• ROM SHA1 checksum: 637079014421563283cded6aeaa0604597b2e33c
• CX4 firmware SHA1 checksum: a002f4efba42775a31185d443f3ed1790b0e949a

Goals

• Uses no passwords
• Aims for fastest time
• Heavy luck manipulation
• Abuses programming errors in the game
• Takes damage to save time

Overview

New tricks used

• Reverse wall jumps - Pressing Left+Right the frame before jumping off a right wall will cause X to face away from the wall during the wall jump. This can be used to remove travel time back to the wall during the wall jump as well as more readily clear the top corners of some walls with awkward heights by already having X's speed directed towards it when reaching the top, regardless of the point you are at in the jump.

• Instant 5-damage pink shot - Interrupting the release of the first shot from a first-tier pink charge with a wall tap will cause it to come out as a 2-damage blue shot instead of a 1-damage green shot. This usually requires the player to wait an extra 60 frames after reaching their pink charge as the pink charge has two tiers. This is optimally done off of a right wall as the trick can be done out of a reverse wall jump. It can also be done on left walls, but your first charge shot will be released into the wall as X cannot turn around for the release of it. This version is only used once during the run during the first Stag fight when Stag is directly on top of you on the left wall.

Stage Info

Table of time saved per stage (measured until the first black screen frame after each stage)

Intro (10 frames saved)

• Being further to the left when killing CF-0 causes the stage to end sooner. I have not looked into the reason for this yet, but either way, I was able to save 8 frames by using it.
• (Edit Oct 27 2024) When CF-0 explodes, the counter for the screen to fade back in starts when the sides of his explosion touch both sides of the screen. Positioning him closer to the centre of the screen saves frames because of that. I didn't know what exactly caused it when working on the TAS, so it may be possible to save a couple more frames there.

Wire Sponge (19 frames saved)

• I was able to implement a subpixel-dependent jump onto the first enemy in the last sunny section while still having good subpixels for the two gap jumps at the end of the stage, which saved 2 frames by reducing an extra dash jump.

• The rest of the time save is from the reverse wall jump as well as not delaying during the Sponge fight for the Gator capsule (explained in the next stage.)

Wheel Gator (16 frames saved)

• The capsule for the buster upgrade in this stage only opens when the camera is totally still. The camera shakes for 32-64 frames every time the global timer rolls over to 0 every 64 frames. Previous TASes of this game had to manipulate the shortest screen shake possible and delay frames in one way or another before touching the capsule as they reached the capsule after the global timer rolled over. The time save in Intro and Sponge allowed me to reach the capsule before the global timer rolled over, eliminating the need to delay entirely.

Flame Stag (36 frames saved)

• I was able to use the 5-damage pink shot glitch to develop a new strategy for the Stag boss fight that saves 11 frames over the previous strategy. This new strategy involves ending his initial climb sooner and then using the glitched pink shots to make up for 2 of the 4 damage lost from the longer climb, getting the other 2 in at the end. His iframes run out just before his last iframe reset from his fireballs, making this strategy frame-perfect like the previous one.

• I was able to reduce some of lag just before the beginning of the final climb by minimizing my jump heights and dashing on the top of the pillars instead of just dash jumps.

Morph Moth (16 frames saved)

• If you get lucky ammo drops from the bugs before the junk hallway, as well as a hallway with minimal junk pieces floating up from the floor, it is faster to buster through the enemies in the junk hallway and save your burner for the next hallway while getting another chain in at the end.

Magna Centipede (108 frames saved)

• The single largest time save in the run is the first Centipede fight, which is 106 frames faster than the published run. Starting with buster instead of chain while using glitched 5-damage pink shots instead of 4-damage pink shots, and starting with the tailspin glitch right away eliminates almost all waiting time outside of his iframes besides waiting for your first tier pink charges.

Crystal Snail (19 frames saved)

• It is possible to jump on the very left edge of the slope after the first spikes without being sent to the left or into the spikes, allowing you to save your burner for spending less time in the laggy crystal block section right after it.

Overdrive Ostrich (0 frames saved)

• I used a Speed Burner during the downtime in the Ostrich fight to manipulate RNG for the fish and squids in Crab's stage, which need to give you specific patterns for you to pass through without delay.

