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*Casually comes back from the dead*
I feel like the video description should state that Alyosha was the one who found the improvements to the run. I can't take credit for that, it's a good catch on their part.
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Just chiming in, I only actually watched the "broken" version and I enjoyed it. Maybe it's because I know this game's rooms in and out, or that I'm used to watching visually broken TASes, but I really don't get what was hard to follow at all. If anything I find Metroid II (a game I know just about as well as SM) "select glitch" TASes wwaaaay harder to follow by comparison. If it was too much for some people, I get it, but personally I had zero issue with it.
Then again I also made that disasterous X-Men TAS so you should probably ignore me.
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Link to video
Skip to 4:05 for new stuff.
So in Round 4, I start off by manipulating the coins up top to gain a huge cache of coins right off (another reason why I wasn't worried about losing coins through strat changes in Round 1-2). For starters in the caves, I found by wall jumping off the left walls to get over the pillars verses doing single-wall wall jumps on the right side pillars saved about 40 frames. I actually had to redo this whole section when I realized this.
As for the dragon boss glitch, the jumps around the stage aren't all for show. Even while the Dragon is off-screen I need his heads to be moving upwards to avoid any of it's fire/egg attacks that will make the glitch slower to pull off. A lot of testing was done in Round 2 with that Dragon to find the best ways of manipulating the boss' movement, all of which applied pretty well here as well. Funny enough, the RTA strat of just standing towards the wall and rapidly jumping and attacking works pretty well for this, but it isn't interesting to watch from a TAS perspective. Once the Dragon is in position, I start chipping away some health so that the bomb one-shot kills the dragon. I obviously want to be as close to the wall as possible so that the bomb goes off as fast as possible, but I found that you have about a 6 frames to get the bomb to connect where the next stage loaded up at the same frame.
Actually, quick thing about that. Does anyone know if frame rules are a thing in this game? Because I noticed even if I, say, kill a boss and grab a key/scroll a few frames faster than a previous state, the screen will fade out on the same frame. I notice this if it's between, like 5-6 frames usually.
Regardless, for the second fairy in the next section, it's almost a second faster to just wait up against the wall for the fairy to leave versus triggering the text boxes for it. Fairies only disappear when you have "passed" them, which in this case means the twin has to be up against the wall. The boss is kinda self-explanatory, but one thing of note is that the scroll always spawns from the boss and flies upward to the top of the screen and when it starts to drop, the scroll's hit box is active. Because of this, I had to make sure the boss was as high up as possible to save time with the scroll flying upward.
Again, only to a certain point though, as I would grab the scroll a couple frames earlier and the screen would fade out on the same frame as if I grabbed it later. I still grabbed the scroll on the earliest frame for consistency's sake. At this point the TAS is about a minute and a half faster than the current world record RTA.
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Not gonna lie. This was the absolute least fun I've had TASing anything ever. And anyone that goes out of their way to improve it has my respect. Can't say I'm "entertained" because, well Jesus look at the game, but that's to no fault of the TAS. You got a yes from me.
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Yeah I took that into account. The first section of round 4 allows me to grab a ridiculous amount of coins so I didn't need to waste the time to farm earlier. Plus, not sure if I mentioned before but I found the second sword upgrade to really not be worth it. It costs way too much, 15,000 coins, and barely makes a difference to attack power on bosses.
From here it'll be kind straightforward as the bomb is fairly easy to work with and bosses start to drop higher number coins, making farming easier.
I do have to look into ways of glitching the dragon boss as fast as possible in 4-1. I know how to do it, just not sure why it happens or if I can speed it up in anyway.
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I wish I could convey into text the long, bellowing scream of relief I let out after I finished the Golem Boss.
You can skip to the 2:00 minute mark for the improvements.Link to video
I'm gonna keep my notes short as it's really early in the morning where I am and I need sleep.
So, I decided to redo the ending portion of Round 3. I used a few lag reduction strats and skipped the health pellet and that got me to the boss fight 92 frames ahead of the last WIP. With some better boss manipulation I end the stage 120 frames ahead.
