MarbleousDave
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Joined: 9/12/2009
Posts: 1554
I would like to see a TAS of Mega Man on the Game Gear. It is suggested to do the Hard setting, where enemies are twice as tough, they take out more energy from you, and there's more enemy placement. You start by selecting any of the four robot masters (Stone Man, Napalm Man, Bright Man, and Star Man) Bright Man Make use of the Rush Coil in a few places. Use the Star Crasher while fighting Bright Man. Napalm Man Again, make use of the Rush Coil. Use the Flash Stopper while fighting Napalm Man. Stone Man Use the Flash Stopper while you can. Use the Napalm Bomb while fighting Stone Man. Star Man The Napalm Bombs work effectively against the walkers. Use the stones while fighting Star Man. After all that, it's on to Dr. Cossack's Citadel. Here you'll be facing 2 more robot masters (Wave Man and Toad Man) Wave Man The midway boss is shorter and harder to hit. Use the Mega Buster while fighting Wave Man. Toad Man Use the Rush Coil while you can. Use the wave weapon while fighting Toad Man. And now, it's time to go to Dr. Wily's Castle. Dr. Wily - Section A This stage is familiar, in fact it's Quick Man's stage. You don't get to fight Quick Man unfortunately. Dr. Wily - Section B This is it. It's time to stop Dr. Wily once and for all.
Post subject: Re: Mega Man
Joined: 2/18/2010
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PikachuMan wrote:
Make use of the Rush Coil
It's possible to enter ceilings using Rush Coil with a well timed jump off of the platform Rush turns into, and zipping can occur going to the left afterwards by holding left while inside the ceiling. I just found this, so it needs to be looked into more for details. EDIT: Not quite a zip, but here's an example of using Rush Coil to clip through the ceiling at the beginning of the second room to skip the ladder climb. [URL=http://s796.photobucket.com/user/heldtogetherwithtape/media/slowmoceilingclip_zpscbab1fd2.gif.html][/URL]
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I've been doing some work with this game lately and have found a couple more tricks using rush coil, some more useful than others. I'm going to dump some of my finds here as soon as I sort out whats what here. Edit #1 Jumping into a room transition from below the screen: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/8484842132492839 Situationally dependent trick I found that allows you to jump up from underneath the room transition. The only place I've found it to almost be useful was in the second room of Napalm Man's stage, and I say almost useful because compared to the test run I did without using this trick, I found it was 28 frames slower. I was recording at 12% for both tests, so it's possible that it's because there's still reaction time to account for, even if it's at ~8 FPS. Edit #2 Low speed test run of the game: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/8485062119959801 Recorded at 12% speed, just like the Napalm Man demo above, following the route of Star Man, Bright Man, Napalm Man, Stone Man. The route was decided after doing a handful of level test runs with Star Man's stage being the fastest for me to complete. I had made this prior to finding the trick above, but after I found the ability to zip and clip using Rush Coil. Nothing too spectacular until Stone Man's stage in my opinion, but that's just because it contains all off the zipping and clipping in the run. Also found in Stone Man's stage towards the end of it is a bizarre trick I found while recording it, and only seems to work there too, which allows Mega Man to wrap around the screen bottom to top. It may be faster than just going through that section normally since it allows you to forgo grabbing onto the ladder and hopping up some 1 block tall ledges in favor of sliding across the ceiling, but it was not tested. Edit #3 WIP: http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/8485472536304864 After spending the better portion of a cumulative ~12 hour car trip working on the above test run, I decided to attempt TASing it myself. I'm following the route that I used for my test run. My current progress is part way through Bright Man's stage, feedback would be appreciated.
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New WIP: link This WIP takes us up to entering Wave Man's stage, specifically the first frame Mega Man's teleport sprite touches the ground (I personally use that frame to synchronize the starts of side by side comparisons for inside levels). Currently I am 2023 frames (33.716 seconds) ahead of my test run. I probably would have uploaded a WIP after completing Napalm Man's stage had I not been on the road home from North Dakota still when I finished it, so I settled for waiting until after I finished up Stone Man's stage for this one. Anyways, with Wave Man's stage coming up, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for what I should do during the jet-ski segment, assuming a way to get past it doesn't show up for me. In my initial test run I ended up going with a pacifist approach, so no killing besides the octobot midboss, however that was the second time I had recorded that segment since it desynced before while I was making the test run and for that I did max kills instead.
