I'm currently working on Viewtiful Joe 1, but I might hit up 2 while I'm working on it, because the engine is almost the exact same, the mechanics also run parallel, Gonna post the tech found in Viewtiful Joe and look into if there's anything to apply exclusively to this game.
Tech
Uppercut Cancel (UPC): Using an uppercut, cancelling it into an attack (traditionally, a kick) ad infinitum, this is optimal movement until you get slide or mach speed. Jump only when absolutely neccessary and only with the minimal frames needed. The execution differes from normal Joe and Viewtiful Joe;
Normal Joe has limited cancel routes and can only do 5 reps of UPC normally, but combined with Combo Resets (see below) he can UPC infinitely.
Viewtiful Joe has infinite cancel routes and can UPC just using standard kicks as the cancel.
My testing has shown that UPC gets the best speed when you uppercut for 5 frames and cancel into kick on the 6th, in situations when this would hit an item box (1 frame loss), you can do 4 frames and cancel on the 5th.
Silvia cannot UPC for movement as her uppercut does not move her forward. Joe exlusive.
Jump Cancelling: you can jump cancel any attack at any point in the animation, barring hitstop where inputs aren't accepted. This is used to cut recovery.
Hitstop: Every attack has 1 frame of hitstop, cancels won't register if inputted on that frame.
Immediate Attacks (IA): If you're facing the enemy and already dodging the right way, the enemy's attack triggers instantly when they decide to attack. Meaning no build up telegraphing the attack.
Power Up Menu: Changing selections in the Power-Up Menu is done in 7 frames, no inputs accepted during this time.
Combo Reset: Using a uppercut and a sweep during a combo to reset the combo order, to make sure you're only using the fastest attacks in any given sequence before you get zoom in.
Combo Skipping: Basically combo resets but applicable to mach speed.
Optimal combos - Before you get zoom in, make sure your killing blow is uppercut as it's Joe and Silvia's fastest move.
iirc Silvia's attacks are weaker than Joe's by default so that's a downer. And the fact that she can't UPC for movement is a huge blow back too.
Combine with the fact that she doesn't get mach speed, it seems we'll only be seeing Silvia when she's mandatory (replay or lightning effect) or in the auto-scroller on 5-2. Perhaps there may arise situations where she can deal faster dps than Joe since she has a gun and a lock-on power up, I hope so because Silvia tech would make this TAS stand out from Viewtiful Joe 1 in terms of what players and viewers can expect.
In any case, I'll be looking to work on an Adults any% very soon.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
OK I got some work done tonight. I also found that jump cancelling combos is unnessecary if I'm not trying to reach a higher platform i can just UPC immediately after a combo. This speed things up immensely as jump cancelling assumes regular movement speed.
Ending combos with uppercut also is a huge time saver that's immediately apparent, even if it only saves anywhere from 4 to 6 frames.
I did all the way up to the first captain blue fight and I'm gonna try to find time to do some more tomorrow.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Wind made the power go out
I only got to the slot machine but that's still an hour and a half lost. So I'll give it another crack tomorrow, bu here are a few improvements I found.
Optimal combos - basically everything we talked about with combos, but with the added emphasis to end combos with uppercut, since it's Joe's fastest move, make sure the kill move is an uppercut is all.
So punch punch kick combo reset punch uppercut for enemies who will die in 4 hits
and punch punch kick combo reset punch punch/kick uppercut for 5 and so forth
If doing a UPC would hit an item box you can just do a shorter UPC, I got under stuff that a 5-6 UPC would hit by doing 4-5, slower than 5-6, but faster than walking and we save time bothering with hitstop which is a 1 frame loss anyway.
With Nye's finding of using sweep in UPC during Normal Joe, you technically can UPC infinitely with Normal Joe now, since the sweep counts as a combo reset.
That's all I got now.
I'll pull some receipts tomorrow!
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Good finds, good finds!
Well I'll hop into that on the weekend, I'm ready to close the lid on 1-1, so anything I do before the weekend will be just trying stuff out to optimize it without making another WIP attempt.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
OK a Sunday well spent and I got some good news to report back
The start of the game using UPC 5~6 got way more time saved than 1 frame, didn't count it, but a 10th of a second just by eyeing it.
