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This is fantastic news! Good to hear that so much progress has been made. This is the upcoming run that I am most looking forward to. Perhaps you guys may even be kind enough to treat us to a WIP at some point... :)
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In my experience Eternal is the best quality sound plugin, but it is absolutely useless for TASing. Unfortunately, sound plugins cause a great deal of desync in pcsx and the TAS plugin exists as a plugin useable for TAS purposes. It doesn't emulate all games well, but it is the best that we can offer at the moment while still assuring that the author's work is relatively robust. If you are concerned that your submission will be discredited in some way by using the TAS plugin don't worry as these issues are known by the judges and they have not yet affected a judgement. I can't imagine that it ever would unless the sound makes the run unwatchable, but most of the errors seem to be missing sounds rather than annoying ones added in so you should be fine. One thing to do is post a WIP in the PSX forum to get feedback on whether or not the sound is bearable.
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Voting no.
This is game with two ways to trigger end credits (normal playthrough and palace of the four swords). We have a glitch that can expedite the process of actually playing the game and reduces it to a footrace to the ending trigger with all obstacles and challenges removed. One trigger can be reached faster than the other. We have a run that reaches that trigger. That run is thought of fondly as a showcase of this glitch. There is no need to publish a separate run that reaches the other trigger using the same glitch.
The left-right glitches in this game are not attractive. The viewer spends the majority of the run staring at walls and overviews of empty/actionless rooms filled with interesting challenges that are never attempted. This run stretches this out longer and fills it with more unattractive and itrritating glitches. Tompa's run is interesting as a showcase of this glitch, but it is not interesting enough to stretch to another category. I'd love to see the palace of the four swords completed normally (I have no idea how feasible this is as I am only familiar with the SNES version), even if this meant using the glitch to get to the palace entrance and then playing normally from there. If this is not feasible then this category is not novel enough to be published independently of the "glitched any%".
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Looking at my bookcase now I have ploughed through a great deal of stuff since I last posted here. Here is the best of it:
The Illiad / The Odyssey by Homer.
Probably the most famous stories ever told. I've been telling myself to read these for years and when I stumbled across them in a second hand bookshop recently I decided to pick them up. All I can say is that they really hold up ~3000 years later and are very accessible to modern readers. The Illiad is very action packed and any fan of movies like 300 would love it. It is equally as gory/violent and exciting. The Odyssey is less violent and has a great deal of the fantastic. Any fan of fantasy novels would do well to look this one up. The final few chapters are among my favourite of any novel. What I loved most is how I could still relate to characters who were written of so long ago.
The Trial by Franz Kafka.
This was a great book. Anyone with any interest in the operation of justice should check this out. The lead character is summoned before a court for a crime that is not disclosed to him, because of this he cannot possibly defend himself. It is very fanciful and the miscarriages of justice are greatly exaggerated in order to emphasise the importance of an independent and impartial judiciary. Kafka wrote very little and his life story is very interesting and I look forward to reading more of his work.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
I've read a few of his books before. This novel, on the whole, is the best of what I have read of his as it is the best example of what he tries to accomplish. I found that the last 100 pages or so really seemed to drag, other than that it was a fantastic read. Murakami is a prolific Japanese author and the majority of his work explores how the work-centric attitudes and conventions that have built up since the war are severely depleting the rich spiritual heritage of Japan. The main character of this novel has recently quit his job as he does not like where his profession is taking him and has to occupy himself around the house as his career driven wife becomes ever more distant. His sedentary life becomes infiltrated by the fantastic as he meets with mediums and war veterans each with a tale that subtley turns reality on its head. I love his work as it contains many supernatural and odd events, but he integrates it so well into the text that it seems perfectly normal. Truly the hallmark of a talented magical realist writer. I'd recommend this book (and his work as a whole) to anyone with an interest in modern Japanese culture (of which I'm sure there are many here), but who are helplessly investigating it from a western perspective.
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Voting yes because I said I would ;-) and because an improvement to a much frame war'd movie is always nice. I messed around with this game a little and didn't think that it could be improved further so this is good to see. Well done!
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It's very impressive that you could improve such a tight movie for your first submission. I'm voting yes, as this category is too bizarre to bore me. I hope that you continue TASing as this is one of the most promising starts I've seen in a while.
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Voting Yes on this outstanding run. I've been looking forward to this one for ages now. Thanks to all you guys who worked so hard to make it as optimal as it is.
My favorite parts were the first superslide off the big poe ("what the hell is he doing...oh I say!" ) and the exploding 'ocarina' in the Great Fairy cutscene ("lol").
Also, I'm dissappointed to read that Mitjitsu is "burned out" and won't be TASing anymore. I always enjoyed his runs and he has contributed a great deal to the site so a special thanks to him for his work here.
