I think I definitely prefer being out of the loop for a content site like this, so I can say stuff like "Hell yeah! I've been waiting years and years for this! What a nice surprise!" Which is in fact what I am saying.
In my experience at this site, the well-manned non-blights (Bisqwit, alden, etc) seem to be the outliers. Definitely not saying I'm one of them either, I'm guilty as charged. And I'm not criticizing the people here either, because people just adapt to their environments.
Every time I talk with people who have been around this site for a long time, they agree it's jumped the shark. We then try to figure out when. At first I suggested Phil vs Sleepz SMB2, but BoltR suggested it was earlier. I think we settled on Josh the FunkDOC leaving, although of course jumping the shark is a silly idea and there's more than one moment.
My first reaction on seeing this was "WTF? There's an NES Dungeon Magic?" They seem to be completely different games though, and this one actually came first. Could anyone tell me if there are any commonalities besides the name and Taito being the publisher?
I only know the US version, but that's nothing that can't be worked around with some manual synching. Maybe not worth the effort though, so I can understand that.
It's actually a remake of the Arcade Ninja Warriors game which explains the aesthetic values and the high quality music.
Ummm, have you played the arcade Ninja Warriors? silverjazz is right, this is a sequel. It's really a very similar situation to Kiki Kaikai and Pocky and Rocky, Natsume and SNES connection and 80s vs 90s and all.
I like the composer too. He doesn't have very much talent or anything, but he accomplishes what he means to do, which is really more than most video game composers can say.
Almost missed this because I didn't know the Japanese name. Although of course I thought "wow, another GBA drilling game?" and clicked on it.
Watching later.
I just watched this. I recommend you use snes9x 1.43 v.something instead of 1.51, and turn off the sync to samples or whatever. I had to do that for it to sync.
I really wanted to like it, but it just seemed way too unoptimized to me. I'm not a stickler for that, and I'm not sure how much improvement there is, but for instance, I could do the pre-boss room in stage 2 faster in real time just by running past the enemies.
I own the US cart, and played JP on emulator, and I'd probably prefer a run on the JP version. Weapon variety is something that matters more to the uninitiated. I don't feel like it really added anything, and even on JP version there are definitely times you are going to use alternate weapons anyway.
Also the US version has HARPY CENSORSHIP just like Pocky and Rocky. :o
While I'm thinking about people who should come back, Zurreco should so we can subject him to such heretical viewpoints as "PS1 > N64" and "Genesis has a non-zero number of quality games."
Everyone enjoys Altered Beast TAS! It's the greatest that will ever be created. Seriously, it's a perfect example of what makes tool-assisted plays special, along with say, X1/X2 dual TAS.
Whelkman wrote:
Interesting how the negative opinion of preplanned battles was uniformly dropped once Chrono Trigger came about. Not that I claim Mystic Quest is on the same level of Chrono Trigger, however.
I don't follow the discussion on this site, but my opinion has never changed on any of this. Also, I disagree with most everyone on this site about everything, so keep in mind that anything I say is very much not representative. ;)
Oh, I see what you mean now. Required battles do suck (they're repetitive and all OHKOs). FFMQ just has the advantage that it's very fast-paced. If more required battles could be skipped, I do think that would be better. As for CT, I imagine the consensus wasn't "oh, required fights are fine after all." They found out that actually many of them aren't required after all, which someone with more knowledge about the game wouldn't have been surprised about.
I know it started off as NESvideos and N64 is all the rage, but is this site's Nintendo bias really that bad? I thought Valis was decently famous. For example, I'd bet my life savings that FODA knows this game.
Watching later. :)
Personally, I think only Mystic Quest gives this one a real run for the money.
Yup, FFMQ was the other game I was thinking of, but I wanted to see if anyone else would mention it. ;) Say what you will about the game (such as "unavoidable regular enemies suck!"), but at least it's fast-paced.
BoltR wrote:
A topic that seems to seems to have everyone agreeing upon except us two.
Somewhere in the thread someone said that this runs caters to people who aren't familiar to the game. I can tell you after watching all of it, it doesn't =/ . I've played and enjoyed most of the FF's, but without playing this game previously I can honestly say that I didn't enjoy it.
