Post by Xipo

Posted: 12/13/2004 8:09 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (696)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

First off, I totally wouldn't object to putting a star on BoltR's run. All the Ninja Gaiden videos are very impressive, these games feature so much fast action which we run through very quickly. It's really what this site is all about. Obviously the original is a classic, but I think the second and third in the series have more interesting elements for a timeattack. Most of the NG1 timeattack is just running through, jump slashing when in trouble, and then almost every boss is killed in one shot. Yes, I'm oversimplifying a bit, but compare it to other games in the series: in particular, the NG2 run which FunkDoc is now improving features many more bugs, uses a much greater variety of moves, and the game just has more factors that make the run interesting, like the wind, water, darkness, ice, etc. NG3 features some of these and the use of the ninja magic really stands out, since I don't have jump slash or shadow doubles. I found a few little bugs, but nothing was as mindblowing as that wall-passing trick in 2. Still, I think it makes a more interesting show than the original. So whatever happens is fine, but I really do think that one of the NGs should get a star. It might be a good idea to wait until we have the full trilogy ready. NG2 would probably be my pick, Josh has really done an amazing job.

Posted: 12/13/2004 6:34 PM

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Josh_the_FunkDOC

Former player

Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH

Essentially, I think it comes down to this: 1. The movie of the original would likely be the most impressive to people familiar with the games. It's tremendously hard, particularly with its evil enemy placement, and BoltR runs through it all like it's nothing. I completely agree with his decision to dodge enemies, as it looks amazing due to said enemy placement. 2. People who haven't played the games would probably enjoy the other two more. There's more variety in techniques and some amusing glitches, and boss battles actually require something besides jump and slash and down+B. The difficulty of the original game would be lost on these people. I'm in no position to say which of these would most deserve a star, so I'll leave it at that. And thanks for the compliment AxeMan, but yours is up there too...boss fights take a lot more skill than in the first two, and lots of special weapon usage in tight situations = fun. -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: 12/13/2004 11:28 PM

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Itstoearly

Joined: 8/10/2004
Posts: 173
Location: Bethel, VT

But who says only one of them can get a star? Look at SMB1 and SMB2 (US) and SMB3. All 3 of them have star runs.

Posted: 12/13/2004 11:30 PM

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BoltR

Former player

Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada

Honestly I have to agree with Josh and AxeMan on this one. The point of the star runs are movies which people can pick up and watch with no previous knowledge about the game and enjoy. That or in the case of the Mario runs, everyone knows about the game. My NG run is only really impressive to people who know about the game, while the other two are more full of action. I do feel that one of the movies deserve a star though, as in my opinion they are all very well done. To me the NG series is also a very good series for timeattacking. It has been said TheAxeMan's might be the best choice, as there is alot of actions compaired to the other runs, but then again Josh is doing a very good job with his run too.

Posted: 12/19/2004 10:32 PM

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Blechy

Former player

Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York

After finally having seen them all, I too think that one should be put on the best list, as they're all done superbly. My personal choice would be Josh's, due to the use of glitches and clones.

Posted: 1/6/2005 8:47 PM

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shimaknight

Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 3

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:

BoltR wrote:
Also about your friend beating it in 12 minutes... I'm really not so sure about that. sdkess has a speedrun on his site which is ~18.5 minutes and Lezard has made a timeattack which was just under 12...
I'm curious to see a human do it that fast... the current TG World record sits at 13m36s. [And I should know since I personally verified it and did the report on it] Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Hmm.. well I talked to him the other day and he said his best was 11:40.. but he doesn't use the fast attacking trick that was used on the last bosses. He did say he got a lot more ninja magic in the stages to use the jump 'n slash much more often, though he always ended up at the bosses with minimal ninja magic (except the third one, of course). He's out of practice though, but if he ever does pick up the game again, I'll have him drop you a line.

Posted: 1/7/2005 12:56 AM

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BoltR

Former player

Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada

That would make his best run 21 seconds slower than mine. Not using the rapid slash would probably add 2-3 minutes onto the run. So unless i'm totally missing some sort of shortcut that skips a whole level, I dunno about his time... Getting lots of ninja magic to use jump n' slash wouldn't save any more time then getting the minimal amount required. Infact you have to slow down for ATLEAST a frame to pick the stuff up, and I doubt your friend can let go off all the buttons and press down+slash for exactly 1 frame without slowing down..if he could then he would have no trouble doing the rapid slash.

Posted: 1/7/2005 10:41 AM

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Mr._Kelly_R._Flewin

Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757

BoltR wrote:

That would make his best run 21 seconds slower than mine. Not using the rapid slash would probably add 2-3 minutes onto the run. So unless i'm totally missing some sort of shortcut that skips a whole level, I dunno about his time... Getting lots of ninja magic to use jump n' slash wouldn't save any more time then getting the minimal amount required. Infact you have to slow down for ATLEAST a frame to pick the stuff up, and I doubt your friend can let go off all the buttons and press down+slash for exactly 1 frame without slowing down..if he could then he would have no trouble doing the rapid slash.

