Crash Bash is the fifth installment in the Crash PSX series, the first Crash game not made by Naughty Dog, the original creators. It is a Party game following a storyline with a variety of minigames, including 4 bosses from the Crash franchise with gameplay based off of these minigames.
Acquiring 200% involves collecting all 140 collectibles, 5 collectibles from each of the 28 unique minigames, alongside defeating the 4 bosses.
This is a no memory manipulation run. Memory manipulation is done by pressing down left at the letter V in the save file name screen. This takes you out of bounds, and gives you access to the changing memory values, but only from 0 to 2 and back again. There is currently some known effects that can come from this, including reducing timers and auto-win characteristics, but there is still a vastly unknown amount of knowledge of what every memory value change does to the game.
At the start, there is an option to choose between 8 different characters. These are the Bandicoots (Crash and Coco), Scientists (Cortex and Brio), Strongs (Tiny and Kong) and Hybrids (Dingodile and Rilla Roo). Tiny or Kong are objectively the fastest characters due to their strengths being overall best in the 3 minigames where the characters have differences. We discovered around halfway through the TAS process that Tiny has small frame advantages over Kong in 2 different minigame types, which considering I originally picked Kong thinking there was no difference is frustrating. However, due to being given more manageable AI in the harder challenges, this would overall even out.
There are 4 main warp rooms, each filled with an increasing number of minigames to complete, with a 5th bonus warp room after defeating the final boss. Each boss has a collectible count requirement to proceed. In any%, the fastest or safest collectibles are completed to meet these requirements.
The 5 different collectibles are:
Trophy - Win 3 rounds before any other AI does in the minigame. Easiest AI difficulty.
Gem - Win a round with a point, time, lap disadvantage. More difficult AI.
Crystal - Win a round with a stage disadvantage (e.g items that instakill you but not the AI). Harder difficulty AI.
Gold/Plat relic - Win twice/three times in a row. Hardest AI. Hidden disadvantages (AI are heavier/healthier/faster etc).
Gold relics are not unlocked until entering Warp 4, and are not necessary to complete the game to any%.
Platinum relics are not unlocked until completing Mallet Mash Trophy in warp 5.
The 7 different minigames (and any important information) are as follows:
Ballistix: Win in a game of Pong against 3 other AI. Every AI has the same statistics. Plenty of opportunities for AI manipulation from changing my position/taunting/kicking on certain frames. Ideally I want to get as many corner shots as possible by kicking the ball as it comes out from my bottom two corners. There is a ball limit that increases overtime, up to a maximum of 5. It's best to score each ball ASAP so a new one can spawn in.
- Crash Ball is the basic structure. Kick or deflect balls away from your goal.
- Beach Ball has very slow moving balls, but using the magnet powerup speeds up the balls tremendously.
- N.Ballism has N.Gin spawning in the centre. His section is an autoscoller, so you want to score balls fast outside of this.
- Sky Balls just has play area tilt, which causes the balls to curve.
- Oxide, the 4th and final boss, uses this minigame type in a 1v1 situation, including a unique flying section before this ballistix second phase. Oxide is incredibly difficult to beat in his ballistix phase as he has incredible AI, which becomes easier from death abuses. However, sending 2 balls his way on perfect opposite sides forces him to let a ball in.
Polar Push: Win by being the last man standing by pushing the other AI off the arena. Here, every character type has a unique push style and weight. Kong and Tiny has a strong push without taking too long to recharge. This minigame is can be considered very unfair as the AI are usually heavier and harder to push. Counterpushing, by pushing an AI just as they start to push you, is an effective way to counteract this, and is used plenty later into the TAS.
- Polar Panic is slower due to breaking ice walls.
- Tilt Panic tilts based on the distribution of mass, and makes movement harder in areas.
- Melt Panic introduces harsher powerups, such as freezing or snowballs which cause a player to become near immobile.
- Manic Panic has bombs, which if hit by, players lose their strong push power on the polar bear.
- Bearminator, the 2nd boss, uses this minigame type.
