Even the worst video games ever made can make for a good TAS.

This movie speedily plays through "The Cheetahmen", game #52 of a compilation of horrid games called Action 52. While the game is pretty horrible in general, it has a rather catchy BGM.

There is also a published run of the unreleased sequel, Cheetahmen II.

Important: The version labeled (Rev A) has to be used in order to get the movie to sync. However, before playing back the movie, make sure that you select "Ooze".

The hero of Gotham City goes against the villain of Gotham City. His fists are more powerful than any weapon in the world, but he rarely kills anyone. It's not like his enemies can hurt him anyway. After all, he's the hero, and heroes are supposed to be invincible.

Here Aglar has managed to improved the previous movie by 2.5 seconds.

Enjoy the movie, and the excellent soundtrack and the graphics of this game.

This movie has a full Atlas Map encode, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

See this movie played back on a real console.

Batman: Return of the Joker (1991) is the sequel to the first Batman game for the NES. Being one of the later NES titles, it shows surprisingly good and fluid visuals, fullsize art, and decent sound — all without slowdown issues!

The gameplay has undergone some changes compared to its predecessor. A welcome addition to it is a slide movement, similar to the one in the Mega Man series. A not-so-welcome addition is that half the stages are autoscrolling, and there are no close combat weapons now.

Batman returns to stop the Joker's latest insane criminal plot once again, 20 seconds faster than the last time!

This game is one of those grappling hook games, with which Batman can just swing through areas quickly. Much of the improvement comes from bunnybathopping Batman's way through levels and somewhat improved boss fights.

This run has two players and does not use warps.

As always, a bug on level 11 prevents player 2 from moving, so he gets a game over for that level. Player 1 plays level 11 alone and player 2 comes back for level 12. This is a bug in Battletoads itself.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a platformer based on the famous 1897 book of the same name. Count Dracula has cast his hypnotic spell on the lovely Mina Murray. To save her from eternity as a vampiress, you take control of Jonathan Harker as you ram through hordes of enemies, bombard bosses with stones, and...dance with ghosts?

This run by Randil is an improvement of 59 seconds over Shiru's rejected submission by taking more damage and using better strategies for the boss fights. See the author's notes for more details.

The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, known in Japan as Happy Birthday Bugs and in Europe as The Bugs Bunny Blowout, is a Kemco video game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game is a sequel to The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, which was released the previous year. As the beginning of the game tells you, Bugs Bunny is trying to get to his 50th birthday party, and he needs to get past the numerous obstacles and enemies in his way.

Several factors make this game quite difficult. For instance, after taking damage, Bugs cannot swing his hammer until the damage blinking stops. When an enemy is hit with the hammer but doesn't die, he is pushed back a little. These factors make it tricky to coordinate multiple hits on a boss in a row. Also, some of the later stages are quite mazelike with their network of warp entrances (similar to warp pipes in Super Mario Bros). In addition, a TASer needs to manage heavy lag and avoid collecting too many bonus carrots (so that fewer time-wasting bonus games are played after the stages).

Despite all this, Bhezt_Rhy moves through the game speedily, taking more damage than Rambo and finishing in a little over 26 minutes.

The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle is a frustrating action puzzler. In it, you take control of Bugs as he collects carrots while avoiding enemies such as Sylvester the Cat, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, and Wile E. Coyote. Equipped with nothing but an occasional boxing glove which he can throw and some invincibility potions, Bugs must eat his way through 60 levels without getting trapped by a mob of Looney Tunes.

In this run, the author, Brandon, exploits the game's AI, which is anything but intelligent. Only one of these enemies follows actual movement, while the others will track your input, even if the input changes nothing. As such, the author is able to often render the enemies useless, allowing him to take the most optimal path. When he can't do this, he tries to find the best possible workaround, often pausing for the exact amount of time to make it past a baddie. As a secondary goal, Brandon also attempts to maximize the score without losing time. For more details, as always, please see the author's notes, and also make sure to watch the captions provided in the encodes.

The author has also created a run of this game's "Special Levels".

This run has two YouTube streams. The first contains no input display while the second one does. This was included as the luck manipulation is heavily based on input and it's hard to follow the run otherwise.

All encodes also have the author's commentary in the form of subtitles.

The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle is a frustrating action puzzler. In it, you take control of Bugs as he collects carrots while avoiding enemies such as Sylvester the Cat, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, and Wile E. Coyote.

