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Out of boredom (since right now I really just dont want to play minish cap), I thought I'd check out this game, as it was on the 'games that could be tased' list. I wondered why, but it turns out that it wouldn't be too bad of a candidate for a tas, since you can manipulate a considerable amount of things to go your way in battle, although it would require a fair bit of planning for it to go smoothly.
here is what I did in the last 2 hours, random encounters can be manipulated away to a point, but after that you cant avoid them it seems, but thats not too bad as you should be able to force it to always give you a lead off attack, even though you probably wont always need one (since you shouldn't have to wait many frames before being able to successfully run anyway).
comments, etc. are welcomed
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Tombad wrote:
As impressive as ever. The speed really makes this game shine in TASing.
Anyway, I wondered why you used the card combo in the save room at Abyss Stairway, yet in all the subsequent saverooms you didn't?
Something I missed here, I presume.
He ran out of mp just prior to entering the room and because of that the DSS wore off, thus needing reactivating after refilling mp at the save.
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Zurreco wrote:
Atma wrote:
Axe takes 12 mp, and does 35 damage per axe, and can only hit once per throw
I have some issues with this statement, but I'm not able to get on IRC and talk to you, Atma. I think its possible to hit 2 times, if not 3, with the axe.
I checked this out a bit on several bosses, and not one of them I could get to receive two hits from an axe.
An axe hits graham 2 on the very first possible frame for damage. However, since the axe hits on the lowest possible point of the arc on the way down, I can throw one sooner, pretty much right when i hit the ground. Even with this benefit of early throwing however, i checked this before, and again just now, and its 61 frames before i can actually deal a second hit with the axe. I guess they did it that way because of the strength of the axe, similar to how you can only throw one at a time.
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McBAIN wrote:
THe run looked truely nice, and as you've described in the movie description, it's bad-ass :P
However, i have my doubts about using the axe against Graham3 instead of the holy cross. Is the holy cross really slower? I know it takes up a big chunk of MP, but it also does a great deal of damage towards Graham.
I'll vote after i've gotten your anwser.
By holy cross do you mean the blue one I throw at the creaking skull in the beginning, or the one i use against the manticore?
here's how things work out:
Julius has 500 MP, and 4 'spells'. Holy water, axe, cross, grand cross.
Holy water takes 10 mp, and is completely ineffective against graham.
Axe takes 12 mp, and does 35 damage per axe, and can only hit once per throw
Cross takes 25 mp, and at most can deal 3 hits for 13 damage each, for a total of 26-39, but requires me to go next to the doors to get the three hits in, otherwise its 2.
Grand cross takes 150 mp and deals 6 hits of 22, for a total of 132 damage.
Given this, were i to use 3 grand crosses, I'd get a massive 396 damage out of it, and would have to spend almost the rest of the time whipping, which woudl take ages. i use somewhere in the range of 35-38 axes (not sure on exact number right now), which deals a total of 1225-1330, for only slightly higher overall cost to that of three grand crosses.
Given that Julius' mp doesn't recover as somas does, you cant get more out of it than whats available, and thus axes are the best choice for damage vs mp consumption (since whipping is done inbetween and does 17 damage per hit to fill out grahams health, as he has 2000 hp in his second form).
I think that should cover your question :)
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Well at a combination of Xkeeper and Zurreco's opinions and such from IRC, I'm going to test out a different boss strategy and an alternate path (which I'm highly doubting will actually be faster, but still) on this one. If it turns out to be faster (and potentially more entertaining), I'll cancel this one and submit a new one.
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KDR_11k wrote:
Doesn't the jumpkick have higher horizontal speed than normal walking? Seems like that to me. As long as your kicks land on enemies or candles it should be faster to move that way (especially since you can do a new kick after kicking something). Or am I missing something?
I did notice that (rather late at that), but I'm not even sure where I would've began trying to optimize something like that, as it has a ton of different possibilities going for it, so I decided against it for visual smoothness.
Bag: I covered that one in the submission text, so just browse over the first paragraph.
Tub: hahaha, I'll be back on it soon, dont worry.
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Bag of Magic Food wrote:
SMA? Super Mario Advance?
probably missed the vital 'S' on SMAS, I pondered doing a smas lost levels luigi tas after finishing minish cap, but decided against it as I dont know mario games extensively, especially a game such as that which probably has several useful glitches I wouldn't know about, nor how to use.
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Ok, I figured I'd give Julius mode a shot at a tas, and this is how it turned out. Of course, that's a test run, with the final path not yet determined.
Note that this is done on normal mode, as this game offers absolutely nothing extra to neither the viewer or maker of the tas, except extra length, and i dont think longer boss battles would be enjoyable to watch.
any feedback for this one?
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daniayaw wrote:
hmm.. i didnt even watched your movie yet.. but.. dont you think, that, if even you know its sloppy, you should fix it before go on? ^^
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Thanks to Atma, I´ll restart it.
