I've been wondering what people think about this game for a TAS
I think it would be a nice run but would require a lot of planning/testing with what djinns to get and on who the put them because of the spell system
also, i think it wouldn't be too long since its a relatively short game for an RPG
the only thing would be the attack animations for the summons might get annoying but if i remember you can skip them or a part of them so it wouldnt be too bad
any opinions on this game?
Only problem is that the game has about an hour of dialogue alone -- that would make this run much less entertaining than it could be.
Though, again, this would be one of those games that is fun to play, but not fun to watch.
Yeah, summon animations can be skipped, but the dialogue issue is a major one: there's tons of it, and it tends to be extremely repetitive and redundant. "Isaac! We need to do this!" "Yes, we do! Or the world is doomed!" "Don't you agree, Isaac?" YES<- NO "Yes, good you agree. Because this is a dire crisis indeed!" "Yes, very much so!" "Yes, we must do our best to stop it with all due haste!" "Yes, we mustn't waste any more time!" "Yes, time is of the essense!" "Yes, we must travel to Generic Badguy Fortress and stop him there!" "Yes, and be quick about it!" "Yes, very much so!"
Yeah, summon animations can be skipped, but the dialogue issue is a major one: there's tons of it, and it tends to be extremely repetitive and redundant. "Isaac! We need to do this!" "Yes, we do! Or the world is doomed!" "Don't you agree, Isaac?" YES<- NO "Yes, good you agree. Because this is a dire crisis indeed!" "Yes, very much so!" "Yes, we must do our best to stop it with all due haste!" "Yes, we mustn't waste any more time!" "Yes, time is of the essense!" "Yes, we must travel to Generic Badguy Fortress and stop him there!" "Yes, and be quick about it!" "Yes, very much so!"
Don't forget the tons-o-fun desert with very random (and very, very annoying) text popups:
1A13 0805551A 00000001 Agh...{05} This desert is much{03}hotter than I ever{03}imagined...{02}{00}
1A14 08055538 014757D4 Just walking around{03}here saps every{03}ounce of my strength.{02}{00}
1A15 08055550 00000001 I can't stop sweating...{05}{03}I wish I'd brought{03}a change of clothes...{02}{00}
1A16 0805556E 00000001 I'm so thirsty...{05} Water!{05}{03}I need some water!{02}{00}
1A17 08055584 000001BB I can't keep my cool{03}when it's this hot...{02}{00}
1A18 08055596 00000001 Ew... My clothes are{03}drenched in sweat!{03}This is gross!{02}{00}
1A19 080555B0 00000001 Aghh!{05} I can't stand it!{05}{03}My feet are burning!{02}{00}
1A1A 080555C8 000001BB I can't stand another{03}minute of this!{03}Where's an oasis?{02}{00}
1A1B 080555E0 00000001 If we don't find an{03}oasis soon, I'm gonna{03}shrivel up and blow away!{02}{00}
Joined: 3/19/2005
Posts: 63
Location: SuPeRZzT LaNd
the game was slow to play for me.. i didn't like the rpg battles. I felt i wasted money on this game, but bought it cheap used so it wasn't bad.. I did however thoroughly enjoy the mind reading aspect fo the game. yay for that pumpkin head who can read minds.. the whole :) :( dialogue of answering was all like "what the?" and the speech engine? a direct ripoff of the 3d talk engine. nevertheless, i really like the mind reading.. if only there was a way where you could get rid of all the senseless random rpg battles.
Joined: 2/15/2005
Posts: 246
Location: Torquay, England
Random battles can be avoided, you just have to abuse the RNG. And the dialog is speed-uppable (that's not a word, so sue me) by using Autofire L or R.
I would be very interested in seeing a Golden Sun run, especially as in both games there's a place at the end where I get stuck, even following the walkthroughs... <.<
Random battles can be avoided, you just have to abuse the RNG.
oh, go ahead and try. There is no random check if you'll have an encounter each frame. The game generates a random number once, that number will be the maximum walking distance until your next random encounter. Sure, you might manipulate the value into something high that'll let you reach the next town before the random battle, but that won't always work.
There's also something you should know about the RNG: it's not random. It's more like a fixed table of random values (or fixed algorithm), and the RNG polls the next value whenever it needs one. Waiting a frame or pressing buttons is useless. The only way to manipulate a random number it is by making the game using either more or less randomness before, for example by delaying the fight - using weaker attacks so it lasts a few attacks longer.
Manipulating randomness while fighting? Changing orders is your only hope. A tedious process when playing (I didn't level much and had trouble with some bosses), even more tedious when optimizing.
then again, if you skip most of the battles, all that's left is a video of lots of characters talking way too much.
I thought I'd amuse myself by making an unoptimized Golden Sun run. However, I have no idea how to avoid random battles. How can I look into memory and find what controls random battles?
