Submission #5874: EZGames69's SNES Disney's Toy Story in 20:46.36

Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/242331514

Toy Story for SNES is a game developed by Traveller's Tales who would later go on to develop Sonic 3D blast, Sonic R, Crash Bandicoot the Wrath of Cortex, and the Lego universe series. The game is based off of the first of what would be many movies produced by Disney-Pixar and features many characters from the franchise.

The game loosely follows the same story line with a few differences here and there. You play as Woody, the rootinest tootinest cowboy in the wild wild west. Woody's jealousy of the new toy in andy's room, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, leads you to fighting for your life as you fall into the hands of Sid, the next door neighbor who loves to destroy toys for his enjoyment. Help get Woody and Buzz back to Andy before they become lost toys.

While there is already a movie on the Genesis version, [2991] Genesis Disney's Toy Story by Jimmie1717 in 20:28.90, there's a few tricks that don't work in the Genesis version.

Every single obstacle in this game does 1 damage to Woody, and when hit, Woody will have invincibility frames (i-frames) for almost 2 seconds. Because of this, most of the routing consists of taking damage at the right moment, so that you can take advantage of the i-frames as much as possible. Woody's max health is 5. Whenever the player loses a life, Woody will respawn with 5 health. However, although it gives the player a full health refill, it takes at the very least 5 seconds to respawn, and sometimes more depending on where you die in the level. Because of this, the ideal way is to refill health by collecting stars.

Every level in this game has 50 stars, with the exception for 'Run, Rex, Run!' which has 48 stars. Collecting 50 stars rewards 1 extra life. Collecting 49 stars rewards 4 health points. Collecting 48 stars rewards 3 health points and so on. The ideal solution is to collect 49 stars whenever it is possible to do so, and because some levels are auto-scrollers and platformers where the stars are placed right in the players way, it becomes rather easy to get a full health refill. However, collecting 50 stars only rewards 1 extra life but no health points, so in some cases, 1 star has to be skipped.

The choice to play on the NTSC-U version is very simple, because of The Claw skip and the Buzz Battle skip. Combined, they save roughly 1 minute and 30 seconds. The NTSC-J version and the PAL version of the game are basically the same, with the addition of languages on the PAL version.

The Claw is skipped by launching two aliens up in the air, both hitting the claw, and then scroll the screen a little bit by walking right and spawn as many aliens as possible. We believe this works because of the amount of sprites on the screen at the same time. That's why we're walking right here, because we get to see the Claw and the stars that spawn out of the Claw when it's hit by the two aliens. But we can't walk too far right or Buzz is not going to be on screen. In the NTSC-J version of the game, this was fixed by simply limiting the amount of aliens you can launch at the same time.

Buzz Battle is faster on NTSC-U because of how the tire works. Normally when you hit Buzz with the tire, he launches out of it and does a spin attack for around 8 seconds, and then he goes back to the right of the screen and begins charging at Woody again. When he initiates the spin attack after getting hit by the tire, the tire will launch up in the air, going out of bounds until Buzz is done with his spin attack sequence. The tire is supposed to be disabled when it's going up in the air, however, on the NTSC-U it is possible to hit the tire as it's going up in the air. This breaks the sequence so that the player can land the tire on Buzz again, getting another hit. On NTSC-J, the player is completely unable to hit the tire.

There is very little RNG in this game, almost everything is based on cycles. The few RNG elements in the game are the coin falling patterns in 'Inside the Claw Machine' and the fire crackers in 'Sid's Workbench' and 'Battle of the Mutant Toys'.

The TAS run is not very different from the RTA run. Most of the routing is the same, with a few minor exceptions like 'Really Inside the Claw Machine' and jumps that require a 10 frame.

Before we can start, we have to turn storyline off as this removes the cut-scenes after every stage.

To complete this stage, we have to free the army men, hit the baby monitor down, and make it to the receiving end of the monitor. This is the first instance where we take advantage of the 10 frame jump after we free the army men.

