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Soooo... it's been a while. Life's been a bit hectic, but I've still been making some slow, steady progress. Naturally, with this game's unfriendly RNG and entropy, the raft had many subtle differences (kappa position and timing, if/when crab bubbles pop, boss bomb throw distance, etc.), so I couldn't just follow the choreography of the original. Coming up with a new raft routine that can match or surpass the original has been tedious work, but I think I've got a segment that I can say I'm happy with now.
Here's up to killing the Raft Bomber Miniboss:
Link to video
Movie file can be downloaded here (created using BizHawk 1.11.1).
Continuing the frame count diffs from Cyclops 2 dies: old @ 11984 / new @ 11498 (-486)...
Miniboss appears: old @ 15617 / new @ 15083 (-534)
I tried to be a bit smarter with the zombie hovers this time around so the lag could be kept to a minimum. They now get used in areas with little to no lag, and even though the game slows down a bit when using them on the crabs, it's still faster than what the original did. I also tried to be a little more "expressive" with Pocky and Rocky and was able to include a few more trick shots.
Even though I couldn't quite do everything I was hoping for (namely the rhythmic 1-2-3 shore kappa hits because they spawned further apart this time), I'm pretty happy with the improvements made here in both speed and entertainment.
Miniboss dies: old @ 16316 / new @ 15763 (-553)
Having access to TASStudio this time around was both a blessing and a curse. It facilitated a good amount of lag reduction and more seamless attack sequencing, but it also exposed how awful this game can be at times. I'll spare you the full rant, but here are a few quick things to give you an idea:
-- Inputs are alarmingly likely to get eaten or overwritten with the previous input on the frame after the other character inputs a shoot command.
-- Say you have several shots mapped out for the boss and they all hit perfectly on every 4th frame. Now you work on moving the other character around. Depending on the position or facing of the moving character, the shots may no longer line up, even if there's no lag or collision.
-- Sometimes characters will walk just a tiny bit further when the other character is moving. This can present an issue if you're running a series of shots right up to the edge of the raft.
-- Diagonal movement in this game has 2 additional frames of "momentum" if you change your input to U/D/L/R. For example, if you have a few frames of diagonal movement, release one of the directions for 1-2 frames, and then resume the original diagonal input, your movement would be no different than just holding the diagonal. I've known this for a long time, but what I didn't know is that in some rare instances, releasing one of the diagonal inputs in the manner described above can prevent lag.
Fortunately, the difficult parts should be out of the way and the octopus boss is a lot less complicated (at least with the attack math now known), so I'm not anticipating many more differences from the original for the rest of this stage.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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If it's of any help, I just encountered the same problem on a laptop running Windows 10 and got around it by adjusting the "Change the size of text, apps, and other items" setting (Settings -> System -> Display) from 125% to 100%.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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So this segment took a bit more time than expected and the bamboo forest is still annoying to optimize, but the payoff has been worth it. I'll kind of miss this stage's double dashes, but all of these gains were just too substantial to pass up.
Link to video
here's the original again for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWMlDwvnpSM&t=111s
A quick description of saved time so far:
Screen transition up: old @ 7396 / new @ 7345 (-51)
The old double dash had to rely on some extra bounces to get headed in the right direction, which briefly delayed the screen transition. Since I'm solo dashing through there now, there's no need to wait.
Cyclops 1 appears: old @ 7874 / new @ 7744 (-130)
As mentioned previously, the solo dashes get through the first vertical section a bit faster on account of the lag + not needing to set up the tricky 2nd double dash. Even while taking the time to pre-damage the tengu, this version still comes out faster.
Cyclops 1 dies: old @ 8345 / new @ 8110 (-235)
Much less lag this time around due to the RNG I described in my post above causing a significant delay in the Cyclops's fire breath. If that RNG causes his target to change before his fire attack, he resets his routine (move left/right towards target -> attack) and wastes more time just moving. I'd estimate the early tengu kill to be a wash due to the similarly laggy monkeys it gets replaced with.
Bomb get: old @ 9477 / new @ 9162 (-315)
The trip through the bamboo forest is also faster with solo dashes, as was found earlier, but not implemented at the time because overhauling this level was too large of an undertaking. This is a further revised route that allows both characters to get past the line of seedlings at the end without having to damage boost.
