Ok so a bunch of people seem to be misinterpreting my statement about running the game. There are differences between console and emulator strategies that have to do with load times. You would come to an understanding of this concept if you had experience with console running, but there is a misinterpretation of what I was implying. In addition, I'm not saying stop the tas until emulator loads are accurate, I'm saying to be aware of the difference in strategies that result from it.
So most people who play this game probably think that console loads are erratic and that you shoot the door to load the next room.
This is not how the game works.
For the following scenarios, I'm making up numbers here.
Look at this scenario:
So in this game you go from one room to the next. One would think that the left path is obviously faster because it gets to the next door sooner.
This is Metroid Prime though.
How rooms in metroid prime load is that there are invisible loading triggers placed in the room. The next room will start loading as soon as you touch the next loading trigger. Ok, I recall shooting the door and being in close proximity to the door will also load the next room, but this is usually not the most effective method of loading rooms unless you are oob and only if the load times are short. Usually the loading trigger encompasses all inbounds paths to the door. The door will open when the following conditions are met:
1) the room finished loading
2) you shot/bombed the door
If you shoot the door before the next room is loaded, the door shield will disappear, but the door will remain shut until the next room has loaded. Thus perceived differences in console load times actually are the result in touching the loading triggers at different times. The actual difference in console load times is relatively small.
Unlike most games, you have control over your character when the game is loading. This leads to some interesting strategies.
Now take a look at our scenario again, but with loading triggers taken into account:
This is huge. This completely changes the strategy here. The right path touches the loading trigger sooner, so that the next room is fully loaded sooner, and you can leave the room sooner than if you went the left path.
However, emulator has shorter load times than console (again, I'm making up numbers here):
This is not the only way this affects strategies.
Look at this scenario:
So there is a scan point by the door. If the doors opened instantly, it might not be worth it to face the scan point and do a dash off of it. However, they don't. If you were not able to control your character when the game is loading, it would also not be worth it. But this is not the case.
As you can see, doing a dash off of the scan target would cost no time with console loads in this scenario.
However, with emulator loads:
It is no longer quite as advantageous.
In TAS, you can build up speed by doing that bunnyhop/r-jump thing itspersonnal mentioned earlier. So therefore, even if its a straight hallway with nothing in it, the strategy still can differ with varying load times.
Look at this scenario:
This scenario is similar to going from Temple Lobby to Artifact Temple. Artifact Temple takes a really long time to load on console. In addition, there are no scan points or anything else in Temple Lobby. I don't know if its 20 seconds on console and 5 seconds on emu or what. I just made up a bunch of numbers. Emu load times are shorter though, and that is what matters for this demonstration. I also don't know the exact size of the loading triggers.
Now normally, you would sit around and wait for the door to open in a run, then boost through it. With TAS tools, you can probably do better than that. There is no sideways speedcap in this game, and therefore the goal in this scenario should be to build up as much speed while waiting for the door to open as possible
Idea on how to do this with console loads:
Now emulator has shorter loading times therefore, emulator has less time to build up speed. Emulator would use this sort of strategy instead:
You would end up in the next room with less speed.
There are a bunch of weird cases that I don't feel like going over because I just wrote a really long post.
Please don't ignore what I'm saying just because I'm saying it and I did a stupid thing. I did kinda do a stupid thing. But please understand this concept. Its absolutely essential.