About the Game(s)
Action 52 is an unlicensed game made for the NES and Sega Genesis, featuring - you guessed it - 52 different video games. The NES version was published in 1991, whereas the Genesis version was published in 1993. Both versions were published by Active Enterprises.
Manchester is game 44/52 in the NES version of Action 52. You play as a boy who can jump (B) and punch (A) while ploughing through projectiles and punks with mohawks. At the end of each level, there's a fiery man who you have to fight by punching him until you score 1000 points.
About the TAS
This TAS aims to complete all 3 levels as fast as possible.
Starting the Game
After waiting through the Action 52 cutscene and a little bit of menuing, gameplay starts on frame 970.
Level 1
We want to jump as little as possible. Every jump wastes 1 non-lag frame (or 2 frames). After climbing a staircase of music blocks, we stop holding R for 3 non-lag frames to jump over a punk. On frame 1647, we stop holding R for 1 non-lag frame to avoid a projectile.
Gameplay continues as normal until frame 2036, when we can start setting up a (literally) ground-breaking trick: the ceiling clip. It turns out the developers didn't program ground correctly, so if we fall off a ledge, we just land on the ceiling. When this is done, it generates 2 extra lag frames, but it still ends up faster than actually playing the level, mainly due to not having to avoid anything but also because of the lack of jumping.
After about 45 seconds of walking on the ceiling, we have to jump back up to the floor to fight the boss. Now, the boss has a very awkward cycle, so unfortunately, it takes a long time to beat him. We can't punch him when he's coming down from the ceiling at the right-hand side, which would give us 350 points, because for some reason we lose a life. So we have to improvise by waiting for him to come down and getting a 200 point punch every 620 frames. For the 5th and final punch, we actually can punch him when he's coming down from the ceiling as we kill him before we would lose a life.
The Level 1 boss fight takes about 42 seconds. As mentioned, this is extremely slow, but it eventually gets the job done. As far as I've tried, there is no faster way to fight the boss here.
Level 2
At the very start, we have to jump over a short staircase, slowing us down a bit. Strangely, we can clip through the first block of the staircase, which is the first example of that in this TAS. At frame 7651, we have to wait 14 non-lag frames for a projectile to move out of the way. We can't jump over the punk because it moves to the right as the screen scrolls. At frame 7929, we have to wait 1 non-lag frame to jump off a ledge.
We jump into the floor at frame 8218. This isn't a full ceiling clip, but it still works around the jumping and enemies. Now we don't have to dodge any enemies (excl. the boss) for the rest of the TAS, as Level 3 has none.
This time on the final boss screen, there's a staircase, meaning we can jump onto the top ledge and sneak in an extra 200-point punch. This way, the Level 2 boss fight takes about half the time of the Level 1 boss fight, and is done in just over 20 seconds.
Level 3
At the very start, we have to wait 11 non-lag frames to jump off a ledge. After that, we're home free in terms of jumping as well. The ceiling clip setup starts at around frame 11215.
The boss is killed in a similar fashion to Level 1, except for the fact that we can jump on the platforms to get the last punch in earlier. This fight takes about 39 seconds.
And that concludes Action 52: Manchester! Thanks for reading.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: The physics in this game are really bizarre. You try to punch a boss in mid-air, before it is even close to death...and you die. For the last punch, you get to successfully kill the boss in the air?? WHAT? So, this was where I started my optimization checks. These boss fights probably pose the best place to look for frames...which i cannot figure out any way to speed them up. As for the rest of the game...this is probably the best showcase of Action 52 mechanical exploits of the entire library (Well, 2nd to "The Cheetahmen"). Because of the quirky mechanics here...this TAS has very interesting things to watch. At every place, they seem to have been exploited in every case to make this TAS faster than it should be.
Accepting.
