Well it's time to bring this up; If not now, somebody would later. I believe a TAS of FFT is quite possible while still allowing some room of entertainment. Let's start with people's biggest fear.
Yell until CT5Holy win
Yes, the game can be beaten this way. Pretty easily too. Nearly all battles can be beaten in one round, zodiacs in two. However I would equate this to TASing a fighting game where 12 rounds are exactly the same stun-locking-one-move ad naseum. Add to that watching the first hour or so of battles where you run into a corner and yell for turn upon turn, and you've got a real stomach turner. And to my knowledge this would get rejected with all haste, or at least endorsed as a non-habit forming sleep aid. I envision another way...
My theory is that forward progression is key. A way of playing through the game that attempts to meet these vital points:
A)Continually moves forward - Don't stop to level up Jxp, at least as little as possible. With the right build, you can reach optimal setup very quickly, and expand your options as you continue playing with little slowdown in the way
B)Go fast - Sure, you'd want to avoid the classic Uber-Calc, but there are other ways to be quickly. More than just going ever-forward, aim for an uber character
C)Entertainment - Variety and style count here.
Obviously these points are at the heart of any TAS, but they're especially important with FFT because just like a fighting game, you won't win any votes by spamming dragon punches in a corner.
Here's a rough outline that I've come up with so far for a possible, forward-progression playthrough.
[First Story Battle (not prologue)] Have Ramza start with Dash (he can, right? I forget... if not its pretty darn cheap I believe). Bring 2x chemists. Ramza gets spillover Jxp for their actions (their Jxp/4). He only needs 200 Jxp as a Chemist to unlock Black Mage. {Side Note: All characters start any job with (100..199) Jxp, so at best it wouldn't take much to reach job 2} Reach job level 2 on the chemists as well. Compared to the current SDA run where the first battle takes 8~ minutes whacking on an ever-healing chemist enemy, and this would go quickly.
[Character Setup] Ramza and Delita go Knight, both (1? Read below) Chemists go Wizard. Ramza learns and sets Job Exp Up (from Squire), Jp-abuse glitches chemist to learn Phoenix Down (discussed later), Potion (maybe?), and Reaction>Auto Potion (sets this).
[2nd Battle] Ramza and Delita go Knight, both Chemists go Wizard. Ramza & Delita go around winning the battle (choose: Save Algus! for the perm brave points. Brave directly formulates with physical bare handed damage). Wizards probably smack each other for weaksauce damage each turn, giving spillover Jxp to Ramza for job level 2 (remember, Ramza can start with as much as 199 Jxp for blackmage, so it wouldn't take much. Maybe even faster to have Ramza start with near-200 jxp, and have only 1 mage nuke stuff for a faster battle win). Ramza (preferably Delita too) reach Job 2 on Knight. {Side Note: It might be beneficial for Ramza to reach 250 Jxp total on Knight, for reasons discussed later}.
[Character Setup] Ramza and Delita go Monk. Say goodbye to Chem/Wizs for 25~ chapters. Ramza Jp-abuse glitches time mage for Move>Teleport (sets this). From here it all gets better...
Ok, so at this point each battle has been pretty fast. Hardly any-if-any slowdown to waste time building JP, because nearly everything so far has been to keep moving forward at all costs. Delita is strong as a monk, and since he's force to be in these upcoming battles anyway, you'll each spillover Jxp for his actions which speeds you up. With autopotion (we'll be ditching this soon) you'll breeze through battles no problem. Bring our your two chemists for the two(?) story battles that have 100% undead enemies for a quick phoenixdown battle.
Read on...
[The Beauty of Teleport] Teleport goes through walls and ignores height. It's range is 100% (Your max move) and then -10% chance per tile after that. So our Ramza's got 4 base move as a Monk, and with the help of luck manipulation, he can move a whopping 13 spaces (10% chance but we manipulate this). That should be enough to nearly always find an optimal position to do stuff.
