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Posted: 10/28/2004 12:53 AM
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Mlandry
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
if you dont want to revive crono and still have a pretty powerful tech, magus with lucca and robot have a damn good tech. i know you need one of those stones or ring to use it though, so dont know if you could get it early or only in the black omen
Posted: 10/28/2004 12:56 AM
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Bladegash
Former player
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 484
Location: ­­
I believe that required the Blue Stone, which is down in Giant's Claw, and is thus quite a bit out of the way.
Posted: 11/13/2004 1:33 PM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Erm.. It has been over a month since I posted in here. And I still wonder if this project is alive?
Posted: 11/13/2004 3:30 PM
(Edited: 11/21/2004 2:28 AM)
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Highness wrote:
Erm.. It has been over a month since I posted in here. And I still wonder if this project is alive?
In July 29th,
Sampyla wrote:
If someone likes to give this run a try. I can send my notes and plans on a zip for some help.
As far as I know, nobody has been doing it since that. I attempted (smv file is here) it briefly in September 26th, but when I noticed that the first boss, Yakra, can't be beaten with zero experience, I haven't continued since. It requires way more planning than I'm prepared to. I chose to do it with the Japanese version, because: - the texts go so fast that understanding is not the biggest problem - the Japanese font renderer might be a little faster, because it has less work to do (always 12 pixels wide) - to find and demonstrate which game features were different in USA version - to make something fun to watch for Japanese people :) And I didn't use (or ask) for Sampyla's notes. Maybe I should have.
Posted: 11/13/2004 4:16 PM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
Ah. Ok. So this is a no-go then? Too bad. I would really enjoy watching this run.
Posted: 11/19/2004 1:31 AM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
I've been thinking about this, and if nobody else wants to attempt this run, then I will. I've played through Chrono Trigger about 345354354353543543 times, essentially know the entire game like the back of my hand (yes, even more so than FF4 or FF5), and have successfully pulled off a low level trip through the game - enough to know that there's only two places that it's absolutely required to level - right before Magus and right before Lavos. But then again, since this is a timeattack, I think it's possible to pull enough strings to eliminate one of them. XD I think this run is going to be a bit easier to pull off than a FF6 run, and will probably require a fairly low number of rerecords, since I'm probably going to rely on techs alot for the fights I do have to go through (besides, if CT is anything like FF6, it's probably going to be unrealistically difficult to try to manipulate your attacks to critical on every regular attack). On the other hand, though, there may be a few times here and there where I might selectively level to pick up a tech or two which will allow me to zip through required fights faster than without them. There are a few things I'm having trouble planning out when I initially thought out my strategy for such a timeattack (which differ from the strategy I took during my low level game attempt.. There's much more than this, this is just what came out off the top of my head): - When raiding the cathedral to fight Yakra, should I take the time while heading down from Guardia Forest after picking up Lucca to obtain Fire Whirl with the both of them, or just run right through without stopping? The monsters in the Cathedral are very weak to Fire, and I remember the two fights you must fight through before reaching Yakra take a VERY long time if you don't have Fire Whirl.. but I'm not sure how much time I'll save (if any) if I slow down to fight battles on the way out of Guardia Forest. - Vs. the Guardian: Man, I hate thinking about this fight.. There's three ways to fight this thing, and none of them are too appealing at low levels for timeattacks - the first, concentrating on the Guardian and ignoring the Bits - causes the Bits to counter every attack against the Guardian with a Delta Attack which does massive damage to the entire party - and if it doesn't wipe you out right there, the amount of time spent healing yourself so you can attack again more than offsets the amount of time saved by not attacking the Bits, so that's out. That leaves two methods - killing one bit, leaving the other alive and then attacking the Guardian (still causing the remaining Bit to counterattack whenever the Guardian's attacked, but only with AmpliFire which is quickly and easily cured off.. but both the counterattack and the curing wastes time), or do it the "proper" way and kill both Bits before assaulting the Guardian (this starts the Guardian on a 5-count during which you can beat up on the Guardian without outside interference, but after the count finishes it revives BOTH bits, so you must kill them again). Not sure which option takes less time to do, and not sure if the ability to influence critical hits affects the choice). - And, of course, the time and place and method of fighting Lavos. Yes, the first Lavos instantly opens with a