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Hello guys! This time I tackle yet another Pokémon Bootleg game, this time for the Sega Genesis, simply called Pocket Monster II. This is a sequel of Pocket Monster released also for the Genesis. You travel through 4 stages + a final boss (Koffing). The game itself is kinda fun but it has some inconveniences with the controls, I'll explain some of them later in the submission.

How the run started:

The run began when 3 days ago, I watched AGDQ and this game was featured in. Then I watched the WR speedrun [dead link removed] of this game by CavemanDCJ and I thought that it could be improved a little. Finally I managed to improve every stage and managed to save like 12 seconds or something, but it was a lot of fun! ^-^

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 1.6.1 (i know its old but is the last version i can use sorry)
  • Uses easiest difficulty (details above)
  • Takes a bunch of damage to save time
  • Heavy glitch abuse
  • Abuses programming errors

My Comments

Why on easy???

The big and only difference in this game in terms of difficulty, it's how many hits you can take. On Hard you die on 2 hits, on Normal by 4 and easy more than that. This game's glitches are based more on taking damage than anything else, and without getting hit a lot, I'm unable to do many tricks and shorcuts shown in the movie. So I've got to pick easy instead of hard to do more damage abuse.

Tricks & Glitches

Bounce cancel: I can cancel my vertical boost on jumping on enemies by pressing B when I have pokeballs.
Straight timed jumps: This game has the issue of being able to not jump while standing still... sorta. You can adjust your straight jumps by holding the C button and land on the ground early.
Airjumping: This is why I chose easy and it is the most broken thing about the game. When on jumping on enemies or while getting hit, I can jump once again in the air. This is useful to perform amazing shortcuts and get in upper sections of a level slightly faster.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1

I found out that you can get up the stage even faster by timing my jump when the glitch-colored monkey is still on the platform, then I airjump by taking damage and I get into the platform faster than the WR.

Stage 2

The WR waits a few frames to hit the bird enemy, I don't. This triggers Butterfree some frames earlier and then I can jump on it and airjump later.

Stage 3

The only notable improvement here is that I bounce cancel Electrode in the last section of the level and fall off early. The WR is able to avoid spawning Electrode, but if falls straight and it zips in a cool way. The funny thing is that the zip is slower due to falling off vertically and not diagonally and it's slower that way.

Stage 4

I discovered 2 shortcuts in the stage that let me go to the upper sections considerably faster, by more airjumping, damage boosting and clip through specific parts of the platforms.

Giant Koffing Boss

The strategy of this guy is to hit his hitbox when he spawns in a specific event. His hixbox is VERY weird though, I straight jump crazily to hit him without letting him a chance to bounce around like crazy. I hit him a few frames early by hitting him when I jump on the green platform.

Other comments

The movie could be inproved if more glitches are found, or maybe more shortcuts are found in an odd fashion rather than just airjumping.

Special Thanks....

to CavemanDCJ to his world record RTA (congrats BTW, and YOU!!! for watching!

Suggested Screenshot:

pikachu like wtf is that thing behind me!?
[dead link removed]
Thanks 4 watching and have a nice day! hope you like it.

