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[NesVideoAgent]

This is an automatically posted message for discussing submission: #1326: DonamerDragon's SNES Final Fantasy - Mystic Quest in 1:49:20

See details at: http://tasvideos.org/1326S.html

Submission status: published
Last edited by: DeHackEd

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The submission message follows:

Alright! First off!

• I used SNES9X v1.43+ for windows. Started using it on the old emulator so I finished it. Judging, the new one should work fine.

• Use WIP1 Timing
• Allow Left+Right / Up+Down
• Volume Envelope Height Reading

• I used no passwords
• I used a couple glitches in the game to my advantage, the only one noticable is the fight with Dark King. (Not sure if that is a glitch or an easteregg)
• I takes hits and use death of one player to save time.

• My aim this time was to beat the game as fast as possible, entertainment value in an RPG comes from sheer speed I think...

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is one of the easiest Final Fantasies to play. Player 2 even has an autoplay mode if you wish (though I don't recommend unless you've never played an RPG). Benjamin, our hero, must hunt down the four elemental crystals and go to the Dark King before his prophesy is fulfilled.

This movie was a lot harder to make this time and took much more time. I probably worked on it for close to two months. The hardest part was making the battles faster! Before I was going for number of turns and seeing how much damage I could avoid getting. Then I realized that healing only takes 140 or so frames, versus all of the long attacks I was letting the enemies hit me with.

The only real thing I changed in my path through the entire game was getting cure before the skull dungeon. This saved me a mere half turn on the Skull Rex, but someone mentioned it probably makes the movie look smoother.

I really didn't start saving time until I got the Knights Sword. That thing was a time saving gold mine. First off, it only took 30 frames to get, in the first run I simply jump over the chest! Second it made me more powerful, so I could swing my sword which takes significantly less time then any magic attack (except Exit). Third, it made me faster! All the way until Pazuzu's tower I was saving turns on every battle. Then they just became too fast. The final blow though for speed was when I got Phoebe again. She is slow! Any chance of going before all monsters was ruined because a monster would go before Phoebe.

The second item I got was a shield..I can't recall it's name now but I got it just in the hope that it would save me more then 30 frames in "miss" manipulation, and it probably did.

I changed my strategy for a lot of boss battles. This is the first time I've actually been able to use memory reading at all. I kept it up seeing how much HP the bosses had and how much I was taking. Pazuzu had something like 15 HP left the last time I beat him! Figuring I couldn't take anymore HP from any one attack I opted to use much faster attacks instead.

There's one annoying glitch in this game that one should keep in mind when playing. If you use the Dragon Claws and at any time during a battle their effect is unleashed (instant death, poison, paralyse, etc.) all magic used after that will take a little less then half normal for the rest of that battle.

I also managed to go through the game using only the seeds I got waaaaaay back in the game. I didn't even have to visit the old lady this time to get more seeds. I still had 3 to spare!

I actually ended up on level less this time! The first time I ran this I got to level 23. This time only to level 22. Why? For many battles in Pazuzu's tower the only way to go first was to use Exit, which when used gives no experience. This also explains what happened last time I fought the Dark King. I actually did that battle slower then Hero did, he also finished the game at level 22. My theory was wrong, so I will just let you all watch what happens when you have a little fun with a glitch. ;)

All in all I saved 29764 frames or 0:08:16.07! when I started this run I did not think I would get below 1:50:00, but I did! Just barely too. My first goal for the movie was to get below 400,000 frames (1:51:06.67), the the battle with Zuh brought me below 1:50:00 (The last battle before the Dark King!)

The movie is 393600 frames long or 1:49:20.

If anyone can beat this, I welcome them to try and to put the effort into it that I did. With ~68000 re-records this was a challenge!

I hope everyone enjoys, the difference is noticeable!

• • OKAY, IMPORTANT:

Sorry about the resubmission guys, I wish I had caught Nitrodon sooner who actually figured out exactly how the Dark King cure glitch works! With his help, which I am very grateful for, he helped me save another 29 seconds. I won't spoil the surprise, you'll just have to watch for yourself. ;) THANKS NITRODON!

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Bisqwit: Submission renumbered, editing to update links. Please do not make duplicate submissions, it's hassle and wastes resources. Better if you ask to change the submission file.

