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Ah, proceeding nicely. Good call on the items to sell. I'm sure you can see a few spots for improvements, but I'll list a few suggestions.
--Have you considered using a crystal when you need a charged chain whip? --You can combine some of your inventory trips by switching weapons and items at the same time.
--You can probably buy all the keys you need from the oil shop faster than it would be to get them from drops, and at that point they're pretty cheap.
--It looks like you do need that BattleAxe to chop down the trees around Wendel. Perhaps there are some items you could sell instead of killing extra enemies. Even a few candies would cut out quite a few enemies.
--Later on, you get less and less out of killing enemies since you can't build up levels as easily. For example, in the medusa cave you see some of the same enemies as in Kett's, so it's not worth fighting them. Maybe you can figure out which enemies are worth the most experience at each point vs how tough they are to kill. In the end, this might be the toughest thing to plan out.
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Yes, I was also never able to beat level 3, but I know someone posted a movie which made it to the fifth level. Searching, I can't seem to find the thread, it has been quite a while since I saw it. And yes, in the movie it seemed like that boss was a bit easier than you'd think.
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I wondered how you jump through a piranha plant at one point (and through cannons at many points).
Yeah, the hit detection on the piranha plants is very poor, so I decided I would abuse it thoroughly. It's often very helpful to be able to use the edge of one of their pipes. Also, the cannons are not dangerous, you can think of it more as a pop-up platform. I only have to worry about the bullets. In 4-2 I cut it pretty close, but otherwise it wasn't a problem. Because the cannons are pretty small, I decided to use them as platforms a bit more, and it ends up being a neat effect.
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Great, despite the flaws, the route is well planned. I hope to see more so we can find out just what it takes to beat this game.
How hard is it to manipulate the item drops? I think you should have manipulated more keys if possible since you'll need them on and off through the whole game.
Also, I think it's neat to see the effects of picking all power--even at fairly low levels you are much stronger.
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I love it! And actually, I don't really care how much prize money you rack up, picking that stuff up is the fun part of this game. But yeah, this would be a really sweet run if you can manage both players well. Good luck, you'll need it.
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how the Pakkun Flower (this is the japanese name for the fire flower, i guess) appears in unnatural places in the shooter stages, I think.
But wait, the fire flower never appears in the shooter levels. It always just comes out as a mushroom. Maybe they're talking about how I fireball the pirahna plants in 4-1 and 4-2.
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That's pretty messed up. I tried the translator too, but its Japanese isn't so good. What are they talking about with those lists of level-time numbers? Very funny, I never thought I'd end up being a Japanese celebrity.
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Thanks everyone, glad you like it. What really amazes me is that only a few days after publishing it's already been downloaded over 1000 times! As much as I love the old Game Boy, I definitely didn't think so many people would be interested in seeing a 4-color monochrome movie.
Well, after a little break from timeattacking (I'm playing through a few games and checking out the Total Annihilation remake) I'll get back to Crystalis. But I can definitely see myself picking out other GB games which consumed large portions of my childhood for timeattacks. Thanks again to Nitsuja for all his work on VBA!
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I believe 2 liches will be enough if you can up their intelligence. The Liebel rod will help, not sure if it's possible to manipulate the intelligence gain or what. If you can somehow get some money to invest into intelligence potions, then you will be set. So yeah, I like your plan Phil.
But why the wyrm instead of gryphon? With gryphon you could get a hit-all attack early on and later the petrify might be useful. Also, what is your hero's power? Banish/icecloud would give you two good magic attacks but slice/ianuki gives you the most powerful hit in the game.
Edit: Oh yeah, you will have no problem getting money when enemies and treasure spots give you high-price items. Also, you'll be manipulating the maximum amount of intelligence per potion which will pump you up very quickly, it won't take much at all.
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In Super Mario Land, in the autoscroll
areas (2-3 and 4-3), usually when
you are pushed off the edge of
the screen, you die. However,
if you do it in the right place
and hold up (or down), sometimes you
wrap around to ahead of the screen.
