The kind of thing I'm looking for is values where, when a certain frame or movement point is reached, moving another step will cause a random battle. Or if it hits a certain value at the last frame of movement, a random battle occurs.
You can only move about three, maybe four 'squares' in a second in this game at most, and that's if you don't change directions. So if it's a step-based counter and not a frame-based one, we may have issues.
There's a laundry list of other luck manipulation things to worry about later, but for now I'm mostly concerned about the possibility of manipulating when battles occur. I figure on this being the most difficult manipulation. (Because it'd probably be the only one where a brute-force manipulation approach, the kind I'd probably be doing as a novice at tool-assisted gaming, would be least likely to work.)
Yeah, I'm aware of the SDA discussion. I'm actually part of it (as I use a different name here than the one I use on SDA).
Anyway, what I've been trying to figure out so far is how manipulatable this game is. First up is monster manipulation. I don't recall, in actual play, ever running into a situation where I get one random encounter the very next step after a previous random encounter.
I tried looking in the memory viewer for some ideas, but I'm not very good with that tool yet. I am convinced that the data for when to cause a random encounter has to be somewhere after position 0x8000 (everything before that is ROM - I figure on what I'm looking for being in RAM) and I'm guessing it's after 0xC000 (the spots between that and the ROM section are VRAM and SRAM - this part starts the actual RAM). I'm bracing myself for a Phantasy Star III-type situation, where I can only manipulate how long it takes between random encounters.
Since I don't see anything on the memory viewer in the emulator tool FAQ section of the site, I'd like some help with this.
Also, upon further review, I'm probably going to drop either Grizzly or HammerMan from the list. That, or I'm going to use Grizzly first and then drop him in favor of HammerMan later. I'm not going to breed the two together later - that wastes time IMO.
Okay.
I haven't established the gate order that would need to be visited for a TAS of this game, but here's the monsters I foresee getting:
-Golem
-Dragon
-FaceTree
-Gigantes
-PillowRat
-Stubsuck
-Goopi
-Spooky
-EvilSeed
-Anteater
-BoneSlave
-GiantSlug
If Gigantes cannot be recruited from the Well gate (where you fight one as a boss), then getting either Gremlin or BattleRex, plus MadKnight, will be done instead.
Let me explain their uses:
-BoneSlave is used to open up the Well gate, as any monster with an electrical skill (like BoltSlash) can be used to open it.
-If Gremlin or BattleRex is gotten, they are used to open up the Bazaar gate. I believe the Japanese strategy detailed in the link in the last post uses Dragon for this, but I need Dragon elsewhere.
-GiantSlug will only be gotten if I find I cannot manipulate when encounters occur, or if the minimum possible time between encounters is too long. This is one of the few games with FORCED levelling, and I plan on using Metaly monsters in the Well gate to speed it up dramatically (it is SLUGGISH otherwise), so GiantSlug and the Whistle skill could be put to use to speed up levelling.
-The remaining monsters are used to get my final team, paired up in the shrine as follows:
==Anteater + Golem = Grizzly
==PillowRat + Stubsuck = HammerMan
==FaceTree + Dragon = FireWeed
==Goopi + EvilSeed = Facer
==FireWeed + Facer = DanceVegi
==Spooky + either Gigantes or MadKnight = Reaper
==Grizzly + HammerMan = an improved Grizzly
The reason for the extra breed in the case of Grizzly is that it allows for Grizzly to learn EvilSlash (so I don't have to manipulate critical hits). This is also why Gigantes is preferred in getting Reaper - the closest skill MadKnight can learn is Massacre, which needs its own manipulation to prevent disaster. An extra breed with a stronger Zombie-family monster may be helpful for Reaper, but I don't think it will save enough time in the long run.
My ultimate plan is to be able to have all of this in place before the Gate of Anger, which I believe is possible.
Would like feedback on this setup.
Since I note this forum has yet to discuss this game, I might as well come up with some ideas in the hopes of seeing a TAS of this game eventually. Even if it's done by me. (I'd be more likely to run this game first than MMBN2, the other one I hinted at. Although I'd probably wait until after doing a live-console run of this game, which I'm in the process of planning and which inherently has to use a more complex strategy.)
I'm just hoping the 'random dungeons' element of the game won't make emulator movies desynch like mad.
