CastleVania: Harmony of Dissonance "Maxim Version" (GBA) [5]
Chrono Trigger "newgame+" (SNES) [5]
Circus Charlie (NES) [5]
Contra (NES) [5]
Deja Vu (NES) [5]
Double Dragon 2 (NES) [5]
Double Dragon 3 (NES) [5]
Dragon Warrior (NES) [5]
Duck Tales (NES) [5]
Journey to Silius (NES) [5]
Legend of Zelda, The (NES) [5]
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The "glitched" (SNES) [5]
Manic Mansion (NES) [5]
Mega Man 3 (NES) [5]
Mega Man 4 (NES) [5]
Mega Man 6 (NES) [5]
Mega Man X (SNES) [5]
Mike Tyson "100%" (NES) [5]
Rush'n Attack (NES) [5]
Shadowgate (NES) [5]
Shadow of the Ninja (NES) [5]
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (GEN) [5]
Super Mario Bros. "warpless" (NES) [5]
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) [5]
Super Punch Out!! (SNES) [5]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) [5]
Tiny Toon Adventures (NES) [5]
Track and Field (NES) [5]
Super Mario 64 "any%" has 12 entries but is split as follows:
0 stars: 4
1 star: 3
16 stars: 5
TASvideos split 7 of 10 Metroid (NES) "any%, no glitch" plays to "no minibosses".
Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) has 9 "one character only" entries.
Excitebike has six entries but three are just the first track.
Am I the only one that thinks of Bayou Billy when I watch this movie?
About five seconds in I thought, "Bayou Billy meets Goonies?" This game actually looks decent. Konami games have the best sound effects.
P.S. What happened to the FDS sound channel?
Awful puns with references unlikely to be understood by the target audience are the best. It's difficult to imagine the same sound chip produces both this and Final Fantasy VI. I actually had to stop the video and double check I was watching a Super Nintendo run.
Aside from everything already mentioned, I loved the "twitchiness" of the run: Crono moonwalking, zigzagging, spazzing out during screen transitions--30 Hz dialog box flipping.
Chrono Trigger on SNES9x sounds better than I recall; I remember screechy sine/pulse wave effects in lieu of SNES filter magic.
I don't think it's the strongest case, either, but the level up holdover is solidly in a different class than running, critical hits, etc. because it's not random manipulation. Instead, the level holdover is an unchecked border case, which could be construed as a programming flaw. Whether leveraging this situation qualifies as "absuse" is another matter. One can readily trigger this flaw in real play at the "Provoka Power Peninsula", if that means anything.
I don't quite understand the explanation, but, if I'm reading the submission text correctly, then a flaw in the level up counter allows TheAxeMan to use the Bane Sword successfully against PHANTOM.
When playing normally I take out Kary last too. Or at least a little later. There's nothing to stop you from going on and not much useful treasure in the Volcano either.
Yeah, given that getting the FLOATER is about as difficult as beating Kary yet yields substantially higher rewards, attempting the Volcano early makes little sense. Plus, though useful in a TAS, the Volcano's damage floors are just silly during a regular playthrough.
Greatly appreciated update on one of my favorite TASes. Thanks for your effort, HectorSpriteMan!
Awesome looking shump--for whatever reason it reminded me of Cave's ESp Ra.De.
Amusing that the entire game's dialog is in Japanese except for the credits. I know this isn't exactly uncommon, but it seems less prevalent in dialog heavy games.
The Spectrum's sound generator was similar to that in the C64 except without the analog filter.
This audio is generated from the same sound chip used in the Spectrum, except from an Atari ST. Stereo was added by the software player, but all the pitch bends, multiplexing effects, etc. are legit:
http://www.box.net/shared/036lg7j12shttp://www.box.net/shared/k6zgyley2i
Does this game use a custom sound chip? The sounds sound unusual and better than the regular NES sounds.
Ocean cut its teeth on the C64 so the company was accustomed to stretching sound chips. Robocop 3 pushes the triangle wave pretty low--and it gets distorted down there. The rest of the effects were due to fast arpeggios (i.e. getting a chord out of one sound channel) and PCM effects. Personally, I'm not a fan. NES doesn't handle C64 type sound well, and it almost sounds like Ocean artificially restricted themselves to three channels for music--cuz that's what the C64 had.
EDIT: Listening to it again, it actually sounds like Robocop uses a single channel for music most of the time, electing to dedicate the rest to effects. The amount of sound Ocean produces out of a single channel is impressive but arguably suboptimal given every other NES game shares channels between music and effects.
I don't know about you guys, but I hate it when I'm trying to urinate on a computer console and color coordinated ninjas hassle me. And the little girl resembling Edna from The Incredibles at the computer terminal--what became of her when Robocop's potent pee pulverized the net cafe? Minding her own business then BLAM? Wait, I think I see her burning in the wreckage. Robocop looks like a Gobot at the end.
This game suffers from the Commodore 64 "fast arpeggios are never inappropriate" syndrome, though that's hardly surprising considering this is Ocean.
How difficult is this game in real time? Robocop seems practically invincible.
