Posts for JuanValdez

Posted: 11/19/2006 12:23 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Well, I think it's fantastic. In addition to better played than my movie in general, some of the massive improvements over mine wowed me, such as in Pinball Zone. Many of the new tricks and maneuvers you used were really impressive. Definite yes. Hope this movie is expeditiously published. mike89: Super Hard is only available after Hard has been cleared, so it's kinda out for a TAS. I've never beaten Super Hard myself.
Posted: 10/20/2006 2:31 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
josh l. wrote:
I did the first four levels on Hard Mode just for fun and thought I'd throw it up here. http://ohnolookoutitsaraygun.com/WarioLand4-Hard.zip It's the same rom Juan used, for anyone who still has it. =P It's not a completely optimized run, but it does demonstrate some of the differences in the different mode (the most predominant one being the new locations for almost all the Jewel Pieces), as well as examples of a couple of new optimizations over Juan's movie, namely better swimming and the use of the "Slide" move done by pressing B and then immediately crouching (a move I'm guessing Juan didn't know about). Not really expecting anything to come of this, as Wario is mystifyingly unpopular among TASers and I don't have time to make a serious attempt at this myself, but still thought I'd throw it up here.
Well, I think it looks pretty good. I did not know about the slide trick which would have shaved off a good amount of time. The swimming seems vastly improved. That's one thing I couldn't figure out how to do correctly. What's the trick? You also seemed to have improved a few other things here and there. At the end of Hall of Hieroglyphics, where the jewel pieces are in the same place, you are about 300 frames faster than my movie, or about 5 seconds. That's pretty significant and indicates just how much my movie could be improved By the start of Monsoon Jungle you are about 4000 frames slower than my movie, or about 66 seconds give or take. This is after only the 4 easiest levels in the game. I still estimate a hard mode TAS would be between 5 and 10 minutes longer than normal. But still, I think the hard mode movie is more interesting. I'd give it a shot, but I've kinda lost my motivation to do TAS movies. Wario truly is underappreciated.
Posted: 3/21/2006 2:02 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Truncated wrote:
> >Any specific places you noticed possible improvements? Many, but I think most will be obvious to someone making a new version. For example, the very first level, and the very first thing you do, you run to the right instead of jumping straight away. And going up you stay on the right side when you should have placed yourself a little to the left/middle to have more speed when you pass the passage.
Thanks for the pointers. I really do appreciate feedback. Hmm.. I see what you mean. I guess if I decide to make an improved version I'll have to go over the existing movie and scrutinize for things like that. I'm still not sure I can cut it down to under an hour, as that would be 8520 frames of improvement. But I guess little things like you mentioned can add up after a while :)
Posted: 3/20/2006 9:05 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Truncated wrote:
Just chiming in. I watched about half of this run yesterday and spotted several obvious mistakes. The second boss comes to mind, as does getting momentum before the 0-blocks disappear (the level where you throw bombs or whatever). Several places would benefit from cutting corners better. Also I wasn't very convinced that this run should be done on normal instead of hard, even though I don't know how far off the pieces are then. But 10 minutes is not that long for a more impressive run.
Thanks for your comments. I wish I had gotten this kind of feedback back a year ago when I posted a WIP. Even after nearly a year in the submission queue, I received no criticism like this. When you say second boss, do you mean the plant? I don't think I could save more than a few frames on this guy. Probably not even a whole second. I hit him as soon as he stops blinking every time. As for the Vulture/Clock boss, I hit the pendulum as soon as descends. The second half egg throwing might be able to be improved a tad, but again probably not by more than a second or two. I think the boss that needs the most work is the Cat/Ghost. I'm sure there's a way to score successive hits, but I couldn't figure it out. Regarding throwing the hammer during the last boss, I'll have to go back and try that. I thought if I just did a normal throw I wouldn't have time to move underneath it. Upon rewatching it I see there are quite a few places where movement could have been optimized and done a little bit better, especially in the lava level where I noticed a few major screwups. The pinball level, which you mentioned, was done near optimal as far as I can tell. Any specific places you noticed possible improvements? I also realized avoiding hearts where I would save something like ~15 frames each at the end of each level. I'm not sure if I could get it under an hour however. 3 minutes is a long time in terms of a TAS. As for playing on hard, I'm not sure it would be more interesting. I couldn't zoom through the levels like I did as the gems are placed in more obscure places. Maybe though. I'm not even sure I want to tackle this game again because, as I said, there seemed to be no interest in it and it took almost a year before a decision was made regarding publication.