attack which does massive damage - but the first form can be avoided entirely by taking the Epoch after it gets its' wings to 1999 AD and crashing it into Lavos's head. However, the second form of Lavos also instantly opens with an attack which does even MORE damage. It's impossible to pull off Lifeline quick enough to be able to live through either attack, due to Lavos's speed. I only have a couple choices around this - either buff myself up to level 40 or so to be able to survive both attacks (by that time, I won't actually be that far away from lv40, so I can just take a few trips through the Geno Dome conveyor belt to level myself that high.. but who wants to see that!?), or revive Crono and go through the Fiona's Forest subquest in order to obtain the GreenDream (which has the same effect), then bringing the Crono/Marle/Robo team in order to be able to have one character live through the opening attack, revive the others, then pull off Lifeline to survive any further instant death attacks while I kill the second form (There's no way I'll be able to kill it before it performs the attack again). Unfortunately going through both subquests takes a LOT of time, not to mention I'll have to have Marle pretty buff in order to use Life2 and thus Lifeline, so I'm not so certain going down this avenue will really help out any, or is even possible before I'm able to use the first option anyways. By the way, I'll be happy to accept any notes (PM them over the board to me, I don't give out my email address for privacy reasons), or other hints you've got about game strategy that haven't been brought up already.
Posted: 11/19/2004 11:07 AM
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Highness
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
- When raiding the cathedral to fight Yakra, should I take the time while heading down from Guardia Forest after picking up Lucca to obtain Fire Whirl with the both of them, or just run right through without stopping? The monsters in the Cathedral are very weak to Fire, and I remember the two fights you must fight through before reaching Yakra take a VERY long time if you don't have Fire Whirl.. but I'm not sure how much time I'll save (if any) if I slow down to fight battles on the way out of Guardia Forest.
I think you will have to measure this. If you will decrease time over the entire game by getting this, then by all means get it. I doubt that it's only useful in this area right? Anyways. Good to see that someone finaly picked this up. Start the run right away will you? =)
Posted: 11/19/2004 12:55 PM
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bobucles
Joined: 7/27/2004
Posts: 48
I dunno about you, but I seem to be able to pull critical hits off at an above average rate. Right after your character gets his turn, there seems to be a consistant timing of hitting the A button, that you can pull off to get a critical. It was sorta like a beat, and it felt like Mario RPG for getting the crits. But, maybe that's just me. After all, I couldn't pull one off every time. I couldn't get decent crits if the character had waited for his turn, either.
Posted: 11/21/2004 1:57 AM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
I have come bearing news of progress! I just got done with a short movie from the beginning of the game until the end of the fight against Yakra, which can be downloaded here. (Yay for ancient webspace I forgot I had!) Surprisingly enough, the movie does a very good job of camouflaging the sheer torture I had with trying to navigate through the game's menus, especially early on.. I think I've spent a good half of my rerecords so far trying to get through them quickly. I've gotten a bit better at speeding through the game's text and its' menus later on, but I can't say I'm all too happy with how fast I got through the menus, and might rerecord the run from scratch before I go on. Anyways, a couple notes about the run: - Like with Bisqwit, I'm using the Japanese version of the game to perform the timeattack. The text does go by significantly faster in the Japanese version, so I think that'll be a major timesaver right there. - I'm not manipulating luck to attempt to control when I get critical hits with attacks, as Sampyla seemed to have been doing with his run, but I did attempt to use critical hits when they did pop up. Not sure if that's considered luck manipulation or not, though.. - Yeah, I did decide to go ahead and get Lucca's Flame Toss before going on to raid the Cathedral. I overestimated how many battles in the forest it would take to get Flame Toss/Fire Whirl (2), and greatly overestimated how much damage I do to the Naga-ettes and other monsters in the Cathedral with regular weapons.. needless to say, I think I saved a good minute or two on the first battle alone by taking this route. - As for the amount of hesitation in parts of the battle against Yakra, I attempted to dance around his attack script to try to avoid his counterattacks - there are small windows here and there which you can attack in and not face one of Yakra's painful counterattacks, in addition to being very close to Yakra. Not sure if I managed to hit all those windows or not, but thankfully I only had to heal twice the entire battle, and it made me look like I knew what I was doing when I spent a couple frames picking up that Revive XD Anyways, if there's anything you might like to see an improvement on should I decide to rerecord this section of the movie, fire away.
