Posts for Catastrophe

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Posted: 7/26/2014 10:15 AM
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Catastrophe
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Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Brossentia wrote:
Catastrophe, I noticed something odd. I've managed to make black belts usable items with 3B8; however, they cast fire rather than engulf. Are you sure that black belts have anything to do with engulf? EDIT: Oh, wait, do you combine it with the goggles glitch? If so, this is gonna get crazy.
Yeah! =D Use them with Goggles. There are lots of ways to corrupt your spell list to contain Engulf, but not all of them create a castable spell and/or something else goes wrong. Plus, in order to get the "Muddle Engulf" to work you're going to need Muddle (maybe free) and a Gem Box. Muddle never* cooperates with a corrupted spell list otherwise. But that requires sketching once, equipping the Gem Box, and fighting another battle. And probably that means delaying the Moogle Charms until that second battle... A couple Goggles, three Moogle Charms, and getting engulfed. We're not asking for too much here. :) Goggles + Black Belt doesn't remove the need for something else. The last member can't Engulf themselves because someone else must also be attacking with the Goggles. (One person attacking with the Goggles can enable two others, but then the Goggles wielder is stuck.) So we need a Quick spell or a natural ("natural") Engulf for the last person. Seems easier to me than Muddle + " la " though. The Black Belts are key because I've only cast Engulf from my spell list via mould 0. But there are only mould 1s on the Triangle Island. (And the Intangir.) If I can get Engulf'd on the Triangle Island then we can skip the IAF and Floating Continent completely! Come to think of it, testing the Black Belts in mould 0 was useless. Oh well.
Posted: 7/23/2014 6:49 PM
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Catastrophe
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keylie wrote:
Catastrophe, for the MC equipability, did you also check if the weapon or shield flag was on in the doc? I think it's necessary.
Oops. It still needs to be flagged as a weapon or a shield. Well, I would've tried equipping them anyway. I tested some unequipable MCs and unusable BBs just in the off chance that they would work. Your spreadsheet is amazing. It's so convenient to look at a table and pick out the desirable outcomes! I think we all have FF3usME but just in case, here's a mould reference. Brossentia - Side and pincer attacks are great idea! When I test the rare formations I'll be sure to try those when possible. For moulds 0 and 1 if I find a result I like (maybe 212C) but with a side effect that I don't like (such as a 19 minute wait) then I can manipulate that by using a different formation. For the delay it seems to matter which enemy I sketched, maybe their width or position on screen. For rare moulds I don't have the option of moving to another enemy so I need another parameter to change.
Posted: 7/23/2014 8:32 AM
Post subject: Testing Results, part 1
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Catastrophe
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Location: Massachusetts, USA
I searched for all instances of "Moogle Charm" or "Black Belt" in Keylie's spreadsheet, noted their setup, noted their expected useable or equipable flags, and tested all of them.
Mould 0
I did all of my testing against 2x Sand Ray because it was the most stable earlier and it is easily accessible. 7E20FF=312 - NG - Expected result is a Moogle Charm which is equippable for party member 3. All I wrote down was 'X'. 430 - NG - Expected results is a MC which can be equipped by members 1 and 4. I did get that result, but I couldn't escape the battle. 48A - OK - Gives you a MC which can be immediately equipped on party members 1 or 2. However, the resulting animation takes 70,000 frames to finish. 212C - OK - Gives you a MC which can be equipped on anyone except #3. Ally #1 also somehow ends up with Goggles equipped which is a nice bonus! Too bad this animation takes 130,000 frames to return. 2980 - OK - Gives you a plain MC which can't be immediately equipped. Works fine and only takes 10k frames to resume. 41CD - OK - It is supposed to give you a MC which is equipable to anyone except #4. I wasn't able to equip the MC and this also took 10k frames to return. 6AC2 - NG - This is supposed to directly equip a MC onto party member 4. I never lived to see it though. I could delay the hang by queuing a Warp Stone, but I never escaped the battle. 1B8 - NG - I expected a useable Black Belt. Instead I got no Black Belt at all and a hang. 4D4 - NG - This does give me a useable BB, but then the game hangs. 4136 - OK - This puts a Black Belt directly onto member #4, and technically one with the right "useable" flag. But it can't be used. 417F - OK - Same as above. Only good if you want a BB. 41E2 - NG - I got the Black Belt, but the game hung. (It wasn't a useable BB anyway.) 41EF - OK - Gives you the expected unusable BB, but there is a long wait.
