Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge in 16:56.99 by Noxxa
Encode (lsnes):
Note that the previous run used VBA-rr, which used a different framerate (60.000, as opposed to lsnes' and BizHawk's ~59.727) and a different definition of what constitutes a frame, which causes the difference to look like less than it actually is. The frame difference is determined by comparing AVI output.
In addition, BizHawk has slightly longer loading times and lag, which leads to some time loss in some areas.
Game objectives
About the game
Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (known as Rockman World in Japan, and also known as Mega Man I or Mega Man World) is the first installment of Mega Man on the Gameboy. The plot is minimal - after being defeated in Mega Man and Mega Man 2, Dr. Wily swears revenge of Mega Man (again) and brings out some old Robot Masters from the aforementioned games, as well as the first Mega Man Killer robot named Enker, to do the job. Obviously, Mega Man defeats them all, defeats Dr. Wily yet again, and the world is safe again until the next game is released. Yes, it's a really plain plot.
Improvements
Bag of Magic Food's run, even though it's dated 2005, was very optimized. Most of the individual improvements here come from heavy subpixel optimization, and occasionally lag management, shaving off mere frames at a time. There are only a few instances where I saved time through changing strategies, and even those would save only small amounts of time.
There are some very significant improvements, however: it turns out that pressing A or B during certain frames of the pre-Wily Castle and pre-Wily Space Station cutscenes allows you to speed up some events of the cutscenes. In the latter case, it's even possible to skip a large part of the cutscene, saving over 15 seconds.
The next big difference is a change in boss rush order. Instead of Bag of Magic Food's Bubble-Heat-Quick-Flash route, I opted to go for Quick-Flash-Bubble-Heat instead. This was so I could use Quick Boomerang against Bubble Man to defeat him faster, saving several lag frames. However, it means the Quick Man fight became longer.
Table of improvements
There are two comparison tables: one comparing the previous run with the current run on lsnes, and one comparing the previous run with the current run on BizHawk.
| Stage name | frames | total |
|---|
| Pre-Cut Man (loading) | -1 | -1 |
| Cut Man stage | -22 | -23 |
| Cut Man boss | -1 | -24 |
| Pre-Elec Man | -1 | -25 |
| Elec Man stage | -44 | -69 |
| Elec Man boss | -7 | -76 |
| Pre-Ice Man | +1 | -75 |
| Ice Man stage | -10 | -85 |
| Ice Man boss | 0 | -85 |
| Pre-Fire Man | 0 | -85 |
| Fire Man stage | -21 | -106 |
| Fire Man boss | -7 | -113 |
| Pre-Wily Castle | -192 | -305 |
| Wily Castle stage | -14 | -319 |
| Boss rush | -48 | -367 |
| Enker | -2 | -369 |
| Pre-Wily Space Fortress | -961 | -1330 |
| Wily Space Fortress | -49 | -1379 |
| Wily boss phase 1 | -5 | -1384 |
| Wily boss phase 2 | 0 | -1384 |
| Stage name | frames | total |
|---|
| Pre-Cut Man (loading) | +3 | +3 |
| Cut Man stage | -22 | -19 |
| Cut Man boss | -1 | -20 |
| Pre-Elec Man | +8 | -12 |
| Elec Man stage | -44 | -56 |
| Elec Man boss | -7 | -63 |
| Pre-Ice Man | +7 | -56 |
| Ice Man stage | -10 | -66 |
| Ice Man boss | 0 | -66 |
| Pre-Fire Man | +6 | -60 |
| Fire Man stage | -21 | -81 |
| Fire Man boss | -7 | -88 |
| Pre-Wily Castle | -183 | -271 |
| Wily Castle stage | -14 | -285 |
| Boss rush | -30 | -315 |
| Enker | -2 | -317 |
| Pre-Wily Space Fortress | -957 | -1274 |
| Wily Space Fortress | -49 | -1323 |
| Wily boss phase 1 | -5 | -1328 |
| Wily boss phase 2 | 0 | -1328 |
Notes:
- Due to the difference in boss rush route, it isn't possible to directly compare times in the route. These are the individual changes in each boss rush fight:
- Quick Man: +265 frames
- Flash Man: -12 frames
- Bubble Man: -298 frames
- Heat Man: -8 frames
- 23 frames (BizHawk)/5 frames (lsnes) were lost due to additional loading times in between the fights.
