Hehe, that last one was initially done by me with some modifications from viznut to add progression, glad you liked it :)
Viznut named it "Dante's inferno" which kinda fits since it reminds me of an chorus/inferno kind of music. Hard to explain but feels like an progressive soundtrack-like :)
EDIT: Oh, and zoom in to the picture (especially noisy parts), there is a nice fractal pattern :p
Super edit 2000: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRPUv8V22o
Third video from Viznut is out! For those who are interested, I suggest having a look.
Very nice, I'm really liking the movement optimization. The box room with the wolf and bat is impressive, it would normally take a bunch of resets to get to the box in time and minimize the bat attacking you (especially when climbing).
Manipulating the stat wheel for STR bonuses early on is most important while the Fandango can actually still deal out decent damage. Later on, MP bonuses become more important because you want to have as much MP as possible when teleporting around so that Mana item use is minimized. Rotating the camera shouldn't cost any time whatsoever...it'd be nice for the TAS to get nice views of the scenery if possible. I can't think of any rare weapon drop that'd be worth equipping since weapon type plays a huge role in damage calculation and enemies' weaknesses vary.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm really excited to see something going on for this game. My run on SDA is seriously outdated; I've found a lot of minor improvements that add up to a lot of time saved since the run was posted. My only questions are: is there any way you can glitch through locked doors? That would substantially cut down a lot of time. Also, is there a way to manipulate the game such that each time an enemy attacks you, it misses? This would negate the need to Impact Guard and save a lot time. I wish I can be of more help in terms of technical stuff but I haven't a clue about any of that.
Edit: Oh yea, I just thought of something pretty useful. Instead of going through the game with the Fandango, you should equip the Magnolia Frau (staff) that Duane drops in Town Center West (probably after the Wyvern fight since its tail is weak to edged weapons). Chaining with staves is faster than 1-h swords.
Hey... I appreciate the post. It gives me some motivation. My first idea was basically to copy your route with TAS precision. As of now I'm doing all luck manipulation manually. Very time consuming. I've been keeping a list of improvements also. I haven't searched for any glitches yet. I'm not much into route planning/glitch finding. I wanted to get some content out to try to get people interested. I'm working on v2 to the first boss. It should be 15 seconds faster. In the meantime let me know if you want to help out with routes/strategies/optimizations. I'm not very familiar with the game.
Camera movement. I need to test this more. Of course I want to show the best angles. Counteracting the camera movement with the analog stick to stay in a straight line might be the hardest part of the run if I decide to do it.
Which method does TASvideos use for timing runs? If this run is faster using that method then it obsoletes the previous movie. If it doesn't use the standardized timing method it shouldn't be accepted. The worst case scenario is X2poet isn't listed anywhere in the submission text.
I honestly don't know how you've been able to make that game runs on PSXjin, I tried everything I could and it doesn't load at all, (even tried to RIP the game myself with the original copy). Sad.
EDIT: There's also audio issues in your video, does it happens when you play the game normally? , like musical footsteps 8-bit sort of sound.
The only copy that works is the 715MB one. I tried ripping it myself as well and I came up with some 243MB thing which never loaded. Check out darkkobolds FF8 run, it has the same audio issues.
Cool. Is it worth it to manipulate the stat wheel at the end of boss fights? Continuously raising Ashley's
STR maybe?
Also, does rotating the camera cost time?
And is it worth it to get any really rare weapon or armor drops?
Sorry for all the questions, but I've wanted to see a TAS of VS for a while.
STR will be manipulated after bosses. rotating the camera doesn't inherently cost time. It's just that it takes a few seconds to rotate and control isn't kept in the same direction you were holding. Every frame the camera moves you have to adjust your direction to stay in a straight line. I really didn't want to have to do that.
What I have done so far can probably be improved by 10 seconds.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1743884206/Vagrant%20Story-1.pjm
Improvements, questions, and comments are welcome.
Yeah, we can easily have both resets and the pause lag fixed now. As Slowi said, it's shown in my WIPs.
It would sure be nice if someone would make an optimised 100% TAS for free, but you're naive if you think anyone would want to. The new all temples run that I'm doing is going to be about 2 hours 15 mins when it's done and that's already pushing the envelope. I can't imagine doing a 6+ hour run for literally no pay. The "nice feeling" of making a run that people enjoy would not be worth the time and effort investments in that case. That's why money is necessary.
8-Star WIP by MKDasher: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/700999400/8starRun-000.dsm
need Advanced Bus Level Timing ON, emu 0.9.7
it’s a test run, but the best I’ve seen so far, if anyone has route ideas go ahead and let us know
he’s a friend of mine and I thought I’d coauthor it, for now my contribution is 6 frames faster to the castle’s door, I’ll complete the outside part and try to save more when I have time
If they always have the same values, then why would it matter which one you use? I'd say, just display one of 'em, but verify behind the scenes that they all have the same value and if they don't, color it red or something so you can check and see if you can figure out what the difference is between them.
Having those as speed only makes sense to me if the number includes Z speed somehow. E.g. if speed is an 8-bit value, then you could stack X, Y, and Z speed into a single 32-bit number and have room to spare. But that makes no sense given that the value for jumping when moving is lower than the value for jumping when stationary. That's why I'm more inclined to think it's a player-state value.
Starting work on this.
RAM addresses(The more the better I figure):
00153150
001AC520
001AC528 Speed? Player state? These 3 are always at the same value.
1 is run speed. 3 is dash speed. 41 is charging a dash. 44 is jumping while moving. 45 is jumping while stationary.
I'd guess this is a bitfield (i.e. a set of boolean values combined into a single number). E.g. 1 is running, 2 is dashing, so you add those together and get 3.
It could also be an enumeration of possible states though, in which case there's not much to do but just figure out which one's which by trial and error.
This is the closest thing I got to player speed. I know a little bit about finding addresses but not much about deciphering them.
Edit: I can't figure out why there are 3 addresses with the same values. Which one do I use during testing?
Starting work on this.
RAM addresses(The more the better I figure):
00153150
001AC520
001AC528 Speed? Player state? These 3 are always at the same value.
1 is run speed. 3 is dash speed. 41 is charging a dash. 44 is jumping while moving. 45 is jumping while stationary.
001AC58C Speed? -48 while running. 80 while dashing.
001AC5AE
001AC632
001D78E0 X position? These 3 are always at the same value. These seem to be pixel based. Changes 2-3/frame at run speed. Changes 3-4/frame at dash speed.
00133746
001AC5B2
00133772 Y position? These 3 are always at the same value. These seem to be pixel based. Changes 2-3/frame at run speed. Changes 3-4/frame at dash speed.
001AC5B8 Larger grid X position? Changes once every 9-10 frames at run speed. Changes once every 6-7 frames at dash speed.
001AC5BC Larger grid Y position? Changes once every 9-10 frames at run speed. Changes once every 6-7 frames at dash speed.