In case you're wondering, Robo still appears at the ending like normal if he's still at Fiona's Shrine. At least, he does in the ending where everything but reviving Crono is completed (heh, finishing with a party of just 4...), so I'm assuming that in your ending it will also be so. I guess the programmers didn't expect you to abandon poor Robo like that...
Anyways, I'm glad that your runs are emphasizing the usefullness of Twister and Fire Whirl -- 2 very powerful attacks for when the last and second-last techs aren't yet learned. The only other real contender would be Glacier, but I doubt that you've given Frog or Marle enough tech points, and it only hits single targets.
Now, a few times for fun, I've fought Lavos with my maxed-out file while only equipping Haste Helms, Beserkers, and the best weapons/armours. Surprisingly, any party has a decent chance of succeeding, but Crono + Lucca/Frog + Ayla works best. Anyways, often one character gets off an attack before inner-Lavos initial Doors of Doom attack -- sometimes all 3!
One thing to consider (I've mentioned this at speeddemosarchive as well):
Using Splash Brothers advanced saves a lot of time against Queen Bean, as you don't have to defeat her arms or endure her long bean-spit attack.
Unfortunately, in the current speedrun, Mario is 6 uses short of learning the advanced version, which would require either:
1) Some extra battles.
or
2) Luigi doesn't use Bounce Brothers as much so Mario gets more uses of Splash Brothers in during previous boss fights.
I'm two steps ahead of you. Here's the link to the first draft of my plan, in case you missed it from the previous page http://www.megaupload.com/?d=26J8DNMC
As you can read, I do abuse the Jump Charge/Power Bounce from Huff N. Puff onwards. Spike Shield is collected, but only used for Jr. Troopa #4.
[...] something about leveling up got confusing around the Koopa Bros castle guide. It's more of just a readability error if anything.
For most battles, I show Mario's complete stats before the battle begins, and right after the battle ends. At one point in the Koopa Bros. Fortress, you fight 3 fights in a row, so I only showed the before-stats & gave one single after-stats for after the 3 fights.
Oh yeah, level 2.18 means that Mario is at level 2, and he has a total of 18 star points (he needs 82 more to level up).
Does that clear up the confusion?
Oh yeah, I'm working towards a console speedrun, not a tas. But this would be a good starting point for a TAS -- simply have Mario do more than 5 bounces in some instances, use Close Call instead of Bow to dodge the Lava Piranha's attacks, etc.
You can't get the Ultra Boots until mid-Chapter 6 (you need Lakilester). And the time saved on Huff N. Puff from getting them early is not nearly large enough to offset the detour necessary.
Have you read my plan yet? I really would like some comments/help on it.
If you're using Firefox, then I would recommend using this to download many files:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201
Anyways, yes, I have watched the existing run at speeddemosarchive. My plan is a potential replacement for it, shaving off at least 20 minutes.
Okay, here's my plan for a speedrun on console. Most of it would also be applicable to a TAS, so I thought you all might want to see it. Any polite criticisms are welcome.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=26J8DNMC
Sorry, it's been a long time since I played the oracle games.
All I remember is that I used Dimitri to get one season before one of the "previous" seasons, and that I was disappointed that the game didn't glitch me access to the "previous" season as well.
Just think of this post as a random enemy encounter. Do what you will with the dropped "item", whether it's useful, useless, or already collected.
Now, this was a while ago, and I don't remember Oracle of Seasons too well, but I am sure of this:
You can "collect" autumn before summer. Unfortunately, this doesn't allow you to skip summer -- you still need to collect that one as well.
In order to do this, your helper must be Dimitri. Just north of the main town, throw her/him over the pit (Link will probably fall himself in the process), and then jump over afterwards. This allows you to swim over to the warp to the autumn area without needing the flippers.
I don't know if this saves any time or allows you to sequence break anything, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
Close Call works fine with 10 HP, as there aren't any OHKO attacks, and subsequent attacks can be luck-missed.
I've been slowly typing out a route for a speedrun, and it turns out that it's not too hard to drop Mario's HP to 1 for boss fights. I've got to the end of Chapter 4 planned out.
Surprisingly, it takes just less than a minute to detour for the Mega Rush badge & jump on spikes 9 times to prepare for Tubba's Heart.
Yes, Chet Rippo is available as early as Chapter 2. He raises your chosen stat 2 levels, but the other stats each go down 1 level.
But "Danger Mario" is not nearly as abusive in this game as it is in the sequel. The Power Rush badge (only one in this game) isn't available until Chapter 3, and it requires quite a detour both for Peach and for Mario. And remember that it doesn't stack with Mega Rush.
I don't know if you can Power Bounce infinitely on everything. Regardless, doing more than 5 or 6 bounces is slower than splitting it up over several attacks or charging the previous round.
