Double Dragon 2 is a classic fighting game with an all powerful move: the dreaded flying knee. Although using this move makes the game easy, optimizing speed remains difficult. There are many timing and positioning issues, and the game contains some tricky obstacle screens as well.
I voted no for a few reasons:
* the currently published timeattack uses two players instead of one
* the almost exclusive use of the flying knee is not very interesting compared to the variety of attacks and moves that *could* be used
* a lot of things were sloppy, such as jumping up into spikes in the water base level and taking damage/hits from enemies for no apparent reason
Even though this movie is faster by about 2 minutes, it is less entertaining, and therefore should not be published IMHO
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
"the currently published timeattack uses two players instead of one".
Reply: So? I don't care if he uses 1 player or 18 players, it is still ABOUT 2 MINUTES FASTER.
"the almost exclusive use of the flying knee is not very interesting compared to the variety of attacks and moves that could be used".
Reply: Thats according to your opinion. But the fact is once again he improved the last double dragon2 by about 2 minutes with his "not interesting" (as you put it) moves.
"Even though this movie is faster by about 2 minutes, it is less entertaining, and therefore should not be published IMHO". Here is were I get pretty mad as hell. Just because according to your opinion this movie is not very entertaining then it should not be published even though its faster by 2 minutes. Then how many submissions should have been rejected simply because they did not answered to your expectations? This issue has been discussed before and a litlle personal reminder to you and everyone who agrees with your points: You don't have to be bureaucratic. And hell if you wanna be that then this submission should be definitely get published because its simply faster by 2 minutes, no argue what so ever in that! I belive this was also discussed with Termia's submission for Super Metroid. Think about how many submissions that should have been rejected because of peoples own personal opinion that the current submission is not entertaining enough for him. You have to think logical. And I dont consider myself thinking illogical about my point. Clear Yes vote for me because nomatter how sloppy (and a little reminder that this submíssion is definitely not that sloppy that varbles wrote) this submission is, its faster than the current double dragon 2 by about 2 minutes.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
that really is a lot of time improved, i haven't watched it, but it would be a suplement to the existing run people would wonder why it takes more time to finish the game as 2 players. so if this gets published it would have to remove the 2 player run. i dont know, the current run seemed fast to me, i know the game very well, but you could improve it by 2 minutes, the flying knees must have done a pretty good job. hmm i have to watch this, 2 minutes is a lot
I find Phil's movie to be more entertaining, mostly due to the simultaneous moves between the two characters, and a little due to the variation in moves as well.
Angerfist, it is both hypocritical and contradictory to condemn somebody else for being bureaucratic, then stating it is your own opinion which would follow the bureaucracy.
Phil decided not to exclusively use flying knees, because he thought it would get repetitive. I think he made the right choice. This movie is faster, sure, but it uses something explained in the description to be less entertaining.
Perhaps a medium would be using flying knees, with both characters.
I vote no on this movie, but I urge the author to keep trying.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
To me its pretty simple, if a submission is faster than a current one and this one being faster by about 2 minutes then there is nothing more to say, its so damn obvious. And regarding my opinion Blechy, its based on obsoleting submissions. Very simple, regardless on how un-entertaining you might think it its, I mean its not that this submission is so awful that you want to puke + it obsoletes the current double dragon2 by 1 or 2 seconds, no it obsolete it by 2 minutes. think about it.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
There's a lot more to say. If picking submissions were that simple we wouldn't have this Workbench forum at all. NESVideoAgent could just automatically approve shorter submissions.
This submission is nothing special, I'm sorry. The published movie deliberately avoided using the knee to excess in the hopes of being more fun to watch. This run ignores that idea to the point of absurdity. At one point QBOB does a flying knee right into an explosion, taking needless damage.
I vote no. QBOB, thanks for your efforts but remember this: Speed is not paramount; entertainment is. If you try again (and please do), emphasize the latter.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
No entertainment value? What are you people talking about? I personally noticed that a lot of effort was taken to put the knees in good spots, show off, etc. The complaint about jumping into the ceiling shows a big lack of understanding about this game. I found it amazing that he was able to hit multiple enemies with one knee at so many spots. Being knocked back on the final hit was priceless! He does use some variety, breaking out spin kicks, hair pulls, jump kicks and even normal kicks sometimes.
As far as comparing this to Phil's video, I don't think it should obsolete it. The difference between 1 and 2 players is a good excuse, as is one for pure speed and another with more variety.
I do have some questions and suggestions. There are spots where more variety can be achieved. You could spin kick the abobos that come out of the hut at the top of the vine--this might be faster too. Also, I think the helmethead in the trap room could be done faster. Maybe spin kick him left and then knee him onto the spikes?
Anyway, I'll give this a yes with the suggestion that it not completely obsolete the current version.
Thanks for all the comments guys. As many of you asked, I have already started to work on an improved version. Here's what I'm working on this time around.
1. faster (obviously)
2. using different moves whenever possible, and especially when it's faster (ex. right before climing the first ladder in level 1, it's faster (I believe) to kill those three guys with upper-cuts instead of knees)
3. doing more interesting things with wait time
4. more precise movement
5. attempting to manipulate luck more (not sure how many opportunities there are though)
However, I don't want to spend too much time on this if it won't get published. As this is my first movie here (although I've been a long-time watcher), I don't know what the procedure is.
Will this movie get published with its current votes? If not, how much better would the next movie need to be for it to get published?
Finally, it's been pointed out already, but I just want to make this clear. IN NO WAY did I intend this to replace Phil's two player run. I really enjoyed that movie, and in fact it played a large part in motivating me to try making movies of my own. And clearly, 1-player time-attack and 2-player artistic-play are different categories, so there's no reason to obsolote Phil's if this one is accepted.
thanks,
QBOB
also, on the 2-player stuff
I suspect 2-player would be slighly faster then 1-player, if both were played perfectly.
Many enemies in the game come in 3-man groups, 2 at once and then a third. In 2-player mode it's only one more, and it's two sets of 2. So roughly it's one spawn-wait either way, but with two players you can kill both guys at the same time. Now in 1-player you can often kill both at once also, especially on the early levels, but later on it's tougher. But there is offsetting stuff, like when guys come in on each side of the screen. 1-player can force the third guy on the right side, but 2-player someone needs to go left to pick off the fourth guy, and he then needs to cross the screen to go forward. On net though, I think killing 2 guys at once is worth more than added movement, so 2-player (when played for time instead of show) is probably faster than 1-player.