Heading into round 1 I found a better positioning for the miniboss and a way to save a lag frame that net me 4 more frames heading into the second portion of the level. I lost those 4 frames manipulating the Golem into a somewhat serviceable pattern. But overall, despite not being able to pick up the key on the first possible frame, having the Golem hit the right wall meant less slow travel time for the Golem, and allowed me to save 238 frames over the last WIP.
The actual strat on the boss saved 269 frames, but the slower key grab by not having a wall to walljump off of knocked that time save down to 238.
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So major bump as I haven't seen posts here for a while but I just finished up a project that I've been working on for a couple years on the side now. I don't have very many friends IRL and the few I do have don't really like electronic music much. I wanted to get some feedback and outside of self-promote-y YT comment spamming, this was the only place I could think where maybe I could get it.
https://cerqit.bandcamp.com/album/weathervane
It's a project called "Weathervane." I've always loved greenish-grey stormy days. We get a lot of them where I live. As such I've been trying to write music with tones and textures that, in my mind, fit that setting. A lot of my influences come from Elvin Jones and Nine Inch Nails, oddly enough. So there's a lot more jazz influence creeping in to my work now. I also made it a point to do a lot more live recording for this project. I started to fall into simply working within a DAW, drawing notes and not doing a lot of live keyboard, guitar or drum work, in part due to living in an apartment at the time. But being that the main influence of this album thematically is very organic, I wanted to use live recordings mixed with electronics to give a more organic feeling. "The human element", as someone would say.
Regardless I hope you like it, again just sort of looking for feedback.
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I'll test the strat with the red pill out. The only real advantage that the red pill gives me is I-frames to pass through the spikes slightly faster. Though I did neglect to see about reducing lag during that sectioin. In hindsight that's kinda what I regret most. The only worry I have is if getting to the shark boss faster will result in a bad pattern. But without testing I can't be sure.
When I get some time I'll retest that section of 3-2 to see if I can save any more time. Any little improvement counts.
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Sigh... Okay... So
There have been WAAAY too many IRL delays on this TAS. But long story short, here is the newest WIP for the first three rounds.
Link to video
For starters, this is ran in hard mode with the name DERP. DERP gives red twin max luck and highest amount of swings before a critical strike comes up. The second part can be basically a non-issue in a TAS setting where you can plan sword swings very precisely.
After a lot of testing, I found getting the first sword upgrade is most worth it. The second upgrade, not so much. The reason being that the second sword upgrade costs 15,000 coins, and the time it would take to farm that many coins and however much I’d need for magic orbs isn’t worth it and doesn’t end up saving time.
I found the best place to farm for coins quickly is Round 3. Through quite a bit of manipulation (which I will explain later) you can get yellow fish to spawn in sets of 3. Killing all three will cause the last one to drop a 500 coin, which can be manipulated into a 1000 coin, which can, in turn, be duped for a x2 bonus. Making it super quick to gain 2000 coins. Neither Round 1 or 2 allow for this level of quick farming, and ideally, I want to have a sword upgrade by the end of the first 3 rounds.
ROUND 2-1
I found the fastest strat for the first part of this stage was to avoid lag as much as possible. The biggest source of lag comes from the sprinklers, plus I want to try and de-spawn as many devil dudes as possible. I don’t spend time farming here because, as mentioned, I can save all of that for more profitable sections.
When heading up to Cupid, you can land a hit a few frames earlier, but by getting a little closer, the horizontal fire will stay on screen longer and land two hits at once to end the first phase immediately. Do the same thing for the second phase and Cupid is done for; simple enough.
ROUND 2-2
During the drop, I use the zip lines to delay when I grab the coins to dupe the 500 coins on the way down. On the last zip line I stay on for a few frames longer to put to twin in a position to drop past the platforms below, thus allowing him to smack the shell open for the magic orb, and grab it before the screen can catch up. As a bonus, this positioning allows me to dupe all of the coins on the top path without stopping forward movement. All except the last 10 coin, I had to stop moving for one frame to dupe this coin. This wasn’t necessary at all, but for the sake of entertainment, I chose to go for it to show off the luck manipulation.
Small note: jumping off of ledges is faster as it maintains the twin’s 2 p/f movement, whereas falling off a ledge drops your movement to 1 p/f.
