Several people suggested I do a run of Sonic and Knuckles 3 to see if I could improve on SprintGod's run. I didn't think I could improve such a perfect run by more than a few frames, but it soon became clear that I was completely wrong about that. SprintGod's movie is full of amazingly precise playing and several tricks I have to admit I never would have found, but there were still some glitches he didn't find and some occasional slight imprecision in the playing. Also, he played 1-player with Sonic instead of 2-player with Sonic and Tails. Tails makes quite a difference, although my (extremely rough) estimate is that about 50% of this improvement could have been made without him. I should emphasize that I had (/made) much better tools for making this run than SprintGod had. Speed display + camera hack for each character + map maker + jump predictor + multitrack recorder... In any case, the result was a significantly (about 10 minutes) shorter movie.
Level
Time
Units Improved
Angel Island 1
0:38
5
Angel Island 2
1:16
2
Hydrocity 1
0:33
10
Hydrocity 2
1:04
16
Marble Garden 1
0:37
10
Marble Garden 2
0:35
25
Carnival Night 1
0:34
8
Carnival Night 2
1:08
38
Icecap 1
1:16
11
Icecap 2
0:00
41
Launch Base 1
1:38
10
Launch Base 2
1:07
2
Mushroom Hill 1
0:46
2
Mushroom Hill 2
0:37
23
Flying Battery 1
1:08
36
Flying Battery 2
1:14
98 (1:38)
Sandopolis 1
1:45
8
Sandopolis 2
1:28
39
Lava Reef 1
1:12
26
Lava Reef 2
0:51
129 (2:09)
Hidden Palace
0:26
0
Sky Sanctuary
0:52
3
Death Egg 1
1:04
27
Death Egg 2
2:18
34
Total
24:07
565 (9:41)
I chose to not use death to save time, either in-game or real-time; SprintGod didn't use death either, and probably more people would be annoyed by it than appreciate it in this case. This also applies to entering bonus games, which interrupt the action and put you back at the last checkpoint and roll back the timer in a way similar to dying.
Thanks to Upthorn for showing how to activate the glitch in Icecap 1 and another glitch in Marble Garden 1, and for his Knuckles movie to give another source of ideas and comparison, and for giving some feedback about this movie while it was in progress, and for his recent work on Gens and help with some tools in it. And I believe it was mike89 on Sonic Center who revealed the Marble Garden 2 glitch.
See SprintGod's comments for a good explanation of the game's basic physics and quirks/glitches. Some more detailed (but currently very incomplete) information can be found at Sonic the Hedghehog tricks. A few things to add are: Acceleration is better in the air than on the ground, but deceleration is better on the ground (unless rolling) than in the air. Most of the glitches used to pass through objects work by tricking the game into putting those objects offscreen long enough for Sonic to pass through them, because the game does not do any calculations with objects that are offscreen.
Sorry for what I do to Icecap 1 and 2, but it is clearly much faster than beating it normally, and at least Icecap 1 has some nice music to listen to.
Some things that might seem like mistakes:
At the end of Mushroom Hill 1, Tails has to hit the signpost to the far left, otherwise Knuckles won't appear. I get a fire shield earlier because it is not in the ground anywhere on that screen to get from the signpost.
In Hydrocity 2, I have to wait for the third timed object, but starting that level enough later to save another time unit would place the first and/or second timed objects in places where I would need to wait even longer to get through.
The "teleport" glitch I use mainly in Launch Base and Lava Reef requires that Sonic be on the ground and at high speed from more than half of a screenful away (so it is not possible to use it in very many places), and sometimes it is slower even when it is possible because there is rarely enough time to do a full-speed spin dash when doing it.
Ending Flying Battery 2 where I do is actually faster than ending it with Sonic all the way to the right because of the jump, and the flying glitch I would normally do to save time is not possible there because of the type of ground.
At the very end of Hidden Palace zone, the game has a bug where it forgets to return control to player 2. The level won't end until both Sonic and Tails are in place by the teleporter, so I make Tails go there indirectly by using Sonic's command for a spindash as a jump for Tails.
In Launch Base 1, I run past a booster without triggering it because I am already moving faster than the booster speed, and rolling down that decline would be slower because rolling has a speed cap (which running does not).
I briefly pause the game before the fight with Metal Sonic in order to manipulate his random attack pattern into something better (the same one SprintGod had).
When Tails is uncontrollable, he can be tricked into landing early by jumping at the right height near him. But it is difficult to make him actually arrive anywhere earlier; the game will take away his control and teleport him to a predefined nearby spawn point when he has spent too much time offscreen, giving player 2 typically less than a second of control over when he starts flying (very slowly in the vertical direction) to reach you. He only arrives quickly at boss fights because the edge of forced screen boundaries will push him there.
The start of Mushroom Hill 2 (while offscreen) progresses more slowly than normal because all of the loops are broken (they are impenetrable walls that must be jumped on top of) and the springs and other objects are not there.
