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Maybe the only way to "justify" not getting the super emeralds is to simply call it a Super Knuckles run, as if that is your choice of character. Getting all of the super emeralds isn't so bad, though. They seem to be shorter than the earlier bonus stages, and they make your goals a lot clearer if you're going to be getting any emeralds at all.
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Bob A wrote:
I wouldn't know for sure because it's been so long, but can't you press up to select 11, and then go down to 8?
It only lets you do that if you have enough money to buy 11 (33000 GP), which I don't think he did.
Why is the item selling screen all messed up, by the way?
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DonamerDragon wrote:
if the human player is still playing the game, not a program. ... I just think a human player should be doing it entirely, even if he is using frame advance.
The thing is, the program is just doing what the player is telling it to, it's not like it's playing the game on its own like a person would. A human could likely duplicate those feats using less rerecords (and more time), but why bother if it's something so simple to describe that you can automate it?
Saying that is like saying you're not really playing the game if you use autofire or other macros because that puts in input for you, or that hex-editing your movie isn't really playing because you're not actually recording those frames. Those could be true, nobody claimed to be playing the game and it's probably not correct to call it "playing", but since when has that been a problem here?
DonamerDragon wrote:
Isn't a human suppose to be the one playing the game, not the program?
No, that's never been the point. If a program could beat the game it would, but it just happens that humans tend to be much better than most programs at finding fast ways to beat games.
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Xaphan wrote:
Finally, one who would like to do so must use the japanese rom as it's the one I used to perform my run...
Version changes for language switches have been allowed in the past as long as it's clearly an improvement when you discount the difference resulting from the version change. Now that the (U) (or (E)?) version of the ROM is available, it makes sense to use it.
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AKA wrote:
It happens randomly and it causes me to close Mupen down and re-start.
It looks like it thinks you are holding down the left arrow in the angular display, so maybe it would stop if you clicked on that button. Also, you can close the input window by holding left-click on it and hitting alt-F4, and you can reopen it by bringing up the input plugin settings, so you could try using that to "reboot" the input plugin without restarting the whole emulator.
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What was wrong with my attempted definition (at the end of page 5)? That seems to be the only obvious pattern followed by the movies that are already in that section.
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I wouldn't mind if the run doesn't get all of the super emeralds, since they don't let you do anything different with Knuckles. Although... is the ending different if you only have all of the chaos emeralds instead of all of the super emeralds?
EDIT: The only real disadvantage of not going Hyper is that you can't pick up giant rings to get 50 starting in Mushroom Hill, right?
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I'm still interested in this. I have to admit I think an any% Knuckles TAS could make a better movie simply because it will be a lot shorter and have more varied music, but it would have some slower sections and less tricks too, and this is probably the best Sonic game for getting all emeralds and making use of them. Either way, Knuckles plays extremely differently from Sonic.
As was said before, a Hyper Sonic run could also be interesting... not only does he have much better stats than anyone else, but that air dash move basically trumps all other abilities (including glide-cancel).
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Most of the movie pages on SDA do something like that, with the screenshot on the right being chosen at random when the page loads, but I don't think they provide any way to see all of the screenshots at once.
xoinx wrote:
though updating every run on the site would be tedious. Or would this only apply to new publications?
Probably it would only apply to whatever publications editors feel like uploading multiple screenshots for.
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Anon wrote:
If TASes of Chrono Trigger and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow were accepted with the SRAM that allowed them to access special modes, I see no reason why a hard run mode of MMZ4 wouldn't be accepted.
As long as the author provides a from-start movie or uses an existing published one that creates the same SRAM used by the movie, I see no reason not to allow that in general, because it proves that the SRAM was not tampered with. So I agree, but only if a hard mode run of MMZ4 would be somehow more interesting than a normal mode run of it.
This particular movie could not have used hard mode without changing its goals, as some things to collect are missing in hard mode, right? It looks like it will be rejected for doing lots of suboptimal things, anyway.
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SaxxonPike wrote:
I owe the carbonated expulsion to the stunt Carnival Zone (which was then used again multiple times later, most notably in Ice Cap)
Actually the Carnival Night 1 trick only happens that one time. It tricks the game into thinking Sonic is on one of those carousel wheels no matter where he goes, so he can walk up walls and ceilings without falling, and when he walks off an edge the game pushes him rapidly in some direction in hopes of getting him back on the wheel. I used the curves in the level to slingshot around until it thought Sonic was on the right side of the wheel, so it pushed him left through the left edge of the level. It's possible to keep that glitch into act 2, but it's useless there and would mean a slower act 1 boss fight, so I cancel it by jumping (off of the wheel, so the game thinks).
That's quite different from the glitch used in Icecap and Flying Battery. That one makes it think Sonic is on a non-curving sprite-based object, and can only be cancelled by getting on a real sprite-based object such as the button on a capsule. Instead of pushing Sonic down when he walks off an edge and letting him walk up curves onto walls, it won't even attempt to make Sonic follow the surface of the level and will let him stand in the air. Also, it makes it almost impossible to spindash because it usually acts as if Sonic is standing on the edge of some object even if he's on the ground. The Icecap boss would have been a few seconds slower without somehow getting Tails there in time, because Sonic couldn't spindash and had no lightning shield.
