Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1058
Location: United States
Getting a little too broken for my taste. Going down this path will lead to larger and larger glitches. This will end up looking like a longer version of the glitched run. The published no-glitch runs do not display any visually corruption on screen. I would hate to see them fade away and replaced by messy looking glitch runs ala mega man 1. It is not nearly as entertaining as seeing precise movements within the normal bounds of the game.
I agree with hero. Imo any glitch that needs a scrip for you to know where Samus is going is a major glitch. It seems to me that this is just a faster way to go out of bounds than the X-Ray climbing. I would appreciate a category where these glitches are used, but would also hate to see them in the no-major glitches runs.
Joined: 11/26/2010
Posts: 454
Location: New York, US
I agree with what you guys are saying. Seeing a glitched version of a 100% run sounds more and more appealing now though!!!
I personally like glitched runs but, I always believe they should be a separate category.
I have to agree: as much as I'm hyped by seeing these new discoveries, some of them are actually getting ridiculous. Going through walls/out-of-bounds with this glitch isn't much different in principle to using X-Ray for the same task. This is most certainly a major glitch, and shouldn't be used in "glitchless" runs.
It's a shame, though, because when there's a dozen of unique game-breaking glitches, a TAS would still only use the fastest one(s). Similar to Megaman 1, indeed.
At the same time, I would like to see a glitched 100% run using this trick at some point.
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
This might to some extent (but not necessarily) be the case, depending on what kind of new glitches can be constructed that are not just application of this given glitch.
Independent of this glitch being be allowed or not, such further glitches would firstly have to be figured out and then, likewise as this glitch, be discussed.
Depending on what TASes are considered, this statement may be wrong or not, i.e. what I want to mention here is, that in a TAS by Cpadolf of the "Super Metroid Super Zero Mission" hack, which is published on TASVideos if I recall correctly, visual glitches occur (in a very similar manner) during the escape after the Draygon fight.
Furthermore, any visual issues can in principle be handled by screen capturing Samus like SUPERMETROIDFTP did to not have the messy vertical and horizontal strips of block layers on screen. Of course, one can then theoretically provide both videos, the original one with those graphics and one with corrected screen, so I doubt this constitutes a major problem here.
I estimate (using the below listed places for applications) that the applications of this glitch will most likely not take most of the precise movement out of a non-glitched TAS like the any% branch (especially considering that movement with such high speeds like during SuperJumps has to be at least comparably precise, I guess). There will still remain long parts without variations of this glitch being involved.
- - -
So far, it seems only straight up vertical movement is possible in such a setup as soon as exiting X-Mode (since the horizontal component of the diagonal shinespark during X-Mode seemingly does(/can?) not continue afterwards). So, provided only extreme upwards movement is available and that additionally, it is likely to be impossible to enter a (door-)transition during the shinespark while X-Mode is kept (which is possible) AND to release the X-Mode for a SuperJump in the connecting room (since X-Mode cannot be exited anymore if one enters a transition during it, i.e. Samus then is caged in a softlock-like state); in view of my map of potential starting points, instances of application may be among but will maybe not exceed the following list (mostly only considering different routes for the non-glitched any% branch):
(The following list can be derived by the procedure of considering horizontal shinesparks during X-Mode aswell as upwards SuperJumps while looking through the rooms in SMILE at the possible starting points. Note that I neglected the necessity of charging a shinespark or having BlueSuit/FlashSuit beforehand.)
Ceres: None
Crateria:
(1): On the way back in Terminator room (purple mushroom room containing an E-Tank), starting a vert./diag. SuperJump at the very left lower corner to potentially slide via wiggling somewhat among the ceiling with estimatedly small horizontal speed compared to running up this diagonal room, which therefore seems useless, and the way back is not used anyways.
