Tekken Advance "Tag Battle" TAS
- playaround
- speed/entertainment trade-offs
- takes damage for fun
- plays on hardest difficulty
- manipulates luck
- uses glitches
Played on VBA-rr v24 svn393
The nine stages of winning the King of Iron Fist Tournament.
About history:
I first played this game a year ago, thinking it might be possible to do a decent TAS of it. Then some other game got my interest and time passed. Then I became interested in Tekken Advance again after Cooljay started posting those Tekken 3 TAS WIPs, so I grabbed my old notes and did some more research of the game, then made this TAS.
About time usage:
It took about a week's worth of research, then about a week's worth of making the actual movie.
About the game & game mode:
Well, it's a Tekken game, and it's for GBA. They've managed to capture the Tekken spirit in this one quite well, with very similar combat physics and all. A bit stripped down experience, with only 10 characters and some moves omitted, but it's still a surprisingly good fighter for a handheld console.
Tekken Advance stands out because it has Tag Battle-mode in it, something PSX Tekkens don't have. Tag Battle is basically like Arcade, except you get to choose three characters to use and switch between at any time during a match. The opponent also has three characters to use in each match. This makes a Tag Battle TAS far more versatile and entertaining than just playing normal Arcade-mode using one character.
Tekken Advance also has some unique glitches that are talked about some more down below.
About character selection:
For the first character I picked up Yoshimitsu. He is a cyber ninja I guess, with a very gimmicky (but deadly) movelist and he makes a nice candidate for playing around with. You can also give him super speed (more below).
Second character is Xiaoyu (can never get the spelling right), another trickster-type character with many different stances and potential for doing crazy stuff with.
Third character is Jin, basically the protagonist of the Tekken series, not that the plot matters here at all, a powerful dude with noteworthy juggles. He also gets super speed!
Tricks and glitches:
The most noticeable thing here is the super speed trick, done by interrupting normal movement by for example pressing down every other frame. With most characters nothing too interesting happens, but Yoshimitsu and Jin are special cases whose movement speed increases about threefold when this trick is used. You can also do a backwards slide with them, which looks nice.
It's pretty easy to manipulate the enemy in this game. Just moving differently or waiting some frames before an attack causes different results.
Starting air attacks is a bit glitchy in this game:
- If you press up for 9 frames before letting go and attacking, you get a special effect. With a punch, the character suddenly appears inside ground for a frame before landing like normal. It looks strange and also allows you to evade things that you normally shouldn't be able to. With a kick, the character does their air kick on ground level, after which their idle animation freezes up. So the use is mostly visual.
- If you press up/right or up/left for 9 frames before letting go and doing a kick, the character does their air kick on ground level but afterwards the game thinks they are crouching. This allows you to follow up the kick with "full crouch" (fc) or "while standing" (ws) moves without any delay, allowing some slightly strange combos to be done.
- doing these variations can fool the opponent to think you're jumping although you never leave the ground.
If you jump and air punch your opponent at the last possible moments before landing, the sound of the attack cuts off and in general it looks like you didn't even do an attack.
Hitting enemies after a juggle at a certain time when they're bouncing on the ground "resets" the juggle and allows you to continue longer than normal. This is used a lot by Jin in the later half of the run.
A strong impact (red flash) doesn't send the opponent flying anywhere if he is close enough to the ground. This allows to do the 100% flea combo in Stage 5.
Unlike in, say, Mortal Kombats, it's possible for characters to hit or even launch themselves simultaneously. This is used a few times in the run because it looks interesting. In some cases it's possible to speed up a slow launcher by taking damage right as you launch your enemy.
Playing style:
- Tried to show off as many moves and juggle starting moves as possible.
- If I knew the opponents had funny moves of their own, I manipulated interesting scenarios with them.
- In general I'd say that the combos turn more insane as the run progresses, culminating in a total monster combo against Heihachi from Xiaoyu.
Pointing out things in the stages:
Character selection:
- I actually pick Jin from the Random Select instead of Jin's own slot.
Stage 1, Round 1 (Hwoarang, Law, Jin)
- the jumping attack Moonsault Slayer used in a risky, nonsensical way, so that it only does its secondary hit.
- just general Xiaoyu pwnage.
Stage 1, Round 2
- Yoshimitsu's super speed demonstrated in the juggles here.
- a small graphical glitch as the flash of the impact is at a wrong place.
- evading a low hit using a glitched air attack.
- Jin has problems with symmetrical violence...
- a pretty "normal" juggle by Jin, without even utilizing super speed yet.
