I'm surprised nobody's started a thread about this (awesome) game yet. Seems like there's a lot of speedrunning opportunities, and it should make a really fun time attack game.
Right now I'm going for pure speed, though I'm still in the planning stages of it. Any feedback or input would be appreciated.
My route so far:
Intro Stage - Nothing too special here. Kill Mac with the Z-Saber insta-kill move, and kill the boss with 1 charged X Buster shot, the rest with normal X Buster shots.
Blizzard Buffalo stage - The main reason I do this stage first is for the Air Dash upgrade. Yes, this is a pure speed run, but the Air Dash capusle is right along the route you have to go on anyway. Actually getting it takes very little extra time, probably 15 seconds at most. It saves a LOT of time in other areas (being able to skip the first part of Neon Tiger's stage alone makes it worth getting, in my opinion).
For the boss, I found a fun AI exploit--the first thing Blizzard Buffalo does is charge at you. Jump over him. When he turns around, jump and do a vertical Air Dash, and he'll turn back around and ram into the wall he's already at. This makes for a very quick fight using just charged X Buster shots.
Toxic Seahorse stage - For the mid-boss, just using X Buster shots should kill him quickly enough. He does the animation where he puts his hands out, and it looks like he's blocking your shots, but I'm pretty sure those shots hurt him anyway.
I use the Frost Shield for Toxic Seahorse, but there's a weird glitch. After you hit him with the Frost Shield, he'll go into the "I got hit" animation, and then jump. However, if you place a Frost Shield right above his head, he'll take damage and go into the "I got hit" animation when he's supposed to be in his invulnerability frames. This makes the battle very fast.
Tunnel Rhino stage - The Frost Shield kills the green wall-making drills in 1 hit, and is probably the easiest way to get rid of them.
Regular X Buster shots do best against the mid-boss, from what I can tell. He blinks, but he's not invulnerable during this period. It's probably fastest to let him ram into the left wall over and over, being careful not to actually touch the wall when he rams it because you lose control of X for a while.
Tunnel Rhino will just dash repeatedly if you use the Acid Blast on him. Simple enough battle, but luck would have to be manipulated to make sure he doesn't go invulnerable.
Volt Catfish stage - The airdash is very useful here. It makes going up the elevators quicker in the first page of the stage, and helps with the corridors with sharp turns in the second half.
From what I can tell, it's faster to use the X Buster on Volt Catfish before he goes to the middle and starts powering up. Using the Tornado Fang gives him an assload of invulnerability frames, and only does 2 damage (the same as a charged X Buster shot). Switching to the Tornado Fang when he goes to the center to charge up is good, though.
Crush Crawfish stage - Not really much to say about the stage. Though Volt Catfish's weapon really does tear through pretty much every regular enemy in the game, and it could be put to use here.
Triad Thunder makes quick work of Crush Crawfish. In fact, he's even vulnerable to it during his blinking invulnerability frames. I have gotten Triad Thunder to do double damage to Crush Crawfish a couple of times, however I'm not entirely sure what causes it, so I'll need to look into that further.
EDIT: Volt Catfish stage (pt 2) - It seems like killing Vile for an easy Doppler Stage 2 and the Beam Sabre is the way to go. The entrance to Vile's Lair is pretty close to the start of this stage, so it shouldn't waste too much time getting there
Neon Tiger stage - The vertical air dash really pays off in the first big open area, since you can avoid going right, then back left. Frost Shield again does really well against those green drill guys.
The miniboss dies VERY quickly to Frost Shield. He blinks, but isn't invulnerable, so just spamming them at him will kill him extremely fast.
Neon Tiger is pretty simple, just hit him with a Spinning Blade whenever he's vulnerable, and dodge his jumps.
Gravity Beetle stage - Really simple stage, and really simple boss. Tiger eye will kill him extremely quickly.
Blast Hornet stage - Acid Blast is the best way to defeat the miniboss, who is (surprisingly) actually invulnerable after he gets hit.
