Submission #2030: Aglar's NES Mega Man 3 in 30:44.73

This beats Angerfist's and Vatchern's current published run by 2897 frames (48.3 seconds).

So, I'm finally done. This has been my biggest project so far so I hope you like it. Some might find it strange that I'm the author of this since Vatchern started a new run quite long ago. However, I took a look at his WIP and tried to beat it, succeded, informed him about it, was handed over project, completed it. The route used is the same as in the previous version so the improvements come from better precision, lagreduction and new strategies.

Wily creates robots, Mega Man destroys them.

This might look like a not too complicated game to TAS. However, even though I haven't tried so many games yet, I found this being far from easy. The main reason for this is spelled LAG which can sometimes be so cruel that it could drive anyone insane. If this game had no lag I estimate the time to make this would be about 5-10 times shorter.

In this run I slide over much more 32-pixels holes than in previous run. And the ones I don't slide over is because it's not faster (by LAG-logic). The sliding-over-32-pixels-holes trick works because when you slide between them, you can only fall down at the 2 pixels in the middle and Mega Man slides in a speed of 2.5 pixels/frame. So by some subpixel positioning, it's not that hard to do.

At the boss fights I found that not only does it matter where Mega Man is when boss dies, but also where the boss is. When the boss dies its explosion parts goes in all directions and the victory music won't start until all of these parts are outside the screen, thus killing it when it's as close to the middle as possible is a good idea.

Other small stuff was also found and I explain most of them in the level-by-level walkthrough.

Most improvement comes from optimizations, one new strategy is that I kill the last enemy instead of taking damage. The boss fight is also a bit different and thus faster.

I used a new strategy in the first room that saved around 40 frames. The rest is mostly optimizations but I also managed to slide over the holes (in the room before protoman) better.

The new strategy used here is that I kill the first cat with 4 normal shots and 3 magnets shot so I can save enough magnets to take on every enemy in the level. The rest is from optimizations.

About only optimizations here. Some changed jumps and shots, in the room that goes dark, though.

This level took a long time to complete since the lag absolutely hated me and I hated it. The diffence here is that I (by subpixelpositioning) managed to jump between the last electricy-stuff-enemy in the fourth room and grab the ladder in the same jump. And yes, the boss fight is carefully planned, even though it looks like a big mess:)

I kept the normal suit through whole level and killed most of the enemies that got in my way, that's about it for the level. The boss was a a pain to manipulate in right way so he jumps when he die, but I eventually made it.

Lots of smaller changed stuffs here. The most noteable one is the I don't use Rush Jet to perform the snake glitch. The boss was also killed quite much faster by manipulating him in a different way.

The first room here was the most painful one to TAS in the whole run. You need a total of 28 magnets to take care the enemies, you start with 14. In the previous run they picked up 2 large refills which would also have made my journey much easier but I've learnt that small refills are much more economical to pick up than the large ones. I also found out that there where only 16 enemies that I could get the refills from to not slow down too much. So of these 16 enemies I needed to get refilles from 14 - no small task, and the fact that I also had to deal with lag and subposition to slide over the holes didn't make it easier... For the rest of the level, I found a faster way to zip through the first bubbles. The boss doesn't get to breath for very long either.

On this level I thought that if I semi-kill my self on the spikes and take away the music, perhaps the game will lag less. This was also the case and I gained around 80 frames on the first part of this level because of this. On Wood Man I managed to hit him 1 extra time before he got his shield back. How was this possible? Well, the simple answer is because the dealay you have to wait before you can hit a boss right after you've hit it is not constant. If you want a more sophisticated answer you can ask, but it's quite too much to have on the submission page I think:) For the rest of the level, I found that it wasn't worth switching to Magnet Man. Then on Heat Man I found another intersting thing. Apperently, after you've hit him he randomly waits 30, 60, or 90 before he moves. So by getting two 30's I very easily gained a whole second here. The boss strategy was also changed.

The first room here was not as cruel as in the first Gemini level, but definitely not easy. The principle was the same as last time so I won't speak of the anymore. The biggest time saver was in the first water room. Baxter had already shown how to save 2 seconds here. I modified this strategy a bit to be able to save more than 4 seconds(!). I know I lose some time here by grabbing a weapon refill but the enemy drops in this room was such a pain that this was the best I could do.

This turned out to be a complete optimization level, with some changed boss strategies. Not much to say about it.

The first part was mainly optimzations. Gained 50 frames on Air Man and in the next I found a quite surpising thing since I thought that the previous version already used the best strategy here but apperently it was faster (as always...) to choose a more destructive way.

The level itself was mostely about optimizations and a small change in the Rush Jet strategy. On the boss I did not change to Shadow Man. The biggest time saver came through observing the memory to find that the time the boss waits between dropping the enemies is random and can be either about 100, 150, 200 or 250 frames so getting the 100 everytime is very important.

Used a new strategy here consisting of switching to Shadow Man early to kill the large bees to avoid a lot of lag.

The lag did the best it could to ruin this level. Most of the time gain is from taking a more destructive path in the room that goes dark. The boss is also killed faster:)

Most time saved was of course from the boss rematches. They were killed more smoothly in general and I also changed the order a bit by taking on Magnet Man after Top Man.

New strategy consisting of killing the boss as I slide away from it. By doing this I slide through quite a long distance that Mega Man otherwise would walk through in the next cut scene.

New strategy.

Angerfist, Vatchern, Bisqwit, Shinryuu, Finalfighter, Baxter, Kopernical, Sleepz and all of you who I've forgotten about:)

Enjoy!

Truncated: Looks good, accepting.

Bisqwit: Encoding.

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Oh! I also corrected the ROM name.