(Also note, that slopes have no (shifting) effect on Samus during X-Mode, i.e., to my knowledge due to tests, one passes through them like air during X-Mode (and the same holds e.g. for items without a capsule), and thus, a horizontal spark during X-Mode will probably not allow Samus to slide along the ground (or sloped ceiling) until reaching the upper door to the right, and will instead cause the game to freeze as soon as trying to move towards a solid object such as frozen/solid enemies, door-shells, solid blocks, etc., which means that in my list, I excluded instances of horizontal X-Mode-Sparks in which a game crash seems unavoidable.)
(2): At the left bottom of Parlor room (room to the lower left of Landing Site), to maybe jet up through some blocks to reach its top some seconds earlier.
(3): In Landing Site during the escape using steam and slopes, to apply a horizontal shinespark during X-Mode and cancelling it next to the ship for fast movement aswell as skipping the shinespark´s crash animation. (Actually, now thinking of such crash-animation-cancelled X-Mode shinesparks, there might aswell be some more useful horizontal sparks in such manner.)
- - -
Now, to shorten the descriptions of methods in the following, different types of possible applications of the Slope-Spark will be abbreviated as
(i) vert./diag./hor. crash-less sparks during X-Mode (possibly also leaving Samus with BlueSuit depending on the situation)
(ii) via diag.(/maybe also, but not yet confirmed, vert.) X-Mode shineparks induced upwards SuperJumps (to possibly skip through block structures)
(iii) gaining BlueSuit in a quick manner without too much delay to use it later on
(iv) exiting the In-Screen area (i.e. going outside of the screen (note that the outside of the screen is generally a different situation than going Out of Bounds; for reference, see the Kraid-Quick-Kill or reverse Lower Norfair entry) ) to be able to move through enemies that cannot move off-screen and thus are not loaded into the room by the game currently, to avoid contact damage
(v) using fast movement via SuperJump that in contrast to shinesparks does not cost travelling energy
(vi) sequence breaking for early items
(vii) avoiding heat/lava/acid damage and/or damage by enemies while moving in X-Mode
At the moment, I will not look into the other types of uses that I could think of, that are not directly movement based, i.e. I neglected (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) and (vii) and (viii) in this list.
Edit: It is actually possible to start a SuperJump upon entering a new room during a shinespark in X-Mode, thus there is another general option:
(viii) vert./diag. shinespark in X-Mode into a transition (at which the X-Mode early during the transition then has to be released) in order to start a SuperJump in the next room
- - -
(4): Option (ii) at the bottom of the room to the left of the moat room, in order to travel upwards.
(5): Option (ii) at the center of the bottom of the western ocean of Wrecked Ship, using some fish in suitless conditions (for which Tewtal confirmed that both, X-Mode and SuperJump setup can work), not to clip into the door to Gravity (which is likely impossible) but to clip through the screen in which the orange geemer would be (or the mountain to its left) in another small room that uses the same structure as the ocean room.
(6): Hor. version of option (i) from the middle left to the right of the eastern ocean room, started at the right-most diagonally down-right-wards leading sloped structure (leaving Samus with a standard mid-air jump when exiting X-Mode the usual way during a jump pose); which would go towards forgotten highway and therefore is likely to be slow and might not be used unless for early Plasma, maybe. And the same from the right to the left using a fish on the way back.
(7): Option (ii) upwards (using a bug from the lower Kago) starting at the bottom of the room to the right of the eastern ocean room, on a way back within forgotten highway.
(8): Option (ii) diagonally rightwards starting at the lower left corner using a crab, on the way back in forgotten highway, in the room with the crabs beneath the room with the two Kagos.
Brinstar:
(9): Hor. version of option (i) in Dachora´s room to the left and to the right, using the Rio close to the left of the bomb-block cluster, or a Silver Skree, respectively, on the way to Tourian, which might be a bad route choice anyways, but maybe for the 100% branch.
Wrecked Ship:
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the right-most room using a falling projectile from a spark enemy to get quicker to the E-Tank, for the 100% branch.)
(Hor. version of option (i) at the right side in the attic (active room state) at the sloped stairs to the door, on the way to the left, for the 100% branch.)
(10): Option (ii) close to the bottom of the central shaft, using an Atomic, on the way to the attic (provided having FlashSuit and/or Speedbooster).