Gravity Well makes Blast Hornet himself really easy. The only hard part is positioning it--if you're right over the ball, it won't have to travel back to you, making things faster. So the only problem is making the ball stay out of Blast Hornet's path, really.
Byte - Tornado Fang makes him very, very easy. He'll take 4 hits from a Tornado Fang when he's in the corner, and you can launch another as he dashes to make him take a 5th hit. Then repeat the process.
Bit - Harder than Byte. Frost Shield seems to be the best way to beat him, but I'll have to experiment more.
That's what I've got so far. Again, comments would be appreciated.
Questions:
- Is it better to kill one of Byte/Bit with the X Buster? Kill as in deliver the finishing blow. If you don't beat both of them with a special weapon that they're weak to, they'll replace the acid shooter boss in the 2nd Doppler stage. So my question is, is it faster to kill the acid shooter boss, or is it faster to kill the combined Bit & Byte boss?
Edit: Apparently the combined Bit & Byte is much easier to beat than the waste disposal, so keeping one of Bit/Byte alive is worth it
- Is killing Vile worth it? Vile takes a long time to beat, especially on this route where a stage would need to be revisited to get to his lair. However, getting the Z-Saber would make all the bosses after much, much faster.
Edit: Seems like he might be
I usually kill either Bit or Byte with a regular shot to make them combine at the end. Very easy and fast boss to kill, if you compare to the evul waste disposer.
Vile might be worth it as, you need to kill him anyway. And at Volt stage, the Vile portal is almost at the beginning of the stage. But I don't like the non-destroyed Sigma 2nd stage, instead of the destroyed one.
The Z-saber makes quick work of any boss in the game, two hits from it is enough to kill them. But don't you need the upgraded X buster for it?
And I play the PS version of the game, so some stuff is changed there. One big big difference is that you can get the upgraded Air dash from Toxic's with nothing more then the Air dash.
EDIT: You just need to jump when Buffalo turns around to get him charge in the wall again.
I usually kill either Bit or Byte with a regular shot to make them combine at the end. Very easy and fast boss to kill, if you compare to the evul waste disposer.
Yeah, I just played through the first Doppler stage again, and man that waste disposer is hard. Definitely going to leave Bit alive.
Vile might be worth it as, you need to kill him anyway. And at Volt stage, the Vile portal is almost at the beginning of the stage. But I don't like the non-destroyed Sigma 2nd stage, instead of the destroyed one.
The Z-saber makes quick work of any boss in the game, two hits from it is enough to kill them. But don't you need the upgraded X buster for it?
You're right, I forgot that the destroyed 2nd Sigma stage is water-filled and has less enemies, making it a lot easier. So overall I guess taking out Vile would make things easier.
You don't have to have the upgrade X-Buster to get the Beam Sabre, I'm pretty sure. 1455-6863-6427-7185 is a password for no upgrades but with the Beam Sabre so I assume it's possible to get it, as long as Vile is dead.
And I play the PS version of the game, so some stuff is changed there. One big big difference is that you can get the upgraded Air dash from Toxic's with nothing more then the Air dash.
Damn, that would have been helpful to have on the SNES version :p
EDIT: You just need to jump when Buffalo turns around to get him charge in the wall again.
Yep, just tried this. Timing is a little more difficult but it's not like that matters in a timeattack :) Thanks!
I saw ur timeattack prower, really great except one thing.. Why did u press start instead of using L or R when u met Vile? :/
You can't use L/R while the "broken" Spinning Blades are in the air.
Though--and I can't believe I didn't think of this while making the run--it'd be easier just to switch to the X-Buster with L/R at the beginning of the second Vile battle, fire 5 charged X-Buster shots, then switch to Spinning Blades with L/R to finish him off. Saves time, and eliminates the whole going to the start screen thing.
Joined: 7/5/2004
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Location: Karlstad, Sweden
Okay, One thing I also thougt was stunning were when zero gave u his saber! I had no idead that he could do that! And I've never seen that ending before, very cool!
After seeing your run MMX3 seems like a much harder beast to time attack compared to MMX. The run was good and I think it uses the optimal path but there is still some room for improvement.
