snes9x 1.43 WIP - Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel (U) [!].smc (CRC32: ab0e9c46)
http://thps3.net/snes/zerollcdv1.smv
It's only about 4 minutes so far, and almost half of that is loading times. It takes almost 2000 frames before you get control of the character.
Anyway, things I know about the game so far: Running and jumping seem to be just as fast. Starting a dive slows your horizontal movement down by a bit, but it seems to be just as fast going down a chute for example (Like the end of level 3-1). An underswing is rather slow and should be avoided if possible.
The chain is twice as powerful as a star or a midair flip.
Now some comments on the actual run so far. I'm not sure if the timing for beginning the game and skipping the stats at the end of the first two levels are perfect yet. I'm sure the rest of them are. However, I think that can be hex-edited out later.
I'm sure I've lost a few frames in world 2. The whole changing directions is hard to do perfect. The best way to stop horizontal movement seems to be holding in the opposite direction 2 or 3 frames before landing on the ground and jumping as soon as you land.
I had a faster final boss fight in 2-2 at first, but the video always seemed to desync. The two stone monsters jump differently if you stand in a specific spot, allowing you to get two hits on the left one before it starts to roll. That didn't seem to work in the movie, so I just redid the fight. The time lost is exactly 30 frames (invincibility time of the enemies)
Keep in mind that this is my first time attack. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
i wouldnt rely on hex editing, the best thing to skip through menus is frame advance, i advice you make a sloppy run through the game, then start over, using frame advance to perfect it
I am already playing the game using Frame Advance. It's just hard to tell when pressing start actually does something because it's delayed so much. Really, all I'd have to do is cut out 2 or 3 frames and then see if it works or not. I'm sure I'm only one or two frames off, if at all. That's something left for the end of the video.
I wouldn't rely on hex editing either. I mean sometimes I do anyway, but usually it just fails miserably even if it's done correctly. Honestly I think the loss of 2 or 3 frames is (usually) not something to worry about unless it happens many times -- there are often significant changes that can be made instead which will save far more frames. For starting a game I'd just as soon put Start on auto-fire and live with the 1/2 a frame that's lost on average per transition.
Well, yeah, it's really only a few frames. It's something I might try when the movie's done, and if it doesn't work, I'll leave it like that.
Anyway, v2 is up, three more levels done. And trust me, that boss in 3-2 is annoying. He barely ever comes down so I can hit him with the chain (I've tried luck manipulation all the time, but he just doesn't want to be done fast) and he is invulnerable for whole 60 frames. I only miss the 60 frames once or twice by a few frames because I had to dodge his attacks.
The other two levels are rather boring as holding right seems to be the fastest way to do them, so I try to be at least a bit entertaining. There isn't much I could do to make them entertaining, so I tried to do some things close. I land in a stone for example, or do some precise jumps. Meh, not much else about it, though.
http://thps3.net/snes/zerollcdv2.smv
Alrighty. Here's what I think so far:
1. Zero can't fly a plane worth shit. And why the hell was he flying so low in the first place? It's like he's ASKING to get shot. Ironic part is, he DOES get shot. But he's supposed to die when the plane CRASHES, not hop out without a scratch. The realism in those old games are non-existant!
All jokes aside..
2. I thought it was pretty good. My gripe here is that we see alot of the sky and less of the action, atleast not until after the sandy levels. It was awesome how well you did the maneuvering. You really brought the game to life.
3. Is there any way you can try to avoid hits? I've been doing my DH run without hits, and it's turned out to be a REAL pain.. but it atleast gives me something to aim for besides just completing the game quickly. Even so, taking hits to save time isn't a bad thing to note when you submit. Just means you know how to take hits strategically. If that even makes sense.
4. I played it a bit when the movie ended. The controls seem a bit iffy (nothing that I couldn't fix by mapping the major buttons to the lower buttons on my controller), so that's something to take into consideration. Seems like a difficult game to me. Kudos.
Alrighty. Here's what I think so far:
1. Zero can't fly a plane worth shit. And why the hell was he flying so low in the first place? It's like he's ASKING to get shot. Ironic part is, he DOES get shot. But he's supposed to die when the plane CRASHES, not hop out without a scratch. The realism in those old games are non-existant!
All jokes aside..
2. I thought it was pretty good. My gripe here is that we see alot of the sky and less of the action, atleast not until after the sandy levels. It was awesome how well you did the maneuvering. You really brought the game to life.
3. Is there any way you can try to avoid hits? I've been doing my DH run without hits, and it's turned out to be a REAL pain.. but it atleast gives me something to aim for besides just completing the game quickly. Even so, taking hits to save time isn't a bad thing to note when you submit. Just means you know how to take hits strategically. If that even makes sense.
4. I played it a bit when the movie ended. The controls seem a bit iffy (nothing that I couldn't fix by mapping the major buttons to the lower buttons on my controller), so that's something to take into consideration. Seems like a difficult game to me. Kudos.
1. *points at the game's name* Zero the KAMIKAZE Squirrel. What do you expect? A Chess game?
2. Well, there isn't much action on the ground in the first two levels, either.
3. Well, the only two hits that were more or less unnecessary so far were the ones in the first air stream in 3-2. It's hard enough to just somehow steer through that area without grabing onto a pole and losing time, so I didn't quite manage to get around those enemies. They cost no time though. The other hits against the two Wallcrawl bosses are planned. You usually bounce off the boss, but you can't go anywhere when you're behind him. However, you can't really avoid being hit there, either.
4. Well, I used to play it on a real SNES. The controls are quite okay once you get used to them.
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http://thps3.net/snes/zerollcdv3.smv
I've done the woods. There was a lot of frame exact jumping and a whole lot of save states. I hope the outcome is satisfieing. The boss had a lot of luck manipulation.
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And here's version4:
http://thps3.net/snes/zerollcdv4.smv
I'm almost through the game. There's a lot of fighting and quite a few bosses fought again in World 7. The hit in world 7-2 is intentional, it's the fastest way I found to get to the end of the paper roll (Not getting hit was 23 frames slower).
I also like how fast that bee goes down at the beginnig of 7-3. Hehe.
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And here's version 5, beating the final two bosses missing from version 4.
http://thps3.net/snes/zerollcdv5.smv
40893 frames//00:11:22//2472 Rerecords
I'll see if I can do some hexediting tomorrow, if not, it's going to be submited the way it is right now.
I tried searching the boards for "Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel" and came up with nothing. I've been playing this game a bit lately (both SNES and Genesis) and it's pretty TAS worthy in my opinion. It's fast, has fun animations and some quirky tricks to save time that I've found. Has anyone played it?
whoa, nevermind. I searched for "11:22" and found the topic. I don't know why my searches for any combination of the game's name didn't return a result (the full name actually returned a server error, maybe something was going on with the server).
So I've recently started working on this for real-time runs and I've found a couple of improvements to the currently published TAS. The first is non-gameplay related; you can soft reset at frame 53 after booting and you will be able to skip the Sunsoft and Iguana logos. The next two are gameplay improvements.
-In Forest 2 right before the Super Dive 9 you can do a wall-jump on the tree (right above a checkpoint) to skip it entirely and take you directly to the boss. Saves about 8 seconds.
-There's a death warp in Factory 2 that takes you directly to the trolley without having to go through the upper crusher sequence. Just double jump near the tesla coil on the right side of the 2nd floor, then get eaten by one of the end rollers. This should save a couple seconds.
There are a couple other things I've noticed, such as being able to clip through some slopes, but I don't have a use for it yet. Also, it may be possible to just wall jump up the right side of Forest 2 to get to the boss directly and not mess with the stage at all.
