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I found the movie very entertaining to watch. The stage order tripped me up at first, until I remembered this was an 'all stages' run. The optimization also looks on point, as expected. So, here's a yes vote.
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This run was a lot better optimized than a lot of other people's first Mario submission. Good job on that. Couldn't you use any of the koopa shells to avoid having to walking to the castle entrances though? 3-1 is a good example for this. The warpless run uses a koopa shell there.
Instead of trying to complete the game with the stipulation of using one specific glitch, you should probably do a full SMB1 glitchathon instead. I'd much rather watch that.
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We should really replace the rating system with a like/dislike bar.
Jokes aside, I agree with Warp that the search box needs a big revamp. As of right now, it feels clunky and doesn't often seem to return what you want. It would be better if results were served up immediately, rather than in a separate page.
If we are to categorize movies by games in the future, the search box should be also reworked to be game-centric. On speedrun.com, there is auto completion for partial game names. It seems like a small thing, but it's a godsend for lazy people like me.
Being able to filter by platform, date, author and so on would be nice too.
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Another Metroid 2 Remake is released.
I haven't gotten to play the full version yet and probably won't for a while. Regardless, I am excited for what the future might bring.
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I generally quite enjoyed seeing the onslaught of enemies Simon must deal with. Since his moveset is so limited, being able to power through the stages against such overhelming odds is quite impressive.
That said, it's hard to say as I don't have the ROM handy to check, but the TAS looks fairly unoptimal to me. I think that with, some better strategizing and more precision (where and when to use the whip, the holy water, and when to take damage), a lot of the waits could have been avoided. For example, in Stage 7, why use the holy water against the Bone Pillar on top of the stairs? If I remember right, taking damage was faster. In Stage 1, you seem to be using the whip in mid-air later than you would have to, which forces you to stay on the ground longer. In Stage 2, why do you move so far forward before jumping down to the lower ledge?
Generally, I think you should have manipulated more rosaries and invincibility potions to spawn to make it through some sections quicker.
Regardless, good work on the run. Looking at the game, it must have been very difficulty to get through.
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Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the run, even if it is a bit older already. Most of the TASing was done by zggzdydp, but I'll try to address your point as best as I can:
* I was considering including the dagger in the route, but figured the slowdown to get it would be too large. I thought that good manipulation on the bats would allow us to kill them faster, but I think I was wrong in making that decision. If someone ever decides to update this movie, getting the dagger should definitely be considered.
* I didn't think about this before. I wonder how much it may help during the game.
* I wasn't aware health could go beyond 100% on one character. Thanks for pointing that out. I think zggzdydp wanted to even out the characters' health for aesthetic reasons, but I'm not sure anymore - it's been a long time. I agree that, in a potential improvement, more attention should be given to the health routing.
I still wonder if there's other significant route changes that could speed up this movie. It might just be deserving of an improvement at some point in the future.
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The term input file also exists and is reasonably common. Some newbies do seem to struggle with the distinction between movie files and encodes. I'm not sure if a change in nomenclature is going to help this.
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I guess I might as well use this topic to give a shoutout to msxsolutions.
If I want to TAS some obscure MSX game, I can be almost assured there's a map of it on this site. It's saved my hide several times by now.
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You may have accidentally loaded an earlier savestate before stopping the movie. In that case, all frames following that savestate are dropped. If you have a more recent save state, you can reload that in Read+Write mode to restore your inputs, otherwise you may be out of luck.
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Hot damn, this is one unexpected submission. Watching now, voting later.
As expected, this was a really cool improvement. The new tricks were cool, and the attention to detail really stood out. Easy yes vote.
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A while ago, a romhack for Vampire Killer has been released which turns the stages into those of the NES Castlevania.
Here is a quick and very rough testrun for the patch in 10:16.86
Link to videoInput File
Note that the movie uses a hardpatched ROM. I used IPSWin to create the patch, as Lunar IPS does not apply the patch properly. The patch is applied to the [a3] version of the ROM.
Notes:
- In general, this game is a lot friendlier to TAS than either Castlevania or Vampire Killer. For example, there is no heart countdown at the end of the stage, which means you don't have to worry about reducing it before the boss.
- While the stages have been changed to resemble those of Castlevania, the gameplay remains mostly like in Vampire Killer. This includes the weapon system, which treats the Holy Water and the Stopwatch as subweapons, and any other type of weapon as main weapon. Unlike Vampire Killer, your weapons remain into the next stage.