I want hear more opinions!
So I´ll leave it there! Har, Har, Har...
I could've been much more brutal in criticism, but I couldn't be bothered.
Anyways, I'd reccomend you scrap your run in the version of vba you are using, which is likely to be 15, and upgrade to 17.1. 15 fucks up the sram somewhat (in this game at least), which is -clearly- visible when you check out the soma file. I was able to do over 14,000 damage with the black panther soul to manticore 0_o when i tried it out, even though the sram was fine when i recorded initially.
That problem isnt present in the latest version.
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I voted 'meh'.
Stuff I didn't like:
In the earlier levels, if you could call them that, you destroyed a ton of stuff before it got on screen, and generally just dragged the sceen along behind you. I thought that be un-entertaining to watch. While in later levels you improved that, the earlier levels left an impression that made me think 'I wonder if he's going to drag it along again for a while' at the beginning of later ones.
With the part just after you go the laser you left many many red balls on the screen, and more or less just carved yourself a straight path through them. I think that destroying a hell of a lot more of them or making a weird pattern through them would've been better.
Stuff I did like:
The first volcano part. I thought it was rather entertaining how you destroyed as much as possible while moving damned fast.
The earlier half of the red ball area with the clouds looked nice, you destroyed practically everything, although you missed a part.
Random stuff:
I kind of think that you should've utilized more powerups, like options and a different weapons perhaps, it seems kind of wasteful to only get one weapon and use it the entire time.
Overall, while I can see that a fair bit of effort was put in, given the nature of the game I think it's hard to keep the viewer entertained, since whatever you do can get rather stale after a while.
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
--to Atma:
I didn´t say you should die, but you should always
look like having suicidal tendencies.
I can't exactly see that as being a good point for a game like this, suicidal tendancies, as you put it, would more or less have you being hit by random enemies to cause damage to lower your health, to make it look like one hit and you're dead. That to me would hardly prove enjoyable to watch. Unless you're talking about something totally different.
About the rom, I just don´t know. I think the (U) & the
(E) version should have different headers. If Zurreco
uses the (U) one, why does he press start so many times at the very
start of it?
From the few runs of his I have, he presses no more buttons than neccessary to advance at the optimal pace, at which he's very good at doing in this game. His text optimization is excellent, and I'm reasonably sure he could save a few frames on the dialogues I did in my tas, despite them being pretty well optimized.
And my main target isn´t make the fastest run.
I want to make it fast and enjoyable.
Essentially enjoyable.
I think doing it on hard mode would pull away from that. Hard mode offers a grand total of -nothing- that adds to entertainment value in this game. It simply makes it so it takes longer to kill everything, which would degrade the viewing experience in my opinion.
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/*- wrote:
sorry to once again ask Zurreco, but what is the castle entrance glitch? i checked the Aria website and gamefaqs secrets... nothing. just curious.
entrance glitch.
At least, I think that's the one you're referring to. that was a quick and unclean job to demonstrate it, but should be a sufficient visual explanation.
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Forte totally owns, and is so much cooler than Rockman.
I saw the progress of this while it was underway, so its easily a yes vote, extremely well played, and surprising too.
though a question, since you managed to zip after beating Tenguman, wouldn't it have been possible also with Burnerman, since a bridge forms over the spikes there too?
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pirate_sephiroth wrote:
--I think a good run is something like a Formula 1 race, but the cars must not have brakes and the pilots must be totally drunk.
So basically you think it should be rather sloppy and shortly into the run you should die?
--About my run, IT´S NOT THE SAME AS ZURRECO´S.
I´m not competing or trying to best him.
I personally think you would have difficulty trying to beat Zurreco's run when its done, he's an evil evil frame hunter that guy :P
also, regarding this:
<pirate_sephiroth> it´s atma´s aria of sorrow. it just refuses to work properly, although its the correct rom
<AnotherGamer> Well I don't get how it's supposedly in .fcm form
<AnotherGamer> Must've got the wrong movie
<pirate_sephiroth> It´s the same as the vbm one. I don´t know where´s the problem
<pirate_sephiroth> The only differece is the extension
<pirate_sephiroth> The header says it´s ok
<pirate_sephiroth> Um... I see it now... The header is WRONG! It´s for the US version. Zurreco and I use the Europe one.
While when i submitted it, it was a vbm, I only just downloaded it and noticed (and laughed a bit), just rename it to vbm and it'll work fine in the US rom (I just renamed it, and watched it without problems).
Note that Zurreco also uses the US rom, not the European rom, as when recording from power on, the European rom has a language select menu, the US version doesn't.
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Baxter wrote:
You should definately play it on a keyboard. Making a tool-assisted movie is not like playing a game normally. You need to play it frame by frame anyway, so a controller won't help you with that.
