Submission #5412: xy2_'s Arcade Osman in 06:36.77

Osman is a game where everything bursts into six feet explosions once attacked.

For absolute and relative, more is better. Timed until the time bonus in the "Great Work" screen appears completely, except for 6 where it is timed at the Slaver kill input.

For controls, the game has a stick and three buttons. These will be referred as ←,↑,→,↓ (directional inputs), A (attack), B (jump) and C (bomb) respectively. n marks no input. A number prefixed means the amount of frames the specific input is used.

Osman can move around with the directional stick. He can:

Note that Osman cannot slide on steep slopes.

By picking up powerups, Osman's suit color changes (blue > purple > red > white > black). Each suit gives you one extra copy of Osman: when Osman attacks, a copy of himself will stay behind where he attacked, and attack where he attacked, for a short period of time, then go back to Osman's position (it can still attack during this time.) The black suit gives extra power and ridiculous range to all of Osman's attacks, but only lasts for a limited number of attacks.

Osman has a somewhat complicated fighting system, revolving around combos. By pressing certain inputs at a certain time, Osman can do stronger attacks while on the ground. In the air, no special inputs are needed, as Osman will combo automatically upon attacking.

One important note is that the combo counter, tracking your combo status, will carry over if Osman goes from the air to the ground. This means Osman can combo in the air, and upon landing follow up with higher level moves because of the prior air comboing. The moves are:

Air

Ground

An important discovery over the previous run was knowing much better the requirements to actually combo. Because of this, a full combo - slidekick, jab, reverse jab, straight punch, repeat - gives me much more leniency, as the actual combo inputs are only required on certain frames. As such, it's possible to do combos while almost standing still, combos while going forward, and even turning around halfway through.

Slidekicking is one of the most broken moves in Osman. By sliding (↓ + B), then slide attacking (B) and slidekicking (B), you go from sliding to walking (while attacking). This isn't too big of a deal, because once you start walking, then Osman gets set to walking speed. But if no input is held in the slidekick (that is, no input once Osman starts standing up) the slidekick will retain Osman's sliding speed, allowing to gain considerable speed from a standstill position. Furthermore, jumping at the first frame of a slidekick will allow to gain even more speed (since the kick slows down Osman, as attacking on the ground carries Osman's speed while slowing down a bit each frame, but jumping carries Osman's speed an increases it as if he was on the ground.
The association of slidekicking with neutral input and jumping is called hypersliding for convenience, and needs the inputs ↓ + B, A, n, A, 4n, B. A faster hyperslide (2 frames faster, and the speed ends up greater since you jump out of the slide sooner) can be done if an enemy is hit by the slide attack: ↓ + B, A, n, A, 2n, B.

An important part of TASing Osman is being able to preserve speed in most situations. As long as you have neutral input, all ground attacks (with the exception of the straight punch) will preserve speed while slightly slowing down each frame. Sliding always has the same speed, no matter what speed Osman enters it with. Ground sliding acts in the same way, although it reduces speed much more sharply and is as such sparingly used (eg. in a situation where Osman has significant speed and sliding would slow him down.) Finally, holding the opposite direction of your speed (eg. if going to the right, holding →) will sharply slow Osman down, except in the case of attacking on the ground and holding the opposite direction - in which case Osman will lose all speed instantly.

In stages 2 and 5, instead of having an introductory cutscene, you are directly launched into the run and can input as soon as the stage loads.. and even a frame before it loads completely. During this frame, Osman is actually slightly in the ground. Sliding during this frame will make Osman start with sliding speed directly (this is further enchanced if jumping directly after.) Some time is saved by jumping after the slide in Stage 2, but a lot is saved in Stage 4 by discovering it could also be done there (changing the route significantly through the stage.

While in a cutscene, the player can through it at double speed by holding 1. However, this doens't speed up the cutscene.. but the game itself goes at double speed! This means that for cutscenes where Osman can move, they aren't skipped, and instead 1 is held to blaze through much faster.

