Topic by Hamm

Posted: 1/20/2005 8:02 AM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

I recieved this game as a Christmas Gift from a friend. It made my day. ^_^ I've been playing through it again, and I still enjoy it.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 1/21/2005 4:08 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

I think I'm going to buy this game when I get the money. There are still some games out there which I wanna have in my closet. ;)

Posted: 3/4/2005 11:23 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

So, is anyone thinking of taking up a run of this yet?

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 3/5/2005 7:39 AM

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Hi guys, I'm a long-time lurker here. And Hamm, you must be my long-lost twin or something, because after I found this site and downloaded a bunch of the published movies, I came to these forums hoping to hear word of what was coming next... and was really looking for Crystalis and Soul Blazer runs! They're also two of my favorite games. I don't think I'd have the patience to do anything close to a full perfect run on major slowdown... and I certainly don't know how to do any of this intense hex-editing stuff or figuring out respawn counters or anything like you guys have been doing. But I think I could help you guys out by at least doing an instructive walkthrough movie of the basic Soul Blazer route by just going through the game and picking out the bare minimum of monster lairs you need to hit. I do know Soul Blazer pretty well. Long before I knew of this site, as a kid I liked to try and mess with the route to get as many floating spirits as possible. (You skip the people who establish the buildings and instead release the other people that would go inside. Hmm... that would be an interesting movie too.) I've already got an example of the first level done. I'm just learning how to do the re-recording stuff, so in some places I played with what I could do with the slowdown and tried to make things nice and quick and exact, and in others... well, I didn't. ; ) But it does highlight the bare minimum route of who you need to free, what you need to get, and where to use it. Also, I am proud of a couple of my slow-down fights, especially the part where I free Lisa, and the parts in the painting where I let loose with the fireballs. I think this is a good sign that with the "crab-walking" and the stylish use of magic, in the hands of an experienced runner this movie could have some very entertaining battles. Here's my run-through so far up to the level 2 entrance: http://www.mijae.com/etc/SoulBlazerAlpha.smv I have a route planned out for all of level 2, but this will take me longer as it actually requires some slowdown skill in places. For instance: optimization of damage (to zip across hot fire floors later) and walking in the dark. And beating the boss. : P Although... the path to get a mandatory item (the leaves) takes me literally right past the Spirit of Light. It would take just a couple frames to face left and talk to him... but then a bit longer to get through his text. As cool as it is to see a speedrunner just prance through a dark area (like in the Battle of Olympus movie, for instance), it can be a bit boring to watch sometimes, too. I don't know.

Posted: 3/5/2005 3:08 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Welcome mijae :) About your movie; The game itself seems interesting and well worthy of a timeattack. You also seem to know the game really well, which makes me wonder why you dont feel capable of making a good movie for this game. It is obvious at some points that you got a bit lazy with rerecords or missed a good shot because of a lack of slowdown, but overall this alpha run was enough to pique my interests. Im sure that with a tiny bit more practise, you will be able to make a contending run for this. My only real advice to you is this: Only kill enemies that are in the way, dont waste time, or are necessary for levels Dont miss a single swing unless it affects enemy behavior. Not one. Feel free to do anything to control enemy behavior Test different strategies with getting through hazard spots/fighting bosses* *Examples: When in the air... palace... place, you made good use of the fireball spell. However, you could've used that in some choke points in the grassy area to clear a path and pick up some exp. Also, can you mix up sword and fire at the same time, or must the spell complete itself before you can swing? For the boss, can you sprint BEHIND the guy and just swing away? How about hiding on the left? Can you somehow conserve energy until when you get to him and then just go gung ho on him while taking damage?

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 3/5/2005 3:24 PM

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Mijae

Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7

Hey Zurreco, thanks for the welcome. I'll give the usual beginner's spiel: I know this sucks ass! ; ) This movie sucks even more ass than usual because I actually wasn't planning to show it to anybody until I saw the latest laments about a lack of anybody working on it. This is literally the first run I've ever done. I was figuring out how to get the re-records to work at all as I went along... that's the moments when my character stops all of a sudden. I say I don't think I could do a good run because I still don't understand some of these basic mechanics of making these movies in the first place. I'm completely clueless about luck manipulation and other advanced tricks. I love the sound of the frame advance feature, but haven't figured out how to get it to work yet. What I do know I can put together for now though, is a halfway decent alpha run that demonstrates the bare minimum route, and is easier for a speedrun master to build off of than the big-map-of-the-whole-game plan. I think I will do this movie over though, before I go into recording for Level 2. I can definitely avoid taking pointless damage, and I'd like to test out some of your questions. I have a vague memory of walking up to the Mantis boss equalling instant death, but who knows what kind of crazy crap you can do in a tool-assisted movie!