Posted: 1/24/2006 6:15 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
It's pretty good, but I'd rather see Goemon's Great Adventure, which is a better game in my opinion. However, I'm not sure it's feasible since the game screws up on underwater sequences no matter what emulator or plugin you use.
Posted: 1/24/2006 4:49 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
DarkKobold wrote:
100% sure. You play the dice game 3 times. You would only have needed to play the lottery once. The lottery isn't too far off the beaten path. Additionally, the time you take to rack up the money takes quite a bit of time. I loved your video the first time, but the dice over the lottery made me cringe.
Actually I would have had to play twice. You only had to play once because you had two people. I tried to manipulate the slot machine area on level 4 to drop coins so that I would only have to play dice twice, but couldn't get it to work. But anyway, rewatching my movie I see you're right. The lottery is way faster.
Posted: 1/24/2006 12:37 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
If I might say something... I love watching TAS, and I've enjoyed working on the two TAS that I've submitted, but it's a little discouraging to have my movie sit in the submissions queue for over half a year without a decision being made on it. There were a few other (somewhat esoteric) games that I was planning on doing a TAS on, but I've held off because I don't want them to meet the same fate that has befallen this one. If my run was approved, that would of course encourage me to create more. If it was rejected, that would also be fine as long as I was told what I could have done to make the movie publishable, so that I could do better next time. But to have it just sit here this long with little feedback and no decision, I'm not sure what to think. As anyone who has done a TAS knows, it is time consuming work. I worked hard on this movie, and I would love to do more, but not if they are just going to sit unjudged for all eternity. At this point I just want some closure on this.
Posted: 1/24/2006 12:20 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
I'd be the first to admit this movie is much better than mine and deserves to be published. The two players at once makes it far more entertaining, and the boss fights are astounding. Using death to save time is something you can't do in a one player run. I also didn't realize you could jump while you were climbing a ladder. Oops :) That said, Boco is right that there are some slight improvements that could be made. The text scrolling mistake in level 2 is very noticable, and there were a couple other places where it could have been very slightly improved. Of course I also know that getting the text scrolling just right can be rather difficult because of how it works in this game (you have to hold the button, then release and hold again at just the right spot). I also noticed you clipped objects a few times walking through towns (of course it's been a while since I watched my movie so I might have some of that too). Are you sure playing the lottery is faster? The nice thing about dice is it's directly in your path in level 5. I could be totally wrong, of course. Anyway. Good work guys. Glad to see I'm not the only fan of Goemon out there :)
Posted: 11/16/2005 11:01 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
I... I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything so beautiful *sniff*
Posted: 10/25/2005 10:32 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Well let me be the first to say I thought this movie was very enjoyable and very well played. I especially liked your handling of the boss battles. Well done.
Posted: 10/24/2005 7:37 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
nitsuja wrote:
If a GBA game crashes that probably means you need to use a BIOS file to play it. If you try that and it still doesn't work, keep in mind that there are different versions of GBA BIOS files... see http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2943
It still freezes up at that level with the "normal" bios or the "TS2" bios. Exactly the same as before. Oh well.
Posted: 10/24/2005 3:57 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
I was going to try it, but the game freezes up when I get to the Treacherous Twister level in the second area. It does it on both the US and EU versions. Since I can't get past there, I couldn't continue I did a test run of the first area. You can grab it here if you wanna take a look. Bear in mind this is only a test and would need a lot of improvement, but it's still pretty fast. I'm not sure it would make a good movie. It's pretty boring.
Posted: 5/28/2005 7:11 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
bobxp wrote:
I STILL can't get it to run without desynching at the same place it always has done... <_< Here's the MD5s of the files, if it helps: 6969b418e0ce9079a2d4b3f29de81003 - ROM c9965559e3a9f9453bc7431930981c1d - Movie 0b9f224118f9fab0add390ccf101ebed - Emulator
The MD5 of the ROM I used is 5FE47355A33E3FABEC2A1607AF88A404. I also have the rom with the same checksum of yours. That's the wrong one, as it contains a hacked intro. Don't use that one. Make sure your rom is 0169 - Wario Land 4 (U) (Q)
Posted: 5/26/2005 10:24 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Bisqwit wrote:
Any good reason why this 1 hour movie would be interesting?