Mould 1
I did all of my testing against formation 12 (1x Sand Ray 2x Areneid) because it seemed natural after doing my other testing against formation 10. 7E20FF = 3FA - OK - Puts a bunch of Moogle Charms into slot 255 as promised! There is a lot of lag, but no wait! These Moogle Charms can be equipped on anyone with the optimum glitch. One small problem, you'll have to save and reload. On all interior maps the world will be shaking, the camera won't follow you, and you'll be prone to rare teleports inside of walls. (But a save and reload fixes all that.) 3FC - OK - Promised me a MC that I could equip on #1 or #3, but gave me an unequipable MC instead. No delay though. 434 - OK - Correctly gave me a plain MC that couldn't be equipped in battle. 2959 - NG - Returned quickly, but didn't give me a MC at all. 4126 - OK - Correctly changed slot 209 to be a Moogle Charm with 0 quantity. (This is not useless.) I think it also correctly inherited the equip flags of the slot before its contents were replaced. 6144 - NG - Did not give me a Moogle Charm. 6A36 - OK - The Moogle Charm was supposed to be equipable to #4, but no one could equip it. 6AEE - NG - Did not give me a Moogle Charm. 1B6 - OK - Gave me an unequipable MC and an unusable BB like it was supposed to. 3B8 - OK - Very laggy, but it does provide both (yes both) useable Black Belts that it claims to. 4F4 - NG - The only item I got was Dirks. (2 Soul Sabers at the end.) Very unusual. No Black Belts. 41E2 - OK - If you want your Black Belt in slot 255 for some reason, this works fine. This outcome also breaks the interior cameras. 61CA - OK - Like 3B8 this also correctly provides a pair of useable Black Belts. 6A58 - NG - Was supposed to provide a useless Black Belt. Instead crashed the game. Kind of unusual for mould 1. 6A7A - OK - Very laggy, but it does provide a useable Black Belt. tl;dr - mould 1 can provide a stable Moogle Charm if you're willing to save and reload. There are numerous safe ways to obtain a useable Black Belt and everything on the Triangle Island is mould 1. So now we don't even need the glitch that rekindled the interest in this TAS.
Posted: 7/23/2014 7:32 AM
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Catastrophe
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The initial results are promising but I haven't found a slam dunk of a setup. I did finally get a Moogle Charm. Keylie's spreadsheet contains a list of possibilities, but not all of those possibilities necessarily come true. For example, you might get 93 Moogle Charms and then the game crashes. Or sometimes you'd just not get your item. Maybe sometimes a second round of memory corruption happens and rewrites your inventory? Keylie's spreadsheet also lists possibilities for each mould. But not every mould is reachable. For example, mould 9 is only used by Tritoch, which does us no good. Moulds 3 and 6 are notable for being able to access the 'engulf' variables directly, but those are dangerous moulds. Half of the game is mould 0 or mould 1. So I tested those. Mould 2 doesn't appear in the World of Balance at all. I'm ignoring it for now. Moulds 3-12 are each very rare. Some of them, I think, can only be sketched on the Veldt. Mould 3 is the Intangir mould and I was never productive with it. Mould 6 is basically exclusive to the bosses in Kefka's Domain and Atma. Sketching Atma pretty much sets your console on fire and ejects the cartridge no matter how you set it up. Hopefully it leads to a crazy ACE setup someday? But it doesn't "work" like a normal sketch glitch. EDIT: This is too good not to share. Most of my tests on mould 6 (Atma) immediately exploded the game. One of the two that did not somehow reconfigured my input. (Remember this game features a strange "2 controller" option.) The result was that L, R, B, and A all had the effect of pausing or unpausing the battle. Y became A, select became B, X became select (nothing), and in submenus pressing left would cancel. How does that even happen? Especially the select button which isn't normally used. I thought it was amusing. And then the game crashed.