Posted: 3/5/2005 5:06 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Hmm... After seeing the movie I feel like picking up this run on my own. With help from Mijae perhaps? The lack of quality in this movie is actually good for thinking of optimized things and stuff to improve the joy of watching. Mijae - Could you please continue to write/record a minimum guide to complete this game? Avoid ALL unnecessary things. As mentioned earlier I love this game as well. I played it alot when I was a kid but I have forgotten so much about it. I need guidance I think. :) Anyways. I can start work on this within the next couple of days. Perhaps even tomorrow. Frame advance is a must of course. ;) Let's see what we can do. Cheers!

Posted: 3/5/2005 5:12 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Mijae: Making these runs is a lot easier than we all initially think. Luck manipulation, although a hassle, is usually just a tedious 'what happens when i press THIS combonation of keys on THIS frame?'. Frame advance, although a bit trickier, is still pretty run of the mill. Just pause the emulator via File menu, then tinker around with the frame advance key (defauly /)whilst holding down your input keys. It's also a good idea to turn on your frame counter (default .)so that you aren't running around blindly. Anything else = feel free to join us in the IRC room, where some of us never sleep.

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 3/5/2005 5:18 PM

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Mijae

Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7

ALL unnecessary things, huh? That shouldn't be hard. The amount of actual items you need is pretty low. It's just a matter of some simple logistics on when you double back to town and how to get the shortcuts. But I was just wondering if some of the "unnecessary" items could help things go faster. Specifically, the Power Bracelet.

Posted: 3/5/2005 5:31 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Anything that might cut the time down in the end is worth getting. Spells, weapons, accessories etc. The backtracks can be made when suitable, such as playing through an entire dungeon if possible, slay the boss, head back to the village to get the rewards and then head to the next place. Pretty straightforward. However, if I remember correctly, you need to head back and forth alot of times in this game. We need to really sit down to plan a rout that is rock solid in order to get it as effective as possible.

Posted: 3/5/2005 5:44 PM

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Mijae

Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7

The Power Bracelet is the only obvious one I can think of at first. Picking up a decent sword halfway through might help, but I'll see how bad it gets, since towards the endgame we'll have some good swords forced on us anyway. I don't imagine any of the spells besides Fireball and Phoenix will be any good. They'd have to be found, equipped, and they'd cost more gems, and most of them are unpredictable... The occasional medicinal herb might be good, though. I found one in my level 2 test that's right on the main path, and one good herb doubles your life. Might be good for just going psycho on a boss or something. But anyway, I'll stick to the bare minimum for now then, and just comment on what other items are around that might be worthwhile, for future reference. While you're waiting for my level 2 recording, I've got a few "tricks" on fighting for you to think over. My favorite SoulBlazer FAQ can explain this first one better than I could:

The power of your sword always reaches its peak at the end of your swing, which is ALWAYS to the right hand of the hero. So as a general rule, if the enemy is approaching from the right, face up and swing. If approaching from above, face left and so on. This works because the damage counts 2x and slows the enemy considerably more than it would if you were facing them head-on.

I also found during this first run that the direction you shoot magic might make a difference, too. When I shot that row of bouncing eye blocks in the painting area, shooting up seemed to hurt them the most, allowing me to actually kill them right away. I think this might be from how close they were packed against each other rather than anything inherent to the up direction, but it's something to keep in mind. Finally, there's the trick with the magician soul. If you're walking into a wall, the soul will shoot ahead a bit and orbit around a point just past the wall instead of around you. If you're crabwalking, you can do this while not actually facing the wall, and do some great shots around corners. I found a great spot in the beginning of level 3 for this.

Posted: 3/5/2005 6:10 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

About the sword swinging. I use that when ever possible, always did that. It's kinda obvious. :) About the fireball dealing damage when traveling in the Y-axis. Can this have something because of a Z-illusion or something. To give it more of a depth they sort of stretch the characters/enemies etc in the Y-axis. Thus enabling the fireball to hit more than once because of it's trailing over the target for a longer period? Maby this is completly wrong. I just had a whacky theory. :) Those herbs might come in handy since there might be alot of places where the fastest would be to take some damage in order to clear the place faster. About the sould flying away is a good thing too. I used that technique alot when playing on console because lack of health or other reasons some times. It can be great to use at some points. It takes some time for the soul to fly away and get in possition though. So I don't know if this actually can save some time. But if you say it can, perhaps thats so. Atleast I hope so.

