Thursday, April 14, 2022

An In-Depth Look at Mega Man 2's Code and How Zipping Works

Presented by Displaced Gamers, "The Complex Code of Mega Man 2" breaks down the crazy medley that is Mega Man 2's code. It's a pretty insightful piece that, among other things, shines a light on the game's ever-so-critical "ejection" logic, which is necessary to perform the famous zipping bug. 

Zipping is a strategy used by speedrunners to skip past whole portions of a stage. Why does it work so satisfyingly well in Mega Man 2? Well, it turns out Mega Man's left-facing ejection logic is OFF by one pixel. If not for that single pixel - an oversight from the game's three month development period - decades worth of Mega Man 2 speedruns would be a very different. 

Source: Displaced Gamers

4 comments:

  1. This is the first time I've heard about zipping. Didn't even know it was a thing.

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    1. Really surprised to hear that. I've been watching Tool-Assisted Speedruns of various video games for the last 13 years, which include all the Classic series up to the WiiWare entries of 9 & 10. It's astounding to see how some levels and even bosses could be flown by or even skipped entirely through the use of zipping.
      And if you think what happens to the second game is crazy, (HA, HA) wait until you see what happens to the first game.

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    2. Speed runs are silly to me. Never cared for it. And i activly dislike those achievements. So i dont know the tricks.

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