Posted: 7/23/2014 2:32 AM
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Catastrophe
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zeromus wrote:
It means exactly what it says. I predict you will find that any other program relying on xinput will malfunction (or xinput will silently fail to work). This would be true however many times you've run bizhawk, since I don't think bizhawk has anything to do with this. It's possible that we have a bug due to polling xinput in another thread, but at the time this exception is thrown, there isnt input in another polling yet
But my xinput wasn't/isn't broken for other emulators or games. I can use a dual shock with a usb convertor just fine. I've also tried launching BizHawk with a usb controller plugged in, without one plugged in, without any USB devices plugged in at all, and it doesn't seem to matter. 1.7.3 does the same thing too. For what it's worth I do own a 360 controller, but it's wireless and I've never used it with my PC. Error message: http://imgur.com/BQke4M2 The other two issues - thank you. I'm sorry if I sounded upset, but I just got whacked with https://code.google.com/p/snes9x-rr/issues/detail?id=35 on snes9x 1.51 earlier in the same night and I was frustrated.
Posted: 7/23/2014 1:47 AM
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Catastrophe
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Brossentia wrote:
Catastrophe, just looking at his guide, there are several variations that create moogle charms. I finally got things working (phew!), and it's easiest to manipulate the items by imping and un-imping the first character as they cast spells. You can get moogle charms with mould 1, but unfortunately those are not equippable. Mould 3 and 4 look like they should have equippable charms, but I had the mould 4 glitch crash the game on me. It's very possible I set things up incorrectly. What would be best, I assume, is for the first character to have a gembox to cast the spells faster; gemboxes are easy to get with sketch. Great stuff here. This is all amazing work.
I like your videos! And welcome to the forum. I was going to ask "where is his guide?" because I was only reading his wiki. I just found the .ods file with all the possibilities a minute ago. Oh boy! But yeah, the game crashing or hanging is kind of the thing. Let's see what happens...
Posted: 7/23/2014 12:04 AM
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Catastrophe
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If you're making the movie, I'm not. I was only going to start because I wanted to break the cycle of waiting for more improvements. I think you're more capable anyway. You're the one coming up with the interesting notes.
It is possible to get Engulfed from the Triangle Island, saving us to do the Floating Continent and the Airship glitch. Using the Goggles glitch, you can cast Engulf by launching a Black Belt. As the Black Belt is not a usable item, we have to flag the item as usable before, by using the sketch glitch.
Using a Black Belt as an item is theoretically possible, but I couldn't get it to work. Getting the SG to give you a Black Belt with the desired flags seems hard, since I've never seen the SG give me a Black Belt. (It's one of the items I look for.) Fortunately the route already has a free Black Belt in it! So you'd need to position that Black Belt somewhere where the SG will overwrite the flags (and maybe targeting) but not also destroy the item id. Have you found that outcome? Furthermore, the Triangle Island doesn't give us much to work with. The Intangir seems to always crash hard when used as a target. (Rare Mould 3.) This leaves just a few undesirable mould 1 formations sketch against: 6, 7, 140, 141, and 142. Desert formation 139 is mould zero, but I couldn't get " la " with it. (Are the monsters too wide? Even in my original run I ran into problems where the SG behaved differently in test runs versus the actual run.)
Some spell setups for the sketch glitch can generate Moogle Charms in the inventory, including Mute type setups, and other setups can flag it as a weapon (or shield) and equippable.
This interests me very much! I've done a lot of testing (and crashing) with the SG in 2006 and 2014 and I've never once seen an item slot have its id set to 0xDE. Sure, if I could get it then I would jump through whatever hoops to get it equipped. You said you got it on a plain old mute setup? That blows my mind.
The Narshe route is way from obvious though, I have to test 2/3 different strats. I think your strat is faster than Erokky's one, it's just that you didn't have a preemptive on the first fight and on the fifth one.
Yeah, why did the developers make the m-tek run animation so slow? I'd kill Wedge and Vicks off if they weren't needed to manipulate Whelk's ATB gauge. If you need it, the 2x Sand Ray formation gives 41 xp for each of Locke and Terra. And it should be faster to win than any of the battles against Repo Man or Leafer. (Who are only worth 20 a piece anyway.)