Relative to other menu-based RPGs, and especially other FF's, it does, but compared to say, platformers, of course not. If you haven't played Lufia 2, try watching that one, and if you don't enjoy it, watching unfamiliar runs of this genre just won't do it for you (so you can save yourself time and skip all future attempts).
Personally, I only watch runs of games I have played anyway. I find every run of a game boring if I'm unfamiliar with it. I'm very much against the practice on this site of people watching a TAS of a game they never even played before, voting "no because this game sucks," and causing rejection due to game choice. That's another topic though I guess.
My guess would be that it gives a point of comparison for the real-life speedruns of the game, just like how all the TASes of Super Metroid talk about both real and in-game timers.
Thanks for that.
That's an incredibly wrong answer though, sorry to say. Even Deign's own real-life speedrun didn't abuse pausing, so the TAS pausing would only further distort any in-game timer comparisons. It's pretty simple, he paused a lot just to have a smaller time displayed at the end. Why? Because it looks cool, why not?
Silent_Slayers wrote:
If someone decides to beat this, should it try and get the game timer lower?
It's just personal preference and real time is what matters, so it's not required. However, the person beating it would maybe try to get the game timer lower for the challenge of it. So of course "should" is really a judgment call of the person doing the TAS.
I've already told Deign everything I wanted to tell him over the course of this TAS's development. ;)
mmbossman wrote:
Question: is this the type of RPG run that is entertaining for someone who hasn't played the game before?
Note: I'm only considering menu-based RPGs since obviously action RPGs have more action and thus more cross-appeal.
Best way to sum up what I was going to say in sentences:
Lufia 2 (10 entertainment, 5 quality)
FF2 US (8 entertainment, 10 quality)
most menu-based RPGs (1-3 entertainment, x quality)
I don't usually think about the uninitiated, but there are some key advantages here. First off, it's very simple and traditional, so it's easy to understand. Also, unlike most RPG TAS's, there isn't any broken luck manipulation you can do. I found FF1 and FF3 US to be extremely boring because of stuff like Bane Sword, Bane Sword, Bane Sword, etc. Just as a warning, FF4 SFC would have more of that problem so it would be less interesting than this TAS or likely the FF5 too (which at least has more varied brokenness).
Of course, entertainment is all subjective anyway, so no way to know until you try out for yourself. ;) And as these pages show anyway (abc), familiarity with the game really does trump everything in the end when it comes to entertainment.
About this SM obsoletion issue, since I never actually said anything, my position is summed up by herooftheday and alden. I'm not a fan of preferential treatment (real or perceived, this is what hurts or would hurt the site most), and I feel not obsoleting the 14% category would clearly demonstrate that, but it's not a big deal either way. The only thing I think is important is that visitors (most of whom only watch AVIs) are able to access runs that they would like to watch.
Twelvepack wrote:
I see the logic in it, but to me it is far more reasonable to list any% if time was the main objective. If low% is distinct from that, it may deserve its own category, but this is no longer the case.
I'm not disagreeing, I just want to understand what you're saying. So if someone sets out to make a low% as an objective, and unwittingly ends up producing something faster than the existing any%, then it should be listed as low% since that was the objective? And the same movie, only with the pre-hand knowledge that it will be faster, should be listed as any%?
As a tangent, I think there's an inherent, fundamental difference in philosophy. TAS's are more engineered, and (unassisted) speedruns are more performed, so you can go by objectives/goals for TAS's, whereas the only reasonable thing to do with speedruns is to go by the results.
For example, we don't have "death abuse" per se anymore, simply "includes deaths." The reason is that we can't measure intent, only results. Otherwise the situation could happen where someone would like to suicide as fast as possible, say to refill ammo, but has to make it look accidental? On the other hand, a TAS would never have this problem since every death is obviously intentional.
This thread actually has a lot of great candidates for List of the Most Popular Excuses for not obsoleting a TAS, pretty funny stuff.
MiraiGen wrote:
Speak honestly - if we knew about the save-file garbage data and the X-Ray in a door shifting trick in the early days of TASing, wouldn't we still have an Any%, Low%, and 100% speedruns?