JXQ wrote:
Oh, does that mean the improvements really aren't?
No, they are, but it makes them more difficult to make than they should be.
EDIT: Found a drastically different Hydrocity 2 route that is faster and avoids any possible interaction with timed objects, so no wait needs to be added after act 1. But Lava Reef 2 isn't working out well.
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For the Mushroom Hill 2 and Launch Base 2 screenshots, both of those are in cutscenes and are about what you will normally see when you get to that point in a Sonic and Tails game. For the Angel Island 1 screenshot, it has an unsettlingly ugly background.
Hydrocity 2 was my idea because it looks nice, it is in the actual gameplay, it is one of those rare moments where both Sonic and Tails are onscreen and not curled up into a ball, it is something of a glitch that Sonic is walking instead of rolling there despite having just done a spindash, and it is certain to not be in any later revisions of the movie.
My suggestions are:
But, obviously it doesn't matter very much whatever the screenshot is.
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It's hard to think of any screenshot that would do this run justice. There is psuedo-time-lapse, but that wouldn't be a real screenshot.
EDIT: The new one looks good to me.
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mike89 wrote:
Would something similar be possible by abusing Sonic/Tails' invincibility time after a hit?
It's a special case for when Sonic is Super or has an invincibility monitor (which is a little too far out of the way to get without losing more time than it gains, even with the speed shoes next to it). Knuckles won't take damage then otherwise. You can easily test this even with Sonic alone, it simply doesn't work.
comicalflop: That fight completely ignores the normal rules of hit detection that apply everywhere else.
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upthorn wrote:
"Sonic: Genesis" appears to suck; very, very badly...
AKA wrote:
Unless there was something wrong with the capture then the GBA version plays very badly.
I wouldn't say anything about how bad it is when they haven't even finished it yet.
EDIT: Now that they have released it, criticize away. Looks like they never finished it. It lags all the time and has completely different physics.
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If you have an even older version you should get that, to eliminate the possibility that any other problem you have is because of an outdated version. But for your problem, use the savestate hotkeys, not "save as" (which isn't fixed yet).
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comicalflop wrote:
I asked not long ago if you were interested in doing this, you said maybe and BAM we get another run. I have no idea how you come out with such amazingly great movies, IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME.
It was already well nearing completion when you asked that question. It wasn't done that quickly.
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It is highly unoptimized. I was considering doing a 2-player expert mode run sometime, although if someone else wants to do it that's great since I don't know when/if I would ever get around to it. I think the best weapon would be tracking flame for both players, unless the exploding fireball can do enough damage (initial tests indicate it can't) when the players are temporarily busy throwing each other at the enemies and kicking them to make up for having less attack power than tracking flame. I don't know about free vs. fixed, they have advantages and disadvantages so maybe one of each would give the most flexibility. I doubt this game has much in the way of bugs, though, besides some small bugs with switching weapons while firing them.
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upthorn wrote:
Are you going to incorporate either of these tricks into your run?
Probably, but not immediately. See my edited post at the end of page 2. There's a chance I'll get it done in a few days though, if it turns out to be easier than I think it will. (Does anyone know of any other possible improvements?)
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xoinx wrote:
I have a question on the multi track recording... if player 1 inputs were made first and the game emulated those frames based on a player 2 staying still, then wouldn't recording a player 2 input afterwards screw up the way it randomizes the game and also desyncs for player 1?
There is barely any randomness in the game (unless you count subpixel positions...), and the game is good about not lagging most of the time. The bigger problem is that each player affects the other in some way. Sonic affects Tails because he controls the camera which determines what Tails can interact with or pass through, and Tails affects Sonic because (obviously) he can carry Sonic while flying, sometimes unintentionally. But those are things I can control.
When both players had something to do and needed to interact, what I usually did was: record a few seconds with Sonic until past where Tails can make a difference, then go back and record it with Tails now that I know about where Sonic will be, then re-record over the last part of what Sonic did to be more optimal now that I know where Tails will be, and keep going back and forth until apparently neither one can make a change that would allow for the other one to do something faster. Desync isn't a big problem because I'm purposely causing and re-recording over desyncs on alternating tracks at progressively later times.
The hardest part to coordinate was the first round of the two-hands part of the final boss fight, because anything done by either player there is almost guaranteed to immediately desync anything done by the other player. Usually at least one player is independant of the others' actions for a brief time, but there I had to keep making changes until it suddenly worked for both players.
eredani wrote:
Lava Reef 1 ... Hydrocity 2 ...
I wish someone had posted these sorts of things earlier about SprintGod's movie, although it's partly my fault as well. I actually did try both of those a few times, but nothing much happened (most of the glitches in this game require doing some usually-worthless things very precisely).
But, obviously it doesn't matter very much whatever the screenshot is.
