In last time I got an interest to try a skill-based any-% speedrun for this game to see how much time I can save compared to a 100% run and to get some experience in this mode for eventually making a any-% TAS in the future as many requested. And finally I found the time yesterday to record one.
I managed to get a in-game time of 4 hours and 34 min at the last savepoint just before returning to the underworld to fight Dark Gaia. Get the movie in the Skill-Based Section:
http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/snes9xmovies.htm
I completely forgot to buy some large healing bulbs for the final boss which forced me to switch to a much riskier battle-strategy. Read the comments there to know more. I'm very glad I survived this fight since I battled Dark Gaia with a extremely low level (level 30).
I also feared the movie could go out of sync after the known bug before and because of the very high movie-lengh but thanks god it didn't. Nitsuja did a great job fixing this bug, thank you alot for this!
As we discussed a half year ago the leveling up in some parts was absolutely necessary and unavoidable, and I hope I did it on the best locations. If someone thinks there are even faster ways to level up please tell me.
For those who are interested, enjoy the run!
I've been meaning to watch this sometime but haven't seen much of it yet. I noticed some things that could be done faster from what I watched so far, though (things to keep in mind if/whenever you make a TAS of this game):
- In the intro, it's faster to say "No" twice and let the other guys try to open the door themselves (there's less text to scroll through that way).
- You don't have to throw the pots straight at the front of the door. You can throw them through the wall without even moving much from where you pick them up.
- When exiting any area of a dungeon (going in a door/stairs to the next level), it saves some time to do the run+attack move into it.
- When climbing up the chains on the side of a tower, you can jump then press up to grab onto the chain higher up to skip a little climbing.
- You don't need to equip the Crystal Thread to give it to Elle.
Other things for a TAS:
- I believe you now that levelling is necessary, but I think more efficient locations could be chosen for some of them (that would be harder to do normally, like the room with the 7 little stone heads that come up and shoot at you).
- I think skipping the Ra Dewdrop would be a good idea.
- Does resurrecting Mu really help that much?
- When you hit a switch or break a door or talk to someone, or anything like that that pauses you temporarily, you can almost always make it so you slide toward where you want to go during the pause. It might require jumping and fast-turning sometimes, and definitely requires running.
- In the intro, it's faster to say "No" twice and let the other guys try to open the door themselves (there's less text to scroll through that way).
I knew this but never had an idea it would be faster in the end. If I will do a TAS I will definitely check it out.
- You don't have to throw the pots straight at the front of the door. You can throw them through the wall without even moving much from where you pick them up.
Nice, never come to the idea to try this out.
- When exiting any area of a dungeon (going in a door/stairs to the next level), it saves some time to do the run+attack move into it.
I will test it.
- You don't need to equip the Crystal Thread to give it to Elle.
Cool. This one is very useful and would probably save at least 10 sec. Didn't knew that too.
- When climbing up the chains on the side of a tower, you can jump then press up to grab onto the chain higher up to skip a little climbing.
I used this technique while run-jumping to a climbing tree/chain in the surface world. However stand-jumping like in the tower should save some time too. I will keep it in mind next time.
The room with the stone-heads (known as mini-quaker) is a very clever choice but hard to pull off without tools because they appear only 1 time and if you miss them you can't get them again. They also shoot at you and it requires much concentration to avoid the shoot and still hit them. But in a TAS it is definitely worth a check for leveling up.
You can't skip Ra-Dewdrop. It is needed to survive the poison-gas that is in the room with the boss. Ra Dewdrop makes you immune against this poison gas.
Resurrecting Mu is definitely worth IMO because you get the very useful and 2nd strongest weapon in the game, the Enbu Pike which decreases your defense to increase the strenght by full 7 points which makes Ark about 3 levels stronger. It will save alot of time in the later leveling up and against many bosses doing a much higher damage but invokes a much higher risk of geting damaged deadly which however shouldn't be a problem in a TAS at least.
I will test the jumping/running trick while doing a action.
About making a TAS: Aren't you interested to make one yourself for this game? After all you are a very good TAS'er and have a good knowledge of this game. I already have 2 games (Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger) in the queue so I could only start a TAS for Terranigma after about 1 year. I would be anyway glad if someone else could do one instead.
