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I needed to watch it and do some specific frame counts.
Nitsuja, all I can say is WOW. Someone please give him ninja rank!
He certainly found a few tricks/glitches that we were unaware of. Every level and every boss was done faster.
As the bosses are the only thing I know about in the game I'll just comment on those:
Somehow you were able to shoot during the cut scene between the level and the bosses. When the screen appears there is already a shot in the air. Good job finding that out, and of course this allowed a faster completion of the bosses.
In all levels and bosses it is best to have 1 energy bar left at the end to save time at the end. While you did this well and every level, it could have been done better on the bosses as well. Boss 5 in particular you could have taken more damage. When the thing on his head closed, I was able to take a hit without losing any time. I also timed so that I took a hit while delivering the final blow.
Also having minimal chips at the end is faster but requires some planning ahead. In the early levels I wasted all my chips after fighting the bosses. that saved about 20-40 frames after each compared with your run (and as much as 100 compared to walkerboh's)
While this means less chips at the end, we made up for by manipulating luck to get chips in the final levels.
I used the dynamite on the 4th boss, but by the 5th I was wondering whether it was worth it since it is pretty slow and has the same chips : damage ratio as the spread gun. Anyone who is going to improve this should look into that.
I can't comment to much on the very last boss since that was what I was working on the final form when I saw this submission!
I guess we are officially finished with this game too. It would have been nice to submit our work ;)
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Im very interested in this TAS, but I've only just watched it. From what I can tell it is damn fast and I know of no way to improve it.
As far as points go, its more than worth the 10 or so frames for more points. At the end when you face the last linda's you lose at least 60 frames by not having the elbow attacks at the beginning of the fight and you were only a few points away from having it.
243 frames just on the first level is a great improvement. The two shorcuts I posted a while back will save about 8 seconds total. Perhaps this can be a sub-9min run?
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I just thought of something in level 10, though. I might be able to get the lemmings on the left of the structure closer to it by using blockers before the climbers start falling. This would depend entirely on how long it takes for all of them to be released. If it works, they might be able to get to the exit more quickly.
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Im glad you made some progress on this!
Honestly I wasn't very excited watching the first levels, they are a little boring. The last 3 levels on WIP though are excellent and make me think this is going to be an excellent run.
Some of my favorite parts are when you were able to kill off all the uncessary lemmings without the "armageddon" tool. Finding creative ways to do this in future levels without wasting time is going to improve the quality of the run greatly.
Also there will inevitably be moments where you have to wait, how about using the extra "tools" that you get to have the "disposable" lemmings so silly or neat looking things or just to find cruel ways to kill them off.
In terms of speed, I didn't see anything in those levels that could be improved, keep up the good work!
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I think this movie is just not quite optimal enough. While this is a 2-player run, Genisto's run does affect how this one is viewed. I hope that you attempt to imrove this run as I would really like to see a 2-player contra run published one day :)
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Well I was entertained for about 4-5 holes, then It got old. This game has the same problem that a 99-0 tecmo bowl blowout does. It gets repetitive and boring.
I have to vote no on this, its just two repeitive and not interesting at all
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scubed wrote:
Frame 17000:
Why do you swim all of the way around? That takes a very long time.
Here's how I would do it:
http://lingcog.iit.edu/~scubed/kiwikraz_1.zip
(I'm not sure if you can trigger the upper cloud guy to appear so you can just directly jump on his cloud.)
I had a long explanation here about how there's always hidden improvements in this level and I found all I could and that I didn't think blah blah blah. Then I watched your movie. You are a golden god. I didn't think jumping up there could avoid the water current...this throws my entire run into question.
Well I watched this run and voted yes. Then I read this, I highly recommend you improve this run and re-submit. Either way though, I think this is publishable. I was entertained. Towards the end I got a little bored but I can see how someone who has played would find it interesting as they are more familiar with difficulties and route-planning etc that would make the levels interesting.
I thought overall the game had a lot of route planning possiblities and nice glitches (?) going through various walls. The run seems good with no obvious errors.
Good job.
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While you are on a rejecting spree, take a look at these:
#715: KameZa's NES Monster in my pocket in 20:20
Genesis DJ Boy in 18:55
author aims for low re-record counts ?! - 574 (automatically
calculated)
sliverjazz's SNES NBA Hangtime in 14:05 – sports game blowout
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few other easy rejections:
NES Dragon Quest 2 (J) - choco mint - this was never really submitted for publication but rather a reference for (hopefully) a future run.
NES Dragon Buster (J) - Dimon - didn't finish the game, author got to what he thought was the ending but it is just a cut scene and there are several more levels
and possibly:
NES Crash & Boys Street Challenge - Guanabowl
according to posts the movie is ended to soon (more input required to complete the game)
SNES Super Earth Defense force - jc
got poor voting results, (worth reading the opinions and deciding for yourself though)
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Spoony_Bard wrote:
The first time it happened was likely sheer luck, so it's cool.
Well sorta, the first time Taloon just happened to steal the chest so I never had to even try. The 2nd time around I forgot that I happened that way and I assumed I got the treasure drop. That was the reason I was so persistant. I thought "Hey I did it before why can't I do it now!"
2000+ re-records later I began to invistage the problem and thats when I realized.
I am at the keelon fight as of now. Thanks for all the support and encouragement, sometimes I really need it for a game like this!