Rather ironically, going fast is itself a trick in Osman. Rather than having loading zones, the game loads the stages, enemies, events etc. 'on the fly'. So if you go fast through the level, many things won't have time to appear, and some strange side effects appear (that I will describe throughout the run as they happen.)

There are a myriad of other small tricks that only happen a few times or once and save time, so I'll mention what they do when they will happen.

Stage-wise, almost nothing has changed. In this stage happens the first occurrence where going fast breaks things, and one of the most !useful: by going fast, some boxes don't spawn.. and more importantly, the boss itself doens't appear. One bomb is used on the Computer fight, as usual, leaving us with two bombs for the rest of the run.. because I won't be suiciding this run!
The real start of the run is at Gamran 1. One of my plans for saving time was avoiding the suicide in stage 5, and it's all tied to here. To avoid using a bomb in the Visette fight at the start of Stage 2, it would be ideal to come to that fight with the red suit (to benefit from two copies, and as such significantly higher attack power.) However, a detour to get a powerup in Stage 1, apart from the one directly in the way, takes a lot of time, leaving the least lengthy option to pick it up directly at the Gamran fight. There were two options here: pick up the powerup at the start or the end of the fight. Picking it up before we enter the arena wastes a significant amount of time, since there are only steep slopes leading up to Gamran, and we wouldn't be able to hyper slide. Picking it up at the start of the fight shares the same problem, since we have to go over left to the steep slopes and waste time again. The last option for picking it up at the start of the fight was to bomb, allowing us to move quickly without the hinderance of the steep slopes, and damage Gamran at the same time, saving time, but that would miss the whole point of what we're trying to do!
So the only option left is to pick up the powerup at the end of the fight. At the end of the fight, I leave a copy next to Gamran, and attack as soon as I reach the powerup (since speed doens't carry over on end of stages, it just kills all of Osman's speed.) Despite the small fighting improvements, we still end up 50 frames behind.. but all that will be picked up at Stage 2.

Spawn slide cancelling, followed by a jump the next frame, saves a lot of time in this opening. By waiting a bit before going on the second crystal booster, we avoid a laser from the nearby turrets.. and as such attack Visette with the red suit. A better fight against Visette with a red suit Osman saves quite a lot of time and avoids a bomb. A frame was saved at the wall behind Visette by comboing twice in the air to do a backend jab with neutral input at the door, allowing to carry over out speed while doing the second longest range attack (a straight punch would have reached further, but would also haved killed my speed here. Another frame was saved in climbing up after the tiger by dropping while climbing to the higher platform, clipping up and saving time.
After the train section is the most inexplicable trick in the run. At the first loop carrying the jump up to the seam between the upwards long triangle and the smaller triangle, waiting until the jump is at its peak, then going left, will for some strange reason carry Osman upwards the loop until after the triangle. I still have no idea while it happens, but it saves a bit of time by going a bit faster (because we're jumping.)
Unlike the old run, I don't bother to pick up the powerup on the way to Herio, because like Gamran 1, I'm picking up the powerup in the arena itself. Herio 1 is another tough fight, and much trickier than Herio 2 (later in the run.) She has long invicibilty frames, will jump away from Osman at incredible speed once he approaches her, and threatens to transform into a glant, unfightable flaming ball of death as her first attack; as such, it's vital to kill Herio in one cycle.
Herio will away try to fly away very quickly when you approach her, then fly slowly, with two exceptions:

I use those two tricks to my advantage. I start by going left, attack a convenietly placed powerup (to pick up a little bit later) and face away the moment she finishes her initial spawn movement, causing her to fly towards me. She then flies towards me, but because Herio's health has not fully filled up yet, she cannot hurt me. The moment she gains full health, I piledrive her to the nearby platform, face away so that the flies fast towards the center, then flies slowly upwards, as I prepare a full combo. then use my second bomb on her after the straight punch hits, allowing a clean one cycle finish. Overall, almost a full second is saved on this stage (58 frames) and allows me to barely catch up to the old run.

