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This is a TAS of Cave Story (Doukutsu Monogatari) for Windows.

Game objectives / info

  • Emulator used: None. But I used Hourglass 77
  • Game version: [dead link removed], without translation patch.
  • Gets best ending
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes damage to save time

About the game

Cave Story is a free Windows game. It is very fun (way up there with Super Mario Bros. 3, in my opinion) and well-made (albeit quite "retro"). I suggest reading about it here, and then downloading it from here and playing it, if you haven't played it yet. And all of your usual excuses for not playing it are invalid: It's free to download (legally), it has been translated to English and several other languages (in case you don't read Japanese), and it has been ported to Mac OS and Linux (if you don't use Windows).
The actual gameplay has similarities to Metroid, including upgrades throughout the game. You can also think of it as a platformer action game with RPG elements (somewhat like Popful Mail, for example), but with more shooting than slashing. But really, it's its own unique mix of things.

Why I made this movie

As you can probably tell from the above, I appreciate this game, and so I thought it deserved to have a good TAS made of it (and I was certain the game is deep enough for that to be possible). I even made Hourglass partly for this purpose (although for some reason I hadn't thought about TASing this game myself until recently). And it seemed like some people were holding their breath for this TAS to happen before considering other Windows games, or something like that, so I thought I'd try making a Cave Story TAS really quickly to get it over with, even though there are probably all sorts of other things I should be doing instead. It turned out I was totally wrong in thinking that it would be either fast or easy to TAS this game, but it's finally done now.

How to watch this movie

If you have a computer with Windows on it:
  • Download Hourglass r77
  • Download the game [dead link removed]
  • Unzip all three of the above things you just downloaded.
  • In the unzipped game folder, open DoConfig.exe and set it to "640x480 Windowed" (the 3rd option in the bottom box), just in case. Then click OK (2nd button from the bottom-right).
  • Open hourglass.exe.
  • Click "Browse..." on the bottom-right and browse to doukutsu.exe in the unzipped game folder.
  • Click "Browse..." on the top-right and browse to the unzipped movie file (the extension should be . or .hgm).
  • Click the "Run and Play Existing Movie" button on the bottom right, and wait a bit.
OR
  • Just watch somebody's encode, if you're feeling lazy or if you don't have Windows. I assume someone with more experience at encoding videos will upload a better one, but I put up a downloadable encode for now, which should be decent enough. Also there is a YouTube encode (thanks Dada), although I dislike how YouTube's framerate limitations make the game look so unsmooth.

Some of the Tricks Used

Jumping to control speed

Speed on the ground oscillates rather than staying capped at a maximum. By decelerating in the air, the speed can be tweaked such that the oscillation peaks at a higher value on the ground. Jumping again can then freeze the oscillation at that maximum speed until landing. This is why I tend to stay in the air as much as possible.

Horizontal Enemy Boosting

Until I get the Booster 2.0, I'm normally limited to a maximum speed of 845, but by lowering my speed to below 512 and then clipping the corner of an enemy, the enemy pushes me forward and I can reach speeds of up to 1023. This is usually very difficult to do, since it requires hitting an exact position on a moving enemy and reaching a specific velocity value at the same time. This trick is why I get hit so much early on in the game (to push myself forward faster than normal and save a bunch of frames every time). Note that it only works on certain types of enemies, because not all enemies have the type of solid collision that can push the player around.

Invulnerability Reset

Normally the player blinks for a while after getting hit and can't get hit again during that time, but some things (such as the end of a boss round) can reset the invulnerability time and allow you to immediately get hit again. Most importantly, opening the menu resets your invulnerability. This was used to get hit twice in a row by a bat to skip a bunch of backtracking in Grasstown. I didn't discover this trick.

Button Control via Menu

By opening the menu and varying what buttons I hold while closing the menu, I can cause a button to count as a new press on two consecutive frames, or alternatively, I can cause a button to go from unpressed to held without counting as a new press. This can be used to do little tricks like boost right and then boost left on the next in-game frame, or jump and then boost on the next in-game frame, or stop boosting in the air and hold jump to go higher without starting to boost again, or fire certain weapons faster than normal by in-game time. This is why I cause the menu to flicker open occasionally near the end of the movie.

