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I like it... and it looks like it's obviously going to be published. (Is it just me or are the color palettes of some of the castle backgrounds completely wacked out?)
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When I load a state while playing back a recording to continue recording, the game goes out of sync at the place I continue from. It looks like the newly recorded frames are offset by 1 frame too far forward in the file, either that or the very 1st frame that's recorded after resuming recording is messed up, but I can't verify either of these because I can't figure out how to hex-edit away a frame to try and put it back in sync.
(some more specific info, in case it helps: I was in the middle of scrolling through a menu in a GBA game when I paused, made a save state and stopped recording, then chose playback and resumed recording by loading that save state. Then I unpaused, chose an option from the menu in the game and did some other stuff, then stopped recording again and watched the playback -- everything up to that menu was fine, but when it got to the menu, it scrolled too far and chose a different option than when I had been recording, which obviously screwed up everything after that.)
What format are the recorded movies in? Could it be made easily hex-editable (no compression, byte-aligned)? And can it be made to contain (and display upon selecting to load) a checksum of the ROM, the length and number of re-records, and a custom author info string?
(Maybe the ROM checksum isn't necessary because the movie fails to play at all if I use the wrong ROM, due to being unable to load the game's save... is this intentional?)
Also, it would be really nice if there was a read-only toggle so one can load a movie save state to continue watching from there without nuking everything after that frame in the movie. And loading a different ROM should probably automatically stop recording/playback, and choosing Reset should stop playback.
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Well, like I said I'm not sure the cleaner one would be more interesting, but I wouldn't mind there being a run for each... I wonder which one would be faster? FF4 has more stuff to abuse, while the FF2 enemies (and status ailments) are easier to deal with.
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Random battles can be avoided in the MMBN games, but the more you avoid them the more likely they are to happen. And at least one of the MMBN games has a slot machine thing that gives out ultra-good chips if you're really lucky.
FFTA only has 25 required battles, many of which are small, and there are lots of really cheap but random abilities just begging to be abused with perfect luck. I'm guessing it can be done in under 2.5 hours.
((edit: 30 -> 25 due to my stupidity, but 2->2.5 due to the unfortunately really long unskippable intro))
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Blechy wrote:
along with making it so that using frame advance when paused does not unpause the game(I don't see the point otherwise)
It only does this for regular Game Boy / GBC games -- Frame advance works correctly for Game Boy Advance games.
In fact, recording is working fine, even playing back properly without desyncs when I start recording in the order Pause->Record->Restart->Unpause, but only for GBA games. GB games must not have been tested as much...
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fuwafuwa wrote:
Rosa wouldn't have Wall when visiting the Summoned Monsters Cave (she gets it at level 34, IIRC), so it would be nearly impossible to pick up Asura.
Actually, it might be possible to beat her without the wall spell, using two items that cast reflect on the party to cast reflect on Asura. (Haven't tried it myself but it seems like it should work.) Or, maybe massive luck manipulation to prevent Asura from using Cure 4. It's still probably not worth the time either way though, if the whole summoned monsters cave is optional.
fuwafuwa wrote:
HP is (ultimately) what decides whether the party wins or loses.
Supposedly Edge can steal a Dark Matter from the final boss to greatly reduce the damage all its attacks do... this is probably worth doing, can maybe get away with less HP that way. Also, I think luck can be manipulated to get some enemies to drop HP-increasing apples.
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I think this game would make an excellent speedrun.
When I first played it I hated it because I was expecting a normal epic RPG, but pretty soon once I understood the basic concept (I'd call it a survival-strategy-RPG) I realized how awesome it was, and finally beat it after many near-death experiences (ok, and one restart near the beginning after which it got easier).
I found this game to be incredibly stressful (in a good way) to play through, with the challenge requiring good tactics, the high unpredictability factor, the temptation to use super-dragon powers in exchange for permanently losing a large chunk of your character's humanity... A speedrun would be impressive and very entertaining to watch.
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Enhasa wrote:
Try to get Kain to Jump against Golbez, but in my experience he is simply not fast enough.
I've done this a few times on a console, it doesn't always work but save states and luck manipulation should practically guarantee it.