[Dash AND/OR Throw Stone] Oh yes, Dash and Throw Stone. Those weak, starter, basic, OH-SO-WEAK skills. I call them the MURDER SKILLs! That's right! Dash won't trigger reactions and throw stone has range. Both have a ~50% knockback rate which can push somebody over the edge (who will then take RoundUp{((fall_distance - Jump) * MaxHP) / 10} damage. Wouldn't take much height to kill them). Dash also benefits from Martial Arts (Monk's have this built-in).
[Hamedo] *THE* Skill. Watch as hordes of enemies hopelessly throw themselves upon your mighty fists. Cancels their attack and lets you smack 'em instead. Works on Zodiacs too. {Side note: The AI has a very interesting habit with zodiacs would rather punch you instead of using a super-ability if your HP is low enough and their "projected damage" would be big enough with the punch to kill you}
[Others]
HP Restore will restore you to max hp when you reach critical so you could live forever as long as you manipulate the timing and damage of everything (can't hamedo some skills and magic). Wave Fist acts as a normal punch but has a 3-tile range. Equip Shield can be purchased without hassle since we level a knight, and could be useful. Monks can use this without penalty to their punching (weapons cause penalty) and shields CAN block a lot of what Hamedo can't (magic and other stuff). Not sure if this would be useful or not.
BTW as a monk (and if you get job 3 on knight, very easy for us) you have access to Samurai. Samurai have the wonderful Draw-Out skill which can do lots of good stuff. Weaken or Finish Off things around you (which continue to pummel themselves on you as you kill them with Hamedo), or maybe cause silence on casters (which will now try to smack you and die on your hamedo). Good stuff, maybe useful for the extra HP they can get. If you can learn Two Hands support ability, switch back to monk and use that for a heckuvalot more power in your punches from what I understand.
The list goes on and on. Is this possible? Yes, it's not AS FAST as the Uber-Calc method. But its a lot more entertaining. Cool moments where you push people off a cliff, watch enemies get countered into oblivion, teleport nearly anywhere on the board, and do lots of stuff. None of that Yelling/CT5HolyFlare crap. It won't be as fast in the later half of the game, but it will be lightyears faster in the first part (this is compared to the SDA). And it would sure be a LOT more entertaining.
/end rant[/b]
EDIT: Just in case this matters, because lord knows I can't decipher this: http://www.ffhacktics.com/wiki/RNG here's the memory address and, I guess, formula for the RNG. I don't know how to use this properly. Ask Nitrodon... I think he INVENTED these things. :)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Thak you for your help! I wasn't able to fix the crash problem until I downloaded your 007test5 version, now it works just fine!!
Switched back to the TAS Video plugin, and now the frame counter works properly!
Thank you so much! I'll be able to start messing around with recording now. :-) TY TY TY
Edit: New questions, please see original post
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Playstation recording? Yay, it's finally here. Castlevania and Megaman runs? So exciting! ...but I can't see how they're doing it.
Ok let's start at the beginning of my issues. When I start recording from power on, everything goes fine at first. I can make save states, play the game, etc. When I finally hit esc -> stop recording, I start to have problems: When I go click play recording, the emulator crashes (Windows has Encountered a Problem blah blah). Doesn't even let me choose what file to load, clicking the menu item playback just instantly crashes the game.
More mysteriously, when I load up the game, any savestates that were created during my recording "failed to load". Any savestates made during normal (non-recording) playing work just fine.
Also, frame advance works... to a point. Only seems to accept my button input every 3-or-so frames, but I'm willing to accept maybe that's the game I'm playing rather than the emulator. But once I've gone into frame-advance mode, I can't get out of it unless I hit ESC and then run the game again. Numpad zero doesn't work, the - or = speedup thing doesn't work, pause doesn't change the speed back to normal, and tab (fast forward) does nothing. Heck, even . (period) doesn't pull up my frame counter like the hotkey binding says it will.
On top of all that, I can't get my USB gamepad to work with the game. I change the keybindings to Joystick, and I can map the buttons just fine (I can reassign to any buttons, and it recognizes the buttons I press, so I know the emulator can 'see' the gamepad, so to speak). But when I play the game, nothing works. No buttons, not even the directionals. I guess I'm stuck with just the keyboard? Yikes...