Not a lot happens. Sandora becomes a much faster fight, thanks to better copy placement. Grueling optimisation of the desert section after Sandora saved a few frames. While climbing up to the barrel section, I go a bit to the left in order to end up further left at the start of the barrel section, allowing me to hyperslide right away. I use the first instance of chained slidekicks under the lasers (because I won't be able to jump off): slide again after the first frame of a slidekick, maintaining a decent speed but removing the ability to build up speed because of constant sliding.
Cannons, however, has a massive improvement with a trick that is used on all trio bosses. Usually, all of these bosses have really long inviciblity frames, making fights long and dragged out. However, all of that is solved with the air launch. By sliding, then grabbing the boss (B) and launching him in the air (↑ at the end of the grab), not only is he vulnerable the entire time he's in the air, he also takes double damage! And this works on bosses.. As such, the fight is taken care of much quicker, saving a lot of time.

While this is one of the more visually impressive stages in the run, it's not so challenging technically. Worthy of note is the autoscroller: here I wanted to do something a bit different from last run (which synced to the music). I decided to go all-out in crazy attacks, showing off things not found elsewhere in the run. In my opinion it turned out pretty well.. at least I'm not running out of ideas on the autoscroller after my fifth TAS of the game :) Another oddity of going fast shows up before the Willif fight; the sword climbing up, which is supposed to stop just below the arena, continues climbing, bringing us a little bit faster into the cutscene.
Willif, which used to be an annoying and long boss to deal with, is very quickly disposed off with an air launch and jumpkick spamming, saving a significant amount of time again.

Stage 5 was by far the most improved stage because of large improvements in all areas of the stage. The forest is dealt with much quicker, thanks to two significant discoveries:

Sticking to not suiciding also pays off by being the biggest timesave in the run. We skipped the Visette bomb earlier in stage 2, and the two bombs used on Herio 2 and Fake are skipped thanks to better fights later one.. only needing us 3 bombs instead of 6, and skipping the suicide and the painful powering-up in the forest. So despite its apperance, the forest is the biggest timesave in the run. Because of really fast speed, and sticking to the very right of the screen on entering the tunnel to Tianon, a bit of time is lost on the transition in the Tianon cutscene. In the cutscene, the screen has to scroll by very slowly in order to put Osman to the left, and since we're to the very right of the screen, it takes the most time it could. There was no real way to avoiding this, since I built up a ton of speed, and recentering the camera would required me to move left, losing all my speed. Even by slidekick chaining just before the cutscene, then slidekicking forward, it still ended up slower than just taking the transition. Finally, for some wierd reason related to going fast, the Stage 6 music (?!) plays for a second after choosing the arena for the fight..
There's the same idea to the Tianon fight as the old run: bomb her, then let her move once and finish her off. A good chunk of time was saved by bombing her after an air launch (even though it has an awkward bomb position, because of the small platforms to execute the grab, the double damage makes up for it), making her end up in the air and go directly towards Osman. (There's no fadeout here because we finish the fight fast.)
Prague sees some small improvements. At the first platform during the fast forward glitch, one slidekick then using the carryover speed instead of using two slidekicks allows to maintain 1 held for more time (and having more speedup), saving a frame. In the third platform, instead of sliding under the egg, I jump, grab and climb up the next platform, saving me from death thanks to the climbing invicibilty. Climbing up normally would have been faster, but because I have to avoid shots, it ends up slower. Finally, the sixth platform sees another improvement. The sixth platform is especially dangerous because as soon as I go off the slope, the Irijyu2 will trigger, hitting us instantly, so it's needed to stop right at the edge and do an almonst-position perfect jump to skip the attack. The old run slidekicked much earlied and jumped at slow speed to avoid this, but I instead make use of speed carrying properties. By pressing ← a frame before the slidekick, then holding →, I can cancel the speed that I would normally get before the slidekick, and instead go to a much slower, almost-zero speed. Two frames after, Osman is brought to a standstill and I can jump straight without aggroing the Irijyu2.
Euro-Gam sees two improvements: the first being to place the first copies closer to him, allowing the copy damage to hi earlier, and the second to jump instead of hypersliding away on his first machine gun attack, allowing to deal damage while Euro-Gam is ramming Osman and firing his machinegun. Because we're in the air, Euro-Gam fires his slow shockwave, preventing us from coming in the air again, but we don't need to do so for the rest of the fight. Instead, we combo him as we move away from him (this is possible because Euro-Gam's hitbox extends a lot towards the left) and once he stops ramming, we've done enough damage to kill him while going forward with an hyperslide.