I didn't know about this. But I do let myself get pushed back until the last possible frame, otherwise I would die. Perhaps they fixed this glitch with the 1.1 rom. That would be a neat trick though, but I doubt it would help finish 2-3 any faster since there's nothing to push me back for at least a whole screen before the boss.
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I use the SETI@home screensaver so my processing power doesn't go to waste when I'm not around. Even if you don't have a screensaver, you probably have the monitor power down eventually. Of course you can change the settings manually, but that's annoying when the application should be able to do it automatically as most full-screen video programs can.
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Maybe this only applies to Windows, but most of the other emulators are able to automatically disable the screen saver while running fullscreen. It's definitely annoying when it cuts out in the middle of a run and I have to grab the mouse. Any chance we could get this in GENS?
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Oh yeah, this finally done. Excellent work, the whole run is just scary fast. It's unfortunate that the flying section looks so lame compared to everything else, though no kills or rings helps.
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BOMF is right about the fireballs, it seems to cost a frame each time. Near the end of 4-2 I shoot the last snake because his fireball would have cause more than a frame of lag. The snake I shoot with the bouncing shot was just in my way.
Glad everyone enjoyed it, my fingers are still recovering from holding down right and B so long.
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just one little question: a few times in the autoscrolling levels you collect a mushroom and then let yourself be hurt to lose it again. are you sure that this doesn't cost time? because in Super Mario World every transformation did cost time, even in autoscrolling levels
This game seems to have a completely different engine than other Mario games. Other games stop to show the powerup/powerdown animation, which loses time even when autoscrolling, but in this one Mario just keeps on going, transforming as he moves. In fact, look closely at 3-1, after I pick up the mushroom--I go under one enemy who should have hit big Mario, but because the transformation isn't complete nothing happens. I guess it takes time for shrooms to take effect after eating them.
In general, small Mario has much more to take advantage of in this game. He can hit any block without stopping while big Mario can only hit the last block of a row of blocks. In the shooters, small Mario's collision box lets me do more refined movements around enemies, like going between the octopus fireballs. It's also necessary to embed myself in the bricks further so I can sculpt those shapes. Finally, small Mario can move past a head-blocking obstacle faster. For example, at the end of 4-2, small Mario can run through that gap before big Mario. As small Mario, it's possible to finish 2-3 a few frames faster, but as big Mario I'm still able to hit the finish frame for the optimal bonus round, and the bonus animation is faster.
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Ok Mario faithful, here's my second pass through Mario Land, featuring major improvements in speed, score and style. That's 149 frames (2.5 seconds) and 71130 points--50300 of which were in the last level. Speedups came from making that platform jump in 3-3 and manipulating the bonus rounds to set me up with a straight shot at what I want. There are some minor optimizations, including beating the final boss a few frames faster. Most of the score difference came from optimizing the forced-scroll levels, but just about every level has a some increase in score.
The only reason I'm not submitting at the moment is because I have to test out high-jumping off of enemies. So far I was only able to do it once, but if I can figure this out there are quite a few spots where I could add some more enemy kills. Potentially, this might also allow me to eliminate the short pause in 2-1, but I don't think it will help time anywhere else. Anyway, if I can't repeat this then this is going to be the final version.
http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/MarioLand-TheAxeManv0.2.zip
---the stats---
Movie length: 12:15
Final score: 263720
Level finish times:
1-1: 361
1-2: 364
1-3: 362
2-1: 358
2-2: 364
2-3: 265
3-1: 335
3-2: 358
3-3: 358
4-1: 338
4-2: 344
4-3: 207
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I think it's a stupid idea. In a timeattack, I don't want to see someone hold back on using something unless it means something else interesting happens. For example, not warping in Rygar or Battletoads leads to an amazing array of tricks used to beat the various levels, both variations are amazing runs. But restricting special weapons in Megaman takes something away without adding anything interesting. Now why would you want to do that?
