The Mask TAS by Randil
This run is 12582 frames (3 minutes 29.7 seconds) faster than
slash_star_dash's run of this very fast paced platformer. Time was saved mostly due to a shortcut in level 1, and much, much faster boss battles. More details on what has been improved can be found under the "Improvements and tricks" section below.
- Aims for fastest possible time.
- Takes damage to save time.
- Manipulates luck.
- Genre: Platform.
- Use WIP1 Timing Checked. Nothing else is checked.
Desync issues: I've had many desyncs with slash_star_dash's run, and a few desyncs with this run. If this movie desyncs, it will probably do so at the start meny, I haven't found any other places where it can desync. But don't worry if it desyncs! Just play the movie again and it should work. If it doesn't, try rebooting the emulator and try again.
About the game:
"The Mask" is an extremely fast platformer (you can move as fast as 16 pixels per frame), in which you play Stanley Ipkis, also known as "The Mask". You have several weapons in this game, namely the hammer, the boxing gloves, the guns, the horn (never used in this run).
You also have the ability to "super-run" if you hold down L+R. This is of course used a lot in the run.
When using special weapons or super-running you spend M-points. You can get more M points by picking up those green M's that you can find here and there. When you're really low on M-points, you will automatically regenerate them slowly.
You can also pick up money, but money doesn't do anything useful besides increasing you score.
After each level you meet a boss, and as you advance further in the game, the bosses will get more and more HP, and they get more aggressive.
Improvements and tricks:
So, what has been improved? To sum things up, almost every little thing has been improved by some frames. Overall, movements are much smoother, and thanks to some basic TAS tricks I was able to shave off quite a lot of time. Especially the boss fights are faster, in particular the last boss fights.
Some notes about the last boss fight: The last boss has a lot of HP, somewhere around 650 I believe. By picking up the notes that the saxophone player to the right creates, I heal my M-points by 25 each time I pick one up. This is done so that I can use the guns more often, since the double gun damage trick works on the last boss. The notes that the left saxophone player creates only heal my HP, that's why I don't pick them up.
Here are some of the tricks I used to speed up this run:
- If you press down at the exact right frame when super-running, you will start sliding, increasing your speed by 1 pixel per frame! This is used when possible throughout the run.
- By holding down left or right when using the hammer or guns, I start running as soon as I'm done using them, allowing me to use them again much sooner than if I don't hold down anything.
- By using the guns at the right time (when me and the boss are at a certain distance from each other), it's possible to deal almost double damage with the guns. This is only possible on bosses who don't move much after being shot with the guns. Luckily for me, this is the case with the 2 last bosses, the ones with the most HP. :)
Level comparison table:
| Level | Frames saved on level | Frames saved on boss battles |
|---|
| Menu | 64 | - |
| Level 1 | 1481 | 145 |
| Level 2 | 1643 | 1788 |
| Level 3 | 303 | 226 |
| Level 4 | 283 | 547 |
| Level 5 | 343 | 1849 |
| Level 6 | 201 | - |
| Level 7 | 505 | 3204 |
| Total | 4823 | 7759 |
The making of this run:
This is my first finished SNES TAS, so this was quite an experience for me to do. I'm glad it turned this much faster, too. :) I used gocha's memory watching tool to watch all kinds of RAM addresses. Obviously, this was extremely useful, especially on the boss fights.
I also edited in new improvements afterwards with TAS Movie editor. Thank God for that tool, this run would not have been done anytime soon if it wasn't for that tool. :)
This TAS was done pretty much the same way as I usually do runs, lots and lots of rerecords and "trial and error" strategies. Since SNES9X worked so good for me, it's likely that I'll do some more SNES TASes in the future. :)
Enjoy the movie!
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots
of this movie and placed them here.
Here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.
adelikat: Screenshots removed, seems NVA had a desync with this one.