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Bisqwit: Accepting, and taking for encoding. Congratulations on having the courage to go for a new run at this long game. :)

[Nitrodon]

I haven't watched it, but it sounds like you only use cure once against the dark king. I'll explain how it works, and maybe you can use the information to use cure twice.

Cure heals the target for (magic*1.5+50)% of its maximum HP (divided by the number of targets). For instance, if you use Cure with 32 magic, then Cure restores 98% of the target's maximum HP. In the case of the Dark King with full HP, the game adds 39200 to his current HP of 40000, but HP is only a 16-bit integer, so the result overflows to 13664. This is less than the Dark King's maximum HP, so the game accepts it as the Dark King's new HP and displays that he took 26336 damage.

In short, the Dark King will take that amount of damage if and only if it won't bring his HP down to less than zero. Curing with Phoebe overflows all the way back to positive healing, but it can be used to set up a second damaging cure by the hero.

I made a SMV to show this. It starts from near that point in your previous run.

http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/2466/darkkingcure.smv

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[Edit by Bisqwit: Restored message content which NesVideoAgent accidentally overwrote.]

[DonamerDragon]

Nitrodon wrote:

[hero of the day]

Great job as usual Donamer. Never would I have imagined your old run being improved by over 8 minutes, truly outstanding!

The knight sword really surprised me, I guess I should have looked into that back when I made my movie. I wouldn't have thought it to be such a powerful weapon.

I noticed almost all of your fights required both player 1 and 2 to attack using their standard weapons instead of using a magic attack on all enemies at once. Was using a single magic attack (such as white) actually slower in most cases?

btw, I really prefer the name you used for Benjamin this time. Donnie seems to fit in much more than just the three capital letters of DON that you used in your old run.

Anyways a clear yes vote, even though the votes won't matter.

[zefiris]

Quote:

[hero of the day]

Quote:

[Nemo2342]

That was a very nice improvement over the previous run. I was particularly impressed with the new strategy against the Dark King.

Voteing Yes, obviously.

[xoinx]

Can't quite understand it though (watched most of it through turbo :S), ugh, it was pretty boring for me since I never tried the game out before. But considering the interesting time savers in the submission text and how much time it saves on a published movie, I guess this should be accepted. Voting YES for these reasons

Truncated is the most fiendish instrument of torture ever devised to bedevil the days of man. -- xoinx

[Twisted Eye]

Excellent job, it's really great to be able to cut off whole minutes from movies! Just some thoughts I had while watching: Could the very first battle be done faster? I seem to remember Benjamin on occasion being able to strike first when I played the game. Also, was it really faster to attack that squid boss in the wintry cave with the claw rather than switching to the axe or sword? The claw does the least damage of all the weapons, was it just easier to luck manipulate the criticals?

nice shortcut at the falls, by the way, haha wow. Good idea to use exit in that tower and elsewhere, I almost never used that spell the whole time I played the game, other than on those couple final bosses.

Am I the only person who thinks Reuben is always looking at the camera during battle? Moustache beard eyes--that's always looked funny to me.

But yeah, I've always loved that cure glitch on the final boss, I've never attempted to fight him any other way, haha

Easy yes

[kwinse]

Excellent luck manipulation, and a huge improvement to boot! Voted yes of course.

<Zurreco> if so called professional players cant adapt to every playing field, theyre obviously not that great

[gamedirector]

dued ur a genius i've seen no better than your rebel plans come 2 baltimore at wonce i have your ticket man... i've never seen tristan kick so much booty... kalei swings her axe with such finesse.... if reuben could throw a blow like that i would kick myself to see that again... If i Could buy Stock in your footage It may rise up and i could sell it and make like 12 bucks and support the cause you know aht i'm saying? Ur a magnifying glass I've always wanted in my file cabitnet i love it i love it!!!

[tmont]

gamedirector wrote:

[erokky]

Wow, you've finished this fairly quickly. About to watch.

[DonamerDragon]

hero of the day wrote:

[DonamerDragon]

Twisted Eye wrote:

[DonamerDragon]

tmont wrote:

[DonamerDragon]

hero of the day wrote:

[DonamerDragon]

Nemo2342 wrote:

[AKA]

I haven't watched this or been able to watch any of the previious movies becuase it desyncs, but I remember discovering a about a year ago that the last boss could be beaten very quickly with cure spells. Did you implement that? Although I have no idea if that was intentional or not.

That's faggotry.

suggested movies

[Bob A]

I voted yes. The only i would have liked better is a numeral display of hp.