Posts for Spoony_Bard

1 2 3 4
15 16
Posted: 8/12/2006 11:47 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I finally got around to watching this, and I'm liking how it's turning out. Your movements seem smooth and well-planned (which is always the hard part of 3-D games) and you cleared Mumbo's Mountain in short order. Also, I don't know if this was brought up before, is there any way to keep the intro sound from desyncing with the video? I keep seeing Grunty leaving her chamber before she's finished speaking. I think this has been brought up before, but did anyone find a way around it? It hasn't affected the gameplay, thankfully so it's merely a cosmetic thing.
Posted: 8/3/2006 9:26 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Unfortunately I get the same 'hop in the lava and die after using Bombchus in Dodongo's Cavern' desync. The run was looking great up till then, though.
Posted: 6/27/2006 6:28 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
There is a GBA version coming out later this year, but who knows who many changes will be made to it? As for the SNES version, I think it's unlikely the translation patches are going to be updated at this point. If you take the most comprehensive english patch and make the run using that, making sure to link to the patch, there should be no problems and little chance the translators will come to it years later and say "Oh look we left these few errors, let's fix them". This works fine for games like FF5 that have had full english patches for awhile. For games that haven't been translated yet, or have patches currently being worked on, it would be best to wait until it was as finished as possible. And wait for some time after that to be safe. The same could be done for hacked roms, of course. A few updates to Super Metroid Redesign came out days after its initial release.
Posted: 5/31/2006 11:35 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I have a save file to use: http://www.rpgclassics.com/~onlinelife/MetroidFusion(J).sav I played the JP Fusion awhile back because I wanted to see the Hard Mode. It's essentially the same as Zero Mission's. In order to access it, though, you have to selected a compelted normal game and choose to start over on Hard, you can't get Hard Mode if you use an empty slot, for some reason.
Posted: 5/29/2006 11:51 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I wouldn't like the idea of a TAS of the regular game, since it would just be redundant with the NES versions. However if a hacked SRAM or something else would be accepted to allowa style of gameplay otherwise unattainable in the original or SNES versions then that would give us something new to see, and that I'd support.
Posted: 5/26/2006 10:10 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I've never heard of age affecting anything other than the ending, but I suppose it's possible. It'd would take some testing. Unfortunately the festival is far enough into the game that restarting it over and over again to try out different ages would be a pain. You could always try hex-editing in different keystrokes in the beginning to select a different age. But if the age DOES affect more than the ending then the different randomization would desync the movie pretty quick, I'd think. Regarding how the boost-grab trick makes the game so easy, perhaps another seperate run could be made without it? If the trick could be lumped under the same category as, say, holding left and right in the Tiny Toons Adventures game for the NES it could be justified. You may not need a modified controller to do it in real time, but it would also be downright impossible to manage in real time to the extent you pull it off in your movie. So if a run made without boost-grab were done you could make a case for it if it differed enough from the run with boost-grab, which I imagine it would. Buuut, get this current one done first. Then we'll see what the reaction is, eh? :)
Posted: 5/26/2006 12:59 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Wowzers. That boost grab trick works wonders for this game. It even allows you a certain level of 'flight', bypassing many of the game's obstacles and netting you some insane times. A few of those 'war' levels in the third area lagged the movie to hell with the explosions in the background. Didn't desync it though. It's a pity you're skipping all the skippable cutscenes, I can understand why, but some of em are amusing. A lot of the charm of the game lies in the humor... but if someone wanna see it that badly they can play it themselves. I love how you owned Cerberus Alpha, you made fighting it look easy. I always had trouble with that boss, ALMOST as much as Phoenix Gamma. So seeing how awesome this trial is turning out, how do you think the prospects look for a 100% run, collecting all the Gold gems? A 100% run would hopefully differ enough from this one to warrent it, and we'd get to see the full ending. This was all discussed before, of course, but I'd like to see a 100% run. Also, the 'age' you input alters one of the final parts of the ending, as well. Just an aesthetic thing, more than anything else though.
Posted: 5/25/2006 8:52 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Yeah, that's why I thought it would only make things easier on the runner's end, but it probably won't make the movie faster. The Germlin soul, though, might be worth considering, unless there's another yellow soul he'll need to use at all times.
