Disney's Beauty and the Beast - NES

Based on the 1991 animated film, this game contains multiple levels of platforming as the Beast. It was only released in Europe as the US port was canceled.

General notes

  • With a few exceptions getting hit stalls fewer frames than punching enemies or jumping over enemies (due to stall on landing).
  • Any gripping actions (grabbing ladders, walls or ledges) are typically at the peak of the jump to save frames.
  • The items in bubbles are for points, recovering health, and adding time to the time limit. None are necessary for completion of the game.

Stage Specifics

Stage 1 - Beast roams the halls of his (rather dangerous) castle in search of Belle.
  • 1-1
    • Mice are jumped as they latch on to Beast and prevent movement if hit by them.
    • Lumiere is ditched as Beast runs through the dark to save time.
  • 1-2
    • The griffon bosses usually take three hits a piece, but I got lucky in the timing of the run. The first attack of the right griffon deals two damage instead of just one, requiring only two attacks on him. I could not figure out why this occurs, but I'm not complaining because it was faster.
  • 1-3
    • Curtains must be climbed to the top, as attempting to jump from them before the top results in a fall straight down.
    • Suit-of-armor weapons are jumped as they are 1-hit kill items.
  • 1-4
    • Knight Boss - You have to attack this guy with drops of tea collected from Mrs. Potts by shooting them out of a set of baffles. (Yea it makes no sense to me either).
    • Only 2 shots per reload are allowed. The first two shots are done before the knight reaches the stairs. A wait at the reload point until he approaches allows for the most rapid kill I could achieve.
Stage 2 - Beast chases Belle through the woods.
  • 2-1
    • Brief stage - little more than a run to the next stage while avoiding enemies (or hitting in this case).
  • 2-2
    • Beast goes spelunking. Basic platforming here. Dangling green things are attacked as they grab and hold Beast to prevent movement.
  • 2-3
    • More platforming here. A number of cliff grabs are used to skip multiple platform jumping.
  • 2-4
    • Run right to the alpha-wolf boss at the end of the stage. Hop-punches used to kill the wolf are landed as fast a possible.
Stage 3 - According to the cutscene prior to this stage, Beast must find a gift for Belle to draw their hearts closer. (But you don't really do that.)
  • 3-1
    • Beast must catch snowballs thrown by a very ugly pixelated Belle. (I guess this is the 'falling in love' portion of the game.)
    • This stage was extremely easy to TAS and unfortunately the most boring section to watch.
  • 3-2
    • Run through the library. Back to platforming. Maybe Beast is looking for a book as a gift?
    • Hops near broken handrails are due to fall-away floors.
    • The boss that emerges from the window can be attacked before he emerges. This allows for a very quick kill and was likely an oversight by the developers.
Stage 4 - First flee, then ultimately fight the great hunter Gaston.
  • 4-1
    • Platforming, blah, blah blah. Not much to say
  • 4-2
    • Run and avoid enemies. These guys must be jumped as they will block your progress otherwise.
    • Their gunfire is always too early to jump both the bullet chasing you and the next enemy, so hits are taken from bullets.
  • 4-3
    • First race Gaston up the castle walls to reach the roof. (It's a huge castle and quite a climb.)
    • Second lure Gaston to the edge of the precipice and knock him off the roof. Punches are as rapid as possible, not allowing Gaston to retaliate before he his sent hurtling to his assumed death.

Final Thoughts

The last input is the last punch that kills Gaston. Only a one screen end-scene followed by a couple credit screens before returning to the title screen.

GoddessMaria: Judging.
GoddessMaria: So... as far as this submission is concerned, the entertainment value isn't there and hasn't generated enough interest from the audience so it does not qualify for Moons tier. Optimization is fine though and isn't going for any arbitrary goals which makes it acceptable for Vault tier. Therefore...
Accepting this submission for Vault.
Fog: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5273: DrD2k9's NES Beauty and the Beast in 16:34.98
Player (149)
Joined: 5/25/2015
Posts: 49
Frames 4252-4280: press A here. Frame 4281: press B here = 62 frames saved. Edit: While holding right.
DrD2k9
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TheRealThingy wrote:
Frames 4252-4280: press A here. Frame 4281: press B here = 62 frames saved.
I checked into this. It also works on the set of stairs immediately following the ones you pointed out. However, while it does save frames in the short term, the battle with griffon bosses at the end of the stage took longer. Even with pixel matched positioning and input at the beginning of the battle, I could no longer achieve the double hit on the first griffon. This resulted in additional jump-attacks (more frames) being necessary to kill the griffons; essentially negating the frames saved earlier in the stage. I played around with the battle for a while and could never complete it in few enough frames to get benefit from changing the earlier inputs. If you are interested in trying to solve this yourself, the memory location for the griffon hit-counts are 0481 for the left griffon and 0482 for the right griffon. Hopefully following stages wouldn't need to be altered (or very minimally so) due to RNG changes. Thanks for pointing out the potential improvement anyway.
Player (149)
Joined: 5/25/2015
Posts: 49
Maybe that was too much, just be more thorough, okay? Here, for example: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/34651411740515965
GoddessMaria
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Posts: 514
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I need to get more feedback on everyone's take on this submission. Anyone have anything they wish to say about this submission?
Current projects: failing at life
DrD2k9
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Hard to admit this about one's own submission; but based on the grand total of 1 vote, I'm guessing that its a rather unpopular game. It also makes me curious how many have even watched it to begin with. Though that's probably not the type of feedback you were looking for.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1236)
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The lack of feedback is usually because it has no encode. For an unpopular game, a quick vid would be more interesting, because no one would know what to expect.
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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Thanks for the encode, Hetfield. This looks like a fine first run of the game, good job. There just seem to be several areas throughout the run that look like minor optimizations are possible. Voting Meh.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3281] NES Beauty and the Beast by DrD2k9 in 16:34.98