Now, some people are probably aware that a Japanese run of this game was accomplished. For those that don't, the details of that run are at http://dq-x.com/dqmta.htm. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there's no video of the accomplishment. (It was reported the total time of that run is 2:03.)
From what I was able to discern by putting the page through a Babelfish translation, their final party is KingLeo, Balzak, and MadGoose, and their Starry Night strategy seems to abuse the move LureDance. In fact, a LOT of their strategies rely on abusing moves that prevent the enemy from doing anything.
While their final strategy is admirable, I personally feel that it fails to be optimal. Part of the reason is that they rely so much on random tamers wandering in the gates. I'll take adjustments on this, but what I was thinking was a party something like Grizzly, Reaper, and DanceVegi.
Grizzly and Reaper have fairly fast attack growth (more importantly, they can be bred really early), and DanceVegi learns LureDance naturally as well. The advantage of DanceVegi over MadGoose is that DanceVegi can also learn PalsyAir, by having FireWeed as a parent monster. And it turns out two of the final boss's three monsters can be affected by PalsyAir (MetalKing's the only no-go, and there's other ways of taking IT out). In fact, it is the rare monster indeed that is immune to PalsyAir, and of the monsters before Starry Night, I believe none are immune to both PalsyAir and LureDance. With a little (forced) luck and the right approach, I'm convinced that we can ignore (or close to ignore) worrying about the resistances of the player's monsters and just stop the enemy before they can do anything.
One other thing I'd like to note quickly. Unlike some other RPG runs that manipulate critical hits and the like, I feel that forcing critical hits (which ignore defense in this game, a potentially more deadly outcome than simply double damage) constantly is suboptimal. Instead, I'd recommend the skill EvilSlash, which acts as an automatic critical (damage-wise - there's no critical hit message with this skill) if it hits, though I believe manipulating around the lowered defense (so attacks go after someone else) might come into play.
While I try to come up with a more detailed plan, and possibly modify the final monster set, I'll let others share their opinions here.
macK proves once and for all that persistence is a virtue. If this isn't the one that finally gets accepted, I'll be surprised.
And what TAS would be complete without some trick that appears completely inhumanly possible (the jumping through walls, which is in 4-2, not 4-1 as the comments originally state - I think the sound I'm hearing during the instances going through the wall is the sound of 30 jumps a second)?
I didn't follow the trick discussion topic, so I will ask - what's with some of the random marble throws? Is that some special jump trick?
Regardless, voting yes as I have done twice already.
Yeah, that's the alias I use on the SDA forums.
I could maybe understand keeping a topic on the fifth game separate from the first and second, since that's a DRASTIC change.... maybe just have this thread represent the first two games? Or should this be just the second (which my advice seemed to be more focused on)?
Oh well.
Out of curiosity, what kind of chipset are you looking for against Numberman? Something where you don't have to concern yourself with those orb attacks? Or is there some PA you're looking to use?
I know there was one topic about the original Megaman Battle Network (hereafter MMBN), but it hasn't been updated in months, so I figure - why not a thread for the whole series of MMBN games? (Edit: Actually, since Zurreco mentioned that the games are too distinct to bundle together, I'd prefer to keep this thread to the first two games, although discussion of the other four is probably still acceptable)
Personally, since I'm not sure I have the patience for doing the TASing myself, I'm going to discuss strategy more than anything else, and only for the first, second, and fifth games of the series (the only ones where I've put extensive time playing - the first through ROM and the second and fifth through having the actual cartridge). I may be persuaded into attempting to TAS the second game, though, if I get plenty of support.
Before I start..... is it just my settings, or does VBA have problems running this series of games at the correct number of frames?
Now, on to the real fun part of this topic.
Here's one thing I gathered from the old thread regarding the original MMBN:
nitsuja wrote:
Battle chips aren't that hard to control... You can easily avoid all random encounters, but if you ever get into one you'll notice the chips you start with are completely randomized depending on when the encounter happened. This is also when the next 5 chips you get (if you use ADD) are randomized, so to manipulate that you'd need to change something before the battle, or if it's after the first turn in the battle you'd need to change what you did on the previous turn of the battle to manipulate it. (If you mean the drops from enemies, then I don't know, those always seem determined further ahead of time.)