I'm not trying to complain about the emulator, I think it's a wonderful advancement, and obviously it's working for some people out there, as evidenced by the new TAS's being released. Did anybody encounter problems like this at first? I've read the helpfiles and done the basic steps (plugins etc), but I just don't know whats up. If you need to know more specific settings let me know, I didn't want to write up a huge list if it doesn't matter. Thanks for any help!
Update: The above questions being answered, here's some more:
Everything's working now, except recording (sorta). I built a movie file that goes through the game's first screens (intro/loading/newgame/etc). Here's the two issues...
For whatever reason, sometimes the frame-by-frame-advance would skip on certain screens. When opening a movie intro, it would sometimes "auto-advance" 50-500 frames (depending on what was loading up) and then go back to paused in frame-advance mode. Sometimes when drawing something on screen (a pop-up box for example) every press of the frame-advance would jump exactly 2 frames each time until said object was completed. Is this normal?
Also, after creating the movie and getting past the intial newgame screens, I stopped the recording, and went to playback my movie. Desync!! It works fine until the first 'movie gap (see above)' and that's where the desync happens. Did the movie not load fast enough in the playback (thus desyncing)? I hit Start on the first possible tested frame to skip the movie and enter the menu screen, but maybe I should have given it more of a lead in time for the movie to avoid the desync?
It should be noted that for both above conditions, I was re-recording a movie (a tiny one made during the company logos before the opening movie). Also I was using the TAS Video and TAS Sound plugins.
I guess what I'm really asking is, do I need to give "lead-in" frames for movies/loading screens, and is it normal for the frame advance to sometimes jump a lot faster than a single frame, especially around movie/loading screens? Thanks for any help, and I appreciate all help already given!
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Thank you FractalFusion, I downloaded 1.43 v12-9 and it worked! I still had the sound stutter problem, but when I unchecked the sound sync, the problem fixed itself and the run didn't desync!
Inchi, you are amazing! Ayla was always my favorite character, and you totally made her the hero of this run. ;) Never knew dino tail could be so useful. Can't wait for the real run, if it's anything like this then it's already gold!
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
From what little I got to watch, it was awesome. Unfortunately, my run desyncs around the time you meet, uh, doan? The old dude in the future who you give the seed to. I've left all the default settings the same, and the rom matches up to the smv file. I was suffering from the sound-stutter-freeze problem until I unchecked sync sound. That helped it to not freeze anymore, but the run would desync. Then I re-ran the run with it checked, and even though I had the stutter problems I managed to get back to that same dome, and the run STILL desyncs on me. :( (using 1.43+ v9 btw).
Well you have my congrats, I'm sure it looks impressive and since it just won't play for me I'll have to wait until you finish your main run and someone avi's it :(
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Yes vote from me. Loved it! I like the way you toyed with mines and enemies and such. Don't know why heath ledger rode in Dr. Wiley's robo-copter thing, and why he had Bubble Man's Bubble Lead power. Guess he killed megaman right before your battle? Is that why his power rating was "OVER NINE THOUSAND!!??!?!!?!" :)
didn't batman have some non-gun shooting policy? I must have missed that one...
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Congrats on the absolute most amazing skip ever! :D Just wondering, if you can now bypass 99% of the whole kid-link stuff, why do the planned routes still mention getting the kukri sword (spelling?). I've seen the youtube forest skip where they use a stick instead of the sword, but am I missing something about why it's still needed? Either way, ULTIMATE CONGRATS! Somebody please force JXQ to do a new commentary when this new run is done <3
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
:O thank you so much Hal! I gleaned from reading that thread that I should refer to you as Hal instead of Hala from now on. ;) Thanks for uploading that watching/listening to it now!
