Thanks, I understand where you're coming from better now. Can't say I agree but it makes sense at least. :)
I watched the antdgar 1v3. That's exactly the kind of thing I would like to see in a versus mode TAS! Thanks for the link.
Pardon me, Kirkq, but I have a bone or two to pick. :)
Kirkq wrote:
I preferred the other run. I think a "fastest" 1 player (as previously submitted)
As compared to the previous run
Samus - Basically same thing done in the previous run.
Metal Mario - Same thing.
Race to the Finish - Same thing.
Master Hand - Worse than previous run.
I don't support this category for a run, and I wasn't really impressed with this run's "entertainment through speed tradeoffs" as compared to the previous run which aimed purely for speed.
Forgive the mass of quoting; it's only to make a point. Why did you compare this so much to the other run? I'm genuinely curious, is all--would you have enjoyed this run if the previous "speed run" wasn't submitted? Or would you still hold it to the high standard?
The stuff done with items was interesting at times. I guess what doesn't really impress me is the simplicity of comboing by one player in this game (especially perhaps with the limitation of using Yoshi). I've seen many SSB64 tournament videos, and most competitive players can pull off combos like those in the Link and Fox fights fairly commonly. Seeing combos people do in tournaments accomplished tool assisted doesn't really excite me much.
Blaze already addressed this but I want to add (since you addressed your comments at people who complained about the first run) that the main complaint about the runs by other forumgoers is that it's not impressive. You're confusing me a bit by being anti-tournament-moves but pro-speed, when they're the same thing in this game. Besides the point Blaze made that a ton of this stuff is not doable in tournaments, the first video was much closer to tournament strategy for Yoshi (all about that DAIR/NAIR/FAIR). It is faster but you don't like tournament stuff? I guess it's okay if a run uses un-interesting techniques if it's only to beat it as fast as humanly possible? That's fine if you're impressed by that, but you should understand why many of us weren't.
As I said, why publish a slow run through of the extremely limiting classic mode when you could make the much more entertaining multiplayer free for all?
I can't really add to what AKA said much. I agree with him fully--it's extremely difficult to make that sort of run believable, because the premise is that multiple people are playing, but it's less impressive manipulating characters if you have full control over them already. Getting the computer to do what you want makes for a more impressive-looking TAS for your average viewer (because the sense of "wow!" is much less diminished if you can see another player is walking into the attacks).
Of course I also like antdgar's movies which use players, but it'd be hard to make a good TAS of unbreakable combos that last long enough to make them worth publishing. The best would be a montage of short combos (like watching every one of antdgar's 10-20 sec. combos), but that's not something that can be published, is it?
Pardon the long post, I have no problems with your opinion--I'm merely interested in your response.
Alden, very nice! I'm pro-Waluigi as well so that makes it even better. The Abbey Road Simpsons is great too(guess I must've missed that episode). Nice choices for drawing; I look forward to your further work on this.
I don't think there's going to be any clear consensus on its categorization without there first being an agreement on what defines a "fighting game." The Smash Bros. series is very different from your traditional 2D side-view fighting game (Street Fighter, etc.), so it can't be lumped in that category, but it does involve various characters beating the stuffing out of each other. Of course, there's lots of ranged attacks, items, aerial fighting plays a bigger part, field positioning is the primary goal (stay on the level, get your enemy off of it)...
I guess we could call this genre Action/Fighting, but that doesn't really feel complete either. It would seem more like a typical fighting game if you had, say, a Mario vs. DK fight (more standard fare beat-'em-up characters) and more like something completely different if you were to watch two Links go at it or had items on (situations where being close to your enemy is less important).
I still don't understand the fascination with Smash Bros. speedruns due to their repetitive nature (one or two combos will almost always be the fastest way to win any fight in this game). Not sure how to resolve that since it's just a matter of conflict caused by personal taste. I wouldn't see any harm in separate categories for "pure speed" and "entertainment" runs, though having one for each of the 12 characters would be a mess. Then again I bet there's a lot of people who'd watch all of those too. Tough call.
CD based emulation is difficult to achieve sync stability because the emulator should be able to play back a movie no matter if the user has an .iso loaded or the actual CD in their player. But because different disc players have different read/load times, especially compared to the user's hard drive, it's difficult to code an emulator to treat each instance equally. Sega CD was introduced a full 10 years before the Gameboy Advance, and yet we just achieved sync stability with Sega CD 2-3 years after we had it with GBA (thanks to some excellent work by nitsuja and Upthorn).
I thought it might have something to do with the whole "disc" thing and now I know. A split-second delay in any loading times would equal a desync, wouldn't it? Sounds like a chore to program... but thankfully there's usually someone up to the challenge somewhere. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Hellfish, I really enjoyed that "preview". I'm calling it a preview because I hope very much that you'll be doing a full run eventually. ;)
That fight still gives me trouble; I rarely beat it without taking a hit somewhere along the line. To think it can be done so fast... fun watch. I wish I understood why PS1 emulation isn't as advanced as N64 emulation, as there's certainly no lack of interesting games on the console that are begging to be TAS'd, but I've no doubt that SotN is my number one choice for the system. Keep it up!