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Oh hell yes. I was hoping for more updates to FBA, but if you can get MAME up to standard then that'd be awesome. There are several games I'd love to TAS so I greatly appreciate all the work you are doing on these emulators.
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Voting yes. This was a solid first submission. I remember watching the WIPs that you posted last year and thought that this game made a good glitch run. The entertainment value started to slip after the last 2D section, but fortunately there wasn't much of the game left.
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Kyman wrote:
for the 4th miniboss, does it go towards you or automatically to the left. It seems like you could jump it and then fight it from the right side so you would be close to the door after the fight is done.
It's possible to jump the big dude, but not the little dude, so you have to defeat them both (if you want to do it quickly) from that side.
Orange Claw Hammer wrote:
There was one thing I noticed that could possibly be improved - when automatically transforming from big Yacopu back to normal Yacopu after killing part 2 of the final boss, I wonder if jumping before entering the transform animation would eliminate that small amount of time where you're hovering in the air during the transformation. Perhaps there's a glitch where if you have 0 vertical velocity, you're undergoing an item-related transformation, and the floor falls out from under you, you don't fall through; but it might not be the case if you have downward vertical velocity.
The problem isn't that I don't jump, it is that there is no point in jumping. If I jump as high as I can on the last frame before Yacopu transforms he still hits the ground before the transformation is over and before the trapdoor opens.
Orange Claw Hammer wrote:
I've also been wondering if the following is possible: instead of turning around and shooting the big robot blocking your way in World 5 when you're speeding to the final boss chamber, what if you could time a jump so you land on the little sword guy's head and immediately jump again so you clear the top of the robot?
Very good spot. This is 12 frames faster and I hadn't noticed it. However, this wouldn't count as an improvment as I have to wait to transform back to normal Yacopu before fighting the final boss and so the 12 frames wouldn't be kept anyway (I saved 40 frames over my last run between the fruit and last boss and lost it all). It may be worth updating for style, but the run has already been encoded etc. and that would just be mean.
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Hello, TheDevilsAdmin, and welcome to tasvideos.org.
What you are experiencing is very common with Mupen. There are two things you can try:
1. Firstly, delete the Mupen folder and download and extract it again. It is likely that something is corrupt.
2. Use the graphical plugin called 'Jabo 1.5' rather than Jabo 1.6 or gln64 which I am assuming you are using.
I have had this problem several times and one of the above solutions has always worked for me.
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mklip2001 wrote:
Two small optimization concerns in World 5: 1. You hit the mouse powerup on it's right side, which looks like it loses a little time compared to hitting it on the left (if that's possible). 2. When transforming back out of final form for the last fight, can you jump first so that you fall down the hole while transforming? You currently wait on top of the hole until you're normal again.
1. I can see what you are thinking. If I go over it and catch it on the other side the momentum will carry me a few pixels further. Unfortunately, this isn't how it works. The transformations by fruit are slightly different to the B transformations. When you grab the fruit you transform on the specific pixel the fruit is on and the game doesn't allow you to move.
2. You can't jump when transforming. Even if you hold the jump button all the way on the last frame possible before the transformation animation begins you still hit the ground before the trap door opens.
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Now that was impressive. I'm surprised at how different this was from the other runs. You seemed to make use of the entire board rather than just a few lines, which was great. I'm glad a tetris run like this was possible. Voting yes.
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I's been a while since I watched the last run so the only improvements that were particularly obvious to me was the Flying Battery stuff. Anyway, still the most entertaining run on the site in my opinion. It's great that the game gets more and more broken yet remains watchable. I sometimes worry, as more versions come through, that eventually the entertainment will start to suffer as a result of too many glithes. Hopefully that day is still very far off.
Yes vote, of course.
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Loved it! That definitely felt glitchier than Gia's run. I especially liked the fact that you kept Ash x 64 (yourself) in your bag as you wore it. This was just mindfuck upon mindfuck. Voting yes, of course.
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For me at least, the reason the panther move is so boring is the nagging feeling that it doesn't even begin to do justice to this game's movelist.
See: http://www.gamefaqs.com/genesis/586215-golden-axe-iii/faqs/55783
Having said that, I do love this game, and any Golden Axe 3 is good Golden Axe 3 as far as I am concerned. I'd like to see a GA3 TAS on the site someday, but I'm not sure if this is the correct form. I'm not as familiar with this game as I am with the first two, but since the panther special does such great damage are there not weaker attacks that would still quickly kill the earlier enemies? It'd be nice just to mix it up a bit.
I'm resisting a biased yes vote and am voting meh. As mklip2001 stated, this does remind me of the Streets of Rage TAS I made with Mitjitsu, although I think that the main difference is that we were able to use team specials without having to wait too long for enemies to get into position etc. and the specials here really break any tempo that the author manages to get going.
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Very nice. I always wondered if the staircase behind the second key door could be used to blj through the 50 star door. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this, every second closer to the SMB time is ever more tantalising.