- Just as in Vampire Killer, you can have both the Holy Water and the Stopwatch at the same time. This combo is mad OP, and I do my best to show it off against bosses. Holy water does the same damage as your main weapon, but whereas you can use your whip only every 14 frames, the holy water does damage every 4 frames. While the holy water is active, no other sources can damage the boss, so the fastest approach is to throw a jug of holy water at the boss, and use the whip on him just until the holy water hits, then let the holy water do the rest.
- You're given the wings and boots by default, which is nice from the game, but makes you outrun your own holy water. This results in several awkward situations. Even with the wings, you cannot damage boost into three block high tiles. This means I have to take several damage boosts differently than I would on the NES version.
- The stopwatch glitch appears to have been fixed, at least to a degree.
- Once you complete the game, you're dumped into the second quest and stage 19. Unlike on the NES, nothing seems to have changed.
Stage by Stage Notes:
BLK 1 (Stages 0 - 3):
As far as I know, there is no way to make the bat in Stage 2 spawn from the left side of the screen, so I have to wait for one cycle. In the boss fight, I wait on the left side to lure the bat toward the higher platform so that it can be hit by the holy water.
BLK 2 (Stages 4 - 6):
I'm not sure if it is the best idea to pick up the Cross, because using it causes lag. However, I figured that if I get the opportunity to show it off, I might as well do. Even if you pick up a different weapon, the projectile remains active, if invisible. Interestingly, the damage boost in Stage 5 is impossible on the NES version, while the damage boost in the NES version is impossible on MSX.
BLK 3 (Stages 7 - 9):
The damage boost in Stage 7 is faster than going the normal way by about 20 frames. It could be faster by using the rightmost hunchback to boost onto the lower platform, but doing so causes the left hunchback to jump off the platform, making me unable to use him for the second damage boost.
BLK 4 (Stages 10 - 12):
The RNG is influenced by the entire MSX keyboard, which allows me great control over the hunchbacks' behaviour. In the boss fight, it is faster to let Franky come to you, as the holy water has an annoyingly high arc otherwise.
BLK 5 (Stages 13 - 15):
Thanks to the wings and boots, I can just jump over the axe armors that gave me so much trouble in the vanilla version. I facetank some damage from the red skeletons because the orb in the boss room allows me to heal up to full anyway.
BLK 6 (Stages 16 - 18):
The second room in stage 17 was very lucky, as I just got through without manipulating the skeleton bones at all. The strategy for Dracula is the same as in Vampire Killer, as there is no ground area for the holy water to burn him. This means I need 20 hearts for four stopwatch uses, and the knife, which the game conveniently puts right in my way. Using the stopwatch a fourth time would also speed up the currently published run by about 2 to 3 seconds.
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From my own experience, a lot of Germans prefer watching international media localized, even if they are comfortable in English. While I'm not in that camp myself, a lot of the people I know are. I can only assume that in countries that are even less adept English speakers, the percentage of people who prefer their native language only goes up.
From all that I can see, the game didn't seem to be very well managed as far as budget is concerned anyhow. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of the localization was far higher than necessary.
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For what it's worth, I never really got the hype about VR myself either. Then again, it is notoriously hard to get me excited about things anyway.
I wanted to reserve judgement until I had the chance to actually to try out a VR headset for myself, but the current price tag for the Rift and the Vive, along with the hardware needed to support these headsets, make this unlikely to happen any time soon.
From what I can see, there doesn't seem to be a Killer App for VR just yet; a great game that everybody needs to play, that works much better or only works in VR. I believe VR needs a game like this, or several, to really take off. Until now, most of the games I have seen seem to be fairly gimmicky showcases of the technology. However, I haven't really paid attention to this year's E3, so if something exciting for VR has been announced, feel free to correct me on this point.
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Thanks to fcxiaopengyou for the submission, and thanks to caitsith2 for the encode. I've been looking forward to a Battle Kid 2 run for a long time and I found this movie very entertaining. The movie may be improvable, but no unoptimizations stood out to the naked eye, so I don't see the harm in publishing this for now. If anything, it'll make for an easy obsoletion down the line.
Yes vote.
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Wow, I didn't expect All Bosses to hit so soon after the any% run. Great going on the TAS, temmy. The boss fights were really fun to watch, and the OOB was as exciting as usual. I can safely say I enjoyed the run just as much as the any%, maybe even more.
Voting Yes again for more Metal Gear!?