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Just listened to JXQ's commentary for the first time, absolutely loved it. I wish he did more of those! I tried to check out the link to the earthbound one, but the only download link to the full commentary is dead/expired, which is sad I would have liked to hear it (pssst I'd love to hear bisquit's megaman commentary that he mentioned... even if I don't understand finnish).
I don't think they'd all need to be funny. I think if they just had fun with it and threw in their own natural humor here or there along it'd be great. :)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Just a note on Hala's example of earthbound, in that specific game the frames saved wouldn't just be on character creation/naming, but throughout the entire game, as each action in battle and talking to npcs and pretty much everything uses the player name at a 1-frame-per-letter rate.
So when it comes to:
The kraken emits a pale green light. The effects on kraken are gone. The effects on ness are gone. The effects on paula are gone. The effects on Jeff are gone. The effects on Poo are gone. Ness uses PSI Rockin. Paula uses Freeze. Jeff uses a bottle rocket. Poo uses freeze. Ness and his party win the battle. Ness reaches level 30. Ness reaches level 31. Ness learns PSI Rockin Beta. Paula reaches level 28. Paula learns PSI Fire Beta. Paula reaches level 29. etc etc etc etc
The above example is just one battle that took only ONE round to complete (I have a .smv of a 1-round kraken fight). Now imagine if we had A, B, C, D, & E (psi rockin) for names instead. Due to the game's frame rule, that's a difference of at least 35+ frames. And that's only on a 1-round fight (the current earthbound tas is a 2-round battle on kraken). Every single battle in the game would, in theory, be 20-100+ frames faster, more or less depending on level-ups and length and whatnot. And then factor in the immense amount of NPC talking that will use player names, and the current tas is 3 1/2 hours long and well...
In the end I would say that A B C D are not as attractive unless necessary. But for the example of earthbound, it's not a mere 10 frames saved at the start of the game. Are 'good names' worth the minutes of text? I can't say its 1 or 5 or 25, because I'm not bored enough to count every instance of names in the current run, but I know it would add up VERY quickly. In a strange way it almost reminds me of the debate in super metroid with door transitions, if anyone remembers that.
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Have you considered shortening the player names? Not necessarily to A, B, C, D or anything like that, but even saving 1 or 2 letters like Jo, Bob, Jan, etc, would have huge savings over the life of the run, given the 1-frame-per-letter rule (I think that's correct?). I respect if you don't based on not wanting to gain your frames simply from shorter names, but don't most RPG TAS's like dragon warriors have names like 'A' for their characters?
Side note, can't wait to see the walk-through-cliff glitch in the run! :)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
so then, according to those youtube vidoes hasnt a tas already been made of this? Although I suppose they didnt seem very optimized, maybe they were just showing off how to actually complete the levels only?
Just curious, how do they hack these roms anyway? Is it something freakishly complicated, or a simple program that lets them remap and whatnot? :)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
for pure entertainment I LOVED this. The end fight got a little old with the graphical glitches (but I love how much you broke the game), but the final hit was beautiful... I haven't seen the computer beat itself so perfectly in a long time. Voted YES
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
voting yes, I liked it, tood bad I couldn't understand it too well.
Also, the earliest console game I've ever seen that references a dead guy in the credits...
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
to mmsbossman and upthorn, thanks for clarifying that. I see what you mean about entertainment being relative, and I suppose that the in-game timer is more of an artificial goal because of how it's numbers are measured vs. real time. I probably also liked this run, if nothing else, for the different route it used, and I think it compromised very little but I see your points as well.
I do see how many (most) people feel real time is better, and I suppose it probably is. I *personally* feel metroid is the .0001% exception but that's based on my personal background with this game and so I'm biased on it.
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
real time will always beat out in game time, for any game.
To be fair, if you applied this to 99% of the games it might work. But to say for ALL is foolish. If there was ever a game where in-game time is important, metroid has got to be it. This series was the first (I believe?) to introduce different game endings based on the time. Even if I'm wrong on that point, it rewarded players with the shocking revelation of Samus' gender because of TIME, which if you grew up in that era, was a HUGE DEAL for the whole video game world back then. Your less talented friends at school wouldn't even believe you unless you proved it to them (showing my age here).
