Recorded on Snes9x 1.43-improvement12 (but should work fine on future versions of the Snes9x 1.43 series as well)
Sync Settings
WIP 1 Timing: ON
Left+Right/Up+Down: ON
Volume Envelope Height Reading: OFF
Fake Mute desync workaround: ON
Sync samples with sound CPU: OFF
Attributes of this run
classic any% mode (without game-breaking glitches or codes)
aims for fastest ingame time (due to universal recognition, regardless of emulator)
takes damage to save time
manipulates luck
abuses minor non game-breaking glitches
Genre: Platformer
Total Frames: 141317
About the Game
Super Metroid is a classic platformer with many advanced techniques and a very fine, subpixel-based move engine. The story is about a bounty hunter called Samus who has the goal to explore a foreign planet called Zebes to find and destroy Mother Brain, the evil leader of the galaxy who is breeding a mighty species called Metroids to abuse them for her own benefits. During the journey you will find alot of items such as new ammo, energy tanks, special upgrades that speed you up or allow to pass certain areas you would normally not be able to, and making your character strong enough to be ready for the upcoming showdown against Mother Brain.
Despite being over 17 years old by now, it is considered as one of the best games ever made, and is still played by many people on a regular basis. Due to the many different move techniques, a high variety through the new upgrades, and alot of route possibilities, this game is a very common target for many types of speedruns and playthroughs.
Moviemaking & Comments
This is my 3rd version of the classic any% run for Super Metroid, aiming for fastest ingame time without the use of gamebreaking glitches or cheat codes. With a once again reworked route and improved techs and boss strategies I developed in many places of the run, the completion time is finally down to 0:22:38, breaking the 0:23 mark that was long time considered to be the TAS limit for a gamebreaking-free run.
feos: Added HD encode link (check the new encoding method!)
adelikat: Accepting for publication as a restoration of the in-game any branch. The publisher of the submission will probably not have the ability to edit the obsoletion chain, but I will make sure it claims the in-game obsoletion from the currently published movie.
The RGB version looks broken in my VLC. It has strange green color.
Same. VLC, MPC-HC, and Windows Media Player all had green stuff, while SMplayer and KM Player were staticy. What codec was used?
I guess I should have been explicit about this, but RGB in h264 is very poorly supported. It is implemented as yuv444 + a custom color matrix specified in the file, but if the player does not support color matrices the colors will look wrong, of course. And to be honest, I don't know of any players that do support this (I used a specially patched version of mplayer2).
The symptoms of not understanding the color matrix is that things look mostly green. If things look mostly gray, that is an indication that the player does not support yuv444 either.
I am uploading a more compatible yuv420-version here now. It should be done in about an hour.
I do have a question, though. How much time do the High Jump Boots and Plasma Beam save? Would grabbing the Spazer for the Murder Beam save time?
Together around 25 seconds with all circumstances included. Getting Spazer for murderbeam is pretty exactly same fast in ingame, but much slower in realtime.
amaurea wrote:
1. When exiting Phantoon's room, 6 frames are lost, but 5 are then regained during the next room due to higher speed exiting the room, for a total of 1 frame lost. Was this in order to gather more drops from Phantoon?
2. When crossing the lava seahorse room at 8:14, you do not roll through the lava like Kriole&Taco do. This seems to cost about 29 frames. Did the Hi-Jump boots make the lower route too slow?
3. In the first room in lower norfair you lose 5 frames by having lower speed than Taco&Kriole, who start by going left to build up speed. Was this also due to Hi-Jump boots?
1. Right, it was to get more drops.
2. Mockball is skipped to get 2 more refills in favor of the slower pipe bug refills after Speed Booster.
3. Yes.
hero of the day wrote:
My main concern with this run is that it might not be using the best in-game route. I don't know if Saturn looked into this or not, but I am pretty sure it would have been much faster to skip the plasma beam, and instead get the 2nd PB pack in red brinstar. This would give Samus a full 15 pbs for the PB wave combos on mother brain.
I tested this. The 3PB pack route is definitely not much faster. Even with 15 PB combos, you'd still lose more than a half minute on MB, which combined with the 3rd PB pack detour is pretty exactly same fast as the Plasma detour. I think showing more of the game by traveling through additional rooms and introducing the strongest beam instead of standing in the corner doing repetitive PB combos for the same amount of time is more entertaining though, hence that route choice.
hero of the day wrote:
Another thing that bothered me was why the lower route was taken when exiting the highjump boots area. I thought going towards the missile pack is faster.
The lower route gets you an additional Super Missile for the skipped pack, which can later be used to open a Missile door faster to even it out, while saving a lot of realtime from the item screen as well.
hero of the day wrote:
I also don't like how pause screens were used to save less than 1 second of in-game time. De-equiping the speed booster is a good example.
The pause screen is well justified. Have a look at amaurea's comparison from 9:00 till 9:20. It not only saves ~2,5 seconds, but also 20 HP from the skipped damage boost and shinespark, while also getting an additional PB refill.
