Metal Slug - May 28, 2019

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2019-05-28 12:54:30 pm

2019-05-14 12:48:57 am

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/MetalSlug.html

Metal Slug (ntscus) (ng) [Any %] [Single Segment] [Level 4]

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'Koston'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2019-05-14 12:48:57 am

Run Information

Metal Slug (ntscus) (ng) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/metalslug_HQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). If you wish to remain anonymous, you can also send a pm with your reply to 'sdaverification' (please state clearly in that case which run you have verified). This is not a contest where the majority wins - Each verification will be judged on its content.

Koston

2019-05-14 10:53:59 am

Note to verifiers: aside abstaining from using death abuse strats (which would have granted some additional timesaves and made the run easier and less RNG dependant), all other currently known alternative strats have been considered and tested. In cases where top runs on lag-free versions use alternative strats, they have proven to be either slower or provide no time saves on NeoGeo due to lag.

Examples:

- Stage 1 boss is approached closer before firing to prevent it from firing blue energy balls, since they cause considerable amount of lag.
- Stage 5 rocket launcher is not collected at the beginning of stage, which would allow skippping picking up bombs after the tank. Rocket launcher is a major source for lag, and using it doesn't save any time, only increases risk of losing time.
- Stage 5 boss bottom part is not destroyed. It only causes more lag, and doesn't even save any time on lag-free versions, just makes the fight easier.

Sonikkustar

2019-05-15 08:05:42 pm

The Great Farming Empire

A/V Quality - Good
Cheating - At the beginning of Mission 2, it seemed like you were shooting the pistol a little bit faster than normal. Part of me is a little suspicious about the possible use of turbo for things like shooting your weapons or throwing grenades. At the very least, judging from your past broadcasts on your twitch channel, this does appear to be played on played on actual hardware considering you go through the trouble of going through the NeoGeo menu to reset your game. So it could just be a case of no input lag being taken advantage of and me being overly paranoid and forgetful of how fast you can actually mash in this game. So take this with a serious grain of salt.

It's amazing to see that the Metal Slug games still get plentiful amounts of attention in the speedrunning scene. Seeing some of these new strats here was a sight to see. I think there might be some optimizations that could have been done with regards to how you shoot certain weapons (i.e. Shooting down with the Rocket Launcher while in the air is faster than on the ground because the recoil animation is shorter iirc). I especially like what you did with the bridge section on the Final Mission. That section was always a pain for me because of the layout, so to see the proper, modern strat for that section was nice.

Everything else looked really clean and polished. Overall, this is a really nice run.

Accept

A/V Quality - Good
Cheating - At the beginning of Mission 2, it seemed like you were shooting the pistol a little bit faster than normal. Part of me is a little suspicious about the possible use of turbo for things like shooting your weapons or throwing grenades. At the very least, judging from your past broadcasts on your twitch channel, this does appear to be played on played on actual hardware considering you go through the trouble of going through the NeoGeo menu to reset your game. So it could just be a case of no input lag being taken advantage of and me being overly paranoid and forgetful of how fast you can actually mash in this game. So take this with a serious grain of salt.

It's amazing to see that the Metal Slug games still get plentiful amounts of attention in the speedrunning scene. Seeing some of these new strats here was a sight to see. I think there might be some optimizations that could have been done with regards to how you shoot certain weapons (i.e. Shooting down with the Rocket Launcher while in the air is faster than on the ground because the recoil animation is shorter iirc). I especially like what you did with the bridge section on the Final Mission. That section was always a pain for me because of the layout, so to see the proper, modern strat for that section was nice.

Everything else looked really clean and polished. Overall, this is a really nice run.

[b]Accept[/b]

LotBlind

2019-05-25 09:55:01 am

Just to make sure: getting "1st A" rank is not part of the category here?

Looks like "No Miss" means no deaths. Trying to make heads or tails of this run.

What does the "level 4" mean? Fourth difficulty setting? Very hard? If so, shouldn't that be part of the category?

ktwo

2019-05-25 12:15:19 pm

This run looks fantastic. I don't think I could spot anything that looked like a noticeable time loss. I should mention that I haven't played the Metal Slug games much myself though (even though I'd like to do so at some point).

Sonikkustar, can you give a time stamp of the section you're referring to? I had a look at the mashing in "the beginning of mission 2" and it was mostly around 10/s, which is nothing out of the ordinary (but not bad either).

I very much look forward to rewatch this run later on with the runner's comments to get the finer details of this run. But as far as the verification goes, amazing job.

ACCEPT!

Finally, out of curiosity, what does "original NeoGeo MVS hardware using an arcade stick" mean? Was this played on an actual arcade cabinet or was an arcade PCB connected so it could be played on a normal TV?