Posted: 3/5/2005 7:20 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Great start, always good to see new people going for it. Mijae, in a run like this the planning is most of the work, and you've done a pretty good job so far. It doesn't look like you hit any extra monster lairs. However you'll eventually have to optimize movement and fighting since that's what really what makes it a timeattack. I've thought about several things to consider in this run, the power bracelet is a definite must. Also how about death as a shortcut? Sometimes there are those fairy gems, but they aren't always conveniently located. There is a lot of backtracking in this game, as you can see there was a ton just in the first level. Of course you lose all your gems, but you end up killing enough enemies that you'll get them back quickly enough. There will be the occasional "strange bottle" you can use for this. Medical herbs may occasionally be useful, most definitely on that boss. One thing to test sometime is when it's better to swing and when it's better to just stick that sword out. Starting out, sticking it out is better most of the time, but doing it well requires a lot of precision. Since you will probably skip the Psycho sword you may be doing a lot of this. As far as magic, my favorite spell is arrow of light, it's like a four-directional fireball and it's more powerful. It's in Greenwood and might not be too far out of the way if at all. I use it all the way to the end, though in a timeattack some other spells might become useful. Fully charged magic flairs that hit the enemies just as they become vulnerable might lead to faster kills than using the sword, but I think this might be out of the way. Magic might be important to speed up combat, especially if swords are skipped. It may be helpful to manipulate more gems? Some armor and weapons have nice bonuses. I don't think you'll want to get Psycho sword, so the first weapon upgrade would be critical sword on the volcano. Ice armor might be worth picking up in Greenwood, not only is the damage resist useful there but also in Leo's lab and maybe some other places. Bubble armor is mandatory. Magic armor might be worthwhile if magic becomes important, same with Lucky Blade, with the two of these you can use magic pretty much constantly. Zantetsu and Spirit swords will be necessary to hit special enemies. Soul armor and Soul blade are of course necessary for Phoenix and to survive in the last area. Also, just in case anyone doesn't know about this, you can see just fine in the dark and see invisible enemies, secret passages etc by disabling layer 2. You shouldn't ever need to get any more of the helper souls. One issue which will come into play at the end is the minimum level for swords. It may not be an issue, but each sword has a minimum level to swing it. You can always poke it out though, which will be fine in a pinch. However, in order to use Phoenix and beat the final boss you have to be able to swing the Soul Sword, placing a minimum level of 24 to finish this game. Unfortunately, it's hard to say whether or not this will be a problem. The enemies in the last area give tons of xp. If you are a little short it might be possible to poke some walls and get the rest. The boss fights will be fun in this game, especially on the airship... EDIT: Critical sword has a bonus that sometimes kills enemies instantly, so if you could manipulate this...

Posted: 3/5/2005 7:28 PM

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Hamm

Joined: 7/29/2004
Posts: 136
Location: Temple City, CA

Well, I'm just about to start watching your run. I'm a bit later than other people, so I'm not sure I'll have much more to add to the conversation at this point...if I do, I'll edit this to reflect it.

"How can you prove you exist? Maybe we don't exist..." -Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)

Posted: 3/5/2005 10:50 PM

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Mijae

Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7

Ah, I hadn't even thought about death shortcuts yet. In Grass Valley there'd be little to lose since it's the first stage. In Greenwood though, the route looks pretty nice. There's only one backtrack to do, to get the leaves, and there's a blue tile nearby. Then as usual, there's another one near the boss. (and I didn't know that trick about the dark areas, whew, that'll make things a lot easier) I'm looking over the St. Elles sea area now, and of course that one's a lot more sprawling and complicated. But I remember it having a decent amount of gems, too, since you always had to keep popping back to the town to talk to the next mermaid statue. I'll keep an eye out for good places in St. Elles to death-warp. I know where the Strange Bottle in Greenwood is, and it doesn't take long to pick up. I'll have to check on how long it would take to grab another in St. Elles. As for the magic, I liked the Light Arrow spell too, but it also costs more gems. How much stronger is it than Fireball, though? Light Arrow could be very easy to pick up. You need to go through a chat with a gem fairy to get it, but it's right along the route. Magic Flair will require more research on my part. I never used it too much in my normal games either so I'm not too familiar with how to use it well. Moving on to armor and weapons... the Psycho sword requires grabbing another item, (the Delicious Seeds) and a backtrack to town to trade for it. Doesn't seem worth it. In my test run through Greenwood, I didn't pick up the Ice Armor either, which also takes a backtrack and a dream sequence. The fire floors don't look like they'll pose a problem in Greenwood, but I'm not sure how bad it'll be in the lab. The Critical Sword though, could be nice. The Magic Armor / Lucky Blade combination is sounding really good too, though. We'll have to test to see just how badly each can be abused.

Posted: 3/12/2005 8:31 PM

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Blechy

Former player

Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York

Magic flare is my favorite spell, though I don't remember why. You might also want to experiment with the bomb spell, as you could probably move your character around and stack the bombs on top of each other, doing a lot of damage fast. Flames would be similar, but late game and very gem hungry. I wouldn't think that spells like fireball and light arrow would be ideal in most circumstances, since I don't think they're too powerful and when there's more than one monster on the screen you can often manipulate them to be close enough that spells like magic flare can attack both of them.