Bamboo boss appears: old @ 9809 / new @ 9427 (-382)
Positioning both characters for an ideal tengu spawn at the bomb allowed me to kill them both immediately and not have to wait for either to reappear later. A tiny moment of waiting from Rocky was needed to bait the bamboo seedlings out of the ground though.
Bamboo boss dead: old @ 10438 / new @ 10003 (-435)
I found a better bomb position and timing, allowing for a pseudo-one-shot of the boss. A single normal attack is still required from Pocky, since the first hit on this boss (no matter what it is) causes an absurdly long invincibility period while a unique "hop" animation plays out.
Cyclops 2 appears: old @ 11624 / new @ 11143 (-481)
I originally thought that taking the time out to kill those bamboo seedlings (160 HP each!) would come out even with the original laggy double dash, but I was proven wrong. Killing half of them and damage boosting through the others (since I had health to spare) wound up being noticeably faster.
Cyclops 2 dies: old @ 11984 / new @ 11498 (-486)
This fight duration is nearly identical to the original. I'd attribute the 5 frame difference to a marginally more fortuitous timing of lag frames. I may adjust this fight a little bit still since I could easily dump Pocky into the water for some faster damage (similar to the octopus) and to get her down to one heart for Zombie Hovers on the raft.
Finally: Do you want to know where Black Mantle is?
This is basically the sprite delay glitch taken one step further. I saw it happening when I was putting together the original run, but could only get it to happen on inferior strats, so I didn't bother. This time, however, since Pocky only needs one shot at the bamboo boss, both characters can continue the sprite delay glitch until Rocky's bomb goes off. I'm not entirely sure what the exact technical cause is, but I'm thinking the combination of sprite delay + this boss's unique "invincible hop" + a bomb somehow breaks the connection between the boss and its dialog. The text will eventually disappear as soon as the raft starts moving.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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After spending some more time in the bamboo forest, I'm starting to better understand the significance of the game's RNG clock @ 000002/000003. It turns out that when 000002 loops back from 255 to 0, it increments 000003 and changes certain things in the game, like which character is targeted by enemies.
For example, I approach an area that will spawn some Tengu. They drop on Rocky. Note the 000002 and 000003 values.
If I wait before entering that same area and let the 000003 increment occur, the Tengu will drop on Pocky instead.
The same RNG applies to the bamboo seedlings and which character they chase.
It also appears to be responsible for item chest RNG, flipping between items depending on the 000003 value when the chest is opened:
And I'm sure there's even more that I have yet to see.
That said, with each change taking 256 frames to occur, it doesn't exactly lend itself to a whole lot of useful manipulation unless you coincidentally wind up with a "switch moment" near a part where it might matter. If nothing else, it's at least something worth keeping an eye on.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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So I've downed the first Cyclops again. The good news is that I've saved over 200 frames. The (not really) bad news is that I'm kind of torn on how I should go about doing it.
Here is the published run timestamped to match the segments below for reference.
Option 1 (208 frames faster):
Double dashes again, but does it better. 94 frames better, to be exact. This is mostly because I didn't think that first angle I hit here was possible originally. I still have to handle the Tengu in the middle of the Cyclops fight, but it turns out I can do that better as well. I figured out how to generally manipulate the Cyclops into walking a bit further before shooting fire and was also gifted with a less aggressive Tengu flight pattern. Those things, coupled with ignoring the Tengu to kill the Cyclops with as few lag frames as possible results in another 114 frames improved. Having the Tengu hang around after the Cyclops dies does not cause extra lag or hold up the screen from moving on, so there's basically no time penalty beyond their lag during the fight. They'll also disappear shortly after the screen transition if left alone.
Link to videoOption 2 (235 frames faster):
This trades double dashes for solo dashes in order to preemptively damage the Tengu. Their initial spawn and behavior still kept me from being able to kill them outright (at least without an absurdly long wait), so I do what damage I can while maintaining momentum towards Cyclops. This is 130 frames faster than the original as well. The first Tengu can be killed before the Cyclops starts spitting fire, so the whole fight is a bit less laggy. I thought things were going well at this point, but it turns out the game thinks the Cyclops will be too lonely with only one Tengu friend and will spawn 3 monkeys to replace the dead one. You just can't win here. Still, the fight goes 105 frames faster than the original, and having leftovers at the end is not big deal.
