Mega Man X2 FAQ

Q: What is the world record for any%?
A: 33:03 by Caleb. For more runners and times, check out the leaderboard here: http://bombch.us/ec0

Q: Do you play on console?
A: Yes, I use a modified SNES that allows me to play with SFC cartridges. I use a stock SFC controller.

Q: Why do you play on the Japanese version?
A: The Japanese version of MMX2 saves 15.12 seconds over the US version in any%. For more information on timing differences, see: http://bombch.us/ecm

Q: What are the differences between SNES, VC, XC and emulator for this game?
A: This is a question that has created utter chaos. Here's what we know:
 - SNES has the most lag; XC has no lag whatsoever; VC and emulators all fall somewhere in-between.
 - Due to no lag, XC -cannot- skip the Crystal Snail miniboss. Additionally, XC runs into save screens after every stage.
 - Emulators can allow you to clip through the 2nd to last crystal in Snail's stage while it's falling down. As of now, this trick appears to be impossible on both SNES and XC. I'm not sure if it can be done on VC or all emulators.
 - The laggiest parts of the game occur during boss fights, in particular: Wheel Gator, Morph Moth, Magna Centipede and Sigma Virus. Lag, however, is encountered throughout the game and it's incredibly difficult to measure just what the SNES goes through due to its inability to be properly emulated. Actions made by the player directly influence ingame lag, and some strategies result in more or less lag depending on the platform used.
 - MMX2 is difficult to emulate due to its use of the Cx4, a special coprocessor chip. The Cx4 is a math coprocessor that's used to perform general trigonometric calculations for wireframe effects, sprite positioning and rotation. Those beautiful wire frame effects that make cameo appearances in MMX2 and MMX3? You can pretty much thank those for this awful mess of platform differences.
 - Not all emulators are the same. Higan (alternatively, BSNES or BizHawk) appears to be the best unofficial emulator in terms of attempting to emulate MMX2's lag. SNESGT and Snes9x 1.51+ both underperform, and it should be noted that the former runs at a faster frame rate than the latter (60 vs 59.94 FPS). Globally banned emulators in speedrunning (e.g. ZSNES, Snes9x 1.43, UOSNES) have varying amounts of "lag," though in this case it's not so much the emulator attempting to emulate lag as it is the emulator struggling so hard with the Cx4 that the program as a whole slows down.
 - In rare cases, the difficulty of a trick may change depending on the resolution of the emulator window. For example, if you change the resolution of Snes9x 1.53, the classic OHKO on Sigma Virus in which you shoryuken up the left wall can either be the standard 1 frame, 2 or more frames, or completely impossible. In both of the following images, Sigma Virus dies on the same frame but is in a different position due to window sizes: http://imgur.com/oPx2i2Q,7Uzrrc9#0
 - Ultimately, you should feel free to run MMX2 on any platform you desire. Comparisons between runs done on different platforms should not be made, however. For this reason, SNES/VC and Emulator/XC are currently separated, but further separation may be necessary.

Q: Why do you collect everything in any%?
A: The fastest way to complete the game is to obtain the shoryuken, of which requires all 8 hearts, all 4 sub tanks and all 4 armor upgrades. For 100%, you also need to collect the Zero Parts.

Q: Will you ever run 100%?
A: Maybe for fun, but I have no intention to seriously run it. 100% is just any% with 3 additional boss fights, of which results in more lag, more RNG and more backtracking or boring platforming. It's really lame.

Q: Will you ever run low%?
A: This category is far more interesting than 100% and I've definitely flirted with the idea before. Maybe I'll do it, maybe not.

Q: How does the weather in Wire Sponge's stage work?
A: The weather patterns at the end of the stage are random. Between the elevator and the first ladder, you can divide Sponge's stage into 3 parts. The first section can either give clear weather (this is optimal), rain (this slows down your movement), or sunny weather (this lags the game a lot). The second section always receives rain. The third section can either give sunny weather (this is optimal) or rain (just like the first part, this slows down your movement speed).

Q: How are you dealing two damage with the default buster attack?
A: If you fire a lemon after dashing, the lemon will deal two damage to most targets in the game. This appears to be an intended mechanic.

Q: Why aren't you shooting Wire Sponge?
A: If you inflict more than 22 damage on Sponge, his next pattern--assuming he's on the ground--will be a rain dance in which he is invulnerable for approximately 9 seconds. In a speedrun, we try to avoid this attack by delaying further damage until he grabs the ceiling, thus allowing us to kill him before he's able to fall back down.

Q: Why does the capsule in Wheel Gator's stage vary in its opening speed?
A: The capsule only opens when the camera is centered, and the periodic shaking of Gator's stage can prevent this from happening.

Q: How do you kill Wheel Gator in 1 cycle?
A: After Gator is hit with strike chain, he will immediately try to dive into the water. Between his invincibility frames wearing off and his diving animation, there's a 5 frame window of opportunity in which you can hit him again. This 5 frame link results in a stunlock allowing you to kill Gator quickly and efficiently every single time. However, there -is- some RNG even if you combo him: Gator may or may not be knocked backwards when you hit him. Since the timing window effectively changes based on your positioning with respect to Gator, paying attention to whether or not he moves backwards is crucial.

Q: How are you firing an uncharged chain while retaining a charge during the Gator fight?
A: I'm buffering the input. Between Gator's health filling up completely and the fight actually starting, there's a window in which you can buffer inputs; in this case, I'm re-pressing and holding the shoot button. Buffered inputs are used as an opening for a number of other boss fights, most notably Crystal Snail's.