Also, do you think the Excalibur / the Rat-tail side-quest / optional summons side-quests are really worth doing, time-wise? I don't think the single thing you get from doing each of these can save as much time as it takes to do the side-quest.
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Personally I think a run of the hard-type (FF4j) would be much more entertaining than a run of the easy-type (FF2 US). Plus, some of the stuff removed from easy-type was actually useful:
- abilities -- Cecil's Dark Sword, Tellah's ultra-powerful Random Spell (Bolt3 and Death-All at beginning of game)
- spells -- Protect, Shell, Dispel
- lots of cool items -- haste/stop-all/reflect-casting, attack items, permanent HP/MP up...
- weapons -- Kain's Blood Lance, I think
- summons -- Cocatrice and maybe some others
Anyway, I get the feeling that all this extra stuff can be abused to save time in creative ways, possibly letting you avoid some leveling with optimal item and ability use.
(edits for typo + formatting + extra examples)
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Awesome. Still needs some work though. Here are some questions/comments:
Frame advance actually works acceptably well for me. The only problem is that "Frame Skip" has to be set to 0 and "Automatic" turned off, otherwise some/most of the frames you're advancing through will get skipped -- Frame Advance should force all frames to be drawn even if frame skip is on.
Also about frame advance, I think it's a really good thing that there is sound even when using frame advance, since audio cues in games can be very useful, but maybe you could make it stop repeating the same sound over and over and over when the game is left paused after advancing frames?
One more thing about frame advance: I find having to use Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N for it really inconvenient.
The throttle adjustment changes by too much with each press of + or -, and throttling doesn't give the right slowdown effect anyway. Also, not everyone has + and - keys on their keyboard... shouldn't they be set to - and = too, if not configurable?
Oh, and why does Mario Land play with no sound at all in this version, yet its sound works fine in previous versions of VBA? This is really weird.
edit: another request: If I choose "Start Playing Movie..." and play the movie that I'm currently recording, I want to watch what I've recorded so far -- right now it just starts playing an empty movie instead. (i.e. please flush the recording file to disk before starting to play a movie.)
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if/when GBA movies are allowed:
Elevator Action - fast-paced game, could be pretty impressive
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - can be beaten very quickly, especially with abusing luck
Zelda 3 (part of 4 swords) - if it records properly it could be done here since the SNES one still desyncs recording
Super Dodgeball Advance
Double Dragon Advance - most enemies can be knocked off to instant death with enough skill, should make a good time attack... err, I guess Phil already mentioned this one
Bomberman Tournament - a little boring to play but maybe fun to watch if it can be done fast enough
Megaman Battle Network (whichever one is shortest) - maybe worthwhile
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There's one part of the Castlevania 4 run where he gets hit 2 or 3 times in a row walking left through some enemies... I knew it was probably the fastest way through there or it wouldn't have gone into the movie, but it still looked pretty sloppy to me even though I knew it was done purposely.
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Uh, hmm, you're right. It worked on the games I tried, but not on this one. Getting this movie in sync seems to require adding not only 1 frame at the beginning, but additional frames of delay throughout. Maybe we should just stick with the WIP version of Snes9X for now, until 1.44 or a new WIP comes out... I'm starting to think they actually introduced more desync problems in this final version.
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I forgot this was mentioned in this thread too...
Snes9x 1.43 final expects 1 extra frame at the start of the movie compared to the WIP version, which can easily be hex-edited in to convert it. That's the only difference that's making things go out of sync between the 2 versions. (edit: no, actually I was wrong, there's more to it than just that.)
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Is anybody willing to make a 2 player time attack of this? I'm not really sure how 2P runs are made, but it'd sure be fun to watch the result in a game with so much variety, plus I'm guessing it'd be significantly faster than the 1P run.
Also, I know that runs starting from a save state aren't allowed, but what about runs that start from reset with the levels already unlocked (in the SRAM) and nothing else? In this particular game there'd be no way to cheat with that, since the only part of the saved game that could possibly be used is the level completion record. That way there could be a run of the arena alone, separate runs for the games (I'd kind of like to see a "great cave offensive run" with all treasures collected), etc.