You can't skip Ra-Dewdrop. It is needed to survive the poison-gas that is in the room with the boss. Ra Dewdrop makes you immune against this poison gas.
But the poison isn't immediately fatal. Does it also make the boss invincible? When I first played, I think I didn't realize I was supposed to get the Ra Dewdrop and beat the boss anyway (although it was very hard and took lots of healing items).
Saturn wrote:
The room with the stone-heads (known as mini-quaker) is a very clever choice but hard to pull off without tools because they appear only 1 time and if you miss them you can't get them again.
Actually they reappear when you are a certain distance away from them. And avoiding their shots isn't too hard when you do a dash attack toward them. But for a non-assisted speedrun it's still probably so difficult that it would waste more time than it saves. (note also: those two lizardmen in Zu actually don't give very much experience for how long it takes to kill them - I think they give exp at a lower rate than even the leveling spots in earlier dungeons.)
Saturn wrote:
About making a TAS: Aren't you interested to make one yourself for this game? After all you are a very good TAS'er and have a good knowledge of this game. I already have 2 games (Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger) in the queue so I could only start a TAS for Terranigma after about 1 year. I would be anyway glad if someone else could do one instead.
Yes, actually I started one quite a while ago. I put it on hold when I accidentally erased most of it, but mostly because I wasn't sure of a leveling strategy (not because I'd gotten very far; I hadn't). In that test run, I was at the minimum possible level (2, or maybe 3) when I beat the last-tower guardian boss (and it was a much faster fight than the one here where you're at level 5(?) - manipulating luck goes a long way in this game, although I'm still confused as to how the criticals work and would need to analyze them more before making a run).
But the poison isn't immediately fatal. Does it also make the boss invincible? When I first played, I think I didn't realize I was supposed to get the Ra Dewdrop and beat the boss anyway (although it was very hard and took lots of healing items).
You can't even start the boss fight without Ra-Dewdrop. Its programmed that if you enter this room without it you get KO automatical and appear in front of the boss-room entrance again. Its not the kind of poison you get where you lose your HP constantly but just a blocker which can't be got around in any case.
nitsuja wrote:
note also: those two lizardmen in Zu actually don't give very much experience for how long it takes to kill them - I think they give exp at a lower rate than even the leveling spots in earlier dungeons.
Before recording movies for this game I did a dirty test-run and wrote a list which enemie gives how much exp. to find a better leveling up system.
The Lizards give you 22 exp each which is the most you can get per enemy in this time. In the previous dungeon (Grecliff) you get only 17 for a stone golem and 18 for a quaker/mini quaker. You should know that it takes continuously longer to get a higher level up than a lower, this is the reason why the leveling was a bit longer in Zue. But I also doubt it is the fastest way in the 2-Lizard room. I wasn't creative enough to seek/calculate other possibilities so I just picked a small room with the most exp-giving enemy and this was the only that came in question at first thought. You can also kill them fast even at low levels compared to the turtles for example which have a much higher defense.
nitsuja wrote:
Yes, actually I started one quite a while ago. I put it on hold when I accidentally erased most of it, but mostly because I wasn't sure of a leveling strategy (not because I'd gotten very far; I hadn't). In that test run, I was at the minimum possible level (2, or maybe 3) when I beat the last-tower guardian boss (and it was a much faster fight than the one here where you're at level 5(?) - manipulating luck goes a long way in this game, although I'm still confused as to how the criticals work and would need to analyze them more before making a run).
I was at level 3 before killing both claws with a fire ring (not sure if just hiting them with weapon would be faster) and level 4 before killing the boss himself.
If you worry about the leveling up you should make or get a list (I think GameFaqs has one) of all enemies to see how much exp they give and just seek for a as small as possible room with as many good enemies as possible in there. If you aim for a in-game time you don't have to worry about exiting and reentering the room since it doesn't count the time during the screen-blackout. The leveling up is still the main problem IMO so it just needs to be tested.
Also do you know the time (in-game or real) you have reached in your test-TAS at the point after you defeated the spider-boss in tower 5?
I'm curious to compare it with my own non-TAS time to see if I did well in this any% run.
You can't even start the boss fight without Ra-Dewdrop.
Oh, I guess I misremembered about this. Maybe I got a regular poison, or tried taking that item off during the fight, or just sucked at the fight without being poisoned.
Saturn wrote:
The Lizards give you 22 exp each which is the most you can get per enemy in this time. In the previous dungeon (Grecliff) you get only 17 for a stone golem and 18 for a quaker/mini quaker.
This is what I meant - the time it takes you to kill the 1 quaker and leave/re-enter seems to be shorter than 18/44 the time it takes you to kill 2 lizards and leave/re-enter. If that's true, then it should be faster to move all of the lizard leveling back into that room with the quaker, even though it'd be even more boring than usual to go up that many levels in one place. Maybe it's just an illusion or wouldn't be true in a TAS though.
Saturn wrote:
If you worry about the leveling up you should make or get a list (I think GameFaqs has one) of all enemies to see how much exp they give and just seek for a as small as possible room with as many good enemies as possible in there. If you aim for a in-game time you don't have to worry about exiting and reentering the room since it doesn't count the time during the screen-blackout. The leveling up is still the main problem IMO so it just needs to be tested.
OK. I would take the screen blackout time into account, because it won't be particularly entertaining to do otherwise if it makes a difference.
Saturn wrote:
Also do you know the time (in-game or real) you have reached in your test-TAS at the point after you defeated the spider-boss in tower 5?
I'm curious to compare it with my own non-TAS time to see if I did well in this any% run.
Wow, actually I just found a backup of the run from a search of a bunch of directories. Watching it again, I'm seeing lots of mistakes... Anyway, I went from level 2->3 during the spider boss battle, and it died on frame 90000, which is 2 minutes and 48 seconds faster if not counting the name entry screen.
BTW, what does "Text" do in the options menu? It looks like a text speed setting but I've never seen it have any effect...
EDIT: My goodness, somehow it never occurred to me how long this game really is. I saw your movie title said 4:34 minutes at the last save, but the total recording time is over 6 hours! It'll take quite a few miracles just to get the real-time under 4 and a half hours.
I wish a US version of this game had been released, that way it wouldn't be necessary to decide between PAL+English and NTSC+Japanese. There is a PAL->NTSC patch for the English version, but I don't think that would be allowed, and far too much of the movie consists of dialog for me to want to try the Japanese version.
It is the text speed. You shouldn't change it as it is already set on "1" for fastest speed. Try to set it on "4" and talk to someone, you will see how slow the text will scroll (just like at the end where Ark is talking to Yomi before he leaves in the Pandora's box again).
nitsuja wrote:
This is what I meant - the time it takes you to kill the 1 quaker and leave/re-enter seems to be shorter than 18/44 the time it takes you to kill 2 lizards and leave/re-enter. If that's true, then it should be faster to move all of the lizard leveling back into that room with the quaker, even though it'd be even more boring than usual to go up that many levels in one place. Maybe it's just an illusion or wouldn't be true in a TAS though.
Thats the problem about time/exp. amount. The best way to find the fastest leveling in real time (which however is not always similar to the in-game time) is to set yourself a mark of about 1000 exp. you have to get and then just mark the total time to reach this amount of exp. in both rooms. I think it was pretty similar so I decided to also level up in Zue to avoid boringness.
nitsuja wrote:
OK. I would take the screen blackout time into account, because it won't be particularly entertaining to do otherwise if it makes a difference.
You're right. However if this game has a in-game time we should aim for it instead of the real time as a in-game timer is always a standard time-meter for competition (just like in Super Metroid or Chrono Triger).
Now the author will have a hard decision between speed/entertainment.
nitsuja wrote:
Wow, actually I just found a backup of the run from a search of a bunch of directories. Watching it again, I'm seeing lots of mistakes... Anyway, I went from level 2->3 during the spider boss battle, and it died on frame 90000, which is 2 minutes and 48 seconds faster if not counting the name entry screen.
Hmmm... almost 3 minutes faster after 25 min sounds interesting. Could you upload the movie somewhere? I would really like to see what you did to save this amount of time (if you don't have a reason to keep this secret). You can just use DeHackEd's Micro-Uploader to upload .smv files easy in one step (if DeHackEd don't mind): http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.phpnitsuja wrote:
My goodness, somehow it never occurred to me how long this game really is. I saw your movie title said 4:34 minutes at the last save, but the total recording time is over 6 hours! It'll take quite a few miracles just to get the real-time under 4 and a half hours.
That explains my intention to aim for in-game time. I abused the screen blackout (as it doesn't count the in-game time) to level up quick. Best example is in Sylvain castle where I defeat 2 skeletons (2x 32 exp.) in one swing to exit the rooms after about 3 sec (64 exp. in 3 sec) to save plenty in-game time which however is boring of course.
nitsuja wrote:
I wish a US version of this game had been released, that way it wouldn't be necessary to decide between PAL+English and NTSC+Japanese. There is a PAL->NTSC patch for the English version, but I don't think that would be allowed, and far too much of the movie consists of dialog for me to want to try the Japanese version.
I too. However I would definitely stay on the english PAL version just because of the many text-dialogs and because "Terranigma" sounds more popular and recognizeable than "Tenchi Souzou" (at least for me).
Hmmm... almost 3 minutes faster after 25 min sounds interesting. Could you upload the movie somewhere?
Uh, ok, I put it there: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/281/
One mistake is using autofire to get past some dialogs. You can actually advance dialogs faster in real-time by letting go of and then pressing and holding the button while the text is scrolling, you can see the difference because the little note icon won't have time to appear.
The biggest mistake for a TAS here is that the luck manipulation is not very good, so the bosses take more hits to kill than they should. There's also minor clumsiness of movement sometimes and inconsistencies like forgetting to dash attack into doors in the first dungeon and killing the first 3 enemies with a suboptimal path.
(Getting killed at the end was just to see if it's faster, but it turned out to be slower, at least the way I did it.)
I would be aiming for real-time, because in this case I think it is more entertaining to do so, and I don't see the point of sacrificing both real time and entertainment just to make the in-game timer lower. (Even for competition purposes, real-time would have to be taken into account anyway if you don't want to ignore the amount of time that the final battle takes, and it's possible to go through the entire game without seeing the in-game timer.)
I watched the movie. It looks really nice and very professional. Except the attack-sliding in the exits you forgot in the early parts, the first 3 enemy killings and the text scrolling without auto-fire I don't see any errors. Maybe the boss fight in tower 1 could be optimized a bit more by pushing all 4 Huballs in one line to damage them in one swing, but I don't know if it would be faster then. The spider-boss fight was very nice. Didn't thought you can dispatch his claws that fast with a weapon since I always used a Fire Ring here.
The most important question in the early stage is: Is resurrecting "Mu" really worth the 1-2 minutes delay in the underworld? Doing a TAS it shouldn't be a problem without this mighty weapon and now I'm not 100% sure if this 2 minutes can be catched up later due higher damage. In a skill-based run its out of question to take it but in a TAS everything is possible.
nitsuja wrote:
I would be aiming for real-time, because in this case I think it is more entertaining to do so, and I don't see the point of sacrificing both real time and entertainment just to make the in-game timer lower. (Even for competition purposes, real-time would have to be taken into account anyway if you don't want to ignore the amount of time that the final battle takes, and it's possible to go through the entire game without seeing the in-game timer.)
I think you are right, I agree with you now. Aiming for fastest real-time wouldn't hurt your in-game time that much anyway.
Graveworm:
I don't think you will get that much control-advantage in a japanese version that it would make a major difference.
The almost one year old run is finally available on AVI!
http://www.archive.org/details/TerranigmaAnyPercentBySaturn
Big thanks to Fortune for capturing it.
Enjoy!
Also regarding another run, you can see my 100% run on Google Video!
http://video.google.de/videosearch?q=terranigma
Greatest thing: It isn't even required to download the entire 12 hours AVI. Simply move the playback bar to any part of the vid and Google Video will automatically find and start downloading it from this position allowing you to see it immediately. :-)
