Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
So I just noticed the submission game title is called "Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest", same for the publication at https://tasvideos.org/4048M .
But this is wrong. Every box art calls it "Donkey Kong Country 2", the title screen calls it "Donkey Kong Country 2", the cartridge calls it "Donkey Kong Country 2", and to top it all off, MarioWiki calls it Donkey Kong Country 2 (https://www.mariowiki.com/Donkey_Kong_Country_2_(Game_Boy_Advance)), at least the top of the page does, but it looks like a lot of the information is copied straight off of the SNES page, minus the images anyway.
The Japanese version is just Super Donkey Kong 2.
"Diddy's Kong Quest" is specifically for the SNES version and is not a part of the GBA title.
Can it please be renamed on both the submission, publication and youtube video to be correctly saying "Donkey Kong Country 2"? Because this is just wrong.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Creating the forum thread with the Nintendo 3DS being implemented into Bizhawk, at least on source on GitHub.
I spent the first three days creating a Glitchless TAS for the first hour of the game:
Link to video
About 10-20 seconds can still be saved (mostly to getting better RNG). It is 3 minutes faster than my sum of best (57:02). The vast majority of the timesave is due to perfect mashing (just spam A, B, A, B, A, B, ...), and also clean movement. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out for a first attempt.
The major timesaves for this TAS is in the first fight (I got 16 bats, the maximum, while I should have gotten 8 bats), getting good Toad RNG after the Pi'illo Island Welcome Quiz (if he was in a better spot, I could clip out of bounds and skip a cutscene, save a few seconds), and better attack patterns with Dreamy Mario. I don't think I lost more than 3 seconds on movement, but that's hard to tell.
My personal goal is to at least create an optimized TAS for the Any%, Glitchless and All Bosses categories.
Any% (TAS route) would be under 2, unsure if sub 1:50 is possible.
Any% (RTA route) should be under 2:45. (The distinction is which glitches are used)
Glitchless should be under 9 hours.
All Bosses should be under 9 hours too (this includes the X Bosses).
It's possible that new out of bounds clips could be found that are TAS-only, which could bring the run down to sub 1:30, in an ideal scenario. As long as you can clip out of bounds in the Pi'illo Castle Lobby, you save 24 minutes. TAS-only clips could be used to save smaller amounts of times elsewhere too. (OBSOLETE BUT LOL)
One last thing I want to mention: there is an issue with the Bizhawk emulator, and that's that you can not change the steps counter. This means Hiking Boots is useless for TAS because it only gives 30 POW rather than the full 150. (Hiking Boots is a 2 minute detour for All Bosses and 10 seconds in Glitchless)
Edit:
I wrote all of the above like, a week ago, but since then Pi'illo Castle Skip WAS actually found.
Link to video
This works because with a slower speed, you can clip out of bounds at the bottom of the screen, which doesn't work with normal speed. You can store slower speed by only moving when in mid-air after walking on stairs. I managed to do it in an RTA speedrun too using an easier strat that involves walking on the stairs while out of bounds, rather doing everything with slow speed.
RNG address is 0x039F4F40 on 3DS Bizhawk, 4-byte address. The problem is that I don't find any way to manipulate RNG in battles... Which makes Secret Box impossibly difficult to manipulate properly, unfortunately. So to make a TAS of this game you'd need some insane RNG outside of battle and get it all within battle. You can definitely skip Bros. Attacks, but it seems the best way to manipulate RNG is by using Bros. Attacks since you can advance RNG sometimes 12 times.
I'm working on a LOTAD that uses the RTA route but with Pi'illo Castle Skip.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Having helped with some of the routing but not actually having seen the entire TAS from start to finish before, the TAS did have quite a few impressive moments that blew my mind (Popple & Rookie 2 for example).
Too bad I didn't have the motivation to watch the previous TAS (2:59:3x) before he started the new EU TAS that ended up being 2 minutes faster, I only did lazily and spotted a few major timesaves that he was missing out on + level up routes, but having watched the TAS in its' entirety now I was able to spot several small timesaves that, had I been able to help like I wanted to, could have been implemented. But I understand why he doesn't want to redo the TAS a fourth time at the moment, lol. I would implement them myself but my computer is genuinely absolutely TERRIBLE so that will not happen (I tried TASing the game, this is definitely not doable in the long run). Regardless, the TAS is still very good and I was entertained watching it through, even after having helped with the routing and whatnot. Therefore, a yes vote. Glad to see this TAS happen, a TAS I had always wanted to watch.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Link to video
Decided to upload worlds 1 to 3 for the 102% TAS. Progress has been non-existent because I moved out to another country back in 2021, then I went back to my country of origin a few months ago, and Kudgel is a piece of 0000 and I absolutely do not enjoy TASing Kudgel. I eventually finished Kudgel after all this time. Funny how I lived in a different country for a year before I could finish this one stupid level.
As celebration I am releasing the first 3 worlds despite the fact I wanted to keep it all hidden until the end. Hopefully this creates motivation to get back into this TAS. It is currently 3:17.664 or 197.664 seconds ahead of Avanor's TAS at 61k rerecords.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Finally got around to watching this... The gameplay feels sluggishly slow sometimes (which is none of your fault, of course), but it was still entertaining overall. GG! Very cool to see that you finished this project of yours. Yes vote from me :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
At 15:00 in the provided encode: that was hilarious lol.
Overall good TAS that was enjoyable to watch. I vote yes.
Though for the love of God don't rub boobs in our faces. That shit's highly uncomfortable for some people (those people will include kids as kids watch the TASVideos channel too (I assume)!) and that alone makes me contemplate voting meh, but I'll put that aside as it's only half a second of the entire TAS. Still uncomfortable enough for me to note it though. (And I'm not interested in discussing whether it should be allowed or not, so I'm not going to comment further on about this.)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1039022455
New skip discovered in 4-1 Hornet Hole by sikuhaku005 (I assume). Saves about 313 frames compared to the old TAS, give or take (5.24 seconds @59.7275fps).