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Me too... I wanted to see it, but at least it's been explained how it worked. (Must've taken a long time to master so many mime and counter materia. I ended up just using a zillion omnislashes and lots of items.)
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Yeah, sounds like that's the problem infi is running into. You have to use the 1.43 WIP 1 (dev) instead of the 1.43 (final) to run the smv's that are currently up.
By the way, I've found out how to convert a movie that runs on the WIP to run on the non-WIP 1.43: just insert a 0000 (i.e. one frame of no input) at the start of the controller data. Maybe the smv's that are already up should be converted to work on 1.43?
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Oh, sorry... RNG = random number generator. I think it's used to determine the next direction some boss monsters move, the directions guards start moving in when you enter a room, and whether a defeated enemy drops anything.
I don't know how this game generates its random numbers, but it must be using something that gets messed up by reloading save states. Since when I load a saved state the sounds that were currently playing when it was saved become garbled or possibly turn into other sounds, I'm guessing it's an audio issue. But turning off the sound should have some effect on the emulation in that case (if it uses the current state of the sound CPU to decide things) so I'm not really sure.
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I'm very interested in seeing a tool-assisted run of this... is anybody planning on doing it? Some people were waiting for the next release of Snes9X to come out, but the 1.43 final just came out and they didn't fix the problems yet...
But it's definitely possible to work around the desyncs as it is. For one thing, frame advance never causes it to desync, so it can be played extremely precisely with that, and carefully to avoid having to use too many re-records. When re-records are necessary, they can be used, but they sometimes screw up the RNG after they're used, so a little while afterward it's necessary to check if/where a desync occurs. If it did desync, just have to (ugh) watch everything so far with fast forward until the desync happened, then continue recording from there. It'll be a pain to get past the boss fights since they're really random, but everything else should be easy enough, considering there's TSA's speedrun to use as reference.
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It works fine for me with sound. Snes9X has at least 3 different desync bugs that I'm aware of, but the only one that I can get to cause this movie to desync is the one where you start playing the movie without letting the game emulate for a while first, which has nothing to do with the sound settings.
About the actual movie, the differences are difficult to notice but it's a little faster and it's amazing that the previous one was improved at all so I see no reason not to put it up. (By the way, can anyone do these moves in real-time? I felt pretty stupid when I tried the game out after watching the runs.)
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The FCM file format specs for are at
http://tasvideos.org/FCM.html
It looks like fixing it might be as simple as changing a bit from 0 to 1 for "movie begins from reset". (I think that bit is ignored anyway except for submission verification -- unless it's more sophisticated and actually checks to see if the first command is a reset command, in which case a reset command might have to be inserted at the beginning of the controller data.)
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I'm guessing the missed shots are because pressing the fire button automatically shoots lots of shots in auto-fire. Although it's probably still possible to avoid the missed shots by letting go of the button sooner.
Also, it looks like the junk blocks have a little door on them that close when they're shot, making them invincible until they open again.
I have a question about those things that shoot rapid-fire laser beams across the screen you have to wait for -- I think a few times you were able to shoot and destroy those things while they were still firing lasers, but other times you wait until they stop firing and then shoot and destroy them (maybe the reason you bother to kill them instead of walking past is to avoid lag, but I don't see any reason not to kill them earlier if they're still shooting.) (Clarification: I'm talking mainly about the ones that shoot vertically, but maybe this applies to the horizontal ones too.)
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OK, dungeon 3 is done, and I re-did a few of the rooms in dungeon 2. The smv is at:
http://www.filespace.org/nitsuja/Equinox_U.smv.zip
So far I've found the following useful bugs:
- Pushing against the corner in a boss fight makes you invincible to all attacks. (!)
- Blocks that just barely land on your head can be dropped anywhere by jumping away.
- If you push against a (non-movable) block while falling onto spikes and hit the jump button right before hitting them, you'll jump off the top of the spikes unharmed.
- Pushing against a gate that isn't falling makes you invincible to other gates. Once inside a gate that should've crushed you, jumping can push you on top of it.
EDIT: I realized that a spell I thought I could skip is required, so I'll have to redo part of that dungeon to get it... But there seems to be barely any interest in this run and it's not looking particularly amazing, so I've put it on hold indefinitely.
