I made a real-time run with savestates to beat Chapter 1 somewhat fast. An actual TAS should beat this time easily. I'm just improvising a route without slowdowns, and seeing where it takes me.
I would love to revive the discussion of E.V.O. and get a TAS underway. Though, at the moment, I'm more motivated to talk than to actually try things out myself. If my Life Force run is any indication of how motivated I am, you should note that things won't get done terribly fast if I'm the only one around.
I dug around for a few memory addresses...
7E0098,1u - Crystal transform frame count (0~63). Increments every frame
7E0099,1u - Crystal transform timer. Increments when 7E0098 returns to 0
7E00DB,1u - Apparently a frame counter. Freezing this causes oddities
7E00DE,1x - A general-purpose RNG. Freezing it causes behavior and luck changes
7E00DF,1x - Another address for a RNG. Just confirming what they are!
7E00E1,1u - Number of sprites currently being tracked
7E0137,1x\
7E0138,1x \ Some enemy states.
7E0139,1x / Seems to be equal to 0x88 if an enemy taking up that spot exists
7E013A,1x/
7E0766,1u - Enemy counter. Enemies loaded into memory since entering screen
I don't actually know how the game determines when you get flashing meat. When I set the values to 7E00DE:5A and 7E00DF:E6, the jellyfish always drops flashing meat. Not the eels, though. Naturally, enemies behave strangely after freezing these values.
A few random time-savers I can think of for Chapter 1, already seen in my real-time run:
Evolution choices
No jaws. That 800 points is better spent on Dorsal Fins and fins. It's a choice of a potential 5 bite versus a potential 6 strength + extra speed (
at a cost of 1000).
The choice of picking up the Spiraled Horn in my real-time run is probably not a good choice for an actual TAS.
Cave of Guidance
Hit R after reading the dialogue. The R button takes you instantly back to the world map if you've cleared an area, and the place is cleared after eating the crystal.
Cave of Temptation
Again, hit R after your transformation act. It doesn't matter whether you can't move at the time. After you're done flashing hues of yellow, hitting R gets you out to the world map anyway.
Obviously, manipulate the eel form. The speed easily wins out over the 10 strength of the manta. You have 1920 frames to use this form. Look at 7E0098 (
0~63) and 7E0099 (
done when it hits 30) for time remaining.
Ocean of Terodus
The trigger to clear out the wall of bubbles is to raise the enemy counter to 50, and after it gets there, make sure no more enemies exist. A good look at memory location 7E0766 is helpful here. Probably the best way to do this is stagger back and forth right about where some fishes will spawn. Immediately upon their creation, you turn around and swim away for a few frames, then come back to spawn more of them.
This means we probably won't be getting any food from here. This makes it more important we consider the time taken for some EVO.P elsewhere. You will still be an eel after this with more than half the time remaining, given how quick this is, so it isn't all bad.
Cave of Origin
After thrashing the boss with lovely tackles, don't dash out of the cave. Just swim at a normal pace and stick close to the overhanging rock to avoid some dialogue.
As for Chapter 2, I suggest a Power Tail and Vestigal Sharks Dorsal Fin for
the first boss of the chapter. Having 6 strength (
and a little speed) for spending 300 EVO.P is definitely very useful. It's even enough to one-shot the cockroaches in the next area!
Just giving a shout out for a hope to see the completion of a TAS of this game. Maybe I'll try a bit myself, when I feel like working on something besides Life Force.