I just found something else today: you remember that for most fights with a preemptive or side and a large party, not everyone is escaping on the first try? Well, you can avoid that by setting the Message Speed to 2 (or more, probably) instead of 1.
I love new findings like this! I don't know how many of the preemptives are the "slow" ones but this would sure make producing the run much more sane. Because the problem with the slow preemptives is, when you find one, you have to test the other 15 possibilities for a possible non-preemptive which is faster. (Or decide that this is a good time to use the submenu.) So don't forget to count the time saved by having to wait less for less manipulation. I was waiting an average of 24 frames before each random battle in my run.
Posted: 7/22/2014 6:58 AM
Post subject: Re: Bizhawk 1.7.2 throws SEHException on 64bit Win7
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Catastrophe
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zeromus wrote:
ikyokyo wrote:
Bishawk 1.7.2 throws SEHException on my 64bit Win7, can't even start. I have already installed the library that Bizhawk requires, and 1.7.1 runs OK on my computer.
Fixed in r7317. Bizhawk now ignores that error, as it did before. XInput still has the error; your system is broken, and this may be causing other problems.
I downloaded BizHawk for the first time today, and I also got that error on my first run of the program. I'm sure my system isn't broken. (Whatever that means?)
Khaz wrote:
Something else I just noticed in SNES BizHawk 1.7.2: If I save a state and then try to play from that state, the first frame of input after the savestate doesn't seem to be recognized. eg/ if have a savestate at frame 140 and I advance to frame 146 then press Y for one frame, it will trigger an attack. If I save state ON frame 146 and hold Y for the first frame advance after loading that savestate nothing happens.
This is kind of a big deal if it's true. Doesn't that mean that I can't provide input on a frame which I make a save state?
Release Notes for 1.7.2 wrote:
SNESHawk *Fix MAJOR movie desync bug introduced in the 1.7.1 release
This worries me. 1.7.1 shipped only a month ago and 1.7.2 shipped 3 days ago. The days of "snes9x v1.43g rerecording v44" were a dark age. (Desync ahoy!) The version notes also indicate that there is a new movie format (bk2) and save state format which is incompatible with the old one. I'm sure the change is for the better, but it's new/bleeding edge etc. I'd rather use the last stable release please.
Posted: 7/22/2014 3:09 AM
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Catastrophe
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I was able to equip the Goggles without a multi-minute delay by using mould 4 instead of mould 0. Specifically I did it on the Floating Continent against a Dragon. And yeah, BabaBreath is the greatest thing since Vanish+Doom. I had already tested it in the final dungeon. It's easy and there's no strange timing involved. Just use "wait" instead of "active". The TAS already uses "wait" because that's how we manipulate critical hits and targets. Since I can easily get 2 pairs of Goggles equipped at once I'll storm Kefka's Tower with either triple Goggles or Goggles/Goggles/Echo Screen + JokerDoom. The real problem facing this run is the airship glitch. Currently there's no way to "engulf" yourself without a multi-minute wait. I mean not just the set up and execution (with muddle) but the big black screen which scars the middle of the run. I'd like to figure out some way around that before I think about starting. But then again, I guess I could go all the way up to Vector. None of the breakthroughs affect that portion of the game. I looked at keylie's wiki again and he's making some progress predicting which items launch which broken animation code when equipped as a weapon. If he finds something relevant there then that might change everything. Or he might be planning to do the run? Competition won't improve this run.
Posted: 6/24/2014 2:01 PM
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Catastrophe
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I started to make a list of which mold 0 formations worked for me (with 7F41) and which ones didn't. And to my surprise they almost all started working! x_x These were the three that worked originally: 10: Sand Ray, Sand Ray 32: Brawler, Brawler 175: Sky Armor, Sky Armor, Spit Fire 53: Beakor - technically works. However, you can't cast muddle. (I think I misreported formation 160 earlier.) 160: Baskevor - crashes or reboots the game, (multiple tests, seems to be random) Surprisingly, all 5 of these monsters are the same "width", although they have different amounts of transparent space. I'm not sure if that matters? The Sand Ray appears to be a much smaller size, but I think technically it isn't. Between the first four formations there is still a slight variation. The Sand Ray formation takes about half an hour for the sketch glitch to return control. The Sky Armor formation returns control very fast. But the items and spells are consistent.