Pogo Pandemonium: Have the highest score at the end of the round. Shoes are a common must to getting points fast, by increasing your hop speed from a hop every 18 frames to every 10. Every character hops the same speed, except for Rilla Roo, who takes 17 and 9 frames respectively, which makes the later collectibles rather hard, trying to keep up with him.
- Pogo Painter is basic, with rocket weapons and arrow paints, scoring by boxes.
- Pogo a Gogo has the ability to score by completing open shapes.
- El Pogo Loco has the ability to fill squares by completing open shapes, but scoring by boxes. Ripper Roo places hazards on the field.
- Pogo Padlock has rockets that allow you to steal players squares, but landing on your own square takes away all your colour.
Crate Crush: Be the last man standing by killing all the other players with damage. Here, every character type has a unique throw and kick style. Kong and Tiny have a weaker crate kick, but have a fast and long throw, which is far more imporant in crucial situations. Players who have taken melee damage can still take damage by crates, despite having I-frames, so kicking an AI with a crate in hand makes them take damage from melee and the falling crate, which is utilised plenty in the TAS. TNT and Nitros deal the most damage, and relying on spawns of these crates is important. Changing throw direction mid throw causes the box to come out on strange angles, which allows precise throws. Going for double and triple hits on AI does the most dps.
- Jungle Bash is a plain field introducing you to the game.
- Space Bash has a destructible floor, where explosions remove squares and falling in a hole instakills a player.
- Snow Bash has a slippery floor, and a Penguin who, once woken, spins around dealing melee damage.
- Drain Bash has powerups in boxes that deal similar damage as TNT, with unique characteristics.
- Papu Pummel, the 1st boss, uses this minigame type.
Tank wars: Be the last man standing by killing all the other players using tank weaponry; mines and projectiles. Kong and Tiny have the strongest projectile out of everyone - despite it being slow and not lasting long, the extra damage saves plenty of time. This is manipulation hell as almost everything you do changes the AI, so getting the AI to behave is tricky. Manipulating item spawns is also important, but getting both AI and item spawns to work with you takes trial and error.
- Desert Fox is a gridlock map where mine explosion travels.
- Metal Fox is a grid constantly changing map, with a new projectile bomb that shoots slow but deals high damage.
- Jungle Fox is an open plan area, with a new rocket projectile that can hit multiple people.
- Swamp Fox is a water map with drift physics, floating mines that deal great damage, and a shield that protects you from getting hit.
- Big Bad Fox, the 3rd boss, uses this minigame type. The Komodo Bros projectile does much more damage than you after only 1 death abuse. Mine placement also manipulates their movement. Further death abuses increases your damage output, which is used RTA.
Crash Dash: Be the first person to complete all 10 laps, or be the furthest ahead when the time runs out. Every character has the same stats here, except in the relics where the AI get a considerable speed increase. This introduces a TAS only strategy called Lap Skips. A lap skip occurs when respawning or AI put you behind the finish line after already having driven over it. Physically driving back over the finish does not count. This is achieved in 4 different ways: shooting or ramming an AI into the sky to land on your kart and proxying you back; having an AI drive into the front of your kart against a wall or another AI, proxying you back; having an AI respawn near the finish, with their respawn animation proxying you back; or driving off the edge just after the finish line, which respawns you before the finish line.
- Dot Dash showcases the rocket/ramming lap skips, no way to drive off after finish.
- Toxic Dash allows the driving off lap skip, collecting wumpa fruit for faster deaths, with occasional AI proxys.
- Splash Dash is small enough that its faster to drive around. The jumping mechanic can cause lap skips by the AI. Landing on poles also pushes you forward slightly.
- Dante's Dash is a large map which utilises both of the Dot and Toxic Dash lap skip styles.
Medieval Mayhem: A variety of minigames where the highest score wins.
- Ring Ding is where you pop balloons of your colour. Black balloons has 3 different powers, but ideally we just want the one that makes all balloons our colour. Boxes provide vacuums which bring all of our colour to us. You can choose what item or power you get by jumping or kicking on the right frame.