In Sandopolis 1, I don't use Tails to bypass the red spring under the sand river because it's not enough faster to avoid the next wait for a timed object.
I found a way to skip the midboss of Launch Base 2 that would save time, except it causes the timer to not stop for the extremely long cutscene.
The Launch Base 1 boss is "afraid" of Sonic and moves up when Sonic is in the air nearby it, so it's faster to kill it with Tails alone and keep Sonic always under it.
Sonic can't touch any of those moving platforms in Flying Battery without losing the glitch.
It's possible to zip further into the level in Launch Base 1, but doing so would skip the speed shoes and ultimately be slightly slower.
No death
Aims for fastest (primarily in-level) time
Ignores delays caused by bonus effects
Takes damage to save time
Abuses programming errors in the game (a lot)
Manipulates luck (a little)
One player controls two characters
Emulator used: Gens Movie Test 9j (works with 9f, etc.)
... *mind breaks*
The game... does not bend like that, no damn you. *curls into a ball and cries*
As Angerfist said, what the fuck did you do to this poor game? This isn't even a regular TAS; this is an emurape that completely violates the games that I played growing up without mercy. There are parts of this game that aren't even recognizable to me anymore because of what you've done to them. I hope that you're happy with yourself. :[
...because somewhere, in the deep dark recesses of mind, I know I am. Yes vote.
Now if you excuse me, I'm going to cry more from the thought that you removed an entire bleeding act fromt the roster.
When I first saw this I thought, "Wait, wasn't the old movie like ten minutes slower? Didn't Nitsuja say he couldn't improve on it?"
Then I watched it and it was like, "didn't there used to be a... stage there?"
Amazing run, I can't BELIEVE how glitched out this game is (though not as much as Sonic Advance, but that one is so glitched it's not even entertaining). You deserve a star for this, preferably a BIG one. Can't vote, but it's the truth.
I recall seeing a Moon instead of a Star next to the names of newly posted Mario runs on the Front Page. Let's do this run a favour and give it one.
Hey, Nitsuja! Are there any emulators for Game Gear and Sega Master System that have Frame Advance, 1% Speed, etc? Because if there are, maybe you could attempt the Sonic games for those systems next!
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Also, it doesn't seem like your description of how to do it is very accurate if I found what you meant (rather than running at a high speed, it required coming to a complete stop and moving slightly left on the sinking platform).
Have you got an input recording of this? I'm interested to see how you've done it - I recall just holding right the whole time and being zipped left to land on the checkpoint platform.
This is how nitsuja did it: http://www.soniccenter.org/eredani/LR1%20Floor%20Glitch%202.zip
The way we know of perfoming the glitch, you charge a spindash before the downhill, and by rolling into the sinking platform in a certain way you'll be pushed into the ground. It seems that you need to move at a slower rate in order to fall into the ground, as I've never managed to do it with a full-speed spindash.
Lava Reef 1 floor glitch, Savestate
There's one more thing that you didn't do, in Hydrocity 2 when you are at the section with the crushing wall, it's possible to warp into the floor if you spin and then jump against the advancing wall while facing in the opposite direction, then doing an insta-shield. You'll be pushed into the ground and can warp to the right, cutting about 10 seconds off the time.
I recall seeing a Moon instead of a Star next to the names of newly posted Mario runs on the Front Page. Let's do this run a favour and give it one.
A moon is considered a lower classification than a star. The previous S3K run had a full-blown star; no doubt this run will inherit that star when it gets published.
A moon is considered a lower classification than a star. The previous S3K run had a full-blown star; no doubt this run will inherit that star when it gets published.
Not exactly. Star means "recommended for first time viewers".
Moon means "recent publication which deserves extra attention" (correct me if I'm wrong).
S&K3 did have a star before, but it was removed. It was removed because there were too many Sonic movies which had a star, and by the definition of a star movie (recommended for first time viewers) S&K3 lost its star (recommending only Sonic movies wouldn't give any variety, and it wouldn't give a good representation of all sorts of movie (I think)). At the moment, Sonic 2, and Sonic Advance 2 have a star, but I bet some people would like this movie to have one of these stars.
I have a question on the multi track recording... if player 1 inputs were made first and the game emulated those frames based on a player 2 staying still, then wouldn't recording a player 2 input afterwards screw up the way it randomizes the game and also desyncs for player 1?
Nitsuja, please. If you have any feelings at all... if you have any conscience... please do not ask me to offer up my firstborn. After watching this run, I would be honour-bound to comply. Even though I'm unmarried and have no children, I would have to find a way.
For those who haven't seen it, this may salivate you enough to want to see it:
Some parts are so amazing that other parts in the run seem incredibly boring in comparrison. The incredibly boring parts are still great by TAS standards. The boring parts alone would warrant my yes vote. Instead, however, I spent the boring parts trying to come up with what I could possibly say about this masterpiece. This is the best I can come up with and it's sorely insufficient. Maybe that's because the boring parts were constantly interrupted by sheer awesomeness.
