After 4 months of extensive work and revisions, here comes another update to the "First 500" project for me (for the third time)! The current run was published on 2006-02-21, but was originally submitted on 2005-07-07. So, technically is an 2005 run (likea fewothers)
This run is an improvement of 22907 frames (actually 22931 frames due to emulation differences) over the published run by using 2 players, new tricks and glitches, better boss fights, and greater movement precision.
Game objectives
Emulator used: BizHawk 2.2.1 (also syncs on latter versions)
2 players
Uses death to save time
Takes damage to save time
Heavy glitch abuse
About the game
Cadash is a sword and sorcery video game which combines elements of both the role-playing video game genre of games and the platform genre of games. The game was originally an arcade game released by Taito in 1989, later ported to home video game consoles such as the TurboGrafx-16 in 1991, and the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1992. Isn't the most straightforward of platformers, seeing how you can actually gain levels and buy items in this one. There are also mandatory items to fetch and quests to complete in order to advance.
Development of this run
2 months after my first contribution, I saw nifboy's published run on this site, watched this, and since I never played before, I liked this game and found interest to verify some research for improvements. At the time, I found on Github, several Sonikkustar's unfinished stuffs, including a 1p WIP and 2p WIP, as well as a RAM watch of this game!
These finds were great, but still not enough to start a new run, because first of all, mage has slower movement than fighter, but can collaborate for faster boss fights. Second, routing, studying the mechanics of both players and optimizing this game a lot. Starting the research, I transferred that RAM Watch to BizHawk, found much more addresses, and discovered how magic does much more damage than every weapon of this game.
When a new Cobra Triangle TAS was published (the previous run was also part of "The First 500"), I decided to announce my future work on this game. Days before I also watched the PCE version of this game, and the current RTA run has included some nice skips, including a way to reach the village of "stage 4" bypassing the whole cave. Sometime ago, Aqfaq pointed on the First 500 topic:
There might also exist some shortcuts by dying on air and respawning on the same spot. You can "double-jump" from air when respawning.
With this hint, I tried to find a way to get a similar "stage 4" skip on the Genesis version, but since the screen won't scroll upwards in any of the places where this could be used for a very effective shortcut, my only option could be using 2 players. I formulated a certain strategy to do the skip, but only tested on November 2017 - 8 months later - most because of my laziness, and for my involvement with other projects.
What a great find! So, I started this run days later but soon stopped at the end of first (but very big) cave room. TASing 2 players again (at the time) was a big challenge to optimize, but returned to this game on February 2018 with improved "skills" acquired thanks for 2 Kenseiden runs - I used TAStudio most of the time.
By better improving that cave, I continued this game using "traditional input" for most of the progress (1/4 of the time) until Balrog phase 2, when I realized how coordinating 2 players to attack Balrog is extremely awful. So, the rest of the progress were entirely done with TAStudio.
Balrog, that bastard! Another 1/4 of the time only to optimize these 3 phases - needs very precise timing and positioning, in other words, was a nightmare to optimize - but the "multi-hit" glitch discovered on the dragon balrog's head (during half of the time) reduced these efforts.
After finally finishing this bastard, 2/4 of the time were for revisions - several timesavers, changes, and some new trick were found.
Cadash was painful to optimize after all. The rerecord count is real (roughly 210k are "bot" rerecords)! I can't remember precisely how much rerecords were added between stages since I never considered a long time of redos and revisions (much more than all of my runs I've done before).
General notes
First of all, this game reads input every 2 frames as opposed to every frame. So, menuing, continuing dialogues (with 2p input) and the doors can be advanced/inputted a frame earlier.
With an extra player, there are several rooms where I stop/turnaround or even jump sometimes to avoid lag.
Jumping stops you for a frame when landing.
Taking damage increases horizontal speed (to always 131072 value) until he lands - one of main keys of this run.
