This run is 1695 frames (28.25 secs if 60 fps) faster than the previous one. In-game time is 0:20'49 at the end.
- Emulator used: VBA-rr v23.6
- Aims for fastest real-time
- Manipulates luck
- Takes damage to save time
- Trades time for entertainment
About the Game
Weapons & EX Skills
In this game there are totally 4 weapons. Boomerang Shield is not used in this run. Except for the wave of ThrowBlade, the electric balls of SaberSmash and the souls of SoulLauncher, other actions of Z-Saber and Recoil Rod will cause all the in-game actions pause for 4 frames when hit enemies, thus hitting enemies in mid-stage with them should be avoided, and Buster Shot should be used when required to kill enemies.
Z-Saber has variety kinds of combos so it is a must of boss fights. When using charged slash on a wall, jumping can cancel the attack action, and this can make Zero attack rapidly in boss fights.
All attacks in the game have a combo level, when boss is attacked, boss will have a 90 frames period of invulnerable time (if attacked by its weakness attributes it will be 120 frames, and if continuously attacked some of the bosses by its weakness attributes will have 90 frames of invulnerable). In this invulnerable time attacks that have a higher combo level can still damage the boss, and the invulnerable time will re-count.
If entering the specific 12 stages with a rank of A or S, EX Skill will be acquired. Rank is determined by the average score of cleared stages. 96-100 is S rank and 86-95 is A rank. Acquiring EX Skill will waste time displaying tips, thus unnecessary EX Skills were avoided by lowering the score.
Chip & Cyber Elf
- Head Chip: Quick Charge was used as combination.
- Body Chip: Normal was used as combination. Thunder, Flame and Ice were used in boss fight as attribute weakness. Light has a feature that is usually neglected that when equipping Light, Zero flies farther when getting damaged. This helps a little in this run, and this Body Chip was used as combination. Absorber was not used.
- Foot Chip: Quick was used as combination, but sadly this cannot speed up moving in the interlude. Double was useful in mid-stage.
- Cyber Elf: In this run Biraid (save you if you fall down a pit) and Clokkle (speed up weapon charge) was used. Biraid was used in the second form of the final boss, and Clokkle was used to shorten the boss fights and used as combination.
- Combinations: There are 4 hidden combinations in the game. Equipping the certain sets of equipments and elves will give other effects. In this run two combinations were used: Normal (Head) + Light (Body) + Quick (Foot), whose effect was that triple slash could be canceled by SpiltHeavens; Quick Charge (Head) + Normal (Body) + Clokkle (Elf), whose effect was shorten the weapon charge to 1 second (normally 2 seconds, 1.5 seconds when equipped Quick Charge (Head) or Clokkle (Elf) ).
RAM Address
| Total Points | 020372BA(2 bytes) |
| X Speed | 020380AC(2 bytes) |
| Y Speed | 02038000(2 bytes) |
| Zero HP | 02038044 |
| E-Crystals | 0203805A(2 bytes) |
| Main Weapon Charge | 0203807C(unsigned) |
| Sub Weapon Charge | 0203807D(unsigned) |
| Combo Level | 0203BE36 |
| Boss HP | 0203BE44 |
| Boss' Invincible Time | 0203BE34 |
| RNG | 0202F608(4 bytes,hex) |
A new route was used in this run:
--Derelict Spacecraft --Weapon Regeneration Factory --Aegis Volcano Base --Old Residential Section --Maritime Highway Ruins --Missile Factory --Ice Frontline Base --Anatrey Forest --Desert Of Dusk --Area X-2 --Snow Field --Energy Facility --Gigantic Elevator --Sunken Library --Sub-Neo-Arcadia --Underground Laboratory
The old one was:
--Derelict Spacecraft --Weapon Regeneration Factory --Aegis Volcano Base --Maritime Highway Ruins --Old Residential Section --Missile Factory --Anatrey Forest --Ice Frontline Base --Desert Of Dusk --Area X-2 --Snow Field --Energy Facility --Gigantic Elevator --Sunken Library --Sub-Neo-Arcadia --Underground Laboratory
Derelict Spacecraft
The green spacecraft in the latter part of mid-stage can be destroyed by Buster Shot passing through the shield when being close enough to it. At the end of mid-stage charged slash was used to kill the enemy just before he shot. Zero got hit once during the boss fight, because when a charged slash began the hitbox appeared initially at a place very near behind Zero and I need to get invincible to hit the boss at the very first frame after completing weapon charge.
