TL;DR: I'm planning to change the end time split from 'when Wang punches the air' to 'when you connect the last hit on Wang, and the screen starts flashing'. This can give us a faster battle and less RNG trouble on future runs. Times will be adjusted, but current leaderboard order will not be affected. Waiting for feedback.
Hi, everyone. I'm working to add more informations to the rules board, for future submissions.
Among those, there's a small change I want to propose, that can definitely make runs more objective, faster, and less RNG based, when it comes to fighting Wang. Important note: while times will be adjusted, current leaderboard order will not be affected by this.
- Timer stops when you connect the last hit on Wang, and the screen starts flashing. The 'Wang punches the air' requirement is removed.
My explanation for this: on one hand, depending on where you land the final hit, it may take 3+ to 18+ seconds until Wang walks to the center of the screen and punches the air. In an attempt to get the best possible time, you'd need to lure him to as close to the center of screen as possible, for the final hit. That's a harder strat, on a considerably RNG-based fight, that unnecessarily delays the game win condition, and can ruin your run at the very end.
On the other hand, despite your position on screen, by the moment Wang takes the final hit, you immediately lose control of Riki and beat the game, so your run is actually over. Depending on Wang's initial movement, you can quickly lock him on the corner and spam the punch button until you win. A simple and fast strat. Even if you fail on that, you still have the freedom to finish the battle at any point of the screen, for a better time.
I already checked all videos (except for Zeusb's, since it's not available anymore, so time will stay the same). I'll wait for feedback until next weekend, before making adjustments. Any doubts, feel free to ask. Thanks for your attention.
I tried the Genplus-gx core on the most recent build for Bizhawk, and got great results.
- BizHawk 2.10-rc1 (Genplus-gx core):
-> 2 out of 6 tests: 5127 frames (1m 25s 450ms). Same as console.
-> 4 out of 6 tests: 5128 frames (1m 25s 467ms). Same as BlastEm.
TL;DR: No difference between BizHawk and Fusion.
Hi, everyone. After reading discussions on Sega emulators accuracy for speedruns, including praises for BizHawk and criticisms on Fusion, I decided to make my own tests on different emulators, by recording and doing frame counts.
I used a segment of about 1m25s, that goes from the moment Riki starts leaving the room, after beating Wang from the left side, until the next title screen rolls once and cuts to black. Here are the results I got.
- Fusion 3.64: 5120 frames (1m 25s 333ms)
- BizHawk 2.8 (SMSHawk): 5120 frames (1m 25s 333ms)
- RetroArch (Genesis Plus GX): 5101 frames (1m 25s 017ms)
- BlastEm: 5128 frames (1m 25s 467ms)
This is just an informative post, so people know that, while emulators may differ from each other, I don't see Fusion as an issue for Black Belt, especially when compared to BizHawk.