Mega Man X2 "X-Buster only, no upgrades" in 36:03.32

Run details:

• Takes damage to save time
• Low% completion (no upgrades)
• No sub-weapons usage (X-Buster only)
• Aims for fastest time
• Manipulates luck

General overview

• Ever since my old submissions of Mega Man X2, I have always wanted to work on a new run for this game. At the time, I didn't have a solid experience with TASing, which is why I wasn't optimal in my TAS projects. By time, I learned more from my mistakes and understood how TASing works. Now, thanks to the efforts of staff regarding the diversity of TASes, I thought this would be a great time to work on an X2 TAS with a different category. It was a very fun project to work on and the result received good response!
• This run aims at beating Mega Man X2 with X-Buster only and no upgrades. At first, I went with the buster upgrade, however, I felt it will be a bit similar to Any% in some places, thus I opted for the Low% restriction. Of course, the more restrictions, the longer the run gets, however currently there aren't any armor-less runs, so this was a good opportunity to add it to the site.
• In other categories, routing matters more as it can save a lot of time if chosen well. While in this category it may look insignificant (as we will only use X-Buster and no other weapons), it still matters, because the Counter Hunters appear after two stages beaten. They appear in different stages, but you beat the stage they're in without fighting them, they disappear forever, which saves some time during stage select. The route was crafted to make CHs disappear as fast as possible
• The route taken was Sponge -> Centipede -> Stag -> Gator -> Snail -> Ostrich -> Crab -> Moth.

Stage by stage comments

Intro and Wire Sponge

• Same as current Any%. There was some lag here and there due to the usage of a more accurate emulator.

Magna Centipede

• Comparing this to FractalFusion's best ending and no upgrades run, it's pretty much similar in most places. However, he used Speed Burner against the second mini boss, which we can't use in this run. This makes the fight longer as it's not weak to dash lemons and has 32 HP. The good news is that its i-frames are pretty short (about 30 frames).
• The Centipede fight is faster here because of the tailspin glitch which is newer. It saves time by not allowing Centipede to teleport, nor having to waste frames for no teleport animation manip.

Flame Stag

• It went similar to FractalFusion's run, with usage of the wall trick that allows kicking in same direction as the right walls (works only on right walls).

Wheel Gator

• Lack of Chain Strike usage definitely showed huge difference here, mainly in the Gator fight as he immediately sinks down as soon as the fight starts. Now, in other categories, this fight usually ends quickly with 10-11 Chain Strikes, as it prevents him from sinking, but here, we wait for him to come back up so the fight actually begins. I manipulated RNG so he only throws one wheel on the wall as it's faster. This shows his other patterns that are absent from other TASes and speedruns.

Crystal Snail

• Since we can't use the Speed Burner, we can't do the mini boss skip the usual way, so we use the ride armor as an alternative way to skip the mini boss. It's generally slower but it's still faster than fighting the mini boss with buster only, plus it's nice to show it off here.
• Snail fight is completely different. He immediately hides in his shell if you fire a lemon on him asap, thus I started the fight with a charged shot instead. After that, he responds to each shot by throwing some freezing crystals, four times, then he hides in his shell and goes up whether you like it or not xD. The position he stops at and the amount of time he stays hidden are completely RNG. To make the fight 3 cycles only (5-6-5 or 5-5-6 where each number indicates the amount of dash lemons per cycle), I manipulated two patterns: One where he goes up and stops at the center of right wall, which gives 5 shots and the other where he stops at the top. The latter pattern is mandatory as it allows shooting him twice before he starts throwing his freezing crystals, giving us 6 shots instead.

Overdrive Ostrich

• Standard stage overall. Ostrich fight was crafted so I can skip three i-frames cycles, saving 3 seconds.

Bubble Crab

• The submarine can cause a lot of lag and also troublesome, so I tried to destroy its scanner so it doesn't shoot its beam and disrupt the X's falling speed. Crab's fight went normal with consecutive dash lemons and some RNG manipulations to prevent his bubble covering pattern.

Morph Moth

• Standard stage here as well. Moth's fight though was annoying as the moth is not weak to dash lemons and causes so much lag, so I had to use charged buster more often. It's the only one that has this issue at least.

Counter Hunter 1: Violen

• Violen's fight went incredible. While he's not weak to dash lemons, I was able to manipulate his patterns and force him to stay in his place. This allows the CF-0 to work perfectly where I shoot a lemon from the leftmost of the screen to prepare the charged as early as possible, making the fight faster and look nicer!

Counter Hunter 2: Serges

• Serges fight was hard to optimize. While he's weak to dash lemons, the fact that he goes against your vertical position makes it hard to throw all shots in time. Fortunately, I managed to shot in time all 16 shots, but I had to land at the lower platform which can cost some frames. I decided to just land on the spikes instead for fun (it costs 2 frames only!)

Counter Hunter 3: Agile

• Agile is also not weak to dash lemons, and because he moves more frequently, the CF-0 trick is useless, so I just opted for consecutive charged shots.

Refights

• I had the idea that the order of refights didn't matter much as long as I get good start, however Akiteru mentioned that Crystal Snail's spinning animation before the fight starts can vary and thus may cost some frames. Not knowing that in time probably made me lose some frames.

Final stage

• Zero is not weak to lemons and only takes 1 damage from fully charged shot similar to green shot, though the green shot prepares in 20 frames while fully charged shot takes 80 frames to prepare. I opted to just use the green shot 32 times :)
• Wolverine Sigma's fight was heavily dependent on RNG where I need him to slash after every green shot, as he takes 2 damage from it. The special part about it is that he's vulnerable to it immediately after he attempts to slash, making the fight go faster. Thanks to FractalFusion for showing it in his no upgrades TAS.
• Wireframe fight is why this run became 36 minutes xD. It has 64 HP, it's only weak to fully charged shot, and takes only 1 damage from it. On top of that, it throws various enemies which can cause lag, making the fight take even more time. The run could have been a 34 minutes run without this fight haha.

Possible improvements

• Due to the usage of a more accurate core (BSNES v115), a lot of lag is generated throughout the run. Sometimes it may cost frames when trying to reduce lag but there might be instances where lag can be reduced and save some frames.
• Testing for Snail spinning duration in refights may save some time so that should be taken into consideration when improving this run.
• Morph Moth's first fight can probably go faster by a second or so if done similarly to the one in the refight.
• Some other spots I'm not aware of.

Special thanks

• FractalFusion: For his "best ending, no upgrades" run as it was a great run to refer to time to time when possible, despite it being over a decade old.
• Akiteru: He provided many info and points to pay attention to while also sharing his feedback constantly on the WIPs I shared in the Discord server.
• All Mega Man X2 TASers
• You: For reading this submission and watching.