Template 1-FE: (29,50), (29,80), (41,26), (41,36), (41,39), (41,48), (41,7C), (41,7F), (41,9E), (41,C8), (41,D5), (41,E2), (41,E4), (41,F4), (43,A), (43,24)
So back to this. 7F41 is the common sketch glitch. The rest of these numbers all work, but provide different results from 7F41. Is it just that value of 7E20FF that matters? EDIT: I might be fatigued, but neither of these numbers work for me.
Template 1-1CE: (2,F4), (61,B6)
Posted: 6/24/2014 11:43 AM
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Catastrophe
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I've tested fairly thoroughly (the hard way) on mold 0, and I can get different results depending on which exact formation it is. For starters, I can only get " La " by using the standard "7F41" version of the sketch glitch on mold 0. (The one that people do by accident.) Now for some unknown reason, some formations using mold 0 give me the same glitched items, but different glitched spells. (No engulf!) And to make it even weirder, I found at least one formation (160) where I could get " La ", but I was unable to select it. The spell was castable, but it had no valid targets (?) so it did that instant-cancel thing.
Template 0-10F: (3,17), (21,2C)
Fight the Sand Ray x2 formation that is used in the glitch demonstration video. When using 7E20FF = 1703 the first party member will have a certain set of corrupt spells and a Head Band equipped in the right hand. Now switch to the 7E20FF = 2C21 variation. You should see a different set of corrupt spells and have Goggles equipped to the right hand instead. (If you try to replicate this example then make sure Relm is not the first party member. The game hangs because her sketch animation never completes, but that's not the point. The point is that I found two different results for the same size template.) I don't mean to say you're wrong. I'm just saying that there are more factors to the glitch than mold and size template. It might be the case that mold and size template determine how your inventory is corrupted, and that some other factor(s) may influence how your left hand, right hand, and spell list are corrupted. ...and from manual testing I've found that the end result we're after seems to be pretty rare. Lots of formations with mold 0 just don't give the same result, don't let me cast " La " (160 - Baskevor), or are disallowed by another rule (175/176 - IAF or anything on the FC). So far I've only had success with formations 10 (2x Sand Ray) and 32 (2x Brawler).
Posted: 6/24/2014 3:50 AM
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Catastrophe
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I understand now. "Template 0-9B" is the name you've given to one of the possible outcomes, and 7E20FF = CC43 is how you obtain it. But the outcome of the sketch also depends on the current formation's mold, doesn't it? So what we need to do is to test each of the 24 bolded size templates against the 4 most common molds? (0, 1, 11, and 12. Although 3, 4, 5 and 7 are arguable.) I've been at it for a bit already today. I did finally replicate the " La " result. But I was unable to create a consumable BlackBelt or make an existing one consumable temporarily. The closest I found was an equipable one. But I have " La " now so I can cast Engulf that way. The muddle manipulation is annoying, but oh well. And so are enemies whose battle scripts are 100% battle, which spoils the muddle. (The first formation I succeeded against was 2x Brawler.) I've noticed slightly different visual effects depending on *which* monster I target for the sketch. It seems not to affect the "fun" stuff like available spells, items, or equipment. But it does affect how quickly the sketch glitch "returns" from the animation. The possibilities seem to be: instantly, after several minutes, and never. EDIT: about 19/20 tests of these possibilities never terminate :| (game is hung) EDIT 2: I thought I was so clever. You need mold 0 to get Engulf, so I thought I'd do it against the IAF! But no. The game seems to ignore the Engulf teleport both during the IAF sequence and everywhere on the floating continent. No teleporting into the ZoneEater "while on an airship". Too bad. Doing the sketch glitch and airship glitch at the same time would've been so cool!
Posted: 6/23/2014 8:13 PM
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Catastrophe
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Nice work! I read all of it. But I have a question about the table of sketch glitch values. How do you read it? For example:
List of potential distinct glitch effect based on Spell aiming and availability. Common spells in bold. ... Template 0-8F: (2,40), (69,68), (69,88) Template 0-97: (69,DA) Template 0-9B: (43,CC) ...
