Lets racing time

Apart from challenges like the ones above, I've been thinking of a Classic Mega Man Buster-Only run. It would require no save states or passwords, and have the potential to put other challenges in as style points.

Rules:

1 Boss from each game (1-5)
Must clear the stage and beat the boss
Style points for no sliding / no charge shots / no e-tanks / no damage / no death

I would say it will need some practice on the parts of the participants, but I have an idea for a hint system as well, for when people get stuck.

This has the potential to both be over very quickly, or to drag out for a very long time. XD Would anyone be up for a Buster Only Pentathlon Challenge?

How about letting contestants choose between two challenges from each of the games: one that's fairly easy but moderately time-consuming (like the get to the PNEOP challenge), and another that's quicker but tricky (like the beat Quick Man challenge)?

You just hold the Shift key when you're getting Item 1 from Heat Man, obviously.

Got some inking done today.


Have to fix a few mistakes, then color it and put it all together. Depending on my workload, I'll say 1-3 days.
Need to figure out how that header stuff works as well, but with this setup, I can always just draw and add new characters later on if desired.

And now that I've watched Brickroad's MMX race, I'm even more shameful of my performance in McDohl's race. This header will hopefully make up for some massive failure to come.

Those look fantastic!

In the MMX race, I'm absolutely amazed at the number of people who opted to fight Armored Armadillo without Spark Shock. I mean, yea it can be done, but this is a race! That's the most tedious thing you can do in the whole game!

You know, unless you don't suck.

You're a gentleman and scholar, Dadaph.

From memory the hurricane kick is tatsumaki senpukyaku.

...

This is why there is nothing useful in my brain.

How about a race where you have to do Chill Penguin last, and you can't enter the stage until the other 7 have been beaten?

Also, I wouldn't suggest it for a race but there's also a password that puts you to the sigma stages without the dash boots.

That sounds exceptionally tedious.

I think my reasoning was something like "I need the boomerang for the sub-tank in Mandrill's stage, and I need missiles to get the boomerang, and I need the shield to get the missiles, and hey, Armadillo's got an easy pattern!"

I should have done a test play.

No one except McDohl did a test play.

At least I had an excuse.

Octopus isn't to bad with the X-Buster as long as you can dash, especially if you come in with the tank from Eagle full.

Dan had it right just practicing Kuwanger. I skipped the heart in that stage anyway (although I wouldn't have had to, has I gotten the gun).

Dan says the reason my sub-tanks weren't filling me up all the way is that I was missing heart tanks. Anyone know the skinny on that?

If I'm going for a quick MMX run, my order's always Penguin --> Eagle --> Mammoth --> Kuwanger --> Chameleon --> Mandrill --> Armadillo --> Octopus. Boomer Kuwanger isn't so bad that I'd feel the need to have his weakness.

It's been a long time since I played MMX, but I remember Kuwanger being hard. That's when I was a kid, tho.

I'd go
Chill Penguin > Storm Eagle > Flame Mammoth > Spark Mandrill > Armored Armadillo > Launch Octopus > Boomer Kuwanger > Sting Chameleon

This was kind of always my order as a kid, and I always just backtracked for the missed Hearts and ETanks. In a race, I'd probably take my chances and just skip those things.

Fun Fact: If you happen to be one of those guys who fights Kuwanger earlier, you can use his boomerangs to cut off Launch Octopus' tentacles, and Flame Mammoth's trunk. If you don't happen to have their weaknesses, those can make the fight ever so slightly easier, by limiting their attacks. Not that those two are all that hard anyway, but I had no idea you could do that when I was a kid. That was learned much later in life.

I got all the tanks(and even the Hadouken) in my run, and I had the same problem. Sub didn't fill me all up.

EDIT:
So, I started the game up on my SNES just to check. Used a password to Sigma stages with all upgrades. Filled my Subtanks and tried: it filled my health to the max.
However, this is the PAL version. The ROM I used in the race was NTSC.
My guess is there are two versions of the game, one where subtanks fill all your HP and one where it only fills half. Kinda like Zelda 2 where some versions allows the players to fly through keyholes and others don't. I don't know.
This gave me a serious handicap while fighting Sigma in McDohl's race, but I sucked anyway. It only explains why I was able to easily beat the game on my original SNES two weeks earlier(can call that my practice run).

Tried this again last night to test desync issues/SNES recording.

If you can beat Sigma 1 with just the flame wave in one go (without having pre-cleared VIle or just getting super lucky on weapon energy drops) you're a better player than I. Also Sting remains a stupidly long, drawn out fight.

Armadillo with the buster is still a chump, though just like octopus.

I, uh, almost always buster cleared Sigma 1. I once got to the point where I could almost clear him without getting hit.

I may have played too much MMX as a kid.

The "two different versions of MMX" theory might hold water. My ROM is listed as 1.1.

the number of heart tanks was the only difference I could think of between me and Brick, except that I also had the buster. I got all of the upgrades (including subtanks, heart tanks, ad add-ons). No hadoken.

Huh, yeah, I thought the subtanks never fully refilled you. But I never bother to get any of the heart tanks that require backtracing or fighting bosses out of order when I do a full clear and I never get the ones that require weapons on a buster only run.

Didn't someone in the video use a trick with the Boomerang Cutter to speed the fight up?

I was referring to fighting him under dtsund's suggested challenge run constraints. I haven't been able to do any better than trade hits when he goes to the corner and uses chameleon stings since any walldash jump arc that gets you close enough to hit him with flame eats a sting, and that's not really viable since he takes one damage per hit. You can only hurt hm during his tongue lash and shake the ceiling attacks, on top of his ample normal invulnerable time (and the tongue lash is pretty damn nasty, never realized how much damage it does or how he can do it a random number of times).

With his weakness? Yeah, the way it trips his AI into alternating ceiling shake attacks on either side of you he's likely the quickest maverick fight in the game, since it cuts out all of his invulnerable time (it's either him, mandril or armadillo).

Listen, guys, hideofbeast is right there for all of your dashless, buster-only needs.

Okay guys, who is down to race Blaster Master?

Anyone? I'm serious.

Oh... I didn't realize that and thought you were just talking about him normally.

Torgo, here's my part of the race.

So, I think I have a path set through Super Metroid, my clear time is a little higher than I'd like tho... perhaps I should trim a few items off my list. XD