Posted: 11/21/2004 2:25 AM
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Tilus wrote:
I have come bearing news of progress!
Your menu navigation was ok, but you missed some shortcuts in dialog and in map I took. Specifically, the name entry screens don't need to be displayed, and the event that enables going to watch Lucca's show could have been handled faster, and Crono didn't have to do the teleport test before Marle, and the pin picking event in cathedral could have been activated even during the organ handler's dialog. Did you watch my movie? From Guidelines: Don't get caught of being uneducated of the game you play. You also didn't take advantage of some fun elements: - Moving around the telepod scene while Taban is speaking the introduction - Moving around while the Knight Captain talks - Turning back when the screen begins to change - Having Marle walk through Crono before she disappears Also, I don't understand why you didn't open the box in Queen Leene's room (ether iirc), although it would have costed nearly no time at all (compared to the boxes you opened in Yakra's lair). You also didn't pick up shelters (I got two) or the pill(s) in forest. But you might have had a reason. However, you killed the Miannu (Naga-ettes) very quickly, and you managed to kill Yakra, which I didn't.
I'm not manipulating luck to attempt to control when I get critical hits with attacks
Kaeru (Frog) seemed to do quite a many critical hits though.
Posted: 11/21/2004 3:38 AM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Okay, let's see here.. I tried downloading your movie, but got a 404, so no, I didn't see any of your tricks. Besides that, here's my explanation for what happened in the movie: Name entry dialog screens: I tried getting past Crono's as quickly as possible, but really couldn't do any better than that. I've got no excuse for Lucca's, however, and I did manage to bypass Marle's and Frog's later on. As I mentioned, I'm likely going to rerecord this part to fix some of the bumblings in my menu selection, like with that and the slight waste of time during selecting enemies on the first battle after getting Lucca. Getting access to Lucca's show faster: There's no quicker way of getting access to it.. you've gotta go down to the next screen and go to the nearest booth to get access to it, and the shop's the closest one there. Then again, maybe talking to one of the girls in the center square is a few frames quicker.. Teleport test: I could've SWORN that if you tried talking to Marle before you go through the teleport test first, she just comments about waiting for you and then waits until you go do it first. Guess I'm wrong, or maybe the Japanese version is different.. Pin picking event: Are you sure? I ran over to the area where the pin was as fast as possible. Moving around during telepod scene or Knight Captain speech: Again, I've got no excuse. Turning back when the screen begins to change: Huh? Are you talking about when Marle is about to be ripped apart? If so, then I guess I've got no excuse. Having Marle walk through Crono before she disappears: Again, are you sure this is doable? I remember the controller being locked during this part.. Not opening the box in Queen Leene's room: I went after the chest with the Ether in it in Yakra's lair because there was also a chest with a bit of good armor for Lucca, which I'll be using later on in the battle against the Dragon Tank. However, on a rerecord attempt I might try to fit in a way to use one less Cyclone somewhere so I won't even have to use an Ether at all.. Not picking up Shelters or the Tabs in the forest: I didn't need the Shelters right now, and I plan on buying more in bulk later on in the game when I do need them. As for the Power Tab, that's very much out of the way and the +1 strength bonus is not at all worth it. (I probably won't get any Tabs unless they're fairly close to the route I'm taking) Frog getting critical hits alot: That's just the way the numbers fell into place! Anyways, this was mostly a test movie, to see if I've got the hang of timeattacking down, and to see if there's anything in general I should improve on.. guess I've still got a lot of work to do.