Cut Man
- A large amount of the stage-by-stage comments from Bag of Magic Food's submission still apply to the overall run. This run mostly uses the same strategies.
- One of the first things that motivated me to continue the run in the first place was a 4-frame save at the first enemy by better subpixel/acceleration manipulation.
- The post-battle dance after Cut Man's fight probably took twice as long as the boss battle itself. I spent a lot of care at trying to make them as entertaining as possible. It's also, to me, the most memorable part of Bag of Magic Food's run. Hopefully I succeeded on the entertainment here (and in the other bossfights).
Elec Man
- The way the stage is laid out with several ladders allows for a lot of room for subpixel optimization. In most rooms here, I saved at least 1 frame from subpixel optimization.
- Near the end of the stage, at the second room of the last big ladder section, I save 1 frame by jumping up to the middle Octopus Battery instead of walking into the bottom one. This is because the middle one is 1 pixel closer and thus can be hit sooner.
Ice Man
- On ice, jumping costs a few subpixels when landing. Therefore, I minimize the amount of jumps in this stage.
Fire Man
- On the first Hothead enemy, it turns out Bag of Magic Food overkilled him by one damage point (it has 10 hit points, buster shots do 1, and Elec Beam does 2 per hit). I use 1 buster shot more, so it is destroyed with one Elec Beam hit less.
- The last room with all the Hotheads was very hard to optimize. A lot of precision is required to optimally hit the Hotheads. One of them can't be destroyed in one shot due to its position.
- I move a bit to the left during the Fire Man fight to manipulate him to walk further to the right. This saves a few frames.
Wily Castle
- The first really big timersaver happens here. Pressing A or B at certain frames (or just autofiring A and B for the same effects) allows me to save 183 frames in the pre-Wily Castle cutscene.
- The second Mole room, near the end of the stage, was by far the hardest room to optimize in the entire game. Both Mole rooms are hard, because the position of the moles is dependent on the frame you destroy them and your position. Do anything slightly different and a Mole will come in your way and block your path.
- I take a different route for the boss rush, taking on Quick Man first instead of Bubble Man. This is because Bubble Man's fight is very laggy, so it's better to have that one done as fast as possible. Quick Man's fight is nearly lagless.
- Starting with a Mega Buster shot also saves some frames in Flash Man's fight.
Wily Space Station
- As if the cutscene time-saver before Wily Castle wasn't large enough, the pre-Wily Space Station cutscene allows you to skip an entire section, saving over 15 seconds in one go.
- The trick with Carry to put it so close into a wall it disappears can be done at the end of the first room, saving 17 frames.
- Carry ammo is weird. Look at the ammo consumption the last time I use it.
- Like Bag of Magic Food, I end input two frames later than is necessary, so no more input can stall the ending. (You can still press A+B+Start+Select to soft-reset during the ending, but let's just ignore that).
Recommended screenshot:
TODO (suggestions?)
Thanks:
Thanks to Bag of Magic Food, for creating a
very high quality run, which would last for over 8 years, for me to beat. It was an interesting challenge to improve on a run that was already very optimized to begin with.
Thanks to
Nach for support and motivation.
And thanks to everyone else who supported me in the game thread!
And thanks to you for watching and/or reading this!
Nach: Turns out this run runs in lsnes also, so judging...
Noxxa: Replaced submission file with a lsnes conversion which finishes the game 56 frames faster.
Nach: Very nice run. Good feedback. Accepting as improvement to existing run.