Essentially an auto scroller, you want to make sure you get all the toys back into their places before the timer runs out. The only time save we can do here is to free the Rocky the wrestler toy as he's the slowest character. The fastest in game time you can get here is a 132.

First instance where we take advantage of damage boosts. One way to save a few frames is to swing off of hooks, this saves around 10 frames. We also finish this level with 1 health as we'll refill it later.

First boss of this game, you want to hit all of the orange balls that surround Buzz otherwise you can't do damage to him in the next cycle. You can actually do damage to Buzz in the first cycle in the Japanese version, however claw skip was accidentally patched in that version so it isn't worth using it.

The first RC level in the game, I cut corners as much as possible and avoid skidding as much as possible as it slows you down slightly. You want to hit Buzz every time you see him because 1, he refills your charge with batteries and 2, the next buzz won't spawn and you need to hit the last Buzz in order to finish the level.

To finish this level, you have to free Rex at every spot, the level will not end until he walks to the end of the screen. We also finish this level with 2 health, as 'Run, Rex, Run' only contains 48 stars, giving us 3 health at the end of it.

First real auto-scroller of this game. Only thing we can do to speed this stage up is to end the level at the right of the screen. We also collect all the stars in this game as it will refill our health in the next stage.

You have to tire Buzz out here............................... The position where the tire spawns after you hit Buzz with it is where ever the tire hit him, since he's in the air when we hit him the 2nd time, it spawns in the air.

Probably one of the most unoptimized stages for RTA runners. Jumping over the falling food and drinks saves a bit of time. We also collect 49 stars in this stage as we damage boost through the slower sections that you would be stopped for the longest time.

Many of the cycles in this stage run on a global timer, so it's important that we catch every cycle in here. This is also a stage where we collect 49 stars to refill our health at the end.

ID software? Is that you? You collect squeaky toy aliens in this stage and return them to the deposit where you spawned at. The Genesis version of this stage has a completely different layout. Getting the first 3 aliens only saves time when you can catch the cycle of the moving block, we want to stand in front of it to force it to move back into position, that way we don't have to wait for it.

This skip involves getting as many sprites on screen as possible, as it for some reason kicks you out of the game. Normally this would be a pretty lengthy battle, but here it's over in less than 10 seconds.

A few spots where I don't do some damage boosts as I want to conserve at least 2 health near the end. Around the end Sid sets your head on fire and you can't jump or stop when this happens. We use a damage boost at the slowest sets of yo-yo's to end this stage.

Normally in RTA you would take an immidiate death to refill your health, but here we can finish the stage with 1 health. I try to take the fastest route up the hooks and when I get to Buzz, I hit each toy as soon as I can, eventually you can hit both toys at the same time and the level doesn't end until one toy hits the far end of the screen.

Another auto scroller simmilar to Run Rex Run. Not much to say about this stage. I collect stars for no reason other than for entertainment at the end of the movie.

The last RC level, all you have to do is drive straight enough and collect batteries to recharge your status before you end the level.

The last auto scroller in the game, I have some fun here and make close encounters with the trees, cars, and stoplights. I want to finish this level in the right spot so we can turn perpendicular right away.

I want to give some shoutouts to a few people who have helped out with this TAS:

Enmet, the WR holder for this game and who showed me a faster route in Really Inside.

JermRo, who ran this game at AGDQ 2018 and got me interested in doing this game.

Jimmie1717, the author of the Genesis TAS.

And the rest of the TS speed-running community, this wouldn't be possible without any of your help.

feos: Nice run, thanks for the explanatory commentary stream. Everything looks solid and cool. Even though there was only one comment in the thread, I saw quite a few active TASers in the stream chat, and they all liked it, agreeing with the available perception at TASVideos (post and votes). Accepting to Moons.

To the publisher: Please add the Commentary flag and link the twitch stream in the publication description.

Stovent: Processing...