I could use the EUR version which does not have this issue.
I HIIIIGHLY advise not to use PAL for this game, as you will get a much much slower run overall.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't
12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!"
Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet
MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish
[Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person
MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol
Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Posting a WIP that goes up to the final area. Since the final boss rush involves a lot of RNG manipulation, I want to be sure I've optimized all the previous segments before I begin.
Link to videoUserfile (uses BizHawk 1.13.2)
Big shoutouts to the RTA discord who gave me a huge amount of feedback! New tricks used:
Slight OOB
In many cases, you can be 1-3 pixels inside an object or terrain, horizontally or vertically, as long as you bypass their outer hitboxes. At full walking speed, you move 2.125 pixels per frame. In Soleil Park, the signpost by the Fortuneteller's tent has a side hitbox 2 pixels wide. With correct subpixel positioning, you can bypass this while being 3 pixels inside it vertically, allowing you to touch the Fortuneteller tent loading trigger without fighting the Wolf in Dahlia. Tent Skip saves about a minute and a half.
This can also be used for any loading trigger that is slightly inside terrain, such as Daddyphant's house (only with Flash), Freesia, and the Soleil church.
Hazard OOB
Use slight OOB to put yourself in an object/terrain, then jump onto an invalid tile such as pits, lava lakes, or deep water. Press away from the object/terrain while your height is 0, and you will be ejected away from the hazardous tile and into the object/terrain -- unless the tile is diagonal, you will be fully out of bounds and able to walk freely through terrain and objects. This means that nearly any pit/lake that touches a wall can be used for an OOB, particularly Iris, Freesia, and Camellia Temple (using a vertical wall). This is also done in Anemone, using the collapsing pitfalls to move rapidly and then clip OOB. Dippy and Rio can be used in an RTA setting to help with the timing, but with TAS they are not needed.
If there is a valid tile on the other side of the OOB, you will be zipped directly there instead of inside the terrain. For reasons unknown, this does not occur if your Y position is exactly the same as the bottom wall tile in Camellia Temple, so you are not zipped through it.
Rio Hazard OOB
Rio as a platform prevents you from taking pitfall/hazard related damage, while preserving all the "invalid" properties of the tile. This means regrowing hazards in Dahlia and Black Night can be stood on while invalid, allowing you to walk directly OOB. This is useful if there is no gap in the horizontal/vertical wall that allows for a slight OOB, or if there is a valid tile directly across the wall that you would otherwise be zipped to. This will be implemented twice in Black Night; I am currently testing Mother Monster for a faster skip.
It's currently thought that this behavior is due to Rio preventing your respawn coordinates from updating, but the exact physics are still unknown. I have observed that Rio cannot be mostly over the tile; I suspect his platform hitbox is quite large but a tile that detects that he is directly on it will override him. He must be slightly or somewhat off the hazard tile.
Respawn Abuse
Your respawn coordinates update whenever you are on a "safe" tile that cannot change state. It does not update when you are OOB or on a hazard, or on grass, beach, slippery slides/cliffs, collapsing sand, breakable platforms, etc, and also does not update while on Rio or Dippy. It also does not update on zone changes unless you are on a safe tile when you load. In Heaven you leave the third map with a very low Y coordinate and enter the next map in grass, so if you fall into a pit right away, you respawn in the upper-right corner of the map. This can also be done in Anemone Beach, first by starting in the right entrance of Hot Daisy to set the coordinate, entering the beach on sand, using Dippy to cross any "safe" tiles, and then using the collapsing sand to respawn in the top-right corner -- this is slower in TAS, however.
Kart Lap Rollback
Near the finish line the game checks four X coordinates, one 1 tile left of the line, two on it, and one 1 tile right of the line. To prevent a lap from rolling back, you need to be between points 1 and 2, reverse to point 3, then continue past point 1. A new lap is completed when you pass through points 1-4 in order. Doing this three times saves about 45 seconds. Reversing is very slow in general so I do it as little as possible.
Root Temple Skip
The loading trigger in the Georama fight is active whenever he is not present. You can leave through Freesia after defeating Georama. This skips Root Temple and prevents the Babel elevator from being sealed, saving about 3 minutes. This was known in 2009 but I foolishly chose not to use it. Theoretically, if you reach the trigger 1 frame after collecting the magic seeds, Georama can be skipped as well.
Menu Sword
Entering the menu while your sword is thrown makes it sharp again. This allows you to hit the ice block button in Freesia and the lever in Babel after the sword hits a wall. This also allows you to hit bosses multiple times in the same sword throw, if they are not still invulnerable.
Element Switch
Hitting a boss with Chilly equipped gives it invulnerability to ice damage for a number of frames, but removes invulnerability to fire damage, and vice versa for Inferno. By switching between them in the menu, you can damage a boss many times per sword throw. Menuing takes about 105 frames while a complete sword charge and throw cycle is about 67, so this is generally not useful in most cases. However I have not yet tested this on Chameleon (whom I cannot otherwise kill before the camouflage phase), and it may be useful against Spirit Energy. I also need to test whether Inferno+Dodo and Chilly+Dodo overwrite each other's DoT effects, or if they are removed by going to the menu.