Wonder how similar it is for the later games in the series?
I'm going to quickly move on to MMBN2, and state some thoughts on it.
Is it possible to get Cannon C from the Canodumb viruses in Den Area? If so, I'd say get into a random battle with one of those to get that chip so Z-Canon1 can be used against Airman. With just one Atk+10 added, that Program Advance (hereafter PA) can take out Airman in two shots, for a reason I'll explain in a later strategy.
Some other things. As soon as you finish with the battle tutorial, the blackboard in the school and the doghouse in front of Lan's house can be jacked into. Why is this important? The former has a Sword L and the latter has Fishy viruses, which drop DashAtk chips. The Sword L is important because if you can get a LongSwrd L chip from either Yai's phone or Yai's PC, you suddenly have the LifeSrd1 PA, which I believe can take Quickman out in one shot (making the battle SO much faster it's not funny). As for DaskAtk..... if Cannon C can't be gotten, I believe DashAtk is going to be the best chip to fight Airman with.
I don't have any specifics for other scenarios, but let me quickly discuss a little trick I discovered and three strategies that involve that trick. I discovered that attack-boosting chips add to the damage of EACH hit of an attack, not to the overall damage of the attack.
Strategy 1: This one's probably well-known by now, but boosting the Gater PA by at least 20 points of damage can pretty much OHKO any main-game boss short of Gospel.
Strategy 2: I call this strategy "The Snake Pit". You need either a Geddon1 or Geddon2 chip (Geddon1 is slower as you need to break the panels yourself, but I'm not sure Geddon2 can be gotten in any Chip Traders even with TAS luck manipulation). Use that, then use a Snakeman chip boosted as high as possible. If you get lucky with the Chip Trader I believe the maximum boost this can get is +160 (four Wood +40s). Maybe if you also used an AreaGrab chip (I'm assuming the extra snakes can only come out of holes on your side), it'd have the potential to OHKO Gospel (11 snakes, plus the bite at the end. With the lowest Snakeman chip, that's (30+160)* 12, which equals 2280). (If that doesn't make jaws hit the floor, I don't know what will.) Human players without that kind of luck (and not resorting to Gospel Duping, which I won't discuss here as any TAS would end before that trick could be used) could still achieve +130 (two Wood +40s, one Atk +30, and oneAtk +20). They probably couldn't OHKO Gospel, but it'd be close (assuming the same setup, it's (30+130) * 12, which equals 1920).
Strategy 3: Get a Twister chip and boost it as high as possible. Some Navis would require AreaGrab to be reached with this, but still, assuming the same maximum boost as the Snake Pit strategy discussed above (+160 for purist, +130 for human player), the damage gets to be insane ( (20+160) * 8 for purists, which works out to be 1440, or (20+130) * 8 for human players, which works out to be 1200). I suggest this because it's quicker to set up than the Snake Pit strategy, even factoring in the potential need for an AreaGrab, despite its lower damage.
I may sound obvious here, but a really dedicated TASer could probably get any of these results with enough retries.
Since I'm out of ideas for the moment, I open this up to others' opinions.
After seeing this version (prior to the shortcut Hero came up with - I haven't seen the new version of that level), I'm less hesitant about supporting this one.
If nothing else, thank you for avoiding that cringing wait period in 4-2.
I voted yes to the last one, so I will be voting yes for this as well.
Although I'm curious... it says in the submission text you actually lost time on 1-3 and 2-3. As these are both boss fights, and I don't see any explanations anywhere, I'm wondering how you lost that time. Is there some sort of 'fadeout lag'-like scenario going on?
First impressions are as follows:
Choice of Game: Now, some sections of the game get a little repetitive (most of the fights vs. Tom), but the fairly short length of the movie and the different items on some levels severely reduces the chance of the game getting entirely boring.
Play Style: There were a few wait spots that made me cringe - most notably one in 4-2 that I'm pretty sure was a forced wait of 3-4 seconds, although it felt like 20 - but as far as I can tell, you have a pretty good grasp of TAS technique. Although you might want to check and make sure your chosen 'damage pass' spots save the most time - I'm specifically pointing at that one wait I mentioned.
Had this spot been pointed out and explained in the run's comments, I may not have said anything.
Overall, however, I'm voting 'yes'.
