So I used to play this game a lot as a kid and I was surprised to see on the leaderboard no one really using it. I could see some people used a bat to punch their way up to the corner of the screen but it got me interested, I used to be able to do it so easily as a kid.
So I downloaded an emulator and think I now remember how I did it. My controller was broken, and the way I could move the dpad meant I could press left and right at the same time. Meaning, if I climbed the vine, pressed left + right as I jumped, then held right I could do this to the underwater doors:
Now I am not sure if this is just on the emulator I am using (OpenEMU on Mac) and if confirmed I am also not sure if it would be an allowed glitch, as I did it as a kid with a broken controller.
Might be of some interest to someone if they are bored, or maybe a TAS run. Bordem brought me this far...
Oh also, I seem to remember I could do this on different areas with vines or ladders. But it resulted in death a lot of the time with the area glitching.
There is a 2-3 Skip where you use a bat to get on top of the level, it saves 10s althought it's really RNG heavy and nobody goes for it, about the Dpad stuff, kinda curious, did you unabled the Left+Right option from your Emulator or even with it desactivated you could do this?
oh that's good! but pressing left+right is not allow in general.
But ... it was allow for Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, There is a separate category for that. If I remember properly, Left+Right is kind "ok to allow" with SMS because there was one controller (tectoy?) that was bad and allow that if you press hard enough.
If it's a glitch we can take advantage from in other parts of the game, I might be down to allow a separate category
ok I found, it's the "Sega Master System Plug & Play" from Tectoy and it has embedded games. Looks like Asterix is not in the list so that would be NOT valid to allow this category?
https://shinobiman.proboards.com/thread/10907/sega-master-system-plug-tectoy
No, you can't allow L+R inputs in runs. It's not doable on original hardware and can only be done on emulators with key binding or apparently third-party hardware with terrible controllers. Essentially banning original hardware from serious runs of this game is not a direction that I want to go down.
I guess you could go with a separate category, but I don't like categories based on emulator hacks. At that point, you might as well have categories for game genie codes or ram editing in bizhawk. I'd just file this glitch away as a novelty, but save the application of it for a TAS.
There is a 2-3 Skip where you use a bat to get on top of the level, it saves 10s althought it's really RNG heavy and nobody goes for it, about the Dpad stuff, kinda curious, did you unabled the Left+Right option from your Emulator or even with it desactivated you could do this?
Didn't change any settings from a fresh install, but I am using a keyboard at the moment. I don't see any options to change that on OpenEMU so maybe it just allows it by default?
Maybe some more useless info - I think I remember how my master system controller was broken, and in fact probably still have it somewhere at my parents house. So the black D-Pad had broken off but I used to hold it in with my thumb but it was really loose. When doing this glitch I used to do full "360" circles around which now I think is what must have somehow caught the left + right button at the same time.
The other places I think I remember using the skip was 4-3, although i do remember mainly dying a lot with this one, doing the glitch when jumping up after going down a pot. And then walking a bit closer to the end. Can't rememebr if that actually saved time. The other was was as asterix, but I can't remember the level number, same tile set as 4-3 but with the platform you stand on and have to follow around. Using it somewhere got me pretty much straight to the snowball boss.
But I think I agree with Quarbit personally, this is probably only for TAS.
And sorry for my ignorance, just curious, is using a keyboard generally frowned apon for speedruns?
Alright, sounds like we don't want to allow that glitch for now.
is using a keyboard generally frowned apon for speedruns?
My run was done on emulator with a keyboard, so yes so far it's allowed. At some one we should add more details in the rules to make sure when a run is done on emulator we can see the inputs, the rom is valid and it's not a TAS (no movie).
I was able to reproduce it in a TAS, looks like it's 2 frames window
haha thanks for confirming. Tight window! I did have to go up and down a few times before I got it.
The 10 year old nerd in me is loving this, finally after about 30 years I feel like I have accomplished something :D
I cannot find anywhere else where this glitch can be used, I think 2-3 is the only level with a ladder?
I wasn't able to reproduce the glitch you describe for 4-3 and 3-3 with the moving platform
I think you could be right and I am misremembering some of this. Thanks for the upload of the practice ROM. I'll have a mess around and report back if I find something.
At some one we should add more details in the rules to make sure when a run is done on emulator we can see the inputs, the rom is valid and it's not a TAS (no movie).
I worry about discouraging runners from getting into this game by making the rules too strict. The last thing I want to do is reject a new runner's first run because they weren't showing their inputs on emulator or they were using Fusion. Requirements like that are best limited to top times (e.g. sub 23) IMO.
