- Takes damage to save time
- Aims for fastest time
- Uses no passwords
- Manipulates luck
- Genre: Platform
Used Visual Boy Advance 1.7.2 with version 9b of Nitsuja's patch
44 Khz sound
Original GB mode
The Blue Bomber is back! Only now he's the Gray Bomber, so you won't
be seeing him change colors when he changes weapons.
The Game Boy series is a little different from the NES series in that
there are only four Robot Masters to fight at the start. Those four are
borrowed from the NES game of the same number, while four more Robot
Masters from the next NES game guard Dr. Wily's fortress. Game Boy
Wily also likes to have a backup fortress in space after his first one
is beaten. Another recurring concept in the Game Boy games is a ninth
robot boss unique to the game who gives you a new weapon that is usually
the only weapon effective against the final boss. And in the games with
Rush, Rush Coil must be obtained from one of the bosses, like the Jet
and the Marine, rather than being owned at the start of the game.
I chose this game because I liked playing it on a real Game Boy, and I
figured it wouldn't be too hard to perfect since it is short and has
no slide or charge abilities, as it is mostly based on the first two
NES games. I admit it is a bit limiting, seeing as there aren't really
any game-shattering glitches and switching weapons often takes too long to
justify using them for frivolous matters (a minimum of 33 frames lost--why
couldn't they add the insta-switch from the SNES games? They weren't
doing anything with that Select button), but I think there is still
plenty of entertainment to be found in striving for perfect movements.
I chose the Japanese version to make this movie for a few reasons.
- The American version makes you wait a good two seconds longer at the title screen before the cursor appears and you can press Start. I don't know why... Maybe the company wanted you to look at the copyrights for a while. :) As a side note, I tried the European version once, and it moves the copyright notices to a separate pre-title screen that takes even longer. The American versions start doing something similar starting with the third game.
- There is no Japanese text in this game. They didn't bother to localize the names of the enemies in the ending of the American version, anyway. I believe the second and third games are the same way, so you could get away with using the Japanese version if you want to avoid the copyright screen in the third game.
- It doesn't have the same name as the NES game, not counting that the Mega Man version has the subtitle "in Dr. Wily's Revenge" on the box, so it will be less confusing. (Of course, now people are going to confuse it with Rockman Megaworld...)
The only other difference in the Japanese version besides the title screen
is the game over screen: It doesn't have an option to restart the game.
But why would I get a game-over in a speedrun? :)
Now on to the planning of the movie. I started with CutMan because his
weapon is very useful in this game, and his weakness doesn't affect him as
much as the other robots' weaknesses affect them. Besides, CutMan is the
hardest of the first four bosses, so I may as well show off the challenge.
I then followed the boss weakness ring, as the other bosses die really
fast to the right weapons. But I think that from this point onward,
I'll put my explanations in the form of level notes which should answer
most of your questions.
CutMan
- Those small jumps I make starting out are a technique I learned from some NES MegaRockMan timeattackers to avoid a loss of speed from RockMan's sticky step. Surprisingly, RockMan still appears to be subject to horizontal acceleration problems in the air as well as on the ground in the game; I guess they're just not as bad because there's no friction from standing still there.
- Right off the bat, I destroy the first Screw Driver. If I had jumped over it, it would have taken me a long time to land so I could jump again...
- In a practice run of this game made using an old patch, I decided it would be interesting to jump close to enemies and their bullets a lot. But later I decided it was just really distracting and didn't add much to the movie. It looks cool to see RockMan run straight as much as he can, I think. Plus, jumping seems to increase the likelihood of lag. I'm not sure if it did here, but I did gain a few frames over my old movie just in the first section. Although it could just be emulation differences. :\\ I often found myself gaining frames over my old movie for no obvious reasons, when I wasn't even trying anything different.