I've watched up to the boss right after the second pterodactyl (I forgot the name of the boss I'm referring to - you have to excuse me, I'm not completely knowledgeable about long-necked carnivorous dinosaurs), and I'm left with two impressions.
Hard mode is making you take forever on bosses. I actually think this should be done on easy - I'm pretty sure bosses go into all of their non-manipulatable patterns eventually on ALL difficulties.
Speaking of manipulation, that was done well against the two pterodactyl bosses.
Now, the other thing. I feel you're not playing nearly aggressively enough. I'm pretty sure you can deal damage faster against bosses with simple mashing of the attack button than what you did in this run. Yes, I know damage won't seem to 'register' as far as boss sounds and such. Just keep going at it and you'll get a solid hit sooner or later.
Although I can't vote here due to not enough posts, this is a rare situation where I'd actually vote "no" if I could.
Edit: Okay, I saw the fight I mentioned above and the Anklyosaur fight. As for the first of those two bosses, you seem to be doing better, although you may want to wait in a few situations to minimize the boss recoil lag.
As for the Anklyosaur.... AceOfShades said it. Stand back a little when firing the wheel, or fire it upwards quite a bit sooner, so that the wheel hits him the instant he's vulnerable. I do believe the game is thinking you're hitting him with the club. (This fight WAS played more aggressively than the ones when I made the first post, but maybe it was TOO aggressive. My point still stands on earlier stuff.)
Edit 2: Saw the Dinosaur Skeleton boss fight. I think I saw maybe one hit that the game thought was a club hit instead of a wheel hit - otherwise, much better.
Edit 3: Saw the last few fights. Seemed you regressed in the last dinosaur boss - need to increase the aggression IMO.
As for the Red and Blue Imps? You do a fairly good job. Although I do seem to notice some hits that misregister....
In closing, I say apply the concepts from your Red and Blue Imp fights to all the rest of your boss fights and I think your time will drop pretty dramatically.
And one last thing. I think the second game in the Joe and Mac series is much more suited to TASing than the first one is.
Because of the waiting involved, I wasn't a fan of the glitched fatalities. With two exceptions:
1. The Kung Lao beat-em-up that ends in a stage fatality
2. The part right before one glitched fatality where you're having Johnny Cage constantly miss a roundhouse - it's more the way the kicks are timed than the actual concept of it
If you were to do this again, I say keep the stage fatalities, the Smoke and Jade fights, and these two specific parts I mentioned that were from glitch fatalities (probably mixing the two together in this case). (This also means leaving in the 2P fight, which I think was worth watching. The fight itself, mind you, not the glitch fatality at the end of it.) As well as your different combo techniques. I say leave out the rest of the glitching - maybe it's just me, but the wait wasn't worth the glitcharifficness (I interpret that last word to mean the use of glitches just for the sake of it - if anyone else want to use that word, feel free).
Also: Surely enough there's a way to have three or four different characters involved in a single combo (I saw combos with two, but I'd need to be reminded of any involving three or more). That's something to consider for next time.
If I could vote on this run (I don't have enough posts here yet), I'd vote 'meh'.
I think it'd be worth seeing a third attempt if some of the stuff I mentioned happens. Before doing an MK2 run again, though, I would rather see what you can do with MK3.
When comparing the bland-to-exciting ratio (a little too high on the bland side with this game) and the effort put in, I'm forced to vote a very weak 'yes', almost bordering on 'meh'.
Anyway, JXQ.... from what little I know of this game through one solitary GameFAQs guide, I believe the difference between who was picked concerns their weaponry. The Yellow 'ranger' uses a punch attack and the Black 'ranger' uses a sword. Since the punch has less range than the sword, and there's no difference between the Black 'ranger' sword and the Red 'ranger' sword, frames would be lost switching to those two. But since the Blue 'ranger' and the White/Pink 'ranger' have the same weapon, and they're the same distance from where the cursor starts, the runner can throw in some variety without lost time.
(Notes: I put 'ranger' in quotes each time because even though it's NOT Power Rangers, there appears to be about a 90% correlation between the two and I'm going with what I know. As far as me referring to one of the 'rangers' as White/Pink, it's because the game refers to that character as White Swan, yet she looks too much like the Pink Ranger to me.)
