This is an update to my cancelled run from last summer. I figured that a 2-player tas would be faster and I was right, as this run is 3511 frames faster than the cancelled run. I hope you all enjoy!
-recorded with SNES9X v1.51
-takes damage to save time
-uses death as a shortcut
-aims for fastest time
-abuses programming errors in the game
-manipulates luck
-one player controls two characters
General comments:
  • I use the Lee Twins because their jump attacks are more effective than the Toads' and I find they have more range than the Toads.
  • you may notice lag during this run; despite my best efforts, I could only reduce lag and not avoid it entirely.
  • turbo feature used at certain points
Glitches abused:
  • the enemies that hang on platform edges can be defeated with running attacks or jump kicks.
  • the finishing moves can be manipulated so that they kill enemies other than the "targets" as well as enemies that weren't knocked down to begin with.
  • if a jump to a higher platform is timed correctly, the player will "catch" the edge of the platform instead of staying in the air longer.
Level 1:
  • running attack used on most of the hanging enemies
  • laser robots aren't grabbed, because it faster just to kick each robot twice
  • after Abobo is hit by the final kick, he is immediately vulnerable to the finishing move
Level 2:
  • poles not used because then jump kicks cannot be used
  • I intentionally destroy three containers in Level 2-2; the first and third are destroyed to avoid interference in battle, and the second is destroyed for entertainment
  • In Level 2-3, ramming the front bikers is faster than waiting for them and kicking them
  • Big Blag is the only boss with no invincibility period; I clearly abuse this fact
Level 3:
  • In Level 3-2, I intentionally have player 2 wait for player 1 so that both players can safely pass under the press; this is faster than having player 1 wait for the press to rise
  • Also in Level 3-2, after the two whip girls, I move the players so that they both safely pass under the presses as early as possible
  • I had no control over the graphical glitch that occurs in the pipe section of Level 3-2
  • In Level 3-3, I intentionally kill player 2 to use his invincibility period to pass through the force fields quickly
Level 4:
  • luck manipulated so that the meteor pieces move in convenient directions and so that the UFOs shoot neither player
  • although player 1 starts off the shooting of the second UFO, player 2 finishes off the UFO so that player 1 can shoot the third UFO as early as possible
  • in the ratship battle, there are somewhat noticeable gaps in the players' streams of fire; I could not avoid these gaps, even with the turbo feature
  • damage taken in order to maintain targeting as well as steady fire
Level 5:
  • just before Level 5-2, in the section with the multiple ninjas, I take damage intentionally to kill the leftmost ninja as early as possible
  • damage during Robo-Manus fight is intentional so that player 2 can deliver the first hit as early as possible and since only one player is required to deliver the other hits as early as possible
Level 6:
  • I have player 1 use a normal punch on one enemy in order to stun it, because player 2's finishing move would have otherwise failed
Level 7:
  • I could not manipulate the two containers that appear during the Dark Queen fight, but I didn't have to. The first container contains an invincibility power-up which actually helped player 2 deliver an early hit. I was able to destroy the second container (to keep it from interfering) and avoid losing frames at the same time.
Total in-game time: 17:40
I am very pleased with how this run turned out and I hope you all enjoy this run more than my cancelled run or enjoy it in general!

mmbossman: There were some spots that I thought could have been much more entertaining, like the rappeling down the long shute, but overall it's a fairly well-done movie. Accepting for publication.

adelikat: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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Tsk. Immediate desync. I'm guessing the SDL port of 1.51 isn't up to snuff. /me crosses fingers for a fast youtube encoding
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Billy and Jimmy..... I mean... erf, -pure ownage-.
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Dromiceius wrote:
Tsk. Immediate desync. I'm guessing the SDL port of 1.51 isn't up to snuff. /me crosses fingers for a fast youtube encoding
Syncs perfectly fine for me until the end. I'll make a cheap and dirty encode for you.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
ShinyDoofy wrote:
Dromiceius wrote:
Tsk. Immediate desync. I'm guessing the SDL port of 1.51 isn't up to snuff. /me crosses fingers for a fast youtube encoding
Syncs perfectly fine for me until the end. I'll make a cheap and dirty encode for you.
For me too !! :P
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Posts: 716
Oh, alright. Dromiceius, see http://code.google.com/p/snes9x-rr/ for possible sourcecode updates. Anway, here's the encode - no intro, subtitles or anything, way too high bitrate and so on.
Joined: 8/27/2006
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I know I asked a lot, but is it possible to upload this to youtube ? I can't watch the movies with the codec of the site on the computer I'm on.
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If anybody wants to upload it, go ahead (Flygon?)...
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The only thing I dislike is when you stop and wait for something to happen, the rest is ok, Yes vote.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
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Posts: 3960
Thanks for the encode, ShinyDoofy! It would have been nice to see more playing around during the jetbike segments. As it is, the brothers are just right on top of each other when you're doing the dodging segments, and one of them's just idling when the other's picking up the bonuses. Similarly, during the rappelling segments, you often have the brothers perfectly overlapping each other. These are good opportunities to play around, though I know that makes the TAS harder to do since you have more input to deal with. There's a segment where you have to hand-over-hand along some pipes while flames fly at you from various directions. After that there's a rappelling segment, but two of the flames are lingering onscreen. Is that supposed to happen? You don't appear to be hurt by them. Seems like it could be a source of lag. In the segment where there's lots of objects falling down, the lag's pretty bad. Would staying near the top of the screen improve that? It seems, to my untrained eye, that when you moved up, the lag went away, though that might have been due to fewer falling objects being onscreen. In the chase segment where you're shooting things that the rat ship drops, it seems like there's a fair amount of dead time; another possible opportunity to play around, maybe? When you kill the rat ship, is there a reason you only have one ship shooting at its nose at a time? When climbing ladders on the missile, you stop for flames when you're going down the ladder. What happens if you take damage here? Could you drop down the ladder faster if you did? On the whole, the run was fairly entertaining. The miniboss fights got a bit dull what with just jump-kicking the guy back and forth, but there's not much you can do about that.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Location: Seattle, WA
I really appreciated how you spiced up some waiting periods. It's unfortunate that some the other pauses went with no action, but it's no big deal. I was surprised to see no dancing to the music, though, consider how strong the basslines are in this game. Play style was what I had expected: very similar to how people usually play it (lots of jump kicks and juggling), but much more optimized. Yes vote for Bimmy and Jimmy.
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In response to your comments/questions, Derakon: -the "flames" that linger make up the graphical glitch mentioned in my submissions comments. As I said there, I had no control over the glitch. -I am pretty sure the reduced lag in the falling objects section was due to less onscreen objects. I would like to stress that I could only reduce lag instead of avoiding it. -About killing the ratship, if having two players simultaneously shoot the nose saved time, I would have definitely done so, but I used one player at a time so that the other player could prepare to shoot his specific target from the "twins" as early as possible. I know that the last two targets are single targets, but I felt using two players was pointless as it didn't save time. -About climbing down that specific ladder, even if I hit the lowest flame, I would have been sent back to the top. Waiting through the "burning animation" takes longer than climbing down with those short breaks, anyway.
Joined: 10/3/2005
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ShinyDoofy wrote:
Anway, here's the encode - no intro, subtitles or anything, way too high bitrate and so on.
Much appreciated. I tried building from SVN, but had the same results as the last time I did it: ioapi.c/h are missing. Even though it's just the unzip code that has (obvious) problems, workarounds yield an executable that has no sound and bad sync. I don't know what's up with that, but fortunately I don't have to debug it. Thanks again. :) As for the run, I give it a weak yes, because it was fun to watch and there were no glaring mistakes. I wonder if there are tricks possible in "friendly fire" mode such as there are in Double Dragon II. Launching one player over a pit instead of swinging, for instance.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Thanks for the answers, White Gastra. My attitude towards the run is basically the same as Dromeceius. It seemed like there were opportunities to play around that weren't taken, but when you were actually progressing the game, things went quickly, and the run was enjoyable to watch.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 6/20/2008
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Man, I'm glad someone else played through this, because I could never get past how, as a whole product, this game simply doesn't measure up to the NES version. As for the run, it's very clean, though I'll agree that the bosses are boring (but at least they're also short-lived). I know in the NES run of this game, a large amount of the climbing-on-fences-over-pits was skipped by jumping into pits and respawning with a decisive gain. Is that a possibility in this version?
