Two main ones for me:
Lufia (3): The Legend Returns
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere
And uh, rerecording GB/GBC is now possible with VBA right? Or else how were the 3 TAS's we have now created?
Hate to revive this dying thread, but there's a question in here.
nitsuja wrote:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
It should be considered a crime on humanity to mention Final Fantasy Tactics without also mentioning Tactics Ogre, in this case Knight of Lodis.
Dan_ wrote:
Commander Keen
There's a Commander Keen for GB? Which one? Gamefaqs has no info on this.
Since the first version was already incredible, I'm looking forward to this a lot! Maybe it'll get the star it deserves this time. ;)
And not to count your chickens before they're hatched, but after you finish this, would you consider taking on Lost Vikings 2 for the SNES?
It is interesting how people's opinions of which consoles/technologies are/were the best were almost completely due to business and politics outside of their control, like with NOA in the US and Tec Toy in Brazil, and other things such as VHS vs Betamax, Square vs Enix, and the list goes on.
I think that SXL has a very good idea here. The idea of subtitles was also mentioned at SDA (in response to some guy who originally suggested two versions, one with audio commentary, as if 3 versions of every run weren't already enough). People ask for plot runs for games all the time, and I have much difficulty understanding this phenomenon, but unless someone needed the verbatim text, this would work fine. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody here or there has done this before, as it seems like an elegant solution.
Unfortunately both the Star Gun and the Drill Claw are behind both the Battle Doors, which I skip because yes they take too long. You can bet I would have gotten them had I been given the opportunity.
I think that you should indeed skip all the weapons that you can in the interest of time. I know there are people who apparently find getting more powerful weapons in an RPG run at the expense of speed more entertaining, but I have never understood this POV.
I'm sorry, but unless there's something I'm missing, I think Mario and Wario would work better as a speedrun than a TAS. This is because playing perfectly would not be very difficult or impressive.
I want to echo Omega's sentiments here.
A question I have regarding playing SO on emulator: I remember when SO was originally released with graphics packs that you could use with zsnes, the battles would run too fast as to almost be unplayable. The DeJap patch and S-DD1 emulation did nothing to change this, so I played using snes9x. Recently, I opened SO back up in zsnes to test some things out, and the battles appeared to be normal speed now. Does anyone else know if this has been fixed somehow, or does anyone share this experience? About the in-game crashing, IIRC this is a problem with the game itself and not the emulation, right?
Bisqwit wrote:
The thing in Star Ocean is that it's a lot fatter than it is long.
I've seen you correct people's English before, so I know you wouldn't mind yourself. In English the correct terms for this are wide/narrow and deep/shallow: "it's a lot wider than it is deep." Unforunately, deep/shallow has unintended connotations to some people, as in "deep philosophically." Maybe another language like Finnish would be better. (It's like free vs libre in software.)
I'm almost half tempted to run a Game Genie invincibility run through and test level-ups near the end of the game to see how feasible a low-level run is, or a "preferred minimum" for still being able to damage near-endgame bosses...
I actually tried a low-level run on the SNES version before using zsnes. I gave up when I couldn't damage the harpy boss without leveling.
Wow, I really want to see Lemmings runs more than can be adequately described, but I never figured anyone would be crazy enough to try them until we reached a point where almost all the easier runs were already completed.
I played Lemmings 1 originally on the PC, so I am not an expert on NES/SNES considerations, but I think I would rather see the SNES one.
Nach, when you refer to Lemmings 3, do you mean Lemmings 3D? And if so, I'm a little confused since it's generally considered to be easier and slower and probably needing less dexterity. Still an amazing game though, and the "Lemmings Vision" thingy was pretty innovative and often useful.
About needing dexterity, the games in the series that are not pure puzzle games would of course need the most. Not too many people remember there was a Lemmings Paintball game. It was also pretty neat but unfortunately didn't have great mind-boggling puzzles that the series is known for. There was also a platformer involving the titular character Lomax, which was decent at best.
Back to the original topic: =p
Currently possible: Seiken Densetsu 3 (and I have no idea why nobody ever mentions this)
Not currently possible: Star Ocean 3 (TSA just had to prune the other 30+ games from his list) =p
Being action RPGs, both these games would be very interesting to watch from an action standpoint with also the great planning and strategy of an RPG. SO3 has skippable cutscenes, which is a plus. Both are quite long and nobody has seriously considered them, so the amount of man hours saved would also be optimized.
I avoided 77.27 since I heard in many places that it was borked. There is apparently a 77.77 now. Has anyone tested that out yet? I guess it doesn't matter if that fix really works, but it always helps to be careful when dealing with a company like Nvidia or Creative.
Speaking of which, does anyone know if there are any good 3rd party drivers for Nvidia like kX for Creative? I did a search and got DNA-Force and Omega, but I don't know the first thing about either of them.