I posted about this game on the SDA forums a while back, and the reaction was.... mixed. There also wasn't a lot of attention drawn to it.
After thinking about it a while, I decided that maybe a full-fledged console speedrun is a bad idea for a game like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. (I might consider recording a playthrough going as I normally go, just for kicks - just for the record I'd probably go with a pair like Meowth/Treecko in such a scenario - but I wouldn't try a full-speed run due to the insane luck requirements and the fact that the story isn't skippable in any way, shape, or form. I haven't told them this yet, but I plan on it at some point.)
However, I am no good whatsoever at TASing - I may be able to pay the necessary attention to detail, but I just don't have the patience to slow the game down as much as is necessary to do a proper TAS, nor to redo small parts several hundred times to get it just right.
Thus, I'm going to simply relay the general information I recall seeing in the SDA topic and see what it brings in.
As far as I was able to tell, the general consensus is that having a water Pokemon as the main character and a Pikachu as the partner was the fastest combination. The starter should get Ice Beam, and the Pikachu should get Thunderbolt and possibly Shock Wave (the Thunder equivalent of Swift).
Now, there was some contention about exactly what water Pokemon should be the starter. I believe Totodile is better, but someone else mentioned Mudkip as another potentially good main character.
Whatever the case, here's my point: because of the fact you have to use unevolved Pokemon before the credits, moves trump stats in this game.
In a TAS, I don't envision any partners beyond what is mandatory, so I won't get into that.
As far as held items: I'd say Power Bands early and Special Bands as soon as you can get them. Hold on to those Special Bands for the rest of the main game.
Also - Mystery Dungeon is known to put the exit right next to the starting point of a floor on occasion. However, even with the right moves I'm pretty sure the bosses will mop the floor with a party that's TOO underlevelled. Thus, some experience gaining might be in order. It's more of a stretch than the existing Pokemon series TASes, I think.
I'll feel free to say some more on this once I figure out what makes this game tick.
So that's TWO strange tricks for Steve. (The other one is that enemies seem to catch his aerial power shot less if you run backwards and THEN shoot it - although I'm fairly sure that's more well known.)
Very impressive. My favorite part was NOT juggling Eyo at no health - it was not letting Pavel really get up at all.
If I could vote Yes, I would.
A while back, there was discussion of this game on the SDA forums. While that didn't immediately produce an on-console run, I will share some things from that conversation that may prove useful for any form of speedrun of this game.
This first portion was something I came up with for the dinosaur's maximum speed:
These assume the following conditions:
Dorsal Fin - Pronesaurus Dorsal Fin
Body - Slick Body
Size - Small
Tail - Invincible Tail
Back of the head - Ptenodons Crest
All results for the 4-legged form and 2-legged form were tested with the longer neck, but I don't think neck size makes a difference in speed. (With the transitional stage in between, the long neck is the only size neck available.)
The Bird Jaw results were tested with Phonocos Jaws but will apply to any set of jaws listed below Tyrasaurus Jaws. Normal Jaw results were tested with Tyrasaurus Jaws and above. The 'hybrid form' refers to the transitional stage between true 4-legged form and true 2-legged form.
4-Legged Form, Bird Jaws = 14
4-Legged Form, Normal Jaws = 11
Hybrid Form, Bird Jaws = 15
Hybrid Form, Normal Jaws = 12
2-Legged Form, Bird Jaws = 18
2-Legged Form, Normal Jaws = 15
This speed difference is why I pushed for the 2-legged form earlier in the discussion. The 'bird jaws' thing was done just to prove a point of maximum speed.
A little after this part of the discussion, Enhasa added the following note:
Just to be complete inside this thread, the max speed for the mammal is 14 and the bird is 18.
For a console runner, 2-legged form with normal jaws was our overall pick. BUT - since TASers can simply reload savestates if things don't go their way, and thus can often get away with lower actual attack power, using the 'bird' jaw types for the dinosaur could probably wind up faster in a TAS than the 'normal' types of jaws.
2P Normal. Easily. (For some reason, I couldn't vote either, though.)