Stage 2, Round 1 (Paul, Law, Jin)
- I wanted to have a round where I remove the appendix of everyone involved as the first thing.
- doing a cartwheel over a character like against Jin is a rare occurence.
Stage 3, Round 1 (Gun Jack, Paul, Nina)
- some circus tricks against Gun Jack.
- at one point, Paul does the leaping move towards Jin. I had the choice to let Paul jump under Jin or interrupt the leap in a very unlikely way, but I chose the latter because it looked more domineering.
Stage 3, Round 2
- one of my favorite moments, sliding away from the dancing Gun Jack. The dissonant music suits this moment very well.
- starting to demonstrate the horrors of Jin's White Heron. It's the comboing move that starts with a low hit and (combined with super speed) allows you to stretch out juggles painfully long.
- the knee thing Xiaoyu does against Nina is a move only used for close-range stunning. It doesn't do damage and is amusing to see used in a juggle.
- catching up to escaping Nina with "Front Layout" (the jumping move).
Stage 4, Round 1 (Nina, Law, Hwoarang)
- not much to say since it is only a two-second round. Ok, so the Lightning Screw God Fist (or whatever) is used as a counterhit with messy results.
Stage 4, Round 2
- Jin's juggle starter here (Twin Lift Kick) is relatively slow, so getting hit while doing it lets you recover quicker.
- first of these pretty crazy Jin combos that utilize White Heron, Hell Sweep and super speed.
- Yoshimitsu doesn't get hit by leaning back a bit.
- in the ensuing juggle, I deliberately avoid hitting with Poison Wind's first hit to utilize the follow-up attacks better.
- Law rushes head first into the sword.
Stage 5, Round 1 (Law, Yoshimitsu, Jin)
- the fighters break into a dance.
- a glitched juggle using the grounded air kick that instantly follows up with the WS-move skyscraper kick.
- after a little bit of manipulating, the enemy Yoshimitsu goes into the Flea-mode. For some reason his A.I. seems to have shut down momentarily, and he doesn't do anything at all.
- the dreaded 100% Flea-combo against Jin. It seems he gets many appendices removed for free today...
Stage 5, Round 2
- Xiaoyu's throw is a "Class 4" juggle starter. Class 4 normally means that you can hit the opponent at ground level maybe once before he can escape. With tool-assisted Xiaoyu it means that you take away 50% of the enemy's health before he can escape.
Stage 6, Round 1 (Xiaoyu, Gun Jack, Law)
- finally, a Xiaoyu mirror match!
Stage 6, Round 2
- still a mirror match.
- the juggle here has some nice inventions. First, the enemy Xiaoyu tries to do Cyanide, which our Xiaoyu bravely interrupts with her own jumping kick. Then, there's cycling Sunset Fan and Flower Garden's first kick for a bit in an eerie looking way. However, it can't be continued infinitely.
- for some reason inching at top speed in AoP-mode towards your enemy provokes him/her to start rhythmically crouching.
Stage 7, Round 1 (King, Gun Jack, Xiaoyu)
- slightly unusual Jin juggling, using those painful Windgod Fists a lot.
Stage 7, Round 2
- some circus tricks with King (and later with Xiaoyu).
- using Yoshimitsu Flash, normally a counter attack move with zero range, in a juggle repeatedly.
Stage 8, Round 1 (Jin, Law, Nina)
- this round starts with two rather sick juggles by Jin and Yoshimitsu respectively. In the Jin combo I manage to insert hits from his 10-hit string.
Stage 8, Round 2
- I just had to finish off Law with Xiaoyu before he could escape, so I tried out different solutions before deciding on this.
Stage 9, Round 1 (Heihachi, Heihachi, Heihachi)
- yes, there are three Heihachis.
- Juggle starts from a jump punch, which is pretty unlikely.
Stage 9, Round 2
- some circus tricks with Heihachi.
- special effect of sword smash.
- because the camera is so far away, Yoshimitsu and Heihachi take extra time rolling to the side for character switch!
- Xiaoyu turns out to be the real hero of this game. (is that a 100% combo I'm seeing..?)
Special thanks go to...
- Bloodspoor's move list at GameFAQs
- Namco
- people who made VBA-rr
Miniscule thanks go to...
- Zeupar, for showing interest in the run
- Cooljay, for inspiration
Noxxa: This is a very good playaround. It manages to show off the Tekken gameplay and engine quite well, and abuse it. The character selection was good, with three very different characters spicing up the run in a very nice manner. The majority of the viewers considered it a nice and entertaining playaround. Accepting for publication.
