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.