There are so many TASs already, but how many classic games are there that are greatly in need of a TAS and would be really cool for the site to have? It's getting hard to come up with more classic games...
Trust me, there's many left. I would guess about half of the games I wish had TASs actually have one. And to answer the original idea about "classic" games missing, the one that sticks out like a sore thumb is obviously Sonic. SDA doesn't even have any Sonic, which I find even more amazing, but then again, SDA has a very Nintendo background and focus.
quietkane: I've played through EVO about 4-5 times, but it was so long ago, I don't remember much of the details. I am pretty sure, however, that speed upgrades are the way to go. Doing some testing, it seems like the mammal can get up to 14 speed and the bird a ridiculous 18. Also, jumping seems to make you go faster, but there's a delay upon landing, so the bird could jump into the air and then start dashing in the air without having to land. Human is probably not worth it since he's slower, but mostly because getting him takes forever to go through all the various changes. Hmm, a TAS of this game really would rock.
While Lemmings would of course be great, Lemmings 2 would be especially bad-ass since you would play the entire game in fast-forward, while recording in slow-motion of course. The end result would be mind-boggling. Switching tribes would sadly waste frames of course. As for saving every single lemming, it simply can't be done in some levels. The best I can do on the SNES version is losing 2 in classic and 1 in polar. I think it is impossible to do any better, but I could be wrong.
Secret of Mana... why settle for 2 players when you can use 3? ;) Or does snes9x not support that yet?
Truncated: Valis series, especially 3, could be good. They're made by Wolfteam, who also did El Viento (which has a TAS) and ToP and later became the Tri-Ace we all know and love.
Nsm: Rockman and Forte seems like somebody would have done a TAS by now.
Wandering Road: All those RPGs have been mentioned much before, but I guess Mother 1 and Star Ocean 1 deserve rementioning due to sheer awesomeness and the fact that nobody is working on them.
Mlandry: If I saw the Der Langrisser thread, I would have been in favor of it. ;) Anyway, would you rather see Der Langrisser or Langrisser/Warsong 2 or 1 for the Genesis? And which path would you take? It's been a long time since I played the game, and it was in Japanese.
But if we're talking about SNES TRPGs, Tactics Ogre is just about the most underappreciated game of all time. It would probably be a shorter run than I might imagine, and coming up with an optimum strategy would probably take more effort than any other TRPG I can think of right now, but on the other hand, like TRPGs in general, a TAS or speedrun might be overly repetitive.
I just want to chime in, I agree with everyone that thinks the Zelda 3 TAS is least deserving of a star. Most deserving that don't have one IMHO would be Lost Vikings 1 and then Secret of Evermore. I think the reasons why they don't have a star respectively are Gens not supporting 3-player recording yet and the SoE being 100% instead of any%.
Hey Phil, I would actually be interested in doing this run if you don't mind (maybe you have other runs higher up in priority since you're a busy man). What I'm wondering about is, what exactly on the technical side is stopping you from doing this on either snes9x or zsnes? And what was the devs' response?
hmm lol a speed run in valkyrie profile would be sleeping through everything and then making it through the end somehow
[of course ive never gotten to the end :o]
While this certainly would do an even poorer job than usual of covering the game comprehensively, I don't think this would be annoying to watch (compared to say powerleveling in an FF) since it goes by quickly. It would also be very funny seeing Freya's comments as you continue to, um, underperform. ;) Chapter 0 would still be there of course, and the final chapter would be exciting too as your guys would be extremely underleveled. Of course, an A ending run would have other dungeons, such as Tower of Lezard Valeth.
I haven't done any more work on this, by the way, but thinking about it, it does seem like the answer to "who should be the 4th character?" would be "nobody." =p
My favourites are:
Chrono Triggers Guardia Forest, Ocean Palace and Too far away times.
Terranigmas Underworld Theme, Port Theme and Greecliff Theme.
and Secret of Evermores clear Nr.1 is Hall of Collosia, Queen Bluegarden and Puppet Show Theme.
You have good taste, although I can't believe you left out the overworld theme from Terranigma.
And this once again proves my theory that [strike]Germans love David Hasselhoff[/strike] forest music is almost always the best music in an RPG.
Mazzic wrote:
One game that has realy good music but never seems to be mentioned in discussins is Romancing SaGa 3 to SNES. It's a SFC though so that might have something to do with it...
RS3 doesn't have much variety in its music, but thankfully the ones you hear more like the intro and town/overworld music are pretty good. And the game itself is very underappreciated but Westerners tend to run away screaming from everything SaGa, due to words like "Unlimited" that sometimes precede them.
RT-55J wrote:
Games with awesome music:
Doukutsu Monogatari
Chrono Trigger
Donkey Kong Country 1/2
F-Zero X/Expansion Kit/Vanilla
Final Fantasy 4/6/USA (5 was meh)...