Despite the game's repetitiveness, it has noteworthy effects like the "Mode 7" like turns. I had to laugh when you encountered a power up truck in the middle of the sand pit desert.
I wasn't expecting the car to suddenly change to an airplane of a different color. That segment was brutal and seemed like it'd never end; I was reminded of 1942 or Tiger Heli. The aerial missile was one of the least effective weapons I've seen in some time.
Say what you will about the game (such as "unavoidable regular enemies suck!"), but at least it's fast-paced.
Interesting how the negative opinion of preplanned battles was uniformly dropped once Chrono Trigger came about. Not that I claim Mystic Quest is on the same level of Chrono Trigger, however.
I find every run of a game boring if I'm unfamiliar with it.
Just to get an opinion in from "the other side": some of my most favorite runs have been for games I've never played. But I wouldn't cast a negative opinion on a game run I am not familiar with. I found the NES Addams Family run near unwatchable, yet the it received congratulations from those familiar with it and its apparently clunky control scheme. On the flip side, I enjoy the unpopular Rolling Thunder and Altered Beast runs only because I am familiar with the games.
Because on Sega CD, the Sega shout out screen is actually part of the bios code, rather than the game. And the sega CD bios only has 128KB of storage, most of which is consumed by the graphics for their SegaCD graphical rotation demos.
Thanks, upthorn. I kinda figured, but, at the same time, I also kinda figured Sega could splurge on the 64K ROM space required to store "Sega!" on an attachment costing hundreds. I mean, how much could 64k ROM have cost in 1992? Given the rest of Sega CD's problems, however, I guess I should move on.
First movie file smaller than game code? (Or at least smallest movie-to-code ratio)
This is a sweet looking game. Sounds great, too, except for the boss theme, which sounds like some sort of deranged Parasite Eve remix. Love the "half screen, half motion" video at the end. Early CD games were so awful because the entire video game industry tried to emulate Hollywood productions when the obvious solution was to provide enhanced backdrops to established genres. Sonic CD seems to fit the bill.
Incidentally, once Sega actually had adequate capacity to store voice samples, why did they drop gears to FM synth for their "Sega!" shoutout?
And Robotnik laughs like Santa Claus.
Somewhere in the thread someone said that this runs caters to people who aren't familiar to the game. I can tell you after watching all of it, it doesn't.
Keep in mind the statement was made in the context of RPG TASes.
FFV isn't even in English and is thus incomprehensible to anyone without reasonably deep knowledge of the game. The Dragon Quest games may not make complete sense even to those familiar with them. Final Fantasy VI is too long for the uninitiated. Final Fantasy I lacks variety and seems sluggish due to time consuming luck manipulation (but I'd still rank it above most other RPG runs).
Final Fantasy IIUS runs at a smooth pace. The run is somewhat long but not outrageous compared to similar RPG TASes. The text boxes fly by quickly so the game is more "action oriented" compared to RPGs with controlled text output. The game's nature precludes the player from manipulating the same attack over and over. In fact, Deign rarely does the same thing between fights out of necessity, but the end result is a vastly more entertaining movie. Personally, I think only Mystic Quest gives this one a real run for the money.
During the intro, keeping the battle paused through the end does not restore nominal volume. This is possible by the rare situation that the game does not reset the music after battle AND there are no messages to advance after slaying enemies, allowing the battle to exit while paused.
A few times during the game, heavy pausing causes the tone to "stick" longer than it should. This is most noticeable during the Calcobrena segment. However, I'm unsure whether this is an emulator bug.
Inside the Giant of Babil, FuSoYa dies, but his turn is still active due to the game being paused. This has the humorous effect of leaving his menu up and "active flashing" his corpse.
EDIT: Voted "yes", by the way. As has been mentioned, this run has possibly the greatest probability of a TASed RPG appealing to an audience wider than those intimately familiar with the game. Final Fantasy I and Mystic Quest are also in the running, in my opinion.
I love (and seed) the SDA run and have been eagerly awaiting the finalization of this project. I can't wait to watch it and hunt out easter eggs and compare it to the speed run.
I agree with the sentiment that FFIV is not necessarily harder. Some early battles, like the one with six Needlers, are custom made for Dark Wave (or whatever you want to call it), whose removal essentially forces the player to flee from these battles (that or blow lots of potions for a fight that should have been over in 1-2 turns). The absence of Recall renders Tellah nearly useless for half his tenure. Ditto for Rosa & Edward/Gilbert: how does removing healing abilities make the game easier? Other removed abilities may not have been difference makers, but it's difficult to claim that removing options makes for an easier game. The existence of battle items trivializes some early fights. I think item prices are the best case for claiming FFIV's superior difficulty, but one can get pretty far without using items at all. It's been a while since I've gone through J2E's version, but I just don't recall any of the souped up monsters offering any kind of opposition, with the possible exception of Asura. Honestly, compared to the three before it, any version of IV is a walk in the park.
The Master System was interesting for ports in that games often received radical facelifts. Notable examples are Prince of Persia and Montezuma's Revenge.