Posted: 11/21/2004 9:26 AM
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ventuz
He/Him
Player (125)
Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940
Having Marle walk through Crono before she disappears: Again, are you sure this is doable? I remember the controller being locked during this part..
Yes, when I used to played CT alot backthen, sometime I had run into area, and it become locked event, sometime i run in there, and nothing happening, you have to walk to Marle to trigger the event.
Posted: 11/22/2004 4:11 AM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Okay, I've watched through Bisqwit's SMV, and I understand what he's trying to get at now. It's true, I never noticed about half the things he mentioned/used in his video.. all the little nuances I wind up finding in RPGs are usually battle related. So, when I prepared for this run, I thought about it from a battle standpoint, and guess I haven't paid enough attention to other little glitches and fun things you can do outside of battle.. I suppose I'll be relying on you guys to point out these sorts of things. I am thoroughly jealous at the speed which you sped through the menus.. still not quite sure how you did it. I guess it's time to assign some more turbo buttons to my keyboard.. However, I did find the "walking back before area transitions" thing to be fairly annoying, and probably won't do so once I rerecord this run after the first couple of instances, only enough just to show it can be done.
Posted: 11/22/2004 4:17 AM
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Josh_the_FunkDOC
Former player
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
Frame advance is the key. Pause the emulator, then press backslash (I think that's what it is). Each time you press it, the game will move forward one frame; hold whatever buttons you want, then press backslash to make your desired actions happen on the next frame. Trust me, once you get the hang of this you won't be able to live without it. It tends to be very useful for luck manipulation too. -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Posted: 11/22/2004 8:36 PM
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Mlandry
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
I think you should continue a run like your doing, but a test run at 1st would probably be a good idea if you consider how many things can be changed in the entire movie by the time you end the game you'll probably be insane, and with a test movie you can pick up a lot of small tricks that will help you if you choose to make a perfect one test movie means trying to be perfect but if you spot a mistake that you did 15 mins of movie ago thats not much you let it slide..
Posted: 11/26/2004 6:33 PM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Okay, I'm just about back to where I was before on my rerecord attempt - just have to beat Yakra again and I'm back to where I was. Frame advance seems to be having its' ups and downs - dialogue seems to be going by much more smoothly, and I'm finally starting to get a grip on the status menus, but the battle menus are just so random with when they accept input that I'm frantically pulling my hair out to get results that are, at best, on par with the results I got with just slow motion and the turbo buttons. I'm fairly convinced now that it's nearly impossible to manipulate luck when it comes to critical hits/other battle factors in this game.. I already knew it's not based on time, but now I'm even certain getting chests and talking to a different number/different order of NPCs doesn't affect it either. I've adjusted my strategy enough such that by some of Sampyla's comments the timing of critical hits should be different, but despite all the changes I've made to the run I'm still able to go through the game with all my critical hits coming at the exact same time. It looks like all the manipulation I'll be able to do is use them when the numbers fall my way.. I'm not sure how much time, if any, I've saved with the minor optimizations to strategy I've made here and there yet, but I'm guessing that so far I've chopped off a good 30 seconds from my time. I'm hoping I can cut off some more time from the Yakra battle, as well.. Now, looking slightly ahead to the next portion of the game, I've got a bit of a dilemma - which would you guys rather see me do during the trial, wait the three days out and then go straight to the boss, or break my way out? Despite having to wait so long through the three days and the lengthy cutscene, waiting it out will put no battles between me and the Dragon Tank, allow me to automatically skip through almost all of the prison tower, and is almost certainly faster - maybe even by a full minute. But, that'll be pretty derned boring, and who wants to see that? On the other hand, breaking out the hard way is much more entertaining, with plenty of things to do on the way, but there will be (I believe) three battles I'll have to go through before I reach the Dragon Tank, and I'll have to run through the entire dungeon, and it'll likely be much slower than waiting it out. Basically, it's a choice of speed vs entertainment, and since alot of the runs here aim for speed above all, it's a bit difficult to choose.