I appreciate Cave Story as much as the next guy, but there were as many duds as there were great songs. I think all the tremendous love for the game and its music can be mostly explained in terms of favorable context (i.e. being freeware, Japanese, and having chiptunes-like songs).
About FF5, again I see no reason why people would like any aspect of 4 and 6 and not 5 other than context of the video game market (I'm assuming you played the translated ROM on a computer) and the player's growth in life and playing environment. If it had come out on the SNES in between the other two, maybe more Westerners would give it due appreciation. I see a lot of people on RPGamer call 5 the worst in the series, which amazes me.
Aqfaq wrote:
I don't like Neskimos or Minibosses because they leave so much detail out of their performance. They have too relaxed attitude. Great musical skill & equipment is required to produce decent cover songs. Oh well, I guess the purpose of remixes and covers is to experiment & have fun rather than make great music in itself.
Truest thing anybody has said in this entire thread. About the Doom tracks, usually these kind of things are mostly psychological. Also, people often "steal" phrases and chord progressions and such accidentally, although I don't imagine that's the case here. ;)
Cazlab wrote:
I can tell u that if Metroid had the Megaman music it would be my favourite game :> How about Zelda with Castlevania's music? That would be rad as hell!
I bet/hope you're being tongue in cheek, because that music would really sound out of place, heh.
NrgSpoon wrote:
The reason recent game music sucks is that it's mostly ambient, and there no real melody to speak of.
You and I must play different games (PC for you?) because I don't have this problem with recent music being too ambient. "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" But seriously, many old games are 100% melody, 100% of the time, which is even more lame. Ambience may be an acquired taste, but when done right (and it's often not) can even more amazing.
ventuz wrote:
I like some of retro games music, but my favorite song is Mega Man 5 (gb) - nepture stage (track #5 if you get one from zophar), it just impress me that Game Boy can play this song.
For stretching the limitations of the GB alone, Star Ocean: Blue Sphere is very impressive.
Cazlab wrote:
sounds awesome to me :D Castlevania has one of the best soundtracks ever!
http://archive.gamespy.com/e32003/interview/ps2/1002443/
I don't know if it's positive or negative that Michiru Yamane, the current Castlevania composer, is so conflicted with what she wants to do and what she ends up doing based on perceived market pressures. I read an interview after LoI was released where she said something like: "Oh, eventually I decided to put more hard, fastpaced songs in LoI because the modern gamer demands music that fits the mood and tempo of the game and gets his juices flowing for action-packed battles." Combine that with wanting to make a classical music soundtrack and you might get some interesting synthesis, or you might get half-assed work.
If the Zelda 3 walking through walls glitch run can not only be accepted, but get a star, I see no reason why there should have been any controversy over the wild warp.
Oh, and I'm no doctor (and I don't play one on TV), but wouldn't DDR be kinda stressful for your knee? Granted, not nearly as bad as playing say, basketball, but the traditional knee rehab activities are low-impact like cycling and swimming.
Hamm wrote:
Congrats on getting your Crystalis run accepted. It should make it easier for your next run to make it in.
Ok, I have a pretty good idea how my next version will look now. However, there is a wildcard in that the steps to next encounter don't always seem to be constant, and there's no explanation why in some cases. I've found some cases where particular squares don't advance the counter, but in other places encounters happen with more or fewer steps for seemingly no reason. Unless I can figure this out, I'll just have to work with what I can get.
I'm just throwing this out there, but if this is happening on the overworld for example, maybe it's due to different meta-tiles (the cause of the Peninsula of Power for instance) having slightly different values for the terrain types. It doesn't really make sense, but then again, neither does the phenomenon you describe.
Take your time, I just went through all this grad school late application and reapplication, overloading courses, committee forming, student services, securing an RA position, getting all my tuition waivers through, ETC... so I can empathize. ;) I'm sure the wait for a high quality run will be more than worth it.
I have something I wrote a while back that I'll paste here first. At this point, you probably know more about TAS'ing the AC than I ever will, but maybe something will help.
The AC is commonly referred to as randomly generated. A little thought shows this isn't true; for example, those rooms with tons and tons of enemies and chests would not happen "randomly." How it works is, each floor has a certain number of pregenerated maps (like 8 or something), and the game selects one based on the frame in which you hit the stairs. Meaning, you could work it so that you get a Blue Chest basically every floor. I could have sworn I once saw a site with all the possible maps, but since I can't find it, I may have just been imagining this.
