Although this was entertaining and clobbers one of the better Game Boy games, I worry about the Japanese ROM version preventing an English publication in the future. Not just because of text speed or a new trick, but I think this run might demotivate FatRatKnight or others... and I was really excited to see a TAS with the dragon warp trick.
I think this should be published but I would strongly have preferred it in English. I still hope to see that one day.
I didn't watch this for a long time because of the intimidating length... and I guess also because I thought, since it was an N64 game I'd never heard of it would be a piece of garbage. But this was one of the finest runs of a 3D platformer I've watched. Even though it was well-over an hour I didn't feel like I was bored at all. There's lots of interesting movement choices and cool interaction with the environments.
Watching as many long TASes as I do I often at least have a few lapses in concentration where I start thinking about what I'm supposed to be doing.
Anyway, I recommend this movie and I'll probably be nominating it for an N64 TAS of the year when the time comes. I think it's a good candidate for it (unless somebody improves Mario 64 by 8 frames or somesuch).
Thanks for listening, and that's a very good question - one that I'm pretty sure was at least mentioned earlier in this topic, although I forget the justification for the decision.
Without overthinking it or looking up the numbers, the difference in Chaz's damage output with Elsydeon between level 4 and 11 would be on the order of ~10 points per round because his strength doesn't actually go up that much per level.
Getting a higher end level like 17 is unlikely because one would actually have to defeat Sa-Lews with a level 4 Chaz - it's probably very hard to make this happen without some serious help from other party members.
The difference in damage would be much higher when one factors in Crosscut, but he only has a few uses of Crosscut at level 11. 2 or 3, I think. There's additional time to gain the levels, to make Sa-Lews die with an advantageous party, and to either select Crosscut or create multiple new (and effective) macros.
Although I very much see your logic in suggesting it (obviously, since I suggested it before) there are good arguments against it. Personally, I'm not certain which would actually be faster.
I don't think I've ever seen a game with an overworld map that suggests a spherical planet. Even in Secret Of Mana I'm pretty sure if you go over the north end of the map you show up at the south. You can certainly fly to a place that's at all four corners of the map.
Civilization games try to account for the shape of our planet by disallowing travel over the poles, so you can go around the world but that top is just off-limits. This makes the worlds more like a cylinder. Even then Civ IV allows you to optionally select "fantasy world" as a map option that makes it so the world is a torus. I figure the name "fantasy world" is somewhat a reference to Final Fantasy games.
I also recall older Might & Magic Games (III through V) having distinctly flat worlds. It was even a plot point in Might & Magic: Clouds Of Xeen and Might & Magic: Darkside Of Xeen. To get the full ending of the merged game, World Of Xeen, you needed to unite the worlds, and during the ending the two sides form a globe.
As a math teacher, I'm going to be recommending my school and my friends play this video as a funny gimmick in any classes with a finance component.
The integer rap was already a big hit, and this is waaaay better.
When I donated, I donated specifically for awards... but that was partly because I knew the awards were already happening and I wanted to add to the significance of it. Then the little award icons came along.
I like the awards a lot but I don't particularly care if there's a prize. I wouldn't have donated if I didn't love the site, so if it's used for something else I'm good with that.
Offtopic: Somebody should run King's Bounty unassisted!
I like this suggestion! The difference between Myst DS assisted and unassisted would be under a minute. With King's Bounty... we're probably looking at, perhaps, fifty times longer for a non-TAS?
I'm also pretty surprised that this seems to emulate well. I'm a big fan of the level design in this game, it's some of my favorite on the N64.
I like what you've done so far and I look forward to more of it.
On a wild guess I'd say whoever picked the screenshot didn't listen to my commentary track. :)
I'll try recording it again sometime, although I don't know what the issue was. I was using Audacity, and really don't know how that "lag" could have come into play.
Myself and another guy on GameFAQs found that the commentary had sync issues with the encode; anyone else have issues like this?
I was kind of considering recording commentary again, because I said "Gumbious Tower" instead of "Garuberk Tower", had a weird interruption or two, and missed a couple of talking points I had planned.
Sorry for the delay.