You'll always get into battle after walking/running a certain distance in areas where you can get into battles. The only thing you could do is manipulate how long you can run without being attacked I guess.
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
If I remember correctly. Final Fantasy 3 has a bug where if you walk across certain tiles the walking distance until the next random battle does not reduce. Perhaps you should look for something similar in here?
If it uses some sort of step countdown, search for a value that goes down whenever you walk, then find out what resets it and how it can be manipulated to either start higher or never reach 0.
Phantasy Star 3 also used this and the battles couldn't be completely avoided, but I was able to manipulate the countdown to always start near its max value to minimize them ...
Okay. First of all, I don't think the encounters in the "3 years ago" intro are random(there are always 3), although I could be wrong, and I can run away from them anyways.
So I used turbo to jump past the intro, and in Sol Sanctum, I can't find the place in memory that changes as I walk. I don't know what to search for.
Also, I can't hold up and left simultaneously with frame skip on my keyboard. I think I need a new one.
On the other hand, I know this game can be beaten with 100% Djinn and both secret bosses(Storm Lizard and Deadbeard) killed in under 10 hours without rushing, so this game should lend itself nicely to a ~2.5 hour TAS. One can even sequence break to skip the ability Force.
LSK: I've had success with putting frame advance button on Shift, since it can be pressed together with almost any button. If that doesn't work, try some other buttons.
In other emulators like FCEU or Snes9x, I just set a key for up+left, which works quite nicely ... but that's not supported in VisualBoy Advance.
And I took a look at the random encounters just now ...
There's a 3 byte counter at $2000478-200047A (low byte first) that goes up while you walk on any area with monsters (per pixel), and causes a battle to start once the high byte ($200047A) reaches $10.
It goes up at a varying rate, which changes at specific times (like entering any area), so you'd have to manipulate it to be as low as possible ... but the only way I found was to go in and out multiple times.
Areas without monsters don't reset the counter, either ...
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
If you've read some faqs, you know that the random behaviour of the game is somewhat predictable (you can control which item will be dropped by the enemies). Maybe that works for random battles too.
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It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
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functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
And I took a look at the random encounters just now ...
There's a 3 byte counter at $2000478-200047A (low byte first) that goes up while you walk on any area with monsters (per pixel), and causes a battle to start once the high byte ($200047A) reaches $10.
It goes up at a varying rate, which changes at specific times (like entering any area), so you'd have to manipulate it to be as low as possible ... but the only way I found was to go in and out multiple times.
Areas without monsters don't reset the counter, either ...
Two questions:
- Will there always be a monster encounter after a given period of time or does the time between battles vary? In other words, does the amount the counter is incremented by stay the same per step?
- How do I view the counter?
This was the first game I owned on the GBA. (And the only one I bought before I had a GBA, to be honest.) It's a hot RPG, I'll say that much. The sequel was nothing short of spectacular as well, showing another side of the story.
I'd really like to see progress on this one. Played through it 3 times, my fastest time being 24 hours played time. I wonder how it would go down in just a couple hours...
Will you be trying to find the elemental spirits or however they're called? IIRC, they aren't too out of the way, and they are quite helpful.
I always wondered which class combos were the best.
Some Djinn take ~15 minutes to collect. I'll probably get 4 each, so Isaac can cast Revive and Mia can cast Wish Well and all summons can be used.
The difficulty currently not allowing game progress is random battles. If someone can help me reduce random battles to a minimum, I would be quite grateful.
I was browsing the forum and I noticed that nobody has mentioned Golden Sun! For those unfamiliar with the title, It's an RPG develouped be Camelot revolving around the power of Alchemy. It's plot spans over two cartridges, though though it wouldn't be considered a sequel. Golden Sun the Lost Age is a continuation of the same story. It's a very popular "series" and fans have been craving more of it.
Admittedly, Golden Sun would be a very daunting task. It's a darn long game, and the stats/class changing system involving the Dijinn would be a very difficult thing to strategies. At speeddemosarchive it was a popular forum topic for quite some time, but the project was abandoned.
If you want to try the run, I suggest you read this topic on the speeddemos forum. Lots of great info. It looks like the game was just about ready for posting, but it's never been done. http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=consoles_newer;action=display;num=1118552848;start=0
You might also look at this guy's route plan he's sharing in this thread.
http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=consoles_older;action=display;num=1166373884
I really wish and hope someone would run this game as it's one of my favourite games ever, and it has quite a fanbase. I even have the 4koma manga of it!
laughing_gas beat me to it, oh well.
In other news, I still don't think this game would be suitable for a TAS, even though it's a very good game.
That is, unless you can find some way to break it. Who knows.
Primary problems are too much text and that the luck manipulation is very unwieldy. If you could overcome those, then I would be extremely interested to see a TAS of it. But I'm pretty sure that that interest would only extend to those who actually played the Golden Sun games.
Not to mention that I have a feeling that most of the game's battling and class system would be woefully absent.