One thing that I think might be a problem is that I have the feeling the air dash might be over used. In sections where you are falling down the corridor, and the objective is to get down as fast as possible, air dashing certainly looks cool but it does stop your vertical movement. A standard daash jump leaves you with a lot of dexterity while in the air and I think it can be used more effectively.
Most of the boss battles look pretty spot with some exceptions. The first Rhino battle since he goes into his invulnerable charge a couple of times (cant luck be manipulated to stop that). You also were able to do a quick combo on toxic seahorse somehow but werent able to exploit it again.
One more thing... can luck be manipulated to avoid the battles with Bit and Byte? I seem to remember them just occupying random stages and you plan on fighting their combined form later anyway.
This signature is much better than its previous version.
After seeing your run MMX3 seems like a much harder beast to time attack compared to MMX. The run was good and I think it uses the optimal path but there is still some room for improvement.
One thing that I think might be a problem is that I have the feeling the air dash might be over used. In sections where you are falling down the corridor, and the objective is to get down as fast as possible, air dashing certainly looks cool but it does stop your vertical movement. A standard daash jump leaves you with a lot of dexterity while in the air and I think it can be used more effectively.
Watching back, you're right. For the most part I think I did an OK job when deciding when and when not to air dash but yeah, there are some times I use it and it might not be the best choice (the last drop before the green spike ground-eating things in Neon Tiger's stage comes to mind). But for the most part air dashing did speed things up, especially in Volt Catfish and Blast Hornet's stage.
Most of the boss battles look pretty spot with some exceptions. The first Rhino battle since he goes into his invulnerable charge a couple of times (cant luck be manipulated to stop that). You also were able to do a quick combo on toxic seahorse somehow but werent able to exploit it again.
I thought Tunnel Rhino went into an invulnerable/not invulnerable/invulernable dashing pattern when his health got low, since it seems like that's what he's done to me, but I'm not entirely sure. The Toxic Seahorse glitch is really, really picky. I'm not sure if it can be manipulated or how. Sometimes he'll just simply refuse to get hit by the Frost Shield if you put it above his head. If someone could figure out how to make it so he'll get hit everytime you put the Frost Shield above his head, that'd save a lot of time in that battle.
One more thing... can luck be manipulated to avoid the battles with Bit and Byte? I seem to remember them just occupying random stages and you plan on fighting their combined form later anyway.
Like Megafrost said Bit and Byte aren't completely random, they will show up during the first 8 stages eventually.
I know this thread is pretty ancient, but I watched prower's MMX3 run recently and it seems to be one of the most improvable published runs. So I had some questions:
Is prower still working on v2 of his run?
Can anyone convince me that getting the air dash is anything but a huge waste of time? (It takes 22 seconds to get it, and saves at most 3 seconds in Neon Tiger's stage and basically no time anywhere else that I can see.)
Assuming it isn't necessary to get the air dash, is there a better order to do the stages in or would prower's route still be solid in that case?
I think one of the biggest time savers with the vertical Air Dash comes from the Blizzard Buffalo fight. He exploits a glitch using the Air Dash which keeps BB from charging to the other end of the room, keeping him stuck in one corner, and that saves quite a bit of time. It happens in the rematch too, though only once since he's killing him a lot faster with the sword.
That, the Neon Tiger stage, plus all the other little areas where it is used makes up for the time it takes to get it, I think.
Nitsuja I talked to prower recently and he said he stopped working on this. So go right ahead.
Nitsuja are you sure you looked at this thread?
The thread has both suggestions for improvements (both route and optimizations) and Prower's WIP for version 2. If you haven't read the thread yet, I HIGHLY recommend you read the thread before you work on this game. You should also watch Prower's version 2 because it has better movement and an interesting Toxic Seahorse glitch. BTW, I'm almost positive that hit prower takes in the intro stage as Zero can be repeated, allowing you to climb up the right wall without having to switch.
BTW, Nitsuja you might want to look at my any % run (link further down). The run might give you a few ideas. The way the shortcut in Doppler stage 2 can definitely be optimized with minimal waiting if you position yourself correctly with the missle shooting bots. I will admit the run isn't perfect and a sub-44 minute time is almost definitely possible, but I don't feel like working on it at the moment.