Fire Power badge? Are you confusing this with Paper Mario Ttyd for the Gamecube? Anyways, the only fire attack that does extra damage to Crystal King is Kooper's Fire Shell. Not worth it.
Also, the Power Rush badge is a no-go. Unlike the sequel, it won't stack with the Mega Rush badge. And the Power Rush badge is an insane detour to get, unless you're meaning Mario collecting it himself right before the final fight.
When manipulating savestates, it seems that the RNG changes each frame. So simply waiting a few frames before attacking can manipulate whatever you want.
Yeah, Bow's Spook, Fright Jars, Lakilester's Hurricane, Parakarry's Air Lift, and the Up and Away star power all defeat enemies without earning star points. But we're not going to be ingaging in optional encounters anyways. There are a bunch of fights against normal enemies that you must beat, and if the SP isn't required, one of these attacks might save time.
From Chapter 3 onwards, all boss battles are going to be dealt with this way: combine Mega Rush & Power Bounce for massive damage. Close Call will prevent all unwanted damage. Later bosses will probably have Mario using Super Jump Charge to reduce the number of bounces he needs to do.
Therefore, all level-ups will go into FP (one of the mid-game ones going to BP).
For ordinary enemy battles, Power Bomb + item/Star Storm will be used for an instant win. Sushie isn't available until Chapter 5, and using two Super Blocks on her will probably take longer than just detouring for a few attacking items.
Riding Lakilester out of battle is only faster when going up/down stairs. Even then, switching to/from him (since we're definitely not using him in any battles) and hopping on/off him could easily negate the speed increase.
Consider looking at the latest thread for Paper Mario at SDA. I've been posting my notes about timing battles -- I've been procrastinating at General Guy, as there are just so many different ways to battle.
I would defintely get the Fire Flower. The time it takes to detour is less than the time saved in future fights. The question is whether to use the Fire Flower against the Goomba Bros. or another fight (such as the Fuzzies).
Oh, and don't bother with trying to avoid the non-dead Goomba Bros.'s speech -- you want to defeat one of them as soon as possible, as their attack animations are rather long compared to the text.
Now, in a console run, I think that only Bombette and Parakarry should be boosted, and maybe Watt.
But for a TAS...
- Bow's Spook can instantly win most non-boss battles, and the running animation is faster than the death animation. Fright Jars would be even better, but detouring to buy/find them would probably not help.
- Sushie's Tidal Wave can do up to 13 damage -- a great way to instantly win non-boss battles, while still earning SP.
I'm just popping in here to comment on mwl's damage/HP list:
A lot of the values are custom for particular enemies, so someone should check combinations against all enemies to look for "weaknesses":
Off the top of my head...
Goron Punch & Pound usually does 2 damage, but they do 4 damage against Wizzrobes and Lizalfos. They also do nothing against Chuchus.
Deku Bubbles usually do 2 damage, but they do 4 damage against the King of Ikana and his henchmen.
Deku Pops (shooting out of a Deku Flower) does 4 damage normally, but only 2 damage to Majora's Mask.
Deku Nuts actually do 1 damage to dragonflies.
Zora Electric Shield usually just stuns, but it does 4 damage to Like Likes and 6/7 damage to Goht.
One other interesting thing I've noticed is that Like Likes have 3 HP during the day and 6 HP during the night. Maybe some other bosses have variable HP at different times....
I use Glide64 Wonder Plus on the 1964 emulator, and it runs pretty much perfectly.
However, I have a Voodoo 3 video card. If you don't have a 3dfx card yourself, then you'll have to also use a wrapper with that plugin, which greatly reduces its effectiveness.
I'm really looking forward to this. Best of luck/skill!
If you're looking for a low-processing-power weapon to play around with, consider double Lightning. I'm no hacking expert, but it seems intuitive that it would be one of the cheapest (maybe only second to lightning+fire) -- goes in a straight line, no collision detection with walls/etc.
Thanks to the sprite limitations with two players, there are gaps in the double-lightning beam. Consider having the other player hop through them?
Also, I haven't watched the WIPs provided, but do you make use of the guard technique (press and hold B and C at the same time while standing on the ground)? It would be a great way to show one character's fear/annoyance of the other player's antics.
Finally, when you make use of Chaser+Lightning (you are going to use all ten combinations, right?) use both the box-shot (aim straight up/down/left/right when you press B) and the diamond-shot (aim in a diagonal direction when you press B; looks cooler, in my opinion). Take advantage of the fact that the shooter can make all kinds of crazy aiming motions while the weapon auto-tracks.
In fact, make a list of all the funny moves you can do in this game, and plan where you're going to use them all. You don't want to forget one of them.
What kind of switches are you talking about?