- Dragon Drop is where you ride a dragon, and shoot gems at a target to score points. The AI are rather aggressive towards you if you're holding a gem, so firing it ASAP almost negates this. Charging a player makes them lose their gem they are holding.
- Mallet Mash is where you squash mushrooms for points. The longer they stay on the field, the more they are worth. Golden mushrooms are special and are worth more.
- Keg Kaboom is where you leave a trail of gunpowder that catches fire to blow up barrels to score points. The longer you chain barrels, the more they are worth, with 10 maximum points per barrel. Golden barrels give 20 points automatically however. Losing your chain means starting back at 2 points.
Moments to look out for:
Splash Dash Trophy Round 3, Dragon Drop Gem, Big Bad Fox Boss, Keg Kaboom Plat Relic Round 2, Dante's Dash Plat Relic Round 3, and Oxide (especially for those who have played this boss before).
The worst levels to TAS were Metal Fox, as getting the best AI alongside the best Bomb spawn RNG was awful. Also the Medieval Mayhem levels, aside from Dragon Drop, became incredibly boring walking simulators to TAS, but I tried my best to make them work.
My favourite levels to TAS were by far the Crash Dash levels, with Splash Dash and Dante's Dash being so much fun. Getting the lap skips, and the Splash glitches, were extremely satisfying. Otherwise, doing the El Pogo Loco and Pogo Padlock gems were an interesting challenge to mix RNG manipulation and interesting pathing to find the fastest way to score in commonly unoptimised gems.
I hope you enjoy watching! Feel free to ask questions if you're curious.
Final Encode coming soon
Noxxa: Replaced movie file with a fixed and spiked version.
CasualPokePlayer: Optimization seems fine. There are some minor mistakes noted in the submission, along with potential missed optimization noted by redhotbr, but given how long this submission is, this is understandable, and doesn't make this submission overall sloppy.
The goal choice seems to be "aim for 1 player full completion, but avoid memory manipulation glitches." Whether this kind of goal can be accepted into Moons disregarding entertainment factors, I'm not going to go over, since this submission has had very mixed feedback (53% 7/1/6 votes, 3/3 positive/negative feedback posts), and this is understandable given how much of the run is simply waiting around.
So, if this goal choice is out of Moons just from entertainment factors, can it go into the Vault? Well, full completion is allowed in the Vault, but only the fastest full completion is. Avoiding memory manipulation glitches makes this run slower than the RTA record using memory manipulation glitches (even after accounting for the RTA record using a PS2), so it cannot be Vaulted given it does not set a record.
There is also another factor to consider for Vault. 200% is the maximum completion possible for 1 player. However, this not the case for 2 players. 2 players can gain an extra trophy, which brings the percent counter to 201%. This could maybe be argued to be okay since it is full completion when choosing 1 player, but it would very likely be obsoleted by a 2 player 201% run.
A future full completion submission aiming for the Vault should aim for 201% instead, and should use memory manipulation glitches to the fullest known extent (within the bounds of
full completion rules, of course). With that said...
Rejecting for not qualifying for either Vault or Moons.
DrD2k9: Re-evaluating rejection due to rule changes.
DrD2k9: Rules now allow for all of the following in our Standard Class publications:
- Avoiding a major skip glitch (actually it was the FIRST new standard goal that we added to any% and 100%)
- Fewest players/max players
- Full completion just needs to not use mem corruption to increment completion counter directly
So...this run plays with 1 player (fewest) and performs full completion without using memory corruption to artificially increment the completion %. The question becomes whether or not foregoing the memory corruption glitch qualifies as avoiding a major skip glitch. One use of the memory corruption glitch alone may not save a massive amount of time (while it does eliminate some gameplay); but given how much time could be saved by using the glitch consistently throughout a run, foregoing the use of it avoids skipping a massive amount of gameplay. I think, in this case, that it makes sense to consider the avoidance of that glitch to qualify as avoiding skipping a major portion of gameplay over the course of the run.
Accepting.
Publisher note: Spikestuff will be claiming publication.