(Hor. version of option (i) aswell in the central shaft using an Atomic at the downleft-wards leading sloped ground right before the spike-platforms, to get the Missile there, for the 100% branch.)
Norfair:
(Hor. version of option (i) to the lower left starting at the bottom in the room with the gate poles near Ice (or the converse direction), for the 100% branch.)
(Option (ii) diagonally to the right next to the farming bugs on the way back from Crocomire´s area, in the room to the left of that mini-boss, for the 100% branch.)
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the long shaft in Crocomire´s lair, via blue ball enemy on the way back, for the 100% branch.)
(11): Hor. version of option (i) from the left to the right using a Nova in the first upper Norfair path hellrun room, which would beforehand require FlashSuit or Speedbooster anyways.
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the elevator room to Brinstar, using a falling Nova on the way back to Brinstar, for the 100% branch.)
(12): Option (ii) at the lower right corner using a projectile from a yellow pirate, in the huge acid room in Lower Norfair to get up to the right door.
(13): Option (ii) after Ridley, at the bottom (using a Kihunter) of the shaft room to the right of the huge acid room to get through some block structures.
(14): Hor. version of option (i) to the left in Ridley-Powerbombs room, on the way to Ridley, using knockback from a sidehopper (with a prepared FlashSuit).
(15): Option (ii) at the center (or bottom, in the case of the 100% branch) of the fireflea E-tank room to get up through block structures, again.
(Option (ii) upright-wards in the upper room to the left of the fireflea room using a projectile from a Dragon to get to the upper Missile, for the 100% branch.)
Maridia:
(16): SUPERMETROIDFTP´s sequence break.
(17): Option (ii) at the bottom of Mainstreet room using a crab to fly to the upper most door.
(18): Option (ii) at the lower left corner of Fishtank room (the room to the left of turtle room) using a fish on the way upwards.
(19): Hor. version of option (i) from the left to the right in Botwoon-E-Tank room, using a worm for knockback.
Tourian: None
- - -
On another note, since this glitch enables such high speeds, and thus, in the case this gets used, Samus´ body-box (at least partially) might enter Out of Bounds, it seems to be a good point in time to introduce the(/a) clear definition of the Inbounds area (as the complement of Out of Bounds) of all rooms (with their corresponding room states) that exist in the game:
In an inbounds branch, the only instances in which Samus is allowed to enter Out of Bounds is (the maybe only so far known instance) during non-loose elevator rides and (door-)transitions. Note that there are several cases of elevator rides in which Samus´ bodybox, in particular when riding an elevator downwards, fully (and/or partially) exits the (convex hull of the) rectangular shaped areas of rooms that are shown (and editable) in the SMILE editor, which are exactly also the parts of rooms that the game directly loads into the general space into which the game loads currently entered rooms (whereas areas that the current room does not use may have remnants of previously entered rooms aswell as other objects).
So, these rectangular areas define "Inbounds", one might though furthermore restrict non-glitched branches to not only stay inbounds but also "within the Map-Squares that correspond to individual rooms", i.e. not allowing Samus to move into (within the rectangular areas accessible but) unused squares even partially with Samus´ bodybox.
Some of those rectangular inbounds areas are provided (but without the grid for the Scroll Areas) at the Speedrunning Guide for Super Metroid, i.e. deanyd:
http://deanyd.net/sm/index.php?title=List_of_rooms
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
I think these new glitches look entertaining, and I don't think they should be forbidden. We can have as many categories as we want, so we could easily have "game end glitch", "any%", "inbounds", etc. The "inbounds" (or whatever) category would be the current "any%", and would qualify for a moon because the current one does. The new "any%" sounds like it will include lots of new forms of fast movement and new paths, so it should also be fun enough to qualify.
Basically, if new tricks would obsolete a fun type of TAS, just make a new category for that type of TAS. It's absurd that we should abstain from making interesting new TASes due to category/obsoletion worries. Categories are supposed to be a tool to help us classify TASes, not a straightjacket that prevents us from TASing!