Mage speed stats per level
lev 1
96768
lev 6
105472
lev 11
109568
lev 16
112640
lev 2
98304
lev 7
106752
lev 12
110336
lev 17
113408
lev 3
100352
lev 8
107264
lev 13
111104
lev 18
114176
lev 4
101888
lev 9
107776
lev 14
111616
lev 19
114944
lev 5
103424
lev 10
109056
lev 15
112128
lev 20
115200
Fighter speed stats per level
lev 1
109824
lev 6
118528
lev 11
127744
lev 16
135936
lev 2
111616
lev 7
120320
lev 12
129536
lev 17
137216
lev 3
113408
lev 8
122368
lev 13
131584
lev 18
138240
lev 4
114944
lev 9
124160
lev 14
133376
lev 19
139264
lev 5
116992
lev 10
126208
lev 15
134912
lev 20
140032
Because of less level up for fighter, I lost some frames nearly every room of this game (considering how leveling up needs a lot of exp).
About the ropes: Performing a downwards attack while in air can result of a new trick: if you intend to climb down, you can grab a rope on a pixel lower; And if you intend to climb up, you can raise some pixels before grabs a rope.
Stage-by-Stage Comments
Power-on
13 frames saved on the title screen (could be only 10 frames, but since 2p input also works here, +3 frames were saved).
Mage is selected because when the game starts, the 2nd player is a bit farther to the left than player 1. So, mage assumes 1p stats while fighter assumes 2p stats.
No "renaming" this time, but doesn't count as an improvement.
Stage 1
Fighter picks a medicinal herb (but costs ~3 seconds). Reason will be revealed later!
Could be entered that door (which leads you to cave) a frame earlier, but after my lastest castle revision, I ended with some added lag in the cave. Reason: Like I explained before, this game reads input every 2 frames as opposed to every frame - but this "way" can result an input desync if I enter the next room with a single different frame. This is one a few rooms of this game to sacrifice a frame just to avoid desync.
Cave
First objective: Leveling up mage until level 3, to gain the most important key of this run: flying dagger's spell, which does 40 HP (each dagger) for every enemy/boss.
Can't avoid those falling rocks this time because of slower mage and to avoid lag.
Boss: Black Pudding (Life: 288 HP)
With that spell, both players can attack without waiting at all.
On the portal room: I used mage to talk while fighter still moves - so, the door is opened a few frames earlier, and during the opening, a mid-air turnaround trick is used to gain a few pixels that only works with fighter.
Stage 2
I bought an extra continue (but costs a lot of time) which is necessary for the last 2 stages.
Cave
Like the published run, you can bypass this stage without the need of Mermaid Scale (which allows players to bypass waters safely)
Weapon shop skipped, no fire sword this time.
Stage 3
Without fire sword for fighter, flying daggers replaces this, as well as optimizing movement while avoiding lag as much as possible.
Boss: Worm (Life: 10 hits?)
This boss has 65535 HP, but actually can be defeated with only 10 hits no matter what spell/weapon damages him. Also for some reason, if you attack using the second player, he recieves damage every frame. Destroyed with only 2 sword attacks (first attack = 7 hits; second attack = 3 hits). Since I don't understand about debugging at all, I asked Alyosha (author of the "first 500" topic) to understand how this bug works. He wrote this:
Quoting Alyosha
So what happened here is an error in the way player 2's damage is calculated.
To see what happened, first let's look at player 1. Player 1's damage is calculated like this:
01446C: 5268 addq.w #1, ($9C,A0) ....
A0 is the base offset for which enemy the game is checking if damage is being dealt to. For the worm boss, A0 is FF10C0.
$9C is the offset, so that line of code is adding 1 to FF10C0 + 9C, which is FF115C, the bosses health.
Once this is done, the game will check other memory locations for enemies there, the next A0 would be FF11C0 and so on.
Now for some reason, player 2 is calculated differently:
014594: 5279 addq.w #1, ($FF115C) ...
It adds damage directly to the boss.