Posted: 3/19/2005 6:09 AM

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Mijae

Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7

Hey guys, here's an update. Sorry for the wait, but I don't get too much time a day to use a PC - I mostly use a Mac. ; ) I'm near the beginning of the fire temple now in Greenwood, and picked up a medical herb and strange bottle along the way. The herb is very easy to pick up - it's sitting in a chest right by a lair that has to be cleared anyway. The bottle only takes a bit more time. You need to clear a lair that's close to a required lair... with some good planning you can work on both at the same time. My movie so far shows an example of this, though it could certainly be improved on. The Light Arrow magic though, will take a bit more time to pick up than I originally thought. I was mixing up the gems in my head. I think I'll upload my current movie after I pick up the Light Arrow and move on a bit so you guys can see just how much time it takes. I'm getting better at playing with the slowdown stuff and trying a bunch of re-records, but finding the optimal way of beating the monsters, and trying to squeeze in extra kills on the side, is pretty daunting for me. I've tried to show a couple places you can squeeze stuff in. Getting back to the death shortcut issue, we talked about the first level not having much to lose in the way of gems, but looking over it again, the places you need to backtrack from don't take all that long either. This will probably require checking framecount.

Posted: 7/6/2005 11:42 PM

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hopper

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada

I made what I considered to be a perfect run of the first world in November 2003 using extreme slowdown, but not frame advance. It was my first TAS project. The trick was figuring out where to use magic to speed up the run, and it was clear that the hero was going to look awesome moving through dungeons wiping out enemies with both sword attacks and magic. I stopped during the hectic Christmas holidays and was getting ready to start again in 2004 when something terrible happened. I was offered a job! The money was just too good to refuse, so I was forced to become a productive member of society and had no time to work on a TAS any more. Fortunately my employer screwed us over royally and changed the job description of everyone in my centre, forcing everyone to do two miserable jobs for the price of one, or quit. I was among the unhappy masses who quit. The moral of the story is, make sure you organize a union! Actually, the moral of the story is I have time to work on this again, though I'm not sure if I can find the motivation. I've been depressed since I lost my job, my cat, my girlfriend and a family member over the course of a few months, so I'll have to see how much patience I have for a speedrun on such a large game. That, and I got more than double the required score on a government competency test, so I just know that if I start a speedrun, they'll offer me a job and I won't get to finish.

TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.

Posted: 7/7/2005 7:03 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (969)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

>That, and I got more than double the required score on a government competency test, so I just know that if I start a speedrun, they'll offer me a job and I won't get to finish. Use the law of the inherent evilness of everything to your advantage! If you know that your best speedrunning efforts will be twarthed by the government offering you a job... just start recording when you need a job. Totally bummer about the other problems you have had. I hope you can cope. That's about as much support I can offer in this medium to someone I don't know. Good luck in life.

Posted: 11/15/2005 7:00 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

I suppose Hopper got a job since there seem to be no update in this thread for a while right?

Posted: 11/15/2005 9:47 PM

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hopper

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada

Actually, I'm 99% sure that I'm going to be hired as of next week. I never got around to working on the run again because, well, I didn't think I had it in me. The movies around here are just awesome and it's easy to get an inferiority complex. Having made a couple of movies with frame advance, I know that I could finish, but I never motivated myself to try. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.

Posted: 11/15/2005 9:52 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

Aww.. :( Atleast you could make a movie and leave a reference behind you hopper!

Posted: 12/2/2005 9:31 AM

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Kaz

Former player

Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149

I'm willing to do a rough preliminary run and do some research just to get a good time attacker interested. I love this game and I would love to see a TAS of it.

Posted: 12/2/2005 4:42 PM

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Highness

Player (70)

Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden

GO GO GO!! This sounds awesome. Get to work. I will give all feedback I can if you post WIP's. :)

Posted: 12/2/2005 6:59 PM

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Kaz

Former player

Joined: 12/2/2005
Posts: 149

There isn't much right now, I just started. I'm at the beginning of greenwood with about 1 less minute than Mijae had but that's fairly meaningless seeing how neither of us rerecorded much (100-300 for 15-16 minutes). A chunk of the time I saved was in the fight against metal mantis. The last monster of the last lair before him gave me level 3 which not only refilled my HP but also allowed me to take 2 fireball hits before dying. For now I'll go with the minimalist approach and seal only the lairs that are required to proceed and those that create shortcuts that save more time than they require to seal with a little exp on the side if I can without slowing down but I'm torn. I know I'll come up short on exp for the soul blade, however I remember those moving glass wall things in the world of evil giving QUITE a bit of experience so I don't know if it's worth it to use magic to blast respawning monsters or monsters from non required lairs for extra experience. But then again, other necessary swords also have a level requirement and I might come up short for them if I don't. I guess that's why the first run is experimental.