Emulator Information

  • Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43v12(beta10)
  • Sync settings:
    • Use WIP1 timing
    • Sync samples with sound CPU (This is alternative, according to moozooh it gives better sound effects quality, I did not record with this setting though, as it somehow screwed up my computer

About the run

This is an improvement to Krocketneo's previously published 100% kills Gradius 3 TAS, it is about 2 minutes and 53 seconds faster and has a higher percentage of kills.
I actually never got interested in the game until I saw the latest TAS of it, (I have only played it through once) I found it entertaining but I also found it quite unoptimized and I thought there where a lot of wasted potential for movement. So I decided to give it a try, hoping to save at least 10 seconds over the run which evidently I did.
Sadly though I would still not call this a true 100% kills movie, in level 4 a couple of fire rings get destroyed by the environment instead of me, and in level 5 there might have been 1 or 2 small rocks that slipped past me in the fire unnoticed. Also after the 4th boss there are stones falling from the ceiling which are destroyable, but it was impossible to take all of them so I decided to leave them all for a cleaner look. However I do kill all enemies in both level 4 and 7. (the vertically scrolling ones) It might look like I miss some but that is only a illusion, the stages are much smaller than one would think. (about 1.5-2 screens tall)
The improvements is about 90% lag reduction and 10% better boss fights. I generally kill more enemies faster with less shots which in some areas saves insane amounts of time, and by finding most of the bosses health addresses I was able to kill them quicker. Also a commonly used thing in my boss fights is to let some of the options be inside the boss temporarliy while starting to charge the beam, this will make their charge counter go down to zero and that allows me to fire multiple fully powered charged shots at slightly different frames to make the boss get hit by all of them (or at least enough) instead of being damaged by one and absorbing the rest during it's invincibility time. I think most of the boss fights are fully optimal, some might be improvable by a frame or two and one or two might be improvable by more if you find fully optimal placing for your options, this is unlikely though.
Also this game lags a lot... I removed maybe 40-45% of it but it is still VERY noticeable through out the run. In total there is a little more than 3 minutes of lag left, so there is your theoretical improvement :) (completely impossible though)
EDIT: Due to the controversial ending I made a second version that physically kills the final boss. The movie file is 1223 frames longer but the boss dies much sooner.

Frame savings per level and lag per level left.

Menu:
50 Frames saved
Level 1:
151 Frames saved 136 Lag frame left
Level 2:
933 Frames saved 1949 Lag frames left
Level 3:
2081 Frames saved 2228 Lag frame left
Level 4:
1270 Frames saved 822 Lag frame left
Level 5:
1308 Frames saved 1478 Lag frames left
Level 6:
503 Frames saved 1247 Lag frame left
Level 7:
432 Frames saved 177 Lag frame left
Bossrush:
246 Frames saved 1046 Lag frame left
Level 8
1255 Frames saved 581 Lag frames left
Level 9:
2138 Frames saved 1438 Lag frame left
10356 Frames saved in total 11101 Lag frames left

Thanks to

People who have worked on this game earlier (I think Krocketneo, Warp and tviks) Also much thanks to nitsujrehtona who made a excellent lua script for the game which helped me greatly in the last two levels.

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.

adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvement to the published movie.