RNG Manipulation
The RNG rolls every time a "random" sound effect needs to be chosen, such as when Flash kicks up a dust cloud, or every 3 frames a Chilly sword throw is out. Thus, you can voluntarily roll RNG by running more, or prevent it by jumping. This is crucial for a good Roxie fight, and for controlling Moa+Inferno fireball trajectories.
Text Skip
Pressing Start 2 frames before a text box appears will skip it. This is done many times during the run, but in some cases the text is quick enough that it's not worth it unless I need to switch animals. Text skip can't be done if control is taken away too early, or if you trigger the text by speaking.
Backwards Walking
If you alternate between backwards and backwards-diagonal every frame, you can walk at fairly high speeds without changing direction. Besides entertainment value, this is useful in some boss fights, especially Chameleon who moves quite fast, and also for talking to NPCs.
If there is a valid tile on the other side of the OOB, you will be zipped directly there instead of inside the terrain. For reasons unknown, this does not occur if your Y position is exactly the same as the bottom wall tile in Camellia Temple, so you are not zipped through it.
Rio Hazard OOB
Rio as a platform prevents you from taking pitfall/hazard related damage, while preserving all the "invalid" properties of the tile. This means regrowing hazards in Dahlia and Black Night can be stood on while invalid, allowing you to walk directly OOB. This is useful if there is no gap in the horizontal/vertical wall that allows for a slight OOB, or if there is a valid tile directly across the wall that you would otherwise be zipped to. This will be implemented twice in Black Night; I am currently testing Mother Monster for a faster skip.
It's currently thought that this behavior is due to Rio preventing your respawn coordinates from updating, but the exact physics are still unknown. I have observed that Rio cannot be mostly over the tile; I suspect his platform hitbox is quite large but a tile that detects that he is directly on it will override him. He must be slightly or somewhat off the hazard tile.
Respawn Abuse
Your respawn coordinates update whenever you are on a "safe" tile that cannot change state. It does not update when you are OOB or on a hazard, or on grass, beach, slippery slides/cliffs, collapsing sand, breakable platforms, etc, and also does not update while on Rio or Dippy. It also does not update on zone changes unless you are on a safe tile when you load. In Heaven you leave the third map with a very low Y coordinate and enter the next map in grass, so if you fall into a pit right away, you respawn in the upper-right corner of the map. This can also be done in Anemone Beach, first by starting in the right entrance of Hot Daisy to set the coordinate, entering the beach on sand, using Dippy to cross any "safe" tiles, and then using the collapsing sand to respawn in the top-right corner -- this is slower in TAS, however.
Kart Lap Rollback
Near the finish line the game checks four X coordinates, one 1 tile left of the line, two on it, and one 1 tile right of the line. To prevent a lap from rolling back, you need to be between points 1 and 2, reverse to point 3, then continue past point 1. A new lap is completed when you pass through points 1-4 in order. Doing this three times saves about 45 seconds. Reversing is very slow in general so I do it as little as possible.
Root Temple Skip
The loading trigger in the Georama fight is active whenever he is not present. You can leave through Freesia after defeating Georama. This skips Root Temple and prevents the Babel elevator from being sealed, saving about 3 minutes. This was known in 2009 but I foolishly chose not to use it. Theoretically, if you reach the trigger 1 frame after collecting the magic seeds, Georama can be skipped as well.
Menu Sword
Entering the menu while your sword is thrown makes it sharp again. This allows you to hit the ice block button in Freesia and the lever in Babel after the sword hits a wall. This also allows you to hit bosses multiple times in the same sword throw, if they are not still invulnerable.
Element Switch
Hitting a boss with Chilly equipped gives it invulnerability to ice damage for a number of frames, but removes invulnerability to fire damage, and vice versa for Inferno. By switching between them in the menu, you can damage a boss many times per sword throw. Menuing takes about 105 frames while a complete sword charge and throw cycle is about 67, so this is generally not useful in most cases. However I have not yet tested this on Chameleon (whom I cannot otherwise kill before the camouflage phase), and it may be useful against Spirit Energy. I also need to test whether Inferno+Dodo and Chilly+Dodo overwrite each other's DoT effects, or if they are removed by going to the menu.
RNG Manipulation
The RNG rolls every time a "random" sound effect needs to be chosen, such as when Flash kicks up a dust cloud, or every 3 frames a Chilly sword throw is out. Thus, you can voluntarily roll RNG by running more, or prevent it by jumping. This is crucial for a good Roxie fight, and for controlling Moa+Inferno fireball trajectories.
Text Skip
Pressing Start 2 frames before a text box appears will skip it. This is done many times during the run, but in some cases the text is quick enough that it's not worth it unless I need to switch animals. Text skip can't be done if control is taken away too early, or if you trigger the text by speaking.
Backwards Walking
If you alternate between backwards and backwards-diagonal every frame, you can walk at fairly high speeds without changing direction. Besides entertainment value, this is useful in some boss fights, especially Chameleon who moves quite fast, and also for talking to NPCs.