Automatic weapon fire abuse

The machine gun (and the bubbler, which I don't get) support automatic fire, which means you can hold the fire button and the gun will shoot a shot every 6 frames automatially. Like all other weapons, though, you can fire it manually up to once every 4 frames. By using the pattern "press, release, press, hold, release", the two methods of firing can be mixed together, allowing 2 shots to be fired every 5 frames. And it's possible to do even better than that: By firing a different weapon and simultaneously switching to the machine gun and holding fire for another frame, the other weapon will fire on the "press" and the machine gun will fire on the "hold", and two frames later the other weapon will be ready to fire again, which means you can shoot 2 shots every 4 frames if one of them is from the machine gun.

Optional Items Acquired

Life Expansion (+3)

  • This lets me survive 3-damage and 5-damage hits, and do damage boosts a little more often.
  • I get the very first one in the game, and skip all others after that since they were determined not to help any further in a TAS.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 20+ seconds.

Missile Launcher

  • This has high damage output, which saves time on several bosses.
  • It starts with only 10 missiles and runs out of ammo fast, but luck manipulation makes that not a problem.
  • Getting this is a requirement for getting the Super Missile Launcher later, which is even better.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 6+ seconds plus the benefits of Super Missiles.

Machine Gun

  • High damage, lets me fly, AND manipulates luck well.
  • This goes well with the Booster 2.0 too, letting me move diagonally while still boosting at full speed.
  • Automatic and manual fire can be mixed to fire it super fast and/or overlay damage over another weapon by firing in-between its shots.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 200+ seconds minus whatever much smaller amount might be saved by getting the Snake or Spur later on.

Super Missile Launcher

  • Extremely high damage output, and the longest-ranged weapon.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 30+ seconds.

Missile Expansion (+5)

  • I grab one of these since it's directly in my path and doesn't play the long "got item" tune either.
  • It came in handy a couple of times, but I think it basically just broke even.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 0 seconds.

Missile Expansion (+24)

  • This lets me spam super missiles in the last couple of boss fights.
  • Rough time estimate: saved 5+ seconds.

Boss Fights

Igor

  • I only have the Polar Star at this point, so I just shoot it as fast as possible.

Balrog 2

  • By now I have the Fireball, which does more damage per shot than the Polar Star, so I shoot fireballs as fast as possible instead.

Balfrog

  • Defeated in 2 rounds.
  • The trick here is to wait a few frames for him to stop shaking so he doesn't instantly close his mouth when I do enough damage, then use all of my weapons together (missiles included) to force extra damage through before the next time he checks his health again in a few frames.

Curly

  • She's immune to missiles, so I use my next strongest weapon at this point, fireballs.
  • The mimigas love to get in the way, but I managed to avoid wasting any shots on them.
  • The way I fight Curly should get me killed, but I stay 1 pixel away from her "shoot up" triggerbox.

Omega

  • Defeated in first round (before he goes underground)
  • This is the first boss fight where I have the machine gun.
  • I mix 2-shots-per-5-frames machinegun fire with 2-shots-per-4-frames fireball+machinegun fire.
  • I could kill this boss faster by standing closer to it, but then I'd have to walk further to get out of the boss room, which would take longer.

Toroko+

  • I use up all of my missiles, and shoot mixed machinegun+fireball in-between those.
  • She has good aim with those blocks, which would kill me instantly, so I take damage beforehand to avoid wasting time dodging them.

Pooh Black

  • Defeated in first round (before he jumps up)
  • First boss fight where I have the Blade, which does a lot of the damage here although that happens too fast to see it.
  • I don't level up the Blade before this fight, because the level 2 Blade does much less damage here than the level 1 Blade (because of the black bubble shield he has).
  • Like Omega, I could kill this boss faster, but it's more important to head towards the door first since I need to leave the room after the fight.

Monster X

  • Defeated in 3 rounds. 5 or more rounds would be normal.
  • Similar strategy to the Balfrog fight, except I don't have to wait for him to stop shaking.

Balrog 4

  • Mixed level 2 sword + level 3 machinegun makes this a very loud (and fast) battle.

The Core

  • Defeated in 3 rounds. 5 or more rounds would be normal.
  • This boss slowly drifts to a position to the right of you, so I have to move around in a weird way to keep him in reach of my shots.
  • I drowned as early as I could while still beating the boss in 3 rounds. Maybe there's a way to get in the water a lot faster and still do enough damage in round 1, but I couldn't find it.

