Latest WIP desyncs in Egg Utopia 2 after about 30 or so seconds for me.
This is normal considering that I hadn't finished Egg Utopia 2 yet. But now I have (and updated the file): Got 0:56:72 in Egg Utopia 2 and 0:08:52 on the Egg Frog boss. I have the suspicion that Egg Utopia 2 has a faster route through it than the best one I was able to find (I was expecting a time closer to 0:50:00 on it), but maybe this level simply has lots of obstacles no matter which path you take. Anyway, I'm going to try redoing the first few levels before moving on because they are starting to look really slow compared to ones like Techno Base 2 and Egg Utopia 1.
EDIT: BTW, I found 2 fun bugs with the upside-down-ness of the Egg Utopia acts which unfortunately didn't seem to have any practical uses: It's possible to run so fast that you zoom by a gravity change event without activating it and are in a part of the level on the ceiling when you're supposed to be on the floor, and if you use an air dash in the right place in Egg Utopia 2 it's possible to end the level on the ceiling (victory dance done upside-down and everything).
EDIT2: Hmm, I'm finding some massive improvements, like getting 0:24:27 on Leaf Forest 1 without even changing the route... And 0:23:70 on Leaf Forest 2. Note that since I changed the start of the movie, that invalidates any savestates made later on in it (so attempting to continue from them will cause immediate desync).
So far I've redone all the levels through Ice Paradise 2. They all became at least 2 seconds faster thanks to some route refinements and some high precision tricks with the air dash that I didn't figure out until Techno Base 2. Hot Crater 1 became especially ridiculous - Sonic is offscreen for more than 25% of the time spent in the level.
About the air dash trick: The trick is initiating (the first part of the double-tap of) an air dash before jumping such that the air dash happens so close to the ground that air dashes can be done in rapid succession without needing to double-tap for each one. Also, that can be used to achieve and preserve even faster-than-camera velocities regardless of boost mode status.
EDIT: OK, it's finished, I think I'll submit this...
I took a brief look at Sonic Advance 1 (a game which apparently got many complaints for being too slow) since I was curious as to how different the game would be for a TAS... and found that it's quite broken compared to Sonic Advance 2, and a fastest-level-time run would be a complete glitch-fest, moreso than I thought before. Here is an example, the 1st act done in 16.95 seconds, and that's not seriously optimized at all (I couldn't see what was going on and didn't test very many options) so it could probably be a few seconds faster than that.
Maybe it would be better for a movie of this game to have the restriction that it can't rev up the spin dash all the way. The air dash is similarly broken but it's probably fine because it's much harder to abuse to the same extent and harder to define any limit for it.
Oh, and I would say advance 3, but I don't think it'd be as great as these two for speedrunning. There are a few nifty tricks in there, but it's hard enough just to chose one combo for 20 levels.
Isn't it possible to switch character teams during the game? I think the fastest team for each individual level should be used, excluding teams with characters that aren't unlocked yet.
EDIT: Oops, posted this in the wrong thread. Oh well, that was said in this thread initially.
I took a brief look at Sonic Advance 1 (a game which apparently got many complaints for being too slow) since I was curious as to how different the game would be for a TAS... and found that it's quite broken compared to Sonic Advance 2, and a fastest-level-time run would be a complete glitch-fest, moreso than I thought before. Here is an example, the 1st act done in 16.95 seconds, and that's not seriously optimized at all (I couldn't see what was going on and didn't test very many options) so it could probably be a few seconds faster than that.
Maybe it would be better for a movie of this game to have the restriction that it can't rev up the spin dash all the way. The air dash is similarly broken but it's probably fine because it's much harder to abuse to the same extent and harder to define any limit for it.
that's fucking insane. i actually disagree to an extent, it would be awesome to see just how fast you can get times happening due to weird programming errors like that.
also, can the spindash actually move you so fast that the game hasn't rendered the levels at that point to which you die from falling through the screen (like the airdash can)?
also, can the spindash actually move you so fast that the game hasn't rendered the levels at that point to which you die from falling through the screen (like the airdash can)?