In fact, assuming you're going to focus more on entertainment than speed, I have a couple of suggestions to add to the pile:
1) Have one player grab a trashcan while the other gets a chain (or a stick - I say 'chain' because it appears to me to have slightly more range). At the start of boss fights where you have that setup, have the trashcan carrier jump and throw both weapons so they hit at nearly the same time (I'd say AT the same time but I don't know if both hits would register that way).
2) With just one of the bosses - don't care who, but I suggest Thor - once you knock the enemy down once, try the 'dodgeball' strategy. What I mean is, have the players constantly toss the boss at each other. Doing this with more than one boss drops the entertainment value through the floor, though. (Renamed it in case you can get hurt by enemies being thrown at you.)
3) Remember that weapon set I suggested in point 1? Carry those into the Dragon Twins fight, and pummel from both sides. Despite their guarding tendencies, I don't think they can switch their blocking that fast. I also suggest having one player's hits occur halfway through the pause between the other player's hits - whereas the last run had a '1, 2, 3, 4' kind of beat to the hits, I suggest a '1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and' kind of beat. (The musically inclined are more likely to get what I mean here.)
That preview is insane. Really insane. "I continued playing after the 2 laps ended, got passed by the next-place person, and was still in first" insane. (Being a full lap ahead of someone is nearly impossible in real time, the way I remember Biker Mice from Mars.)
May I ask what prompted the selection of Vinnie, the character with the lowest top speed of all?
Edit: By the way, I myself see no issues with using a password that has the motor and weapon parts upgraded. Good luck getting the judges to agree, though....
Things I liked about this:
-Calling the shots about 80% of the time they needed to hit. What I mean is, you threw the weapon and let the enemy (usually bosses) stumble into it. Most obvious in the Giant Pterodactyl fight and the fight against those fish enemies (not sure what they're called, really), I think.
-Sacrificing pure speed for some entertainment. An absolute pure speed run of this game, in my opinion, would be BORING, mainly because of the slow movement speed of the characters.
Things that bothered me:
-As far as I was able to see, you seem to be a couple pixels off all the time when finding the position for the end-of-level scene. I know, it may seem like 'just a couple of pixels', but if it bothers me at this stage, it may bother whatever judge decides to look at it if/when it's submitted, in which case they may very well reject the run. If it really is unavoidable, though, please say so, but I really suspect the slight miss in that area can be avoided.
-I still seem convinced that whether the boss goes into 'shock state' (and a bar is taken off of their health) is determined by a certain amount of time passing (which is different for some bosses - this is why the T-Rex fight is so slow and the Giant Pterodactyl fight is so fast), rather than how many times you actually hit them. Just something to investigate, really.
After watching that, I have a couple of questions.
First, that GameFAQs guide mentions the Flint Spear Head, which increases attack power. Does that item work on bosses at all, or only on normal enemies? Also, does it only work with the normal spear or does it power up the attack totems as well? If it works on bosses and/or powers up attack totems, that's the kind of item to manipulate (you did get some good luck manipulation to aid you though, I will admit).
Second, I'm curious, how interchangable are the Ice Ritual and Magic Forest stages? Meaning, could time (other than the time it takes to select the stage) be saved doing those two stages in a particular order? Right now, I'm somehow convinced there's a way to shave more time doing Magic Forest first.
Additionally, something I discovered in the guide regarding the Fire Test, in the section with the Firebirds and weighted platforms:
There is a hidden Magic Potion on the platform above the entrance to the next section. It's reachable from the weighted platforms.
How many frames are lost getting that rather than manipulating a Magic Potion (those restore-health-when-you-are-out items) elsewhere?
If I find anything else, I'll make sure to speak up.
Wing would probably be most useful later on, when getting the five spells to access Fuwa-Fuwa Island is necessary.
As far as Power Boost, I seem to recall it being an invincibility spell. My question is, is the time it takes to get 2 extra bottles less than the time saved with Power Boost?
Light Sword, if I remember right, is the most powerful weapon in the game. If the time it takes to get that is less than the time tacked on by getting the normal sword progressions, then it'll work.
Your statement about the Boomerang may actually have merit, particularly against the mummy boss of Sala-Sala Island. If the boomerang is skipped, getting the Axe is the other option, and from what I remember, that takes quite a while.