Spoony Bard: You are both right and wrong. You don't need the air dash to pull off the Blizzard Buffalo AI bug, you just need to be in the air when he looks towards you. If you want an example look at my low % run on http://speeddemosarchive.com/mmx3.html. Yeah, I'm all about shameless self-promotion :P
However, the air dash does shave off time here and there. For example, in Toxic Seahorse's stage when you enter the water using the air dash puts you in a better position, saving a few seconds. The biggest application of the air dash comes in Doppler stage 2 where you can use the air dash to skip most of the waiting on the platforms. This saves at least 20 seconds, if not more. This means you want the dash boots Nitsuja, they save more than 22 seconds, trust me.
About an 100% run, I would say no. Unlike MMX1 and 2 you don't gain a new instant kill weapon with 100% items. The Doppler stage 2 shortcut can be improved, but other than that it would just look like an unnecessarily slow run, especially with the slower charging of the beam sabre.
P.S. If you need any help or want some criticism on a WIP you make, just ask.
The biggest application of the air dash comes in Doppler stage 2 where you can use the air dash to skip most of the waiting on the platforms. This saves at least 20 seconds, if not more. This means you want the dash boots Nitsuja, they save more than 22 seconds, trust me.
Here is my response to that particular application (at least I think that's what you were talking about), it's only somewhat optimized since I was just fooling around to see if anything worked.
Yes, Nitsuja that is what I was talking about. Very nice job there, I tried climbing the walls without dash boots for my low% but I couldn't figure out how. I especially liked how you used the properties of the platforms and their covers.
Still, with the dash boots you could save some time waiting up to that point. That is about 10 seconds of waiting on the platform. Then again, maybe you'll find a way to climb up to that point using the missiles. If you can find a way to climb up the spiked wall without waiting then you're probably right, the dash boots are useless.
If you can't find a way to climb up the spiked wall without waiting, then it might be of some use to pick up the dash boots not only for Dopper stage 2, but also for select spots in stages. I know there are spots in Neon Tiger, Toxic Seahorse, and Tunnel Rhino's stage where the dash boots shave time. Maybe you should do a test run with both no dash boots and dash boots to find out (if that isn't too stressful).
Well, it looks like this will be a good run. Hope to see more soon.
P.S. Test and see if the Vile disappearing elevator trick works without the dash boots.
EDIT: Just tried it and you can still make the elevator disappear without the dash boots. Makes sense because the elevator disappears based on height, not the amount of time you stay up in the air.
Well, it looks like this will be a good run. Hope to see more soon.
Well, uh, here is what I have, if you want to see it - so far it's through Volt Catfish's stage and about 80 seconds faster. (I've skipped the air dash.) I've already noticed some inconsistencies in the first stages but they're small enough and aren't slower than before so I'll probably keep going from here...
EDIT: Now past Gravity Beetle's stage, and 126 seconds faster than prower's v1 run so far. And if anyone has suggestions for further improvements, let me know, since I can probably hex them in (when I get around to that somewhat painful step of the process).
I have only watched up to Volt Catfish's stage so far (didn't notice your edit until I was going to respond), but so far I am incredibly impressed. You basically considered everything I criticised in Prower V2 WIP and then some. All those pixel perfect walljumps and the ladder jumping was especially crazy. Your air control using the icy slopes in Blizzard Buffalo's stage was genius. This stuff is not only very entertaining but it could also help when I improve my speedruns of this game.
A few questions:
How does that Mac killing bug work when you're using Zero?
How do you climb up ladders without grabbing them? Does this work in X2?
Wouldn't you lose a frame for every ground dash you're doing after another because you have to let go of the button for a frame? Or am I completely missing something?
Is there a reason why you didn't ground dash on the first conveyor belt? It was going in the same direction you were going.
