NES Rockin' Kats "Channel X" by AnS in 01:03.43 has reigned for 10 years, probably because of AnS's comments in his submission:
  • "I tried everything I know, even disassembled several parts of code but got nothing."
  • "If it isn't the game's limit of improvement then it is my limit of patience."
  • "Now to improve 1 frame you must spend insanely great amount of time, and it's not guaranteed that this won't make you lose several frames later (lag can accumulate by little portions)."
  • "So, I think this kind of situation can be called frame-perfectness."
I took those comments as a challenge. I think that the best way to describe it is that I performed an audit. I was not aware of any possible improvements before I started playing.
This movie improves the previous version by 27 frames.
X-0: Password Pain. 0 frames improved.
This password screen has to rank as one of the most difficult in all of gaming. I had thought that I might find a time-saver, but AnS knew all the tricks.
X-1: Vertical Verde. 11 frames improved.
I made minor changes to the movements in the lower part of the stage that led to a different route at the upper part. My route ended up being faster. I went back and tweaked a few more movements to save a few more frames.
X-2: Spike Scroller. 7 frames improved.
I spent a long time on this stage. Probably 75% of the time that I worked on this run was on this stage. My initial ideas all lost frames. Then I discovered a very interesting glitch that allows walking on the spikes, but it was still slower and thus isn't seen in the run:
Finally, I made a breakthrough by changing some things at the last part of the swinging section.
X-3: Yanking Yellow. 3 frames improved.
This stage is the least painful. Some very subtle movement changes near the top saved 3 frames.
X-4: Sewer Side. 0 frames improved.
The horizontal stages are more difficult than the vertical ones, in my view. I can tell that AnS spent a lot of time working on this one. Anything that I tried to change resulted in lost time. I was satisfied just to get the same result that AnS did.
X-5: Card Climber. 3 frames improved.
I shaved off 1 frame in the first shaft. I saved another 2 frames near the end. I had thought that I would be able to improve the route on this stage. But the technique that AnS used is the best. This image illustrates why:
X-6: Broadside Boss. 3 frames improved.
I saved 2 lag frames before anything happened. I also noticed an extra lag frame after hit #28 on the boss that I successfully removed. I mostly did what AnS did. I was unable to improve the attack technique at the end. Give AnS a lot of credit for coming up with it. Really brilliant stuff when you see frame-by-frame why he did it.

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5117: Arc & AnS's NES Rockin' Kats "Channel X" in 01:02.88
Alyosha
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Wow! I did not see this improvement coming. I admit I looked at this run myself but concluded it probably couldn't be improved. Nice work Arc!
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Arc, did you PM him about it?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
mklip2001
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Wow, that's an amazing improvement given how precise the old run is. Even if it's only 27 frames, that's just a bit less than 1% of the total movie length.
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.
Arc
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Thank you for the wows. No, I have not had any contact with AnS.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3145] NES Rockin' Kats "Channel X" by Arc & AnS in 01:02.88
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This TAS loses 1 frame at the very beginning because Start and Select spread over two different frames instead of using it in a single frame. This leads to a huge desync because the game is a real mess. But hey, the potential is there.
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