Link to video
Personally, I'm leaning slightly towards Option 1 but would be happy with either. I just like the tricky double dashes a bit more and think they might possibly be worth the ~30 frames / 0.5 sec difference. It also provides a more seamless route towards being able to zombie hover on the raft for further entertainment. Option 2, though not too big of an inconvenience would require me to do something like jump Pocky off the raft to get her to hover-ready health. Still, slower is slower, so I figured I'd try to solicit some feedback here in case my preferred option might not be as well received.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Hey, just wanted to stop in and mention that I'm back to working on this. Kinda hype to be able to do this with TAStudio now since it wasn't fully up and running until I was most of the way done with the original run.
Goals at the moment are as follows. Feel free to provide any suggestions.
GENERAL
-- Try to clean up unnecessary inputs.
STAGE 1
-- Take a quick look at the super-laggy area near the sage to see if improvements are possible.
-- In the boss intro, sync the melee attacks with the music better. Also clean up Pocky's movements since they were a little sloppy getting her in to position.
STAGE 2
-- Redo the whole stage from the first screen transition onwards. It's an unfortunate necessity due to the sheer amount of entropy present in this level.
-- Try to kill first tengu pair earlier in hopes of drastically cutting down lag on the first cyclops.
-- Damage boost through bamboo seedlings if it's faster than double dashing or better facilitates killing the tengu.
-- Implement the improvements found earlier for the area between the first cyclops and bamboo miniboss. Should shed approximately 200 frames.
STAGE 3
-- See if first double dash can be improved.
-- See if manipulating the boss into doing his other attack might be less laggy (not sure why I didn't check this earlier...)
-- No plans beyond that, I really like where the other parts this stage are at the moment. At best, I may very slightly tweak some of the inputs in the canyon. Here's hoping they don't desync.
STAGE 4
-- Maybe fool around with the lag bridge a little more. Not sure I can make it any better than it currently is, but it's worth a shot.
-- Probably going to leave the auto-scroller alone since it's in a really good place with the boss being one-shotted and the entertainment being lag-free.
STAGE 5
-- See if I can do a little better around the eye lasers section of the first area. Not quite sure what else might have improvement available.
STAGE 6
-- Will give a cursory glance to the first screen, but not expecting to find anything.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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fsvgm777 wrote:
<video>
(in French, as usual)
Nice, thanks for sharing.
I'll be working a little on this game again sometime this month or next to improve, at a minimum, some parts of stages 1-3 that have been bothering me for a little while.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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electricslide wrote:
My only complaint is about the Octopus boss, and jumping into the water. How much time would be wasted if you stayed above board?
Unfortunately I don't have an exact number since I scrapped my partial "normal" attempt after discovering that strat, but from my calculation notes at the time, the savings total up to roughly 1000 frames / 16.5 seconds. Compared to RTAs which kill it normally, the difference is about 19 seconds.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Akisto wrote:
i start my timing on start and end on mantra kill SDA uses on character control, but i feel like thats wrong since already at the start you manipulate the intro to give you a sage otherwise its a reset
True, it's definitely not a fair comparison, but it's the closest in terms of time that I could find. Without this site having an accepted TAS that I could compare mine to, I chose to mention RTAs because they're the only other good examples of speedrunning this game has available at this time. This was done mostly to give people who might be unfamiliar with this game a basic idea of how fast it can normally be played.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Very nice! Congrats on finding nearly perfect RNG and putting down a solid run with it. I'll update the submission text accordingly (though the time difference will be a little greater due to the difference in TAS/RTA timing standards).
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
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Frames improved so far: 577
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And that's a wrap:
Link to videoUpdated .BK2 file (BizHawk 1.7.2)
Alternatively, I have a temp encode of the whole run which can be found here
Unfortunately it turned out that the start of Stage 6 wasn't quite the DOUBLE DASH ALL THE THINGS wonderland that it is for RTAers. With one exception, double dashing causes just enough lag to make it slower than solo dashing and selective killing by an annoyingly small margin. Suffice it to say this increased the difficulty of getting through there by a bit.
