Introduction
This is part 2 of 3 of my Spider-man three-peat, ménage à trois, triple play, etc. The other two parts can be found
here and
here
This is my run of Spider-man: Return of the Sinister Six, completed 2079 frames (34.65 seconds) faster than the
previous run by heisanevilgenius. This run requires the new FCEUX emulator to play back; it can be found
here. I chose to make this using the latest and greatest emulator just because it’s so much more user friendly than previous versions, and I actually enjoyed TASing an NES game, which I had never been able to say before. With that said, on to the run.
For a very good description of the game’s mechanics, see the
previous submission text. I’ll add a couple things however:
- Spiderman travels at a rate of 2px/frame, whether walking or jumping.
- He is able to reach 3 px/frame if released from a web sling near the bottom of the arc, or slightly into the upswing. Less commonly, he is able to travel at 4px/frame, but only after stringing together 2-3 web swings.
- During a swing, input is only accepted every 4-5 frames, depending on character speed, so optimal press of A to release from the swing is one frame before the animation updates.
- Damage to bosses can be prolonged by holding down A longer, however sometimes it is faster to use a slightly weaker but faster punch to deal the greatest damage per unit time.
Improvements
Title screen: A one frame window exists to skip the title faster.
22 frames saved
Much of the first stage used improved web swinging for improvement, including a couple that launch our hero at 4 px/frame. In the second stage the previous run used web bullets (the small boxes sometimes seen on the ground) to break the door, but I found a method to quickly alternate flying kicks and web swinging, which is not only a faster method outright, it means I was able to skip the bullets which saved a lot of time. I lose a couple frames later due to bad luck, as seen in the ducking for two frames to avoid the enemy bullet. Not having bullets to kill the guard with the key is also a very minor loss, but it is offset by the massive gains from skipping the bullets. Shocker starts out with 88 HP, as opposed to his normal ~150, because I take out his generator quickly. The first jump I make is purely for manipulation purposes, the next starts his demise.
Level 1 total time saved: 455 frames
More time was saved through some good luck (there was no breakable box on the second fall, as is seen in the previous run), and more optimized movements. I got excellent luck with Sandman’s first (and only) warp, and easily took him out.
Level 2 total time saved: 199 frames saved
Web-slinging in level 3 and beyond became moderately more difficult due to the dropping/exploding objects. If they touch spider-man, he falls from his web like an ungraceful sloth, and loses almost all his speed. A huge thanks to heisanevilgenious for the memory address for the night goggles used in 3-3, it was incredibly helpful to not have to go searching for it myself. Mysterio is fairly easy to manipulate, except for his first warp (which always occurs). 4 extended punches take out one clone, allowing progress to be made to the next area, and each clone is manipulated into the most optimal position possible.
Level 3 total time saved: 592 frames saved
Strangely similar to level 1, except for the pain in the ass bombs which makes extended swinging impossible. The guys who pop out of the ground to shoot rockets at you are a nice touch though. The vulture is difficult to manipulate well, and he’s prone to stay in the air for a long time. This is the most optimal solution I could find, but this is the boss I think could be improved the most in a future revision.
Level 4 total time saved: 411 frames
This level features zombies that throw porkchops at our hero, many of which end up hitting him in the back of the head. Since superheroes get like no salary, maybe Spider-man will go back after the game and grab them to take home so that Mary Jane will quit bitching at him for not putting food on the table. I dunno. And for some reason, Spider-man ended up in the Amazon (as witnessed by the large vines hanging everywhere) right after his fight on the roof-tops. In any case, the level is straightforward, and unimaginative, and I was able to manipulate the boss into a good pattern after roughly 8 attempts.
Level 5 total time saved: 144 frames
At this point the hookers and pizza that the programmers had ordered way back in level 2 finally arrived, so they left Maurice the intern to complete the last level (Scientific Fact: No one likes people named Maurice). So instead of some awesome final level involving advanced 8 legged robots, we are treated to a fucking montage of the first five levels. It’s not obvious at first glance, but each tall chain-link fence separates one level's baddies from the other level's baddies. Not only is this a horrible excuse for a final level, it also sucks for speed, since any jump high enough t clear the fences leads to Spider-man dropping like a rock after traveling 20 feet, breaking many of the laws of physics in the process. As for the final boss, he seems like he’d be very difficult to actually beat, but he’s incredibly easy to optimized for a TAS since his "Ow, you punched me in the head!" animation is about 15-20 frames longer than Spider-man's "Fuck you, I just punched you in the head" animation. Therefore, multiple hits are stung together for each of the three iterations of Doc. Ock, making the last fight pretty patheti-sad. And please don’t ask me about the giant, green self-destructing snot bubbles that he uses between each ass kicking, they’re more of Maurice’s work.
Level 6 total time saved: 256 frames
Enjoy!
Truncated: This certainly feels very different from the previous movie. As in, much higher tempo. Accepted.
