Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
If you frequent the #nesvideos IRC channel, you've maybe already heard of this, but I'll post it here for all the forum-goers and lurkers. I've completed my segmented speedrun of Rockman 2. The movie can be downloaded directly here, or maybe you'd like to check out its page on Own-age.com.
I've written a long description for the Own-age.com submission, so I'll just quote it here. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy watching it. :)
ROCKMAN 2 SEGMENTED SPEEDRUN
Finally, I recorded the last segment of the Rockman 2 (Megaman 2) speedrun I've been working on for a long time now. :) I managed to beat Wily in a really decent time, and decided, after watching everything again, that it's complete. I've worked for about three months on this, since I decided that I would start it in early November 2004. The entire speedrun is cut up in 14 segments (one for every stage). In case you're unfamiliar with speedruns, a "segmented speedrun" means that you record parts of the game individually, which means that you can do serveral parts of the game over and over again until you get it right. No slowdowns or rerecordings can be used (or any tool-assisted help, for that matter), making the speedrun completely legitimate in terms of actual skill. It cannot be seen as a world record, though, for various reasons (world records have to be recorded on the original hardware, which is a Nintendo, and they have to be done in one run; rather than segmented parts). Segmented speedruns leave much possibility for improval, and thus turn out more impressive than their Twin Galaxies-approved counterparts. But since I just wanted to make a nice movie, it all doesn't matter. This is fun to watch for people who are fans of speedruns, especially those who have played the game, so I'm happy with it.
Like every speedrun on this game, I started out with Air Man in order to get the Rocket Sled (Item-2) really fast. This item can be used on many occasions in most of the levels and is therefore very useful. After that, I ran Quick Man's stage, simply to get his weapon for later use. Flash Man followed, because I needed his Time Stopper power in Metal Man's level, which follows straight after. Bubble Man comes next because Metal Blade is really the best weapon in that level, followed by Heat Man who's quickly defeated with Bubble Lead. Finally, I did Clash Man's stage and Wood Man's stage. As far as route goes, I didn't do much innovative actions. The only new things in this run are the usage of Air Shooter after riding the Rocket Sled (Quick Man's level), and an extra Rocket Sled refill so I could ride it for just a bit longer in Wily Stage 3. The completion times for the stages: Air Man [02:06.40], Quick Man [01:53.06], Flash Man [01:37.12], Metal Man [01:35.03], Bubble Man [01:55.57], Heat Man [01:59.08], Clash Man [02:11.12], Wood Man [02:08.25], Wily Stage 1 [01:58.41], Wily Stage 2 [01:59.54], Wily Stage 3 [01:24.04], Wily Stage 4 [02:27.42], Wily Stage 5 [02:17.38], Final battle [01:15.15]. All times are in SMPTE time with a 60 frames per second timecode. It's also important to note here that I did not abuse any programming errors in the game. It's played entirely by Twin Galaxies' rules. I don't take the huge shortcut in Bubble Man's level or abuse the pillar bug in Heat Man's level. Tricks where you get yourself stuck in the ceiling to have the game push you through the entire level in top speed is completely out of the question. They're normal gameplay-only runs. All hits taken during stages are intentional and are faster than not getting hit (especially in Wily Stage 4, as getting hit gives you temporary invincibility and thus allows you to walk over damage floors).
Total gameplay time is [26:49.57]. Keep in mind that I'm NOT counting the time it takes to view the title screen, the boss selection screen (and their introductions), the Wily overmap screens, and the new weapon screens. This run is, because it's played with the Japanese (J) ROM, slower than Richard Ureta (aka. Sleepz)'s non-segmented official world record, which is played on the American (U) cartridge on "Easy" difficulty. The Japanese ROM is more difficult than the American ROM's "Easy" difficulty, so they can't really compare (his gameplay time is approximately 25:27). I've spent a lot of time trying to perfect these runs, so please enjoy. :) If you can do these runs better than me, then feel free to e-mail me about it. I'll help you record it and encode it, too. Maybe we could even greatly improve on this run with lots of other people, similar to "Quake Done Quick with a Vengeance". For now, though, download this run as it's bound to take the breath away from anybody who's played the game. :)
Encoded in two-pass XviD for video and LAME MP3 for audio. Total length is 31:39.
I'm having trouble viewing this video. Most of the sprites and backgrounds smear out when scrolling. In rooms which stand still, like boss rooms, everything looks fine. Any special codec needed?
It allows for competition and refinement on certain sections of the game. The Doom speedrunning community has always had both single-segment runs of an entire game/episode and runs of each individual level, for example. Actually, the videos like Doom Done Quick and Quake Done Quick are exactly like this one except with multiple players; after a player completes one part, the next one inherits his health/ammo/etc. and completes his own with that.
Multi-segment is a better way to showcase what humans can actually do, essentially.
-Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Another thing: you use the pause bug to reset motion in air. Is that really allowed under TG settings? I thought they outlawed everything that didn't conform to what the game makers had in mind.