mklip2001
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Nice! I'm glad to see a run of this game again. The sound is actually good. I agree with other comments so far that there could be a little more playaround (especially stuff timed to the music... that always amuses me), but I liked what I saw. Highlights: Big Blag was an awesome boss fight. I liked the couple Lindas in Stage 3 who fell down the shaft after you beat them, as well as the glitched rings in 3-3. I liked seeing Roper get batted around, and it was fun, though not as much so, watching Robo-Manus get juggled. Also, holy hell at pwning the Ratship so hard, and nice going with the Dark Queen when she hadn't even surfaced. However, near the end of Stage 3, at the last two chain fences, couldn't you grab the chain fencing a little more to the right? Also, as Priam mentioned, would it save time to die in the pits in that stage rather than climbing the background? Last minor comment: you listed "Uses death as a shortcut", but I don't think I saw you die at all this run. EDIT: Scratch my comment about using death as a shortcut. I completely forgot about the electricity tunnel. Thanks for the response, White Gastra.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
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Response to mklip2001's post: -I grabbed each fence as far to the right as I could; I know it doesn't look it, but it's because this game isn't incredibly well-programmed. Despite being a really great game, the game has subpar collision detection and no invincibility period following damage (only following death). -I tried intentionally falling into the pits. It does not save time. -In the third part of Level 3, I have player 2 lose a life during the force field section to use his invincibility period to pass through the remaining force fields. That is why I listed "Uses death as a shortcut."
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Yep, death as a shortcut was right on that one! YES VOTE! Please publish this run. ^_^
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Awesome. Big ups, yes vote, then.
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Holy cow! That's the closest countdown time that I've seen a game succeed on! And I voted yes.
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Dromiceius wrote:
I wonder if there are tricks possible in "friendly fire" mode such as there are in Double Dragon II. Launching one player over a pit instead of swinging, for instance.
Playing "2-players A" won't be faster than playing "2-players B" (the mode I played) because there would be too many lost frames on the boss battles (especially Abobo and Big Blag) and sections where the players would normally be close to each other (such as the double finishing move sections) trying to keep the players safe from each other. Also, even if the launch across a pit is successful, the launching (as opposed to launched) player still has to swing across to pit, because there is no one to launch him and suicide doesn't respawn him on the other side, let alone save time.
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As a kid I had the NES version of this game. Loved it to death. Played it as much too. I then heard of the SNES version and didn't like it as much for 1 reason...sound. As funny as it is for me to say this there are more sounds in the NES version that make the sequences more fun. Otherwise it's just watching 2 guys beat stuff up with hardly anything else. I'm gonna have to meh here. I also remember a few more tricks/glitches that are in the NES. Biggest one that I remember is a continuation of the "finisher hits wrong target but has same effect" glitch. On the 1st boss Abobo you could easily make the 4th or 3rd hit the finisher. I did this all the time in 1 player mode as the Dragons. It's a little bit harder than the Toads, but doable. Also on that note, a 2P beat each other up mode could be FASTER because of the finisher. P1 knocks P2 down, goes to do the finishing knee drop aaaannnd...oops, smashes the boss who just happened to be in the way. So the boss fights could turn into a few hits instead of juggling them.
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fruitbane
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I've noticed this SNES version has some lag going on. Does the Genesis version suffer from this lag also?
nesrocks
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Ok, first my comments on the run: The best level by far was level 4. You did a lot of play around, there was impressive precision, and both players danced in sync. The rest of the levels, honestly I fast forwarded most of it because it was so predictable. Like the boss of level 5 (and many others), couldn't you hit him in a variety of ways and then kill him at the top of the screen only near the end? I'm almost certain that it wouldn't make you lose time at all. Also, the lag produced in level 2 surely came from the buggy flames, which appeared because you went too fast (the slow flame that came from the left went all the way to the end). It's obvious that if you waited a little for it to go away and then going to the next section would avoid the glitch, and so the lag. Also, did you try picking mode A and doing what I do on big blarg in my NES battletoads movie? By that I mean this: http://tasvideos.org/BattletoadsTricks.html (trick for NES battletoads, may work on BT&DD) "Doing 15 times more damage Hit an enemy or another player until he's almost dying, and prepare the final hit on him, but miss him and hit the enemy that has full health. This last blow is quite powerfull. This doesn't work on bosses (a boss is any "enemy" that will end the level when defeated. This is not the case for Big Blarg)." All in all my biggest complaint is that the gameplay was too predictable (except for level 4) and cared only about doing the fastest time possible, and even then there are big chances that it can be a lot faster. I vote no (I wish to see more play around). edit: you can also do this (taken from tricks page): "Super high jump on jet and surfboard To do this, touch the jet or the surfboard while going up a running jump. Basically, run and jump right before hitting the vehicle. "
mklip2001
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FODA, in this game, Big Blarg (or Blag, I don't know which) is a level-ending boss, so I'm not sure if the trick applies. I would like to know, though, where this trick comes in handy, because I think this movie only features it occasionally in stage 6.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.