This is fine for the first loop at A0 = FF10C0, since this is indeed the bosses head. Once you hit the boss, the invincibility timer starts and you can no longer deal damage.
But, the game also adds this damage when in contact with the second segment at A0 = FF11C0! Since the game isn't using the offset to add the damage to the correct location, the boss takes the damage every frame.
Now, backtrack...(and using our remaining MP...)
Reaching the end of the roon, mage is killed to fighter gain some "boost" when starting the next screen. Mage jumps before dies so the next screen will scrolls only forward.
Since I have a weaker sword, nearly all enemies during the remaining of the cave were skipped.
On the second-to-last room before the village, sprite limit abused so one of the plants fails to vomit, allowing me to bypass safely instead to wait so much.
On the next room, I killed a few enemies since I used only one medicinal herb and still need to keep these continues.
A shortcut could be possible, but all continues are necessary to skip most of the next stages.
In the village, fighter (when small) uses 65536 speed value. Small mage also uses the same value. How interesting.
Stage 4
In the first cave room, our first shortcut of this TAS: By dying, respawning and jumping on mid-air, if you respawn the other player on the very top of the screen, this game pushes the player to left and you must wait until the other player lands - so you can move again.
In the village, I bought a new weapon for mage, to save time on the next battles.
Back to the shortcut room, I could return to the graveyard a frame earlier, but...
...graveyard lags so much that was the second hardest path of this run to optimize.
Unavoidable thief during the way to the boss (since I haven't bypassed that side before)
Boss: Fire Elemental (a.k.a "Satan") (Life: 896 HP)
Strategy:
- Mage attack (with a new weapon): 21 damage, and spell again.
- Fighter attack (same weapon as published run): 22 damage this run (level 6, strength 37) while the published run does 26 damage per hit (level 8, strength 41)
Cycles:
published run: 1 - 286 damage, 2 - *260 damage*, 3 - 286 damage, 4 - remaining HP (64)
new run: 1 - 713 damage, 2 - remaining HP (183)
normally you must dodge that fire (which forces you to delay the first attack), but I recently found a better way to avoid this (and without the need to jump), allowing fighter to deliver an extra attack - frame perfect and reaching 286 damage 1 frame before he splits into flames.
During the return, mage is killed again (also level up for him) because the slower movement doesn't contribute at all.
Depending of your overall timing, during the brigde cutscene, you can gain 2 frames, or nothing, or even lose 2 frames. So I used this "problem" to avoid a lag during the path with several zombies.
Stage 5
Skipping enemies, again.
Since the jump height isn't enough to reach the very top, mid-air jump + reviving mage to skip directly to golden key path - also skipping Jelly Giant boss.
Since Balrog is located "in the other side" of this castle, and I skipped the golden key, I need to kill a player (fighter because he has less than 100 HP so he can die earlier than mage) to revive later (on the path with hidden platforms) at the same time for skip that backtracking (normally you must return to the very first door of the castle, then open the golden door to continue the rest of stage) directly to the last path of castle from the third path of doors.
No weapon shop this time.
Boss: Worm (again, but his life is now 20 hits)
Strategy: Same from stage 3.
Worm could be skipped (this video uses a different glitch which wasn't used in this run), but I haven't continues anymore.
Boss 2: Balrog
Phase 1: HP value starts with 34412 and can be defeated starting with 32767 HP (1645 HP).
Strategy: Mage spell, attack with turnarounds to manipulate his position, since you need to avoid lighting, as well as defeating on the lowest position as possible, because the phase 2 loads...
Phase 2: ...when he lands. Dragon Balrog continues to use the HP value of phase 1! So, we must continue to attack until he reaches 31231 HP or lower.
Strategy: Hitting Dragon Balrog's head normally does a bit more damage than the body, but the multi-hit glitch also works here! Since the glitch only works by the second player, fighter uses this while mage...same strategy - with a lot of careful timing and manupulation of flying daggers - 5 hits per cycle.
