This is a TAS of NES Mission Impossible.
New and improved over the canceled one.
Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
beats the game as fast as possible.
Uses glitches to save time
Takes damage to save time
Luck Manipulation
Comments:
I chose this game as I found it on Meshuggah's list of SDA runs without a TAS. It seemed interesting enough for a beginner like me to both enjoy and learn from. I certainly learned a lot. The route mostly follows Guhbadoo's live run, with the only major change skipping a switch in level 6 (that could even be performed real time to improve the run.)
In the game you have a choice of 3 characters, you can change between them at any time. There is Grant, the fastest runner, and 2 other guys who are slower then Grant. So Grant is used most of the time except for brief cameos by the other 2.
One point about this game is that it makes extensive use of RNG. Usually changing something in the run will slightly alter most of the rest of the run, requiring you to go over it all again. The biggest point of RNG is the location of the key cards, usually effected by actions you take in the previous level.
Thanks to SoulCal for suggesting the faster Ninja boss strategy.
Stage by stage comments:
Level 1:
Most of the the tricks and glitches used in the run are shown off in level 1. Canceling punching animation by pressing a direction in the next frame is used constantly. Something minor that is used throughout the game is that defeating enemies while misaligned with them causes them to move on a 45 degree angel out of your walking path, this is used whenever practical. The laser traps can be walked through if on the correct alignment, something originally found by heisanevilgenius. With correct timing you can run right through the mechanical claws at the end of the level.
Level 2:
Auroscrolling boat level, not too much to mention except I purposely take 1 damage at the end as it seems to spawn the level 3 key card in the optimal location.
Level 3:
The Ninja Boss is totally RNG dependent. In the end I just guessed enough times to get him in a good spot. If anything in this run separates it from a real time run it would be this fight.
A little more info on this boss. He has a hit counter instead of traditional HP, so it doesn't seem to matter what you hit him with (if you wanted to try a strategy with weapons instead of breaking the floor beneath him.) Also, the floor breaking mechanic doesn't take effect until the second time he appears, so it does not seem to be possible to beat him in one cycle.
Level 4:
Using the shield guy to push you is the only big trick here. Credit goes to Guhbadoo for that. After spikestuff noted that inputs could be optimized on menu inputs I went back to the lock mechanism here and tried the same approach. The door still opened on the same frame, so somehow it didn't actually save any time.
Level 5:
Grant feels lazy after carrying the team through 4 levels already, he doesn't move much, even being shot by a helicopter doesn't seem to bother him.
Level 6:
The longest level and almost 1/2 of the run. I did find one new route here in that you can skip a switch that stops the flame wall from moving back and forth on the way to the first key card. After that its painful, repeated autoscrollers. Sorry I know its not very entertaining, and most of the time the screen is empty. The flamethrower guys in particular will start to cause a lot of lag if you leave them alive. You might notice a few times Grant punches into the air, this is done to set up enemies on a good pattern in the next area.
This movie is about 3 minutes faster then the current best run I could find (a 27 minute run that didn't use punch animation canceling.) Some new glitches would need to be found to substantially improve this run I think. One that would skip the trap door in level 6 would greatly improve the entertainment value of this run as well as save a lot of time.
Thanks to Farret Warlord and Spikestuff for pointing out obvious errors (which were somehow not obvious to me), I am pretty confident it is good now, I saved another 5 seconds going over the whole thing again, so hurray for peer review.
Of course thanks to those who posted in the Forum Thread and helped me get through my first TAS with (I think) a pretty good final product!
Noxxa: On watching the movie, I am not really convinced it will hold up to Moon standards for entertainment. On the other hand, the run has not received any real negative feedback on entertainment either. It's a quite borderline case. I'll go with the voters on this one, and accept it to Moons.
