*update*
http://mitglied.lycos.de/keinbenutzername/Secret%20of%20Mana%20(U).zip
Beaten Tropicalo. I've taken him out in about 45 secs, that's about 3 times the time it took to beat the Mantis Ant
I've included 2 savestates, one at the opening entrance to Gaia's Navel and one at the beginning of the Dwarf Village
One thing I noticed when fighting Tropicalo. When you use charge attacks, try to have the attack finish just as the boss becomes vulnerable. That'll leave you more time to ready more hits.
Another thing, is that some items have a +Agi bonus to go with them. Extra agility will save you a tiny amount of frames for preparing an attack, or running. I don't know if it's worth going out of your way to get the items, but prolonged use of the items will add up. They are:
Quilted hood- +5 agi helm. Girl and sprite only.
Griffin helm -+5 agi helm. Best helm, hero only.
Wolf's Band - +5 agi bracelet.
Ninja gloves - +5 agi bracelet. Protection from slow effects.
Faeries' Ring - +5 agi bracelet. Best def and Mdef in the game. lots of status protection.
Just about all character equipment can be found from treasure chests and luck manipulation. Handy for equipping characters on the fly. The act of opening the chest will take time, but it may save time over making a trip to town. Since you won't have alot of gold to spend, it may be the only way to get decent protection for your characters. Luck manipulation would mean you won't need much armor anyways.
I think it wouldn't be bad if you named your character something other than A, Zero. You get to pick the name of course, since your run. But I think a good name would add some entertainment value to the video.
Hm maybe. Let's do some calculation... I assume there are about 400-800 occurences of the three hero names in the total game (scripts from RPGs are often much bigger as you think, I know what I'm talkin about, I do some translations myself), let's take 600 for our calculation. 600 names, let's take 4 letters for an average name. 4 letters that's 3 letters more than 1 per name. 600*3=1800. A second consists of 60 frames, 1800/60=30.
Calculated extra lenght for specific names: 30 seconds. That's about nothing in a run like this =)
One thing I noticed when fighting Tropicalo. When you use charge attacks, try to have the attack finish just as the boss becomes vulnerable. That'll leave you more time to ready more hits.
When I hit him more than 1, or when waits longer 2, times he'll immediatly dive in again after he comes up the next time.
Another thing, is that some items have a +Agi bonus to go with them. Extra agility will save you a tiny amount of frames for preparing an attack, or running. I don't know if it's worth going out of your way to get the items, but prolonged use of the items will add up. They are:
Quilted hood- +5 agi helm. Girl and sprite only.
Griffin helm -+5 agi helm. Best helm, hero only.
Wolf's Band - +5 agi bracelet.
Ninja gloves - +5 agi bracelet. Protection from slow effects.
Faeries' Ring - +5 agi bracelet. Best def and Mdef in the game. lots of status protection.
I think these are only available quite late in the game, I'll check
Just about all character equipment can be found from treasure chests and luck manipulation. Handy for equipping characters on the fly. The act of opening the chest will take time, but it may save time over making a trip to town. Since you won't have alot of gold to spend, it may be the only way to get decent protection for your characters. Luck manipulation would mean you won't need much armor anyways.
Sure, I'll look that I can get as much as possible from chests
I'm curious how the fight with the Tiger in Elinee's Castle will turn out, that beast always was pure pain in the game
I hope that you will manipulate the enemies in Pure land to get a griffin helm. I reckon thats the only place where you can obtain them. Going to check the run so far. I've been busy for a couple of days.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
For anyone that needs it, here is zer0's Secret of Mana smv file. It's zipped, renamed, and on my server, but its the same exact file:
http://www.geocities.com/aazurreco/Zero-SoMana.ZIP
Also, good movie so far. I have nothing to add.
Oh, that tiger is a pain. When I fought him, I simply found it easier to let the other characters die, and avoid his attacks myself. The trick is knowing when to keep your distance, but you should be able to avoid his rolling attack without too many reloads. You may find the select button really handy in that battle, as a way of quickly repositioning the other two characters. Also, you could have a second player to keep the two aside, while the hero does the dangerous stuff solo. But you'd likely need all three characters attacking to get a good time.
Ok. Just watched. I think the movie had some flaws which needs to be corrected.
I really don't like to see that level up sequence. I think it was too slow. Would it be faster to run past those two bats and just kill the green slime?
At some points it looks like you miss some hits against the green slimes. Why is that?
Tripicallo can be hit alot earlier. You wait until he has shown quite a bit. I think you can release the charge button when you see part of Tropicallos hair coming out of the shell.