If and when I do get married one day, I will have to in all honestly ask my bride-to-be beforehand if she wouldn't rather marry Nitsuja instead. If I don't, the unasked question may haunt me.
(P.S. Voted Meh)
I have a question on the multi track recording... if player 1 inputs were made first and the game emulated those frames based on a player 2 staying still, then wouldn't recording a player 2 input afterwards screw up the way it randomizes the game and also desyncs for player 1?
Not always. I think each player input is done on a small-enough interval to prevent it from happening most often, and reduce the damage if it does.
I have a question on the multi track recording... if player 1 inputs were made first and the game emulated those frames based on a player 2 staying still, then wouldn't recording a player 2 input afterwards screw up the way it randomizes the game and also desyncs for player 1?
There is barely any randomness in the game (unless you count subpixel positions...), and the game is good about not lagging most of the time. The bigger problem is that each player affects the other in some way. Sonic affects Tails because he controls the camera which determines what Tails can interact with or pass through, and Tails affects Sonic because (obviously) he can carry Sonic while flying, sometimes unintentionally. But those are things I can control.
When both players had something to do and needed to interact, what I usually did was: record a few seconds with Sonic until past where Tails can make a difference, then go back and record it with Tails now that I know about where Sonic will be, then re-record over the last part of what Sonic did to be more optimal now that I know where Tails will be, and keep going back and forth until apparently neither one can make a change that would allow for the other one to do something faster. Desync isn't a big problem because I'm purposely causing and re-recording over desyncs on alternating tracks at progressively later times.
The hardest part to coordinate was the first round of the two-hands part of the final boss fight, because anything done by either player there is almost guaranteed to immediately desync anything done by the other player. Usually at least one player is independant of the others' actions for a brief time, but there I had to keep making changes until it suddenly worked for both players.
eredani wrote:
Lava Reef 1 ... Hydrocity 2 ...
I wish someone had posted these sorts of things earlier about SprintGod's movie, although it's partly my fault as well. I actually did try both of those a few times, but nothing much happened (most of the glitches in this game require doing some usually-worthless things very precisely).
Are you *#(@ing kidding me? SprintGod's unbeatable run is beaten by 10 minutes???
WTF did you do to this game? I can't believe how badly you broke it. I was making mental notes the whole time on what I was going to say about this, but something more amazing kept happening, and I just couldn't keep track. Then, by the time I was done, there was already 4 pages of praise about it, and then there hardly seemed to be any point in mentioning specific things any more. Suffice it to say that I laughed out loud, said "WTF" several times, shook my head in disbelief, and wondered how any run could be this cool.
This run gets a star and a "broken brain" award. There should be a brain icon next to runs that will screw up your brain if you watch them. All of the Sonic runs will give you some degree of brain damage, but to award such an honor to any other run would be unfair to this one. This is the run that you might not recover from.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
actually, the (2 years old !) first version already had it, and for some reason (Quietust's Sonic 2 or JXQ's Sonic 1 I guess) the second version lost it, so it's quite normal it gains it again ;)
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Bisqwit wrote:
hopper wrote:
This run gets a star
Confirmed.
If you have seen the whole movie, do you think he also at least deserves the Master Ninja rank?
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
I wish someone had posted these sorts of things earlier about SprintGod's movie, although it's partly my fault as well. I actually did try both of those a few times, but nothing much happened (most of the glitches in this game require doing some usually-worthless things very precisely).
Are you going to incorporate either of these tricks into your run? For HydroCity 2, If you splice your old input back in, you'd only have to redo the Marble Garden 2 boss, (and most of HC2). For the Lava Reef one you'd have to redo a bit more, but it would still just be one or two acts and maybe the Metal Sonic fight.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
nitsuja,
Dude.
still your "buddy",
Fabian
Seriously though, it sucks to lose the status (!!!) of having the highest rated published movie, but watching this made it well worth it, and this movie is highly deserving.
There should be a brain icon next to runs that will screw up your brain if you watch them.
I thought of exact same things when I watched that famous Half-Life 2 speedrun. There really are some runs that just break your former views and conceptions on certain games and speedrunning in general to small pieces.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Are you going to incorporate either of these tricks into your run?
Probably, but not immediately. See my edited post at the end of page 2. There's a chance I'll get it done in a few days though, if it turns out to be easier than I think it will. (Does anyone know of any other possible improvements?)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
I'm no longer agnostic.
I asked not long ago if you were interested in doing this, you said maybe and BAM we get another run. I have no idea how you come out with such amazingly great movies, IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. Yes vote for me, in Spades.
Bisqwit- Nitsuja's status needs a serious upgrade. I know he just got ninja status- we need to create a new word for what he is.