I think, in addition to all the current listing methods, a listing by game (like SpeedDemosArchive has) would be perfect for games with lots of categories.
Joined: 7/30/2006
Posts: 208
Location: Alefgard, USA
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I apologize if I'm posting a little late in this party, but I voted yes, and here is my reasoning why.
I think it's more impressive to see the 00:22 at the end of the game than the 00:23 in the current movie.
Most people will watch this encode on Youtube anyway, and I don't think most people will care if the old movie Youtube length was 42:56 and this movie is 43:23 (including the short 3 second intro made by Saturn).
When a game has an in-game timer, and emphasizes the in-game timer by actually SHOWING it to you at the finale, I think preference should go to the in-game time movie.
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It's kinda unfair how some people are treating this submission, imo. I've counted at least 5 "no" votes from members who said this movie should not be published due to the fact that the game goes for in-game time, and these 5 votes are just the ones from people who posted their votes, there's probably more. Also there was at least 3 or 4 people who said that they liked the run, that it was well done, but abstained from voting because they didn't want to dive in the realtime vs in-game time discussion.
adelikat wrote:
Prior to the current publication we had the in-game time and real time any% runs published along side each other. I personally would be open to restoring that situation.
It seems to me that restoring the cathegory isn't an issue, like the site manager said. Imo, this submission should be treated like an improvement. People should just judge the run seeing if it acomplishes the goals set by the TASer, if the run is well optimized and if it's entertaining, and vote based on that.
Anyway, i know each one has his rights and can vote whatever they want, but it just seems to me that people are seeing this submission in a wrong way.
Unfortunatelly for this game, in any% runs, it's not possible to achieve the best in-game time and the best realtime possible in the same run.
It seems to me that restoring the cathegory isn't an issue, like the site manager said. Imo, this submission should be treated like an improvement. People should just judge the run seeing if it acomplishes the goals set by the TASer, if the run is well optimized and if it's entertaining, and vote based on that.
Just because adelikat is open to the idea doesn't mean that it needs to happen.
Additionally, the motivation behind this movie seems to be primarily one of trolling. Saturn seems to revel in posting controversial and borderline movies. It's been mentioned before in this thread that Saturn has movies that would be accepted if he submitted them, but he doesn't submit them because he's rather submit something like this so he can get a lot of attention.
Honestly, were I a judge I'd be borderline about accepting this movie for only that reason.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Joined: 11/26/2010
Posts: 454
Location: New York, US
I definitely wouldn't call it trolling because he puts a lot of time into it and makes very well optimized TASes. That's going way to far to be trolling. Yea he has posted a PAL TAS of this game but, to be honest it was quite enjoyable. NTSC and PAL have many differences in gameplay and it can also be a great reference to PAL Speed Runners (Christopher "Giganotabehemoth87" Hill). As an NTSC speed runner of this game its good to see the differences in the PAL version. I personally would love to see a 100% TAS of the PAL version just for reference alone. The GT Code TAS is a great reference for speed runners as well because SDA considers it a glitched run. I believe Saturn submits TASes like that not only for entertainment and a breath of fresh air, but they're also meant to help out the speed running community. If he submits a TAS and it gets rejected its still in the archives for reference for both TASers and Speed Runners.
Also recently on these forums under Super Metroid. I asked Saturn what he was planning next and he said Any% Runs for both Super Metroid and Super Metroid Redesign. So its not like he is refusing to submit his Super Metroid Redesign. Its still a work in progress.
I agree with 4N6. Submissions like this have too much love and effort put into thm to be called trolling. In fact, this is by far the most optimized SM run to date: I have compared it to the recent published TASes using the new version of amaurea's ghost script, and Saturn gains seconds on all of them regardless of the item set (I can post my findings later if you want). Which is a lot, considering how much effort was put into those. Judging this submission from that standpoint would come dangerously close to trespassing a very socially important rule of judging the run, not the author.
lxx4xNx6xxl wrote:
Also recently on these forums under Super Metroid. I asked Saturn what he was planning next and he said Any% Runs for both Super Metroid and Super Metroid Redesign. So its not like he is refusing to submit his Super Metroid Redesign. Its still a work in progress.
Elaborate please. You mean he's redoing SMR any%? Did SM any% refer to this run or an improvement over T&K's any%?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 11/26/2010
Posts: 454
Location: New York, US
moozooh wrote:
Elaborate please. You mean he's redoing SMR any%? Did SM any% refer to this run or an improvement over T&K's any%?
LOL. Now that you mention it, that can be very confusing because I didn't say how long ago he posted that. He posted it a couple of days before he submitted this run. So I believe he was referring to this submission.
Let it obsolete Taco's & Kriole's run, publish it alongside or reject it? I have no idea. It wasn't really entertaining to me, but that's probably from having watched too many SM runs already. So I held off my vote.
Definitely publish, whether that means obsoleting the existing run or publishing both side by side.
