Posts for quietkane

Posted: 6/28/2005 10:19 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Yeah, any progress on this in the past.... *looks* two months?

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/28/2005 10:18 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Enh. I used to play all the time, but now my internet connection sucks so I don't play much. Most people I know online just play DOTA, anyway. What race/strategy do you usually play? I like the Undead myself, though I can't decide on a strategy. I keep switching between the Dual-Aura Ghoul Rush and massing Necros and Fiends. Of course, back before FT came out, I had a badass Frost Wyrm Rush, but it's just not working for me in FT. (Which is such a shame, because the Crypt Lord is the perfect hero for that strat.)

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/28/2005 8:47 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Warp wrote:

A free program which supports making animated gifs is the gimp (never tried doing so, though; I just have seen that it supports them).

The gimp is the shit. You have to get used to it, first, but it's a lovely little program once you understand it. Homepage

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/27/2005 1:08 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Bag of Magic Food wrote:

I hate that rule about teleporting deaths. They're always so tempting.

I've got to agree with that one. It seems to me that dying in a place that actually saves time for you takes more skill (in recognizing where you can die to save time) than it does to not die and just do that section by "brute force." And, similarly, I think that if someone has the skill necessary to activate a certain glitch and then the skill necessary to make full use of what that glitch allows you to use, then there's no reason they shouldn't accept that run. I agree that in some cases they should be given separate categories (like the Sketch glitch in FFVI..) because some people don't consider it as clean as just running through the game at full tilt. But there's no reason to deny people like me who are entertained by seeing glitches that do strange (but not horribly unbalanced) things a source of entertainment. In favor of SDA's rule, though, it's kind of a stretch to say that being good at abusing a glitch demonstrates mastery of a game, especially when the glitch isn't as hard to do as actually doing what the glitch skips. I mean, if someone found a glitch that gave them the Hadoken in MMX without having to earn it (i.e: a glitch that just flips the "Hadoken" flag in the memory.) and then used it to blaze through the whole game, that's not really a demonstration of skill anymore, since the only difficulty involved in that run at all is in getting that glitch to trigger. *shrug* I think the real problem with SDA's rules in this area is that they have the "broken threshold" set too low. But that's just me.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/26/2005 3:08 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

I remember this game. But what in the name of Bob possessed you to speedrun it? It's like Sailor Moon meets cliche city! Well, at the very least it'll be entertaining. Heh. Anyway... if the first level is any indication, this game won't take more than 3 minutes total. =P Good luck.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/24/2005 7:17 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Bag of Magic Food wrote:

Yeah, you must have a really bad keyboard if you can't press two arrow keys at the same time.

Hey, don't make fun of my keyboard! It has self-esteem issues! And what's so great about your keyboard, anyway? *goes and cries in a corner*

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/23/2005 1:23 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Boco wrote:

quietkane wrote:
*applause* My only criticism is that I think it would have been much better to have gotten the Hadoken. It would've taken about 2 more minutes and it's similar enough to the Ryuken that the same input will trigger both moves. But you've long past the point where it would be timely to grab it, so it's kind of a moot point.
? You need everything else to get it and there's been no opportunities to reenter any stages to get everything yet.

Well, DeHackEd has already answered that for me, but I was thinking of the heart tanks in Storm Eagle's and Flame Mammoth's stages (which he could have grabbed his first trek through but chose not to) when I said that. So if he changed his mind now and decided to grab the Hadoken, he'd either have a lot of re-recording/hex-editing or a lot of backtracking to do. Make sense now?

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/22/2005 7:59 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

*applause* My only criticism is that I think it would have been much better to have gotten the Hadoken. It would've taken about 2 more minutes and it's similar enough to the Ryuken that the same input will trigger both moves. But you've long past the point where it would be timely to grab it, so it's kind of a moot point. I also love how you "buffer" the two games, like grabbing a capsule in one game so you can concentrate on a boss in the other, or something. It's really cool. And I absolutely loved watching Magna Centipede and Boomer Kuanger die at the same time. (I think it was those two, anyway. I can't get the video to behave itself right now.)