Ironhead

  • I can't aim in this boss fight, which makes it hard to do enough damage before he escapes to the right.
  • He moves too fast for missiles to work well (since he outruns the explosions), but they still help a little in a TAS.
  • He enters the fight after what seems to be a random delay, but I managed to make him appear pretty early.
  • Touching him is deadly, but his collision shape is wierd.

Ma Pignon

  • Over in 2 seconds with mixed machinegun + fireball.
  • This boss is immune to both missiles and swords.

Red Demon

  • Just passing through...

Misery

  • Defeated in 4 rounds.
  • Hitting her with 3 fireballs and a sword and a machine gun shot on the same frame is not easy, but I have to do really concentrated damage in a single frame at the beginning and end of each round in order to force this much damage through. Normally she only takes 80-ish damage per round, not 147.

The Doctor

  • Thanks to super missiles and the blade, he barely gets a chance to move either time. Usually he teleports around at least once.

Undead Core

  • Defeated in 5 rounds.
  • This is similar to the Misery fight in strategy, but missiles are more helpful here, since there's a larger surface area and a lower damage cap per round (I do 126 damage per 50-damage round, which is a lot of extra damage for a 2-frame window).
  • The Core waits for Sue/Misery to fall before starting round 2 (unless I wait a really long time), so I can't just ignore them. It isn't necessary to kill both of them though, but I did that anyway since there was enough extra time between rounds.

Heavy Press

  • More close-range super missile spam, combined with rapid fire support from Curly's Nemesis.

Ballos

  • I start the second stage far to the left so that the third stage will be as short as possible, since he has to reach the middle of the chamber in order to start the last stage.
  • The last form is super weak to super missiles. Good thing too, because I would take 10 damage if it took a little longer to kill him, and I don't have enough health to survive that.

Things that look like mistakes but aren't

Q: Why do you jump before giving Santa the key in Grasstown?
A: Because it's faster. If I stayed on the ground I would decelerate quickly, if I landed earlier I would decelerate earlier, and if I jumped lower I would pass too close to the corner and slow down. Santa does not wait for me to land on the ground.
Q: Why do you push against walls sometimes instead of perfectly clipping the corner?
A: Because Quote can still accumulate and maintain a certain amount (384) of speed while pushing against a wall. It doesn't reset speed to 0 in that case. If I can exceed 384 speed before reaching the corner then I'll do that instead of pushing against the wall, otherwise it's faster to push against it to have a better subpixel position upon clearing it.
Q: Why do you sometimes not "pre-jump" before falling over edges?
A: Because Quote can decelerate much faster on the ground than in the air, so in cases where I need to turn around (or avoid going forward) after dropping down a short distance, it's faster to slow down on the ground as much as possible before starting to fall.
Q: Why don't you shoot the machine gun up more to go faster downward?
A: Because I'm already falling as fast as possible. (Or, in certain rare situations, because I already have 5 shots in the air and can't shoot any more.) There is 1 actual mistake in Mimiga Village which I found after this TAS was submitted, but it only loses 1 or 2 frames (insignificant compared to the gains that someone making an improvement to this TAS should attempt to find) and isn't a systematic error.
Q: Why don't you use the booster more when you're going straight down?
A: Because boosting down sets me to maximum falling speed instantly. Boosting down for more than 1 frame would do nothing but waste fuel. It also prevents me from accelerating horizontally while doing so.
Q: Why don't you damage boost off of more types of enemies? For example, the purple critters in the Labyrinth.
A: Because they don't have collision I can boost off of. Despite looking like a palette swap of a different enemy that I can boost from, the purple critters don't have solid collision. Getting hit by enemies with non-solid collision can boost me upward, but never horizontally.
Q: What about the enemies you can damage boost off of? You skip them sometimes.
A: Early on, sometimes I skip them for health-management or weapon-experience-management reasons. Sometimes I skip them because they are in such an awkward position to damage boost from that it would actually be slower. Sometimes it looks like I skip them but actually don't (for example, I often boost off of 2 different enemies per time I get hit in Grasstown).
Q: Why do I sometimes see fireballs disappearing on their own instead of hitting an enemy?
A: Because they're a "piercing" type weapon if they hit an enemy without expending all of their damage potential, so they do their damage and then continue on and disappear later.
Q: Why do you shoot the machine gun so much even when you don't need it for air control? Sometimes you even shoot it horizontally at nothing.
A: Because every shot from the machine gun advances the RNG (random number generator), and I need to manipulate luck a lot.
Q: Why do you go to all that trouble with the Mimiga mask just to get them to move a stepping stool outside? Couldn't you have reached the Last Cave without it?
A: Because (unfortunately) the game has explicit sequence breaking prevention here: The door refuses to open until the rocket is functional, whether I need to use it or not.