Bubble Crab (10 frames saved)

• The time save is mostly from the reverse wall kick in the middle of the stage as well as slightly less lag in the fish section at the start and a frame from getting a better squid pattern just before the rocket at the end, allowing me to land on it without having to delay a frame.

X-Hunter 1 (17 frames saved)

• I was able to use a reverse wall kick to save a frame in the burner section. It looks like it saves more time than it does.

X-Hunter 2 (1 frame saved)

• Nothing has changed here. The stage is really tight so there isn't really much to improve upon. The single frame time save is probably from a load time.

X-Hunter 3 (82 frames saved)

• Another major time save is the Agile fight at the end of this stage. Using glitched pink shots saves you from having to shoot 2 extra Magnet Mines during the final cycle of the fight. The bubbles during the stage are to manipulate Agile's patterns, which are very erratic and hard to manipulate as advancing the RNG affects every aspect of the fight at once, as well as him advancing the RNG once every time he decides to change direction every 7 frames, or switch attacks, or decide how long he will delay, etc, instead of just using the RNG as-is on that frame.

Boss Rush (100 frames saved)

• Like the first Centipede fight, using glitched pink shots during his refight saves a lot of time, eliminating the need to wait for a pink charge at the end, killing him with a dash lemon instead.

• The position in which I did the Snail refight was based on when I had the best global timer value for his shell spin before the fight starts. I did Centipede first since you have to go through his capsule to get to Snail, which gave me the most opportunity to get the fastest shell spin without delaying frames, which I was luckily able to get.

• I was able to save a few frames during the end of the first phase of the Moth refight by manipulating a less laggy junk-throwing pattern.

Final Stage (6 frames saved)

• Nothing much has changed in this stage besides saving a few lag frames and reverse wall jumps to save a few more.

• Manipulating Neo Sigma's 7-swipe pattern had the potential to require me to go back to the downtime between the Moth refight's first and second phases, which is why I did him last in X-Hunter 4, but luckily I didn't have to this time, with firing a Speed Burner at a certain time and some bubbles during the fall being enough to get it.

• The Sigma Virus fight is extremely frustrating to TAS because you have to farm a lot of ammo for Strike Chain as you need to use 32 chains to kill him, which is the full bar. This wouldn't be so bad alone, but when you pick up an ammo drop while on buster, Sonic Slicer fills first, requiring you to farm even more than you would otherwise have to. Also, minor variations in movement or inputs can randomly cause lag frames, and you barely have enough time to kill him before he goes into his move where he disappears and spawns right on top of you. In fact, the wall dust sprite I kicked up at the very end of the fight manipulated a different pattern from that which bought me just enough time to kill him.

Possible Improvements

• In Ostrich's stage, it can save lag frames in the sandstorm section to do jumps while on the big ramp, but I wasn't able to do anything that didn't cause more lag frames or crash the bike.

• It could be possible to save 1 frame in buster shot travel time and a warpout that is 3 frames faster by manipulating another set of girders for the last cycle of the Agile fight. However, this version of the fight is even harder to manipulate mid-fight than the original (you can only do optimal glitched pink shots off of a right wall, which can be very far from the wall of the room in this fight, as well as not being able to kick up wall dust sprites while firing them as glitched pink shots are done out of a reverse wall jump instead of wall sliding), basically meaning I would have to re-do the fight from the beginning an indefinite number of times if that pattern was too far away in the RNG sequence, which it was in this case. It is already hard enough to get RNG that allows you to even start the fight, so I decided it wasn't worth it to manipulate RNG that carried through to the end with little mid-fight manipulation for the sake of 4 frames. I did try a few times though.

In Closing

• Hetfield90: For giving advice, answering questions, reminding me of the 5-damage pink shot glitch which had been totally removed from my memory until he mentioned it after watching my first WIP, and creating/working on the published TASes, which I of course referenced heavily during the creation of this run.

• FractalFusion: For writing the extremely useful Lua scripts for the game, and for his work on the 100% TAS and previous TASes of this game.

• hidaigai, nrg_zam, GoddessMaria: For their work on the 100% TAS, which I also referenced while creating this run, mostly for reverse wall jump tech.

Screenshot Suggestion (frame 46771)