Koston

2019-05-26 09:14:59 am

- There's no special mashing required in the run, I can comfortably do faster than 10Hz which is plenty enough here. Using Turbo would only hurt the run, since in many places it's important to not shoot more than necessary (especially with rocket launcher) to avoid lag, and with bombs also to not waste them.

- There's no rank at the end, it's just my score and placement on the "all-time" highest scores list. I ranked 1st because I'd recently cleared the backup RAM of my MVS board, resetting the highscores, and I rarely bother playing for score anyway. Reason it just says 'A' is that I was expected to input my three letter handle for the highscore entry as is customary for arcade games, but I was so flustered over finally nailing The Run, I didn't even realise until afterwards I'd missed my chance to put my usual 'KOS' there.

- Level 4 refers to the difficulty. In most NeoGeo games, there are eight difficulty settings trough level1 to level8, and level4 is the default. I'd prefer if the difficulty is included in the category, then it would be just called "level 4". Different versions and ports of metal slug games use different names that correspond to these levels, but the naming is not anywhere near consistent across the board, and just adds confusion.

- I've been running this game for quite a while now, and even though there are some minor timeloss here and there, overall I'm very proud of this run and find it unlikely I will ever attempt to further improve it, because of RNG. (I will go into more detail about it in run comments).

- I don't have an arcade cabinet (no room for such, sadly), just the PCB and a supergun to hook it up on a consumer CRT TV. Arcade stick is an old Nintendo Wii stick I've modded with a DB15 connector, Sanwa JLF stick with 2lb spring, octagonal gate and 1mm oversized actuator, and gamerfinger buttons with black cherry MX microswitches. Capture is done by Datapath VisionRGB-E1S, and using an RGB distribution amplifier (active splitter).

Apologies for delayed run comments, I've frankly been procrastinating for a bit and just need to get my ass in gear.

- There's no special mashing required in the run, I can comfortably do faster than 10Hz which is plenty enough here. Using Turbo would only hurt the run, since in many places it's important to not shoot more than necessary (especially with rocket launcher) to avoid lag, and with bombs also to not waste them.

- There's no rank at the end, it's just my score and placement on the "all-time" highest scores list. I ranked 1st because I'd recently cleared the backup RAM of my MVS board, resetting the highscores, and I rarely bother playing for score anyway. Reason it just says 'A' is that I was expected to input my three letter handle for the highscore entry as is customary for arcade games, but I was so flustered over finally nailing The Run, I didn't even realise until afterwards I'd missed my chance to put my usual 'KOS' there.

- Level 4 refers to the difficulty. In most NeoGeo games, there are eight difficulty settings trough level1 to level8, and level4 is the default. I'd prefer if the difficulty is included in the category, then it would be just called "level 4". Different versions and ports of metal slug games use different names that correspond to these levels, but the naming is not anywhere near consistent across the board, and just adds confusion.

- I've been running this game for quite a while now, and even though there are some minor timeloss here and there, overall I'm very proud of this run and find it unlikely I will ever attempt to further improve it, because of RNG. (I will go into more detail about it in run comments).

- I don't have an arcade cabinet (no room for such, sadly), just the PCB and a supergun to hook it up on a consumer CRT TV. Arcade stick is an old Nintendo Wii stick I've modded with a DB15 connector, Sanwa JLF stick with 2lb spring, octagonal gate and 1mm oversized actuator, and gamerfinger buttons with black cherry MX microswitches. Capture is done by Datapath VisionRGB-E1S, and using an RGB distribution amplifier (active splitter).

Apologies for delayed run comments, I've frankly been procrastinating for a bit and just need to get my ass in gear.

LotBlind

2019-05-26 02:16:22 pm

Okay, thanks for clarifying this stuff. I'm less than versed in run 'n' guns (is that what this is?)/the Neo Geo.

The difficulty will be mentioned. Feel free to add it to any future similar submissions. And "no deaths" will not expressly be mentioned, but if someone submits a "with deaths" run, that will be mentioned as per what we usually do.

So for now, based on gameplay and A/V quality, this does feel like a fairly straightforward

accept

Sonikkustar

Edit history:

Sonikkustar: 2019-05-26 09:30:32 pm

2019-05-26 03:51:49 pm

The Great Farming Empire

Quote from ktwo:

Sonikkustar, can you give a time stamp of the section you're referring to? I had a look at the mashing in "the beginning of mission 2" and it was mostly around 10/s, which is nothing out of the ordinary (but not bad either).

Yeah, disregard what I said. That was me being a paranoid dumb. The run is perfectly fine.

SDAVerification

2019-05-28 12:54:31 pm

Decision posted.

LotBlind

2019-06-13 12:14:45 pm

Koston: just a friendly reminder that you marked this as waiting for run comments.

IsraeliRD

2019-07-15 12:51:19 am

Dragon Power Supreme

I love watching Metal Slug speedruns, and this was a brilliant run! Thanks for making it!