Weapon Regeneration Factory
There were 4 monitors in the former part of mid-stage which gave 5 points each when destroyed. The points were high. There would be no delay to destroy the first, 2 frames delay for the second and third and 4 frames delay for the forth. For getting necessary EX Skill in later stages, I consumed 4 frames to destroy the second and third monitors and got 10 points. At the end of mid-stage Zero got a disk containing Biraid (Elf).
Aegis Volcano Base
The new way to pass through the lava area I used is found by McBobX. In the latter part of mid-stage I got a disk containing Clokkle (Elf), and I used the way in Rolanmen1's run when going back. Getting Clokkle (Elf) consumed a lot of time but the time saved after that is also considerable, especially in Gigantic Elevator. In boss fight, Zero got hit to cancel triple slash. Because the hitbox of SaberSmash appeared initially at the above and behind of Zero, I manipulated luck to make the boss jump.
Old Residential Section
The previous run chose Maritime Highway Ruins here, and this run chose Old Residential so as to use the 1000 Slash EX Skill in Maritime Highway Ruins. At the beginning of the stage I equipped the two elves. The Clokkle (Elf) should only be equipped when upgraded from fusion elf to satellite elf because when using fusion elf a long time animation would be shown, and would deduct points. Upgrading it to satellite elf cost 200EC, so a lot of luck manipulation were required in the former 3 stages to get enough EC. With Clokkle (Elf) Zero could beat mid-boss in 3 turns of combo. The third combo in mid-boss fight Zero didn't get hit as what I do in last boss fight, so that there would be enough HP for the boss fight. In this stage and later 4 stages, Zero cannot kill lots of enemy due to lack of Buster Shot, so the scores for killing enemy were all 0/15 points.
Maritime Highway Ruins
The third time Zero got hit in the mid-boss fight forced him move toward right in mid-boss's death animation. At the end of mid-stage the EX Skill of 1000 slash was turned on. Both of the power and speed of 1000 Slash were better than double slash. I used a faster way to utilize 1000 slash as McBobX did in his run. The boss fight was same as the one in Aegis Volcano Base: At the end of the boss fight I manipulated to make boss go up so that SaberSmash could hit him earlier. The mission score is 0/20 for this stage.
Missile Factory
Nothing to say for mid-stage. In boss fight, the more powerful Air Slash is used to replace the first hit of 1000 slash, shortened the boss fight by 1 hit.
Ice Frontline Base
In the previous run I go to Anatrey Forest before Ice Frontline Base. This run swapped the order of the 2 stages, saved time for changing weapons and turning on the EX Skill. This also resulted in a slower Blizzack Stagroff boss fight and a faster Hanumachine R boss fight, but it saved more time in general.The second damage I got in the boss fight is for canceling charged slash. The boss is tall enough, so I need not to make the boss jump to make it be within SlashSmash's initial hitbox.
Forest of Anatre
At the end of mid-stage Thunder (Body) and Buster Shot were equipped. The first action of boss is constant. As to hit the boss before he made the first action, Buster Shot was used. After this stage rank is decreased to B to avoid getting the ShieldSweep EX Skill in the next stage.
Twilight Desert
The whole mid-stage was horizontal so it was hard to lose time. So as to get the EX Skill in the next stage, Zero killed some enemies in the mid-stage to increase the rank. I tried to beat the mid-boss in 2 turns of combos, but strangely this was slower than using 3 turns of combos.
Area X-2
In the mid-stage Zero did not beat many enemies to lower the score, getting B rank for this stage to avoid the OrbiteShield EX Skill in the next stage. Recoil Rod was equipped in the later part of mid-stage for high jumps, or Zero would waste time waiting for the moving platform approaching each other. The flame was also equipped at the same time for the next stage. The boss fight of this stage was complicated because Copy-X would go backward when got hit. So I manipulated to make the boss move close to the wall. The HP regeneration ability may be used when Copy-X's HP is lower than 50%, but it was conditional and the way to beat him in this run won't let him regenerate HP. The best situation was that Zero and Copy-X were at a specified position in the end, but the combos used in boss fight required the boss to stay close to the wall, thus the best situation cannot be reached.
