I have been looking into getting a rom-hack set up that would allow the starting character to be set (ideally this would be the only change that resulted from the hack) for hardware/flashcart runs. During the initial investigation phases, it was found that at a minimum, Bizhawk 2.8.0 was always Wolverine on hard reset, cyclops on soft reset, 2.9.1 was always Nightcrawler on either reset, and Mame 0.264 was always Beast. Retroarch and Gen-GX were random.
I was also curious if this kind of hack would be allowed for the single character/any % runs since the only goal is for it to reduce the amount of resets before a run could start (and also allow for other emulators to be used in runs as the initial testing has shown). If there has been any other research into this type of thing, I'd be interested in hearing about it.
I am planning on running this game some time next year, so I at least wanted to put feelers out for this kind of project or if I should just reset mash the cart.
Hi, emulator runner here. Most of us that I know who do run on emulator use Kega Fusion 3.64, always random on reset every time. I think with the exception of Joe, all of us who run on emulator use Kega for this game.
That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to this either, as my views on my live attempt streams tend to tank whenever I have to reset and am waiting on getting Psylocke again to start. I think another question to ask in regards to that, is would that rom hack make Magneto playable from Siberia? (Looking at you Topaz ;3) I ask that because if, in theory, this type of rom hack is allowed, that would potentially drastically change things for Single-Character Magneto runs.
As far as research into forcing a character on startup is concerned, the TAS is able to force Nightcrawler to start, but from what I remember reading about it's due to an input you can't do yourself normally (like up + down and that kinda stuff). To my knowledge, we haven't found a live way to do it naturally.
Sorry if this is not so helpful to you, but I at least wanted to give my own thoughts on the matter as well as give you a reply. Plus it's just nice to see someone else having interest in running the game!
Hey Lynn, I'm glad to hear you are going to give the run a go and thanks for posting the results of your emulator testing.
I agree that multiple resets to get your target character is annoying, but I don't think we should address it with a hack. There are emulator options that appear to work as expected and, with the possible exception of older models, flash carts seem to work fine as well.
As Val mentioned, the TAS has a way to influence the character given at the start of the run. If a way is found for humans to do the same thing (with valid controller/console inputs), I would be all for it. Here is a thread on the topic if you are interested:
https://tasvideos.org/Forum/Topics/11094?CurrentPage=2&PageSize=25&Sort=CreateTimestamp
I look forward to watching your runs. Shoot me a message if you want to go over anything. I love talking about the game/run.