To compare, the Mortal Kombat II run is "longer" than it needs to be, if measured soley on the theory of 'real time trumps all', simply because nobody wants to watch a run of 1 character spamming the same combo ad nauseum. The run is made longer to showcase that UNIQUE goal for that UNIQUE game because it's what makes the game really shine, and makes the run entertaining. With Metroid, Time is one of the most interesting features for those who played this game, because unlike other games, TIME MATTERS in this game. I remember Nintendo Power articles many pages long dedicated to helping gamers get that sub-2 hour time. With TAS'ing, I find it satisfying to watch that time get crushed, and the lower in-game the more entertaining it is for me.
And the pause screen isn't that big of a deal as long as it's not abused... sounds almost like asking an RPG not to open a menu or something. In fact, the pause screen (at phantoon) battle is used, what, to maximize the results from the dropped power-ups? ...not like we haven't seen that abused to death in RPG runs on this site (opening menus to avoid battles, get the correct RNG, manipulate turn order, etc etc etc). So why is one pause screen, which does add a sliver of real time, being beaten to death???
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Sorry for focusing so heavy on the per game basis, which is a somewhat common knowledge around here, except that I noticed many people posting seemed to have a 'one rule covers all' mentality about the game-time and stuff...
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Voting Yes
Entertaining? Yes
Obsolete existing any% run? I don't know
After reading the posts about In-time vs. Real-time, I have personally come to the conclusion that it matters only on a per-game basis. It seems quite a large claim to say that allowing this game is changing the standards of this site. I am not debating whether this run should be accepted or not. I am simply presenting facts which should be taken into consideration.
Quotes from TAS Guidelines (I'm aware these are GUIDELINES not RULES, aka Captain Barbosa)
"Choose goals that will make the run entertaining. For most games, a “fastest at any cost” mentality is best"-is it entertaining? yes
-does this guildline specify 'fastest REAL TIME/IN GAME TIME'? no it doesn't... leaving this open to imagination, possibly
"Do not impose artificial restrictions on the run. Such as "I will use all weapons except this one"See published: SNES "minimalist" Super Metroid (JPN/USA) in 51:05.75 by T.S. (aka. Terimakasih) (quote: The only beams used are Charge and Ice)
-does this break the spirit of this guideline? somewhat
-then why is this acceptable? it was judged on a per-game basis
"...include with your primary goal something like “as fast as possible” if speed is a reasonable factor in the entertainment of the run."-is speed is involved in the entertainment? does it specify real/game speed? Yes, No
"Generally, to avoid redundancy, we only consider extreme cases (low% and 100%) as well as fastest possible (any%). These cases are not necessarily mutually exclusive (e.g. the fastest possible could be collecting no items). In some cases, we do not consider one of the extremes, or even any extremes at all. The exact definitions of these extreme cases is game-dependent."-this one speaks for itself... however it mentions that the general idea of TAS'ing is on a PER-GAME-BASIS... which if you'll notice some of the posts on this submission go against, i.e. 'accepting this game would change the entire website's standards', or 'shouldn't be more than 2 runs for any game', etc.
From the Rules:"We do not accept hacked games (graphics hacks, level hacks, music or sound hacks, dialog hacks and so on). [2]
This rule can only be bent by special permission"-another point that this run should be judged on a per game basis. It's not a hack but the spirit of the rule is per game basis.
See: Submission #1666: emu's Genesis Mickey Mania in 20:42.37"This is a... 3342 frames (55.7 sec) improvement to the currently published run of the game Mickey Mania for the genesis. The movie file is 4637 frames (77.3 sec) longer than the published run, since it includes input, which is required during the credits to watch the full ending."-an accepted movie which is LONGER real time, SHORTER in-game time. The reason for the difference? ENTERTAINMENT
-compare with this metroid run: "The movie is 1477 frames or 24.6 seconds slower in realtime then the currently published any% run... it is 5271 frames or 87.5 seconds faster in ingame time". The reason for the difference? ENTERTAINMENT
-The mickey run was 77.3 seconds longer than the published and was accepted. This metroid run is only 24.6 seconds longer and is being heavily debated.