Personally, I agree that if this new glitch does turn out to be abusable enough to make a TAS feel significantly different, it would be worth evaluating whether it should get its own category. As I've been inactive here over the last few years, I have no idea where the judges currently stand on multiple categories; I know the restrictions have been relaxed a bit since back in the day when 4 categories was considered borderline excessive (and thank the super metroid gods for that), but I'm not sure what is/is not considered acceptable nowadays.
(Of course, that doesn't stop a tas from being made anyway :p)
Some kind of glitched "all bosses/all main bosses" run could probably be interesting but I think it would be much more dominated by space/time beam to traverse rooms quickly rather than any of the new shinespark glitches, although the hyperspeed spark would help to collect plasma early at the very least. Same goes for glitched 100% but to an even greater extent.
Joined: 11/26/2010
Posts: 454
Location: New York, US
Well I'm all for a Glitched Version of a 100% run. Which I believe would be an acceptable category.
I would also love to see a Space/Time fully Powered Up Samus 100% run. I don't think that would get accepted, but I would love to see it either way.
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Ok, so I have more information on this SuperJump glitch after testing it to some extent:
1. It seems (note that this is not an exhaustively tested generalization, but an assumption/educated guess (since neither the slope nor the initializing damage-boost seems to be relevant)) that any kind of setup to obtain X-Mode (in particular the bunch of setups that Sniq found recently (via frozen enemy, or bright sand) unleashes/allows for a SuperJump after releasing X-Mode if a shinespark was used during X-Mode. At least I can though confirm that (in NTSC, pre-X-Ray room, SNES9X v.1.53) the unmorph setup at spikes (or the likes) to enter X-Mode aswell as a damage-boost setup on spikes to enter X-Mode; both of these allow the possibility of the SuperJump. Because of this, I will have to update my map of starting points for SuperJumps, preferably using different colours for different kinds of X-Mode setups. I assume most of the map will be coloured then.
2. The direction of the shinespark during X-Mode can be any direction (sideways horizontal, diagonally to the left or to the right, or vertically) and in all cases after releasing Dash (which ends the X-Mode), Samus will use the upwards component of the speed and continue moving that way in falling pose (since after releasing the X-Mode, one actually is in the falling state, i.e. a downback can directly be started after the X-Mode).(Note that the angle at which Samus moves suitless in water during a diagonal shinespark differs (in particular: is more steep) from the angle of the same shinespark if having Gravity turned on.)
3. When exiting X-Mode, all horizontal speed gets cut off (which is the reason why one will just simply be put to the current position at which one is during a horizontal shinespark in X-Mode when releasing X-Mode, i.e. horizontal or diagonal shinesparks will not help to move with extreme speeds horizontally), such that only vertical, from the shinespark in X-Mode stacked speed (and not momentum), is kept.
4. Regarding clips through block structures, it seems:
Forwards movement/no movement/shooting during a SuperJump < facing downwards/morphing during a SuperJump < turning around during a SuperJump.
Where "<" means that the movement option to the right of the symbol seems to allow clipping through blocks easier than the option to the left of it. The most crucial difference is located at the last inequality (i.e. turning around has/causes a massive effect/gain on the "clip-ability").
5. It also seems hard to (mid-flight) get rid of the upwards speed with which Samus travels during a SuperJump, unless losing it instantly by getting knockback or grappling at some Grapple-block/-enemy or killing an enemy via Grapple during the SuperJump, or maybe by starting a new normal jump and similar events.
6. If one after turning around during a SuperJump gets stuck in crouch pose in between some blocks (or within a tunnel of height 2 (i.e. 2 air blocks fit vertically in between ceiling and ground of the tunnel)), then in this pose, the upwards speed is stored and can be continued (again even through block structures) by morphing (which is only once an option), or (step-wise, depending on if there are walls further above aswell where one might get stuck in crouch pose another time) by turning around while an angle button is held (or interrupting such a turnaround by releasing the angle button during the animation). (The mechanic behind this seems to be the same as the mechanic used to store Hover-Jumps.)