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/20/2005 11:39 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

What? Are you trying to say that potty humor is crude?

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/20/2005 11:25 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Here here! Star Zelda! If the long SMW is good enough, Zelda 3's good enough.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/17/2005 1:18 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Hyakutaro wrote:

I'd rather see an R-Type III run ;)

I second that.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/16/2005 12:53 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Ok, so I was getting frustrated with the Ancient Cave in my Lufia run last night, and decided to work with the Claymates run, getting it ready for publication and everything. So I've done everything through the first level of Africa. WIP (zip file, 2k.) Rom used: Claymates (U).smc (Remember to let your emulator warm up before you play the movie.) I save 32 frames before I reach the first level, some through skipping small parts of the opening screens and some through use of diagonal movement. I save exactly 30 frames (half a second) in the first level. About 20 of that is not grabbing the mouse. I save just under 100 frames in the Pacific with more precise playing and a faster path. The first level in Japan is 6.5 seconds faster in this version. Some of that is more precise playing, and some of it is judgement calls. Not grabbing the duck once I've got the cat, for example, is much faster. Avoiding the second cat clay bit is also faster as is taking the hit from the samurai right before the warp box because grabbing a clay bit when you've already got the hovering clay bit adds 20 gems to your score. This, of course, adds a few frames at the end of the level. And of course the bit with the mouse is just cleaner. I accidentally grabbed two gems I don't need, but so far as I can tell, they don't add any time to the run. Grabbing that letter is not only impossible to avoid, it doesn't add any time so long as I hit it from below. So as long as I don't spell CLAY, it's of no consequence. The puzzle here is done faster, but the time between exiting the last level and entering the next one is no faster, and I have no clue why. The second level in Japan is 201 frames faster, almost all of which is from grabbing the duck. I can't make the jump onto the monster maker as the clay ball, so I have to grab either the duck or the cat, and I get the speed boost from the duck for long enough to make it faster to grab him. The first level in Africa is actually 10 frames slower in this version. I have no clue why, because nothing's really particularly out of place for this run, but the first version of this level won't paste into this run without significant hexing that actually adds 13 frames to its time. So this version of the level is the fastest way I could have done it this time around, but it's still somehow slower than the other way. (Even with the mouse running up the hill in this version.) The puzzle doesn't suffer at all, though. (And, in fact, you'll notice I just pasted the solution from the other run onto the end of this one.) The next level of Africa is horribly badly played, so I'm just gonna re-do the whole thing from scratch. After that I'm going to do as much copy-pasting as I can and just re-record over the little mistakes. I'm not planning on doing any more work on this game in the near future, but if the Ancient Cave continues to aggravate then I'll be clocking some time on this pretty soon.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/16/2005 12:31 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Spoony_Bard wrote:

Good luck with the Ancient Cave, try not to get too frustrated with it if it doesn't cooperate. Even if you don't post any new updates to the movie for while, perhaps you could tell us how the Ancient Cave is progressing?

Well, so far I've done all my testing off the movie, so I don't have a WIP to link to. But I'm figuring stuff out pretty well. Unfortunately, there's at least 6 possible layouts per floor, (and at least 12 for the first floor, though that one may actually have indefinite possibilities) and each of those layouts has at least 6 more possible layouts for the next floor, and so on and so forth. So it's going to take a long time to find something that's really anywhere close to optimized. The best route I've found so far collects the Silver Eye and Gold Eye by B6 and then gets the Fry Sword on B12. Hopefully I'll find something better than that, though. As I suspected, the layout for the next floor changes based largely on the amount of time you've spent on your current floor. I know it cycles through the different layouts, but I haven't been able to nail down the pattern nor the ceiling of possible layouts for the next floor. (There are at least 6 per floor, but I know some floors have more than that.) I also have no clue what determines what chests/enemies appear on the next floor, nor whether there's a limit to how many blue chests appear on a given floor. (Or if certain blue chests have a minimum floor they appear on. So far I haven't been able to find anything better than the Gold Eye below floor 10, but that might just be chance.) If anyone has any other relevant data on the Ancient Cave, I'd be glad to hear it.

