Thought it would be a good idea to post this here so the info could be preserved. There is a glitch for Godzilla that could be used to cut time off a run. I will be referring to is as the "Death Warp".
I had read about the glitch in an 8 year old SDA forum post (link below), but had never seen it and didn't know enough details about it to try. Then I encountered the Death Warp first hand in a live run (links below).
Buffalax, Jahaley64, and myself rewatched the clip, brainstormed and experimented trying to figure out what exactly happened. And we think we have an answer.
On some stages in the game, a "friendly" spaceship will drop blue balls of light. They can deflect enemy attacks/ships, sometimes pop to become life capsules, and most importantly then can collect life capsules for you. When Godzilla or Mothra die, they don't collect life capsules during their death animation, even when they float right through their bodies. But the blue balls of light CAN still collect life capsules for you during the death animation. If this happens, your dying monster gains life and the game doesn't fully register the death. You return to the overworld as though you completed the stages you were traveling through.
If the Death Warp could be easily duplicated it has the potential to cut lots of time off the run, allowing whole stages to be skipped. In my run, this occurred at the beginning of the first of the last two hexes of the map, meaning I skipped about one and a half stages, representing a 42 second save over the previous gold split for that level!
However, it doesn't seem easy to do on purpose at all. And we're still unsure if there are other elements that must be in place to trigger the effect. Mothra was already dead in both known occurrences of the Death Warp. Also they occurred in the same type of stage (green base that has a "barrier" near the beginning). Also, in both cases Godzilla's overworld sprite had been moved to the final hex of the planet.
Another thing to keep in mind. Although the game returns you to the world map as though you're alive.... you do still lose a level as though you had died. Even if this glitch could be performed reliably on every stage that's eligible (ones that have blue balls of light being dropped in them), the reduction of level could make getting through stages and fighting bosses take a little bit more time. In my run I caught back up to the level cap before the end of Jupiter, so it wasn't a major issue in the long run, but my Jupiter time was pretty slow, and I'm more concerned with what would happen if we tried executing the glitch late game.
More work will be done to find if the "Death Warp" can become a reliable glitch for speedrunning. Any significant findings/developments should be posted here for the community's benefit.
SDA fourm post where i first heard of the glitch: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/godzilla_monster_of_monsters_nes.html
The segment of my live run where the glitch occurred:
The full run that had the glitch:
Great theory!
I rewatched the clip and yes indeed, the health pickup from the friendly bullet during the death anim restores your health a bit.
I think I have a way we can put this to the test, stay tuned! :)
UPDATE:
Ok. I did the Death Warp on purpose. And I did it in a different place than the other known occurrences. Link below to a video. I ramble for a bit afterwards talking about the pros/cons and such. Here is a summary of what I said so you don't have to listen to it.
-The Death Warp can be performed anywhere with the friendly ship, but there must be a life capsule in the right spot and that can be very RNG dependent. -Setting yourself up with the right amount of damage can be time consuming. You have to slow down to avoid life capsules floating ahead of you. -Mothra DOES NOT need to be dead already. -Godzilla DOES NOT need to be moved to last hex. -How much time is saved from a Death Warp depends on how early in a stage the friendly ship appears, how much extra time is spent getting damaged, and whether the Warp is occurring in the first or second hex. In this example, it happens early in the second hex and takes time to set up, possibly not saving any time at all. In my accidental Death Warp, it happened early in a first hex, took no set up(d'uh), and saved 42 seconds. -The loss of level from dying can cause time losses on it's own. In this example Godzilla dies when he's still lvl 1 so there's no loss. But a late game Death Warp could be disastrous.
UPDATE:
I didn't bother getting a recording of this, so just take my word for it. If you move up to a kaiju and say "yes" to fighting it, then do the Death Warp, it does not warp you to the fight. You return to the overworld and then the kaiju's take a turn, which is what would have happened if you actually died.
Another interesting observation. The death doesn't just lose a level, it also makes it harder to level somehow? It seems to stunt your growth in some way.
Here was my set-up (note: I was using save states, this didn't all occur in a single segment): -Moved Godzilla one hex. -Gezora moved. -Moved Godzilla two hexes, executed a death warp. -Moguera moved. -Moved Godzilla zero hexes. -Gezora moved up and attacked. -Defeated Gezora but DID NOT gain a level as I normally would for my first kill. -Moved Godzilla two hexes, said "yes" to fighting Moguera, executed a death warp. -Moguera attacked me. -Defeated Moguera and gained level 2. -Moved Godzilla two hexes. -Moved Godzilla one hex. -Killed Mothra. -Advanced Godzilla to Mars. -When I entered my first stage on Mars I was level 3 (maybe finishing a planet gets you a level if you're not already at the cap?).
UPDATE:
Decided to test the Death Warp in Destroy All Monsters. Each Death Warp loses only one level and I didn't gain any levels back from defeating Kaiju, presumably because the game still thinks the level cap on Earth is 3 even though the special rules of DAM start you at 8. Even at level 6 i was able to defeat the kaiju on a similar pace to normal, but the lower health was extremely noticeable when fighting Ghidorah (I actually didn't bother finishing).
UPDATE:
Recorded myself doing a DAM run with a single Death Warp. It's not an actual run, it's pieced together from save state segments. (link below) I just wanted to see the potential. The combined run time is 10:55, which is better then my current PB/WR of 11:34. HOWEVER... some notes:
-I killed Mecha-Godzilla in a single fight, which has NEVER happened before. This is especially bizarre since I was level 7 instead of 8 during the fight, and it occurred during my first try against him (not grinded with save states).
-My sum of best is 10:48, which is faster than this combined save state run, and that sum of best does not have a single fight Mecha-Godzilla. My gold splits have me defeating Moguera at 4:15, Baragon at 6:43, and MG at 8:27 (again... not with a single fight MG). But in the save state run, Moguera is at 4:40, Baragon at 6:50, and MG at 8:28. It would appear the death warp lost time and the one fight MG was the only thing that caught me back up?
-King Ghidorah was a pain in the a**. I actually spent more time reloading the save state to fight Ghidorah than I did trying to execute the Death Warp! The level 7 handicap doesn't seem too bad against anyone else, but against Ghidorah it's painfully obvious.
Conclusions: Attempting a Death Warp when you're at a higher level it probably not worth it. With higher HP it takes longer to set up the death, and the levels I was skipping with it weren't very long to begin with. And the level handicap can be brutal when going up against enemies that were already hard to beat. Death Warp is a bad idea for a DAM run, and would likely also be a bad idea for an Any% run unless it was being used to skip very long stages. If we get Death Warps in an Any%, doing them on Earth might be worth it since the low HP will mean a faster set-up, and doing it at the end of Mars, like in my accidental Death Warp, skips a lot of stage (and has an F Magnet to reduce set-up time). After that, the level handicapping gets brutal. We want to be at the highest level we can be when we get to Baragon on Saturn.
"What About Mothra?": I've had at least a couple of people bring up the point that the death warp might be more useful for Mothra than Godzilla, since she has lower HP and because of her 4 grid movement, she'll be able to skip more stages. That may be true, BUT keep in mind that unless you're taking both monsters to the end of the level you'll always have to do a standard death on the other monster. So if you Death Warp Mothra on a level, Godzilla will still lose a level before the next planet AND will have less opportunities to gain levels before the next planet. And the Death Warp doesn't change the fact that you'll need the routing down to get Mothra to avoid fights.
I will not be integrating the Death Warp into my Any% runs just yet. I can still get some good PBs without it. I've long stated that my long term goal is to bring this game under and hour, when I start making that push/grind, it is likely the Death Warp will be needed.