This game features 4 "Special Levels" which can be accessed either by the "No Carrot Signs" found in several levels or by a password. In this run, the author, Brandon, completes these difficult levels with absolutely no help from the boxing gloves and potions featured in the main game. All he has to work with is precise movement and luck manipulation, and although this, coupled with the numerous enemies, make these levels far less trivial than the main ones, the completion time is still relatively small. Much of the length of this movie is a result of the unavoidable and abnormally long tube scenes in S4 and S1. For more details, as always, please see the author's notes, and also make sure to watch the captions provided in the encodes.

The author has also created a run of the main game.

This run has two YouTube streams. The first contains no input display while the second one does. This was included as the luck manipulation is heavily based on input and it's hard to follow the run otherwise.

All encodes also have the author's commentary in the form of subtitles.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

The original Castlevania is set in the year 1691. Simon Belmont must fight his way through the castle and destroy Count Dracula.

This TAS is about 13.6 seconds faster than the previous version by the coauthor of this movie, Morrison.

In this joint effort by Phil and Morrison, thorough optimizations are carried out at all levels of magnitude in order to get the maximum completion speed as well as lots of score points in the process.

The MSX version has been TASed as well!

There is also a run of this game which destroys as little as possible.

If science fiction is to be believed, the ultimate evolution for biological beings is to discard the physical body and become an entity of pure energy. For video game characters, it seems to be the ability to zip through walls. In this latest TAS by zggzdydp, Simon Belmont joins the league of characters possessing this ability.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is the story of Simon's horrible weekend without sleep. Two years after defeating Dracula, the hero is physically weakened by Dracula's curse. He must gather Dracula's remains and incinerate them at the ruins of Castlevania in order to end the curse.

This movie is 2 minutes and 23 seconds faster than the previous effort by the same author. We recommend to read his comments for explanations on how this improvement was achieved.

This movie has an Atlas Map encode of Laruba Mansion, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (originally known as 悪魔城伝説 or Akumajō Densetsu, meaning "Legend of the Demon Castle") is the story of Trevor Belmont's battle against Dracula from the times before Simon's battle in Castlevania. In this complex and difficult game, there are three playable allies whom Trevor can recruit: Alucard (Dracula's son), Grant DaNasty (a pirate captain), and Sypha Belnades (a mystic warlord).

This game has a technically high-quality soundtrack because it uses a VRC6 sound chip that works in the Japanese Famicom but not in the NES. Thus, the movie was made with the Japanese version of the game instead of the USA version.

This movie takes the path that recruits Grant. It is about two minutes faster than the previous version. There is also a Sypha path movie and an Alucard path movie.

Castlevania: Dracula X (1995), released in Japan as Akumajō Dracula XX, is actually a toned-down remake of a PC Engine title known as Rondo of Blood (1993). It stars Richter Belmont, supposedly a son of Juste Belmont from Harmony of Dissonance, on a mission to save Annette (said to be his girlfriend) and Maria Renard (a young vampire huntress said to be his girlfriend's sister), along with a number of their fellow villagers, from imprisonment by Dracula (said to be the villain) and his minions.

Unfortunately, in this SNES port Richter isn't too much of a fast walker - unlike his father and the later Belmont clan descendants - so his fastest way of moving is constant backflipping (so don't get surprised with the author's choice of traveling method).

This movie is a 165 second improvement to the previous version by Dan and Nightcom; such a large gain is achieved thanks to greatly increased precision and other new tricks explained in the author's comments.

Dark Castle looks like a Genesis version of Donkey Kong. This new movie is eleven frames faster than the previous version by Aqfaq and stanski.

Selected statement by Aqfaq:
I managed to skip most of the game, which is good because Dark Castle sucks.

Deadly Towers is an annoying enough game to play, let alone make a TAS of, but the author manages a final time almost 3.5 minutes faster than the previous version. This improvement is mainly from buying orange scrolls, which are used to teleport from the top of each tower back down to the Holy Flame. Check the author's comments for more detailed information.

This game suffers from sprite overload very frequently.

In this movie, the author speeds through the game, beating up all the bad guys quickly and efficiently, making full use of each character — and killing them off when they are no longer useful. The characters' special abilities are abused to provide some unorthodox shortcuts.

This is the author's 3rd version and is an improvement of about 28 seconds over his previous movie.

Dragon's Lair is much better known in its incarnations for other platforms as an FMV game with only slight amounts of control over the player's action. The NES version is more of a traditional platformer, but very smooth animation for the era and funny-looking characters inspired by the cartoon graphics of the other versions - this includes the final boss, who isn't seen very much in this run thanks to abuse of the game mechanics.

The Japanese version is used because the US version has considerably slower gameplay (almost twice as slow).

This is an improvement of around five seconds to the previous run from 2004 (making the old run one of the oldest on the site).

Reading the author's comments is encouraged.