Stage by stage comments

I made some commentary subtitles instead, so I could explain things as they're happening in the movie. I'm guessing you'll be able to find an encode of the movie that comes with subtitles in some way (if you're on YouTube, try clicking on the button that enables closed captioning), but the original subtitles file is here [dead link removed] in a format that most video players can display.

Some times

  • Total movie time: 50:10
  • Time until final boss dies: 48:51
  • Total in-game time: 27'14"4
  • In-game time in : 2'04"1

Memory addresses watched

  • 0049E66C d s 0 X velocity
  • 0049E670 d s 0 Y velocity
  • 0049E654 d u 0 X pos
  • 0049E658 d s 0 Y pos
  • 0049E664 d s 0 X cam offset
  • 0049E660 w s 0 Y cam offset
  • 0049E6B0 d h 0 flags
  • 0049E6CC w s 0 health
  • 0049E6E8 d s 0 booster fuel
  • 00499BCC b u 0 weapon 1 level
  • 00499BD0 b u 0 weapon 1 xp
  • 00499BE0 b u 0 weapon 2 level
  • 00499BE4 b u 0 weapon 2 xp
  • 00499BF4 b u 0 weapon 3 level
  • 00499BF8 b u 0 weapon 3 xp
  • 00499C08 b u 0 weapon 4 level
  • 00499C0C b u 0 weapon 4 xp
  • 0049E1EC d u 0 framecounter
  • 004A5ADC b s 0 event status
  • 004A5B00 d s 0 wait length
  • 004A5AFC d s 0 waited frames
  • 00499C00 w s 0 missiles
  • 00499BD8 w s 0 machinegun ammo
  • 004A5554 w s 0 mgunrefillcounter
  • 0049E650 w h 0 equipped
  • 004ADC74 d s 0 bat1ypos
  • 004AE684 d u 0 basilx
  • 004AE68C d s 0 basilxvel
  • 004B1950 d s 0 jelly time
  • 004B1980 d s 0 jelly dmg
  • 004B1920 d u 0 jelly hp
  • 004BBC9C w s 0 monsterxhp1
  • 004BBDF4 w s 0 monsterxhp2
  • 004BBD48 w s 0 monsterxhp3
  • 004BBEA0 w s 0 monsterxhp4
  • 004AE484 w u 0 fan1ypos
  • 004AEAC4 w u 0 door4hp
  • 004BBA60 w u 0 corex
  • 004BBA64 w u 0 corey
  • 004BBA6C w s 0 coreyvel
  • 004BBA98 w u 0 corehp
  • 004BBA3C w s 0 coreroundstarthp
  • 004AD748 w s 0 miseryhp
  • 004AD778 w s 0 miseryroundstarthp
  • 004AD8A0 w s 0 suehp
  • 004AD7F4 w s 0 miserytransformedhp
  • 004B1314 w s 0 deleet1hp
  • 004B13C0 w s 0 deleet2hp
  • 004BBA98 w s 0 heavypresshp
  • 004AD748 d s 0 ballos1hp

Possible improvements:

  • Several things such as killing certain bosses quickly or getting certain damage boosts are so hard to pull off that there is most likely some way to improve them at least a little. I don't see further reducing the number of rounds of any boss as being possible, though. (Actually, Misery could be 3-rounded if you can hit her with an extra blade and 6 super missile explosions on the last 2 frames of every round. But I don't know if that's really possible, and it would require getting more xp in the Last Cave and using fewer missiles against the Doctor, so it might not be significantly faster.)
  • The level 1 super missile can be shot through a wall to skip a countdown in the third room of . I'm not sure how this could save time, because by that point I'm starving for doritos for my super missiles and that area has the most xp, which takes as much time to collect as the countdown takes. But maybe there's some completely different strategy that would make it possible to save a little time here.
  • These might not really save time, but some other things to try are: skipping the +5 missiles, using left+right in the omega battle, ending closer to the door after balfrog, taking damage from different enemies in egg corridor.
  • If aiming for in-game time, which I wasn't, then more tricks with the menu could be used (including unequipping the booster in some places to preserve full boosting speed).