- I gained one frame over my test movie in a room where I decided to stay on the ground for a while to activate a Cutting Wheel slightly earlier! Oh, I'm so smart
- Sniper Joes are mean. The regular ones take a really long time to remove their shields, they take eight hits to beat, and their invulnerability period is too long for it to be worthwhile for me to stop and shoot that first one. I can't jump completely over them, either. Normally the best I can do is jump over them enough that I get knocked forward instead of backward. Rolling Cutter is sometimes helpful for defeating them, but it didn't really work out for this movie. (I actually find the spasmodic jumping Joes from Dr. Wily's levels to be easier to deal with in a timeattack.)
- Conveyor belts were the trickiest things to optimize, most of all the one where I have to jump over a Super Cutter while shooting a Cutting Wheel to save the most time. It seemed to help just to try lots of different combinations of jumps until I hit the lowest frame count at the goal.
- CutMan was tougher to hit continously until I figured out that he doesn't jump until he's within a certain distance of you, so you can manipulate him a little. He's still a little tricky with he throws his Rolling Cutter, but I got him.
- Yes, I do have to wait through the whole "You Got" screen, and yes, that is how long I have to wait on the password screen, and before I forget, yes, I do have to wait completely through both Dr. Wily scenes.
ElecMan
- Lots of boring waiting zones in this level make me worry less about avoiding lag and worry more about entertaining the audience a little. I did pay more attention to lag problems caused by stunts such as my "slip off the platform" trick while fighting the Kaminari Goros, though, especially during the part where there's constant flickering. I jump to the right to get the third guy onscreen as soon as possible, and later I jump again to get the first guy's ride off the screen, as it was causing the flickering.
- By the way, it's possible to get the second Kaminari Goro onscreen very early, but it requires killing the first one fast with the Rolling Cutter and making pixel-perfect jumps on his platform. But it turns out to be useless because the second platform ends up too far away. :( And I'm using too many emoticons all of a sudden. :(
- Experimenting with speed manipulation to affect sub-pixel movement helped speed up turn-around jumps and ladder grabs, which seemed to be the main source of improvement in this level in addition to finding there were some enemies I didn't actually need to kill.
- I forget who asked me to try this, but it really does save a few frames when I take those last two hits from the electric beams to climb through the upper ones for a tiny bit. It just wasn't apparent while using that old patch whose frame advance skipped frames.
- I didn't expect that last Metall to fire at me before I could kill it, as it didn't in my test movies, but oh well. Global timer or something.
- It may look as though I throw the Rolling Cutter at ElecMan too early, but if I did it a frame later, he would throw his beam instead of jumping, and fights like that always take longer.
IceMan
- Here's another spot where I didn't worry about unnecessary jumping, because I was too concerned about getting those Bunby Heris blown up as early as possible. It's probably better that way, anyway.
- I use the Rolling Cutter on some enemies because the Thunder Beam is just too inefficient on them for saving a weapon switch to matter.
- I only thought of standing on Sniper Joe's ledge to jump over him because I saw TheAxeMan do it in his test movie. So, thanks. There are other such situations in games where you can stand on a ledge when an enemy only appears to extend all the way to the edge. I found such a spot with a Suzy while running ElecMan, but it didn't seem to work for Scworms, Metalls, and FireMan's fire pillars.
- It may seem as though I don't shoot IceMan early enough, but this game is buggy in that if you shoot him too early, he'll flash, but he won't actually take damage. CutMan has the same problem, but I cleverly hid it. :>
- And for some reason, sitting in the right-hand corner for a while after beating IceMan seems to help RockMan teleport out faster. I don't know how to explain these things sometimes...
FireMan
- Unlike the other levels, I tended to lose lots of frames here compared to my old movie if I wasn't careful. Strange...
- Yeah, so you see, I can't bring out a Master Weapon just to get those two Suzies I jumped over. It wouldn't save the time spent switching, and it wouldn't be good up ahead.
