r0xm2n and Raiscan, thanks for your great support and help (especially Raiscan for encoding questions). You helped to finish the run faster and with more precision.
Comments:
About shadow:
IMO shadow is not the explorer, as described at the sonic retro page. That role suits Mighty better, as you are granted additional stamina and moves for exploring the map for shields (in this case you usually have enough rings to perform the shield swap).
I think it is better to use shadow to avoid the level layout by taking upper routes and jumping over obstacles.
It seems to me also, that some abilities contradict each other.
Compared to sonic, his normal form is very weak (sonic is overpowered anyway imo), so getting the emeralds is the most reasonable with shadow. Therefore you need the 50 rings at the end of the stage, which is difficult, as you hardly get rings while flying over the level and on top of that his dash costs 5 rings. This prize is very high, considering, that he has the least floor contact, due to his double jump, especially since sonic's dashjump does pretty much the same, is executable on the floor and air and is for free (however shadow's dash DOES benefit from sprint shoes).
On the other hand, his super form mostly outperforms the ones from the other characters (at least taswise), due to the seemingly unlimited acceleration and the resulting ability to glitch through the level. The downward dash is the only thing, that he misses.
Interesting facts for tasing:
- while the height of the first jump can be controlled, the vertical velocity of the second jump is fixed
- the ability to roll into a ball mid air is essential, as it allows to perform the double jump, hits enemies and can decrease upwards movements (earlier floor contact after springs)
- unfortunately the bounce after a homing attack can not be controlled, however it very often resets the ability to double jump (not bosses)
- I still don't know why, but during sunset hill zone the speed addresses B018 (horizontal), B01A (vertical) and B01C (general), changed permanently to D010, D012 and D014. I was never able to use the first addresses again
- to reach the high velocities in the super form, A needs to be autofired, not held (which isn't fun due to constant lag)
- as long as he is fast enough, shadow can break item boxes by running through them (this partly makes good for the ugly running animation)
-the sprites always on top option makes it a lot easier to detect hidden item boxes, springs and the annoying drill enemies in misty maze zone
- misty maze zone (= labyrinth zone) lags as hell
About the run:
- I didn't aim for complete perfection, as the hack is still on progress, making a run only temporarily important. Especially the first 3 zones were played rather sloppy.
- did not test many routes for the special stages
- using the s-slopes would probably have been faster than jumping over them in sunset hill 2 and 3
- The route for the second emerald was not only copied from upthorn, it was performed worse
- upthorn's glitch in the second act seemed not to work as good for shadow, so I didn't include it. There is also a second possibility before the 1st boss
- many levels except for sunset hill and city outskirts have roofs above the screen to prevent skipping parts
- ring collection routes for dark fortress zones were the worst
- shadow (and probably other characters as well) can't run on top of platforms with a fence below in the city outskirts zones
- I needed to slow down in starry night 2. there seems to be a lot of glitching potential there due to the high speed, however it only happened arbitrarily and always in the wrong direction. I bet nitsuja could rape these parts
- the pushing block trick in metallic base zone (=scrap brain), was not possible. however the first one pushes shadow in the upper platform, which unfortunately only enabled glitching to the left
- all routes for metallic base 2 seemed to be about the same length, so I just took the route with the fastest 50 rings collection
- for metallic base 3 I still don't know if this route would have been the fastest. The other one would have had enough rings for the super form, but much longer (also very late transformation)
- with hindsight, I agree, that making the last hit on the end boss would have been better. I'm sorry about that
@ r0xm2n: To be honest, I didn't check for glitches at the bridge during the run, but it sounds very likely, that you are right. Maybe I will check on this. If I find a way, I will post it. Great find, thanks.
PS: Youtube link to the run is in my previous post