Could you please explain your tunnel rhino fight? I was really confused why you got hit when he did the invincible charge. Also, there was a point when you let him go for about a second without blinking. Furthermore, I'm almost positive you can reduce the invincible charges down to one. I'm sorry but the only advice I can give you is to get him to shoot those triple drill missiles, which seem to prevent him from invincible charging.
Is there any chance you can get Volt Catfish in his final maneuver to jump, then jump with a bounce, then use the triple spark? I noticed he only jumped, then triple sparked in your run.
I'll comment more once I watch your new WIP.
EDIT: Wow, I just watched your new WIP and this is going to be one of my favorite runs once it's finished. I would say star material. Watching your run I really should have taken weapon speed into consideration when fighting bosses.
In volt catfish's stage, around frame 43000 (there's an elevator), would it be faster to climb up the left wall then dash jump to the right? Probably not, but I'm just wondering.
-Is taking the bottom in the beginning of Crush Crawfish's stage any faster? I'm sure it isn't slower, but I'm just curious.
-That Crush Crawfish fight was insane. How did you damage him so quickly?
-I don't really understand why you used the buster on Neon Tiger as your first attack when you had to delay anyways. Could you explain why?
-In Gravity Beetle's stage, towards the end when you are climbing those four little platforms (there are purple shooting bots underneath) wouldn't it be faster to dash jump off the tip of the bottom right platform, onto the wall, then dash jump up to the tip of the upper right platform? Sorry if this sounds confusing, I'm not great at explaining things.
How did using the drills against those red bots work? That was a cool glitch.
Yeah, I know I have a lot to say, but this is one of my favorite games so I can't help it. Thanks for putting up with my comments.
How does that Mac killing bug work when you're using Zero?
Jumping causes the Z-saber animation to stop for a few frames, so if you keep doing tiny hops it'll stay out and keep doing damage from one swing of it. It's not too hard to do in a normal speedrun, but I think it doesn't actually save any time since a single buster shot would've also finished him off. (It sort-of works for X but unfortunately I haven't been able to get it to stay in damaging form for him.)
mikwuyma wrote:
How do you climb up ladders without grabbing them? Does this work in X2?
At first I did it by accident and I thought it was because I had ice-sliding physics applied to me at the time, but later I realized what it really is: The game doesn't stop your upward movement if you're exactly in the middle of the ladder. Horizontally it has to be pixel-perfect or very nearly so (and so won't work when dashing off the wall). I don't know about MMX2 but it's likely programmed similarly.
mikwuyma wrote:
Wouldn't you lose a frame for every ground dash you're doing after another because you have to let go of the button for a frame? Or am I completely missing something?
Jumping also loses a frame (X pauses in place for 1 frame every jump) so it doesn't make much difference. When the ceiling is low, jumping actually loses (a really tiny amount of) time compared to going directly from dash to dash, and the same goes for if the floor is icy.
mikwuyma wrote:
Is there a reason why you didn't ground dash on the first conveyor belt? It was going in the same direction you were going.
The game seems ignore adding the conveyor belt speed when dashing. If there's a conveyor belt going the right direction and then a drop I have to go down, it's significantly faster to dash-jump over most of the conveyor belt in order to be moving down faster for the drop.
mikwuyma wrote:
Could you please explain your tunnel rhino fight? I was really confused why you got hit when he did the invincible charge. Also, there was a point when you let him go for about a second without blinking. Furthermore, I'm almost positive you can reduce the invincible charges down to one. I'm sorry but the only advice I can give you is to get him to shoot those triple drill missiles, which seem to prevent him from invincible charging.
Don't I get the drill missiles after this fight? Letting him go for a short time that once was to manipulate him to not invincibility charge that time, but nothing I tried after that point in the battle worked to prevent more charges (and I tried some pretty crazy things). However, I found that jumping on him to make him charge into the wall he's already at causes his charge invincibility to wear off a lot faster, that's the reason for taking the damage.
mikwuyma wrote:
That Crush Crawfish fight was insane. How did you damage him so quickly?