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: As a first run of the game, this run is plagued just a bit too much by some sloppiness (which has been noted by some people), mostly regarding jumping - it is possible to cut jumps short by letting go off the directional buttons, which would clearly save time in some areas, with around 2:13 in the YouTube being an obvious example that just looks sloppy with this knowledge. Based on my testing, it is definitely possible to save multiple seconds off the run by doing this. This run just needs another iteration with that extra bit of polish - this version just doesn't cut it, so I will reject it.
Regarding the difficulty, the easier difficulty allows more tricks to be used to save time, so it is reasonable to choose the easiest difficulty in this game. Picking the hardest difficulty is not enforced.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4545: dekutony's Genesis Pocket Monster II in 04:02.90
Spikestuff
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Everything is pretty much fine except for that fight against Koffing is unoptimal. 206 (00:03.44) frames saved If you had more health or if I bothered to do the fight from the start the input would be killed earlier most likely. So, because of your Rerecord count, I'm calling you out for being lazy. But I was being lazy hex editing your input, heh.
68K RAM, 1 Byte, Signed
Koffing's HP - E4B2
Pikachu's HP - E452
Edit: I voted meh. I would actually like to see this rejected if there is not a complete overhaul on the final stage (to be honest).
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So if I understand correctly, it's on Easy because hard makes damage management more difficult? I would think that's part of the challenge of an AAR.
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Thank you Spikestuff for fixing all my inputs. As I can see, the edited input stops without killing him... I wasn't aware that something like that was allowed. I'm not entirely sure how to improve the fight, but I assume some little frames savers somewhere I don't know.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
ALAKTORN
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Lmao this game has an RTA WR? Surprising to see the Koffing fight was vastly improvable, when I thought some of the stages were. But yeah, starting and finishing a TAS in 3 days never looks good… what kind of work could’ve gone into it? I’ll still vote meh because some of the strategies are clever and it’s short enough not to get boring (except the Koffing fight)… Ah by the way, I don’t know if Spikestuff does this but I think you should end the Koffing fight with a jump and end input early, especially after that attacking loop to add some variance. Edit: btw sub 4 minutes hype.
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oh,kurabu is dekutony,that makes sense now.Please,redo the sections mentioned.People have a positive attitude towards the game and run in general.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
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What sections? The Koffing fight? That is only one and I don't know if it is allowed to end input early without killing the boss, I think that it's better to kill him as a final input instead of not killing him early and not trigger the END screen early.
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
ALAKTORN
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You can end the input whenever you want as long as the game will finish itself after it. Tons of published movies end the input early and let the game beat itself without doing anything for a few seconds, or sometimes even minutes. And like I said it would be more entertaining to break that stay-still-attack routine and do a jump off the platform for the last hit instead.
Spikestuff
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I killed the input as early as possible while still having the "win" result. The high jump was like that in the end so when input was killed, Pikachu would be fine getting damaged abused. Kura, do the fight from scratch. Don't get hit during the fight.
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Allright, I'll redo Koffing tomorrow, it will take me a while though.
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Blah. Watched it, not impressed at all. Put it on hard and avoid damage.
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electricslide wrote:
Put it on hard and avoid damage.
NO
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Samsara
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electricslide wrote:
Blah. Watched it, not impressed at all. Put it on hard and avoid damage.
That would make the movie much longer and much less entertaining, since it looks like damage boosts are needed to pull off a lot of the shortcuts.
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Spikestuff
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If you make the fight to completion without getting hit and you don't kill your input early I can fix it for you and then be able to state which killed input is faster.
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electricslide wrote:
So if I understand correctly, it's on Easy because hard makes damage management more difficult? I would think that's part of the challenge of an AAR.
There would be less health and less damage boosts to manage without any kind of new strategy except resorting to normal platforming instead.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto. TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
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Input even more fixed!!!!!!! http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/20072027795128542 Didn't managed to kill him with 1 HP left, but with 2 HP is still good. :D
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
Spikestuff
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WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. Something better for yourself and also others.
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Thanks for the frame fix Spike! It worries me that there's more no votes than anything... it is because of the game or the chosen difficulty?
Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony
ars4326
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You know, I thought it was alright and gave it a 'meh'. The game's pace is a tad slow for me, and I think the programmers gave the final Koffing boss way too much HP. But, after all, it's a bootleg. Nonetheless, I do think the run is publish-worthy for the Vault (and nothing wrong with a having a Vault run). This is actually one of the more colorful games I've seen for the Genesis.
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A more optimal jumping strategy should save you at least another 10 seconds in this run. According to some info dug up online, you should have better control over your jumps if you're not trying to move at the same time.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Spikestuff
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It's Platinum Edition all over again.
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Nach wrote:
A more optimal jumping strategy should save you at least another 10 seconds in this run. According to some info dug up online, you should have better control over your jumps if you're not trying to move at the same time.
The problem about that is that your position stops when you stop moving left or right and the jumping position/duration also matters. I do this few times, but only on times where I cannot die or get into a moving platform.
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"That would make the movie much longer and much less entertaining, since it looks like damage boosts are needed to pull off a lot of the shortcuts." What 'shortcuts?' All I saw is Pikachu jumping, hitting enemies, taking damage. In a relatively slow and simple game. I'd much rather see a slower game without taking damage (which looks sloppy), since the game is already pretty dull. I'm willing to wager there's more optimal strategies with tighter work.
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NO
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Samsara
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electricslide wrote:
What 'shortcuts?'
How about every time damage was needed to boost up onto a platform or an enemy that was higher than Pikachu's normal jump height, allowing Pikachu to reach a higher platform? Did you even watch the movie?
All I saw is Pikachu jumping, hitting enemies, taking damage. In a relatively slow and simple game. I'd much rather see a slower game without taking damage (which looks sloppy), since the game is already pretty dull.
The game would be far more dull without taking damage, it'd just be a lot more running and jumping onto platforms that don't need to be used at all to get to the level exits. Plus, it would make the run sub-optimal to remove the damage boosting, meaning this would be instantly rejected when compared to the RTA WR.
I'm willing to wager there's more optimal strategies with tighter work.
Not really. I'll admit I did some testing on the first level when the submission first popped up and this is really tight work already, given how awful the physics are in this game. Not all the damage was necessary, but it doesn't hurt the movie any in my opinion, especially after trying the game myself. It's actually pretty hard to avoid taking damage when setting up for certain tricks. The jumping in this game is absolutely atrocious and a pain in the ass to attempt to control, especially under a TAS setting, meaning there are points where you just can't jump over an enemy and still be in the proper position to set up for a shortcut without wasting a few seconds.
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