If you are going to keep moving past the switch after hitting it, then you might want to jump so that you bounce forward.
If you are detouring to the switch, hammer it (you can hammer out of a spin-dash), and then backtrack.
If you are using the jack-in-the-boxes in the Toybox, a hammer is much faster than a spin-jump.
I know this topic is kind of old, but it was still on the first page. So I bumped it instead of making a new one.
Anyways....
What would you all think about a 1-player 100% Arena run? I'm talking about running through the whole thing 18 times once for each power. No helpers would be used. Here are some questions
- Would this be entertaining enough to be accepted here? Note that I would be going for pure speed as my #1 goal, so I may end up taking damage (thinking Ninja here...) or being repetitive with the most efficient moves.
- Should it be implemented as 18 individual movies, 1 large movie where the powers are done in order, or 1 large movie where a different power is used each battle (but ultimately, each power does each boss).
- Where would be a good place to host movie files for others to view (note I have absolutely nothing at the moment)?
- Should Normal be a considered power? It would be quite boring and long compared to the others.
- Should Copy be a considered power? You can't really damage the minibosses with it, so what should be done for those two fights?
- Should Wheelie-rider be considered a power? With just 1-P, it would be very similar to Wheel (and breaking the no-helper rule), although there are subtle differences between the two.
Note that I have not started anything yet. For fun, I've researched the different powers' strengths, which I've had added to the Damage Guide at www.gamefaqs.com. Before I start, I'd want to time how many frames long all the moves are to really be efficient. Also, I'm busy with school.
Thank you all for your prompt replies.
Nuts. This slightly discourages me from ever trying to make my own TAS.
Perhaps this should be mentioned in the site's FAQ?
When using frame advance, I've noticed a two-frame delay from the frame I press a button and the frame the game actually responds to it.
Is this the normal way to use frame advance? If so, it seems a lot more awkward than having the game register the button press the same frame it is pressed.
If this is not normal, do you have any suggestions on how to fix it? None of the FAQs mention anything about this.
Here's an incomplete levelling chart
http://starmen.net/mother1/miscinfo/levelup.txt
Well, I can confirm that you can finish the game with Teddy, but it just involves destroying EVE before ditching Loid. Probably not the part of that question that you wanted confirmed.
Personally, I've never gone up to the summit without activating EVE. Perhaps the game assumes this, and only checks for the other seven melodies when talking to the queen.
In fact, someone should start a new file (what's the code for 255 XP from each enemy?) and get to the summit with no melodies, then test to see which combinations are actually necessary. We may end up having a situation similar to Zelda Ocarina of Time (there, only two out of five temples are checked to give access to Ganon's Tower).
Huh? Really? I could have sworn... mumble mumble...
Oh well, it looks like we'll need to manipulate SMAAAASHes to beat him, as they ignore defense.
Let's see... he has 52 HP and Ninten optimally gains 3 offense per level...
So, with the Plastic Bat, Ninten can beat him in three rounds at level 5/6, two rounds at level 8, and OHKO at level 17.
Buying a slingshot will knock down the level requirements by one, and buying a Wooden Bat will knock down the level requirements by three.
Also, with regards to later levelling, maybe you could go after LastStarmen with EVE -- they give over 60% of a Red Snake's XP, and they travel in groups...
And I can confirm that, yes, the game does let you beat Geigue with a party of just Ninten and Loid. However, the ending game sequence remains unchanged. Also, if Ninten learns teleport before recruiting Ana, she will mysteriously know the move as well when/if she joins you.
There's really not a whole lot of sequence-breaking to be done here, as this game is quite non-linear, at least compared to its sequel.
The first half is straightforward rescue & return Pippi, defeat Starman Jr., go to Merrysville (long way round through Magicant), get Rocket from factory, get Loid, launch rocket from other factory.
Then it turns open in any order, travel to the locations of the remaining melodies. Note that besides the obvious along-the-way ones (Ninten's House, canary, singing monkey), it's also techinically possible to get Spookane's melody before seeing Loid.
So unless we can trick the game into not needing all eight melodies or discover walk-through-walls situations (there is one small one in Mt. Itoi caves), most of the second-half of the game is just route-planning.
Since bread crumbs are also reset when you take the train, I recommend not visiting Spookane until after learning teleport.
One big sequence-break would be somehow entering the zoo without the key, or getting past the police roadblocks. This would allow us to keep Pippi, who gains levels really fast and has stats comparable to Teddy's. Note that talking to the mayor with either Ninten or Pippi KO'd will not net you the key.
Also, if we could somehow get past the boulders on the railway tracks, we could skip Duncan's Factory. We still couldn't skip Loid, as I doubt we could get EVE without him.
Perhaps messing with Bread "teleportation" could allow us to briefly avoid collision detection...?