(Link to video)
Follow Spyro on his quest to save Avalar squeeze a poor bear, now 74355 frames, or 20 minutes and 39 seconds, faster

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Psxjin v2.0.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Takes damage to save time

Comments

It's been four years since I submitted the first TAS of this game, and a lot of route improvements were found since this time.

Tricks and glitches

Double jump

By pressing square and X at the same time while jumping (and not moving), Spyro will reach an unexpected height.

Proxy ejections

For most of the monsters you can kill with a charge attack, their body will take some seconds before disappearing. This body will not be a solid object if you try to go through it will charging, however it will be solid in all other cases. So if you stop charging while in the body, 2 solid object will be at the same place, and the game will eject Spyro (the closer you are from the monster "center", the the fastest you will be eject). You can use this game mechanic to reach REALLY HIGH heights.

Stage by stage comments

Glimmer

RTA runners use another route which could have been faster, but after TASing both of them it ends up 3 frames slower than the one we kept...

Summer Forest

I used a frog to be proxy ejected to another one, then a proxy jump to reach a platform that would take longer to reach otherwise. With an accurate jump you can then go through the wall without a double jump. The next proxy jump was a hard one, as the edge of the ceiling is solid, but it saved some seconds compare to the "normal" way to go to Crush's Dungeon.

Crush

He will stop his attacks and move to another circle if Spyro is wound, the good new is that he doesn't check if it is him who hurt Spyro.

Autumn Plains

The maximum speed you can get from a proxy with perfect position is a little bit more than 20000, which is just enough to go from the frogs in the plain to a part of the roof. However all monsters in the game (or at least all the ones I checked) have a "z position" under the ground, so it is impossible to get a "perfect" proxy jump. The Gulp skip was found 6 month ago and require very accurate movements (even if it doesn't look like that here...), and it is the only know way to reach Gulp's Overlook without the 14 talismans.

Gulp

For each egg, you can manipulate 2 things apart :
  • The moment and the place it will be drop
  • The time before the egg hatch and the item it contains
While the second part of the luck manipulation wasn't really hard, the first one gives me a lot of troubles. There is no RAM value that gives the time before the egg is dropped (there is one which start at 1000 when the bird appear, then decrease until the egg is dropped, then stop moving), and I don't have enough knowledge to try to understand how the rng works, so I used a lua script to make brute force searching, but there was no way I would have been able to test all possible outputs. This fight was 10 seconds shorter than the one in my old TAS.

Winter Tundra

A proxy jump to reach the second part of the level faster, then what I like to call the "Divine Jump". Assuming you have the perfect proxy jump on the penguin (same x and y position, and a difference less than 400 with the z position), I am not sure you can reach a speed of 18000. To reach Ripto's Arena, your proxy jump must give you a speed of more than 17300 ! This is pretty much impossible to get as Spyro's x and y coordinates move by more than 100 every 2 frames (the game update the coordinates 30 times a second) when you are charging. For reference the difference between the coordinates (x and y) of Spyro and the penguin were 11 and 17 in this TAS, however a difference of 13 and 17 would not have give a good enough proxy jump. Also I waited before killing the penguin because I needed him to die on the left side of the ground, otherwise I would not have been able to make a z difference under 400.

Ripto

For any powerup, the first hit deals 10 damage, then all others deal 4 damage. Ripto has 60 HP and Mecha Gulp has 80 HP. The "green powerup" allows me to deal 34 damage in a row to Ripto, so I was able to finish him with only 4 hits, plus dealing 2 hits to Mecha Gulp (which for some reasons deal 8 and 4 damage, so 68 HP left) However for some reasons the green powerup ends 38 frames sooner in the phase 2 than in the phase 1, and this prevents me from dealing more than 30 damage in a row to Mecha Gulp, so it was impossible to beat him with only 2 powerup.
Also, usually RTAs first go to Dragon Shores to take infinite Fireball and then fight Ripto, but it would have cost time in the TAS as Ripto can be defeated really fast thanks to the green powerup.

Special thanks

Crash41596, as we started the TAS together, and I ended up keeping some of the early part of our work
Spyro runners, for finding glitches like the proxy jumps or the Gulp skip

feos: There seem to be notable differences between this run and the existing one. The existing one is beating the game obtaining the minimal amount of talismans that the intended route allows. Similar to SM64 "70 stars, no BLJ". This run heavily uses glitches and skips the usual requirement to obtain talismans to advance in the game, collecting the minimal amount of them possible within the unintended route. Similarly to SM64 "0 star".
By the Spyro 2 speedrunning community, the "1 talisman" run is already referred to as any%, not glitched%, so I think it deserves to go unlabeled here. And since 14 of them isn't an arbitrary number, but the exact minimum that the intended route allows, calling it "14 talisman" makes the best sense.
Accepting as a new branch to Moons.
Spikestuff: Publishing... damn that took some time.
Sorry for delay. I was trying to get all the audio to work but sadly the audio at the end kinda cuts off, and I could not create a proper solution. Resuming as it is.