Q: Ostrich 3rd? Stag 3rd? What the heck is the route?
A: I use Ostrich 3rd, though Stag 3rd has definitely picked up some momentum recently in terms of interest and popularity. The original purpose of Ostrich 3rd was to obtain the leg upgrade early for neon jumps (more on that later), thereby saving a revisit in Moth's stage. The fundamental issue with this route is that it involves buster dueling Ostrich, of whom has a very potent weakness in Crystal Hunter, and using weakness against Stag, of which does the same damage as dash lemons; Stag 3rd attempts to correct for this.
   It's kind of funny, but these 2 routes have created a rift of sorts within the X2 community. It doesn't help that the two people who've tested the routes have conflicting results. The tests done are as follows:
* http://pastebin.com/MNRzj6Z4 - Tests done by Megiddo
   - Conclusion: Ostrich 3rd is faster -if- you get at least an average pattern and execute the fight superbly. This means keeping Ostrich under iframes. Note that no runner has particularly good Ostrich fights, so with that said, Stag 3rd is pretty much faster for everyone unless they take the time to really learn and drill the Ostrich buster duel.
* http://bombch.us/m4E - Tests done by Hetfield
   - Conclusion: Stag 3rd is strictly faster.
Both runners have videos of their tests on their respective Twitch pages, so feel free to check them out.

Q: How does the bike work in Overdrive Ostrich's stage?
A: I don't think anyone aside for maybe TASers has a full understanding of how the bike works, but do know that not crashing the bike is perfectly consistent if you shoot in the right places and hold dash the entire time. You do not need to press jump. Lag may influence whether or not you're successful (i.e. mashing is bad), and ramps should be shot down as soon as possible.

Q: How are you hitting Ostrich two times in quick succession?
A: Ostrich's invincibility frames reset when he reaches the peak of his jump, allowing you to shoot him two times in a row. With that said, you preferably want Ostrich to jump as many times as possible (provided you're still in a position where you can perform double hits). Flame Stag has a similar mechanic in which his invincibility frames reset during his fireball throwing animation.

Q: How are you doing double/triple jumps?
A: These are referred to as Neon or Liberty jumps. This trick requires the X-Buster upgrade in Gator's stage and the leg upgrade in Ostrich's stage. To perform a neon jump, release a fully charged shot (i.e. X is at the purple tier of a charge, not green or yellow) and jump on the same frame while airdashing. It does not matter if it's at the start or end of an airdash. Since X can store 2 fully charged shots at once, you can chain these to perform a double neon jump.

Q: What is Neon Switching?
A: Neon Switching is a glitch that allows X to retain a charged buster shot while being able to freely swap to and use other weapons. To perform a neon switch, simply release your first of two fully charged shots as you enter a door. This trick is most notably used before the fight against Flame Stag.

Q: Why are you using buster against Magna Centipede?
A: When you use Centipede's true weakness, silk shot, his tail falls off. Without his tail, he can only do two patterns: jump or throw shurikens. Attacking him when he does these specific patterns will always result in him teleporting afterwards, and this is detrimental for a speedrun. As a result, a typical fight will only use buster or chain up until he has 8 health left, at which point silk shot is finally used.

Q: How do you get the ride armor to fly so quickly?
A: Dashing with the ride armor is slow, but lunging with its charged attack is really fast. Thus, you want to lunge with its attack to hurl yourself off of a platform, and then rhythmically press the jump button to preserve lunge speed for the entire flight.

Q: How are you skipping the miniboss in Crystal Snail's stage?
A: By releasing charged burner in a specific spot (the window is actually huge), you can skip the trigger for the miniboss completely. No one seems to know why exactly this happens, but lag and sprite overflow are the most commonly cited explanations. There's a surprising number of ways to skip this guy, but charged burner is the best choice for any%.

Q: What's the difference between top and bottom route in X Hunter 3?
A: Top route saves approximately 1.5 seconds over bottom route. I'll only take the bottom route if I mess up the neon jumps immediately before the fork because accessing top route becomes slower.

Q: How does the shoryuken work?
A: The shoryuken's a rather interesting attack because it functions very differently from the hadouken found in MMX1:
   1) The SRK does -not- kill bosses in a single blow. Instead, it deals damage per frame of connection.
   2) It can only be used when X is at full health. Likewise, the capsule to get it only appears if X is at full health and possesses every upgrade in the game.
   3) To input an SRK, you can either do forward -> down -> down+forward -> shoot (623 in numpad notation), or a half-circle forward (41236). The directional inputs for an SRK can be done while in the air, but the shoot input must be done on the ground. Shooting early results in a lemon shortly followed by an SRK, of which can result in disaster.
   4) The SRK tends to deal a different amount of damage depending on whether or not its target is under the effects of invincibility frames. For example, when Agile is not under iframes, the SRK only deals 1 damage on its first hit. For more information on SRK damage values, see: http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/SNES/MegamanX/DamageCharts.html#MegaManX2Mmx2DamageChart
   5) Because the SRK does damage per frame, you typically want to position yourself in such a way that you can stay on target for as long as possible. This can be tricky with bosses like Centipede, Gator, Snail and Sigma Virus.
   6) If you don't open up the Gator fight with strike chain, he will dive into the water before you can reach him thus putting you at the mercy of RNG.
   7) When X is in the middle of an SRK, he will ignore any inputs and commands given to him. This allows us to get closer to Zero before the cutscene with him and Sigma that would normally tell X to walk to a specific position on the left-hand side of the room.
   8) Even under a TAS setting, Zero requires 2 SRKs to defeat.
   9) The SRK does not pierce invulnerability (i.e. targets who are shielded). This is a huge issue with Wolverine Sigma.

Q: Where can I learn more about Mega Man X2?
A: Mega Man RTA Wiki - http://megamanrta.wikia.com/wiki/Mega_Man_X2
TAS Notes - http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/SNES/MegaManX.html
TAS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zKNAkk2SiQ

Q: Is sub 33 possible?
A: Yes!!