Thanks for that. It would be an accurate accusation if it is personal but if it's not then no harm done. Even if it is, you can't please everyone, right? Regardless, it's nice to feel welcomed.
At any rate, it wasn't my intention to get off-topic, so I apologize. Of course, now that the "entertainment" run has been submitted I'm not sure there's much left to say here. If anyone somehow missed it, there's encodes in that thread, so go see it if you haven't already! It's excellent.
I would probably take the word of an established site member who has something to lose over the opinion of a random nobody who hasn't said bubkus about anything non-64 related.
The problem with an argument which uses implication is that it leaves the recipient with no real way to respond. You could be being snide or arrogant, but if I assume so and I'm wrong it reflects poorly on me, and if I assume so and I'm right I still set a bad precedent for how I want to be perceived by arguing with the guy who's been around much longer.
All I can really say is that I wanted to bring my two cents to the table here, I thought it was a good a place as any to join a community which is focused around something I hold in high regard. If the precedent here is that newbies shouldn't voice their opinions, I'll acquiesce, though I'm not quite sure how to go about ever being more than a newbie if I can't say what I think. I'm also okay with the idea that my opinion isn't currently worth anything to the majority of this forum's members, so just let me know if it's considered bad form here to say my thoughts if I'm not well-known.
Either way, I stand by my opinion that a good TAS should entertain more than just TAS diehards.
Yes! This is exactly what I was hoping for. I literally laughed aloud several parts throughout this run. Small bits of the Kirby and Polygon fights seemed sync'd with the music as well which is always a plus.
I'm also glad you ran through Metal Mario/Master Hand quickly, there's no real interesting way to fight those two without items since you can't really do much more than damage them.
And tell me this Yoshi doesn't look badass.
No, they aren't. That's like saying that your average joe off the streets would be the best wine judge. To deem something quality, you need to have a certain experience with the subject. To deem something interesting, you really need to take things beyond their face value.
That's a fair criticism considering my choice of words, so let me be more specific: in a situation where the experts can't agree, a fresh perspective can be a good thing.
Anyway I was mostly joking with that sentence, I guess it wasn't obvious enough. I do think that, in this situation, given that we have a fair amount of SSB fans here and there's no clear consensus on the quality of the run, it might be good to have the opinions of people not so familiar with the content.
The average person would look at SMB3 and think "its a guy who runs and jumps on stuff a lot. so what?"
Actually this is a pretty good point; I personally found the SMB3 TAS to be less than fascinating. However, the published run is as entertaining as it can be as it speeds through the game, which is different than what this run does.
I'm also generally in favor of the idea that fighting games should generally have speed as a secondary goal, which sets it apart from comparisons to any other genre.
I appreciate your wine analogy as well but you shouldn't have to be a TAS conniseur to enjoy a TAS of SSB, I think.
After watching this, I have to say yes.
However, I almost get the impression that this run would be more entertaining to people who have never actually played the game.
It'd be more entertaining to people who've played the game and either had no idea such techniques can be done or understand the technical difficulty required. People who've never seen the game are more likely to say "well, that's easy and boring."
Actually, random nobodies are good judges of games, aren't they? Not that I'm biased or anything...
SSB allows for a multitude of different methods you can use to keep the run interesting. IMO there's no reason to use the same KO technique twice in a run, because there's that many different ways to knock out enemies, especially if you include item manipulation.
I think that a publishable run would put entertainment first with speed as a secondary goal; this run does it the other way around, which is the big complaint. Comparing this run to runs of other games that got published isn't really accurate, we're talking about Smash Bros. and there's no end to entertaining ways to play (see antdgar's videos).
Nothing wrong with wanting to make the fastest run possible, that's what you went for here and it's fine. I just don't think it's fun enough to watch to be published. I can picture far too many people downloading it, watching it and saying "that's it"? Fast, sure, but not in a way that remains interesting past the first levels.
Yoshi has always been my favorite SSB character and I still play the game very competitively with my friends even today. Yes, I'm that old-school.
Just finished watching this and I have to say it is a very impressive technical feat. This is an amazingly fast completion. However, it occurs to me that there are so so many ways you could have made this fun to watch instead of simply making it fast. Yoshi especially has a ton of ridiculously entertaining ways to humiliate his foes before he sends them home.
As a feat of speed this is great. As something that should be published on TASvideos, I'm afraid it's not even worth considering. The run fails to be original or entertaining beyond the first fight, and one or two mildly interesting parts afterward aren't going to bridge the gap. Obviously I'm too new a member to vote but I would definitely be going with "no" if I could. Sorry dude, but it's just not fun from start to end.
Ah, so it works with any message! I wonder if it would be faster to call for a pizza than to catch a cold or get poisoned?
If the run is going to be standard until reaching Threed, it occurs to me it might be best to just pick up the "For Sale" sign in Burglin park, since I think you can use it anywhere. I might be remembering wrong though.
Is anyone actually working on this right now? It looks like Halamantariel was starting a redo of the regular game but his last post in this thread was two months ago. Does anyone know if the glitched TAS is in progress, or is it discussion for a future project?
Edit: Asking because TASing has always fascinated me and I might eventually pick it up with something like this, if no one else does first. That would be a couple months down the road, though, and I have no experience (see post count) so please don't take this as a claim.