Posted: 5/25/2006 10:39 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Death's Scythe increases your Luck Stat, as do Ghost Dancer's or Gremlin's Soul. Higher LCK stat generally means you have an easier time getting souls, but since you're manipulating luck anyway it may not make a huge difference. But you should at least test it out, using it might make things a bit easier on your end. Maybe.
Posted: 5/20/2006 12:04 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
The Guardian Claw(s) are Rika's best weapon, aren't they? You even find them in the Strength Tower on Ryucross so it wouldn't be a huge detour to get them. A lot of really good equipment is in the two mandatory towers. As for the third (which you'd need to return to Ryucross with the Elsydeon to enter) has another Guardian Mail, not to mention Megid. But Chaz probably doesn't need Megid for a TAS.
Posted: 5/12/2006 6:01 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Kay, Atma's version was much more watchable, but I STILL ran into the 'savestate not from current movie' problem with his movie too. Different version of the patch as Saturn's also... and yes, both were hard patched. Strangeness. Still, wow, long game. And that escape sequence was intense. I'm left wondering, though, the Wrecked Ship seemed to have been totally written out, I wonder if he ever made use of those graphical tiles in areas Atma's run didn't go to?
Posted: 5/11/2006 10:52 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I have it hard patched, yeah. The movie doesn't desync or anything. But every savestate I make while watching it won't allow me to load, giving me a 'This snapshot not from this movie' error message. I even restarted the movie and made a different save near the beginning, and tried to reload it a moment later and it gave me the same message. I checked, other movies from other games worked fine, it's just this movie for this game. It's weird... Oh well, I guess I'll wait for someone to make an optimized run.
Posted: 5/11/2006 7:28 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
By the by Saturn, the movie won't let me load savestates I make while watching your movie. It keeps telling me that the save isn't from the current movie, despite having made it just a moment before. Since it's 15 hours long that, uh, kinda sucks. :)
Posted: 5/11/2006 12:35 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
15 hours? Yikes... I'll be fast forwarding a lot of that. :D How long do you think an optimized any% run would take, Saturn?
Posted: 5/11/2006 2:08 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Well, technically, Nintendo did. If you somehow made it to Mother Brain with less than three energy tanks, and saved at the final save point, then you'd be screwed. Granted, no one would actually DO that, unless they were TRYING to make it impossible to win, but Nintendo didn't include any way to backtrack once you reached the last part of Tourian. Which is probably the only thing about SM I dislike. At least in this hack the author lets you get three energy tanks before going on. There's one hidden in the red area of Brinstar you're currently in. And he's said on the GameFAQs forum that if, for some reason, you didn't pick up the other two tanks that were on your route, they would appear in the Brinstar=Norfair elevator room. So it IS still possible to continue, you just need to look harder. ;) I'm just up to getting the Varia, though. But I have to give this guy kudos on map design, he's a master at hiding exactly what you need to do right in front of you, and making it almost impossible to realize.
Posted: 5/8/2006 12:32 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
After getting over my initial starstruck reaction to the hack and playing it objectivly for awhile, I'm torn. I can see that a lot of work went into this, the map design is great, and I like that it really feels like a NEW game, not just new-ish areas connected differently over the same basic map 'backbone' of the original game (Metroid Legacy had this feeling). Putting in new physics must have been difficult, and I applaud the author for being able to pull it off. But, some of the changes don't sit well with me, after thinking about it. Making the enemies take SO many shots to defeat seems like he's merely inflating the difficulty artificially (as a friend of mine said). Maybe having them take two, maybe three more shots to defeat wouldn't have been so bad, but the sheer amount of firepower needed (sans missiles) to take them out seems like a superfluous change. I'm still getting used to the new physics, as it seems to throw off the timing of the wall jumps, so my progression is halted for the moment until I get used to it. Though, the rest of the hack is superb. I look forward to the attempts to TAS it, I get the feeling that I'll see the game played through that way first before I get to finish it myself. :)
Posted: 5/7/2006 11:44 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Sweet, I've been waiting for this one to be completed. I can already tell it will be totally awesome. It's just a shame he didn't do anything to the Ceres Station (save for cutting the timer down to 30 seconds) but once you land in Crateria you're in unfamiliar territory. THIS is a hack worthy to be TASed, without a doubt.
Posted: 5/4/2006 11:34 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I think I still have the cart of that kicking around somewhere. Played through the game years ago. Wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't great either. It isn't overly long, however, so a TAS of it would be of reasonable length. It's been such a long time since I've played it that I don't think I could offer much in the way of advice, but if someone wanted to put an effort into it I could try and re-familiarize myself with the game to see if there would be some advice I could offer.
