Batman Returns for the Sega Master System, like its cousins, is a sidescrolling action game based upon the 1992 Batman Returns film.
Batman can use his Batarang to attack enemies with 1 and can jump with 2. By pressing 2 quickly in mid air, Batman can swing around with his grappling hook. Batman can also glide in the air by pressing and holding 2 in mid air.
There are a few power ups in the game which can be acquired by hitting the bat symbols with Batarangs. The red symbol gives one extra life, grey symbol increases power and speed of Batarangs, and the yellow symbol increases the Batarangs' speed (Disputed). Source: http://segaretro.org/Batman_Returns_(Master_System)
A friend (really?) lend me this hard-laggy-awful mechanics/rope physics-monster hurtbox game as kid... Even though, I had to play it to death cause those times were hard as you know...
I found the skip glitch one day cause I didn't realize that the truck was a barrage. (I picked route 2 cause I was thinking it skipped route 1, useful mistake)... Despite this fact, I wasn't able to beat Oswald (or reach him often, Tas power gave me my vengeance, and let me save Gotham!). (Route 2 is the hard mode...and allows you to do the skip glitch at 5-4, while route 1 has the skip at 5-3.)
Game objectives
Emulator used: BizHawk 1.9.3
Uses hardest difficulty
Uses death to save time
Abuses major skip glitch
Stage by stage comments
Batlag... luck manipulation to prevent the crazy rolling enemies which spawn everywhere... batlag... adjust this near perfect required batrope execution... batlag... manipulate Oswald pattern...
Comments
Bat-land cancel : use bat-grappling a few frames before landing
Bat-arang cancel : jump a frame after shooting
Bat-warp : pass the stage 1-2 transition during respawn invincibility
Noxxa: Reverting because the new movie does not sync. This means the run most likely has a region settings issue.
Noxxa: This movie was recorded in NTSC mode, although the game is only released in PAL areas (Europe and Brazil), and as such the game runs faster than it should (~60fps instead of ~50fps). The movie does not sync if the game is set to PAL mode. This unfortunately means that this movie breaks the rules about recording with the correct region settings, and as such this run has to be rejected.
Putting the region issue aside, this run was nice, short and enjoyable - I hope to see a version that syncs correctly with PAL settings.
Noxxa: Unrejecting and accepting to Moons as per this post. The Brazil release of the game runs in PAL-M (60fps), so this movie can be considered to run at a valid speed setting. My apologies to the author and anyone else involved.
Ah, finally, was wondering when someone would use Adam's speedrunning route to make a TAS (and i didn't because i'm lazy), glad to see this, will watch soon.
Also, Yuzo Koshiro worked on this game. Yes, it happened.
Awesome to see that someone has TASed this game! Also cool to see that the strategies I tried out for my RTA run proved to be more feasible for a TAS (some enemy skips and a few swings). I feel more like revisiting this speedrun now.
However, I must point out one way in which you can save a large number of frames. On phase 2 of the final bossfight, it's possible to get all the necessary hits in in one go. There's no need for penguin to come down twice during that part. I've only pulled this off once, during ESA2013, when I was practicing for the marathon run, and sadly don't have a video of it. I do remember that the boss showed up one position further to the left, and I may have attacked him with the rope only.
I'm a scrub at TASing, so not sure how feasible it is, but I would recommend re-doing phase 2 and 3 of the TAS; it would save a good few seconds.
i don't know who is Adam's and his speedrunning route...he beat the game in how many time?
yep, i was surprised too when i see Yuzo mentionned on this batshit.
edit : ok! i check your run Adam, great skills to dominate a game with such gameplay i don't know why Oswald take 3 hits in phase 2 to start phase3...in my TAS he needs 4...that's why i have him to come down twice
Yes! I was hoping someone would do a glitched run of this game. Like Synahel, I had planned to start on one (a TAS though), but couldn't get motivated. Looks like it worked out for the best, since you got to conquer your old hated game!
Good run, and I hope you're able to check out that boss strategy to see if you can save time. For now though, yes vote!
EDIT: I added an encode to the submission text.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Why is this game so short? We may never know.
Nice job with it, though. I'd be curious to see if any improvements to the boss can be done, like Adam mentions, but Yes vote regardless.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
thanks for the encode Coolkirby ;)
Well, i took my time on Oswald to test lot of strategies and this is the best i get...
Will take another look this week end but not sure of the result...thanks for the hint Adam
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Something is not right in my opinion....
SMS Ninja Gaiden (USA/Europe) in 15:04.25 by adelikat.http://tasvideos.org/1057M.html
SMS Ninja Gaiden was only out in Europe, Australia and other PAL territories just like SMS Batman. The run for that was in NTSC 60fps mode.
http://segaretro.org/Batman_Returns_%28Master_System%29http://segaretro.org/Ninja_Gaiden_(Master_System)
The rom file named "Batman_Returns_(UE)" syncs perfectly fine with this submission movie file, if the runner just used that rom, it would be accepted.
Fun fact:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/BatmanReturnsSMS.html
The same game, in NTSC mode by playing a NTSC Genesis/Master System.
Edit:
From btrim
"The game was released in Brazil, which means it ran at 60Hz in a released region."
PAL-M is a 60Hz system
Past mistakes do not justify repeating the same mistake again. It was an error to publish the Ninja Gaiden movie as it was (although back in early 2008, emulation accuracy was not nearly as much considered as it is now, and Dega-rr was not exactly known for being a quality emulator anyway).
EDIT: I've seen (through other sources) that Ninja Gaiden was released in Brazil as well, so this point is moot.
Greenalink wrote:
The rom file named "Batman_Returns_(UE)" syncs perfectly fine with this submission movie file, if the runner just used that rom, it would be accepted.