Other comments

  • Thanks to Upthorn for supporting winTASer (now Hourglass) and making a test run of Cave Story with it. And watching my WIPs, and advising me that the missile launcher and health upgrade are worth getting (which turned out to be completely correct), and other help.
  • Thanks to the various speedrunners and (mainly on nicovideo) TASers, who found tricks I was able to use.
Mukki: Judging...
Mukki: A superb piece of work. Accepting for publication.

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Posted: 10/25/2011 10:48 PM
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DrJones
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
There's also some variations in these endings in that you can choose not to return the mimiga mask and instead fight the undead core with just jetpack 1.0, and that you can pick a tiny man and forget to return him to his home at the end of the game.
No.
Posted: 10/25/2011 10:54 PM
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Nitrodon
Active player (287)
Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 341
I've played through this game a couple times, and I must say that this run is very impressive. My mind is very much blown. Yes vote. One question, though: in Grasstown, when you reach the trigger to give Santa the key, you are off the ground and traveling upward. If my memory doesn't suck, the text waits for you to land, and thus it looks like you lose time here. At the very least, I know that I always make sure to land on that block before hitting the trigger.
Dada wrote:
Two questions: right before you hitchhike a lift on that flying creature (before Sue gets beat up by Igor), would it be possible to manipulate it so that the creature flies a bit lower, allowing you to move even further into the level? Also: in Hell, after the first boss, if you allow yourself to get hit (and invulnerable), you can clip through the hole in the ground (the part of the ground that's about to collapse), before the big block falls through. I suppose there's no enemy around to get the invulnerability from?
1. Those two flying creatures fly at a fixed height range, so there is no way to do as you suggest. 2. If you look closely, you'll see he does this anyway. You can't go through before the Heavy Press breaks the hole in the ground either way.
Posted: 10/26/2011 12:29 AM
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wekhter
Joined: 7/22/2010
Posts: 53
Wow. I haven't finished watching yet, but I wanted to say that this:
TASVideoAgent wrote:
Hitting her with 3 fireballs and a sword and a machine gun shot on the same frame is not easy
is probably the most impressive piece of submission text I've ever read.
ais523 wrote:
Is 100% an interesting category for this game, incidentally?
As much as the words "Cave Story 100% TAS" excite me, it's not entirely possible; three of the weapons in the game are mutually exclusive. The machinegun is only received if you trade the polar star (first gun). By trading away the polar star you can no longer get the snake or the spur (snake = polar star + fireball, spur = polar star upgrade). You can get the snake if you skip the machinegun, but at that point you're skipping the machinegun, so then what does 100% mean?
Posted: 10/26/2011 12:31 AM
(Edited: 10/26/2011 12:37 AM)
Quote
Dada
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Just a reminder that the Youtube encode is now ready: Link to video Naturally, I voted yes.
Posted: 10/26/2011 12:37 AM
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Sonikkustar
Skilled player (1326)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Sega TASer of 2021 Sega TAS of 2021 Sega TASer of 2011 Sega TAS of 2011
Does this mean that nitsuja is back into the TASing buisness? Because this TAS certaintly was awesome.
Homepage SVN
Posted: 10/26/2011 12:50 AM
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Radiant
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
Favorite parts: zipping through Final Cave Hidden at the speed of sound (for those unfamiliar with the game, this is easily the nastiest level other than Sacred Grounds), and obliterating almost every boss within half a second. The boss music is awesome, but you don't get to hear it in this TAS. Oh, and also how every enemy gets killed just for style points, especially those where you're already moving on to the next part and a stray fireball just happens to toast the last enemy. I'm not sure a 100% run would be worth seeing, even aside from the Spur/Snake/Machinegun dilemma mentioned above. There's a bunch of items to collect, most of which health powerups, and all are right next to the main route, excepting the Spur and Snake. There's just not much more to see after this awesomeness (well, except for the Sisters, but that'd add just half a second of playtime).
Indie game developer
Posted: 10/26/2011 1:09 AM
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Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4043
Absolutely awesome.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Posted: 10/26/2011 4:26 AM
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nitsuja