Are you saying that when 7E20FF contains 008F (2 bytes) that it has an effect described by the numbers (2,40); (69,68); and (69,88)? ------------------- Since I've never seen the sketch glitch give direct access to Engulf and since I also can't replicate the video that Vykan12 posted, I'm going to try something clever. I can easily get goggles equipped on someone. Good thing, because that allows for BabaBreath! But the fun of the item id -> spell id glitch which is enabled by the goggles is limited by the fact that most items aren't useable in battle. If only somehow I could use a BlackBelt after attacking with goggles then I should be able to have an easily controllable Engulf on command! Well, the sketch glitch corrupts your battle inventory. And not just item ids and quantities - it also corrupts the item flags. That's how I equip the goggles, since they're temporarily a weapon for some reason. If I could get an item slot marked as consumable without changing the item id then I could 'use' a BlackBelt after attacking with Goggles. But my testing is so random.
Posted: 6/23/2014 8:28 AM
Post subject: New FF6 Route
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Catastrophe
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Is anyone working on this? Using the multi-game run as reference we should save half an hour from this trick alone! (The Atma fight begins at 3:03 and control of the Falcon occurs at 3:33.) I think it's nice that the parts which are cut are the less exciting parts: the long WoR cutscene, feeding Cid, and running from lots of battles on the overworld map. The only potentially exciting parts we lose are Daryl's Tomb and Figaro Castle. ...but I've been unable to replicate that " la " spell which is Engulf. Can anyone get that working? Preferably without an 8 minute blackout in the middle of the run? Take my old 4:15 run and cut it off at the point where you have the choice to jump from the Floating Containent (and I select no). In my old run, the very next thing I did was encounter a Dragon a few steps away from Atma and perform the sketch glitch on it. And what a coincidence, this was the perfect setup to equip the Goggles! It can be done via the item menu. The final battle is even faster than I thought. Killing Kefka with BabaBreath is super fast (and funny!) because it skips his lengthy pixel-crumble animation. Yes, he goes flying off screen. But then I realized that using BabaBreath on an ally and having the other guy die is even faster. Oh well. We really only need 3 "instant death captains" to win the game. Setzer is an obvious and easy one. As long as we can get Goggles on at least two other people, we're made. Goggles -> X-Potion/BabaBreath works on literally everything because running from a battle is as good as winning it.
Posted: 5/12/2014 3:52 PM
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Catastrophe
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A full run wouldn't include these fights, though. In fact, I don't think these fights are even on the PO game disc. I think the only way to fight Doc is to download Doc Louis's Punch-Out separately. (Which by the way was temporarily exclusive to people with a ton of Club Nintendo points.) Anyways, it's kind of automatically vault-tier.
Posted: 8/21/2013 5:06 AM
Post subject: ff3
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Catastrophe
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And another RPG goes down to a menu glitch leading to memory corruption. :)
Final Fantasy III was the first of three consecutive Final Fantasy games to be released only in Japan, leading to the sixth game in the series being released to the rest of the world as Final Fantasy III.
No such gap of three consecutive games exists. FF 1, 4, and 6 were all released in the United States. Six was called 3 because four was called 2. However, 3 was the last of the classic games to see eventual release in the United States. (If you need some other trivia to open with.)
Posted: 4/5/2013 12:44 AM
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Catastrophe
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Voted yes. (Late.) I'm a big fan of this hack and I thought the TAS used the Wire and the Hell Wheel to their fullest, which is pretty much what I was looking for. I remember playing this game and thinking to myself that those two items were going to make for a spectacular TAS someday. I can't help but think that this romhack either introduced new glitches, or made previously obscure glitches in MM4 more useful. Minus Infinity and Super Demo World are the two most extensive rom hacks I've ever seen, and SDW (and SMW) are very broken. I can't help but think there's a place to save a minute with Rush Jet by clipping into a wall. But I can't find the improvement, so it's not grounds for rejection. I just feel like Mega Man games ought to be more broken on tasvideos.org.
Posted: 12/9/2012 3:59 AM
Post subject: Battery Fix
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Catastrophe
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Give it a star! (Pretend that I'm not late.) I've wanted to see something like this ever since back when I was more active. Thanks for finally making it a reality. I would've chose not-ponies, but I didn't write the bootloader either. :)
Demon Lord wrote:
Warp wrote:
I apologize for going off-topic, but... If the save file on a real cartridge becomes corrupted in such a manner, is there a way to reset or empty it so that you will be able to run the game?