I must admit, for the moment, I completely concur with BoltR. Short of a Game Genie being used, unless there truly is something that we're all missing here...I'd like to see proof. The mention of sadly being out of practice.. it does come off sounding like a very poor excuse, in all honesty. [Note I said it comes of SOUNDING like... and I am not accusing him of USING that as an excuse.] Simply put... if he's doing something perfectly acceptable without a game genie and NOT using the rapid slash... that means that 11:40 would mean under 10 mins via time attacking it. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.

Posted: 9/29/2005 9:37 AM

Post subject: Ninja Gaiden 1

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Unknown_User

Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716

I'm new to these forums, so I ought to introduce myself first: I'm 19, I'm a student/software developer, and I'm hopelessly addicted to Ninja Gaiden 1 for NES. I mean I've been playing this game for hours each day for weeks on end. The only thing I have yet to be able to do is beat this game without dying - twice I died at the end of 6-3, and just now I missed a jump in 6-2. The good news is that my run is a full minute faster than sdkess' incredible [almost] no-hit run, and my pattern for the 2nd final boss is a LOT faster than his, so I should be able to make a much faster run! Of course, I am in no way trying to make a no-hit run - I have a strange habit of purposely taking hits to save time. Well, wish me luck! I keep getting so close to the end of the game before coming up short. All I need is one solid run and I will beat the current record!

Posted: 9/29/2005 10:28 AM

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Unknown_User

Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716

By the way, do we have to use a real NES for speed runs? I use the RockNES emulator.

Posted: 9/29/2005 10:34 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

There is a combined speed running forum for all platform, since regular speed running is not really the focus of this site. Perhaps this topic should be moved there. (Calling moderator, come in moderator.) If you want to submit your run to anywhere, such as TG or SDA, you have to play with a real console.

Posted: 5/20/2006 7:08 PM

Post subject: Ninja Gaiden, Luck Abuse and Timers

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

So I've been working on improving my recently published Ninja Gaiden run and after making sure every jump was optimal, adding a couple of new hits and a couple other things I forgot to do and after getting screwed out of 3 frames in most of the boss fights... I've got something that completes the game an amazing 26 frames faster. I figure the only way to improve it now is to get those missing 12 to 15 frames back from the bosses, and I'm pretty sure that can be manipulated without slowing anything down. At first I thought it was related to the game timer (i've observed that my input does effect how many frames are between each second displayed; it ticks every 60 frames if there is no input and i've seen it take as many as 80 frames to tick as well) but i've concluded that what the timer says is irrelevant. What frame your score stops adding up after the boss fight seems to be the key. I've had limited success manipulating this (so far only in level 1)into occurring one frame later (3026) by changing a couple jumps in 1-1 and then back (to 3025) by removing one kill. But I feel like I'm stabbing around in the dark here. Anyway, the purpose of this post was partly to vent a bit, but also to ask if anyone perhaps had similair experience with other games and had some advice beyond the ''do stuff different and stuff'' on the common tricks page.

Posted: 5/20/2006 9:11 PM

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JXQ

Experienced player (750)

Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132

I found which memory locations were important for fadeout lag in SMW by taking two savestates after hitting the end-of-level tape that gave different fadeout lag, and comparing their different values with the memory watcher. I loaded the first state, and set those values to current. Then I loaded the second state and searched for ones that had changed. There were probably 200 different ones to test....I just started replacing their values, one by one, with zero, and seeing if that affected anything. It's a slow and tedious process, but it can be a starting point on something random like this.

<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)

Posted: 5/21/2006 8:04 PM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

Thanks for the info, that's certainly something to chew on. btw, seems i was mistaken about where the relative speed difference lies... there's 3 intervals which vary: number of frames between when ryu appears in the boss fight and when the timer appears, number of frames between when the timer appears and when it ticks off the first ''second'' (the latter seems to always occur on the exact same frame after leaving the previous level in a range of 5-10 frames.. i hope that made some sort of sense) and the number of frames between when the score stops adding up and when the screen fades to black. /scratch

Posted: 5/31/2006 8:25 PM

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Slotermeyer

Player (97)

Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34

First let me say I was completely floored to see 4 seconds shaved off my run, very impressive. You seem to be more motivated to keep improving this than I am so I'll go ahead and post this. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1208/Ninja%20Gaiden-retry.fcm I'm 8 frames ahead where it stops, though really there's 11 frames of improvement because I lose 3 on the first boss fight. 9 come from 1-1, and 2 more from the little platform jump on the second screen of 2-1. If you make a new version I'm sure this will be of some use.

Posted: 6/2/2006 7:03 PM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

Slotermeyer wrote:

First let me say I was completely floored to see 4 seconds shaved off my run, very impressive.