I haven't checked it in much detail and it's still uploading, but my commentary for this run will be at http://www.wrftpb.com/psiv/janus-phantasystariv-v2.mp3 . I had some technical difficulties in the middle this time.
And if anyone wants the commentary for the previous run, it's at http://www.wrftpb.com/psiv/janus-phantasystariv.mp3 .
Sorry about massive sizes, etc. I'm not that audio-savvy. If anyone wants to do something to/with either file, knock yourselves out.
For recommended movies, divide them in categories. Then make up a symbol for any of these categories. Display them randomly, as now, but with the category symbol in front of them. The symbol should give the viewer an idea of why this movie is recommended to be watched. (f.e. the run looks particularly speedy, has a very high technical level, is very glitchy, is very hilarious, etc)
One run could fit into several categories. A legend explaining these symbols would have to be displayed somewhere.
I like this idea very much. Even the award images could be used, although they may be too big and they wouldn't suffice to describe all of the recommended movies.
I also like the news on the main page but would prefer just the headlines.
(EDIT) And I agree with Dromiceius - in my opinion (mostly formed from watching Something Awful's Let's Plays), in a longer video, you definitely want 2 commentators. It makes it a lot easier to come up with stuff to say, it seems like!
Just this week I recorded one for the run this would obsolete and I'd say I managed to do pretty well! My babbling skills are amazing. I sent that one to janus for review a couple days ago.
But yes, if janus wanted to do a two-person commentary over Skype that would be awesome.
If anyone wants a more detailed breakdown of time saved, I've got a comparison spreadsheet here.
There were two full-game test runs completed between the last submission and this run - janus works very quickly!
I'll be voting yes on this, and would love to record a commentary if janus doesn't want to do it himself (I've been discussing this with him).
Here's a new comparison spreadsheet.
You'll see this one is about ~300 frames behind the Raja one for a while in the middle of the run, because of items that are picked up. It does finish faster than the Raja run but the difference isn't significant until right at the end.
I don't see any issues, janus. Good work.
Wow, I like the new WIP. Lashiec looks awesome the way it is now, even though the savings aren't huge (faster by 464 frames by my count) it seems like there are many fewer turns of healing and just generally looks better. I think it was worth the work you put into it.
DF3 is great too. Totally new approach with Shadow/Mindblast instead of Shadow/Attack. Seems like it works out - Rika acts less, but Wren doesn't have to heal, and thus many few actions are animated altogether. Good stuff.
I updated my spreadsheet from before using the new run. In case you were wondering I used the first full-white screen frame before each fight as the "start" frame and the first full-black screen frame after each fight as the "end" frame. These seemed like the most reliable frames of reference.
By my count you're currently 3226 frames ahead of your endgame Demi run and a huge 22788 frames (~6:20) ahead of the published run.
I forget, does Rune have Nafoi by that point? If not, you could fight an encounter or two at the Vahal Fort to get it for him.
He wouldn't have Nafoi. The way the Demi run went, he got it at Sa-Lews, basically the second last fight in the run.
If we've discussed it I forget the result, but can you get into fights in Vahal Fort without starting Silver Solider? Because if not, this involves (1) going to Aiedo, which hasn't even been entered for use with Ryuka, (2) talking to the Hunter lady and signing up for the quest, (3) going to Zema and talking to a guy, (4) a fight, (5) travel to Vahal Fort, where the closest town is Monsen, which hasn't even been entered for use with Ryuka, (6) cutscene at the entrance, (7) fights to level as necessary, (8) probably some healing afterwards... but if you can just fight in the little entrance area then it could be worth considering. I still doubt it would save time given that there are only two fights until Sa-Lews, and how long it would take to get to Vahal Fort.
I haven't watched yet; does this WIP include a revised Zio 1 fight?
EDIT: I just read the topic about there being somewhat of a push for commentaries. I would love to do Phantasy Star IV commentary if that's not something you want to do yourself, janus.
Anyway, during the first Zio battle where Alys is hit with the wave, you don't need to set everyone to defend. Just try to run away. After the failure message, Zio will continue his sequence of moves like normal, and you can run and fail again, over and over, until Alys gets it.
Wow, that is an excellent observation. I can't believe none of us had thought of that earlier.
EDIT: Hey, guess what I spent my evening doing!