Duck Tales is a classic game in which Scrooge has to collect treasures from all over the world. Some of the levels are not completely straightforward, and collecting items is sometimes necessary before proceeding. His cane also doubles as an almighty pogo stick that can be used in various ways, which makes jumping a lot more fun.

This is the fifth TAS of Duck Tales. Minor improvements and refined strategies here and there contributed an additional few seconds of improvement.

This is a 8½ second improvement over the previous movie due to a new glitch being abused.

Friday the 13th is a video game adaptation of the movie series of the same name. You are one of six camp counselors on a mission to defeat Jason Voorhees three times before he kills the other counselors or some of the children.

In this three second improvement to a five-and-a-half year old movie, Jason is defeated faster than ever thanks to some tricks to force him to appear more often than normal.

If what was done with this movie was possible in real life, economies worldwide would crash.

The author abuses an oversight in the game that could cause an item to be sold more than it costs. This oversight only exists in the Japanese version.

Hydlide is an old and somewhat notorious game, mostly because it has very strange gameplay mechanics. For the first part of the game, walking consumes health, and the character must stop every now and then to regain it.

This is one of the few games (the only one?) where the level grinding sequences are actually entertaining, while the boss fights aren't. Hitting a boss decreases your own health as well as the boss's, after which there is much waiting for more health until you can hit him again.

There is also a submitted TAS that uses codes and removes the need to level grind or wait for health.

An extremely short game based on the movie The Karate Kid. Had the kid been this strong in the movie, it would certainly have been... interesting.

This movie is about 10 seconds faster than the previous publication due to some surprising fighting strategies.

Kid Kool, a game created by Vic Tokai, stars "Kool" as he gains 7 magical herbs to cure the king of a dreaded illness. He does this along with his helpful red partner "Wicky" who can kill enemies and help defeat bosses. If the player fails to complete the game in under three hours (in-game), then the king dies. So this is a frantic game where speed is key.

In this run, Randil uses zipping glitches (aided by MATLAB) and expert playing to finish with an in-game time of under ten minutes, leaving the enemies in the dust and saving the king with much time to spare.

Legend of Zelda II glitched heavily.

Most of this run features Link racing across Hyrule so fast that the screen can't keep up, inexplicably warping between places that shouldn't be connected, and collecting just three items, one spell, and one sword technique needed to beat the final palace.

Dark Link, the final boss, takes the same amount of damage no matter what level attack you have. This is especially convenient for the author because he reaches Dark Link without ever leveling, or, indeed, even killing another monster.

This is a 29-second improvement to the author's previous movie due to a different route choice and better manipulation optimization. See the author's comments for details.

There is also additional audio commentary by the author available here.

Once you get past McDonald's blatant advertising and the fact that this game is about Ronald the clown, this game is actually quite good. The controls are a bit slippery but the level design more than makes up for it.

In this particular movie the author collects only the cards that are necessary to complete the game. If you want to see all the cards collected and the secret levels played, check the other movie of this game.

An improvement of 58 seconds arises from better acceleration techniques and strategic differences.

Metal Gear had been one of last of the NES classics that had not been TASed. Well, not anymore ― here's one.

This game is infamous for its engrish, having comments such as "I FEEL ASLEEP!" and "UH - OH! THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!"

This movie utilizes quite a wide variety of game glitches and collects the minimal set of items needed to complete the game. The author has written a detailed list of all the interesting bits of this movie.

This is a strange platformer where the main character, Michael Jackson, has some obsession in doing weird movements and he dances occasionally together with the enemies before he beats them to oblivion.

This is an 3:47 improvement to the previous version.

There is also a run of the arcade version of this game.

This movie has an Atlas Map encode of Round 1-1, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

The title of this game is very appropriate, as wherever you look there are walls you can break through, or invisible blocks you can make appear.

In order to complete this game as fast as possible, every little secret must be known ahead of time, and the author clearly exhibits such knowledge.

This movie was made with the Japanese version, 迷宮組曲 (Meikyuu Kumikyoku, meaning "labyrinth composition"), but it is essentially identical to the English version, except for the shop/intro text language.

It is about two minutes faster than the previous version, mostly due to much faster boss fights and more precise maneuvers.

This movie has a full Atlas Map encode, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

Everyone knows Freddy Krueger, who turns the peaceful dreams of people living on Elm Street into lethal nightmares.

In this run, the author, chupapi, aims for the fastest completion time using 4 characters but treats us to some interesting character movements along the way.

Ninja Gaiden involves an ultra superior ninja, capable of defying the laws of physics by climbing through walls, making dogs explode with his sword, and all while beating bad guys in record time.

