First Ninja Gaiden true no damage run

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

Just saw this, although it happened in December. Ninja Gaiden has a normally impossible to avoid hit at the very end of the game, although through nearly inhuman TAS-like button mashing you can barely avoid it with 5 slash cancels in 0.33 seconds. And you gotta perform that at the right moment after a no damage run through the rest of Ninja Gaiden. This is some legit "pro gamers are athletes" type stuff.

 

[mbd39 | 2,017]

Slackanator! I've watched him a lot on Twitch. Great guy. I knew he was pursuing a damageless Ninja Gaiden and Double Dragon.

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by mbd39

[Tulpa | 3,488]

I love how those guys get so excited when they pull it off. You'd think they'd be like, "eh, no big deal," but no, they know it's a big deal for them.

I also never knew you could destroy the head of the final boss outright.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

man, the nerves you'd have after destroying the head but still having to defeat the rest of the boss without getting hit. Well done!

[peg | 370]

So basically the only reason this was seen as "impossible" is because the speedrunning community is too dumb to simply use autofire? Got it lmfao.

Edited February 1, 2021 by peg

[guitarzombie | 924]

2 minutes ago, peg said:

So basically the only reason this was seen as "impossible" is because the speedrunning community is too dumb to simply use autofire? Got it lmfao.

Thank you for reminding me why I muted you on NA!  

[peg | 370]

1 minute ago, guitarzombie said:

Thank you for reminding me why I muted you on NA!  

You're welcome.

[Sumez | 2,933]

1 hour ago, peg said:

So basically the only reason this was seen as "impossible" is because the speedrunning community is too dumb to simply use autofire? Got it lmfao.

Or because speedrunners, which is the main competitive factor in this game, take several hits intentionally throughout the game, because it's faster than not doing it.
There's no "no damage" categories for obvious reasons.

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

Autofire wouldn't even help. The button combo to slash cancel is down > B > release down. You have to do that sequence of 3 actions 5 times in a third of a second without messing up once.

Maybe the speedrunners are too dumb to use one of those fancy programmable controllers though.

Edited February 1, 2021 by DefaultGen

[peg | 370]

Even so, having a high rate autofire on the attack alone would greatly simply it since you just have to mash 1 button instead of 2.

[cartman | 195]

That was pretty interesting with an enemy like that that theoretically can be beaten in a way that it really isn't intended to. I wonder if the programmers ever considered that it's beatable? Or they simply just threw in an unspecific and relatively high healthbar as if it isn't.

[peg | 370]

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

Or because speedrunners, which is the main competitive factor in this game, take several hits intentionally throughout the game, because it's faster than not doing it.
There's no "no damage" categories for obvious reasons.

It does save time to kill it that way, they just don't try it because it cant be pulled off consistently.  Except it probably could if they dropped the autofire = cheating stupidity.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

9 minutes ago, peg said:

It does save time to kill it that way, they just don't try it because it cant be pulled off consistently.  Except it probably could if they dropped the autofire = cheating stupidity.

They won't drop the "autofire = cheating stupidity" on account of the fact that autofire = cheating.  Now you know

[Tulpa | 3,488]

3 hours ago, cartman said:

That was pretty interesting with an enemy like that that theoretically can be beaten in a way that it really isn't intended to. I wonder if the programmers ever considered that it's beatable? Or they simply just threw in an unspecific and relatively high healthbar as if it isn't.

I think what happened is that they gave the demon's head its own health bar (that's not visible), and after it gets low enough, it triggers the head to scurry across the screen. A few more hits destroys it, but very few people can speed tap fast enough to finish it off before it runs into you.

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the original boss design originally had you blow up the head, but they changed it to fall off and hit you after so many hits.

[Sumez | 2,933]

3 hours ago, peg said:

It does save time to kill it that way, they just don't try it because it cant be pulled off consistently.

Plenty of other places in the game allows you to save a notable amount of time by taking a hit though, so it doesn't matter if they get the demon head or not.

[cartman | 195]

4 hours ago, Tulpa said:

I think what happened is that they gave the demon's head its own health bar (that's not visible), and after it gets low enough, it triggers the head to scurry across the screen. A few more hits destroys it, but very few people can speed tap fast enough to finish it off before it runs into you.

So it would be killable like a sideeffect of when it gets deattached, wich in turn is determined by it's healthbar. 

Yeah that could be. Altough i think you could just as easily program it so that the attached head takes X hits to drop while the deattached is immortal, still doesn't answer why they didn't.

The running head could've had the same visual/audial effect of a connecting strike while making 0 damage or that it makes damage but would require 1000 hits = unbeatable by anyone.

The latter example could be a programming technique based on the notion that it's harder and takes more time to design immortality for whatever reason. But i doubt there is such an issue.

Edited February 2, 2021 by cartman

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

14 hours ago, peg said:

Even so, having a high rate autofire on the attack alone would greatly simply it since you just have to mash 1 button instead of 2.

The trick only works if you mash down and b at the same time, if you autofire just the slash, it still has a cool down and you can only slash a couple times before hitting the ground again. Pushing down at the same time is what cancels the cool down

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

The hit is intentional to bring your energy down to 15 from 16 so that you can only take 5 hits from the shrimp and not 6. Nothing more than classic NES cheapness. I believe it's just a fluke that slash cancelling exists the way it does and they programmed the head to have a 'normal' health bar. The fact that the head can be destroyed with this technique is nothing more than a coincidence in my opinion.

 

 

[Tulpa | 3,488]

4 hours ago, cartman said:

Yeah that could be. Altough i think you could just as easily program it so that the attached head takes X hits to drop while the deattached is immortal, still doesn't answer why they didn't.

 

Probably because that may need to be a separate sprite, whereas the first option it's the same sprite, just suddenly moving.

[peg | 370]

14 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

They won't drop the "autofire = cheating stupidity" on account of the fact that autofire = cheating.  Now you know

Yeah I guess everyone who ever used a NES advantage or Max is just a dirty cheater. 

And don't forget anyone who ever played the turbografx, total fakes and cheaters all of them.

Edited February 2, 2021 by peg

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Turbografx, no, because it's a stock feature of the standard controller.

The others? Yep.

[peg | 370]

So Nintendo's own controllers they sell are nothing more than cheating devices?

 

 

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

The rules are set by the people who create the challenges, not 1989 playground law lol.

[Sumez | 2,933]

I'm sure if someone had done this using autofire (still not really sure how you want to reliably slash-cancel using autofire, but whatever) the feat would still be recognized as impressive.

When speedrunners don't do it, it's as DefaultGen says it - the competitive scene is what sets the rules. Some games welcome autofire, some are just broken by it, it really does depend on the context.