Alright JXQ, I think its a better choice to avoid make it look the same.
Just a note: I spended more than 5500 rerecords on this damn station alone and hope the effort was worth it.
Sorry about mispelling name JXQ! :D
Anyhow. As Saturn stated above I think you will have a hard time beating it. If you can't I suggest you use his run partially. :)
I'd rather see this one before Sonic though.
Sure, I don't think Gens games get's the attention it really deserves, but I'm sick and tired of Sonic right now. Two brand new runs of Super Metroid would be awesome. And it might as well deserv a star on each!
Alright JXQ, I think its a better choice to avoid make it look the same.
Just a note: I spended more than 5500 rerecords on this damn station alone and hope the effort was worth it.
Hehe, I beat the station about as fast as you did (a little slower though) with 300 re-records, if I find the movie file I'll upload it for you to see.
I actually entered the boss room on the same frame as you did (6 frames faster than Flatley (spelling?)), but I only got 48:8x something on the end time, the thing Flatley missed was that he did the damage boost in the second last jump too early, which I believe you fixed since your time was even faster than mine, but if I get the time I might do a video of the whole game too, it'll be like a competition. (Starting over from the beginning then)
So, who is actually actively working on / planning to soon work on a run of this game? Both Saturn and Graveworm? Some competition would be good, if cooperation wouldn't work better of course. Although... well, I don't know if I'm sick of Metroid runs, but I don't see how anyone could be sick of Sonic runs already (unless we're talking about motion-sickness here).
Graveworm wrote:
Saturn wrote:
Just a note: I spended more than 5500 rerecords on this damn station alone and hope the effort was worth it.
Hehe, I beat the station about as fast as you did (a little slower though) with 300 re-records
I don't think the number of re-records is that important to minimize/maximize or that it means much to have higher/lower. Well, it seems to be a measure of how much experimentation you did, but it's not very accurate, so a low re-record count could mean that you didn't experiment much because of already having a good idea of what to do optimally and/or or spending more time on each individual movement between re-records, or it could mean that you did experiment a lot but you just didn't do it during the recording.
Sometimes when making a movie I'll keep savestates around of things and use re-records just to look at them then go back to where I was, or I'll load a savestate 4 times in a row just to make really sure that I really loaded it - it doesn't mean it would have been that much of a difference in effort if the re-record number ended up much different.
I don't think the number of re-records is that important to minimize/maximize or that it means much to have higher/lower. Well, it seems to be a measure of how much experimentation you did, but it's not very accurate, so a low re-record count could mean that you didn't experiment much because of already having a good idea of what to do optimally and/or or spending more time on each individual movement between re-records, or it could mean that you did experiment a lot but you just didn't do it during the recording.
Sometimes when making a movie I'll keep savestates around of things and use re-records just to look at them then go back to where I was, or I'll load a savestate 4 times in a row just to make really sure that I really loaded it - it doesn't mean it would have been that much of a difference in effort if the re-record number ended up much different.
Long quote, short answer.
The thing was that he used the amount of rerecords to tell us how hard it was, when if you know what you're doing it might not be that hard to do at all, even though you'd have to use rerecordings even if you knew everything about the game. Well, that made no sense, like always.
No, I'm not working on a TAS for this game right now, since I'm currently having to restart the Megaman X2 video for the 100th time since I need to change a couple of things on the intro stage. :(
Nitsuja is right, most of my rerecords were done because of testing and experimenting to find the best moves. At least 50% were wasted rerecords just to try some crazy but less promising variations to just beeing sure in any case.
Yes, the biggest error Michael did was in the room where he took the damage boost in a sub-optimized way.
I'm about to optimize the falling part of the 2nd room on Zebes just before the long vertical room with the later pirates.
OK, optimized the falling part and completed the vertical Tourian shaft. Saved 5 more frames here because of better falling maneuvers.
Very tired today and have to stand up very early tomorrow so thats it for today.
I reached the Morph Ball and saved 8 more frames till there.
The Motherbrain room of Metroid1 was a real pain and I had to test many different running/jumping moves between each platform to find the best possible timing between the jumps.
Now exactly 42 frames ahead of Michaels run at Morph Ball!
I found out that the Morph Ball gives me much more great move-possibilities than before and I could save 12! more frames because of this.