The navigation is excellent though. Keep it up. :)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Highness, I think he is still working on Tropicallo. I like how this is going so far.
Hey, I never noticed before, but look at Elliot during the Mantis Ant battle...what the hell is he doing???
I was wondering about that myself, but realized that he was trying to pick up the 150 gold needed for the Dwarf Village (50 to enter the elder's sideshow, and another 100 to forge the Rusty Sword.. both are necessary to advance the plot, it seems)
However, I also didn't like the level up sequence much.. couldn't you just manipulate some enemies to drop chests with gold/items in them and then sell them at the shop to get your 150 Gold faster, or at the very least, doing more "killing as you go" instead of running back and forth killing the same enemy over and over?
Actually, now that I think about it, wouldn't you need only 100 Gold? You can still go through the sideshow by only paying the 50 entrance fee (you don't need to make the additional 100 gold donation to the sprite), and since you get it back immediately afterwards, you'll still have the 100 to pay for the sword forging..
Anyways, good run so far, and I'll be looking forward to more.
Hmm.. I thought you had to pay the 100gp as well to get the sprite child.
And it's probably faster to kill those slimes instead of stopping at every enemy in order to get some dough. But if it's about the money, indeed you should manipulate the enemies to drop GP chests, Zer0! ;)
I was wondering about that myself, but realized that he was trying to pick up the 150 gold needed for the Dwarf Village (50 to enter the elder's sideshow, and another 100 to forge the Rusty Sword.. both are necessary to advance the plot, it seems)
I already have 150 GP when I leave Potos. 100 from the Mantis Ant and 50 from the chest in the Elders house. The monster killing was for only the EXP (and maybe the money for that... uhm thingy I bought there, the name won't come to my mind atm =) )
However, I also didn't like the level up sequence much.. couldn't you just manipulate some enemies to drop chests with gold/items in them and then sell them at the shop to get your 150 Gold faster, or at the very least, doing more "killing as you go" instead of running back and forth killing the same enemy over and over?
Hm the killing as you go thingy wouldn't look to cool either I think. I myself prefer watching 3 minutes of pure monster killing over 15 minutes where I have to stop every 15 seconds to kill one monster.
And I think the green drops are the best way to get EXP at this point as they copy themselfes
Actually, now that I think about it, wouldn't you need only 100 Gold? You can still go through the sideshow by only paying the 50 entrance fee (you don't need to make the additional 100 gold donation to the sprite), and since you get it back immediately afterwards, you'll still have the 100 to pay for the sword forging..
It doesn't really matter if you have the 100 GP, I went in with 90 GP and said yes for the donation (if you say no he'll ask again and again and again...) and everything went fine
There are some monsters that can be one-shotted if you get a critical hit on them. Rabbites are a good example. Have you considered doing that? I'm sure no one would mind a quick pause to liquify a monster here and there.
There are some monsters that can be one-shotted if you get a critical hit on them. Rabbites are a good example. Have you considered doing that? I'm sure no one would mind a quick pause to liquify a monster here and there.
Rabites can be taken out in one hit when you're level 1. But they give only 1 experience point, I don't think it's worth to go after them. Hm I think Lullabuds can be taken out with one critical hit at level 1, but as said, I like to keep the leveling so far the way it is. I'm going to redo the leveling at the Green Drops and try to make it a bit more entertaining
*update*
http://nvdata.pilif.ch/SoM.zip
Up to after the fight with the 2 werewolves to rescue the girl
I've also redone the movie from the leveling at the green drops on.
Just after I had that done I realized something. I could set the controls of all characters on the same buttons so they move the same. I won't do that all the time, but there are locations where it's faster to make them move the same. I can always switch from AI to controlled with the start button. AI is handy for sprinting. I can always change the characters and then make one sprinting when the other is loading up.
I'm going to improve this with the all-move-the-same-"trick" sometime, maybe tomorrow, I'm just to sick of it for today, I spent the last 6 hours playing and testing for the movie.
Uhm yes, about the fight with Tropicalo. I really can't hit him earlier, and I always tested if I could hit him more times without diving in immediatly the next time he appears, but that only worked one time, all the other tmes he dived in immediatly.
Uhm yes, about the fight with Tropicalo. I really can't hit him earlier, and I always tested if I could hit him more times without diving in immediatly the next time he appears, but that only worked one time, all the other tmes he dived in immediatly.
A quick comment on this: Keep in mind that sometimes hitting as soon as possible can be slower overall because of randomness in enemy AI and/or other frame-dependent calculations. It's not necessarily the case here, but when something only happens once it's often possible to get it to happen again.