Castle (return)
A dialogue between Princess Salassa and "Fake King" are skipped by entering the door.
Boss: Dragon Balrog (again)
Starts with 34816 HP, loses his wings starting with 32767 HP and ends starting with 31231 HP.
Strategy: Similar as phase 2, (with a few differences), and ending input with the last multi-hit set. Balrog dies at 31229 HP with a last flying dagger at the end of magic timing.
Table
-Stage-
Improvements
Stage 1
449 frames
Stage 2
3 frames
Stage 3
1348 frames
Stage 4
4994 frames
Stage 5
16104 frames
-Total-
22898 frames
In detail (but the "total" result looks different - probably could be due of more lag/and emulation accurracy between screen transitions)
Note: Less level-up fighter = frames lost nearly every room of this game.
Well this project was the hardest I have worked on, and despite how several paths and revisions were frustating to optimize, I'm satisfied with this big result and glad to finally put another old run to obsolete (although nifboy's 1p route is very well planned and executed - So, the published run isn't much outdated in terms of optimization). 9 left (Hey! we reached 1/4 of the list).
Hope to see another "First 500" run obsoletion someday :)
I have one more project to still finish this month if possible, and after this, I'll stop my projects for months, but I'll still collaborate with some stuff if possible.
Suggested screenshot
Just kidding :p
Here's the real suggestions:
Special thanks
nifboy, for the published run.
Aqfaq, for mentioned some useful things to a 2p run, including more about the mid-air jump glitch, which could be useful to do possible shortcuts.
Sonikkustar, for the WIP of 1p, 2p, and for a RAM watch - were one of main keys to find improvements.
Alyosha, not only for the "First 500" topic but for the help about how "that glitch" works on the worm boss (mentioned before).
I also d'like to thanks The8bitbeast for his tutorial video about finding RAM addresses in Bizhawk. Helped me so much that I also used Sonikkustar's RAM Watch to find much more addresses and research for this game.
The movie was entertaining due to the amount of action that happened with two players on screen and the various skips used. While the currently published movie is 1 player, it's also in Vault so this should obsolete that due to being both faster and far more entertaining. A 1-Player improvement can only be deemed acceptable to moons in the future if it is considered to be far more entertaining than the current 1P run, but given the ratings of the current 1P run, it would take a massive discovery to become acceptable for Moons. Alternatively if 1 players somehow becomes faster than 2 players, such a movie would be Vaultable, but that seems just as unlikely.
Accepting to Moons as an improvement to the published movie.
Joined: 4/7/2015
Posts: 331
Location: Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Really interesting run, those skips look really nice and saved a lot of time, also it's always fun to watch 2-Player TASes. A big yes!
Btw where's the "First 500" thread? TASVideos forum search doesn't work..
Games are basically math with a visual representation of this math, that's why I make the scripts, to re-see games as math.
My things:
YouTube, GitHub, Pastebin, Twitter
Great work Challenger! Easy yes vote. I tried to tas this myself a while back and this game is not so easy to deal with. The high level of optimization and understanding of the game is obvious here. Also that boss health glitch is silly.
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Amazing improvement. I really liked the old run, and I miss a few of the sections that this run skips, but this is a much needed overhaul.
There are some silly moments I found in this run I wanted to share:
* The very first action of the game is the fighter getting the herbs. I find it amusing that this all starts with a "Fig" leaf.
* The overly buff piles of dirt in the area after the silk rope are always hilarious.
* The second time you kill the mage, the text reads "Mag has moved to a higher level." Maybe more like a higher plane of existence. ;-)
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11486
Location: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
I liked it. Was a bit boring in the middle where you just basically go back and forth, but all the rest was really cool. Voted Yes.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Really interesting run, those skips look really nice and saved a lot of time, also it's always fun to watch 2-Player TASes. A big yes!
Btw where's the "First 500" thread? TASVideos forum search doesn't work..