Well, the game makers made pausing reset motion in air! Maybe you could pretend you just happened to want to open the menu when you did, and landing on the platform afterward was a lucky accident. Yeah.
But as for the rules, I still think it's silly to try to determine what you should and shouldn't do by reading the minds of people you've never met.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Special Rules: Use of the pause button is strictly prohibited! Using the select button to rapidly enter and exit the sub menu, as your weapon hits the enemy, to register more then one hit is BANNED! Rapid Use of the sub menu to pass through the walls on any stage is also banned. Passwords are NOT allowed! Timer starts when you hit the start button and ends when you defeat Dr. Wily for the final time. You must complete the game or your record/attempt will be disqualified!
Doesn't say anything about it actually. He doesn't press start rapidly (only once) and he doesn't pass trough any walls. He never uses select.
It still seems strange, judging from the other rules I've seen them make. Hopefully Mr. Kelly R. Flewin will come in here and set it straight, since he judged the current video.
Actually, that technique IS allowed.. . Sleepz made fine use of a needed change when traversing a large pit area. He changed his weapon in mid air, which moved him over a bit. I haven't seen someone abuse this yet, save for that one part in Morimoto's run.. which is why I made the ban on going through walls via this, thanks to Bubbleman's Stage.
That one part in Woodman's stage, of going through a wall is ignored though, since that one part doesn't affect anything.
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Just another random gamer
----
<OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Like Kelly said, Sleepz' usage of the start button was accepted by Twin Galaxies. He uses it two times: when shooting a monster in Flash Man's stage (using the Start button to increase his accuracy), and when crossing a gap in Wily Stage 4. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with this technique. I can understand that if someone were to make a run on Metal Gear and used the Start button tricks, it wouldn't be accepted, but this, I agree with.
As for xebra's question, like Josh said, this is a segmented speedrun, which is a form of speedrunning. I think that on Bisqwit's site, there's a term list which describes a segmented speedrun as a run on a game divided into parts with no slow-downs or save states. It's done the same way as Quake done Quick, from that point of view, because they also record every level individually. The only differences with Quake done Quick is that this is done by one person, and in Quake, your weapons from the previous level as well as some other stats will stay in the next level (but even so, all levels were still individually made; some runs are declined because it would cause the player to die if he kept his stats from the previous level, while the recording was started with a normal amount of health).
Essentially, it just makes for an impressive legitimate run, though it's in my opinion not as impressive as a single-segmented run. But the speed in segmented vids is higher, and it's generally more entertaining to watch.
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 551
Location: Karlstad, Sweden
downloading it now. Would be interesting to watch, I was actually thinking of doing a pure speedrun of this game, because I know where every little enemy are and what weapons to use etc.. Been playing this on a real nes since i was 6 years old and I'm 16 now :D
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
Truncated wrote:
He doesn't press start rapidly (only once) and he doesn't pass trough any walls. He never uses select.
Using select to pause the game only worked in Rockman/Mega Man 1. I don't know if they removed it because of the bug or not, but by the time part 2 was released it's not there anymore.
Anyway, Omega, I enjoyed your movie even though I was disappointed that you did not exploit any bugs. Seeing as how this is segmented and therefore ineligible for TG anyway, why not exploit bugs to increase speed?
I was happy to see you use the Heat Man weapon, although I should point out that a level three Heat Man blast might save time against the first form of Dr. Wily. It completely destroys his shield.
Also, is there any particular reason you skipped the small weapon-refills in Wily stage but then collected a big one later? I can't think of which level that was right now.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Wily Stage 2 was one of the more rushed levels, actually. I couldn't have dodged that large refill, anyway. I didn't want to exploit bugs because I opted for a glitch-free movie. Just a personal choice of mine. Zooming past half of Bubble Man's level would have been less interesting, in my opinion.
Also, I had no idea that a level three Atomic Fire blast destroyed his shield. That's one strategy I just MISSED. Stupid me.
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 551
Location: Karlstad, Sweden
Watched it know, I was also dissapointed you didn't use the bubbleman glitch and fought dr. wily with metal blades. Those were like the only 2 things I think I could've done better ;P Nice job anyway :>
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
pathologist wrote:
That was not good at all. Why even bother making a speedrun of the full game much slower then the existing one? And its so unclean.
Check out my single stage rockman2 speedruns. http://www.nestrix.tk
Using only blaster i complete airman, flashman and quickman faster than Morimoto in his speedrun.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
pathologist wrote:
Even if it isn't it's still pointless making a speedrun so much slower then an existing one, tool-assisted or not.
Some people like to see a speedrun made with gaming skills rather than frame-accurate perfection skills. :) I personally like both, but there's no reason why you should compare tool-assisted runs with realtime runs.
Also, if you'd like to advertise your own run, you should start a new topic.
Ok, im sorry i advertised ill edit that. Anyway even if its played without tool-assistance its still segmented, which means you probably played each stage 1000 time's. Either way your speedrun is in a way tool assisted since you use an emulator to play each stage over and over again untill your satisfied.