Spoony_Bard wrote:

It's funny that Selan was able to warp to Aleyn, when you didn't bother traveling there. Good thing for scripted game events, eh? I'm curious though, since you didn't actually enter the town from the world map, is Aleyn on her actual warp list? Is it the act of entering the town, or being IN the town that triggers the addition of the town to the warp list? Just curious...

Good question. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it, because it didn't even occur to me that we'd warp straight there from the mountain until it happened. After checking, yes, Aleyn is on Selan's Warp list. Not that it matters, since we'll never be back again, but there it is; being in the town is the trigger. (Although it's possible that the trigger is actually entering the town, the game just set that flag on her warp list when the plot event happened. But that seems unlikely and a little less plausible.)

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/15/2005 1:33 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

xebra wrote:

I don't know where you got that final number from, but if there are 36,000 frames of input and 4,096 button combinations for each frame, that's less than 150 million movie files total.

No. Here's how the math works: Frame 1: 4,096 possible button combinations. Frame 2: 4,096 possible button combinations. Frame 3: 4,096 possible button combinations. .... Frame 36,000: 4,096 possible button combinations. Since each possibility for each frame has to be cross-checked with each other possiblity for each other frame, this means the number of possible movies we're looking at is 4,096^36,000. Which may or may not actually be the number Omni gave us (4.12 e18662) but is sure as hell a lot bigger than 1.5 e8. (150 million, for those of you who don't speak scientific notation.) But as I said before, intelligent pruning isn't very difficult. For Super Mario World, for example, you'll never need the L, R, or Start buttons, (barring possible glitches) and you'll never need either X or Y since they do the same thing, and you'll never need to press A and B together, since they override one another. That reduces the amount of possibilities per frame to 192. (I believe. I'm not entirely sure how to handle the "A != B" bit, but I'm pretty sure it basically means that between A and B there's only three possibilities.) Which makes the total number of possible movies much smaller and therefore much more manageable. (sorry I can't give you an estimate; I don't have maple.)

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/14/2005 2:59 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

There are not words to describe this. It's just that good.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/14/2005 2:54 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Yep. Another update. WIP (zip file, 17K) Save States from various landmarks in the run. (zip file, 1.9MB) Rom used: Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (E) [!].smc I've cleared the Northern Lighthouse and Phantom Tree Mountain. The run ends in the mouth of the Ancient Cave. And I know you guys are eager to see the looting begin, but I'm going to have to do a lot of testing to get this part of the run optimized, so please be patient with me. The Lighthouse is fairly straightforward. I do the box-and-the-door puzzle because I need to get that Dragon Egg, but the Mystery Ring and the Big Shield are pretty much useless, so I skip them. I grab the Fire Ring because I needed some magic attack for Maxim for the fight with Idura. Yes, it's actually faster to cast Escape and then re-enter the tower than it is to take that little warp tile. Even with all the time I spend in the menu. The fight with Idura is one of the simplest in the game so far. He stays asleep the whole time. (Which is why I had to get the Fire Ring.) Phantom Tree Mountain is even more straightforward. There are a couple of places where I had to use rather odd techniques to avoid battles with enemies, but you won't notice one of them because it's only 2 frames long. (It's in the room where I Hookshot from platform to platform, if you're really curious.) Beyond that it's incredibly simple. The fight with the Lions didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, largely because Maxim was doing way more damage than I expected. (I guess I'm even more glad that I got the Fire Ring.) Guy is the only character with a sub-optimal level. (Why does he gain Int at all? He doesn't need it.) In fact, Selan's levels are just spectacular. As always, comments or suggestions are appreciated, and I'm always happy to answer questions.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/14/2005 2:28 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Yes, that's why he got the Earthquaker. As long as it takes to get it, it's even slower to wait in line for the powered up Dark Friar. An obvious yes vote. Awesome game and the run is very well done. My only two complaints are that he grabs the Dark Glasses, and he could have made the two Mummy Queen battles a little more entertaining. Beyond that it's a top-notch movie.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/13/2005 1:12 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

agopo wrote:

Every now and then though (sorry, can't tell you the exact spots) you seem to take one step too many, or unnecessarily open up the item menu twice in a row.. now I know that you want this to be a final run and not a test run, but.. are you going to fix those (small) errors?

