(Link to video)

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.2.1
  • Genre: Pinball
  • Abuses programming errors in the game

General Comments

This is an improvement of 7041 frames (1m57s) over the previous submission. Many nice new skips have been found by real time runners of this game, prompting a long overdue improvement to the any% run. We can now skip three of the four major levels, leaving Lava Powerhouse as the main barricade for a sub 5 minute run. This run has now been completed on Bizhawk rather than Gens, which does cause the occasional difference in loading times unfortunately, but nothing too significant.

Improvements

LevelDifference
Toxic Caves-266
Minigame #1-26
Lava Powerhouse-342
Minigame #2-12
The Machine-3156
Minigame #3+10
Showdown-3249

Level Commentaries

Level 1: Toxic Caves

It may be short, it may have been TASed many times before, but it's nice how there are still improvements to be found. A better exit after the sewer pipe allows better speed preservation getting to the barrel, so we can take the regular route down. The climb to the boss room has now been reduced to only two bounces, which now definitely is as few as it's ever going to be. The boss itself also gains a small improvement, by starting the destruction along the tail immediately, rather than travelling through to the opposite side first.

Level 2: Lava Powerhouse

Currently the only level we need to do properly. A nice ricochet off the first enemy saves a second getting to the upper chamber. Proper bouncing off the nearby bumper gets us to the first cook loop a bit faster, and then super spinning down the central pipe is faster than just falling. These savings mean that when trying to drop into the upper right chamber, we're too early to squeeze underneath the farron, so we need to ricochet around to go over instead. For the boss, unfortunately there is faster loading which prevents triggering the heads early, as it would not give us enough time to wedge ourselves in before they fully appear. This means that the boss has been done slightly slower, but that's offset by a new glitch. For some reason, the final sequence managed to be triggered without needing to wait for the fourth head be destroyed, which provides a huge saving.

Level 3: The Machine

The first of the two new glitches allowing for major skips. When Sonic is grabbed by a contraption which halts his movement, it does so by teleporting him into position and negating his X and Y velocities. It also negates his Y sub velocity, yet not his X sub velocity. This means that by holding L or R as we enter, there is still a tiny truncation of speed which is acted upon, allowing for a slight deviation to the left or right while inside. Now, the rotating cages are such a contraption, but normally the connecting tubes thrust sonic upwards which overrides movement, and so we enter without any sub velocity. However, certain setups on how we choose to enter can stagger the path a bit, which does allow enough time to regain control just before entering, allowing movement and thus the glitch to be activated. This allows us to now fall into the boss room, or bounce in for a faster method. Other such contraptions include the spawn pod at the start of Toxic Caves, or the steam powered vertical shafts on Lava Powerhouse.

Level 4: Showdown

And now the second major saving, allowing the majority of this level to be skipped too. The walls and floors are far from perfect in this game, and even the blocked entrance to Robotnik's ship still has a little lip sticking out which Sonic will happily land on. We still need to destroy the first blocks though, or else there will be clucks blocking our access to the upper chambers. The lack of perfect symmetry of the level means we can't do the same glitch on the right hand side sadly, even though it would be ~100 frames faster to access if we could.

Minigames

All three get improved, including an 18 frame saving on the third minigame, but it sadly loses 28 frames to loading for some reason.

ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: Great job! Accepting as improvement over the current publication.
feos: Pub along with Samson.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14777
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6034: Flip's Genesis Sonic Spinball in 05:19.86
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3942)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2702
Location: Michigan
Nice improvements, I especially liked the boss battles. Yes vote for me.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Challenger
He/Him
Skilled player (1634)
Joined: 2/23/2016
Posts: 1033
This was very very impressive! Oh yeah!
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
DrD2k9
He/Him
Editor, Expert player, Judge (2037)
Joined: 8/21/2016
Posts: 1009
Location: US
Very nice run and improvements.
GJTASer2018
He/Him
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 242
Location: Stafford, NY
It very much impresses me how big a leap this is over the previous TAS, nearly breaking the game in half with all the new glitches incorporated into it. Easy Yes vote!
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
EgixBacon
He/Him
Player (181)
Joined: 4/15/2013
Posts: 331
Location: In the attic
Game: You need 5 Emeralds... Good Luck! Sonic: Hold my beer. It's a Yes from me!
FanFiction|Youtube Still on Win7! Take that, Microsoft!
Evan0512
He/Him
Joined: 10/18/2017
Posts: 161
Location: San Francisco
It is great and short! Yes vote.
Planned runs: Marble Madness (Arcade, Genesis J, GG/SMS) Proposed: Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, GG/SMS, CD: regular, camera freeze) Ecco: The Tides of Time (Genesis, GG/SMS, CD; normal mode) Mario Kart DS (all cups, all missions) In progress: Grand Poo World 3 (all exits hard mode)
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14777
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3745] Genesis Sonic Spinball by Flip in 05:19.86