Posted: 6/3/2012 8:32 PM
Post subject: Winter Games
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (508)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Here is another game that the Angry Video Game Nerd has reviewed. To put it plainly, this game is ridiculously, infuriatingly hard. There are four events in this game that you must beat. Hot Dog Aerial, Speed Skating, Figure Skating, and bobsled. Hot Dog Aerial is a 3 run skiing event where you must jump off and do tricks in the air to get a score out of 10. Sadly in my WIP I use the same trick combination each time because it is the only one so far that allows for a perfect 10. Even with TAS speed though it is ridiculously hard as it becomes frame perfect when you have to choose your moves and how long you hold it. Speed Skating is by far the easiest event in this game. I get a time of 21.2 seconds which is twice as fast as any realtime run I have found though there could be a better one out there somewhere. I am fairly confident this is the fastest the run could be but it could possibly be improved by a couple of frames. The opponent actually gets a time of 24.0 which would be nearly impossible in realtime as well, but it turns out the opponents have cheaters AI where they only go around as fast as you do so if I sucked he would finish in 30 or 40 seconds. Figure skating is the hardest event in this game and one I have yet to perfectly figure out. In this event you are supposed to do a set of seven tricks that require near frame perfection to land let alone get perfect scores on to get a final score out of 6.0 points. This is where I have stopped in my WIP because I cannot figure out why I am stuck at 4.9 points. You lose 1.2 points every time you do not land a trick and lose .2 points every time you land a trick but do not perform it accurately enough. I do not crash so the only points that could be lost are the 0.2 for not landing accurately enough, but that would result in an even number of points off and I have an odd. This is the event I currently need help in because I am stuck. It might be that it is not registering one of my tricks but I can't tell which one it would be. Finally bobsled. I haven't attempted this one yet but I believe it to be similar to speed skating and that I could perfect it as well. If someone wants to help me figure out how the hell to get a 6 on figure skating here is my WIP and here is the gamefaqs walkthrough which describes the points breakdown. EDIT: Also Japan is chosen as they have by far the shortest National Anthem, no other reason.
Posted: 6/4/2012 12:53 AM
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wekhter
Joined: 7/22/2010
Posts: 53
OK, I started writing a reply but somehow managed to close my browser while doing so, so forgive me if any of this comes off disjointed from retyping. First of all, I'm really confused by what your score actually is. On the results screen it says JPN 5.0 but then at the bottom it says TOTAL 4.9. I think the TOTAL is actually the average of all the countries' scores (why, I have no idea, but from checking out a few Youtube videos of figure skating the numbers seem to point to that). Thankfully that means you have an even score, which makes pinpointing the problem much easier! What I think is going on is: you got -.2 points for lacking grace in 5 out of 7 tricks. According to the FAQ, when doing spins you have to spin exactly 6 times, when doing axels you have to start when the skater's legs are apart and when doing lutzes you have to start when the skater's legs are together. Both your double and triple axels were started when her legs are together (-.4) and both times you did a sit spin (alone and in the combo) you only spun 3 times (-.4). I know that adds up to -.8 , but I think you also might have ended the first camel spin too early during the 6th spin animation, which allowed her to finish the 6th spin but didn't count it? Or else there was this weird frame dropped there or something which might have something to do with it? Anyway, it would equal an even -1. That's the best I've got, sorry. Hopefully even if I'm not right it'll at least help get you on the right track.
Posted: 6/4/2012 3:21 PM
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goofydylan8
Experienced player (508)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
The scoring works as it does because it is like the Olympics in which a panel of judges from a few countries give their rating on the run and then they take an average (in reality they drop the top and low score but I don't know if they do here). So where it says Japan it means the Japanese representative gave us a 5 but overall our score is 4.9. It might be that I started tricks on the wrong frame or didn't technically finish one but that was why I was asking if anyone else had an ideas because it really is frame specific. If I start any of the tricks on a different frame either nothing will happen or she will fall to the ground. There may be a specific order so that you can jump on the correct frames but I will need to look into it. Your theory about the spins being the problem appears to be correct but I will need to try again. If nothing else thanks for letting me know people actually read my posts about crappy NES games.
Posted: 6/4/2012 4:45 PM
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wekhter
Joined: 7/22/2010
Posts: 53
Ah, I see. That explains it. I clearly haven't watched the Olympics in a while, that scoring didn't even occur to me. Last night after I made that post I actually went and learned how to TAS, using this game... probably not the best choice as it is probably the most unrewarding game I've ever played, but hey, what can you do. I succeeded in consistently getting the same (averaged) score as you, although I did all the tricks in a different order just in case there was anything weird about doing the camel-spin sit-spin combo exactly after the camel-spin and sit-spin separate (didn't seem to make a difference, so there goes another theory). But pretty much, I found the same thing as you about the game game having very particular timing about when it will accept input on tricks, so I think it's all down to some really precise-yet-incomprehensible timing. It might be down to how the timing affects how the skating animation flows into the trick animation. (Which is basically that "flow" stuff the FAQ was talking about.) Intensely frustrating. Also, the first thing I tried was doing a single trick and then skating forward until the end just to verify the score breakdown. I ended up with a .3 so either I did the trick really, really poorly or there also might be some points deduced for not doing a trick for a certain amount of time (like how the last 8 seconds or so are you just skating forward). Obviously the sensible thing to do would have been to verify that with all the tricks, but I admit, there was only so much of that song I could take... My apologies. Could be a dead end, but even the "world record" listed in the FAQ is 5.4 so there could be something wacky going on with the scoring that we still don't know. And yeah, no problem. I check out most of the WIPs for any emulators I can run, which includes all the NES games you do. Unfortunately I happen to be particularly lousy at NES games in general so I often don't have anything constructive to add other than "hey good job bro" and I don't believe in artificially boosting my post count. (Could explain how I average .07 posts per day.)