adelikat: Publication underway


Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Your slippery-slope argument is not valid. Firstly, nobody (at least not me) has *complained* about the ending. I simply noted that it might be controversial. I was in no way suggesting that the shorter movie should not be published. Secondly, more related to your slippery slope, there's a limit about how much a very small optimization should be allowed to degrade entertainment. As a hypothetical, and completely extreme example, assume this: Suppose a "regular" run through the game takes 25000 frames. However, a glitch is discovered which allows jumping right to the end boss, but this glitch requires the player to stand still, doing nothing for a very long time, and the total number of frames of the movie when using this glitch is 24999. In other words, just 1 frame was saved, and the whole movie is nothing else than the character just standing still and nothing happening. Quite clearly this would *never* be published here. It's much better to "sacrifice" that 1 frame to make an entertaining run than to publish a movie where nothing happens. The river city ransom movie where it took something like 2 minutes for the end boss to kill himself (while the player just stands there doing nothing) was a bit of a stretching. Too much for it to be considered acceptable. Most people agreed that it crossed the line where saving a few frames degraded entertainment too much for it to be acceptable. This line may be very fuzzy, but it clearly exists. And there's no slippery slope: Just because *some* movies are not accepted if they degrade entertainment too much for a minuscule saving in frames, that doesn't mean that speed doesn't matter at all. Again: I'm not saying *this* movie is such a case. I just pointed out that it should be considered when voting. If most people don't consider it a degradation of entertainment, then it should be published, of course.
Experienced player (829)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Warp: Take a look back at his 12 previous posts, many of them have absurd amounts of sarcasm. I assume this one is no different.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 4/3/2006
Posts: 269
Awesome and very entertaining run! It's a big WTF when getting to the boss... but I like both versions. Thank you Cpadolf! An obvious YES vote.
Skilled player (1225)
Joined: 9/15/2006
Posts: 165
Location: China
I just like shorter movie more, so I support the author's second version for publication. "But I was in no way suggesting that the more "WTF" movie should not be published."
mmbossman wrote:
Take a look back at his 12 previous posts
You are clever.
Joined: 7/25/2007
Posts: 109
mmbossman wrote:
Warp: Take a look back at his 12 previous posts, many of them have absurd amounts of sarcasm. I assume this one is no different.
I was being serious, up until "And hey, while we're at it..." It's not like there are elements of truth and my true opinion in my posts, you know. (also I didn't develop my absurdism gimmick right away). Oh, and about the Warp's ridiculous example of frames VS time, there is indeed a line (although I haven't heard of the RCR one). This particular one doesn't really cross it, though, since it only takes like 20 seconds or so for him to kill himself (and it isn't widely known to my knowledge, so it should be all right.). Makes for a cooler ending than just flying on up and shooting him in the mouth, in my opinion.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
The run is up on my youtube channel now if there is anyone who couldn't watch the smv.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Joined: 7/7/2007
Posts: 161
While I enjoyed the previous two publications, there was that "something missing" I hoped would be resolved in a future attempt. Congratulations, you resolved it. This is a ludicrous improvement. I was entertained every second, which is no easy feat for an auto-scroller. I found the point-blank shots and hitbox manipulation most entertaining. The Options formations were spectacular throughout, both tactically and aesthetically. Shot economy is incredible. Your run is the prime example of what lag management can offer in a TAS video. I previously mentioned possible improvements to be had with the stage 2 volcano rocks, but I didn't imagine they could be improved so dramatically. And the Easter Island segment...WTF?! That was crazy. Stage 7 was similarly creative. Obviously, I'd vote yes if I could. I approve of Vic Viper's "cold feet" at the last boss.
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
I really liked the bosses (specially the last), and the use of weapons. The crazy maneuvers were also great, but I think they're abused too much in some parts. I would have appreciated some moments of rest to the eye, because 25 minutes of bouncing is tiresome. I wouldn't call this a 100% kills run because I felt you spared some turrets on the labyrinth (because it was impossible to reach them), maybe "most kills" might be a more appropiate title, treating the death toll as score. As for my vote, I found this one less entertaining than the first Gradius due to the lenght and the above mentioned bounciness, but it's still very good. So I'll give it a yes.
No.
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
All I can add to Dr. Jones' comments is that this run has the thing I most like to see in any TAS: MOAR KILLING. Yes vote.
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
DrJones wrote:
I wouldn't call this a 100% kills run because I felt you spared some turrets on the labyrinth (because it was impossible to reach them)
Are you sure of that? AFAIK all the turrets are killable because the vertically-wrapping stage is vertically much shorter than it might look.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
All turrets are destroyed, though to a viewer who don't know the game well it will inevitably look like some are missed. I do however miss 1 very very small rock in level 5, some fire rings in level 4 gets destroyed on the environment instead of by me and after the level 4 boss you can destroy (though not destroy all) the falling rocks.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
IMO "aims for 100% kills" is as valid as "aims for fastest time", so that category can be used.
Tub
Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 1377
although the "fastest time" possible is rarely reached, there's a difference in the wording: "100% kills" uses an absolute value instead of a general goal. Saying this "aims for 100% kills" is as misleading as saying "aims for sub-5-minutes" on a 6-minute run. This movie aims for most kills, not 100%. (then again, I'm aware of the technical limitations of categories)
m00
BigBoct
He/Him
Editor, Former player
Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH
I was very impressed with this run. You did some very funny things with the options, I didn't notice you missing anything killable (except maybe the boulders in the volcano stage) and you did an excellent job of managing lag. Yes vote for certain.
Previous Name: boct1584
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Tub wrote:
This movie aims for most kills, not 100%.
Actually, it don't. It does aim for 100% kills, not most. The last movie killed more enemies, I just miss less. Some enemies spawns other enemies and because the last author killed everything slower theese enemies had time to spawn more enemies. You can see by the end score that he has the higher one. If I aimed for most kills I would have had to delay killing many of the enemies in the game leading to a slower (a.i more laggy) run.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
A note for the publisher who'll be encoding this run: PLEASE, capture the movie with "sync samples with sound CPU" option turned ON. Otherwise, the sound will be unnaturally bad. Thanks.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
So, which of the two versions is getting published?
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Cpadolf wrote:
So, which of the two versions is getting published?
Maybe that should be voted separately?-)
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Maybe :) But I thought that since it has reached accepted status now it had already been decided by the judges.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
jaysmad
Other
Experienced player (933)
Joined: 12/1/2006
Posts: 629
Location: Mom's
Once again your style is amazing, CP. Like everybody said, Crazy run, good improvement and the final boss trick was a nice unexpected touch. I'm a little late but still.. Yes vote!
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Never to late to feed the big ol' ego, thanks :)
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Could you use the Mega Crush power to kill the enemies that "escaped" and truly get 100% kills? Or when it kills all enemies on screen does it really kill things only on the screen?
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Mega crush doesn't kill all enemies, I think it can't kill anything with more than 1-4 hp or so. The rocks in level 4 have 5 and are resistant to it, the rest I missed I either could have killed (like 1 rock or so in level 5 that was cloaked in the flames) or maga crush would not have helped. (doesn't kill ofscreen eneimies, and besides I don't actually know when ofscreen enemies that never show up spawn)
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Joined: 6/1/2006
Posts: 64
Just out of curiosity - the [ ! ] one from the powerup bar does the same amount of damage as the blue powerup, right? I seem to recall that the [ ! ] makes the screen flash; is that just a different graphical effect?
Skilled player (1444)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
I haven't done any extensive testing (basically I only checked if it could destroy big bubbles in level 2 since that could have been a huge timesaver) but I think they act identical to eachother.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare