Posts for Mijae

Posted: 3/19/2005 6:09 AM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
Hey guys, here's an update. Sorry for the wait, but I don't get too much time a day to use a PC - I mostly use a Mac. ; ) I'm near the beginning of the fire temple now in Greenwood, and picked up a medical herb and strange bottle along the way. The herb is very easy to pick up - it's sitting in a chest right by a lair that has to be cleared anyway. The bottle only takes a bit more time. You need to clear a lair that's close to a required lair... with some good planning you can work on both at the same time. My movie so far shows an example of this, though it could certainly be improved on. The Light Arrow magic though, will take a bit more time to pick up than I originally thought. I was mixing up the gems in my head. I think I'll upload my current movie after I pick up the Light Arrow and move on a bit so you guys can see just how much time it takes. I'm getting better at playing with the slowdown stuff and trying a bunch of re-records, but finding the optimal way of beating the monsters, and trying to squeeze in extra kills on the side, is pretty daunting for me. I've tried to show a couple places you can squeeze stuff in. Getting back to the death shortcut issue, we talked about the first level not having much to lose in the way of gems, but looking over it again, the places you need to backtrack from don't take all that long either. This will probably require checking framecount.
Posted: 3/5/2005 10:50 PM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
Ah, I hadn't even thought about death shortcuts yet. In Grass Valley there'd be little to lose since it's the first stage. In Greenwood though, the route looks pretty nice. There's only one backtrack to do, to get the leaves, and there's a blue tile nearby. Then as usual, there's another one near the boss. (and I didn't know that trick about the dark areas, whew, that'll make things a lot easier) I'm looking over the St. Elles sea area now, and of course that one's a lot more sprawling and complicated. But I remember it having a decent amount of gems, too, since you always had to keep popping back to the town to talk to the next mermaid statue. I'll keep an eye out for good places in St. Elles to death-warp. I know where the Strange Bottle in Greenwood is, and it doesn't take long to pick up. I'll have to check on how long it would take to grab another in St. Elles. As for the magic, I liked the Light Arrow spell too, but it also costs more gems. How much stronger is it than Fireball, though? Light Arrow could be very easy to pick up. You need to go through a chat with a gem fairy to get it, but it's right along the route. Magic Flair will require more research on my part. I never used it too much in my normal games either so I'm not too familiar with how to use it well. Moving on to armor and weapons... the Psycho sword requires grabbing another item, (the Delicious Seeds) and a backtrack to town to trade for it. Doesn't seem worth it. In my test run through Greenwood, I didn't pick up the Ice Armor either, which also takes a backtrack and a dream sequence. The fire floors don't look like they'll pose a problem in Greenwood, but I'm not sure how bad it'll be in the lab. The Critical Sword though, could be nice. The Magic Armor / Lucky Blade combination is sounding really good too, though. We'll have to test to see just how badly each can be abused.
Posted: 3/5/2005 5:44 PM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
The Power Bracelet is the only obvious one I can think of at first. Picking up a decent sword halfway through might help, but I'll see how bad it gets, since towards the endgame we'll have some good swords forced on us anyway. I don't imagine any of the spells besides Fireball and Phoenix will be any good. They'd have to be found, equipped, and they'd cost more gems, and most of them are unpredictable... The occasional medicinal herb might be good, though. I found one in my level 2 test that's right on the main path, and one good herb doubles your life. Might be good for just going psycho on a boss or something. But anyway, I'll stick to the bare minimum for now then, and just comment on what other items are around that might be worthwhile, for future reference. While you're waiting for my level 2 recording, I've got a few "tricks" on fighting for you to think over. My favorite SoulBlazer FAQ can explain this first one better than I could:
The power of your sword always reaches its peak at the end of your swing, which is ALWAYS to the right hand of the hero. So as a general rule, if the enemy is approaching from the right, face up and swing. If approaching from above, face left and so on. This works because the damage counts 2x and slows the enemy considerably more than it would if you were facing them head-on.
I also found during this first run that the direction you shoot magic might make a difference, too. When I shot that row of bouncing eye blocks in the painting area, shooting up seemed to hurt them the most, allowing me to actually kill them right away. I think this might be from how close they were packed against each other rather than anything inherent to the up direction, but it's something to keep in mind. Finally, there's the trick with the magician soul. If you're walking into a wall, the soul will shoot ahead a bit and orbit around a point just past the wall instead of around you. If you're crabwalking, you can do this while not actually facing the wall, and do some great shots around corners. I found a great spot in the beginning of level 3 for this.
Posted: 3/5/2005 5:18 PM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
ALL unnecessary things, huh? That shouldn't be hard. The amount of actual items you need is pretty low. It's just a matter of some simple logistics on when you double back to town and how to get the shortcuts. But I was just wondering if some of the "unnecessary" items could help things go faster. Specifically, the Power Bracelet.
Posted: 3/5/2005 3:24 PM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
Hey Zurreco, thanks for the welcome. I'll give the usual beginner's spiel: I know this sucks ass! ; ) This movie sucks even more ass than usual because I actually wasn't planning to show it to anybody until I saw the latest laments about a lack of anybody working on it. This is literally the first run I've ever done. I was figuring out how to get the re-records to work at all as I went along... that's the moments when my character stops all of a sudden. I say I don't think I could do a good run because I still don't understand some of these basic mechanics of making these movies in the first place. I'm completely clueless about luck manipulation and other advanced tricks. I love the sound of the frame advance feature, but haven't figured out how to get it to work yet. What I do know I can put together for now though, is a halfway decent alpha run that demonstrates the bare minimum route, and is easier for a speedrun master to build off of than the big-map-of-the-whole-game plan. I think I will do this movie over though, before I go into recording for Level 2. I can definitely avoid taking pointless damage, and I'd like to test out some of your questions. I have a vague memory of walking up to the Mantis boss equalling instant death, but who knows what kind of crazy crap you can do in a tool-assisted movie!
Posted: 3/5/2005 9:09 AM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
Yeah, the gambling is entertaining too in its own way. Just walk in, abuse the system, and escape with your ill-gotten winnings! Er... wait, you said the gambling would be slower? Never mind, then.
Posted: 3/5/2005 7:39 AM
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Mijae
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/5/2005
Posts: 7
Hi guys, I'm a long-time lurker here. And Hamm, you must be my long-lost twin or something, because after I found this site and downloaded a bunch of the published movies, I came to these forums hoping to hear word of what was coming next... and was really looking for Crystalis and Soul Blazer runs! They're also two of my favorite games. I don't think I'd have the patience to do anything close to a full perfect run on major slowdown... and I certainly don't know how to do any of this intense hex-editing stuff or figuring out respawn counters or anything like you guys have been doing. But I think I could help you guys out by at least doing an instructive walkthrough movie of the basic Soul Blazer route by just going through the game and picking out the bare minimum of monster lairs you need to hit. I do know Soul Blazer pretty well. Long before I knew of this site, as a kid I liked to try and mess with the route to get as many floating spirits as possible. (You skip the people who establish the buildings and instead release the other people that would go inside. Hmm... that would be an interesting movie too.) I've already got an example of the first level done. I'm just learning how to do the re-recording stuff, so in some places I played with what I could do with the slowdown and tried to make things nice and quick and exact, and in others... well, I didn't. ; ) But it does highlight the bare minimum route of who you need to free, what you need to get, and where to use it. Also, I am proud of a couple of my slow-down fights, especially the part where I free Lisa, and the parts in the painting where I let loose with the fireballs. I think this is a good sign that with the "crab-walking" and the stylish use of magic, in the hands of an experienced runner this movie could have some very entertaining battles. Here's my run-through so far up to the level 2 entrance: http://www.mijae.com/etc/SoulBlazerAlpha.smv I have a route planned out for all of level 2, but this will take me longer as it actually requires some slowdown skill in places. For instance: optimization of damage (to zip across hot fire floors later) and walking in the dark. And beating the boss. : P Although... the path to get a mandatory item (the leaves) takes me literally right past the Spirit of Light. It would take just a couple frames to face left and talk to him... but then a bit longer to get through his text. As cool as it is to see a speedrunner just prance through a dark area (like in the Battle of Olympus movie, for instance), it can be a bit boring to watch sometimes, too. I don't know.