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Computer TASer of 2011 TAS of 2011 First edition TAS of 2011 Computer TAS of 2011 Sega TAS of 2010 Sega TAS of 2008 Sega TAS of 2007 Glitchy TAS of 2007
Derakon wrote:
Nitsuja: any idea what your time would be for the hell run?
It was 2'04"1 in this run, but I know that could go lower if I were aiming specifically to minimize that time.
moozooh wrote:
For instance, does shooting machine gun upwards give a small downwards boost? It looked so, but wasn't used everywhere you needed to hit ground down faster.
It does give a downward boost, but only before reaching the terminal velocity of 1535, which happens pretty quickly. (Any specific examples?)
moozooh wrote:
Then, there were many enemies you could seemingly take a damage boost off of, but didn't. Not completely sure why either.
Like which enemies? There are multiple reasons why I might not damage boost from any given enemy, the most common one being that it's impossible because that enemy doesn't have solid collision.
Nicos wrote:
btw, why 640x480 ? the tas ran just fine for me in full screen mode...
Because certain video drivers are incompatible with the way Cave Story renders in fullscreen mode when running in Hourglass. For most people it won't help to change that option, but I put it there just in case.
Dada wrote:
right before you hitchhike a lift on that flying creature (before Sue gets beat up by Igor), would it be possible to manipulate it so that the creature flies a bit lower, allowing you to move even further into the level?
I don't think it's possible. I tried it for a while, but even when standing on the lowest ground nearby, it seems to never fly low enough for that.
Dada wrote:
in Hell, after the first boss, if you allow yourself to get hit (and invulnerable), you can clip through the hole in the ground (the part of the ground that's about to collapse), before the big block falls through. I suppose there's no enemy around to get the invulnerability from?
There's no enemy around, and I wouldn't have enough health leftover to fight the first form of Ballos as quickly if I took a hit here, and what I did instead is almost as fast anyway (it's not as if I waited for the boss to fall past before jumping in). EDIT: I missed Nitrodon's comments somehow.
Nitrodon wrote:
I've played through this game a couple times
This is such an innocuous statement that I almost forgot to check who it was coming from.
Nitrodon wrote:
in Grasstown, when you reach the trigger to give Santa the key, you are off the ground and traveling upward. If my memory doesn't suck, the text waits for you to land, and thus it looks like you lose time here.
He actually doesn't wait for you to land, and it would have been slower to land first in my case. As far as I know, all waiting periods in the game are simply counting down a number of frames (and in some cases skipping the wait if you mash Z/X) no matter what it looks like they're waiting for, so it doesn't matter where you are or where the camera is when you get there.
Posted: 10/26/2011 6:58 AM
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agwawaf
Experienced player (766)
Joined: 12/20/2009
Posts: 120
Rookie of 2011 SNES TASer of 2011
Great job, nitsuja. The most important thing is a making Hourglass. Also, this is nice TAS. It was easy for me to vote YES to your work!
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:05 AM
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Warp
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Btw, what happened to the (admittedly not-absolutely-strict) rule that the English version of a game should be preferred unless there's a good reason not to? Or was it so that the English translation is not "official"? (I have played the game, but I don't remember if the English version was "official" or a third-party translation.)
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:24 AM
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Wishgatherer
Joined: 10/26/2011
Posts: 7
The translation for the original Windows version of Cave Story is not official. However, a port for the Nintendo Wii was made with an official translation. (As well as "updated graphics" and remixed music(?). Some players, myself included, are not partial to this official translation for a multitude of reasons. Most prominently: "Huzzah!" - Fan translation. Very famous catch phrase of Balrog. (The toaster/lunch box.) "Oh yeah!" - Official translation. Mr. Kool-Aid knockoff? Bleh. Edit: On the topic of 100% runs. Why not take the "Polar Star Challenge" for a spin? Minimal items are obtained, and the Polar Star is the only usable weapon. It would probably be classed a low% run. May be boring to watch, though.
Posted: 10/26/2011 8:46 AM
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franpa
Joined: 2/25/2006
Posts: 407
I'd rather an english translation, using the unofficial translation. Aeon Genesis is best troop for translations.
Ryzen 3700X, ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard, 32GB 3600MHz RAM, MSI Geforce 1070Ti 8GB, Windows 10 Pro x64 http://tasvideos.org/Nach/FranpaAlert.html
Posted: 10/26/2011 9:01 AM
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Mastania
He/Him
Joined: 5/30/2009
Posts: 135
Location: Top of the pops
This exists and I totally just watched it Added my vote to the "Yes" cavalcade.