Posted: 11/27/2004 4:54 AM
Post subject: re:
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alexpenev
Former player
Joined: 7/14/2004
Posts: 104
You'll have other fights, skipping 3 fights isn't much. Wait it out. But run around in a figure 8 to pretend like you're busy doing something :)
Posted: 11/27/2004 6:59 AM
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Tilus wrote:
I am thoroughly jealous at the speed which you sped through the menus.. still not quite sure how you did it.
I did it the same way as I do in Famtasia (put emulation to very slow speed, then use the sound as a signal of frame transition in order to perform exactly frame-by-frame precision). However, it was very difficult in snes9x due to how it generates sound - but I recommend to use the frame advance feature. It seems perfectly suited for menu operation. Pause the game, then hold down a key, advance frame, hold new keys down, advance frame, hold new keys down, advance frame, and so on - doing each operation (press down, press left, and so on) in exactly 1 frame (or more, if the game needs more to react).
Tilus wrote:
However, I did find the "walking back before area transitions" thing to be fairly annoying, and probably won't do so once I rerecord this run after the first couple of instances, only enough just to show it can be done.
I agree.
Tilus wrote:
the battle menus are just so random with when they accept input that I'm frantically pulling my hair out to get results
Yes, I noticed this too. It's almost not worth the effort of doing it perfectly, because it ends up looking sloppy anyway.
Posted: 11/27/2004 2:23 PM
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bobucles
Joined: 7/27/2004
Posts: 48
I've managed to avoid all the fights in the Black Omen elevator(?) once. There seem to be invisible monsters that run around trying to get you. But if you hide in a corner, you might be able to avoid them.
Posted: 11/27/2004 4:12 PM
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Mlandry
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
Tilus : for the prison, I think you should escape from it instead of waiting eventually, you WILL need levels, this will help you to reduce fights later on ( by a little bit at least , incase you really need a level up for a boss you cant beat, youll be able to get it on the way instead of having to fight several times in a row ) and you might get a level with Crono for the tank fight? I dont think you would lose a lot of time, and we probably will notice it less since your not just waiting
Posted: 12/3/2004 2:02 PM
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Tilus: Do you have a progress report? :)
Posted: 12/3/2004 5:44 PM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Been a little busy, so progress has been slow, but I think I've found a way to manipulate luck. Haven't tested it extensively to make sure I can use it whenever, and I'll need to make sure I know exactly how it works, but if it works the way I think it does I think I can cut the time on the first section of the game down to under 16 minutes. Otherwise, it's mostly been finding ways to optimize my current strategy and planning out my strategy for the next section of the game.. I think I'll put out another test movie once I reach the End of Time.
Posted: 12/9/2004 5:52 AM
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Tilus
Former player
Joined: 9/24/2004
Posts: 177
Bit of a short update.. I'm all the way to the Arris Dome in 2300 AD (in other words, not too far from the End of Time), and up to 35 minutes of gameplay. I can probably shave off a good 45 seconds to a minute off the current version of the movie with some optimizations, but I'm not going to stress myself over it yet, since this is just a test movie. The Trial and the escape from jail went by alot faster than I expected, and so did most of Lab 16 (though there are a couple enemies at the end I do wind up having to fight), and now I'm pretty well prepared to fight the Guardian. By the way, does anyone know what the current world record is for the bike race? I'm going to attempt to beat it..
Posted: 12/9/2004 6:12 AM
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Blechy
Former player
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York
Can you even alter your speed? Isn't this again like gradius, in that how fast you progress can't be determined, but your placement on the screen can be. The way I remember, you can really only get a better time by using a boost at the most optimal moment so you are as far forward as possible when reaching the finish line.
Posted: 12/9/2004 6:29 AM
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OmnipotentEntity
He/Him
Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2630
Tilus, I've gotten a 2307 pointwise. But that was without boost using the camera trick.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
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