The enemy needing the most attention when it came to manipulation were the large beasts. If the character it's targeting is too far off from the middle of the screen, it will leap to the left or right to block them. The only time it won't do this is while it's preparing to shoot its large fireballs.
As with the Stage 5 boss, I waste about 10 frames walking instead of dashing up to the armor miniboss. Its sprite delay glitch turned out to be the best in the game, though tragically short-lived since there is no dialog to wait through. It will likely be a suggested screenshot in the submission.
Strategy is basically the same as RTA. Use a bomb to take out as much of its 2560 HP as possible and then abuse its collision-free torso to quickly and safely deal out the rest of the damage. The best bomb I could get dealt 2000 damage, which took its health low enough that it didn't even have enough time to shoot its laggy lightning.
Finally there's the fight with Black Mantle. Since its sprite delay isn't nearly as amusing and Pocky and Rocky have a ton of health that would slow down the bonus time, I use the shield to lose nearly all of it in sync with the music.
Black Mantle has 4096 HP and his shield-generating statues have 640. The first bomb takes out the shields and deals 1200 points of damage to Black Mantle. This was definitely more than I was expecting. Once he becomes vulnerable again, overlapping Rocky and Pocky's last bombs yields 3000 damage in total and immediately ends the fight and the game.
Since the official timing of these videos appears to be taken from power on to last required input, I ended the movie file immediately at the last bomb input. If for some reason this is less desirable than extending the time with some minor entertainment during bonus downtime, then it can be easily added. I could also forego jumping into the shield repeatedly if it's not well received since it technically wouldn't make the last input occur any earlier or later.
One last quick note for RTAers: the timing and positioning to get a 1200 damage first bomb on Black Mantle is loose enough that an RTA should be able to easily replicate it or come very close. It's basically dead-center and about 6 frames worth of downward movement from the point where you'd take damage from the shield (a tiny bit further than that is okay as well). The other two bombs require way more precision in placement and timing, so I unfortunately can't make any good recommendations in that regard.
And now for the end result:
Frames: 67321
Time: 18:40.18
Rerecords: 59565
If there are any objections or questions, now's the time, because I'm going to start working on finalizing my submission text, doing one final check for any low-hanging fruit, and then submit it sometime within the next few days. After that, my plan is to take a break and then come back to this game fresh, chasing further improvements on every stage and adjusting anything that might not be up to snuff with those reviewing the submission.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Now with all of the crazy work, holidays, and vacationing out of the way, I can get back to this. Here's Stage 5 completed. The new stuff starts around 1:45.
Link to videoBK2 File (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
Right away there's another tricky area in terms of optimization. You have to wait for the sage to drop the bomb, but the question is where. Running straight through to the next set of spiky balls moves you further in the level faster, but brings about a ton of lag due to the balls, spark enemies, and sage all crowding the screen. Keeping away from the spiky balls saves some lag, but puts you at a positional disadvantage and delays the last spark which still needs to die before proceeding (again, because lag). The best compromise I could find was to kill the two sparks on the other side of the wall ASAP and then stage Pocky in a place to pick up a bomb and kill the last spark quickly while Rocky started to venture into the spiky balls.
Pocky uses item invincibility out of convenience rather than necessity this time since these spiky balls don't present nearly as much of a challenge. No manipulation is needed this time since safe areas are never more than a single diagonal dash away.
As with the previous one, it is possible (albeit very difficult) to double dash cleanly through the fire-spitting blockade and the twisting path, but it's way too laggy. The fire-spitter and spark are simply on screen too long. It wound up being faster to kill them both and proceed into the next area normally. Hand enemies are killed again to make productive use of time while Rocky catches up and minimize lag on the next double dash.
That double dash again follows the RTA because it's really good and the area it bypasses is really terrible. There's enough going on there that you're basically stuck with another mountain of lag no matter what you do. It's also at this point you can see that the Mandolin Lady's speedrunning game is not quite as strong as we once thought it was while Pocky and Rocky pass her by. I found this to be way more funny than it probably really is after just getting done crunching through so many iterations in this section. Any contribution to lag she might have is negligible because the game is already at its limit (every other frame lag) and waiting the 30-ish frames it takes for her to despawn is slower overall.