"Batman_Returns_(UE)" seems like a mistaken ROM name, as the game was never released in the USA. Besides, it does not matter which ROM was used; if a run syncs on any known good ROM (with proper settings, etc.) it is considered valid.
Greenalink wrote:
SDA's rules are not our rules. This is something I looked at while considering this submission, as well as another forum topic on SDA about the timing of PAL SMS runs, but either way I would not consider a run valid just because SDA does. Here on TASVideos, we have a strict(er) policy on making sure to be accurate to the game/hardware as it was released; as the ROM was only released in PAL regions, it should be emulated as a PAL game. Running a PAL game inside a NTSC SMS or PAL60-modded SMS causes the game to run faster than it was intended (where it was released); hence this site doesn't allow such settings.
Greenalink wrote:
Edit:
From btrim
"The game was released in Brazil, which means it ran at 60Hz in a released region."
PAL-M is a 60Hz system
This, however, changes things. I knew the game was released in Brazil, and I knew that region used a form of PAL, but I did not know that PAL-M was 60Hz. Since this means that indeed the game is released in a region where it ran at 60Hz, I'll unreject and accept this submission.
My apologies for any inconveniences to the author and to everyone else involved. Regional settings are a giant mess and information about it is widely scattered all over the internet. We should find some way to get a centralized resource of region settings for this site, so that we can tell what kind of settings are valid for any region.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Running a PAL game inside a NTSC SMS or PAL60-modded SMS causes the game to run faster than it was intended (where it was released); hence this site doesn't allow such settings.
My experience of SMS games (don't take it as a rant), I understand parts where it is coming from. Kinda reminds me of a certain N64 game.99% of SMS games are region free and it's the PAL console that causes the slowdown, the 1% of the SMS that are not region free crashes the game or become a lot slower when playing at NTSC 60fps mode.
Japanese cartridges have a different shape but they still work on any console with a cartridge converter.
A NTSC released cartridge would be at PAL speeds on a PAL system, aka no difference to a PAL cart.
Despite some games being PAL only, I personally think they were played on an unoptimised system*.
You can try out Game Gear counterparts like Streets of Rage 2.
Try and listen to BGM's game speed, it is very identical to PAL-only SMS Streets of Rage 2 being played on a NTSC system.
* This is basically the complete opposite to a specially optimised PAL cart like 16-Bit Sonic 2/3 played on a PAL Mega Drive.
When playing Virtual Console copies of SMS game on the Wii, the HZ mode was based on the actual console itself. My PAL Wii can only play SMS games at 60hz by softmodding the system first and then setting it to NTSC, otherwise it's always 50hz.
Fun facts:
Did you know that Pulseman was 50hz on a PAL Wii despite originally being released as a JP only game back in the 90s as 60hz only?
SMS Sonic 2 never came out in the US/Japan as a physical copy but they did get VC releases in 60hz. That doesn't matter much because it was released in Brazil.
A lot of BGM music uploaded to Youtube are at NTSC speed.
A quick question:
For every single non-Japan/US SMS game that came out to Europe, did every single one of those games came out to Brazil (60hz) I wonder?
If so, yes!.
This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.
----
[2834] SMS Batman Returns by mamuuuut in 01:38.24
This, however, changes things. I knew the game was released in Brazil, and I knew that region used a form of PAL, but I did not know that PAL-M was 60Hz. Since this means that indeed the game is released in a region where it ran at 60Hz, I'll unreject and accept this submission.
This is technically incorrect, but only because the name itself is wrong: PAL-M is actually NTSC with the PAL color subcarrier. It has the same line count as NTSC, same framerate, same timings, etc; if you feed a NTSC signal to a PAL-M TV (or the converse), the image will display perfectly, except for the fact it will be monochrome. If, on the other hand, you feed a PAL signals to PAL-M TVs (or the converse), it will not synch at all, resulted on distorted/rolling images.
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Usually, Batman enters the next section of the stage as long as the camera no longer scrolls to the right.
Playthrough video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb94wcq13X4
1:10 yellow bus
1:27 'intended' example of end of stage section, take note of the camera and where Batman is.
The yellow bus part is unique because:
Not only it freezes the camera co-ordinates but the camera only advances when the bus is fully destroyed but it looks like the developers forgot to remove the next stage trigger when the camera freezes to that spot.
So by damage boosting and abusing invincibility frames, Batman can hit this trigger and wrong warps to Stage 5-4. Using Route 1 only takes him to Stage 5-2 (slower wrong warp route).
There is a way to wrong warp to stage 5-4 without dying but it requires destroying the bus and precise jump timing after the 4th and final hit, it's not used in any of the runs because it's a bit slower.
Adam_Ak who used to run this in real time compared this style of exploit similar to Mega Man 2's weird screen transition glitches in certain robot master boss rooms (eg Bubbleman).
I think this submission should be updated now. I have no skill for TAS making but Sacrieon and I have been working on the speedrun of the game and managed to incorporate a lot of the advanced grapples in our runs, as well as do perfect Penguin fights. I would particularly be interested to see just how low the TAS can go as our human sum of best is now in the 1:25.xx range.
Here's the latest effort which has a human-perfect penguin but loses a bit of time in the levels, exactly one second total: https://youtu.be/pIriiZi2x3g
Couldn't find the last submission of this game, so writing it here:
This movie can be improved using the sms pause spam glitch, to reduce the waiting time after starting the game.
Edit: I'm talking about literally starting the game, as in loading the ROM.
Sms pause glitch thread
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=452580#452580
PhD in TASing 🎓 speedrun enthusiast ❤🚷🔥 white hat hacker ▓ black box tester ░ censorships and rules...