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Point of reference. The WR is 9 mins 38 seconds. Easy YES. Edit: So branch... I say the branch would stay blank (any%). The other one cannot be obsoleted... it's known to speedrunners as "14 Talisman".
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Poor game. Yes vote for sure!
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Cooljay
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That is a great improvement. Voting yes.
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Really nice improvement! Love the new clipped-out route. Yes vote, of course.
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'Ow!' Yes vote
Spikestuff wrote:
So branch... I say the branch would stay blank (any%). The other one cannot be obsoleted... it's known to speedrunners as "14 Tailsman".
Isn't '14 talisman' basically '16 star', which we do not accept?
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This poor game didn't stand a chance... And that's a good thing :D Yes vote of course!
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
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Patashu wrote:
Isn't '14 talisman' basically '16 star', which we do not accept?
Pretty much it's like Crash Bandicoot 2 in old TASVideos way atm. When it originally came out we have: any%, glitched and 100% (100% doesn't exist) If this was branched in the ways we have: any% (14 talisman), glitched and 100% Pretty much it's acceptable. Also using Mario 64 is a poor example. 0 Star, 70 star, 120 star. Reason: Glitched (or low%), any%, 100% Boss Comparison to previous TAS: Link to video
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Spikestuff wrote:
Edit: So branch... I say the branch would stay blank (any%). The other one cannot be obsoleted... it's known to speedrunners as "14 Tailsman".
Why? Are you saying we should keep an obsolete branch simply because a community for this game decided to? I haven't watched it yet, but how is this different from the current run? Memory corruption? Clipping through walls? Edit: What does 14 talismans even mean? I googled it, and it says "Unlocks the doors leading to the Bosses". So isn't that just like SM64 like Patashu wrote? Edit2: From gamefaqs
The last item you will collect is called a Talisman. You collect Talismans by completing levels. There are 14 Talisman in the game, but there is NOT one for every level.
That's.....quite pointless to keep the current branch. Might as well go all out and do 100%.
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jlun2 you didn't read my responding point to Patashu which has better explanation. Also this is the reason why feos is judging. Edit: Also I can say this about different branches in other games. This is why I'm bringing up the branch naming of the older one to the plate to this submission.
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jlun2 wrote:
Are you saying we should keep an obsolete branch simply because a community for this game decided to? That's.....quite pointless to keep the current branch.
What makes Moons movies obsolete? Having better content. If something is faster it doesn't mean it's better. If you personally can't enjoy anything Super Metroid other than "GT code/game end", it doesn't mean all the rest branches of it are obsolete. We don't rely on absolutes anymore, only on statistics. What's so wrong with that?
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feos wrote:
jlun2 wrote:
Are you saying we should keep an obsolete branch simply because a community for this game decided to? That's.....quite pointless to keep the current branch.
What makes Moons movies obsolete? Having better content. If something is faster it doesn't mean it's better. If you personally can't enjoy anything Super Metroid other than "GT code/game end", it doesn't mean all the rest branches of it are obsolete. We don't rely on absolutes anymore, only on statistics. What's so wrong with that?
I wonder if that means the 16 star TAS can be published now. :o (Or pretty much any arbitrary goal as long as it's entertaining.) Edit: Also why do I get the feeling for moons at least that every single time a large improvement is found it would probably have people arguing for a new branch? >.> Edit2:
feos wrote:
What makes Moons movies obsolete? Having better content. If something is faster it doesn't mean it's better.
I just realized that means technically, this TAS should've been a separate branch simply because it was less entertaining than the movie it was meant to obsolete.
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We don't rely on absolutes anymore, only on statistics. What's so wrong with that?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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feos wrote:
We don't rely on absolutes anymore, only on statistics. What's so wrong with that?
jlun2 wrote:
feos wrote:
What makes Moons movies obsolete? Having better content. If something is faster it doesn't mean it's better.
I just realized that means technically, this TAS should've been a separate branch simply because it was less entertaining than the movie it was meant to obsolete.
In other words, if that was the case, how the heck would anyone improve that movie then? Purposefully make worse camera angles? This would just make 2 branches of pretty much similar movies except with difference in entertainment value. Also, you're argueing pretty much anything mentioned here and also in the moon tier should be a different branch. That's just...nuts.
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Hahaha that run was great, yes vote !