BTW, im about ~3300 frames slower than I thought for two reasons:
1) Not leveling brey in chp 2, means I couldn't use outside to leave the cave west of keelon (where I get the magic key) This cost about 3000 frames (though it saved my a little more than that on level ups)
[edit]
I also experimented with dying to get out of cave, but after I take the time to revive alena & taloon it ends up slower
2) in chp 4 I skipped the lamp of darkness, but I forgot that you have to search under the chest in chp 5 when you re-visit the cave. So I had to get the damn thing anyway!! This game is irriatingly well programmed. It still saved me about 30 or so frames but not the 300+ that I thought it would.
Neither of these things COST me time, but they resulted in only a marginal improvement instead of ~1 minute that I thought they would.
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thank you very much Paulygon!
LOL, 1 in 4096, even worse than I thought! Ah well it figures.
Last night I did get past it by using Taloon to steal the treasure chest. It is a little slower to do it this way but I hope nobody will fault me for not brute forcing a 1/4096 treasure drop!
The good news is I am past this spot and on my way to Keelon :)
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Ive been stuck in one spot for quite sometime and couldn't figure out why. On my way to keelon I run into a plesiosaur and get a treasure drop in order to get stilleto earrings for Alena. I suspect that this is actually a rare item to get. Instead of the 1/64 chance, I think it might be more (as much as 1/2048!). I come to this conlcusion after about 2000 re-records. I redid the fight several times and even in different locations but could not get the treasure drop!
I didn't run into this problem in my first run out of dumb luck. I had taloon in my party then and he happened to steal the treasure chest.
After much headache and profane words, I will go back and put Taloon in the party and attempt to get it that way (though I really have no Idea how to force that to happen).
But out of curiosity I would love to know what the "odds" are of getting the random treasure drop in this instance (if anybody skilled person could look into that).
the 1/64 & 1/2048 numbers were based on information that someone got out of DW3 for treasure drops. The standard there is 1/64 and really rare items or 1/2048 (1/64 * 1/64). I suspect that it is the same in DW4 as well.
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Seems like a good run, but the game is bad, I ended up fast-fowarding through most of it.
I think that bad games can make publishable TASes but usually because something creative was done or a glitch exploited (like A Boy and His Blob), anything that makes someone watching think "wow I wouldn't have thought of that"
This game has none of that. In addition, the enemies are easily dealt with so all the platform levels are just walking forward and shooting.
And the raft level was WAY TOO LONG!
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wow Bisqwit beat me to it. I was going to say everything he said except im voting meh. The meh is mostly because while this game isn't that good, it is fast paced with the constant jumping.
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This is a boring repetitive game. At about frame 20,000 I remember wishing the run were over. If this run wasn't done so well I would vote NO. But the run is done very well (no mistakes that I could see) so I hate to see it rejected. I guess I'll have to vote Meh.
Summary: great run, terrible game.
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I have to note NO
This is a great game that I have fond childhood memories of and im suprised that there is not already a run made of this game. This run is a good start but has been proven that it is improvable. Come back with a run that is 20+ seconds faster and I will happily vote yes :)
Good luck on your improved version!
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well i re-watched this run a few times and did a little testing of my own.
1) The movie definately ends too late, if it is published it would need to be stopped sooner
2)
I did not go for ringouts for all three of my opponents because it would obviously make the movie boring. Yes, it would make it faster, but still boring, nontheless.
I have to disagree with this. Its only three opponents and only a minute long. How could it be boring that quickly? And how much MORE entertaining is it without?
3) From what little I know about this game I think it is improvable
4) I'm not sure that a run of this game is entertaining. It seems you just hit the about 2-3 times and they are out. Of course someone who never played punchout might think the same thing. But at least punchout has a variety of characters whereas Ring King's boxers all look the same and have the same moves.
5)
Naughty! Seriously, what exactly were the programmer's intention(s)??
If published can this be the screen shot ;)
Overall I have to vote no. I disagree with the author's goals, I think the run itself is improvable, and I think that this game has limited potential for an entertaining TAS.
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Truncated wrote this in the mm6 thread:
I can agree with josh l. Having your work stuck in limbo forever can be disheartening. I just recently got promoted to judge, so this weekend I'll try to do something the oldest submission and go on a judging spree.
Now, I think this discussion should be taken elsewhere and not in this submission thread.
This is what I have been hoping someone would do for a long time now. Some of these submission have been there over a year, I think its time someone give them priority. I applaud your effort.
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I would suggest to try not placing so much emphasis on getting a run published as just doing it for the fun of it. Otherwise, it can be disappointing, and that's not a good reason to have a hobby like this. Whether or not it gets turned into an AVI on the site doesn't mean the run is any better or worse than any of the runs that do get published, and it doesn't change the amount work you put into it or how proud you should be of it.
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yeah, what bag said
in the last wily for instance, using it earlier would mean no sliding which means we would lose a lot of time
in one of the dr x stages i keep the rush adaptor on and just walk because it turns out to be slightly faster than switching to regular megman and back again.
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this seems like an easy solution:
since its only one jump and sound like it was near the end of the movie, why not Vatchern correct this in his run and submit?
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Kyrsimys wrote:
Yes, I know that but did he just do it twice straight away or did you have to manipulate him to? Because I never could. Or at least I couldn't make him move in between the snowflakes.
no i had to manipulate him to do so
what i did was move away from him, jump (facing away)
at that point a tried every frame to begin to move in the air, eventually one of them caused him to do pattern 1