On the approach to the boss, I walked the last bit of distance instead of dashing to enable the sprite delay glitch. I figure the entertainment is worth the ~10 frame cost. If I had dashed, the glitch would not be possible due to the characters being stuck in dash recovery before and after the boss loading pause.
The vampire/bat boss is a big fat liar, claiming he has 32767 HP, but in reality, the total is closer to 2048. How his HP works is that once you deal more than 512 damage, he transitions to Phase 2 (bat form), which has 1536 HP. Unfortunately the transition to the "real" HP number isn't always immediate if he's in the middle of doing something, which is nearly all the time. Any extra damage dealt beyond the initial 512 or during that delay time will not carry over into Phase 2.
In spite of that possible delay and the boss's slightly smaller size limiting bomb effectiveness, at least one bomb is still needed here. The boss is ridiculously mobile and even likes to fly around off-screen at times. Phase 2 is equally awful because the boss will form a sizable rotating shield of individual bat enemies that get in the way of dealing damage to him. I was going in to this battle expecting to need two bombs, but got away with just one. This was accomplished by positioning and timing Rocky's bomb to catch the boss between actions so to not waste any damage ticks during the phase transition. This left the boss with only 536 HP, which turns out is just barely low enough that it can be taken out with normal shots before the boss finishes its transformation animation and starts building its shield. Considering how narrow the timing is at both points here, I don't think it'd be a viable RTA strat.
Having the additional bomb for Stage 6 will definitely work out in my favor. I just need to figure out how I'm actually going to use it. I'll tweak the bomb planning sheet once I figure it out, but I'm fairly certain at this point I'll be using it on the final boss to skip fighting the statues and do a little damage to him early.
Unfortunately the extra hearts left in reserve for each character extend the bonus time slightly (16 frames per 1/2 heart), but since I couldn't find a practical or entertaining way to lose more health, I decided to let it go. Arbitrary damage would have cost about as much time and would likely diminish entertainment.
PJ wrote:
Your notes are really entertaining for me to read, too. Haha. I hope you include them all in your submission comments. :D
Yes, they'll be there for the most part. I'm planning on at least concisely covering all of the noteworthy technical points, difficulties, tricks, lag management points, etc.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
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Frames improved so far: 577
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I've definitely got some overlap with what's been posted here already, so here's what hasn't.
Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Aporon) - a coming of age / friendship / romance story centered around jazz with plenty of feels. Naturally, the soundtrack is AMAZING, but don't you dare listen to it before watching (because spoilers, yes, really). Faithfully covers about 90% of the manga. SFW.
Nichijou - a wildly over the top caricature of the "ordinary" lives of a group of female high school students. Not the fastest-moving or most eventful plot, but if full-on Japanese humor sits well with you and you can recognize at least some of the occasionally obscure (to non-natives) cultural references, it's a riot to watch. Strangely enough, its less serious sections tend to have better animation than many serious anime. Mostly SFW with some PG-13 suggestive themes.
Initial D - a staple for anyone even mildly interested in mountain racing / drifting. It's not the most realistic thing ever, but it's not so far out there to be a turn off an automotive enthusiast like myself. I'd put it at about 75% reasonable, 25% fluff. Anyway, it's well-known enough that I probably don't need to say any more. Mostly SFW with some PG-13 suggestive themes and language.
Samurai Champloo - a serious / not serious story following two very dissimilar samurai and the girl they're indebted to. Same director as Cowboy Bebop and it shows. Somehow anachronistically mashes in some hip-hop style, but it works incredibly well overall. Great anime all-around. NSFW.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Here's up to the sage:
Link to video.BK2 File (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
At the start is the before-mentioned health grab for Pocky, while Rocky cleans up enemies to reduce the upcoming double dash lag. The fire breathing blue head things require 16 hits to kill, so the moderate amount of lag required to dash through them pales in comparison. The hand enemies are cleaned up on the way to set up the next dash as well, because the lag reduction makes it faster overall.
Further experimentation in the spiky ball area still has me thinking it's a combination of a timer and screen position, but I still have yet to work out the specifics. That said, the possibilities for manipulation aren't as numerous in practice as I was expecting, so I went ahead and completed the area.