I don't know about the old GB, but it was a Nintendo requirement that the game must be tolerant to save game corruption on the DS (earliest handheld I worked on), otherwise it wouldn't get release approval. Now, if the save game manages to get an accurate checksum in a corrupted state, I wouldn't have much hope, especially if it's a Flash-based technology without a battery to pull out.
NES and SNES games are fixable by pressing the reset button about 20 times in 30 seconds. (Not a scientific count.) This causes a power surge which will randomize the battery's contents. Then the game's normal check for a corrupt save should take over. I don't think this is unsafe for either the cartridge or the console. It works on Dragon Warrior 3 and FF6, at least. So if someone bricked a Yellow cart while attempting a console verification then I suppose the fix is to power cycle the GB a bunch? Or remove and replace the battery, sure.
Posted: 8/19/2012 2:03 PM
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Catastrophe
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"Oh boy! Boss battle!" *hides camera behind wall* *sounds of battle* "Oh boy! A huge pile of treasure!" *Carrie takes the common red crystals and runs jumps away*
Comicalflop wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I stopped working on Jet Force Gemini, because the fastest form of movement (running with analog stick while strafing) caused a long curving running pattern, rather than an exact straight line like normal running. It was really frustrating for me to handle that type of running knowing that I'm never running in a 100% straight line, and it looked very sloppy.
That also describes the fastest movement method for both of Rare's FPS games, and both of those were TASed. Speedrunners deal with it too. (I mean, the curved lines looking sloppy and being a pain to 'aim' at the objective.) So you should pick up JFG again! The strafing in the current GoldenEye TAS might not be optimal either, but it was done. And done matters. Anyone who thinks it can be done better is welcome to try. OgreSlayeR never explained his movements. I just assumed that constantly jumping is faster. We'll see what he says about his lines. I bet the need to constantly hop has something to do with it. 5:01 - 5:07 = starts hugging the inside edge of the stairs very closely 5:11 - 5:16 = middle of the stairs 5:18 = edge of stairs again 5:25 = middle of stairs again 5:26 = cut the final corner as tightly as possible It's like he acknowledged that the inside edge is faster, then strayed into the middle anyway.
Posted: 8/19/2012 11:33 AM
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Catastrophe
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Yes vote. I didn't see the previous submission, but that was crazy quick. The stages are really short when you don't stop to kill the enemies. Actually, I thought the player was moving kind of fast. Is that normal? Was there some trick being used to make the player run that fast? (Like SMW.) I thought the ending of the encode was way funnier than it should have been.
Posted: 8/14/2012 8:32 AM
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Catastrophe
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I rarely post, but I'm interested. When this thread was created I watched all of the YT links in the first post. It looks like a pretty good game! I guess I'm surprised because I've only heard bad things about 3D CV games. Since I've never played this game I'd love to see a TAS. Lots of people have NES or SNES emulators on the computers. (Or phones, or PSPs, or toasters, etc.) Many fewer people have an N64 emulator already installed and ready to play with a large ROM library. I don't think the unwillingness to download emulators and roms for most WIPs makes me lazy. So although I care, I can wait for the encode. As long as you don't quit!
Posted: 7/25/2012 5:07 PM
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Catastrophe
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Yeah, it did get easier as I went along. I've completed the game now. Even though some of the rooms are unreasonably hard I still recommend this hack. However, I'm not sure if my issue is really with the layouts. Now that I've spent more time with it, I just hate the how Rockman's invincibility timer was reduced. I feel like I'm getting "comboed" by some of the enemies. Some of the hard rooms might be easier otherwise. Regardless, I definitely recommend playing this hack because of all the crazy things that were added to it. It's a wonderful feat of engineering. I don't know how he added sram, 8-way scrolling, autoscrolling, and Pharaoh Man's multi-room fight into the MM4 engine. Wily's Labyrinth was impressive too. And the game is big. There are lots of levels, new bosses, and more weapons than can fit in the menu. It's as complete as Super Demo World. The patch is bigger than the rom. Things you need to know about this hack before playing it (unassisted): - Ring power and Dive power are both strong, 8-way, and use little ammo. In other words, Metal Blades. It should replace your default weapon. - Ring Man and Dive Man are also the easiest robot masters to beat first. - The old boss "order" has changed. There really isn't a boss order anymore. The only true weaknesses in the game seem to be Dust vs Skull, and Bright vs Bright. And Rush Cannon vs everything. :) (Which I did not use.) - Buttons A and B on controller 2 will quick-cycle your weapons. If you're playing with a gamepad you're supposed to map those to the shoulders.
