Rick isn't invulnerable once the boss dies, and those falling rocks can and absolutely did hit and kill Rick when I tried doing this in this run. Hell Chaos being on the right means the rock placement is different, making it actually impossible to end input early since the slide would always carry Rick to the right side of the screen, where rocks fall. The place where we start the slide in the submission is actually still too far to the right for it to work, which is already way too far to the left to deliver the first hit.
We think the spawn side is RNG-dependent (I was completely unable to find a way to manipulate it either within or before the fight), and that's a problem because the only way we (okay, EZGames) found to manipulate RNG is the Necromancer room all the way back in Stage 5, and we got SUPER lucky with the spawn patterns in Stage 6 allowing for a perfect boss fight. Going back to change the RNG would change the spawn patterns in Stage 6 and likely lose us that perfect fight. Since the only side effect of the spawn side is being unable to end input early, we elected to just take the hit (not literally, we would've died) as the gameplay improvement is the same either way.
Link to video
Oh, and, uh, yeah, it does restart the level if you die after killing the boss.
EDIT: Second post has been updated with a comparison encode, which shows off more accurately that the input time is purely an aesthetic loss and not a gameplay loss.
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