-a slower movie being accepted? why? it was judged on a per game basis.
I say, let this run be judged fairly according to the rules, guidelines, and prior cases. If this is rejected, let it be for the right reasons. Don't condone it based solely on a giant blanket statement about time, or TAS'ing as a whole.
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
I just don't understand all the cloak and dagger going on with these runs. I loved watching the WIPs for FF6, how the two runners were at points within frames of each other, and comparing the two. I believe a side-by-side video was even made of the two runs because they were so close. Everyone seemed to love it.
And then this, well, I'm not sure who's going to come out ahead, but frankly its a lot less fun to follow because of the "perfection" hanging in the air like a dense fog...
However I do have to say, for the theories and trials that have been posted, they sound pretty cool. I can't wait to see any of these runs!
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Another potential improvement: Kraken in One round! Even though it uses a Psi Rockin beta and 2x Psi Freeze, it's still faster than the 2-round version.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/141716266/callmewoof%20kraken.smv
I didn't optimize it this time because I just wanted to see if it could be done at all, and it could still be vastly improved if Paula's PSI Freeze causes Solidify (shorter kraken turn).
Kraken has 1097 HP, and in Theory could be beaten without poo's turn... if the RNG was nice:
160~ PSI Freeze Beta with Solidify (Had some of these)
700~ dmg Rocket (I've had as high as 707 before)
240~ PSI Rockin (Had a few of those)
That would be what I would call a PERFECT battle, although the RNG would have to be very merciful to grant this outcome. If this can be done with potentially only 3 attacks, Poo's 4th attack is just icing on the cake to give more room for 160~damage variation. The current run's lightning reflect is pretty cool, but its slower and 2x rockets is just so much HP over kill.
The 1-round battle I made is just to show where there is still some potential for the movie. I'm not trying to upstage Hala, or say "I did it better". I'm just trying to contribute in the spirit of the possible-improvements list that Hala's submission has. If this TAS is ever re-done, I think there is room for quicker, "luckier" battles to help speed it up, and IMO 1-round battles look cooler, but that's just me. :-)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Woohoo I discovered what I believe to be a good improvement to the current run! In Hala's current run, the Winters SHROOOOM is killed in 2 rounds, using 2 rockets, 2 PSI Freeze, and PSI Rockin Beta/Alpha. I made this faster, 1-round version, created from Hala's run (I used it all the way up to the shroom fight, the only difference is I memory coded in a bag of dragonite, but easy to obtain see below). Check it out:
SHROOOOOM in ONE ROUND:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1745646862/callmewoof%20shroooom.smv
The dragonite is extremely easy to obtain. In the Monkey Cave (in the desert), right before the pencil statue is the room you use the King Banana. In that same room is a monkey that wants a hamburger (drops from Cop in Onett and Pogo Punk). The hamburger monkey's room is a tiny room with a Dragonite box in it, so it only takes mere moments to grab it.
Why I think this is faster and/or cooler:
Shrooom in 1 round instead of 2
The attacks used are faster than the animations of PSI attacks
Needs 1 less bottle rocket (one less to buy?)
Hamburger already drops from monsters you fight
This beats him with 17 HP to spare, and the dragonite ony does 943 but I've had it as high as the 980's, so there's even a little wiggle-room :-)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
I was just wondering, can the walk through walls trick (mentioned by Hala) be used in the Dungeon Man to access the exit holes quicker? Would this skip any of the plot, and can it even be done at all in him?
Also, I watched the video again and it really sucks how many fights are more-or-less forced upon you in the pyramid and those take a bit of effot to kill (timewise). Can you run away from those? Because if you run away successfully, the battle ends in 1 round and they dissapear off the map AND you have a couple seconds of invulnerability (maybe avoid a 2nd fight?). Or, do you need the exp they give?
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