Anyway, up to Puka-Puka Island, here's what I foresee getting:
-The Silver Sword (required in Poka-Poka)
-The Fire Sword (required in Hiya-Hiya)
-The Ice Sword (it saves at least one whole cycle of attacks on the boss of Boa-Boa, which should be enough to justify the time it takes to get the weapon)
-The Magic Wand (I mean, it's going to be gotten anyway, might as well get it ASAP)
That's right, no Dagger or anything like that. The Demon Tree will be fought with the Silver Sword only and the Mammoth will be fought with only the Fire Sword.
Speaking of the Demon Tree, the fastest method I've found of defeating it is getting between the hands, jumping up, and stabbing away. It just needs one full heart to work, I think, although there might be a way to avoid damage completely there.
Also, it turns out that utilizing frame advance and holding the jump button for 4 frames then holding up for the next 4 allows fast climbing of vines. I'm not entirely sure if that's exact, but it's within 1 in either direction.
I browsed through some of my games a while back, and discovered this one - a fairly lengthy platformer with some very difficult parts. I realized this seems to be one of those games that'd actually be very good to TAS.
I'm willing to discuss TAS tactics for this game and see where this goes. I'd do this myself, but I don't really have that quite much time on my hands right now. Plus, I still have no real skill with slowdown/frame advance or luck manipulation.
Here's some things I thought about as far as TASing this game goes:
-All armors and shields should be skipped.
-I think four magic bottles, counting the one you have as soon as you first get magic, should be gotten, in order to use Wing, the warping spell. If you need more magic you can always manipulate an enemy into dropping it.
-Is it possible through some glitch to get the Ice Sword early? That'd save HUGE amounts of time on the first couple of bosses.
-I'm fairly certain that manipulating luck to get the coins for the Light Sword ASAP (the Casino is definitely going to be required for this) saves enough time later to justify doing so.
Anyone interested in helping me out and at least discussing some of these points? I'm pretty sure I got SOMETHING wrong.
I got the time to watch this and I must say, if I get an SNES anytime soon, this game is definitely on my 'to get' list. (On a side note, my mother watched this TAS over my shoulder and found it very funny.)
I do have to ask one thing - glancing at the TAS, this doesn't look like the kind of game that would take 18,000+ rerecords to pull off. What part of the game caused that figure to develop? Getting boss fights just right? Getting the chibi-dash to work when you wanted it to? Or just plain constant refinement?
Because of all the ROM desync things I've been hearing, I might consider waiting for a revision of the TAS, done on a more agreeable ROM, to have a look.
As far as the minigames, though, I concur with Blublu that the minigames should not ALL be completely skipped. Here's my opinion on each:
Plucky's minigame: This is the absolute worst. Not only is it extremely time-consuming, it is dull beyond belief. Avoid this like the plague.
The 'weights' minigame: This is quite dull, I admit, but it's not all that slow compared to a couple other minigames if I remember right. Probably still want to stay away from this.
Babs' minigame: This one is at least not very dull, and it can be done with SOME measure of speed. There's got to be some other way to show off in this one as well.
Furball's minigame: This might be one of the slower minigames, but I cannot think of a better way to show off than doing this AND going with as few misses as possible. Is this form of 'showing off' entertaining? I certainly think so, although it's possible that not everyone will agree with me.
Hampton's minigame: You seem to already know the deal with this one, so I'll stay quiet about it.
Feel free to disagree with any of these.
Why is that? If you have the special weapons on each boss, it'll make boss fights faster and easier when having 3 other games to progress in at the same time.
Well, that's true, sure. The reason I brought up the thought of having to change the route is that some areas may have to be done in moments where the other three games are relatively quiet. Remember, DeHackEd, when doing his Mega Man X and X2 combo run, managed to coordinate a number of boss fights in one game to happen when the other couldn't benefit from input, and I think he had to fight two bosses at once only two times or something like that. I figure something related will happen here.
Getting the jetski portion of Wave Man's stage to happen at just the right time sounds like an example of such (although I'm not entirely sure whether it'd be considered a quiet section or a demanding one).
If they decide to ultimately add Mega Man 1 and 2 into this set, coordinating Quick Man's beam sections would be another, more obvious example.
First thing I have to say is this:
Baxter, AngerFist, both of you are absolutely insane.
Secondly, how much is the route for each game going to have to change? I somehow imagine that using the exact same route as the standard TASes for each game isn't quite going to work.