You and me both. When I first analyzed your run I thought it could be improved by 15-20 frames at best. :)

Slotermeyer wrote:

I'm 8 frames ahead where it stops, though really there's 11 frames of improvement because I lose 3 on the first boss fight. 9 come from 1-1, and 2 more from the little platform jump on the second screen of 2-1. If you make a new version I'm sure this will be of some use.

Wow. I'm kicking myself for never trying to simply grab that wall in 1-1... that worked out to be 2 frames faster than bouncing off that guy into the wall. Very nice work with that funky platform in 2-1 too... I thought I had tried everything there. I would appear to be 2 or 3 frames ahead but would actually end up 1-2 frames behind when leaving the screen but your way actually works! So anyway, working your improvements into what I had saved another 4 frames, which is great, but it also changed some enemy behavior later on which had slowed me down. (unavoidable thrown objects, I really hate those skull guys) So now I have a file that completes the game in 39709 frames. Got any more tricks up your sleeve?

Posted: 6/3/2006 9:36 PM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

Just thought I'd mention here that I've determined that the boss/cinema/3 frames thing can't be manipulated and is simply a function of when you reach the boss stage. The fact that what frame the level 1 boss steps forward (a difference of 1 frame) can be manipulated is what led me to believe that the other issue might be manipulatable. Anyway... managed to shave another 13 frames off this: 1 frame by eliminating another down+b from 5-3; 7 frames by improving the bird hit(s) in 5-1 (involves a few pauses, a lot of jumping and one hit instead of 2) and 5 frames by moving back one frame to spawn a bat to bounce me up in the first screen of 6-3. If I could get to 3-2 at least 52 frames faster there's a chance that the first ghoul might throw me a handy-15-frame-saving knife. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen though. :)

Posted: 2/17/2011 6:26 AM

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vgmrsepitome

Joined: 1/18/2007
Posts: 15

On stage 2-2 in the Ninja Gaiden TAS, the TASer flips through a wall (this happens at about 1:54 in the video on viddler.com: http://www.viddler.com/explore/adelikat/videos/650/). I haven't been able to replicate this on a console. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this on a console, or is it even possible?

Posted: 2/17/2011 8:17 AM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (696)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

In general everything here can be done on console! I doubt this is any different. You can figure out more by playing the run in the emulator. Display the controller input to see exactly what Scumtron is pressing here. This run was originally made on FCEU so the input is fcm format. The current version of FCEUX has an automatic converter and the result syncs for me. This is pretty easy to do but if you don't want to bother, here's my analysis: Scumtron has commented that moving to the right before this is necessary to get the screen to move to the left. Also, he is pressing left+up+down to move left faster in midair. So you couldn't do this with most normal NES controllers.

Posted: 2/17/2011 1:24 PM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

TheAxeMan pretty much covered it, but I guess I can elaborate a bit:

though the L+R/U+D+L business can also be accomplished by alternating A/B presses when moving backwards while airborne, holding 'back' without any of those combinations for just a frame means Ryu is back to the normal, slow backwards jumping until 'forward' is pressed again, and that 'forward' must not be accompanied by any other button presses.
the stone pillars in 2-2 aren't like most of the other walls in the game: they are grab-able at points throughout their width (near the top at least), so if you can't get through it in one jump, you just end up kind of stuck inside it.
if you push against these walls before you have the height to get over them, the game won't let you over when you do get high enough. In the TAS there are three frames of no input after jumping off the wall because of this. You can see the same thing leaving the left-moving screens in 5-3.
if you did somehow manage to maintain 1.5 p/f reverse-air-movement on a console, that still only leaves a two-frame window to grab the wall on the other side, and it would probably be better to just drop down to the platform inside the pillar and continue on from a standing jump... if you could manage to clear the grabby-wall at all.
can't get high enough on the ladder-pillar you enter the screen on to jump over either.

Posted: 2/23/2011 7:06 PM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

So yeah, has anybody worked on improving this TAS?

Posted: 2/23/2011 7:54 PM

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Sonikkustar

Skilled player (1306)

Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.

That depends if there are any improvements in the first place. >_<

Homepage SVN

Posted: 2/27/2011 1:04 AM

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Scumtron

Player (151)

Joined: 5/1/2006
Posts: 150

Awesome! Though I don't think it will help in stage 3, (throwing stars should be better here, as seen in this WIP, because using one to get the fire wheel wastes time due to the score tally at the end of the level) and using it with the throwing stars doesn't save (or waste) any time. If a way could be found to get more than one hit out of the fire wheel with that trick it might help. The trick will save at least 2 frames on the first of the final bosses though! The run I linked also shows most of the improvements I've found since the published run, but of course a lot of the gains are later lost due to that damned randomness. Can also save 8 frames by wall-jumping 'deeper' into the wall in 5-3, which freezes the running soldiers/football guys long enough that I don't have to take the hit.

Posted: 8/3/2011 8:03 AM

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chameleon0817

Joined: 7/10/2011
Posts: 2

Can you help me find RAM Adresses for this game, have trouble finding the important ones