Posts for Slotermeyer

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Makes sense. I didn't know that the 120 gold goes away if you don't take it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I have a suggestion for a possible, albeit minor, improvement. I might have some of my facts wrong, or the manipulation necessary might outweigh any savings. But I'll toss it out there. According to FAQs, metal slimes drop up to 6 gold. If you manipulate a total of 24 when hunting, you'll have 12 after you die. This, plus the 120 from the starting chest (if saved until later), plus the max of 80 that you could get from fighting a Wolflord instead of a Goldman would be exactly enough to buy 4 keys in Rimuldar. It should be possible to kill a Wolflord in 2 rounds instead of 3, plus they can be made to use Stopspell instead of attacking, allowing you to skip Sleep.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
With the crystal spinning trick you've got now two possible routes that might be best, and it's not totally clear to me which one wins. One is 1 -> 7 + spinning -> Nippon Pod -> 8 -> 13 -> 12, that is, BluBlu's route in his WIP and definitely the shortest in terms of levels. The other is 1 -> 2 + spinning 2 crystals and treasure -> Italian Pod -> 3 -> 7 -> 8 -> 13 -> 12. The latter would lose probably 4 or 5 minutes to get through all of level 2 and the warp to 7. On the other hand you'd have the freaking Italian pod for levels 7, 13, and 12! Especially in 12 you could save massive time with it. You could also grab thrusters. Whether this is enough to make up for the delay in getting the money and equipment, I don't know. BluBlu's might still be somewhat faster. What I do know is that the latter route would definitely be the optimal start for a 100% run, so if someone wanted to just test both possibilities and see which turns out faster, the effort of doing the level 2 stuff could be reused in a 100% run someday. I might get around to this sometime, but sadly it's not that likely.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Oy, how did I miss this submission? Thoroughly entertaining and I'm not surprised at all that the refresh potion turns out to be the best solution. The flight on level 3 was quite clever as was switching to Exorcise.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
My take is the same as Lord Tom's. The boss fights will probably be entertaining; do them. I don't see the point of maxing the levels. In fact I think the leveling strategy (which ones, when) would be more interesting if you weren't constrained to max them all out.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I was working on a TAS of Actraiser 2 some time back but it's fallen off my radar. I think I got as far as Altheria. It's a very laggy game and a real pain to optimize.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Thanks for the AVI. I really enjoyed this run. I could never quite beat this game as a kid... the tower was as far as I got. And all this time I never knew I was missing out on crab-Bonk! How sad for me.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
It's a really nice run, and I think also a good use of subtitles to increase the entertainment value of a game that most people have never played. Definitely a major improvement over mine from a few years ago.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I didn't realize this was a 100% run. After watching it, I'm pretty impressed by your time considering that you didn't use Jump for boosting at any point. There are a couple of things in your run that are clearly better than mine. Double-dipping the mana potion shop is clever. Also, I didn't really think about grabbing the easy puzzle points for free mana, that could be helpful in the any%, allowing for skipping the well and some of the chests. Hmm...
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I did a Magician run a few years ago, which was rejected because nobody knew the game. It's somewhat faster than yours. Here's the submission link. I suspect that this could still be improved on by 15 or more seconds, but without much audience for the TAS I've never bothered.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Does the 45k include the 16000 from selling the Ring (Pandam inn), Cloak of Ice (Serpent castle) and Amulet (Doros' castle), all of which are on your route? Also, recoveries drop from one of the monsters in Saro's cave. I think it's Undeed, or something like that---the purple zombies. You might be able to manipulate them as needed there, especially if you have Lejes and Vacuum 2. Another point in favor of Lejes is that the Monmo fight may be considerably faster with his magic stats. It's going to be slow going at level 25 in either case.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Re: Monmo, could you wait to switch apprentices until after the cave takes away your magic? I've never tested this, but according to one of the walkthroughs on GameFAQs the new apprentice will not be cursed. In addition, waiting until as late as possible to switch will give you extra Elnard stats for the added partner.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Mirrors do not petrify bosses. I've also literally never gotten the Sky Rune from the Dragon, so I'd love to know what determines that. Be sure to grab the Brown Coat in Melenam for a few extra defense for Lux. I think it's +4, which is as much as a Pr Seed.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
30 frame improvement to 2-4.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Is this ever going to be encoded? It's been quite a long time with no action.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
If it helps, you can get the secret cyberzone in level 1 for an additional 2000, and still catch the warp to 7. See here. It costs a little under a minute, but if that's the difference between having double strength thrusters and anti-gravity or not, it might be worth it.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
You might be able to spin the crystals more easily using the orange repel gravity ball things, they'll buffet your pod around a great deal. There are some pretty close to the orange crystal. If the no-boosters thing proves impossible and you have to do level 2, you might still be able to use the crystal trick to get to 25000 by the end of 7 and buy the Italian pod. The warping through drop zones will speed up 13 and 12 by several minutes.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Interesting! Level 12 has absurd gravity and is going to be very tough without boosters, but I can't imagine the total would end up slower. You'll probably have to kill most of the big ships in 7 because they completely block some passages. But there are two backup pods on the way, so you might be able to skip two of them by saccing pods.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I loved this run. One question though: just before the D. Machin fight you switch around several character positions. Particularly, Rosa moves from the top to the bottom. Then you put her back at the top just before the end. Is this helping with luck manipulation or something? She's in the back row either way. Also an easter egg: In Baron after fighting Yang the party walks through a girl in the inn.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I didn't know about that! I just went back and did an optimized run through Africa with that route and, luckily, it's about 160 frames slower than the one I took.
Post subject: Actraiser 2
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
I've been working a bit on Actraiser 2. There's a very old rejected submission in the archive here, but I think it can be improved on considerably, so I'm curious to find out if people are interested in this run before I spend any more time one it. Here's a WIP of the first three levels. Would a really good run of this game be interesting enough for publication?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Man, haven't thought about this run in a while. I'm not sure why the latest version should be getting so many Meh votes, though I understand that hardly anyone has ever played the game. This run is probably a little more sparse because I was able to cut out several inventory visits, meaning I stay on the playing screen for longer stretches. This might make it seem a little less active, perhaps? As for the Fly spell, it costs more than a second to go into the inventory screen to change spells or items, so unless I need to make a change for some other reason it's best to just drop. The spots where I do fly down from ledges I can switch to that spell at (virtually) no time cost because I'm already needing to enter inventory for some other reason.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
First let me say I was completely floored to see 4 seconds shaved off my run, very impressive. You seem to be more motivated to keep improving this than I am so I'll go ahead and post this. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1208/Ninja%20Gaiden-retry.fcm I'm 8 frames ahead where it stops, though really there's 11 frames of improvement because I lose 3 on the first boss fight. 9 come from 1-1, and 2 more from the little platform jump on the second screen of 2-1. If you make a new version I'm sure this will be of some use.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Nice work. Your route change on level 2 is very clever and you did a good job optimizing the later levels. Also, your play on the final sequence looks a lot better than mine did. My only concern is that some of the playing around on 12 may have cost time. Still a yes.