I'm not so sure that's really why you die from that. Where did you test it to get that effect? I don't think the levels need to render to do collision checks - I noticed Sonic getting stopped by walls that were at least 10 screens away. I think it's possible to combine the spin dash with air dash to go even faster, but when I tried once that the graphics started to totally glitch out as the camera zoomed back and forth across the level, then suddenly found Sonic standing at some apparently random location.
Atma wrote:
i actually disagree to an extent, it would be awesome to see just how fast you can get times happening due to weird programming errors like that.
If only the camera could keep up, then it would be great, but it probably takes something away from the entertainment if you can't even see the main character for 90% of the time and mostly just see pieces of the levels scrolling by. It would still be neat, though, and pretty difficult to think about how to actually optimize it.
That means the file is corrupted or something, you could try re-downloading and unzipping it again, but... Check the workbench/submission list, it's there now.
EDIT: Oops, I just realized what you meant by "the latest beta". You can't watch it with that version of VBA. Go Here to get a VBA you can use to watch this type of movie file.
If there is a problem with the camera in sonic advance 1 why don't you just make a hack of the rom that makes the camera move faster. The only problem you might have trouble getting it accepted since you are using a hacked rom with only a minor change to the game.
The source code for VBA-1.8.0-beta3 hasn't been made available, for one thing.
gbagcn wrote:
If there is a problem with the camera in sonic advance 1 why don't you just make a hack of the rom that makes the camera move faster
Well, I have no idea how to make such a hack (unless the camera position is stored relative to Sonic's position, which I doubt). Is there a known game shark code that does something like this?
Speaking of codes, what do you think about using the (built-in) "Sonic and Tails" code to have Tails tag along? It's be like Sonic 2 (except Tails would be even more worthless than usual).
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
It would be cool if the movie made with the hacked rom still worked with the unhacked one...
Yeah, but it would probably change the gameplay unless it's done in a sophisticated enough way, because normally the enemies/springs/spikes don't exist when they're far enough offscreen.
Joined: 2/15/2005
Posts: 246
Location: Torquay, England
Woo. I love it! Although, for some reason, it just doesn't seem as awesome as SprintGod's S3&K run did... hmm.
Well, whatever, *looks for an Advance 1 run now*
If there is a problem with the camera in sonic advance 1 why don't you just make a hack of the rom that makes the camera move faster. The only problem you might have trouble getting it accepted since you are using a hacked rom with only a minor change to the game.
Aside from what nitsuja said, the biggest problem would be if the slow-moving camera is neccesary for keeping the game moving at full speed. After all, a faster camera also means faster drawing of the game elements.
Yes, I forgot to mention that it's possible that the camera speed is limited for the technical reason that loading/displaying level tiles any faster would cause lag. That's not necessarily the case, though.
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.
Oh, OK. Not sure why I didn't notice they had a sourceforge page, was looking for that for a while (although I'm not too eager to work on VBA right now).
I guess this is way off topic... there's probably not much more to say about Sonic Advance 2 though, and I haven't thought much about Sonic Advance 1 since before, so I guess this post will stay that way.
Joined: 2/15/2005
Posts: 246
Location: Torquay, England
I would like to see a TASR of SA2 with all emeralds collected... purely because NintenDan's video of EUZ (can't remember act) with all Special Rings looked so awesome. :P
Perhaps a Sonic Advance run using Amy Rose would be interesting, especially since she's the slowest and can't attack just by jumping on foes.
And in Sonic Advance 2, Cream and her, er, Cheese's unique attack might make a good video (you have to unlock them first though).
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Though I would never say no to someone doing such as run, that fact would, for me at least, think better things could be done for these games.
As nice as it was to see Advance 1 broken as it was, a non spin dash glitch run would be something I would enjoy.
Also as I have possibly mentioned before, but no harm in repeating, for Advance 2, Nintendan made a (Non-TAS) video of Egg Utopia act 2, IIRC, collecting all the Special rings, (The rings that when collected give you acess to the Special Stages) which was very entertaining. The video showed that a 100% run here could prove to be good to watch.
Three possible scenarios for Sonic Advance, each that combined in several ways:
1. A no-glitch run.
2. A run using a character other then Sonic.
3. A run that collects all Chaos Emeralds and defeats the true final boss.
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