I suspect it might be possible to do the same trick in 4-3 Bramble Scramble and in 8-5 Animal Antics (Squawks section), and for 4-3 in 102% again but in a different spot potentially. The Hornet Hole skip saves time in 102% too.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
I will refrain from voting as I have been added as a co-author (would have voted yes otherwise). I'll write this post as if I wasn't a co-author as I was planning to do so regardless, so I don't know if this post even holds any value, but I want to say that the TAS was quite a blast to watch. The entertainment was mostly a bit dull during bosses unfortunately (at least, in the 48:54 video, I have not yet watched the new version), but outside of the bosses it was very interesting and entertaining to watch. Also I want to highlight 40:24 on the video was a really clever idea, lol.
This TAS is pretty popular in the DKC speedrunning scene and does have half a dozen runs, so from my biased perspective I do believe it should be published, but I don't have the say in that, lol. But I do vouch for publication.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
I'm watching the TAS and I'm wondering, is this game/hack hex friendly? (as in, if I edit 2-3 and save time, will the rest sync up?)
I only watched up to world 2 so far and so far it's a yes vote, though if you guys would let me try to improve it and try to make the waiting sections more entertaining that would be cool :) For a TAS there's a lot of waiting and not enough being funny, lol.
I currently noticed two spots where I believe I could save time (2-3 and the final hit of 2-B), so far haven't watched the rest yet but will get around to it.
We can message in DM if you want (though do respond here too), lol
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
Snodeca wrote:
I'm sure that, if you try hard enough, it is possible to play Pokémon Gen 1 without glitches. However it is TAS only thanks to the badge boost glitch and needing to avoid critical hits. Beyond that, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
You realize there are a ton of straight up unavoidable "glitches" right. Heck, look at Yellow, the starter Pikachu encounter in the beginning is glitched, there is no way around that.
This is precisely why I wrote: "Beyond that, I have no idea what I'm talking about", implying I have no idea what I am talking about. :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
I'm sure that, if you try hard enough, it is possible to play Pokémon Gen 1 without glitches. However it is TAS only thanks to the badge boost glitch and needing to avoid critical hits. Beyond that, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Unfortunately, not an actual 100% run. Try again next year! I would love to watch a 100% run.
Edit: I read the "Happy april fools" as "first tiddy (???)". Thanks to Samsara's porn submission.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Okay, but imagine if the people are shown in the description, and maybe 1000 people work on a single TAS and it has to be cut with [...] at the end even in the description.
I would want to see that.
Let's make something like this come true for April Fools 2030. Replace the repeats with actual usernames that don't repeat once. (In the image there are 550ish names listed, and reaches 4950 characters)
Edited by feos: I decided to shrink the image a bit.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
My TAS is autosaving. I check Discord. I open this new submission. I watch the video. I minimize everything to continue TASing. TAS is still autosaving. I am impatient.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
I don't often watch TASes, but as I used to own this game (cartridge is lost), I decided to watch this (I actually considered TASing the game too but didn't get around to it; I can see I'd have given up very quickly, looking at the amount of routing needed...). Was a blast to watch so I'm voting yes, GG :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Link to video
Finally started a serious 102% TAS. This is 70.051 seconds faster than Avanor's TAS. It is likely even faster, as he has to enter a gyrocopter in order to reach 2-1, losing even more time.
About the banana coin route: yes, it is about 15 frames faster to grab the last banana coin in 1-2 rather than the one in the first 1-1 bonus. I chose the latter as speed/entertainment trade off. I mean, it's way cooler than just jumping once, lol.
Enjoy the WIP.
27k rerecords so far, all just for world 1.
Edit:
Also, here is a Spreadsheet that I use for the TAS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tDbmGN11yZYPfsP2Q1iZV91SMPtYKq7bmRUQYhPSDSA/edit?usp=sharing
I am currently 3:05 ahead after 34 minutes of gameplay. Sub 2 hours is looking to be likely... You can also find my submission notes for the TAS, so you can already see what the level-by-level comments look like, lol.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player
(146)
Joined: 9/27/2015
Posts: 106
Hi. A few years ago I, EZGames69 and illayaya TASed Donkey Kong Country 2 for the GBA. A complaint I remember seeing a bit is the warps make the first two worlds incredibly repetitive. I had the idea that maybe I can do Any% like I was already doing, but I also do the entirety of worlds 1 and 2 completely warpless, for the entertainment purposes.
Now, if I do that, is such a run eligible for publication? And if so, would it obsolete the current published run or would it end up being a new branch? For reference, the only thing that changes is the first two worlds, so it adds maybe up to 5 minutes of extra gameplay. The rest of the run is entirely unchanged and is completely comparable to the Any% branch, aside from slightly different RNG. It would however make the first two worlds a lot more entertainment, especially in the fourth level which has a glitch that can only be demonstrated in a "Warpless" run. 102% can not demonstrate it unfortunately.
Edit: It should also be worth mentioning that it is resyncable to an Any% run, in case people would prefer to watch the Any% run as a secondary encode if such a Warpless run were to be accepted. Don't really know how that goes, but I would at least post a secondary encode in the submission text that has the Any% version of the TAS.
(I hope this doesn't break the site, I already resized the image lol)
Let's make something like this come true for April Fools 2030. Replace the repeats with actual usernames that don't repeat once. (In the image there are 550ish names listed, and reaches 4950 characters)
Edited by feos: I decided to shrink the image a bit.