I disagree to a point. I use a controller while doing TAS, and i find it to be somewhat more convenient for it. Albeit it sucks that joytokey doesn't work for me, otherwise i could map frame advance to my controller also (gah @ vba for lacking that, gens has it though).
A controller is better for things that require many button to be pressed at once, eg. an ingame reset code, which you cant really do with a keyboard unless you happen to map multiple keys to one button.
I guess it comes down to preference, I'd hate to make a tas while using a keyboard, simply because I can do it fine on a controller (except left+right/up+down).
In regards to the actual topic, why avoid the glitches if they give a faster time? unless they're like the murder beam in super metroid. I wouldn't mind seeing a run of this, but i guess you have to be entertaining with what (crappy) items you'll get.
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Actually, Gens+ could possibly be a good consideration for a rerecording emulator, it supports genesis, sms, sega cd, and game gear.
However it still has that problem with sega cd that is it doesn't save -everything- in a save state, hence if you're playing say sonic cd, and have a savestate in the third act second zone in a good future, and load it from the beginning, it wont do shit all except just sit there stupidly and play music while the game is frozen. I didn't try gamegear emulation, but at the least the sms emulation seemed a little laggy.
The rest I have no idea on.
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Megafrost wrote:
Update. Savestate 9 leads to my entering the Nightmare room. Movie ends after I've collected the gravity suit.
Not a real big update, but I'm betting some of you want to see what I did to Nightmare.
Very impressive, I was expecting that fight to take much longer but you totally owned it like it was a space pirate.
Also, its really cool how you used the space jump+speed booster to plow through enemies on your way to nightmare and such, i take it that its an even faster way of moving vs just the plain running speed boost?
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Megafrost wrote:
Uh oh...as fast as my run is, it looks like there is a lot of room for improvement. I've only been hitting the Core-Xs with two missiles at once when they spawn...but apparantly it is possible to hit them with two missiles after they spawn, reducing the time I have to wait for them to stop flashing(since I can hit with two at a time).
Don't worry, I'm not gonna throw away this run. It just means that I'll have to make another(or get someone else to do it) once I'm done with it.
Wouldn't it be feasible to record the more optimized fights in another vbm and then hex them into your current run?
I'd think as long as you end the fights in the same spot, or hex it appropriately to account for the distance differences, it'd potentially be possible to add the speedier fights to your current run without a massive amount of time being consumed redoing the entire thing. the only problem would be if it effected room by room x randomness.
Just a random suggestion.
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new page gives new lazy link.
http://www.kraftfam.org/~david/fusion0percent.zip
I must say, this is really shaping up to be an incredible run to watch, especially given the games linearity. I'd almost go as far as to say that when its finished it'll be star worthy material.
I cant wait to see the nightmare fight when you get there, though that seems to have lag issues, or at least it did when i played it.
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Tub wrote:
hehe.. you like giving small riddles to check if your viewers still pay attention, hm? ;) first the mention of the "blatant mistake" in your first WIP, now the "unexpected thing".. I didn't name it, so you gave me a hint, how nice of you :) how many hints do I get before you reveal the secret of your bomb-cannon? :p
Bingo, you got it :P I figured I'd give it a shot at least, since it'd be surprising to the viewer, as usually you'd not even bother with the gust jar on most things (except where required). Hell, it got more use in this dungeon than the first (excluding leaf riding), and was handy since it saved at least 90 frames.
so, what's next?
get your new sword
Done, its shiny and white and green.
[*] go down mt. crenel - is this route faster than the one used in your testrun? I did both in 25% without rerecords and was a few frames faster (though both of my attempts were slower than the optimized part in your testrun)
I think I tried that route on my test run, and it turned out being a few frames slower than the way I took. I'm going to try another different route this run to see if its faster again.
[*] don't forget to open the town's wind crest someday, either on your way from mt. crenel to the sacred realm, or on your way back there to Castor Wilds.
I'll test to see which is faster, before or after getting the split ability. Probably after I'd think, but who knows.
[*] just slightly entering Castor Wilds is enough to trigger the pegasus boots quest. (and not entering Castor Wilds is not)
Hmm, thanks for pointing this one out, that'll save about 3-7 seconds I reckon. I just checked and once you enter castor wilds you can just turn around and walk right back out, skipping pointless unrequired text :)
[*] open up the path below Lon Lon Ranch this time
On my todo list.
[*] Castor Wilds etc.. your testrun-route looked good to me. (except for not cutting that piece of grass down early, but that was mentioned already)
[/list]
While it will almost certainly be faster, I'll check it out to make sure. I didn't actually cut it on the test run because all other places where you shrink, the environment around you changes back to an unaltered state (read: grass grows back), so the grass staying gone was unexpected.
I'll probably have the next wip up in about 3 or so days, depending on laziness and other factors.
