Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1977
Location: Making an escape
If doing a soft reset were to help speed things along, would an author be allowed to do so in a movie?
For example, let's say I wanted to do Bad Dudes (remember, this is a "what if"). The company logo takes about three seconds to get past if I let it run. However, if I reset the game, I can skip straight to the title. FCMs record resets. Would a movie that did this be accepted?
If you ask me, I don't think it should be an issue.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
IMO soft resetting should be fine. I tested it a lot with VBA and found that it can be helpful in some games. However, I don't plan to try it anytime soon in a publishable movie.
If doing a soft reset were to help speed things along, would an author be allowed to do so in a movie?
I don't see why not.
In fact, it's so obscure playing technique (not something a normal player would attempt) that it's in fact a good thing :P
However, all of this under the "no cheapness" rule that forbids the secret keysequences (such as the Konami code and using of 2nd controller in Mega Man 3).
I like pointing out that in the 4th Game Boy Mega Man game, you can skip Dr. Light's speech by holding Select-Start-A-B as it's starting so the game resets and you can go straight to the select screen. But that's a pretty well-known reset code, and it wouldn't skip any of the actual gameplay, so I think it's fair; I would also consider it an "obscure playing technique".
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Wasn't the docter mario movie rejected because of the soft reset that was in it? It skipped the moving of the cursor to level 20, which saved about 40 frames (the actual playing was unaffected).
I'm also not against it (it can be used for luck manupulation (this was also the case in the dr mario vid)), but it would complicate things...
You would have to say you used a soft reset if you submitted a movie and what it skips. And there should be rules of what you are allowed to skip using a soft reset.
It's also difficult if there is already a published movie, you could just add the frames you won by the soft reset, but you might be able to luck-manipulate better with the soft reset so that's a problem.
Wasn't the docter mario movie rejected because of the soft reset that was in it?
Two different things.
#1 In-middle-of-movie-reset
#2 Game RAM preprogrammed before the movie beginning (movie begins from reset)
This topic is about #1. DrMario used #2.
Well, I would be okay with this tactic for MOST games. With some you just can't afford to allow a soft reset...Sword Master falls into this category, as the game saves your experience level after a soft reset; my second unpublished version of that run was actually cheated because of this and I didn't know it.
So yeah, on a game-by-game basis.
-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
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1977
Location: Making an escape
I'm talking about resetting the movie while recording. Start recording from a power on and then reset to clear away any legal stuff and what not. Sword Master wouldn't benefit from this. Bisqwit had it right.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
One has to also take into account that most people who watch these movies have never played the games. If the thing being skipped with a reset (or other type of trick) is so relevant from the game story point of view that skipping it will make the viewer confused because he doesn't understand what the heck is happening, one should seriously consider not using the trick.
Granted, the vast majority of intros and middle animations are irrelevant and don't really add anything to the watching experience, but there are exceptions, of course. A perfect example of this is the murder beam glitch in supermetroid (which effectively skips the final boss battle, although not in duration but in action, which is even worse).
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I think this idea shouldnt have any restrictions. I support the idea of recording reset commands at any point on a movie starting with power on. It's creativity.
Joined: 2/15/2005
Posts: 246
Location: Torquay, England
One thing I just thought of: in Golden Sun, the RNG is easy to fool by hard resetting (ie hit ctrl+R in VBA) but not by soft resetting. If someone were to go for all perfect level-ups, hard resetting would be a big advantage. Since it has SRAM, you should be allowed to do this...
I think the first post on this topic is actually talking about a hard reset, by saying a reset that Famtasia records a single button press for (which VBA can also do now). Soft reset is through some button combination the game itself recognizes and resets itself with. I think both should be allowed - they're not even very different from each other in concept. There probably aren't a lot of cases where resetting is anything but a huge waste of time, so if someone's able to recognize when it's truly faster to do it, they might as well be allowed to go through with it.
If I remember correctly, wasn't there a genesis game where you had to restart to continue? (Something about you had to reboot the computer in-game)
X-men. you had to do that at the end of Mojo's Crunch and then the screen filled up with 1's and 0's followed by some more text and then the game would continue.
...and yes, i tried time-attacking the game but Gens won't recognize that reset (i tried each of them several times BTW). Jyzero also said it would take a major rewrite of the program to recognize that anyhow. :(
If doing a soft reset were to help speed things along, would an author be allowed to do so in a movie?
For example, let's say I wanted to do Bad Dudes (remember, this is a "what if"). The company logo takes about three seconds to get past if I let it run. However, if I reset the game, I can skip straight to the title. FCMs record resets. Would a movie that did this be accepted?
If you ask me, I don't think it should be an issue.
Yes it would be allowed, You start the game and whatever it takes to beat it faster which includes reseting,glitching,taking an advantage of a bug is ok to do.
Whats not ok to do would be using a cheat or something.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
I kinda think a soft reset would be more like Konami's famous "A, B, A, B..." code: it's not something the programmers intended to be part of regular gameplay. In fact, to my knowledge soft resets usually only exist in games as a tool/method to help beta-test games. In most cases they're just hard-resets called by controller input, anyway.
Then again, nitsuja has a point: being able to use soft-resets effectively would take skill. Other codes detract from any need for skill.
*shrug* Then again, I don't see the need for debate, seeing as how bisqwit has already ok'ed it.
Soft resets are usually mentioned in the manual and as such part of intended normal play.
Extra lives codes and level selects are not mentioned in manuals, but in a way intended for playing.
Anyway, anything and everything NOT intended by the makers of the game (bugs, glitches, imbalances, oversights in level design etc.) are always OK in my book.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
GSGold wrote:
quietkane wrote:
"A, B, A, B..."
There is no second AB.
The actual code is Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, (select), Start
Ummm... erm..... *scratches head* *blushes*
Well, you knew what I was referring to.
Truncated wrote:
Soft resets are usually mentioned in the manual and as such part of intended normal play.
I never noticed them. The only thing I can think of is a couple of SNES Square RPGs, like Chronotrigger. But unfortunately, I don't have the manuals anymore, so I can't go check.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I think soft reset IS, most of the time (if not all the time, save the cases where it doesnt do anything at all), intended to behave differently than power on, i.e. NES battletoads where soft reseting after starting a game allows one to skip the intro sequence.
Excitebike though, has a weird music difference, kind of contradicting what i just said :)
Hard Reset: Power cycling (on/off)
Soft Reset: The same as hitting the RESET button on a NES
In-Game: The A+B+St+Sl "reset" code
The reason some NES games act funny with soft resets is because SRs don't clear RAM (like HRs do), so any memory the game itself doesn't reset will stay there.
It's how you could access funky glitch worlds in SMB -- put in Tennis, play for a while, take out Tennis and put in SMB (not the dual Duck Hunt/ SMB cartrige), push Reset and hold A/Start
:P