This run is about 10 seconds faster than the prior submission due to the ninja thinking more like a ninja.

This movie has an Atlas Map encode of Act 5-3, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

Bart Simpson has discovered that mutants have a machine to enter ingredients which will allow them to conquer the Earth. Bart goes in search of these ingredients to hide them or to take them, avoiding disaster. His adventure will take him across an amusement park, the shopping mall, and the museum, to name a few.

This is a very hard game. Its controls are very poor, and the collision detection is very glitchy, making you fall through platforms to your death.

This movie beats the previous movie by 2 minutes and 20.9 seconds. Much of it comes from using a "bunny hop" trick.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

The Sinister Six have rejoined in hopes of ruling the world (as usual), but Spider-Man has a lot of errands to do, so he decides to beat all of them in record time.

The mechanics of this game make it difficult to make a fast TAS. If Spider-Man stays in the air too long after a jump, he'll drop straight down, and his web-slinging is easily stopped by enemy projectiles. Despite these obstacles, mmbossman manages to improve the previous movie by over 35 seconds thanks to improved speed management and more efficient boss fights.

Watch this run being played back on a real console.

This Star Wars game is quite versatile. It features a sort of overworld, optional items and quests, a lot of platformer action, some first-person spaceship shooting and you even get to blow up the Death Star! You can't see all of that in this movie, but it's very entertaining nonetheless. The game's plot is based on the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV), and it even features some of the movie's awesome music.

This run improves the previous movie by almost two minutes thanks to optimized movement and a new shortcut.

This movie has a full Atlas Map encode, which shows the standard encode overlaid on a zoomed out map.

Ever since Morimoto published his legendary movie in mid-2003, the players at TASVideos have repeatedly made it faster and faster! Of course, there doesn't ever seem to be a stop for when it is fastest.

This movie is 00:00.82 seconds faster than the previous movie. Most of the improvement comes from a trick that makes Bowser bounce much lower when defeated. For more details, see the run's comments.

Check out the video of this being played on an actual console.

One of the authors of this TAS, Mitjitsu, has been known to make statements and/or take actions that do not reflect the values of TASVideos as a community.
TASVideos does not in any way condone the statements and/or actions made by this author.
This video is presented not to support or glorify this author, but to archive and showcase this tool-assisted superplay.

The movie is an amazing 5:32 improvement to the previous Super Pitfall movie. The author doesn't want to spoil what makes this version so much faster than the last one. You'll have to watch it in order to find out. Hopefully you've already seen the 11:52 version so that you can understand this movie better.

In order to beat the game (the first quest, at least), Pitfall Harry must accomplish 6 tasks:

In this game you get to control all four turtles and draw use of their different abilities ― or, at least that was the intent, but Donatello has both better reach and damage than the others, so he is used more or less constantly. The game features a well-written in-game dialogue, such as “Here.” and “Oh!”

This is the fourth movie by adelikat which improves on the previous versions. Much improvement comes from better lag reduction and discovery of a new trick involving conveyor belts.

Before The Terminator came to the Genesis and Sega CD in various forms, it arrived on the NES... if the end result can even be called a game. Much running around ensues in a plot narrowly resembling the movie and glitches abound to no end.

Fortunately, most of the atrocities are crushed by completing the game too quickly for them to really sink in.

Autobots, transform and roll out!

Transformers: Convoy no Nazo (トランスフォーマー コンボイの謎) is about the Autobot Ultra Magnus cruising a very frustrating and difficult journey to discover who killed Optimus Prime. No, I'm serious.

Angry Video Game Nerd covered this game in 2009. Quoting adelikat: As he describes in the video, this game notoriously difficult to play. Poor hit detection, 1 hit and you are dead, awkward controls, and very little in the way of power-ups make this game frustrating for the average player.

Note: There are some moments in this game that consist of heavy flashing lights, viewer discretion is advised.

In X-men 2: Clone Wars, the alien race Phalanx invade the earth and the X-men and some X-women try to stop them.

You get to choose which X-man to play every stage as. Most of the time Nightcrawler is used because he has the highest movement speed. Second in command is Wolverine because he has the second highest speed and also deals a ton of damage.

The game is unique in the regard that it starts as soon as you power on your console. No SEGA logo, no title screen, you don't get to choose a character. Normally the game pseudorandomly gives you Beast, but changing the types of controllers (3- or 6-button) throws off the start-up timing enough that a faster character can be gotten.

This movie features some nifty tricks and shortcuts, such as abusing Nightcrawler's teleport, attacking through floors, and going extra fast in the falling levels. This game has had several attempts, but this is the first published version.