Snowy Plains
The mid-stage was horizontal and not complicated. When the hovercrafts driven by the enemies hit other enemies, all in-game actions will pause for 4 frames. When taking a hovercraft in the former part of mid-stage, I attacked the enemies on the hovercrafts with the wave of ThrowBlade which do not cause 4-frame in-game pause(The wave and sword itself can both hit enemies, and the wave hit the enemies faster than the sword itself, thus taking damage to cancel the sword itself can avoid the 4-frame in-game pause), avoiding the hovercraft hitting on other enemies and causing pause. In this stage Zero got a disk containing Quick Charge (Head). In boss fight I manipulated the boss to move forward. During the second turn of combos I opened the menu and equipped Buster Shot, and the combination of Normal (Head) + Light (Body) + Quick (Foot), which was used in the next stage. At the end of the stage the rank was B, avoiding getting the SoulLauncher EX Skill in the next stage.
Energy Facility
This was a long and complicated stage. There were 2 rooms with buttons. I improved the way of passing through them according to Rolanmen1's run. With the combination of Normal (Head) + Light (Body) + Quick (Foot), mid-boss was beaten in 1 turn of combos. The steels at the end of mid-stage also changed because of going through former part faster (the position of the steels is only determined by how much time passed after the stage started), and this saved more time. In the boss fight the equipments were not changed, and the rank increased back to A thus the important GaleAttack Ex Skill in the next stage could be got.
Gigantic Elevator
I equipped Recoil Rod, Double Jump (Foot) and the combination of Quick Charge (Head) + Normal (Body) + Clokkle (Elf). From this stage to the end of the game, in most time the combination of Quick Charge (Head) + Normal (Body) + Clokkle (Elf) was used in order to reduce the number of times of opening the menu. The Gigantic Elevator part of this stage contained a lot of enemies with a shield, which should only be killed by charged Recoil Rod, thus this combination saved much time. The mid-boss is really special: he had very high HP and when he got hit and tilted back, the damage he took will be doubled. A charged Recoil Rod with no attributes could make the mid-boss tilt back faster. Zero took an HP recovery so that he could get hit for 5 times in the boss fight.
Sunken library
Because it was not possible to get a low point, in this stage a useless EX Skill was obtained. The 4 disks in the later part of mid-stage were located separately in 4 rooms out of 8, and the distribution was determined by the time passed from the start of the stage to the arrival of the computer room. I waited more time before the computer room than the previous run, and getting a better distribution of the disks.
Sub Arcadia
The ReflectLaser was shown in this stage, and this may be my favorite part of the whole run. In boss fight, the last hit of SmashSlash hit the 2 elves at the same time, and fall down to the specified position for the interlude.
Underground Laboratory
Unlike the previous run, this run used no attribute instead of using the weak attribute of the 8 bosses to beat them, and this saved time to change Body Chips. Ice(Body) was used to beat Volteel Biblio and the final boss. Because of the special terrain of Volteel Biblio boss room, GaleAttack could not be used, and the boss was beaten with 2 turns of combos equipping Ice (Body). The hitbox of the former 2 forms of the final boss was in the mid-air, thus even the boss was not weak to ice, adding BlizzrdArrow into the combo still saved much time. In the second form Biraid (Elf) worked: Zero could use SmashSlash in the combos and wouldn't fall down into the pit, thus the number of turns of combos was decreased from 6 to 4. The way to beat the third form was slightly changed: In the last 2 turns of combos the mother ball of BlizzrdArrow was used to replace the first hit of GaleAttack.
Encode
Thanks to
Bernka, who gave me the memory address of RNG, which brought me a lot of convenience;
computerbird, Disintegration, klmz, mtvf1, red-crowned-crane and Rolanmen1, who gave me some advice;
McBobX's Mega Man Zero 3 run, Rolanmen1's Mega Man Zero 3 any% and 100% run and Noxxa and Rolanmen1's Mega Man ZX WIP also helped a lot.