- I was lucky to discover that the Thunder Beam can kill a Changkey Maker in one hit if you time and position it right. This turns out to be better than the Rolling Cutter because you have to get up close to use the Cutter, and you end up having to wait because the Changkey Maker sticks its arm way out. There was only one I needed two Beams for, and that was because it was below RockMan. It's just a shame it doesn't work as well on Sniper Joes.
- I wanted to use Ice Slasher on those two fire pillars later on, but my test with it showed that it ended up being slower because of the enemies I have to freeze, I think. Oh well...
- I saved like one frame by jumping onto FireMan's back! Oh wow!!!!!!
At this point I get the Carry. This needs to be explained. Carry is
a platform-making item that I get from the fourth Robot Master I beat,
meaning if I beat someone other than FireMan last, I would get it from
him instead. So no, I can't go using the Carry in ElecMan's stage.
It's for Dr. Wily only.
Carry has some interesting behaviors. If you use it on the ground,
it'll appear on the ground in front of you, but that doesn't provide
much of a lift. It's really designed to be used in the air, where it'll
appear a few pixels underneath MegaRockMan's feet for him to land on.
It has limited usefulness, though, since it doesn't move anywhere,
you can only have one at a time, and it waits a long time to disappear,
eating up lots of energy in the meantime.
I found some stupid tricks to do with the Carry, though not many are
useful. One thing you can do is get it stuck inside a one-block-wide
platform as you pass overhead. Normally Carry disappears if you try
to shove it into a wall or get it anywhere close to a wall or floor,
but the trick works apparently because collision checks are only done
on its sides.
You can also have fun using it at the bottom of the screen. Depending on
your vertical offset (how you jumped down beforehand) and the time you
decide to press B, you might either make a platform you can't see as I
did in my movie, make RockMan start shooting but have no real effect,
or--and this is the funniest--land on the Carry but still scroll the
screen down. This will make it so you start the next screen standing
on air! You can jump off the air if you hit A on the first frame, but
it's not very special because the programmers stuck a ceiling over every
place where you're not supposed to go back up.
The one good trick I found with Carry was going up ladders, and it doesn't
seem to work on those ladders with only one block of space to the right.
All you have to do is set the Carry out while climbing the ladder,
then jump off a frame or two after that. RockMan should warp up onto
the Carry, ready to jump up the ladder again.
But enough of that. It's time for Dr. Wily!
Dr. Wily's "Skull Castle"
- One strange side effect of the Carry is that sometimes RockMan falls more slowly while aligned with the Carry. I decided to let this happen to help me avoid Sniper Joe's shot, but usually it's just annoying.
- Moles are not as random as they might seem. There are four of them, two going up, and two going down, each appearing a set distance to the right of RockMan. A Mole appears when it's disappeared from its last spot, either by burrowing back into the wall, or by being destroyed. So it's really how fast RockMan moves and how fast he destroys them that determines when and where Moles appear, and that's what makes it tricky. Interestingly, Moles burrow faster through walls than through air, so you can speed them up slightly with a Carry if you're bored...
- In my test movie, I could kill that next Sniper Joe just by running up to him, but this time I had to jump to make him jump straight up first. Hm.
- I'm not sure why Bunby Heris are sometimes faster than normal, but Nach thinks it has to do with how much you shoot and take damage beforehand. No big deal, it's just curious.
- The next Mole section is a pain to get right. I usually try to copy my test movie that went well, where I got knocked forwards onto the next platforms twice. However, this time I managed to do it so I didn't have any Moles to kill before taking damage the second time, which saved about a second.
- For the next set of bosses, it's invaluable to have Bubble Lead for HeatMan, so I don't start with him. FlasMan can fit in anywhere because Ice Slasher works best on him. The real toss-up is deciding whether to have Quick Boomerangs for BubbleMan or Atomic Fire for QuickMan. But my tests showed that starting with BubbleMan was faster, so I did. It's faster to jump down to a hatch than to jump up to one, and I only want to jog across the screen once, so this gives me the shortest time in the teleport room, too, and I end up following the order of the credits as a bonus.
