Quattro Adventure is a cart of 4 games released by Camerica in 1991. One of these 4 games is the platformer Super Robin Hood which is the subject of the current run. The game is unique in its use of hidden 'keys' that open various secret passages allowing the player access to faster routes. Combine this with a developer intended warp and major collision detection glitch and you get the current run of the game in under 5 minutes.
  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
  • Completes the game as fast as possible.
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Uses warps
Comments:
Substantial work had already put into this game by Magical Bag of Food and klmz before I picked it up. They should be considered co-authors of this run as 75% of the work was done by them. Bag found all the secret keys and the warp and made a detailed map which I relied upon heavily. Klmz found the collision detection glitch (where you can jump through walls if you release the directional key press in the same frame you jump.) He also found a useful glitch where if you perform a pixel perfect jump you can clip through edges of platforms and reach higher areas then you should be able to. Basically all the hard things were done by the time I picked this game up. What remained was routing and damage trading. The route is more or less set by the treasures you are forced to collect. You can't finish the game without them. Damage trading had to be done along this route, and I am pretty confident I found the best case.
Stage by stage comments
Beginning up to Warp: This follows klmz's WIP practically to the frame. I doubt I would have found the crouch-jump door clip on my own had I not already seen it in his WIP. Note you can ignore all the treasures here as once you take the warp you are awarded all of them up to that point.
Warp to Barrel Room: A couple of ledge clips and another wall clip make this section the least like the intended route. There is a programming error where robin will not crouch after running off a platform onto another platform below, this saves some time in several places.
Barrel Room: By far the most re-records occurred in this room. Hitting the last bat near the red archer then hitting the archer himself seems simple looking at it now but it took me a long time to figure it out.
Barrel Room to the Evil Platform Room: Nothing of particular interest here. I thought I could speed this section up significantly only to get shot by the gargoyle head right before going down the ladder, so that took some maneuvering, as you might notice Robin slowing down here.
Evil Platform Room: Ahhh so close yet so far. I tried every conceivable method to hit that platform, but in the end Robin just stares at it dejectedly as he waits for it to go across the room and return to him. This room does have some careful damage boosting. The damage animation can add a lot of lag when a lot is happening on the screen, Getting hit at just the right time is important.
Evil Platform Room to Cloud Jump Room: The one glitch I discovered myself is that if you collect a treasure and then within a few frames take damage, the damage animation will be cancelled. This is very useful in this area as Robin must take damage here and it can cause intense lag. Another useful trick here is that Robin's invincibility frames carry over between rooms, allowing me to avoid the orange archer.
Cloud Jump Room: I am embarrassed to admit that I had to look on youtube to realize you could jump on the clouds, oh the shame.
Cloud Jump Room to Finish: I take a death here as it is faster then getting back up and I need the health anyway. Then its a short trip to Maid Marian and the game is complete!
Other Notes: I tried using the ! ROM but when I selected Robin Hood it loaded Boomerang Kid, so unless this is what the actual cartridge does, I am staying with the !p ROM for submitting this run.
Overall this game was very fun to TAS. It is surprisingly good for a game that is so short. I suppose another category of 'All Treasures' could be run avoiding the warp, but I don't think it would add much. Thanks to Feos for making encodes of my WIP in the game thread and offering help.
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy this run.

feos: Accepting to Moons and publishing.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15582
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4528: Alyosha's NES Quattro Adventure: Super Robin Hood in 04:52.87
Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Yes vote, great run! As for another category, whatever goal would show more rooms must be publishable, as this run skips a whole bunch of them. Regarding co-authors, it's up to you to actually add them, but if you tried improving them and couldn't, co-authorship is not required, as speed strats are not copyrighted.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Skilled player (1458)
Joined: 11/26/2011
Posts: 656
Location: RU
I really like it. Nice TAS!
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Player (13)
Joined: 6/17/2006
Posts: 508
Pretty impressive! Yes vote! I own a copy of Quattro Adventure. The launcher menu indeed loads the correct game once selected. By the way, the cartridge also have a dipswitch on the back, with positions A and B. Based on its back label, I believe its purpose is to select between 2 modes to bypass the NES lockout chip, but I don't know if it has any other effect as well. It's probably not important, but I wanted to mention it just in case it affects judging.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4043
Diggin' this TAS.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Active player (417)
Joined: 8/22/2008
Posts: 301
Location: Brazil
Very nice! I tried to TAS it in past but I even didn't knew about these bugs, very fun. An "all treasures" is a good idea, I think. Or do a Boomerang Kid TAS. :D
Joined: 4/24/2012
Posts: 129
Location: Atlanta, GA
Pretty entertaining. Also, that face toward the camera... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Post subject: Re: #4528: Alyosha's NES Quattro Adventure: Super Robin Hood in 04:52.87
Editor, Experienced player (570)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4036
This looked pretty superhuman! I liked the route planning to get all of the items, the damage tricks and of course, klmz's big glitches. Yes vote!
TASVideoAgent wrote:
I am embarrassed to admit that I had to look on youtube to realize you could jump on the clouds, oh the shame.
Don't worry, it's not just you. I was surprised to see you land on the clouds too. We can't jump on clouds in real life, after all.
AntyMew
It/Its
Encoder, Player (35)
Joined: 10/22/2014
Posts: 425
Files are done, I'll upload once it's accepted
Just a Mew! 〜 It/She ΘΔ 〜
Site Admin, Skilled player (1254)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11475
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
I'm ready.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Dwedit
He/Him
Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago
According to Bootgod's NesCartDB, the ROM with the CRC32 of B89888C9 is the correct dump, and it doesn't work correctly in FCEUX. The alternate dump rearranges the banks to work around emulation errors. FCEUX seems to be emulating mapper 232 just plain wrong. Writing 10 to 9000 should select outer bank 02, but it selects outer bank 01 instead. edit: checked the code, it intentionally has a hack to work around bad dumps, that should be taken out.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15582
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2755] NES Quattro Adventure: Super Robin Hood by Alyosha in 04:52.87