If you read through the rest of this topic you'll see I have a habit of doing little things that are quite unecessary and consume very small amounts of time. Extra steps is one of those, so if you point them out (even just which dungeon it happens in is helpful) I'll do my best to either correct them or explain why it's necessary. I have no clue what you mean with the opening the item menu twice in a row, though. If you're referring to doing so on the world map, that's to avoid random encounters. If you're referring to something else, please be a little more descriptive or give me a particular example.

agopo wrote:

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?
I can't believe that saying exists in the english language, too. :D In Germany we say "Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul" which really is the same thing. Coincidence, let off me!

Wow. That's nifty. Now that I think about it, though, it probably came from German. After all, English is a Germanic language. (Just ignore the fact that we stole half our vocabulary from Latin.)

Spoony_Bard wrote:

Still, while I love this particular RPG, some of the plot points are so damn convoluted... "I will sink Seim Island with the device in a tower that is in NO WAY connected to the Island!" "I have your baby! Come to the NORTH LIGHTHOUSE!" And etc... still, that makes the game entertaining.

While we're on the subject of a storyline riddled with plot holes and bad translations, did anyone else get the impression that Hilda was raped by Camu and ended up pregnant? 'Cause I can't figure out any other reason they'd mention that she's "turning into a blimp."

Spoony_Bard wrote:

You're coming up on the Ancient Cave soon, any ideas what items you're going to try to get, if you attempt to manipulate it?

I have this suspicion that I'm sort of going to have to take what I can get, but if I can actually get anything I want in a timely manner, I'll grab the following: Fry Sword Sky Sword Dragon Spear Spark Staff* Ruse Armor* Dark Mirror Hairpin* Dia Ring* Gorgan Rock* Twist Jewel* Black Eye* Silver Eye Gold Eye Items with asterisks next to them are ones I would like, but don't believe I actually need. You'll notice I'm not planning on getting any items for Dekar or Lexis. This is only natural, considering that they're only in the party temporarily. But even furthermore, I'd rather have Dekar's Dekar Blade for its godly IP than any of the Blue Chest equipment with a better attack power. The Silver Eye is largely for its IP, by the way, and I'll be putting it on Selan.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/13/2005 12:35 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

*applaudes* Congratulations. An excellent movie and very well-done. Good luck on your Earthbound run. Oh, and everyone be sure to vote for this once he submits it.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/13/2005 12:30 AM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

OmnipotentEntity wrote:

Well, letsee, For a Super Nintendo Game, there are 2^12 possible button combanations for every frame of play. For a short game, like Super Mario World, we can search the first 10 minutes or so to find the fastest path based purely on button combanations. Without intelligent pruning, this means that you'll have to search 36,000 frames over 4096 combinations each. For a grand total of about 4.12 x 10^18662 different movie files. Then it's just a simple matter of emulating them all and finding the one that produces the quickest time, which is several million operations each easy. There is no way ever, even with a quantum computer, that that would happen.

Yes, but intelligent pruning isn't a terribly difficult matter, it's just more work than anyone here would ever care to do. Maybe we should call up the people who work on Chess algorithms and convince some of them to work on Super Mario World..... =P