It's true that it's a pretty long movie. Platform games are a lot longer than they used to be. I think this movie is interesting because it plays the game at an impossibly fast speed. I'm holding the run button down basically the whole time, which if you tried to do playing normally you would find yourself dead very quickly as Wario runs pretty fast and is difficult to control. Also the levels are a lot more varied than your average side scroller. It's not just a matter of getting from point A to point B. You have to get in, collect all the items, and get out the same way you came in. Plus the levels are very diverse, each one having its own theme, which breaks up the monotony. Plus it's Wario :)
Posted: 4/21/2005 3:21 AM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Hey guys, look what I found! http://www.hcn.zaq.ne.jp/cabic508/rsf/frame1.html It's Final Fantasy 6, but with talking boxes!
So wait, I'm confusedl... PocketStation evolved into PSP after absorbing the power of Famicom, Megadrive, and PC Engine? Thanks for sharing that. It was priceless. Especially PocketStation calling PS2 an overglorified DVD player. My only regret is that I watched the whole thing.
Posted: 4/13/2005 11:34 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
bobxp wrote:
Gah, it desyncs very early on for me. I tried searching Google for the rom in case it was different, but I didn't find anywhere to download it. Shame really, since I really wanted to see this. Any way you could get your rom to me?
I have Lag Reduction turned off, but I don't think that makes a difference because VBA apparently modifies all settings to match the movie. The only other thing I can think of is are you using a hacked rom (ie it has a hacked intro)? If so that would cause a desync also. Mine is unhacked. Sorry, can't send you the rom. I'm pretty sure rom requests aren't allowed.
Posted: 4/13/2005 6:29 PM
Post subject: Wario Land 4
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Now that VBA supports rerecording, I decided to try a time attack of Wario Land 4, which is probably my favorite GBA game. Wario Land 4 is an interesting concept. Rather than complete a level by going from the start to the end, you have to collect four jewel fragments and the key in each level, set the level self-destruct timer, then escape from the level before the time runs out. So far I've done two of the game's six areas, the Entry Passage, and the Emerald Passage, for a total of 5 of the game's 18 levels, and 2 of 6 bosses. Check out my progress: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/nkessler2000/0169-WarioLand4UQ.zip Rom used: 0169 - Wario Land 4 (U) (Q).gba I'm playing the game on Normal rather than Hard, becasue while Hard does thing that you would typically expect (more, tougher enemies), it also changes the positions of the jewel fragments, so what were once secret, out of the way areas are now required to progress. It would take significantly longer to play through Hard mode. My major concern is the movie's length. So far it's 15 minutes, and thats after only a quarter of the way through. Plus the levels I've played so far are probably the shortest levels in the game. This is looking like an hour+ time attack. I didn't realize this game was so long. Any feedback or advice would be appreciated
Posted: 9/6/2004 6:57 PM
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
I decided to start over again, with much improvement over the first video. No mistakes fighting ghosty, no noticeable clipping, and I think I did a way better job fighting lantern man. Check out my latest WIP. This one goes up to the end of level 4. http://pages.sbcglobal.net/nkessler2000/LegendOfTheMysticalNinja2.smv This is the last WIP before a final release, which I hope to finish before the end of the week. One thing I still haven't quite decided on was how to handle the problem of gathering money. In level 6 you need to buy the pass, and in level 8 you need to buy that stupid book, both of which cost $980! By the start of level 5 I only have $280. I was thinking the dice game was the quickest way to earn mucho cash. There's one in level 5 right in the path, but I would have to play it three times to earn the necessary cash for both the pass and the book. If I waited until level 6 to play, I would probably have $500 by then and would only have to play twice, but I can't remember if I would have to go out of my way or not to get to it. Anyone familiar with this game able to give me some suggestions? Also, for Zurreco, the name of the ROM I have is Legend of The Mystical Ninja, The (U).smc
Posted: 9/6/2004 6:17 AM
Post subject: Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Quote
JuanValdez
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
Hi everyone I discovered this site not too long ago and was pretty impressed by some of your work, so I decided I'd give it a go to. For my first attempt, I figure I'd do Legend of The Mystical Ninja, as nobody has done it yet, and it was probably my favorite SNES game back in the day. So far I've finished up to the end of level 2. Take a look http://pages.sbcglobal.net/nkessler2000/LegendofTheMysticalNinja.smv I know there are a couple glaring errors that I intend to go back and correct, such as missing the first plate fighting ghost girl, clipping a few edges, mistiming a jump fighting lantern man, but overall I thought it was all right. Any suggestions for a newbie? Any ways to save time that I might have not thought of? Any ways to make it more interesting? Let me know what you think. Any comments would be appreciated.