Waddle Waggle Wattle
Posted: 10/26/2011 9:23 AM
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klmz
Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (2157)
Joined: 5/22/2007
Posts: 1134
Location: Glitchvania
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Wishgatherer wrote:
"Oh yeah!" - Official translation. Mr. Kool-Aid knockoff? Bleh.
Wasn't it a popularized phrase in some English-speaking regions (Hong Kong?) decades ago? Anyhow, I don't think the language version matters much here.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
Posted: 10/26/2011 1:21 PM
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hegyak
Editor
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris
Yes from me. It's kinda slow at first, but once you have two weapons, all hell breaks loose.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
Posted: 10/26/2011 3:21 PM
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AnS
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (728)
Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Simply awesome. This should definitely steal a star from some popular Nintendo game.
Posted: 10/26/2011 3:49 PM
(Edited: 10/29/2011 11:23 PM)
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nitsuja
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Computer TASer of 2011 TAS of 2011 First edition TAS of 2011 Computer TAS of 2011 Sega TAS of 2010 Sega TAS of 2008 Sega TAS of 2007 Glitchy TAS of 2007
Warp wrote:
Btw, what happened to the (admittedly not-absolutely-strict) rule that the English version of a game should be preferred unless there's a good reason not to? Or was it so that the English translation is not "official"? (I have played the game, but I don't remember if the English version was "official" or a third-party translation.)
franpa wrote:
I'd rather an english translation, using the unofficial translation. Aeon Genesis is best troop for translations.
Originally I was going to use the English translation, but I decided not to because:
  • There are some existing TASes of the Japanese version, such as this and this. They aren't published here, but using the same version makes it easier to compare (for me and for them).
  • I'd say it's not an "official" translation. This is arguable because the game's author supported the translation, but it seems he didn't request or otherwise instigate it. Also, neither the game's author nor the game's translators provide the English version as a standalone download, it must be applied as a patch or acquired elsewhere. I think it's a good translation and of course I could link to some pre-patched version or ask people to apply the patch, but I think it would be harder to convince people that both versions have been released in equally official capacity.
  • It would decrease the ratio of gameplay to movie length. (And I suspect that the part where I surprise the Doctor into falling off the balcony wouldn't happen in the English version.) This probably isn't a good reason on its own under normal circumstances, but both version choices have drawbacks anyway and it certainly doesn't hurt that it's faster.
That being said, I wanted to create a "translation" of this TAS to the English version, but the random numbers that get generated are different between versions so I would have to completely redo a lot of sections, and the gameplay would have visible differences all over as a result. But the main reason I haven't done this anyway is that it would take a significant amount of extra time and I didn't see a reason to further delay this TAS. Hmm, maybe it would be easier to create subtitles containing parts of the aeon genesis translation for every screen of text.
Posted: 10/26/2011 4:09 PM
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Rolanmen1
He/Him
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Joined: 2/20/2009
Posts: 569
Location: Dominican Republic
PSX TAS of 2013
In my opinion, the situation would be exactly the same as some ROMs. There are some games only released in J and there are some translations patches for them, but the judges won't accept a run of a patched ROM. Knowing this, i don't think this game should be treated differently. I fully support this in J instead of an un-official translation patched game, i fucking salute you with a fucking yes vote.
Posted: 10/26/2011 4:46 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Subtitles would be nice to have, if someone's willing to make the effort. I wonder if it'd be possible to identify a mapping of original strings to translated strings; if so, it should be possible to automatically produce the appropriate subtitle at the right time by identifying which original string is being displayed.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 10/26/2011 5:11 PM
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Lex
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The Aeon Genesis translation is official though. Pixel himself even helped with and approved it directly. It says so in the readme: 
---------------
3.Patch Credits
---------------
THE CAVE STORY TEAM
Main Team:
Gideon Zhi - Project leader, Hacker, Translation
Shih Tzu - Lead script translator