Posted: 5/2/2006 5:50 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
That's more doable, sure. 'Main adventure' is kind of hard to define though. Presumably I'd guess it would mean from stage 1 to a final boss without taking any alternate exits in any of the levels. If the run included alternate exits then it would only be a few stages long via doing the first secret chapter, Take Back Wario's Castle. There's still the problem of my IRL business as of late. A lot of things have my attention right now. I can watch and comment on runs, but devoting the time to making them? That's another story. If someone else wants to take this up, it's all theirs.
Posted: 5/1/2006 10:55 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
You're a year too late man. ;) My progress on this came to a stand-still when I couldn't figure out how to manipulate the random drops of the shiny coins as I wanted. If someone else wants to do this run, they can feel free to give it a shot.
Posted: 4/30/2006 8:59 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Hmmm. Well, while I can appreciate the effort it must take to take music from other games and put it in a hack (especially from SNES, and even PSX (!) games, remixing can't be easy), and the graphics that were put into the game do look really nice, there's not a whole lot to the level design. And it almost feels like the creator intended to make new Robot Masters, but either never got the time, or couldn't sprite original ones (or port sprites from other games effectively) so instead he just settled for swapping the colors and changing the names of the weapons. It's too bad, the hack COULD have been a lot better. The hacker is good with the music and graphics department, but as far as level design and enemy pattern goes there doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason for it. If someone actually made a good TAS of the hack I wouldn't vote no, but it seems that Bisqwit has already decided on it for the moment.
Posted: 4/30/2006 5:56 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
It's kind of hard to decide how to vote on this. On the one hand, the game is, without a doubt, pretty boring to watch. If you're not familiar with Phantasy Star lore (and even if you ARE, since this game really is the black sheep of the series) it's hard to enjoy this game. I played it once myself long long ago, and I honestly couldn't muster the energy to play through it. The graphics were weak, the pacing and walking speed was slow, and the music was pretty horrid, with the exception of the 5-member overworld bgm. But on the other hand it IS very well played and executed. Nice job on the second generation glitch too, that probably shaved off a LOAD of time. It IS nice to see the game finished (finally!), it's only a pity the ending really isn't worth it. The game has a nice concept, the multiple generations thing is a pretty unique aspect. It's only a pity the game never really executed it well, and that the rest of the game wasn't executed very well either. But, it's a well-planned and well-played TAS, so I'm giving it a yes vote anyway. Major props to Acmlm, not so much for completing it, but for putting up with the game the whole way through.
Posted: 4/26/2006 8:15 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I'd love to see it, personally. This game, and Gargoyle's Quest II are both deserving of TASes
Posted: 4/19/2006 12:37 PM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Well this movie will no doubt be published in short order, so I'll add another Yes vote to the pile. Marvelously played, JXQ. The movie had quite a number of surprises I just wasn't expecting. I especially liked the speed-boosted mockballing through the upper Crateria cavern near the end. And having just 01 health left after being zapped by Mother Brain? Awesome planning.
Posted: 4/16/2006 1:10 AM
Quote
Spoony_Bard
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I haven't finished watching the complete smv yet, since a savestate I made before the end of the Fatty event caused a desync in the movie, causing me to go back to an earlier save I made (Kuwadora battle, ow) so it took a bit to get back to where the movie was. As for the length, how much time do you think you can potentially shave off a final version, should you make it? Five and a half hours IS pretty long, and will hurt the judging of the movie. BoF2 isn't quite as popular as games like FF6 or Chrono Trigger, so support for it won't be quite as strong. But I don't think that your run was badly played, though, and the length is really the ONLY detracting factor here. The worst aspects here are the slow-walking speed, and choppy text scrolling. If only that could be helped it would cut down playing time considerably. Have you considered the GBA port? I'm not sure how much has changed, but I do believe, at least, the exp and coin totals at the end of battles have been increased to make the game a bit easier. I don't know much more about it than that, though. But it might be worth considering. Anyway, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to do a final version if you didn't know it would be accepted. So you should wait and see how much support this test run gets first, then decide from there? Personally, I'd like to see it done, but this was also one of my favorite SNES RPGs...
1 2 3 4
15 16