7. If one is in X-Mode and shifts Samus sideways (by armpumping or walking), after normal movement in X-Mode, one can then still use a SuperJump (if still having shinespark-charge or a FlashSuit), so it does not need to be the first thing that is done during X-Mode.
8. (I forgot to mention this noteworthy part:) Due to the hopefully known X-Mode BlueSuit method, one of course obtains BlueSuit also in the SuperJump setup due to pose change of Samus into falling pose from the previous "moving shinespark" pose which skips the/a BlueSuit-cancelling event, i.e. the crash animation. Furthermore, note that for a few frames after exiting X-Mode during a SuperJump setup, Samus will be in a yellow blinking state (which turns to BlueSuit if waiting long enough) which technically behaves like a temporary FlashSuit (i.e. one can start a shinespark immediately provided one can execute a jump or exit the falling state midair, and does not need to crouch for it), whose duration depends on if the X-Mode was exited during a shinespark that already started to move (in this case the Yellow Suit´s duration is shorter) or if one exited X-Mode during the delay phase at the beginning of a started shinespark (the state in which one still can choose the direction towards which one wants to shinespark).
Edit: Here is a map that shows all (maybe some few places missed) squares containing spike-type blocks/objects (such as normal spike blocks, plant spikes, lower and upper part of eye doors, and the spikes in Kraid´s lair), that can be used to set up X-Mode close to the ground (and thus SuperJumps, since those places coincide), directly via the spike-knockback (without the help of frozen enemies to create platforms beneath spikes):
The bright blue parts indicate squares in which the room state does not matter, at the yellow squares, the room state does matter for SuperJump setups.
2. Edit: Sniq noticed, that when entering a transition during X-Mode, one can avoid the softlock afterwards if one already soon during the screen transition releases Dash, which now (after confirming it via tests) has the consequence, that in theory, one can enter a transition during a shinespark in X-Mode, then release Dash during this early enough, to start a SuperJump (provided a non-horizontal shinespark was used) immediately in the next room. Therefore, this might allow for more places of application for SuperJumps. (Also, if Samus has Draygon´s permanent gunk deceleration or the big Metroid´s deceleration, then the angle of diagonal shinesparks changes aswell, which might not be relevant if trying to go fast in a TAS, but at least if wanting to reach some place (at all or with higher stacked SuperJump speed).)
3. Edit: I corrected the map a little. It seems not only (non-plant-)spike blocks but also the outer parts of eye-doors cannot do contact damage if the Wrecked Ship is in its inactive state.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
can anyone give me a TL;DR on all the new glitches?? I was just checking in and saw all the activity. It's just hard for me to really understand the technicalities and implications of the new discoveries.
Helloooooooo!
I've been working on an improvement to the realtime any% for a little while now (it's about time, I know). This will be the first (and probably only) public WIP prior to completion.
WIP
The most important thing to note is that this run will use a new route proposed by hero of the day which kills Phantoon last, completely skipping gravity suit along with the entire upper portion of Wrecked Ship. That obviously raises the question of how I'm going to deal with Maridia, as it will basically be done under RBO conditions. Eye of the Beholder, Sniq and I have discovered a lot of new techniques and strategies that massively improve the area to the point that this route is actually feasible... but I'll keep most of that secret for now, so you'll just have to trust me.
This TAS will go Kraid --> Ridley --> Draygon --> Phantoon and enter Wrecked Ship through the back entrance from Maridia, just like any RBO. Eye and I have determined that the best thing to do for realtime is to face Ridley with only two PB packs, finishing him with missiles and charge shots (as I don't have WS super missiles to make it a clean kill like in the published any%s), then collect plasma for MB. Also important to note is that HJ is collected out of necessity rather than by choice, as a major improvement planned for Maridia doesn't seem possible without it (and having it should save tons of time anyway in this new route).
A third missile pack is collected early to help with Ridley. The obvious choice would be the HJ exit pack, but I actually collected the missiles by charge beam because the convenient refill and increased max missiles help immensely in Kraid's lair and should be faster in the end, combined with a new lower route HJ exit strategy by Eye of the Beholder (which has probably been overlooked for way too long).