The main things limiting route choices here are the restrictive nature of solo dashes, the skeletons, and health restrictions (to keep upcoming double dashes).
The dashes are problematic because they're required to avoid the spiky balls when there are no safe areas nearby, but commit you to a lengthy distance and recovery time. Because of that, the next ball can quickly become difficult, if not impossible to avoid. Dashing diagonally instead of upward helps at times, but is far from a magic bullet for manipulation or spiky ball avoidance.
The skeletons were almost as big of a pain as the spiky balls. They target one character at a time and will occasionally switch. They will attack in the direction of the character as soon as they line up horizontally, regardless of which path they may be on. If you happen to be adjacent to one targeting you, it's nearly impossible to avoid taking damage. Once you combine all of that with their positions, you're basically guaranteed to take damage from them at least once, barring an impractical amount of path shuffling and waiting.
As for health, I needed to eventually get Rocky on the left, otherwise the skeletons were going to eat away most of his health. He actually didn't wind up needing more health from the chest, but the brief invulnerability it grants provided the only viable pacing I could find to safely get past the last few balls. Since Pocky had health to spare, she took all of the skeleton damage and used it for damage boosting.
Once out of the spiky ball area, it is possible to double dash through the next blue head fire breathing thing, but it travels too far, activates the spiky balls, and becomes prohibitively laggy while waiting for the sage.
Finally, in case you didn't notice it in the spiky ball area, Pocky shrugged off what should have been hits from two of the balls @ 0:20 and 0:24. No idea why at this time, but I'll try to look into it.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Made it to the spiky balls and tested dashing through/over them successfully. It does appear to be during the hop where collision is avoided. The timing is relatively flexible (basically the entirety of the time a character is off the ground), but manipulating the spiky balls to not spawn in the same path while recovering, while possible, is still an unknown to me. At a glance, I'm guessing it's driven off of some combination of the frame counter and screen position coordinates, but I'm not really sure at this point. I'll definitely be spending some time here trying to figure it out because getting through without taking damage would be amazing (but not required since I can still spend 2-3 hearts if needed).
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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PJ wrote:
I'm sure you already know this, but there are several ways to get through the spike ball section on the far right. If you damage boost off a skeleton guy, the balls will not crush you during your invincibility frames. The damage boost even refreshes your dash, so you can cover a lot of ground. You can also dash straight through the spike balls if you dash immediately before they crush you. I don't know what the frame window is, but it should be easy enough to test. I know it is consistent though, because I used to do it pretty frequently in our practice sessions.
Keep up the great work, t0ast! This is looking amazing!
I knew about using the skeletons to quickly damage boost through the spike balls, but not about dashing through them. I'm guessing the hop at the start prevents the collision? Regardless, will definitely try to put that to use, so thanks for the tip and encouragement as always :-)
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
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Frames improved so far: 577
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First part of Stage 5:
Link to video.BK2 file (Bizhawk 1.7.2)
As expected, this stage is shaping up to be quite difficult.
Explosive Barrels are the first major obstacle. Double dashing through them suffers a substantial amount of lag, but when the alternative involves triggering the barrel through 9 hits or proximity, waiting through the ~50 frame detonation sequence, and then staying clear of the large explosion area, it's the lesser of two evils. Interestingly enough, the barrels only pay attention to the proximity of only one of the characters at a time. They will occasionally switch which character is targeted, but I'm not sure what triggers the switch at this time. It's really difficult to see in practice here, but at 0:49, the barrels are targeting Pocky, so sending Rocky forward first leaves just enough time and space for Pocky to dash through safely.
As I mentioned earlier, the horizontal section was a bit tough due to the first double dash. It took a while to figure out how far forward to go (so to land between the sets of barrels) and then how to precisely launch the dash to make it through that very narrow walkway. I would definitely not recommend it for RTA, unlike the following double dash which was again inspired by the Mr_K+PJ run.
Double dashing through the barrel thrower at the next set of stairs is not an option. Even though the barrels may appear to bounce, it is merely a cruel trick to make you think that you can safely move beneath them, only to get crushed all the same. There's just enough time to kill the first thrower between barrels, but not the second. This is due to the difference in distance their barrels have to travel before re-cycling. As such, there wasn't much of a choice with the second thrower but to damage boost through him.
