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Super Metroid cleared in exactly twelve minutes.

SMW's engine is all "Fuck it, you win"

edit: after reading the documentation on that one, that amounts to probably one of the hardest memory exploits I've seen in a Nintendo game.

Hahaha, totally. It's like "Dude, stop doing all that weird shit, I give up".
 
People need to relax on the hate for TAS runs. They are fun and made to break the game to try to finish a game faster. It isn't supposed to be competing or anything with legitimate speed-runs
 
Amazing. They aren't measuring runs in minutes anymore, they're measuring them in frames.

Best Metroid, infinite replay value.

It is very outdated thinking to dismiss a TAS as "illegitimate." It's another type of speedrun, that's all.
 
This is simply nuts! I watched the whole thing, and I had no idea what the X-Ray Scope would be for. Turns out that little thing came in handy.

TAS just piqued my interest. I shudder to think of the amount of time put into this.
 
Pushing the limit? Just because you play the game in slow motion and glitch through walls to the ending is hardly pushing anything.

I don't think you really understand the amount of effort that can go into finding those glitches that push you through walls or whatever.
 
Then they should do it without the tools.

Games are interactive. I'm not interested in what you can theoretically get some software to do when you're not actually playing it, as far as speedruns go. If you want to use it to find shortcuts for an actual run, then fine. But throwing up a time like it's impressive when you didn't actually play the game to make the time is entirely pointless.

That's fine. I have no clue how this post adds to a discussion or is in any way constructive. TAS runs aren't going to be for everyone, but the simple fact that some people enjoy them gives them value. Feel free to cry about how "pointless" they are all you want, but it won't do anything to negate their worth, or to articulate anything actually meaningful.

This isn't an aspect of video games that you care for and that's fine, but it doesn't mean that your definition of what's "fine" in a game is any more legitimate.
 
Speed runs are great for appreciating the skill of the player.

TAS runs are great for appreciating the technical intricacies of the game and what it's theoretically capable of.

Let's Plays are great for appreciating the game itself.
 
Why are people getting worked up about this cheating?

Fucking duh!

That's the entire point of these tool-assisted runs. That's why they blatantly admit as much up front. It's a completely different set of tools and techniques, deliberately trying to achieve some completely different type of goal.

Tool- and glitch-assisted runs and "pure" runs can coexist. Stop getting so offended by one - it's not like they're trying to pretend they're something they're not.
 
Could somebody point me in the direction of an explanation to the tricks behind the x-visor exploit?

I watched the video without reading anything (sand TAS) and I just watched samus stuck in the statue room for like 2 minutes jumping up and appearing back at the floor ala Pac Man.

He used the trick again before battling mother brain and suddenly appeared in the final emergency run full of explosions.


wtf mate?
 
When he started doing the X-Ray Visor trick I started laughing so hard. Something about it is just hilarious to watch/hear.
 
The TAS listed in Mama Robotnik's post is the current fastest one (that I'm about to watch), but this particular category is the plain coolest and most awesome Super Metroid TAS.

It always bothers me that these are pitched as completions or clearances. They're not; they're shortcuts to the end. That's not the same thing.
Both TASes and Speedrunners do "100%" speed runs that actually do seek to complete most of the objectives in the game alongside the normal "any%" runs.
 
I can certainly appreciate why these are fun to watch, but after seeing Siglemic and others fight over the Mario 64 world record, I'd rather see people display talent within the boundaries set forth by the developers.
 
Speed runs are great for appreciating the skill of the player.

TAS runs are great for appreciating the technical intricacies of the game and what it's theoretically capable of.

Let's Plays are great for appreciating the game itself.

This reminds me, some of my favorite Let's Plays are the blind Shattered Memories ones.
 
$59.99 for a 15 min game? Does it have online multiplayer? Games aren't as long as they used to be....

I hear there are extra levels on the cartridge, but you have to send Nintendo another $15 then they'll send you the code to unlock them.

Also, LOL at the my little pony comment on that super mario world video.

FonVG.png


Well said.
 
What the hell? There is nothing here that makes sense.

I wonder how much of that was actually vital to triggering the ending screen.

Apparently, when Yoshi spits out objects, it writes specific values to specific places in memory, depending on what object you spit out and where you spit it out at. Exploiting this can lead you to manipulate the game's RAM with some spit work.

As a result, he does a lot of spitting to reach the The End screen. That's why the screen shows up immediately after he spits out the last object.
 
that was cool, but I'm not really a fan of the x-ray room jump hack exploit. I'm fine with tool-assisted runs, but yeah, not a fan of the x-ray glitch.
 
What the hell? There is nothing here that makes sense.

I wonder how much of that was actually vital to triggering the ending screen.
IIRC besides some goofing around, pretty much everything that involves Yoshi in some way and the fishes flipping around was vital for memory manipulation purposes.

Basically Yoshi is a built-in Game Genie.
 
could someone explain the purpose of dying and the other restarts in the game? what would have changed should he have avoided those moments?
 
Apparently the Koopas on the screen, as well as the fish flopping, and Yoshi spitting stuff, had to do with incrementing the random number generator, they had to for some reason get it to some value, 1127 if I recall. Why that triggers the end game I have no idea.

Most "odd" things done in the video were done on purpose to reach the end game cut scene.

The funny thing is somebody triggered the glitch, sent them the video, and they had to figure out why the glitch happened.
 
They basically play the game in an emulator and use save states, slow-mo, and even playing the game literally frame by frame to do what they want to do perfectly.