I don't remember how early I've ever gotten Providence, since that's not something I ever had to pay attention to. But since like I said the maps are not actually randomly generated, I think there might be an actual cap on how early you can get it. I would take anything people say in general about the AC with a grain of salt. People say things like MP recovery spots exist, that have finally been proven false by romhackers. There's a guy on the gamefaqs message boards, relinquishd or something like that, who'd be a lot of help. Currently though, gamefaqs seems to be down, so I can't tell you any more, but there have been somewhat relatively recent discoveries about the game's algorithms.
relnqshd is apparently on permanent hiatus, unfortunately. As for Dark Mirror on B3, it's possible that the game designers didn't want blue chests on the first two floors, and that's really the first one you can get. My question to you is: you make it sound like the number of next floors at any point is exponential, or at least very large. I doubt the designers would make it so that you will need to check 6^20 routes. Are you sure it doesn't work closer to what I described above? It would be a big morale booster if it wasn't so daunting.
I posted this on the relevant SDA thread here, so I figured I might as well put it here as well.
"From where in the story on did you rely on Ryus Dragon stuff? Immediately after you got Odjn?"
No, I knew I would have no chance if I did that. Let me try and remember what I did. The main problem with running this game is that even disregarding D-Dive, the optimal strategy for fights is usually much slower than the fastest way. While this is great game design on Capcom's part, it doesn't do us any favors. I wasn't too careful and didn't take any notes because this was a (failed) proof of concept run.
I didn't fight any non-required fights. Besides XP, this also hampered me severely in regards to Fol and ID equipment. I also didn't go out of my way to pick up any items or chests. I spend most of my money at the beginning on Fresh Meat, and healing items later. I use up any Party XP I get on Ryu. I had to estimate how to best use Dragon powers to minimize D-Counter usage for each fight, and it was really surprising how many fights, I would knock the enemy down to a tiny sliver, and then be able to Cooldown and attack with Ryu and others for the win, or sometimes barely not be able to do this and reset.
In the first dungeon, Bosch's Twin Wake combo is good. Ryu's X Blade would be good too, except you don't come with Side Slash. I get Kick in the first dungeon; it's quite useful. I run around everywhere with D-Dash while it doesn't increase the D-Counter. (This alone is a good reason why a BoF5 run would look so nice.) I end the first Bosch fight with low D-Counter. Against the Lieutenants, I D-Dive, which in retrospect I would see if I could live without. At the end of CorpLab, I buy the Antenna, the rod with Lightning built in. Against the Gunners and Battlers, I D-Dive, because that fight is nigh impossible at low levels and would take forever besides. More importantly, killing those 8 guys first turn gives a ton of Party XP. Asimov I also D-Dive, but I would see if I could avoid doing that. The main issue is that pushing him into Fragballs is the best way to fight him, but it's in an optional chest. I wonder if Frost (Goo Sapphire drop) would be better, I'd have to see. The level 1 traps are G-Flare and Joltball, how unlucky. Against Zeno and Mage Captains, I D-Dive of course. This fight is hard enough on a normal playthrough. Afterwards I ID Zeno's Violet Blade and use that.
Because of newfound levels and decent weapons, Tantra actually goes down without much difficulty. I D-Dive Geegagis because he is so hard to kill and it takes forever, although if I had Fragball, I think I would have used that instead. I then kill Geegagis-powered Tantra without D-Dive. I remember to buy 1 Multimeds for Nina for the upcoming fight in Trinity. The Trinity battle takes far too long, but I still did it without D-Dive because at this point, I was glad it was still possible. Then the difficulty spikes. I D-Dive against Bosch at Lifeline, then again for Deamoned, and the regents. I picked Hortensia and then Vexacion, because I mistakenly thought that like Zeno, the fight ended when the leader dies. I think I should have went Cupid and Jezuit instead. Cupid has 340 less (HP+ABD) than Hortensia, which mattered because I had to use an extra Vortex I think. Against Jezuit, G-Flare doesn't do enough to get past his ABD and knock him out of his untargetable stage, so you'd have to wait it out or likely die instead before then. Which is why maybe Fragball is a good idea.
Then against Elyon I was toast, with Bosch and D. Bosch (and Chetyre, but he doesn't count) waiting in the wings.
With more getting stuff, instead of just racing through, this run is certainly possible. I just don't know how much time that would add.
The 100% seraphic speed run is a idea form me (yes is me on sda).
Level is not realy imporant , exepct some for Lezard , brahms and Freya (for skill).
And i need the golden egg for freya and some weapon.
The ony problem is isera queen at the end.
Ok, the levels comment meant, since you start with the levels of the save file, it wouldn't be possible to make this a standardized run. You'll notice that all the runs here and on SDA don't start from saved files.
Lezard, Brahms, and Freya would not be in a speedrun because they come at preset levels, and with no skills. Even if we were to neglect the time it would take to Experience Orb and set skills, they would not be as good as the characters you bring in, at least on the first trip. If you really want to see the secret characters used even though they would not be the fastest, that is what is called an aesthetic run, not a speedrun.
Oh, and I don't see how fighting Iseria Queen would be a problem. Isn't that the objective? And you have to fight her anyway if you'd want a 100% map completion.