The final area of this section presents several possibilities since there are 5 moderately laggy enemies present and the door is the only thing keeping you from proceeding. I tried a few different combinations of killing and evading, but the best result by about 50 frames came from killing all of the enemies as early as possible before handling the door. The lag savings paid off and it left just enough time for Rocky to grab some health in anticipation of more double dashes and damage boosts in the next section. I plan on grabbing some health for Pocky from the next set of chests as well.
Akisto wrote:
OK so i made a playthrough of the game on J version
from what i could tell the differences are...
Very interesting, especially if there's less lag. Will definitely mess around with that version a bit once I'm done with this run.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
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Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
So awesome to see one of my favorite games broken like this, especially by way of one of the most worthless (or at least under-utilized) items in the game. Excellent work, yes vote.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player
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Joined: 7/14/2014
Posts: 57
Location: Kansas City, MO
Thanks for the encode, solarplex.
CoolKirby wrote:
Stage 4 is so good, once again, t0ast! Just as highly entertaining as the rest of the run. Good work!
Thanks!
Akisto wrote:
T0ast are you doing this on the US version or J version?
US version.
And a quick update: Still working on Stage 5, but the holidays and Q4 deadline rush at work have been limiting my time. I made it to the first horizontal transition pretty easily, but the following section is pretty rough. I'm still trying to find a good way to super/double dash through the two sets of barrels to avoid damage boosting and/or wasting a bunch of time manually detonating them if possible.
Current Project: Pocky & Rocky (SNES) improvements
Status: Stage 2 - fighting the octopus
Frames improved so far: 577
If I wait before entering that same area and let the 000003 increment occur, the Tengu will drop on Pocky instead.
The same RNG applies to the bamboo seedlings and which character they chase.
It also appears to be responsible for item chest RNG, flipping between items depending on the 000003 value when the chest is opened:
And I'm sure there's even more that I have yet to see.
That said, with each change taking 256 frames to occur, it doesn't exactly lend itself to a whole lot of useful manipulation unless you coincidentally wind up with a "switch moment" near a part where it might matter. If nothing else, it's at least something worth keeping an eye on.
Strategy is basically the same as RTA. Use a bomb to take out as much of its 2560 HP as possible and then abuse its collision-free torso to quickly and safely deal out the rest of the damage. The best bomb I could get dealt 2000 damage, which took its health low enough that it didn't even have enough time to shoot its laggy lightning.
Finally there's the fight with Black Mantle. Since its sprite delay isn't nearly as amusing and Pocky and Rocky have a ton of health that would slow down the bonus time, I use the shield to lose nearly all of it in sync with the music.
Black Mantle has 4096 HP and his shield-generating statues have 640. The first bomb takes out the shields and deals 1200 points of damage to Black Mantle. This was definitely more than I was expecting. Once he becomes vulnerable again, overlapping Rocky and Pocky's last bombs yields 3000 damage in total and immediately ends the fight and the game.
Since the official timing of these videos appears to be taken from power on to last required input, I ended the movie file immediately at the last bomb input. If for some reason this is less desirable than extending the time with some minor entertainment during bonus downtime, then it can be easily added. I could also forego jumping into the shield repeatedly if it's not well received since it technically wouldn't make the last input occur any earlier or later.
One last quick note for RTAers: the timing and positioning to get a 1200 damage first bomb on Black Mantle is loose enough that an RTA should be able to easily replicate it or come very close. It's basically dead-center and about 6 frames worth of downward movement from the point where you'd take damage from the shield (a tiny bit further than that is okay as well). The other two bombs require way more precision in placement and timing, so I unfortunately can't make any good recommendations in that regard.
And now for the end result:
Frames: 67321
Time: 18:40.18
Rerecords: 59565
If there are any objections or questions, now's the time, because I'm going to start working on finalizing my submission text, doing one final check for any low-hanging fruit, and then submit it sometime within the next few days. After that, my plan is to take a break and then come back to this game fresh, chasing further improvements on every stage and adjusting anything that might not be up to snuff with those reviewing the submission.