Your advice to hit the tutorial bianky twice was perfect.
Combo Resets were used where applicable to save those frames hither and dither. It's the little things.
Captain Blue I used Yamato-san's TAS strat; so when tminator did his tutorial he said to do 2 reps of 2 with small delays then hit him 3 times cuz "he's gonna get out of the combos no matter what you do". This was false information with the benefit of a TAS analysis. You can do 3 reps of 2 and on the 4th rep you can uppercut him and hit him with an air attack, 4 hits total completing the fight. I even got better time than Yamato's run on that part simply by doing a shorter jump.
Got better RNG on slot machine.
Moved to the other side after getting the key, saved time.
Try as I might I couldn't get all 4 biankies dead with the chandelier, it was too much set up and not consistent for me. I had to rely on my old method, but used less slow-mo to improve that.
Your advice to UPC in the hallway worked wonders! I couldn't do it on the first chandelier, because I got hit by the axe trying to double jump away so it was faster to just jump over the whole thing.
Helicopter fight was optimized a ton, just decided not to wail and instead just let it run 3 cycles of bullets. Less time spent wailing using slow-mo made all the difference. Saved over 2 seconds from that alone. For some reason I transitioned to the end stage cutscene faster than my last run and I got no idea how that happened. Ended up save 5.08 seconds total from that. Probably because I ran out of VFX. Idk really, lol. Grabbed what v-films I was missing during the fight so I didn't waste any time trying to get it during the stage.
Behold, the fruits of our labor!
Link to video
Comparison video from previous WIP
Link to video
Here's the WIP to test for desyncs. I made more of an effort for Ai manipulation so the library won't desync, but you never know!
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/50517757699248649
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Whats the reason for not using the fast forward VFX?
You don't have it in 1-1. you get it in 1-2.
Nye wrote:
I had a look at your WIP using Dolphin and unfortunately had it desync at the fight with the Bianco Billy with the chandelier not killing the bianky on the left, but I watched the youtube video and it looks like you've got a good understanding of the game.
I guess since you're still on the first level I'll mention the things that'll be most useful for it.
Combo Reset; Joe's punches and kicks consist of a four move combo with the later moves taking more frames to hit an enemy, for example the punch combo goes 8, 9, 12 and then 9 frames. I found that using an uppercut and then a sweep (down + x) followed by either a punch or kick will reset Joe's attack to the first move in the combo. So with the punches you can land the third hit 2 frames earlier by using the first punch, this costs 2 frames since you have to uppercut/sweep but is faster than letting the combo play out. This is also applied when using an uppercut when attacking. The uppercut is the fastest attack taking 7 frames to hit an enemy and also resets Joe's combo but sends the enemy in the air which requires either a punch or kick to prevent them from flying away.
Combo Skipping; Similar to the method used above but when you get mach speed you're able to skip a move in the combo, usually used to skip the third punch.
I messed around with the uppercut cancelling and found that uppercutting for 6 frames then cancelling it was 1 frames faster when entering the tutorial section but when going over to the first bunch of enemies there was no difference between 5 or 6 frames. The method I used when UPC was to uppercut for 6 frames and then cancel (using the sweep which is slower), so this might be something that needs looking into.
That covers some of the movement and fighting mechanics that I've found, now I'll mention some strategies not shown in Tminator's tutorial or Yamato's TAS.
After the tutorial you can attack the binaky with two hits and then proceed to spawn the other two. Doing this aside from getting some early damage means that you also don't have to get them dizzy since during the tutorial you already dodged their attack. After taking out the bianco billy you can take out all the binakies with the chandelier, I don't know if this is Kids exclusive but it should work for Adults. Also speaking of chandeliers, during that section where you're using them to take out the enemies I found that jumping after the hit and using UPC while on ground will spawn them faster.
The Joker and helicopter fight I can't say much since the differences in modes makes them hard to compare, but you can deflect 3 missiles during the first phase against the copter which is what I used and may be useful during the fight. The cutscene skip with the book looks faster and other than that, that's all for 1-1.
Sick! I'll look into making improvements based on this. Sucks that you got a desync, too new at this to really know why. Worst case scenario it just won't be a TASVideos Recognized TAS run if any judges or publishers run into the same issue.
