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I'm going for fastest possible completion time. This game has a somewhat frustrating menu system for item control which makes for a difficult time attack, though it's possible I could do this better, but I doubt it would reduce the time that much. Nightshade has several objectives, including collecting items and completing (side-quests?) to gain popularity, none of which seem to be necessary to complete the game. I pretty much just bee-lined for the bosses and killed them. This was/is a pretty fun game; I hope it makes for a somewhat entertaining movie as well. The initial goal was for fastest time/no damage, but in the sewers, that would involve some waiting around; i don't think luck manipulation works on the bats, they seem to follow a set course.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14899
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #830: Maximus's NES Nightshade in 13:07.15
Skilled player (1886)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Hey Maximus. I just watched your run and I have some feedback on it: First of all, let me take the good stuff. It looked like you picked a good route, judging by the time you got. I've played this game some, and I think your route looked very good to me. I didn't find any big mistakes in the movie either, so that's good too. Then, I'm afraid I have some complaints about the movie... First of all, I'm almost positive that the menu navigation could be faster. Whenever your scrolling trough menus in a TAS, use frame advance, or at least use really slow speed, like 12% speed or so. I don't know if you did this, but it didn't look like it. I made a test-fcm, and found out that you can move the cursor one square (on the menu) every 3 frames. So you should really consider frame advance whenever you're dealing with menus. By optimizing menu navigation, this movie could possibly be improved by at least 5-10 seconds. Secondly, the fighting could be improved quite a lot. I know that you said in the author's comments that you're aiming for a "take no damage" run, but I think you could save at least 20-30 seconds by taking damage in fights. You also throw a lot of punches without hitting anything. Why do you do that? It just makes the run look sloppy, and whoever watches the movie will think "why does he attack when he doesn't hit the enemy?". You have savestates, if you miss a punch, just reload and redo. The run would look a lot cooler if you don't miss with any attacks. I'm was thinking about voting NO, but I'm going to wait and see if you'll make an improved run. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that this movie could be improved by another minute or so, by correcting the flaws in this movie. I think you should consider redoing this run, and think about the feedback I gave you. You seem to be good at this game, but the movie could certainly be faster. If you are to make an improved run of this game, I wish you good luck :) If you have any questions about anything, such as how frame advance works or something like that, feel free to ask, I'll help you the best I can. Here are some good links if you haven't already read them: Guidelines Generic Tips Common Tricks
Player (84)
Joined: 3/8/2005
Posts: 973
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
I agree ENTIRELY with randil. (hehe.) Cause, ive played this game somewhat, and i know the route is good, yes, but the game play can be a little bit smoother. This sort of looks like a speedrun to me. This movie has potential, good luck next time!
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 563
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Thanks for the feedback guys. This is my first attempt at a TAS and to tell you the truth (as I see you noticed), I'm not exactly skilled as of yet. I think I need a little more practice playing as a TAS and not as just a game. I fully intend to redo this run because I wasn't exactly impressed, but wanted some feedback regardless. Thanks for not hitting me with a NO, but I will be redoing this again.