Posted: 7/24/2012 7:43 AM
Post subject: Minus Infinity
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Catastrophe
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After 3 bosses this hack gets a mixed review from me. + lots of new features + press select to change language on the title screen + added sram + some cute things, like the music in Toad Man's stage + basically, all new boss fights and powers. + apparently lots of crazy awesome stuff later in the game that I haven't reached yet - I strongly disagree with the changes to the invulnerably timers. Mega Man can now get hithithithithit. And Dust Man's invulnerability timer when shot with the Mega Buster feels like it's around 5 seconds. - Some of the layouts just scream "What is the hardest, most inconvenient thing I could do here". The beginning of Toad Man in particular. - The overall difficulty is a bit high. Mega Man 1-6 wasn't this hard. Look at the beginning of Dust Man. They're dropping shit on me, and missiles from Bomb Man are flying around, and the gear riding enemies from Metal Man are running amok. All at once. I started with Dust Man. I don't know if that's wise or not, or if I need to know things about this hack before playing it. I got up to Dust Man and died. Okay. Do it again. I was trying to do it without save states, but the second time around I made a save state right outside his door. (Because f* doing that a third time.) I could not beat Dust Man with 30 reloads. I like his two new gimmicks, though. But the arm cannon only does 1/2 damage and that's rough with his insane invulnerability. And then I discovered the "low hp gimmick". Thus, I quit. I tried a few other stages and I finally succeeded with Ring Man. Since Ring Man is coincidentally Dust Man's weakness, I went back to fight him. My third time around Dust Man's stage wasn't so bad. I beat him with 1 hp left. Then Skull Man. I think that rescuing Beat made Skull Man's stage too easy. I basically just flew over it. But whatever, I'll take a freebie. Speaking of freebie - using Dust Recycler on Skull Man? Defeating Skull Man gave me both Hell Wheel and Rush Cannon, which I tested briefly before quitting. They seem powerful! I have a feeling this game is going to get easier as I pick up more items. So far I've only reloaded a save state at a boss door. This game seems to be fair enough without save states, but it's way harder than the official games. The TAS is going to be amazing! That's for sure!
Posted: 7/20/2012 5:48 PM
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Catastrophe
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Don't feel bad. I was expecting Jiang Shi too. And for the same reason. And yeah, he did have a seal on his face. That was his gimmick. If you hit him with a stray attack after you had won then you'd break the paper seal on face and you'd have to fight him again. (And again, and again, if you wanted to.) But that's OoE. I voted yes, and surprisingly yes for goal choice. The goal choice is kind of iffy but I agree with Derakon that this is the best "see 100% of the game" goal choice. I also would like to see it done without suspending through walls. But would this run be as good without it? This movie is a solid 20 minutes of action action ACTION!! And I love that. But it's pretty much only possible because of the early Speed Up and Griffon Wing. P.S. Wait, rewind, how did he kill Dullahan so fast? How is he taking damage on his body? oh. Oh yeah, this isn't HoD. >_<
Posted: 6/13/2012 11:02 PM
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Catastrophe
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I would've been sad had this movie not been published. It's just the right length, it's entertaining, and it shows me something that I haven't seen before. I really enjoyed this TAS. Movies that actually use passwords (not this one) should be judged on a case-by-case basis. If a TAS were to start Mega Man 2 with nine e-tanks, and those tanks somehow allowed the game to be played faster, then I might vote yes or no, but leaning towards no. However, if entering a password in MM2 allowed you to skip some long cut scene when choosing "New Game" then I'd vote yes for the e-tanks password, even if they're not used. As long as the password has some merit and isn't just a free advantage.
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