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Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 3999
Don't forget there's always dancing to the music.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Joined: 2/18/2010
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Patashu wrote:
Don't forget there's always dancing to the music.
Of course! How could I forget a classic like that?
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Sorry about the double posting after only an hour, but I just proved myself wrong on something while working on Wave Man's stage. It is in fact possible to zip rightward, so now to my understanding the zipping/clipping mechanism in this game works something like this: 1. Jump off rush coil 3 frames from the ceiling while holding a direction on the d-pad 2. If clipping is desired instead of zipping, after frame advancing the jump off of rush, release jump for 1 frame, then press jump again on the next frame. This gives Mega Man some upward velocity depending on what the ceiling is like above (i.e. if the ceiling is only 1 or 2 blocks wide, Mega Man will typically jump through the ceiling). Note that jumping can also be used to extend the length of a zip. EDIT: Okay, this game keeps throwing me curve balls. Apparently rightward zipping doesn't work as easily as I thought. I suspect that it requires a very specific kind of ceiling in order to zip like that. There are ceilings in Wave Man's stage that do seem to work for rightward zipping, but they're only 1 block thick and are filled with either water graphics tiles or actual water tiles. The ways of Zipping and Clipping however are still correct though for the most part.
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WIP 3 is done. It feels so wrong not to use rightward zipping early on in Wave Man's stage. I mean, what's a Mega Man game without it? Unfortunately, it ended up being slower by almost 7 seconds if memory serves because of the pause screen and the timing of the teckyuns (ball and chain). I don't really have much to say about Wave Man's stage other than it dragged on forever during the bubble climb and jet-ski segment. This has been the least enjoyable stage so far and I'm glad it's over with. I'd also like to note that as of yesterday, my college classes have started up again, so progress will be significantly slowed down. I still plan on working on this when I have the time to.
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Really I want to work, with you, I really want! Tell me if you want or not to be co auth!
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Double post to say I optimised 9 frames on the first 2000 frames, 2 on menu and 7 with a waiting phase avoid
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I've never coauthored (or authored for that matter) a TAS before, but I'd be game for giving it a shot. It'd probably be easier to work with someone else now that college is back in session for me. Edit: Also, if I had to guess how you improved those 9 frames, I'm guessing it had something to do with pressing down+left instead of left, then down to select Star Man on the select menu and then optimizing one of the ledge slides in Star Man's first room.
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If you could add me to skype: got4n123 (more easier) As I said, Ii mproved 2 frames I don't know how :p And I improved 7 frames by avoiding a waiting phase :p
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I wrote almost 3 months ago wrote:
I'd also like to note that as of yesterday, my college classes have started up again, so progress will be significantly slowed down. I still plan on working on this when I have the time to.
Turns out having time to work on things didn't happen until today. Classes are done for the semester and I don't start back up until January sometime. Meanwhile, I also got a job within the first couple weeks of the semester, so free time was even more scares. I started working a little bit on Toad Man's stage, maybe if I'm lucky I'll have a final WIP christmas present for everyone.
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dude, want you to work with me? btw I don't think the TAS will be accepted. All levels are just remake of MM5 levels :/
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got4n wrote:
dude, want you to work with me? btw I don't think the TAS will be accepted. All levels are just remake of MM5 levels :/
Hey now, Bright Man and Toad Man were from Mega Man 4, total TAS of the year game material now :P EDIT: There's also Quick Man's stage, sans Quick Man to serve as the "Final" stage. On a more serious note, I think a TAS of this could be at least vault worthy considering that it wouldn't be the first time that a TAS of a game that contains remade content of another game has been submitted. I'd be happy with a vault acceptance; I've found a game that I've been able to TAS to a reasonable degree, and trying to complete and submit a TAS has been something I've always wanted to do.