Special Thanks to...
--Shih Tzu, for facilitating contact with Pixel himself
--Pixel himself, for creating the game, allowing us to produce an
  English version of it, and for putting up with what must have
  seemed an awful amount of nagging questions on my part :) You've
  got the patience of a saint, and this wouldn't be done without
  you!
--sandcrab, who produced an alternate translation of the text for
  Pixel. It is, as yet, unpublished.
--Tomato & Bugcatcher, for helping out on a couple tough bits in
  the text. Cheers!
I voted the biggest "Yes" I could vote. This is the TAS I've been waiting for, and it's beautiful. By the way, I watched what you called the "temporary encode", and it looks/sounds perfect. This TAS definitely deserves 50 fps and a good video player with nearest-neighbor scaling (or better, pixellate (like maister's Cg pixellate shader), but I still haven't found a video player that can do that).
Posted: 10/26/2011 6:49 PM
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Truncated
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Arcade TAS of 2023 Sega TASer of 2021 Sega TAS of 2021
This was marvelous. :D
nitsuja wrote:
It does give a downward boost, but only before reaching the terminal velocity of 1535, which happens pretty quickly. (Any specific examples?)
The one that stood out to me was around 32:35 in the encode, but then you are under water so the different maximum velocity might be what's fooling me.
Posted: 10/26/2011 6:56 PM
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Kuwaga
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
Strong yes vote. But I don't necessarily agree that this should be starred, as the overall densitiy of speed tricks/glitches seems to be very low, neither are there any serious sequence breaks incorporated. It's just an amazing display of superhuman controls, which isn't enough for me to warrant a star. Except to maybe promote further Hourglass runs. That would be an idea. Or maybe it should get a star because he wrote the emulator as well, but I'm not sure if that is a valid reason.
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:20 PM
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Jungon
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Player (50)
Joined: 4/2/2009
Posts: 376
Location: Porto Alegre - Brazil
I want to vote Hell Yeah, where is the Hell Yeah option? >_>
Radiant wrote:
I'm not sure a 100% run would be worth seeing, even aside from the Spur/Snake/Machinegun dilemma mentioned above. There's a bunch of items to collect, most of which health powerups, and all are right next to the main route, excepting the Spur and Snake. There's just not much more to see after this awesomeness (well, except for the Sisters, but that'd add just half a second of playtime).
Maybe it should be categorized as "Machinegun" ... because they're really 3 different paths... others would be "Spur" and "Snake", but ... Snake would make Quote lose a good amount of fire power, probably, making two weapons into one.. x_x and Spur.. I don't think it's fast enough since it needs a lot of charging... but, I'm not looking at the situation TASistically.. >.>
Wishgatherer wrote:
Edit: On the topic of 100% runs. Why not take the "Polar Star Challenge" for a spin? Minimal items are obtained, and the Polar Star is the only usable weapon. It would probably be classed a low% run. May be boring to watch, though.
I would like to see a "Bubbler" challenge, that weapon is extremely hard to use and to keep level 3... XD
hegyak wrote:
Yes from me. It's kinda slow at first, but once you have two weapons, all hell breaks loose.
I don't think even Megaman could equal this amount of different weapon shooting in his games... +D
*Jungon*/*Johnnyz* smilie weirdo =P ^^ o.o @__@ +D
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:48 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Equipment-wise, you have the following tradeoffs: Polar Star vs. Machinegun vs. Snake vs. Spur No Missile Launcher vs. Missile Launcher vs. Super Missile Launcher Bubbler vs. no Bubbler Blade vs. Nemesis No Booster vs. Booster v1.0 vs. Booster v2.0 (NB No Booster only available from mid-Plantation onwards) Additionally there's a bunch of minor easter eggs, e.g. wearing the mimiga mask at the end (necessitates a No Booster end), but these all amount to incredibly minor dialog / graphics changes. Also, practically all of these weapon switches are not going to make a big difference in the run. Doing without the machinegun would slow the run down a lot since flight wouldn't be available until much later, meaning that Quote will have to bunnyhop across most of the game, do the jumping puzzle in the Labyrinth, etc. But is that really a good change? I guess it could be interesting to see a run that uses only the Bubbler once it's obtained, since it's such a weird weapon, but that seems an awfully strange "route choice".
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 10/26/2011 7:59 PM
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henke37
Editor
Joined: 3/10/2010
Posts: 899
Location: Sweden
Wow, what was the destruction per second ratio there? This one had so much action that it was hard to see what was going on. That's a good thing btw.
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