One thing I will say is that I had a hard time optimizing the fight with the Copter, it felt like to beat it in 2 cycles (impossible to do it in 1 on Adults) I had to wail on it, I'll experiment with deflecting more bullets at it, less time spent wailing the better.
Also in the library in a previous WIP I experimented with using the chandelier to kill the biankies, I think I only managed to kill 2 of them with it, I'll look into it further. I can optimize my current method with less use of slow-mo and I'll compare it to just trying to kill all 4 in one swoop.
Lastly, in my upload before last I experimented a lot with UPC I did every other frame, 5 frame-6 and 6 frame-7 and 7 frame-8, and I played both WIPs (current and previous) back to back, 5 frame-6 definitely feels faster, but I didn't know sweep would be slower if you could cancel from it.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Hello Nye!
I'd love to receive any help I can on this. I haven't even TAS'd to the first boss so if there's any pre-established resources not in the speedrunning tutorial or in Yamato-san's TAS I'd be so grateful to get it.
And if you're on 5.0 stable, maybe you can help with some inputs too! A lot of it is gonna be pioneering anyway since not all Kids Mode strats will apply to Adults Mode on account of the different health values and VFX usage but I'll take what I can get!
btw here's my current WIP
Link to video
Edit: It's worth noting that UPC is strictly 1-1 Tech, after you get sliding it's literally not worth using, that's what tminator says, I'll have to run comparisons with my method of UPC and sliding, but either way after you get Mach Speed, you don't need UPC anymore. And I'll happily share my 1-1 WIP to help on your run if you choose to continue it.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Ok I'm also gonna post the tech I've learned/discovered here.
Mechanics
Uppercut Cancel (UPC), The current WR holder probably called it something else, but basically you uppercut (down+punch) and then you kick ad infinitum. It's faster than basic movement and is mandatory if you don't have mach speed or slide. In Human mode you can only do 4 reps, because of the limited cancel routes, but in Viewtiful mode you can do it infinitely. The method I chose to implement this is to uppercut for 5 frames and kick on the 6th, this got the fastest movement for me.
Jump Cancelling, you can jump cancel any attack at any point in the animation, barring hitstop where inputs aren't accepted. This is used to cut recovery.
Hitstop, without VFX and during Slow-mo every attack has 1 frame of hitstop, cancels won't register if inputted on that frame.
Immediate Attacks (IA), If you're facing the enemy and already dodging the right way, the enemy's attack triggers instantly when they decide to attack. Meaning no build up telegraphing the attack.
Power Up Menu: Changing selections in the Power-Up Menu is done in 7 frames, no inputs accepted during this time.
Strategies
Everything leading up to getting the V-Watch is the same as Kids Mode, except for a few extra hits to account for Adults Mode; First encounter, leave space for the first enemy to approach you without rolling behind you and wasting time, basic AI manipulation.
Captain Blue fight is done exactly the same as Kids Mode and he takes the same number of hits. dodge a move, hit him twice, small delay, hit him two more times, small delay, hit him three times, jump over his uppercut, hit him 3 times.
The delays I use are frame perfect, delaying my attack intervals by the absolute minimum frames required for him to not get out of the combo.
Inside the library I managed to get the stack of books on the switch without triggering a cutscene. Tbh I'm not sure exactly how I did it, but I think it has to do with Joe's and the books' relative location when the books land on the switch.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
tminator64, the WR holder for real time runs, has made a full tutorial on his twitch profile for how to run this game:
http://www.twitch.tv/tminator64/profile
Link to video
I'm gonna give this game a crack. Here's a test run i did just getting accustomed to dolphin tools. Gonna take a look at the speed resources and work something out for an adults mode any%.
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.
Aw darn, just wishful thinking.
What would be a good incentive for the TAS block...?
Hm, how about a brief interview with some of the experienced TASers? Questions like "How did you get involved into making TAS?"
"What's the easiest part of a TAS project? What's the hardest?"
"Is there anything you would like to say to newcomers trying to get involved?"
Current Projects
Viewtiful Joe - Adults any% (FIRST TAS!)
Future Projects
Viewtiful Joe 2 - Adults any%
Viewtiful Joe 2 - 36 Chambers any%
Maybe something Ultra V-Rated if there's a demand.