For the dragon, you can land an off-screen hit fairly quickly, but manipulating the dragon to be vulnerable more often was the hard part. So the dragon has two main attacks: it’ll spit fire, or spit out an egg. Whatever you do, you don’t want it to spit out an egg, the heads are invulnerable for much longer after spitting an egg versus fire. After the dragon is disposed of, I dupe the coins and jump on the cloud.
Another small note: the cloud doesn’t leave the screen any faster if you are on the ground or in the air, it raises at 1 p/f regardless of where or how it grabs your twin.
During the rising section, you don’t want to grab all of the coins as that will cause a PERFECT BONUS screen to stay up for waaaaaaaay too long. What you do want to do is dupe all of the coins on the way up. Thankfully, this isn’t all that hard to do with max luck.
For the beans up top, I planned out sword slashes so I can use the longer hit box of the critical slash to take out a bean guy without waiting for him. Funny enough I didn’t have to do any sort of manipulation to get a good pattern out of these guys.
So after that round I refill my magic orbs and head to Round 3.
ROUND 3-1
The most important thing I want to do here is manipulate yellow fish to get them to spawn. The enemies you kill/spawn plus when you reach certain points in the stage causes certain enemies to spawn. Getting the first wave of yellow fish to spawn close to the ground by the first hidden chest allows me to grab not only the manipulated 1000 coin from the third fish, but also manipulate the hidden 500 coin to x2. This allows for a fast 3000 coin grab for the first wave.
Immediately after I force another wave of yellow fish to spawn just before the boss. I had to pause to cause a 1000 coin to drop, but in this case, it was more than worth it. I plan a critical sword strike to hit the crab boss as soon as possible, this allows me to place a typhoon right under him to land three hits one right after another with a single bomb. While the crab is being hit with the typhoon, I can dupe the 1000 coin, and grab the 500 coin in the chest for another total 3000 coins. After the boss dies, he drops a 500 coin which can also be duped for another 1000 coins.
Overall this ends up being a huge haul of coins, and enough to grab both magic orbs and the sword upgrade
ROUND 3-2
Wedging between the first set of doors and the blue crab is extremely tight. It also requires destroying the top wooden door to end up farther into the wall. Also hitting the crab to push him upward gets him farther out of the way. I need to avoid damage on the first crab as the damage boost on the second crab is much more worth it. This allows for a very small window to pass the third crab without slowing down or dying.
Coming up to the shark boi you can place a typhoon to one-shot the boss during the first phase. For the second phase I try to keep the shark in place to land two quick typhoons to take out this boss very quickly.
ROUND 1-1
Leading up to the first boss is very simple, just keep heading right.
I had to try every single available frame to find the fastest way to destroy the space ship. The positioning to the far right and firing the balls at this angle lands multiple hits immediately with minimal lag. Just for fun I dupe all of the 10 coins while I’m waiting for the ship to land. My goal with phase two is to hit the boss on the same frame he jumps out of the ship while also being on the far right to walk out of the stage as fast as possible. Jumping a slight bit positions the balls to bounce into the boss to land immediately.
That is where a lot of the challenge with this weapon comes in. I have to worry about the trajectory of the balls and test A LOT of different positions to find the most optimal solutions. This will be a HUGE pain with the next boss.
ROUND 1-2
The top path immediately at the start of the stage is quickened quite a bit by having the sword upgrade. I want to destroy the wall as fast as possible to grab the x2 500 coin. Unfortunately, taking damage in the lava is much faster than waiting for the platform to get into a position to get to the next platform safely. That and the pillar up top gets in the way of just jumping there directly. I have to wait for the stalactites to get out of the way, so I use this time to grab a few extra coins.
I grab the x2 500 coin from the hidden chest and head right. In my original routing, I head upward to grab the extra magic orb shell, but I found it wasn’t necessary and I could save more time by simply grabbing the coins and ignoring the shell. This also sets up the elevator to be in a position to where the twin can jump straight up and avoid stopping forward movement.
