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FODA wrote:
hah... so they kiss? i had to watch it..
hahaha i couldn't prevent laughing everytime they kissed! the dynamic duo strikes the army, that was funny.
oh and well done movie too, i can barely see you hitting the enemies behind you.
They're rather dashing gay blades, aren't they?
Oh, and Arc, great movie!
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FreshFeeling wrote:
This movie was made obsolete as of a few days ago as well, wasn't it?
Er, yeah. I just did a Shadow Dancer run that's thirteen mintues, zero seconds and six frames long. Neofix has done some _awesome_ runs (Spiderman vs. Kingpin, Strider). Alas, this particular submission, which misses many chances to save time, isn't one of them.
I have a feeling that if Neofix ever gets a chance to redo Shadow Dancer that he'll break the 13 minute mark and turn in a movie with a time of 12 minutes, 50something seconds. Heck, he might even find a glitch that gets even more time off the clock.
On a side note, I can guarentee that it will take a major glitch to get a run under 12 minutes. Almost all of my time in the 13+ minute run is spent
* walking forwards
* jumping forwards
* stuck in a fixed scrolling stage (all four bonus stages and the Statue of Liberty scaffolding elevator in level 3-2),
* waiting for the stage intro to finish or
* waiting for the final boss to become vunerable.
All of these are, as far as I can tell, necessary activities. There's not that many places left to find a faster route unless one can find a bug to exploit.
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IdeaMagnate wrote:
I would like to see some of that inefficient ninja magic on the Statue of Liberty level, since it is (?) an autoscroller anyway. It might also be a good place to show the dog in action (as opposed to the dog's inaction, which we see plenty of). It was a neat trick making the ninjas jump off the platform.
Other than increased entertainment value, it looked good.
Sorry. Both ideas won't work.
Not only is ninja magic slow but it also stops the Statue of Liberty stage from scrolling for several seconds. Also, ninjas are completely immune to the dog's attacks.
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One hell of a movie; it's definitely worth publishing. (The only reason I'm not voting Yes is that I can't vote yet.)
Not sure why anyone would call this a slow and boring game, though. When I was growing up, Strider was one of my favorite arcade games at the bowling alley's arcade. Kind of a shame that the Genesis port is only a mediocre port of the arcade classic.
--
Update: Can vote now and did vote yes.
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Highness wrote:
Good run in general. Allthough I have a question. I already casted my YES-vote though...
The boss at statue of liberty, when she first appears and jumps down to the platform where you and her are about to fight, why don't you use the magic to push her further to the ledge? I think that could be faster since she will fly closer to the ledge before even be able to hit her regularly.
Thanks for the yes vote.
The magic idea is a great idea on paper. I tried it but ninja magic is way too slow. By the time the ninja magic has finished, the no-ninja-magic run has already prepared the shot that knocks Ms. Buzzsaw off the building.
It's kind of a shame that most of Shinobi's techniques are so unsuited for tool assisted speedrunning (but it's also clear that Shadow Dancer was designed for humans to play without save states and frame advance, too. :) ).
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mikwuyma wrote:
I was going to ask whether you tried to stun lock the fourth boss in your 13:15 run, but I guess this run answers that question.
I've been suprised at how vunerable the bosses are to hitstun. The first four bosses are able to make a grand total of three potentially fatal attacks.
Just out of curiosity, how did you know that the fourth boss could be locked into hitstun? I don't know how you'd duplicate the timing needed to pull of that feat on a console.
mikwuyma wrote:
Great job, the improvements made everything look smoother with less pauses. I can't think of any improvements, so I vote yes.
Thanks. There's a sub-13 minute run to be had if anyone can shave off at least 7 frames but, outside of the last boss battle, I'm not sure where you'd get them.
(I'm not sure how the last boss decides when to generate ninjas. I just kept kicking the generated ninjas as quickly as possible in hopes that would speed him up.)
mikwuyma wrote:
To anyone who doesn't know this game well: Yes, there is a lot of lag, but it can't be helped because ninjas take a long time to kill (watch the last boss fight for an example).
There's a few ninja kills in 3-2 as well (Statue of Liberty), of course.
(More ninja specifics for those who don't know the game well: Each ninja has at least two hit points. Other than the extremely slow ninja magic and bottomless pits, there's no attack on the hardest difficulty setting that does more than one point of damage. After each hit, the ninja is invincible until it falls to the ground and flips back onto his feet.)
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Dacicus wrote:
What!? wrote:
Zelda 1 swordless!
You need the sword to hurt Ganon, unless there's some new glitch about which I don't know. The best you could do without the sword is just get to Ganon's room.
Just change the rules a bit. Instead of a completely swordless run, one could do a "can get swords but cannot use swords outside of Gannon's room" run. Outside of Gannon, there's nothing in the game that forces you to press the sword button to win.
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Any Dance Dance Revolution game.
(On the other hand, it might be interesting to see a tool assisted score attack on Parapa the Rapper. The optimal "rapping" sequence would probably sound completely awful.)
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WIP file updated (see http://trazztar.tripod.com/index.htm for link to file)
WIP notes (All times appoximate and in minutes:seconds.)
Levels 1-1 and 1-2 are unchanged.
New:
Level 1 Boss:
1:10 I walk away from the boss so that rocks that drop from the sky will fall in more convenient places.