Now almost a second (56 frames) ahead of Michael at first Missile Pack.
Now comes the first serious problem: I have to test if taking the 2nd Missile in the right room is worth it to save some time against the Chozo Statue and to skip another Missile pack for that later. If I skip this Missile, I MUST take one of the following detour-Missiles in any way (required for the Phantoon quick-kill) and this are the ones which come in mind:
* Missile below Crumble Blocks in Brinstar (the same room with first Super Missile Pack)
* Hidden Missile in the pipe of the large green room with the blue gate in Brinstar
* Hidden Missile just after the first Power Bombs in Red-Brinstar
If someone has any suggestions here or think there is another Missile which is even faster to get I would appreciate it.
For now before recording further I will test all variations by playing sub-optimized in the needed rooms and then subtract/add the times to have a pretty exact result to see which detour is faster.
Hehe.. This is why I mostly do linear games. I don't need to test THAT much. But I really think that people doing these kinds of games rules since they are patient enough to test all diffrent things.
I still think about doing a couple of larger games for Genesis that requires more planning etc. Also some SNES ones. But that will come later perhaps.
If these are your four choices:
(1) Missile to the right after first Missile
(2) Missile below Crumble Blocks in Brinstar
(3) Hidden Missile in the pipe of the large green room
(4) Hidden Missile just after the first Power Bombs in Red-Brinstar
(1) is definitely not the fastest because you have to wait for two doors to open and also travel a bit across the room. (2) requires that you head out of the room to the right to reset the falling gates (I believe). If not, it still requires backtracking rather than just falling down from the Super Missile. (3) requires a small amount of slowdown, you may even be able to mockball into the tube. (4) has the waiting time of a power bomb going off.
I think (3) is the fastest.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Thanks for your suggestions JXQ.
This are the 4 choices I think are the fastest in first thought. Here my thoughts:
1.) The door I have to go through doesn't count at the in-game time so its not a problem since I aim only for in-game. The only door I have to wait to open is the red entrance door. All other doors are breakable without losing any speed. The reason I suggested it was because you will save a good amount of time in the Chozo Statue fight starting with 5 Missiles to defeat him a bit faster and because I will have more Missiles in the early stages beeing able to clear more enemies in my way (the Pirates for example in the room before Tourian) to save some more frames.
2.) You don't need to go out of the right room and the falling gates are irrelevant. You don't have to backtrack as you can indeed take them right after you fall down of the Super Missile block. Run to the right break through the crumble blocks and jump out of them before they reapear (like Michael did).
I think 2 and 3 are pretty close in the detour time, so best is just to test them and compare the frame-counter.
The door I have to go through doesn't count at the in-game time so its not a problem since I aim only for in-game.
...
I think 2 and 3 are pretty close in the detour time, so best is just to test them and compare the frame-counter.
Am I the only one detecting something wrong with those 2 statements?
TNSE:
Of course I subtract the frames during the door animation. It is around 150-155 between one door so for 2 it will be about 300. I also subtract the time for the Missile screenshot that appears for exactly 399 frames.
Graveworm:
This is not a real detour Missile and will most likely be picked up anyway. Same as the one in the very bottom left corner near the Charge Beam.
The tests are complete. Here the results in frames by pure active time: (All values should have a 10 frames tolerance because it was only sub-optimized)
1) Lose 470 frames save around 60 frames at Chozo and "only" 4 frames at the Pirates = 406 Frames delay in total
2) lose about 175 frames if well optimized
3) lose about 275 frames (reason: have to cancel the fast mockball in order to jump into the pipe, mockballing in the pipe is impossible since I can only reach it after walljumps which cancels the speed)
4) lose about 262 frames (I can gain a good speed in the time the power bomb explodes to reach the missile faster, thats why only 262)
The clear winner is (2) - The crumble Missile. Testing pays off!
During the testings I found more improvements compared to Michael even while playing sub-optimized. I will save at least 10 more frames on the way to the elevator after the 1st Missile pack, thats for sure. Further recordings will follow tomorrow!
Graveworm:
This is not a real detour Missile and will most likely be picked up anyway. Same as the one in the very bottom left corner near the Charge Beam.
You wont need more than like 25 missiles anyway, since that's what you need for the Phantoon 1 round kill.
