Games with the most impressive TASes

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Drew Sebastino
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Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I thought about this after seeing the newest video by a YouTuber named CGN, who has a bunch of F-Zero GX videos. Holy crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afE4xzKfSOs

That's not even the only TAS by this person either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbduA_aLT0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRu8KbbAyOg

I mean, sure, something like this is also impressive (Super Mario 64 TAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQB893nJNgw) but more so when you actually know the game. I don't even need to know F-Zero GX beforehand to know that that's some crazy shit.

3D games generally are the most interesting for these kinds of videos due to the fact that you need to worry about making the most optimal moves in three dimensions than just two, and there are often more physics exploits that cause you to go crazy fast.

Anyone have any other games like this that impress them? I haven't found an equal... :lol:
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by tepples »

Espozo wrote:3D games generally are the most interesting for these kinds of videos due to the fact that you need to worry about making the most optimal moves in three dimensions than just two, and there are often more physics exploits that cause you to go crazy fast.
Until you find videos that are just as impressive and full of exploits despite being real-time plays. Search YouTube for invisible tetris or tgm3 shirase to start.
Espozo wrote:Anyone have any other games like this that impress them? I haven't found an equal... :lol:
Including or excluding "full control" TASes that upload a machine language bootloader? I've seen them for Pokémon Yellow Version, Super Mario World, and Super Mario Bros. 3. The SMB3 one is funny, and the SMW one for the All-Stars rerelease shows how Mario Maker might have been possible in the 16-bit era had Nintendo given a $#!+.
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Kasumi
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Kasumi »

I always enjoyed the Brain Age art TAS videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOfcvPf-22k

They take advantage of the hand writing recognition system to draw elaborate pictures that the game recognizes as the number that is the correct answer.

+1 for the full control TAS videos too. I'm usually impressed more by weird stuff than just speed.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Yeah, I've seen the Brain Age TASes before. I have no clue how that number recognition system works. I remember, I actually have that game, and it could never read my handwriting because I write from top to bottom instead of bottom to top.

Anyway, I found another TAS video that has made my eyes hurt. I've never thought about how a TAS of Doom (more specifically, Doom II) might look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs_VG3jTg9U
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by dustmop »

That first F-Zero run reminds me of this TAS of Zelda 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmVyYVnfQZk, in which.... something.... is happening, but it barely resembles actual gameplay. I'm pretty sure it's just caused by left+right being pressed simultaneously, which is still fascinating.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Drew Sebastino »

dustmop wrote:I'm pretty sure it's just caused by left+right being pressed simultaneously, which is still fascinating.
That sounds kind of like F-Zero GX: The way they're accelerating so fast is by alternating left and right every frame with the analog stick and the shoulder buttons.

I really don't understand why games don't skip the code for holding down right if the code for left is being run. I bet it's a conditional branch anyway, I don't see how it couldn't be unless they are directly manipulating the value of the controller inputs.

But that's crazy. The game can't even keep up in changing the tilemap. It's unfortunate you still have to go through the map though.
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Myask »

dustmop wrote:That first F-Zero run reminds me of this TAS of Zelda 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmVyYVnfQZk, in which.... something.... is happening,
The speed (and failure to update bg fast enough) is from left+right simultaneous, yes. What happens by talking to the Healer in Rauru and having her enter the door wrong is The Healer Glitch. NG+ and the Healer Glitch let one complete the game in ten minutes or less on console, even without L+R. (Without NG+, it's more like twenty.)
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Bregalad »

Kasumi wrote:I always enjoyed the Brain Age art TAS videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOfcvPf-22k
Amazing ! Especially the "Happy Birthday! Today, you're 199 years old!" part.
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Myask »

There are more than one, though several drawings are shared.
http://tasvideos.org/1569M.html
http://tasvideos.org/1734M.html
There was also one run at AGDQ2016, with its own content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U22_noWVwsE

Abuse of text-parser is also fun: http://tasvideos.org/1248M.html

If you want ninja-flipping: http://tasvideos.org/1257M.html

Possibly one of the funniest, else: http://tasvideos.org/1438M.html

Hyper Princess Pitch on its joke impossible difficulty is also good. http://tasvideos.org/2529M.html
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dustmop
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by dustmop »

This Umihara Kawase run is incredible. Manipulating physics to the extreme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLpj92X5Xjo
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by rainwarrior »

dustmop wrote:This Umihara Kawase run is incredible. Manipulating physics to the extreme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLpj92X5Xjo
I don't see anything in this run that I'd consider an exploit. All of those techniques are by-design, really, just they're pretty tricky to pull off. ;) The subsequent games in the series really embraced these special features of its rope physics and built on them.
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by pubby »

This isn't TAS per se, but SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) is a very entertaining.
Espozo wrote:I thought about this after seeing the newest video by a YouTuber named CGN, who has a bunch of F-Zero GX videos. Holy crap.
CGN is insanely good without tool assistance, too. His speedrun of GX at AGDQ was the highlight of the marathon.

And here was the other highlight of the marathon. It's my favorite speedrunning video of all time.
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dustmop
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by dustmop »

rainwarrior wrote:I don't see anything in this run that I'd consider an exploit. All of those techniques are by-design, really
The run is still impressive even though it doesn't break the engine. Few games have that level of finesse built into their design.
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by rainwarrior »

The Umihara Kawase games are really amazing, IMHO. Though, they have a rather devastating difficulty curve. Very much sink or swim. The physics system is remarkably robust and interesting. It's reliable and predictable, while also being very hard to execute. I think it took some really genius work to build a system like that. It's also worth noting that both sequels have nearly identical physics-- I think this system might have been so well tuned that it's difficult to do it any differently than it is. It's a very strange and unique snowflake.

You see a lot of speed-runs that exploit bugs in a physics system (like the FZero ones that started this thread), but Kawase runs aren't doing that; they're playing the game by its intended rules, just with inhuman precision. (See the link in my last post for an example of the limits of human precision.)
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Games with the most impressive TASes

Post by Drew Sebastino »

rainwarrior wrote:You see a lot of speed-runs that exploit bugs in a physics system (like the FZero ones that started this thread)
Apparently, they were actually discovered by the development team, and they didn't feel like removing them. I heard the staff ghost on Sand Ocean, Lateral Shift actually does shift boosting (moving on and off the track very quickly to gain speed).

I know I've heard this in a couple of places, but I know I heard it from the F-Zero wiki: http://fzero.wikia.com/wiki/Snaking
F-Zero Wiki wrote:According to Nintendo, snaking was actually an addition to the gameplay, which means it was not a glitch or anything specially "discovered".
pubby wrote:CGN is insanely good without tool assistance, too.
He really could have gone faster. He waited for 26 seconds to prove he could still beat Deathborn.
rainwarrior wrote:This Umihara Kawase run is incredible. Manipulating physics to the extreme!
After seeing the F-Zero GX videos and even the Zelda II one, that doesn't even compare. I think the Super Monkey Ball TAS videos are insane, but only because I played the game and got my butt kicked royally. But even still, I could tell it's a TAS. I couldn't tell with Umihara Kawase, only until I saw how "bad" a regular player looks at the game.
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