Version 2.0 is here! Rather than push onwards through the Boobeams and boss rush in my v1.0 movie, I felt motivated to start over and fix all my little (and big) mistakes. Currently all the timesaves are grouped into stage saves and boss saves, but I may do a more detailed analysis later.
History of this Movie
To understand all the timesaves in this run, I think it's important to understand this history behind it. While the previous run is called v1.0, it's actually not the first attempt I made at creating this movie. There's a previous version, which we'll call the beta version, that I started on a couple years ago. It was simply a TASed version of the realtime route I was doing at the time, back when I was blissfully unaware that it's faster to do Metal before Flash. That's right: there's a TAS file sitting on my hard drive where I go to Flash before Quick and Metal. This was called "mm2 TAS.fm3", and the file that would become v1.0 was sarcastically named "mm2 TAS ADVANCED route.fm3" for a while.
Because this run was so old, I did it the old fashioned way: savestates, frame advance, and an actual controller in my hand. I also had this weird obsession with keeping the 90-frame screen transitions perfectly clean, so I was always trying really hard to find the first actionable frame of every room. I believe I switched to the TAS editor around Flash Man's stage, but I'm not sure.
When making my ADVANCED route (v1.0), I tried my best to salvage what inputs I could from the beta. I had to redo the bosses (with the exception of Air Man), but most of the other inputs could be salvaged. The beta stopped at Metal Man, so all inputs after that in v1.0 were new. Here we will see just how suboptimal these beta inputs are.
Air Man
Stage save: 50 Boss save: 38 Total save: 88
The boss fight is perfect, aside from a lag frame which I don't think you can avoid. Watching the 2010 TAS's boss fight taught me a lot on how to achieve this.
Compared to the previous movie, you may be surprised there are 50 frames to save in the stage, considering I don't go for any different strats.
Well, for starters, I do go for one different strat: rather than turn around and spawn the bird to the left @3250, I can keep going and shoot the next two eggs without jumping. The second one requires me to shoot a bullet out ahead of time to alter the collision behavior, something I learned from the 2010 TAS. No idea why this works, but it's cool!
However, this only saves 2 frames. My new turnaround subpixel tech also ends up saving a frame...which is lost due to boss fight RNG manipulation. What a shame.
The rest of the timesave comes from two main sources: better horn jumps, and better falling.
You can do the horn jumps without stopping if you jump a little earlier, something I did not know in the beta.
The falling tech is even more embarrassing. Somehow, I had it in my head that a 1-frame jump is always optimal for falling off ledges, when in fact a much higher jump often saves more time; this is a misconception I carried with me through most of v1.0 as well.
But an even more embarrassing timesave comes from that one screen transition hidden behind clouds...I simply was not holding left during it, because I didn't realize I could move. This alone wasted about 20 frames.
You can do the horn jumps without stopping if you jump a little earlier, something I did not know in the beta.
The falling tech is even more embarrassing. Somehow, I had it in my head that a 1-frame jump is always optimal for falling off ledges, when in fact a much higher jump often saves more time; this is a misconception I carried with me through most of v1.0 as well.
But an even more embarrassing timesave comes from that one screen transition hidden behind clouds...I simply was not holding left during it, because I didn't realize I could move. This alone wasted about 20 frames.
Quick Man
Stage save: 36 Boss save: 18 Total save: 54
It turns out my calculations were wrong! Doing this stage with Air actually saves 6 frames over doing it with buster. I failed to account for the fact that you can switch weapons 10 frames earlier at the start of each stage. However, the buster route still ends up saving time, because of a cool damage boost tech I stumbled upon. By standing still for a couple frames, I'm able to take damage from the final Sniper Joe such that I recover from hitstun while in the air, saving me an extra jump. I was unable to get this trick in the air shooter route, because the mech gets defeated sooner and the sniper takes longer to fall down. This difference actually puts the buster route ahead by 1 frame!
I also saved time by defeating each hothead without any additional jumps (although 2 jumps had to be a frame or two higher), and jumping over the first Sniper Joe. My turnaround subpixel tech saved a frame, but due to a frame rule that apparently exists, I couldn't defeat the first mech any sooner. What a shame.
For the curious, I've left in a branch of the air shooter route: branch 8. Branch 9 is the frame Quick Man gets defeated in the current route. If you know of a way to do this boss fight quickly with air shooter, I'd love to hear about it!
If you dig around in the branches, you might find some inputs for Metal Man, but I'm putting those on hold until I'm confident in the Quick fight.