This Movie's Traits
- Recorded in FCEUX 2.1.4a
- Controls 2 players
- Uses deaths to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- Manipulates luck
- Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs
The Used Characters
I used one Toad & one Dragon, for this is a crossover game and the run must represent it. Pimple and Billy have the longest jumps, though they are initializing slower, than jumps of the rest characters. This choice allows me to cross long pits in the third level. And each member of the Toad+Dragon team can save time differently in different places.
Tricks and Glitches
Common tricks of the NES Battletoads engine are:
- Hyper jump: run and jump at once. Allows to charge in midair.
- Initiaizing the fatal attack on one object & releasing it onto another.
- Left+Right glitch, with different results, like diagonal & vertical running.
- Killing bosses with all the same lower attack.
- Jumping above the screen when sitting on the jet.
Exclusive tricks of this run:
- Hitting emenies through the walls.
- Catching the dynamite through the wall.
- Running through the grid borders, crawling on the wall in Level 2-2.
- Flying jet in Level 2-3.
- Air jumping & air running with the help of Left+Right glitch in Level 5.
- Hitting the item capsule & the enemy at once minimizing the lag.
- Acting with empty HP bar in Level 5.
- Hint
- After the dragon comes out of the 3rd door of this level, he has NO lives & NO HP. Once the Toad hits the enemy, the Dragon gets 1 HP block back for unknown reason.
Lag
This game uses Raw PCM samples for voicing attacks, which causes tons of lag while they are playing. This means that for the fastest completion you need to use as little laggy attacks as possible.
A 2 player run causes lag in some scenes, where much less lag appears for 1 player. Especially in Level 3.
The space level has some strange delay of the discharged shots. You may shot a burst of 9 bullets (each part of the Rat Ship requires 9) and only 5 or 6 of them would reach the target instantly. The rest will appear from nowere ~10 frames later & fly towards the target. They will appear from any place you were at while shoting them. If you shot 9 bullets & fly off, you will see how they appear from the void.
I managed to minimize these delays only at the end of the Rat Ship battle by dying.
RNG and enemies' AI
I didn't use scripts or disassemble the code, as all of the luck management can be made with the "trial and error" method. But this game still has lots of things that shall be manipulated.
Which frame enemy appears at, which character it chases, how does it react on your attacks. Which type of attack your character uses on the Boss.
There were also some actions that caused the desired circumstances by accident. For example, the appearance of the third life from the Rat Ship occured after taking damage, as well as re-aiming of my missle on the enemy instead of this life object.
Even the beat-'em-up Level 5 required manipulating the chasing of rats. If they chase the wrong character, they fall down the screen & can't be beaten.
Bosses
This game has 2 types of bosses.
The first one has normal HP, just like all the rest enemies have, and its suffering status allows you to initialize the final blow, killing the boss instantly.
The other type has only the hit count, required to kill him. These bosses don't care about the type of punch they get, the counter just decreases by one each time.
But here another problem raises - the fastest hit animation. It is lower fist (or elbow) attack, which doesn't fling the suffering boss around the screen. Here you need some input manipulation. Will describe it on the future Source Page for Bt&DD.
Abobo
The second simpliest boss. If you hit the correct place & timing, you can kick him through the wall at the first frame of his existance. As he gets this hit, he starts his life from suffering status & animation. This can initialize the fatal attack on him. But after he is dead, he requires one more hit to be blown away. It is automatically animated as a final attack.
Big Blag
The easiest boss. One player hits him & the other initializes his final blow from the suffering boss.
Roper
Rather crazy boss. It has 2 possible actions: hitting you with his machine-gun or jumping before firing (accompanied by siren). The second one is optimal & shall be manipulated.
Gets 2 hits before he actually starts his life.
Ratship
Each part of it requires 9 shots, but if you have 2 players, there's a delay. It can take hits after it finishes shaking.
Robo-Manus
Can't be manipulated to act anyhow. He seems to have the separate timer for his attacks. Though they are all identical.
Gets a hit before he appears from the wall.
Shadow Boss
Has 3 possible actions: doing nothing, hitting the second (only) player and disappearing. All the manipulation is done by the second player, as he doesn't see the first player's object. After each 10 hits he turns into a tenon-thrasing form. Requires 32 hits in total.
I used 2 player to manipulate Shadow Boss so that he will be easy to hit by the toad & won't disappear. If he is on one vertical level with the dragon (and is close enough horizontally) - he instantly starts punching him
Dark Queen
After she gets some number of fast hits, starts diving into the floor. This can be stopped by one more hit each time. I kept the Dragon for these additional hits.
The Life & Death Matter
The first life I sacrificed is Billy's one in Level 2-3. Just for fun.
A bunch of lives is given up in Level 3-2 to cross the great gap by kicking the partner before death, 2 deaths were taken by Billy to kick Pimple up onto the platform, and one - to minimize the collision detection on electric walls part.
In Level 4-1 all deaths are for fun, and in 4-2 they allowed to prevent shotting delay.
The first death in Level 5 is to minimize lag, occuring when 2 dynamiters die at once. And the second death (right after hitting Robo-Manus) is because Pimple had no time to jump high enough to prevent dying from falling down during the shock animation.
The last 2 lifes lost on level 7 were for fun.
Entertainment
I was trying to keep this level high enough. Even though it means that some laggy actions shall be made. Anyway, the only tradeoff is allowing some lag for entertaining actions. There're no unnecessary stops.
Special Thanks go to
- AnS for following all my WIPs & keeping my entertainment value high, giving advices from the normal viewer's point.
- Aglar for checking my WIPs for the purpose of speed.
- Ash Williams for some useful minor tricks.
- Adelikat & Zeromus for this awesome tool TAS Edit, where the entire run was made.
Suggested Screenshot
I'm open for any better suggestions.
TAS Edit gives 0 rerecord, so I've written there the number I like.
DarkKobold: The rerecord count should be set to zero, so it doesn't mess with statistics. Otherwise, claiming.
DarkKobold: Accepting, as this run was amazingly entertaining and fun. The majority also agree that the final ten seconds should be left in, so the run will be accepted as is.
Now, this run will obsolete the SNES run, for two reasons:
- There isn't much difference between the NES and SNES version. While the SNES has much better graphics, it lacks the glitches that make this run more entertaining. I doubt that there is reason to have runs of both NES and SNES on this site, and thus, the NES wins.
- It is evident in the previous SNES run that it is one player playing two characters - the characters either move in an identical fashion, or mirror image, during the majority of the run. It lacks any of the play that this had, and uses the same moveset for the entirety of the run. The play-around in this new movie is much better, all around.