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I'm surprised that Mega Man 5 has been given a star so readily. Only Nach suggested that it should prior to publication and even then he only suggested that it should be considered by the star committee. In the spirit of this I'd like to offer some reasons as to why I believe a star is better elsewhere.
One of the reasons that the star system was so drastically overhauled by Baxter is that certain franchises were soaking up too many stars and so no longer represented the site's content, or the interests of the viewers, appropriately. In my opinion, it is indicative of the video game industry that these franchises change considerably over time resulting in games within a franchise that differ enough to warrant more than one star. For example, few would argue that Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario 64 are too similar, despite being of the same franchise, from a TASing perspective, they differ in almost every way.
This distinction is not quite as obvious between the Mega Man runs that we have starred. I believe that, because of its novel nature, the dual run is not directly relevant to this argument. Perhaps some would argue that the Mega Man formula did not change sufficiently between Mega Man 2 and Rockman and Forte, but they are, at least, of different console generations and not quite of the same sub-series.
I believe that Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 5 are too similar to both have a star. The changes to the Mega Man formula through the original series are too superficial; they are mainly a steady graphical improvement, an additional sliding technique and other minor changes. I don't believe that these differences are enough to warrant two stars. I also don't believe that the way in which the TASes played is enough of a distinction i.e. degree of esoteric glitching. This is not like the distinction between, say, alttp "glitched" and non-glitched, where the difference is tremendous and obvious. Both MM2 and MM5 still make considerable use of glitches, and on the differences in 'glitchiness' we wouldn't dream of making a categorical distinction between the two in any other aspect of the site and I don't think that we should do so here.
Of the two I believe that Mega Man 2 is best suited for a star. As stated above the six games of the original series are similar enough to offer many of the same things to the viewer. Both the MM2 and MM5 TASes show fantastic lag control and luck manipulation under difficult circumstances and exceptional route planning in order to optimise pick-ups. It is on the issue of glitches that I believe MM2 is superior. MM1 is too esoteric to be of particular interest to some viewers, but MM2 and MM5 are both still 'legible' so to speak. I prefer MM2 because it utilises various items and other game phenomena (i.e. mecha-dragon). Most of MM5 glitching comes from Super Arrow use in (to some viewers) a rather repetitive manner. Also, the use of the super arrow detracts from the entertainment value. It is unfortunate that it is the fastest method of movement as it makes the run appear to suffer from SMW Syndrome (to fly over everything), which, in my opinion, if avoidable (which, incidentally, in this case it is not) is a TAS style taboo on par with clinging to the right in an auto-scroller or excessive wobbling. In MM 2 this is not done and so all the challenges that a normal player deals with are played TAS-style which is good for a starred run.
Of course, it'd be unwise of me to suggest removal of a star without suggesting somewhere to put it. I'd like to see the star invested in the Donkey Kong franchise. Over the last year or so the Donkey Kong Country series in particular has seen considerable effort from some of our best TASers. The any% and 100% of DKC2 are the best of what we now have published and I used the word 'invest' in that new runs of DKC1 any% and 100% are on there way as is DKC3 100% (I think...) and so this star can be moved around within what should hopefully be a series of some of our best TASes. I'd suggest the DKC2 100% for now, but mainly I think that a series that has seen so much work from spectacular Comicalflop, Tompa, NxCy Arne etc. should have at least one star to it.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed GlitchMan's run, but I'd like to stimulate more discussion on this as I believe it is now integral to the starring process and it just seems to me that this star was something of a knee-jerk reaction to an impressive new run of a popular series.
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Derakon wrote:
Is it possible to hit the magician boss with Milon's "power-up" attack (the one you use to break blocks above you)? Ditto the sun boss (and is he puking lava at you?).
Yes, but not to save time. Much of the time they are above me is taken up with invincibility time from the previous hit. I could use this time to charge the attack, but when it is used it causes the game to hang for a few seconds while the animation plays. In this time both bosses will have made their ways into positions in which I can hit them without this hang taking place.
Derakon wrote:
What determines when Milon does his "holy crap that's a long way down" animation? Might it be possible to skip it by using the floaty shoes?
It is determined by Milon's X position in relation to the ground below him. I tried a few things such as taking damage to avoid it (the damage animation is longer) and using floaty shoes (it still occurs when Milon reaches a certain point). As the floaty shoes drastically decrease his Y velocity, and the animation occurs anyway, it is far faster to just let the little dude drop.
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Thanks for the encode. I played Civilization II to death back in the day so I was able to follow generally what was going on here. Yes vote for aggressive foreign policy.
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Wow, I didn't expect the next run too be so soon after the first. Everything about this run, as with the any%, is incredible. I honestly didn't want this run to end and no I'm not tired of Gimmick! yet ;) Easy yes vote.