Just to help you out, you raised the worst possible question for supporting your point, one that opponents to your position would be eager to raise. Hint: it has to do with human nature.
Satoryu wrote:
or does no one listen to the n00b? (first time poster, long time lurker. very long time.)
I'm not complaining because it's natural and there's nothing to do about it, but I always find it interesting how you could make the same quality post on two different sites, with two different receptions, based solely on your seniority.
Twelvepack wrote:
SDA does weird things for labeling their runs, and you linked a perfect example. The scheme here makes sense, and it will continue to do so if this run is listed as an any% glitched run.
Here is what SDA does, and then you can decide which you think makes more sense. ;) I am biased of course, but I don't even think it's close. Also keep in mind that I am not at all advocating any of SDA's policies for anywhere else, including this site.
Instead of thinking like mutual independence, some categories are simply more restrictive versions of others. 6 (low) and 100 are percentages just like 18 (any). Similarly, single-segment is like segmented with one segment, and same for single-player vs multi-player. The restrictions are there to protect "interesting" categories.
This means that a faster run in a more restrictive category (like low%) will obsolete a slower run in the broader category (any%). Now, how do you label them? If you label as any%, then there will be no listed low%. Someone visiting could see the page and wonder if someone will make a low%, or what the lowest possible % is.
This is why SDA labels in the most restrictive category (single-player is an exception for now based on the history that over 99% of runs are single-player, so it's assumed). If the run is labeled as low%, then people will know it's there. Since it will also be the fastest time, and "low" is part of "any" after all, it is blatantly obvious that it also doubles as the any%.
I could draw a Venn diagram but I'm lazy and probably it isn't necessary anyway.
Bisqwit: Creating AVI. Delaying the acception for the benefit of those who dislike quick publications.
Hahaha, that's awesome. This is why Bisqwit is my favorite person. :)
I was going to say something about how popular games get special treatment (e.g. Cpadolf's in-game timer, small SMW, etc.), but this is definitely a super glitched version like a lot of other games have, so it makes sense to keep the any%. Other mistakes don't justify making another mistake here.
Or let's just have a big argument followed by a List of the Most Popular Excuses for not obsoleting a TAS!
Thanks so much for this. This is the most pleasant surprise submission (meaning, I personally didn't expect it) I can remember in quite some time. I'll watch it later. ;)
I support the move getting rid of the starred movies btw. It takes effort to maintain and causes drama, there's already the ratings, and it's basically just the most popular games anyway.
I haven't waded through the gruefood forum (it would be a lot easier if they were sorted by poor play vs other reasons), but I thought of some examples. Sorry I'm not including the links btw. :( I'll include the author if I remember it, to help you look though.
- not yet, but mike89's latest Knuckles in Sonic will get rejected
- Crystalis by tmont
- Air (got obsoleted)
- Puzzle Bobble by SuperHappy (oh wait you already have this)
- Astro Boy by SuperHappy
- Tales of Phantasia by alexpenev on DeJap version (might never have been submitted actually)
- Magic of Scheherazade
- Demon's Crest
- Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (isn't it silly to favor Kirby's Avalanche over this when neither of them are Puyo Pop?)
Dozen was a lowball, I could probably do 50 if I went through the whole list. A good place to look would be runs that were cancelled because the author wanted to fix something but never got around to it.
The main reason I'm interested in these is because I feel that some submissions were rejected for reasons other than the TAS itself. I am 100% convinced that if Crystalis was a Zelda game, or if tmont was someone with a following like JXQ, or that if tmont inflated his rerecord count and pumped his submission and talked about how difficult it was to do... that it would be published. I'm not trying to push an agenda, I don't care if anyone else agrees, that's just my take.
To be honest, the only reason I responded to this thread at all is because you were the topic creator and I saw yours just at first glance. So I clicked on all the Still Looking because yours was so easy, I figured there could be others that easy. (Heh, there weren't.)
It's like the Jakob Nielsen thing. If you had linked to your request, which was in the 2nd post of this thread, I wouldn't have seen it. ;)