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I'm tired of theory and abstractions. Please report the submission threads where people were saying "this is so different and good that it needs a new branch" but the judge rejected or obsoleted, or a thread where people say "it's too similar to branch X, but is more boring overall" that was accepted as an improvement. Where exactly the judging was wrong, as in contradicted to the majority of viewer opinions? Or where the majority of viewers was wrong and following their opinion was also wrong? Some examples please.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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feos wrote:
Please report the submission threads where people were saying "this is so different and good that it needs a new branch" but the judge rejected or obsoleted
This run initially. Same as this. Although both were published before the tiers system was implemented.
feos wrote:
a thread where people say "it's too similar to branch X, but is more boring overall" that was accepted as an improvement.
Accepted, but lost a star. This movie, but the previous movie it obsoleted utilized a trick that would not be possible on real console (there's an extra lag frame for saving on the previous run) so I'm not exactly sure would it still hold regardless.
feos wrote:
Where exactly the judging was wrong, as in contradicted to the majority of viewer opinions?
In terms of votes, this one. Although I do agree on it's rejection.
feos wrote:
Or where the majority of viewers was wrong and following their opinion was also wrong?
This movie, but it seems more of the lack of posts before publication that made it seem like the majority enjoyed the movie.
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jlun2 wrote:
This run initially. Same as this. Although both were published before the tiers system was implemented.
And both were unobsoleted, by the Moons rules, because the audience didn't feel they were actually obsolete.
jlun2 wrote:
Accepted, but lost a star. This movie, but the previous movie it obsoleted utilized a trick that would not be possible on real console (there's an extra lag frame for saving on the previous run) so I'm not exactly sure would it still hold regardless.
Both happened before Moons. The first one happened because it was extremely unclear back then how to handle such cases. Today we would most likely just reject it. As for Chrono Trigger, no one suggested the older runs to be unobsoleted in the thread of the same name. And what's the best, the new run that's being published doesn't corrupt memory.
jlun2 wrote:
In terms of votes, this one. Although I do agree on it's rejection.
Once again before Moons. But it's a board game, that even Vault doesn't accept. Rejected on game choice, and will be rejected again if submitted.
jlun2 wrote:
This movie, but it seems more of the lack of posts before publication that made it seem like the majority enjoyed the movie.
It was just a wrong tier decision. We keep a room for a judge to change it after publication. Nothing regarding rejection or obsoletion chains. All in all, I still don't see any flaws in our current branching system.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
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<give reason for yes vote>
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If the new route uses new glitches to the old route, then it could be considered for its own category. However, as I understand it it just uses new applications of old tricks (eg SM64 16-star versus SM64 0-star) and hence should just obsolete the old run. Overall, a very nice run. Maybe you could have played around a bit more during the boss fights if I was being ultra-critical, but I guess Spyro doesn't have the widest range of movement for playing around with.
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If it reads like I'm attacking that is completely accidental and I wasn't aiming to type like that. @thatguy: feos and myself has explained why it shouldn't be obsoleted on the previous page. Edit: Sorry. feos was explaining both sides. To repeat my version and hopefully change the words a bit to make sense. If this was the old branching ways this TAS would be branched with "glitched" This is why I'm proposing the 3 branches for this game because each way changes the game significantly. My example on what is similar to this random argument that shouldn't be an argument to begin with and is actually straight forward? Crash Bandicoot 2: [1457] PSX Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back by Mukki in 47:37.62 [1506] PSX Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back "item glitch" by pirohiko in 11:34.85 (Insert 100% TAS of Crash 2 here.) And for Mario (That have been accepted)? 0 Stars low%, 70 Stars any% (This BLJ honestly should be 120 but still awesome regardless), 120 Stars 100%. Mario 64 for the 16 Star being obsoleted by 1 star then to 0 is to see what our lowest ending we can get that's why they were obsoleted. This is a sense of variety ... but it doesn't mean anything to some people by what I'm reading... Even though we have a few TASes of other games which have more than 3 branches to one game. Point is invalid. PEOPLE STOP USING MARIO AS YOUR EXAMPLE and I'll stop using Crash 2 as mine. Jeez.
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Spikestuff wrote:
0 Stars low%, 70 Stars any%
Well... if low% is the fastest category then it's any%. So 0 stars is any%. 70 stars is any% "no BLJ".
I problably made mistakes, sorry for my bad English, I'm French :v
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Eszik wrote:
Spikestuff wrote:
0 Stars low%, 70 Stars any%
Well... if low% is the fastest category then it's any%. So 0 stars is any%. 70 stars is any% "no BLJ".
"No BLJ" any% would be 1-star. "70 stars" can be described as intended minimum%/intended route any%.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.