When I enter the boss area, the Golem AI is already activated, I found I could land multiple hits by letting the Golem hit the wall. The wall on the left is farther away, but more optimal for reasons I’ll explain in a moment. Being by the wall, bounces the balls in a way that takes out the first arm immediately. I swipe him with the sword to keep the Golem above ground for longer. This allows another ball to hit him and take out the second arm.
The second ball attack deals a lot of damage as the Golem is technically in the ground, but is still vulnerable as long as it’s attacking. This setup has the Golem looking to slam into the wall right after, and as such you can land another hit as soon as it enters the ground. The wall also allows for two balls to hit him on the same frame, hence the huge amount of damage a single hit deals. One of the balls that fired out directly vertically is used to deal the final hit and end the fight before the Golem can even reemerge.
Another advantage to doing all of this by the left wall is it allows the twin to grab the key the first frame it’s active to end the stage faster. On the downside, I couldn’t dupe all of the coins, but I was able to get all but 2 to x2.
It took me 4 hours to get this boss to act right, so I’ll finish the victory dance when I’m a little less dead.
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I thought about that but you spawn back with the basic fire magic orbs and can't regain your bombs. The fire is pretty inaffective on later bosses too (when you'd most likely need this strat) so it's completely suboptimal unless something else is found.
Plus the time it takes to die and respawn typically isn't worth it either.
I'm still working on this TAS and should have a finished WIP of the first 3 rounds soon. Just had a lot of irl things interrupt TASing time for me.
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To adress the scorpion boss fights, you can use two bombs on the crab refight, two on the mini boss of 4-2, leaving you with one left over. If you are in normal you can grab the free orb on the way to the first scorpion boss, plus manipulate the fairie just before to give you 3 bombs to drill through the boss immediately.
I know with the second scorpion boss if you use bombs to kill it you can regain 2 bombs on the fairies on the way to the pickaxe boss in 4-4 (iirc).
To be honest, I'm the type that leans toward pure speed when hard mode doesn't present a vast difference, which I feel applies to this game. My interest is kind geared towards showing off ridiculous luck that cannot be replicated by a human. Getting x2 bonuses all over the place, getting perfect fairie luck, perfect enemy AI, etc.
[Edit: all of that said I'm still down for hard mode]
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So double post time.
While working on the rerouting for this TAS, I think the best thing would be to decide yes or no on hard mode.
Pros and cons to hard mode:
+ preferred (but not required) difficulty
+ swordplay actually means something for boss fights
= can potentially avoid repetitive bosses (namely spam 2 or 3 bombs and the boss is dead). Though one could argue ending up with not enough bombs and having to swipe down a boss looks not only slow, but still repetitive. The latter is where my opinion lies, but that's neither here nor there.
= not as easy to compare for RTA runners looking for theory runs. Personally, it doesn't matter to me as I believe TASes inherently have different parameters and goals anyway. But some people may care, so I figured I'd mention it.
- cannot get fairie bomb drops
- as a result of the above, in order to optimally dispose of round 4 bosses, the sword upgrades will have to be collected.
- as a result of the above, the coin farming route will have to be altered slightly. The difficuly in this is mitigated quite a bit by the new info we have.
I have my opinions on what mode to chose but I wanted to know what others thought. [Edit: also does anyone think a blue twin, melee-centered TAS would be interesting to see as well?]
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Oh yeah the GENS thing was a simple typo, it's in Bizhawk but I (out of muscle memory) typed "GENS". I'll fix that once I'm back at my computer at home. That said, with all of this information in mind I'm most likely gonna start rerouting and planning a new TAS. Debating whether hard mode would add or take away from this run with the added time to kill bosses withoit possible bomb drops.
Really weird how much the name choice actually affects things but it's good to know.