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Noxxa
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There isn't any reason this game wouldn't be accepted for Vault - it isn't unlicensed or homebrew, so it qualifies as a legit game, even for all the faults and ripoffs it's made out of. Given its quality, though, Moons would be unlikely, but that depends on how the TAS turns out to be.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Oh okay. So you want Co-Auth?
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I think I'm going to pass on co-authoring on the account that I have Toad Man's fight and the final stage left to go. Edit: And after some time has passed, with two separate versions of fighting Toad Man to determine the better weapon to use against him between Water Wave and Charge Buster shots, I now present WIP 4.
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Your WIP isn't optimised. I did one with star man Yours: Mine :
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Samsara
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Well, if we're playing that game... Not even sure where I gained the 4 frames. I think it was optimizing sliding? I'll upload the file after I finish the stage. Observations: *Sliding can be cancelled by pressing the opposite direction for one frame, which allows for much earlier jumping when necessary. *Jumping off ledges is faster only when a single frame jump is required, otherwise it's faster to just slide off. *The fully charged shot seems to create a bit of lag whenever it's fired. Cancelling slides and using single buster shots might end up being faster in rare cases.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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lol, to be honest I just tried me for TASing this game and comparing to him. That's all XD. I won't try again :P but congrats :D !
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Samsara
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Samsara
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Link to video User movie #15442109253932397 Had this done for a while, figured I'd show it off. 1653 frames faster than HTWT's submission so far. There are some known improvements scattered throughout the stages, mostly lag reduction and tiny optimizations. A couple of quick notes: *1 known frame can be saved early on in Star Man's stage by using a trick to fire a shot between slides. I didn't know about it until later on. *Star Man's pattern can apparently only be manipulated through killing extra enemies, which is why I kill that extra enemy in the spike section compared to the last userfile I uploaded for this game. *Rush Coil is used more and earlier. Rush placement can be optimized. *Lag can be reduced in the last section of Bright Man's stage (the dark section with moving platforms). *The zip in Napalm Man's stage saves 6 frames. *Delaying the last hit on Napalm Man until he jumps saves time over killing him on the ground. *Stone Man can be manipulated before entering the boss door by just waiting. It took a long wait to get a decent pattern and I lose quite a lot of time here. Thanks, asshole. Waiting to kill him in the air saves frames again. *There are 109 less lag frames up to this point, though as I said there's more known lag reduction to be done.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 11/26/2013
Posts: 4
So I've been doing RTAs of Normal mode of this game for a bit now, but just now I discovered this screen wrap-ese glitch in napalm man. Here is a video of it http://www.twitch.tv/dsmon/c/4895088 It is performed by hitting down then sliding right twice in quick succession. You can do a couple of things in this state such as going left and jumping/sliding till you die or re-grabbing the ladder by jumping below it and holding up which scrolls the screen down. You can also go onto the next screen and do it normally except for the lack of your sprite and the platforms are not quite lined up to where they are on the screen. You can also grab the ladder to cross the gap, but I was unable to use the last ladder on the screen to continue with the stage. I have yet to test this elsewhere in the game.
Samsara
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Interesting! I spent a while trying to get it to work in that same spot and I found a far more consistent way to trigger it: You need to be at the very top of climbing the ladder, like one of the top three frames (tapping down then tapping up should put you there in realtime), then just hold right and fall off. It looks like Mega just skips over the trigger because of the fast fall trick (that is, hugging a wall while falling to drop an extra couple pixels every now and then), so theoretically it should be possible on any vertical screen transition... But I doubt it. I tested damn near every ladder in the main stages and it looks like that one ladder in Napalm Man's stage is the only place I've found that works. I think the vertical transition there is just much smaller than all the others, and thus it's the only trigger possible to skip. Either way, I'd like to do some more testing with this. I've gone out of bounds several times using the Rush Coil clipping and zipping that HTWT found, but I believe this is the first time I've seen a screen transition happen while OoB.
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warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.