- BubbleMan's fight seems to go best when he throws two bubbles every time.
- On HeatMan, I not only manipulate him to have the shortest wait time (should be about 30 frames between heating up and moving), but I try to reach his exact center taking damage just as he moves so he won't actually move anywhere, which is really hard to do because being even one pixel off can lead to him moving for an extra frame.
- For QuickMan, it turned out to be faster not to charge the Atomic Fire. That takes a REALLY long time.
- For Enker, it seemed best to manipulate him into doing two jumps across the room so he'd be vulnerable the longest before doing his absorb attack. Of course I can't damage him continously when he jumps so high, but it's better than when he's running or shooting and I can't damage him at all...
Enker gives you the Mirror Buster, which reflects enemies' fire back
at them when you hold B. It isn't very useful at all for speedrunning,
but it's the only weapon that will affect Dr. Wily's second form.
Dr. Wily's "Space Node"
- I had to be very economical about my use of the Carry here. There were a few places where it would have saved a little time but wasted too much energy in return. Basically I eliminated the uses with the least savings so I'd have JUST enough energy to get done what I wanted. It turned out that (possibly thanks to the ladder trick) those uses I skipped wouldn't have been made up for by switching to another weapon to get refills from enemies, and the enemies didn't slow me down much anyway.
- I was very disappointed that I didn't have opportunities to use Fire Storm, Bubble Lead, Quick Boomerang, or Time Stopper. But this game just didn't have enough levels after those bosses...
- Those appearing blocks are on a fixed schedule, so unlike the Kaminari Goros, it doesn't matter how soon I scroll them onto the screen.
- I do an almost-impossible jump with the Carry at the end of the second appearing block section. That stunt can seem completely impossible even with frame advance because your fractional pixel positions can be off.
- I found a way to manipulate the Pipis to appear on the side of the screen you want them to. Just be facing that side when the Pipi is generated. You can get away with only facing that way on that one frame, even.
- I also found a way to get my second-to-last Carry to disappear quickly so it didn't waste energy. It involves a bug where you place a Carry so close to the wall that it thinks it's inside the wall when it starts scrolling.
- Dr. Wily's first phase is as weak to Atomic Fire as QuickMan is. As before, charging it up takes longer, so I don't do it. And I can't stay charged across vertical screen transitions, either.
- The shooter on Dr. Wily's second machine is on a schedule like the appearing blocks, so I don't have to worry about countering it right away until the end (so I have the shortest time). I found a neat glitch that allowed me to bounce shots to the left but somehow hit Wily over on the right, so I did that a couple times for fun. And of course I messed around with turning the shield on and off.
- That chomper is really hard to jump over.
- I added two frames of no input at the end to keep you jokers from postponing the ending by holding Start. ;)
Some other things I noticed about this game in general:
- Shooting while in the air causes your shot to be placed about 8 pixels behind where it would have been if you had shot it on the ground. Knowing this is helpful. Don't be fooled, though, as sometimes I'll shoot on one frame and jump on the next.
- It helps to experiment with when to switch weapons, as the menu can cause you to lose frames at some times more than others. What I found odd was that there was one exact frame a few seconds prior to the second Dr. Wily fight when opening the menu caused the fight to start ten frames sooner. =S
Here are some things which are random and can be manipulated, usually
just by button presses:
- Whether Bigeye jumps high or far
- How far the Changkey Maker throws its Changkeys
- How many bubbles BubbleMan tosses (0, 1, or 2)
- How far HeatMan throws his fireballs
- How long HeatMan waits before zooming
- How QuickMan jumps and throws his boomerangs
- Whether Enker runs, jumps, or some combination of the two
- How Dr. Wily's Changkeys jump out
- And possibly that issue with the Bunby Heris...
If you need a description, you can probably just use excerpts from the
first couple paragraphs. I think that's all. :)