[Update: fixed]
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Double post boi
Link to video
So I finished the dragon boss skip and the next stage and all that, but what I'm running into is an issue getting the fairies to drop magic bombs. I've been trying to manipulate them as that is a huge part to the routing for this run as far as bombs. This is the first place where they can actually save time. I found a speedrun.com post by JohnUK89 (related to Mike89? /kappa) where he explains a bit about the fairies. Apparently your twin has to be at full health. The way the notes for 4-2 make it sound like you have to have low coins too, but that doesn't help either. Besides, I think he meant, if you happen to have low coins and can't buy a bomb, the fairy is an option towards saving the run.
https://www.speedrun.com/Chiki_Chiki_Boys/thread/k538y
All of John's notes, however are geared towards normal mode, Red Twin RTA. I'm gonna feel stupid if it turns out that the fairies don't drop bombs on hard mode, but that is such a subtle difference I doubt that's the case. In any case, I haven't gotten the fairies to drop anything ONCE. I don't want to push through sub-optimally unless there's a good reason, because bomb drops will end up saving a lot of time on the upcoming bosses, especially in 4-3 and 4-4. So as it stands I have to take some time to figure out the fairy drops before I can proceed.[/i]
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I can only really comment on the spouse thing honestly.
When I first started TASing I was with my last girlfriend before my wife and she thought the whole thing was stupid and dumb. Not just TASing but being a "gamer" in general was dumb to her. But, especially at that point in my life a lot of people I knew felt that way. Once I started branching out from that group of friends and met my wife I saw a lot more people that were open. My wife isn't so much into TASing or speedrunning herself, but she's more of a story-focused RPG gamer. Still, she's very supportive and asks a lot of questions about what I'm doing while TASing.
I guess the point I'm getting at is personally I've seen people react every which way to TASing/TASers. Don't really believe there's any gender lines or anything like that.
Incidentally, I've always wondered just what percentage of gamers period actually like TASes. But I don't wanna go off topic any more than I have.
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Ahh, totally get it. I've actually been working on a TAS so far. Gonna post a WIP video. I'm actually heading into that dragon boss to see how to skip it. I have a few ideas on how it might be done but I don't wanna speculate until I can recreate it.
I'm mostly following the any% speedrun route only on hard mode. I'm doing a lot of manipulation on getting the coins to give me x2 bonuses which means I've been able to skip almost all of the grinding for coins to buy magic items.
On a side note, this is actually the happiest I've been making a TAS and seeing the result. I might not have known about this game if I didn't stumble onto your WIP, so thank you. Also hope you don't mind, I named to character "BORK" in tribute to the puppy in our upstairs apartment that hasn't stopped barking since I started making this TAS.
After this I might work on a character 1 TAS as well. It'll be much, much harder, but I think it would be fun to work around not having as much magic and having to make the melee-centered boss fights entertaining.
[edit: here's the video]
Link to video
Quick update, I got the glitch to work but I have less than zero a clue why it works. Just from observation, I know you have to chip a little bit of the dragon's health away until a single bomb will one-shot it (not too hard). You have to collide with the dragon behind the rocks at the same time as the bomb kills it. It won't damage you but you'll have to run into the dragon at least. My best guess is that the character hits a loading plane while the boss is technically dead so it okays you to go through, but why I can't seem to get it to happen anywhere else besides that corner, or if the dragon is too far out is beyond me.
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So major bump, but I started tinkering around with this game and found a few small improvements, here and there but I'll have to redo my inputs any way since I didn't realize you could skip the Sega screen at the beginning. I like what you have so far though, would definitely love to colab if you're interested too.
I'll post the WIP of some ideas I have so far once I'm back at my computer (on my phone atm).
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Yeah I'm an old married guy now. Part of the reason I stopped TASing for a bit.
Regardless, I can't explain just how excited I am over this publication. I've been waiting for a Lady Sia TAS for years now.
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Me: *HIGH PITCHED SCREAM*
Wife: *Runs into living room* "Oh my god, are you okay?!?!?"
Me: "klmz submitted the Lady Sia TAS!!"
She still hasn't come back. I'm slightly concerned.
yes vote
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No vote for what this hack does to Red Brinstar's theme.
In all seriousness, I really feel like this hack has nothing to offer outside of shallow appeal for speedrunners. Problem is, you should never attempt to design a good speed game; design a good game, and people will speed run it. The items being placed so close together with little actual exploration (the bloody point of a Metroid game) does very little to get me exactly enthralled with this hack.
The TASing itself looked just fine, but the hack is, frankly, mediocre at best. That ending can also die in a fire.