Besides being just a notch more fun to watch, the level of optimization in this run is simply insane, considering how fast Taco & Kriole's run is already. It would be cool to have a table of the number of frames saved/lost per room.
Besides being just a notch more fun to watch, the level of optimization in this run is simply insane, considering how fast Taco & Kriole's run is already. It would be cool to have a table of the number of frames saved/lost per room.
Unfortunately, this is impossible to tell exactly without redoing most of the rooms to make them comparable. Any data you will have otherwise will be very misleading. For instance, in tall rooms High Jump saves frames on pretty much every jump, but how much does it save each time and what would be the improvement without it? Then you also have differences in resource management, lag management, and door scrolling, the latter being especially hard to account for in many cases.
In my notes—which I've yet to finish—I've only listed obvious improvements that come from better strategy or optimization impartial to the item set. The total gain is still in the range of seconds compared to T&K's and Spoofer's run, and tens of seconds compared to Cpadolf's which followed largely the same route.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
I agree with 4N6. Submissions like this have too much love and effort put into thm to be called trolling. In fact, this is by far the most optimized SM run to date...
So, this means SM any% is improvable?
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Taco & Kriole's? Don't tell me you're surprised. :P
As I've said, Saturn gains frames on them in many different rooms, even early on. In fact, NameSpoofer showed just how many loose frames there are in the any% back when he did his Speed Booster 14%, and Saturn gains frames on Spoofer like there's no tomorrow.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Additionally, the motivation behind this movie seems to be primarily one of trolling. Saturn seems to revel in posting controversial and borderline movies. It's been mentioned before in this thread that Saturn has movies that would be accepted if he submitted them, but he doesn't submit them because he's rather submit something like this so he can get a lot of attention.
Honestly, were I a judge I'd be borderline about accepting this movie for only that reason.
So you're essentially judging the reputation of the person who submitted the movie, rather than the TAS itself? That seems like quite an unfair criteria, but hey, you're the judge.
On the other hand, it partially explains the voting. I guarantee that if some other player had submitted this exact same movie the percentage of yes votes would be higher...
I agree with 4N6. Submissions like this have too much love and effort put into thm to be called trolling. In fact, this is by far the most optimized SM run to date...
So, this means SM any% is improvable?
If you mean the glitched any%, then it should probably be improvable by something like 1-2 seconds (+/- whatever happens in the rooms with the metroids, which is impossible to predict). And then you double that amount in standard "Super Metroid is never as close to perfect as you think" fashion.
I am happy to see this run published. In fact, as emulators become closer to the real hardware in terms of lag emulation and so on, the ingame timer and TAS time will merge together a little, so we will end up accepting runs here that are slower than previous submissions, due to emulator issues. As many have stated, this is perhaps the most optimised TAS of this game to date, and while slightly slower compared to the any% by Kriole and Taco, it is a more universal time for comparison. I never did quite understand the fear of 'too many categories' that is banded around this place a lot, but it is nice to see more games get worked on instead of the same ones - but that's a factor of a game's popularity, games like Super Metroid will obviously be under a lot more scrutiny than less popular games.
So you're essentially judging the reputation of the person who submitted the movie, rather than the TAS itself? That seems like quite an unfair criteria, but hey, you're the judge.
On the other hand, it partially explains the voting. I guarantee that if some other player had submitted this exact same movie the percentage of yes votes would be higher...
To clarify, I'm not a judge, and I don't envy a judges job. I'm just a publisher.
However, it is true that "ego" movies are frowned upon, and Saturn has pretty much the largest ego and highest amount of obsession with perfection as compared to anyone else on the site that I know of. (Which is significant, because this website is the perfectionist's wet dream.)
As evidence, just over 10% of Saturn's posts contain either the word "perfect" or "optimal" as compared to (for instance) less than 1% of my posts.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Taco & Kriole's? Don't tell me you're surprised. :P
I.... I.... confess, I am. I know I shouldn't be... but it isn't even Mario 64, with 3D. 3D makes sense, there is a whole extra dimension to deal with. Its a 2D game! It should be down to 1 frame savings, like SMB! :)
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
As evidence, just over 10% of Saturn's posts contain either the word "p*rf*ct" or "*pt*m*l" as compared to (for instance) less than 1% of my posts.
... and rising ;)
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
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I think it's more impressive to see the 00:22 at the end of the game than the 00:23 in the current movie.
When a game has an in-game timer, and emphasizes the in-game timer by actually SHOWING it to you at the finale, I think preference should go to the in-game time movie.
I completely agree with this. As a metroid fanatic, time shown at the end is always more impressive than overall time... However, the debate is, should this obsolete/be published along Taco and Kriole's run right? In my opinion, it should just be published along side it, as it doesn't beat the old run in real time, and only does in in-game time.
Should definitely be published. I don't have a strong preference about whether it obsoletes the realtime run, or is published alongside it (although I'd mildly prefer the latter).