To get a very basic idea of what they do, imagine you're playing Super Mario Bros. You could set the speed to .25 normal speed so that you have more time to react to everything, and then throw down a save state after every jump so you can jump back a bit if you mess something up. You put together all the successful parts and play it back at normal speed, and it's probably a far more skilled run than you could ever actually do.

Take that general concept, crank it up to insane levels of planning and dedication, throw in some glitches that require a realistically impossible degree of precision, and you get TAS runs.
I always had the idea of a Tool Assisted Speedrun to be something akin to "activate invincibility, all weapons unlocked, everything unlocked, lol i just beat the game in 30 seconds", or basically that's what I understood when I saw a guy doing that in Contra and Doom in Youtube. Your explanation actually sounds a lot better than that.

Apparently, when Yoshi spits out objects, it writes specific values to specific places in memory, depending on what object you spit out and where you spit it out at. Exploiting this can lead you to manipulate the game's RAM with some spit work.

As a result, he does a lot of spitting to reach the The End screen. That's why the screen shows up immediately after he spits out the last object.
What the fuck. Yoshi just glitched The Matrix.
 
that was cool, but I'm not really a fan of the x-ray room jump hack exploit. I'm fine with tool-assisted runs, but yeah, not a fan of the x-ray glitch.

Usually, the more boring glitches aren't very fun to watch. That's why some TASes are more exciting than others. Otherwise, there are non-glitch TASes which are also fun to watch, and play within the games rules.


could someone explain the purpose of dying and the other restarts in the game? what would have changed should he have avoided those moments?

The info from the person who discovered the glitch is in Post 15 by UncleSporky.

It's a little hard to explain. Basically, when you go to the game's Title Screen after death, "random" data is stored in the area of memory where level data would normally be. When you load a game, this random data is still present (provided the area you load doesn't overwrite the random data with real level data).

By dying in that specific room in Brinstar, the "random" data was written to memory, but it was specific level data that he wanted. So when he loaded the Tourian file, that data was still there. With that level data, he was able to skip Mother Brain by going in the ceiling and utilizing that data.

What was that specific data? It was door data. He created a door for himself.
 
Usually, the more boring glitches aren't very fun to watch. That's why some TASes are more exciting than others. Otherwise, there are non-glitch TASes which are also fun to watch, and play within the games rules.




The info from the person who discovered the glitch is in Post 15 by UncleSporky.

It's a little hard to explain. Basically, when you go to the game's Title Screen after death, "random" data is stored in the area of memory where level data would normally be. When you load a game, this random data is still present (provided the area you load doesn't overwrite the random data with real level data).

By dying in that specific room in Brinstar, the "random" data was written to memory, but it was specific level data that he wanted. So when he loaded the Tourian file, that data was still there. With that level data, he was able to skip Mother Brain by going in the ceiling and utilizing that data.

What was that specific data? It was door data. He created a door for himself.

Now THAT is Matrix level.
 
Then they should do it without the tools.

Games are interactive. I'm not interested in what you can theoretically get some software to do when you're not actually playing it, as far as speedruns go. If you want to use it to find shortcuts for an actual run, then fine. But throwing up a time like it's impressive when you didn't actually play the game to make the time is entirely pointless.

It's not like you do a TAS for your own "enjoyment". Its purpose is to show the absolute quickest way to complete a game under the best conditions possible. If you can contribute to the community and know a trick to solve the game quicker, you're a god. If you don't, shut up and enjoy. :]
 
What's the record of doing a normal completion run?

Best time: Single-segment 0:32 by 悟 '蛍火' 鈴木 (Satoru 'Hotarubi' Suzuki) on 2006-08-09.
Best time, European version: Single-segment 0:34 by Christopher Hill on 2010-02-11.
Best 100% time, European version: 0:48 by Christopher Hill on 2011-03-16.
Best 14% time: Single-segment 0:44 by 悟 '蛍火' 鈴木 (Satoru 'Hotarubi' Suzuki) on 2008-05-06.

You can watch here:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/SuperMetroid.html
 
Exploiting a glitch by spinning up the screen for 5 minutes then appearing near the end ruined the fun for me. The game screen was broken after that...
 
Usually, the more boring glitches aren't very fun to watch. That's why some TASes are more exciting than others. Otherwise, there are non-glitch TASes which are also fun to watch, and play within the games rules.




The info from the person who discovered the glitch is in Post 15 by UncleSporky.

It's a little hard to explain. Basically, when you go to the game's Title Screen after death, "random" data is stored in the area of memory where level data would normally be. When you load a game, this random data is still present (provided the area you load doesn't overwrite the random data with real level data).

By dying in that specific room in Brinstar, the "random" data was written to memory, but it was specific level data that he wanted. So when he loaded the Tourian file, that data was still there. With that level data, he was able to skip Mother Brain by going in the ceiling and utilizing that data.

What was that specific data? It was door data. He created a door for himself.

That's. So. Fucking. Cool.
 
Wow what a great run.

I can't believe most of you TAS's are awesome and a realtreat to see done to your favorite games. If you care that much about completions go watch longplays or let's plays. Geez.

Item Abuse world is another awesome TAS I love.
 
That's. So. Fucking. Cool.

glitch TAS are always much more fun when you understand what's actually happening. that's really the whole point: it teaches you so much about the way the game's layout and logic works on a much more fundemental level.

I can certainly appreciate why these are fun to watch, but after seeing Siglemic and others fight over the Mario 64 world record, I'd rather see people display talent within the boundaries set forth by the developers.
can't people do both?
 
I can certainly appreciate why these are fun to watch, but after seeing Siglemic and others fight over the Mario 64 world record, I'd rather see people display talent within the boundaries set forth by the developers.

You're talking about a run where the runners grab stars right through walls using a physics exploit..
 
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