There are a lot of tiny improvements to the best known frame counts for several rooms scattered throughout the WIP; some noticeable, others not. There are also a lot of rooms where ingame time is sacrificed for lag reduction, screen positioning, or luck manipulation, so be careful comparing this to other runs that aim primarily for ingame time (so, like, everything). If it really looks like I messed something up, though, please let me know.
Anyway, enjoy (hopefully). Comments, criticism and suggestions for improvement are all welcome.
Really great so far, as expected, and most of the best stuff is still to come! Fantastic that you could manage your health through LN without any noticeable sacrifices and ending up at exactly 31 before the pirate drops, though I imagine the way back might be tough as well unless you're forced to take Ridleys E-Tank.
I noticed in a few spots (Kraids E-Tank and the entry to gold pirates, maybe more) where you used the down+back walljump check at a door transition, which I've found usually adds several frames of lag during the fadeout. Did it save enough to make up for that/was used for luck manipulation? Also I know that it's possible to remove the last bit of scrolling on the transition at ~9:16, although maybe that was slower/equally fast to what you did.
I also know that some realtime speedrunners have used a strategy in the red Ki-Hunter room where they use a shinespark to kill two of them with speedechoes, which supposedly removes enough lag to be faster in realtime, but I don't know how that translates in TAS-conditions.
EDIT: Turning on moonwalk already makes this the greatest SM run ever only 10 seconds into it.
The difference is that realtime runners usually waits for the last Ki-hunter to be in a position further to the left to roll under it, so doing the shinespark almost don't waste time and eliminate a shitload of lag, but in TAS condition you can just jump over the 3rd hunter which almost costs no time. Iirc I tried it sometime ago and couldn't get it to be faster since you have to walk through the top door (which adds lag to the door transition) and I also got a very bad positioning of the 3rd hunter after wasting time with the shinespark.
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1058
Location: United States
Wow. That energy and ammo management is incredible all the way from norfair to ridley. Really excellent job so far Taco!
Your energy management is so good in fact, you could have performed the entire run with only 2 energy tanks and the only slow down would be the kago through the spike in the pre-elite pirate room. Dropped 100HP on those suckers. Do you know what the total loss in time would be if you just waited for the spikes to drop down instead of passing through them? Having the extra HP may mean not having to wait for ridley's corpse droppings.
The current plan is to dip below 30 health and get health bombed by Ridley. It takes around 30-80 frames to collect his refills (depending on how many are collected) and there are enough refills along the way that I should still be fine ammo-wise for Maridia.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. In the case of Kraid's etank, it turned out equally fast either way iirc, so I went with the faster ingame option. As for elite pirates... you're right, that was pretty stupid. It's not like I need to be super lucky so fixing it should work out. Good catch, I'm not even sure how you noticed I used it there.
If I remember correctly (maybe not) it was equally fast. I'd have to check again.
Well that's interesting, I'll look into it. I have exactly 1 hp to pull off that spark with :) If I need 1-3 more I can just use a few frames slower lava dive strategy though. This gave me another idea to try too which could be really cool.
Far longer than it takes to collect Ridley's refills for sure. An interesting question, though, is whether it would be worth doing this to collect Ridley's tank instead of Kraid's to shinespark through post-ridley, collect ammo refills from Ridley himself, and still leave with more energy than I'd have from collecting health refills. Still, I'd feel pretty bad about doing it unless at least spike damage can be taken to pass through the first platform like in Saturn's RBO. I'll definitely think about it, though; when I made the decision on which etanks to collect I didn't expect energy management to work out nearly as well as it has, so it might be worth reconsidering.
Yeah, had an idea about creating them and also wanted to see if they still look good on Youtube. (I think for my next encode I'll add some black bars to get the height to an even 240, should make the residual line pattern more uniform.)
If you don't like the scanlines and don't want to dump the video yourself I could upload it "raw", but that would take a while.