I found that after he's hit, if you stand next to him, jump, and fire very soon after jumping, he'll get hit for 7 damage instead of 5, and that there is just barely enough time to do this twice in a row between each regular hit, leading to a damage pattern of 3,7,7,3,7,7... instead of 3,5,3,5...
mikwuyma wrote:
I don't really understand why you used the buster on Neon Tiger as your first attack when you had to delay anyways. Could you explain why?
The weapon he's weak to causes him to flash invincible for 100 frames. With the buster it's only 60 frames. Staying with the buster would be slower because it takes 90 frames to charge it and he blocks on the ground, but the 40 frames gained from hitting him after only 60 frames of invincibility was enough to make up for however many frames he was blocking for (some of which would have been lost anyway due to lower weapon speed/range than the buster). Switching back and forth between the two would probably be faster, but unfortunately the game imposes a large time delay for switching back to the buster most of the time.
mikwuyma wrote:
How did using the drills against those red bots work? That was a cool glitch.
Anything that gets a drill in it won't do any collision detection with X for some number of frames (15 or so) which was enough to dash right through them after firing.
I'll have to rewatch the run to understand the rest of your comments (so I'll reply to those sometime later).
>Don't I get the drill missiles after this fight?
I realized I worded that really badly. What I meant to say was manipulate Tunnel Rhino to shoot his triple drill missiles (not yours) to prevent him from performing an invincible dash.
If you can't prevent him from doing two invincible dashes anyways, then that luck manipulation with the paused shot isn't worth it because you will kill Tunnel Rhino after two invincible dashes. I'll watch the fight again, it did seem faster when you got hit while he was dashing.
>Horizontally it has to be pixel-perfect or very nearly so (and so won't work >when dashing off the wall)
What do you mean by dashing off the wall? Do you mean an air dash?
>Don't I get the drill missiles after this fight?
I realized I worded that really badly. What I meant to say was manipulate Tunnel Rhino to shoot his triple drill missiles (not yours) to prevent him from performing an invincible dash.
If you can't prevent him from doing two invincible dashes anyways, then that luck manipulation with the paused shot isn't worth it because you will kill Tunnel Rhino after two invincible dashes. I'll watch the fight again, it did seem faster when you got hit while he was dashing.
>Horizontally it has to be pixel-perfect or very nearly so (and so won't work >when dashing off the wall)
What do you mean by dashing off the wall? Do you mean an air dash?
I realized I worded that really badly. What I meant to say was manipulate Tunnel Rhino to shoot his triple drill missiles (not yours) to prevent him from performing an invincible dash.
Oh, no I probably just read it wrong. I've never seen him shoot his drill missiles, maybe that requires going easier on him the first few rounds? Anyway, you're probably right about skipping that manipulation, he actually did 3 invincible dashes without it when I was testing, but with frame-perfect shots he shouldn't quite have time to get the 3rd one in.
mikwuyma wrote:
What do you mean by dashing off the wall? Do you mean an air dash?
I meant wall-jumping while holding the dash button pushes you too far from the wall to be able to move back into the center of the ladder before hitting the top. You have to do a normal wall-jump that starts from pretty far below the top of the ladder in order to make it. (It might be possible with a lot of practice to do this no-climb maneuver when playing normally. At least on some ladders, a wall-jump from the right height will put you exactly in the middle at the right time with no additional sideways maneuvering required.)
mikwuyma wrote:
Is taking the bottom in the beginning of Crush Crawfish's stage any faster? I'm sure it isn't slower, but I'm just curious.
There were enough enemies to cause lag on the top route so the bottom was a little bit faster.
About Tunnel Rhino shooting his drill missiles, I don't think that has anything to do with going easier on him (though I could be wrong). Unlike most bosses in this game, Rhino's pattern is pretty random the moment you enter the room. Maybe if you had a savestate outside Rhino's room you could try to manipulate luck.
Taking the bottom of Crush Crawfish's stage to avoid lag. That's a good idea, I wonder why I never thought of that.
Few more thoughts/questions:
I think you fired an extraneous shot during your battle with Bit.
In Neon Tiger's stage after the boss door (the empty one, not the worm one)
you fall down a ladder. Would it be any faster to dash jump off the right wall at any point while falling down?