Herio 2 is killed again without the chance of attacking once. This is actually possible this time because of the terrain around: once I piledrive Herio to the ground and do my first combo followed by some jump kicks, she is pinned to the right of the screen and has no option but to go up.. into more jump kicks, saving one bomb.
Gamran 2 is dealt the same way as in the old run. Some better positioning allows an earlier kill, and as such allows Osman to slidekick away on his last attack, saving a bit of time.
And Fake is the real 'last boss' of an any% Osman TAS. There's not too much to say about this fight, as the strategy is the same as in the 100% run. Fake will attack at Osman's current position relative to Fake. As he has Osman's black suit attack, they are nearly impossible to dodge: the kick can be dodged by sliding under it, but the jumpkick is a guantereed hit if you're in the wrong place. I begin by preparing out my four copies where Fake will land, then attack him with my copies as I slide under him and he does an jumpkick to the left; then prepare a reverse jab into a straight punch when he lands. I couldn't jump at that moment because it would have directed a jumpkick at Osman, forcing me on the ground. After the jump, the fight becomes trivial, because my jumping is desyncronised from Fake's jumping and I can avoid his last jumpkick.
As usual, I skip the trio refight; if you hyperslide off the left of the trio's arena, you can grab the platform that's the start of the ascent to the final fight with Slaver. What does this do? First off, it skips a boss (pretty cool), and more importantly, it keeps the trio cutscene playing. If you trigger Slaver's cutscene at a specific spot in the trio's cutscene (after the cutscene text ends, at "Try this!" but the actual cutscene is not yet finished, hence why I had to wait a bit) a very odd thing happens: the trio cutscene finishes while Slaver is going down to do her cutscene!
From there, all hell breaks loose. The game thinks a cutscene is finished, and you're in the Slaver cutscene, so Slaver is supposed to go up to her arena for the final fight. But the Slaver cutscene has yet to happen, so instead Slaver starts attacking right away, and the cutscene plays. Each time Slaver touches a screen border (to try to go off screen) the game shits itself, lags a lot and puts Slaver back in the screen, probably as a failsafe. The most useful side effect of this is that we can hurt Slaver, even though she's not supposed to be able to be damaged yet. And this allows us to kill Slaver instantly!
When Osman enters a boss fight, the boss's health bar fills up. This is not a visual effect: their health goes from none to full. But because we can damage Slaver, we can hurt her during this filling up health period. All we have to do is damage her once (to make the game see that she is not at full health, making her refill from zero: if we entered the arena at full health, the game wouldn't refill Slaver health's because it would think it had already refilled it), and simply attack as soon as her health starts filling up, for a nice one-shot kill. And that's the end of the run..

Thanks for trap15 for making me find out about this game.

The last hit is on the frame 19512; the extra minute and ten seconds are to pass through the credits and enter my name. Please mention this in the submission text.

15527

feos: Well, another Osman improvement. Not much to say here, as it's basically the same super colorful and intense action as always. Even the audience doesn't feel like repeating everything from the previous submission threads. Accepting this improvement over [3165] Arcade Osman by xy2_ in 06:58.72 to Moons, as it in no way got worse.

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