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/11/2005 8:00 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Update time! WIP (zip file, 14K) Save States from various landmarks in the run. (zip file, 1.4MB) Savestate right where the previous version of the run left off. (zip file, 150K) The run has now reached what I consider the official midway-point of the game. I would like to thank whoever recommnded that I use the PAL version of the rom, because the NTSC version can't rush all the dialogue in these scenes, but the PAL version can. So this little section of the run is a good bit faster as a result. I haven't backtracked and picked up the egg in the Cave to Sudeltan because it'll be ever-so-slightly faster if I do so once I have the Fire Arrows. So I'm waiting until I have all the other eggs to fetch that one (and the one in Merix Village, which I'd have to backtrack just a little if I wanted to grab it right now.) I don't buy Fireball for Tia because it's a waste of money. There's only one fight where she has an opportunity to use it at all, and Flash not only does suitable damage, its animation is shorter. There're two puzzles in the northern labyrinth that I'm not sure are quite optimized. (The pillars one that gets the Dragon Egg and the bomb one two screens over.) If anyone knows a way to do them faster, please let me know. I don't grab the Thunder Ax, despite its raw power, because it just takes too long to get. No weapon is worth that amount of time, save perhaps the Dragon Blade. I had a hard time getting the Mummies to let me kill them in two rounds. They kept focusing their attacks on one character in the second round (and I can't let anyone die, because the Trolls kill both remaining characters if I do.) but eventually I found a way to stop that. I let the Trolls kill Tia because it saves time and because it's the last fight she's ever involved in anyway so it doesn't matter one bit whether she lives or not. Bound Kingdom's East Tower is a little frustrating. There are several points whre I have to kill all the enemies in the room to continue, and at least one place where I had to go out of my way to stun a monster so it didn't interefere with me as I left the room. I reset in that one room with the Snake and the Snails because I can't win the Snake fight otherwise. (They refuse to be surprised no matter what approach I took, and since they're faster they proceed to kill either Maxim or Guy.) Using the Buster Attack on the snakes isn't the fastest way to leave the room, but it manipulates a faster behavior later. And, believe it or not, I didn't intend to manipulate that behavior at the Monster races, it just kinda happened. I was originally hoping for something that would involve the Medusa just running straight for the goal, but lo and behold, the Skeleton just warped straight to the finish line. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? I'm not entirely sure the fight with Gades needs to take all 11 rounds, but I don't think I'd be able to shave more than 1 round off, and it'd involve a lot of work and probably getting Maxim to use the Glacial Blast a lot more. I skip the Magic Bikini because I just don't need it. I'm pretty sure the path I use in the last section of the tower is optimal. Anyway... as always, questions and comments appreciated.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/11/2005 7:33 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

TheAxeMan wrote:

I wouldn't have minded if you skipped the dark glasses, we wouldn't miss that much. I think the only way to kill that golem before he jumps down is to use boosted dark friar. Even if it would be faster, it would be pretty boring unless you could avoid waiting in line in Euro.

Actually, I know you can cut in the line to at least the 3rd from the door, which drastically cuts the amount of time you'd have to wait. And I'm pretty sure you can walk in the exit if you time it right as someone's walking out. But I don't believe it would actually save any time, 'cause that line moves slow.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/11/2005 7:29 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

I'm divided between Final Fantasy VI and a 100% SMB3 run that made extensive use of the Hammer Suit, simply because that was my favorite suit in any Mario game, ever. For more current systems, I would give my left and right hands (respectively) to see perfect runs of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Castlevania: Lament of Innocence's Crazy Mode. In fact, I might give one of my feet as part of the deal for the Crazy Mode one, if it came to that.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/11/2005 7:24 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

KaitouKid wrote:

Whoever takes up the project (if anyone) definitely has my support AND my sympathy.

I second that.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.

Posted: 6/11/2005 7:22 PM

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quietkane

Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Player (65)

Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.

Golden Sun and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance both have exploitable RNG's, though Golden Sun's is much more easily abused without tools. Apparently people also try to manipulate luck on Lufia 2 with a console in order to beat the game at insanely low levels. For example, one low-level faq instructs players to reset and try the second Idura battle over if you can't make him fall asleep in the first round. I'd say that qualifies. And I've also heard of people resetting if they don't get good level-gains in some games, so it's not that luck manipulation is soley property of the TAS. It's just much more easily done and on a much larger scale.

If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.