1:11 This move is *extremely* important. By jumping early and firing the first shot while falling down I hit the ground sooner and I can't attempt another attack until I hit the ground. The next attack is fired while jumping up as I don't have enough time to set up a falling-downwards shot.
Another odd thing about this boss is that getting close doesn't help much (only one shot per jump so it doesn't matter if you get it in from across the screen) and, if you get too close it becomes difficult (impossible?) to hit the boss at all.
1:14 I can't jump fast enough to get in a fourth shot. Time to retreat once more to keep the falling rocks in convenient locations.
1:17 If ninja magic wasn't so #$&# slow, I'd use it to stay on the offense. It's faster to wait a moment and finish the job with stars, though.
1:20 I love the fact that the boss is completely cornered.
Bonus Stage:
Not that much I can do to make this lively. Still, I get 50 ninjas with 50 stars and finish them off quickly. There's very likely room for improvement. However, since the bonus stages aren't going to be as interesting as the real stages no matter what I do, 100% accuracy should be enough.
Oh, there is one added bit at the end. Watch as the screen darkens for an interrupted throwing motion at the last possible frame that doesn't throw a star.
Level 2-1:
2:22 By showing my back to the spandex guy, I provoke him into moving. If I jump over him while he's falling down, he won't have time to turn around and stab me.
2:24 It might be possible to speed things up here with ninja magic. I refuse to even consider that possibility as getting out of this situation without magic is much more exciting than making all the bad guys go poof.
2:28 Sorry, Mr. Black Spandex. I need this platform. (Oh, and blue ninjas are _stupid_)
2:30 Time to use the dog to prevent deadly crossfire. Unfortunately, the dog is a bit slow on the uptake, so I have stall a bit in the air before he realized that gunmen make nice chew toys.
2:31 With the gunman busy, I can duck under the shield and not worry about getting shot.
2:33 I love this part. (It's the return of Pogo Ninja!)
2:35 Sorry, doggie. I have frames to save. (Yes, a virtual dog was harmed in the making of this movie. :( )
2:36 Ouch. :( Poor doggie. Don't worry, I'll fix him up in no time. In the meantime, here's a move from Dr. Suess' guide to Shinobi, Hop on Handguns.
2:38 I have to bump these guys, but it's okay as the shieldman was above the lower level hostage anyways.
2:39 The doggie is healed! It's a miracle!
2:41 I stall a few frames before jumping so the bullet will pass by underneath.
2:45 By hanging to the left a bit, I can jump over this knifeman without bumping him. On second thought, this may cost a frame or two. Ouch.
2:51 This is subtle but important part. By jumping to the lower level and walking forward a few steps before returning to the upper level, the knifeman spawns (to the left) are delayed and the gunmen firing pattern (from the right) becomes much easier to deal with.
All that's left are two more jumps and a ninja bump and the level is over.
That's Peaceful Bonus #3 and Magic Unused Bonus #4. Score so far: 426,800 points.
How does the run look so far?
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Do you have a WIP? I'd very much like to see this.
WIP file created.
I've redone 1-1 and 1-2, shaving off 54 frames. I've also messed up the re-record count but that really doesn't matter. (It's missing several hundred rerecords, but who's counting?)
I've created an pathetically designed Tripod site to host the WIP file. (It's an very ugly site. I'd rather make more peacefully insane ninja action than muck around with websites, so it'll have to do.)
See the awful website and get the WIP file at http://trazztar.tripod.com/index.htm
Guide to movie so far:
(Times in seconds, all times approximate)
0:13 I have to bump this guy. Jumping over him cleanly means he can stab me in the back.
0:17 I have to stall for the burst of flame (and I don't even want to know why there's explosive flames in the sewer system). What's not obvious is that if I make the following jump one frame sooner, I get shot.
0:19 This jump is a #$(*#$ to time. I can't jump over the gunman and the knifeman. I can't jump over the gunman and hit the knifeman from the right, either. I end up jumping up, staying left enough to draw the knifeman further left so that when I bump the gunman, I land on the right of the knifeman.
On second thought, it might be just as fast if not faster to jump and bump both the gunman and the knifeman. Ack. Oh, well, it looks much, much cooler this way.
Edit: on third thought after some research, the movie is correct as is. I redid the jump with both bumps and the second bump puts me too close to the next knifeman. Getting bumped completely over the first knifeman is *much* faster, even if I have to slow down just a bit to make the bump happen.
0:20 A few frames of walking to get in range and another jump-and-bump on a knifeman.
0:22 Whee! Over the shieldman. I can't jump over him cleanly, but that's OK as I want him in hitstun anyways. Oh, and I stand up in front of the oncoming bullet and duck at the last frame just to show off.
0:24 Okay, one kick. The one-up is here and it doesn't waste any time to get it. Might as well grab it, and kicking 1ups doesn't break the Peaceful Bonus.
0:26 It's time for Pogo Ninja! Bounce, bounce, bounce over the hapless gunmen.
0:29 Jump off of the bricks--I think it's one frame faster than falling off of them.
0:32 It's supposed to say Peaceful Bonus here. However, in order to save frames, I press a button before it shows up. I can prove I got the bonus when the next round starts as it's worth 100,000 points.
0:38 It's possible to jump straight to the hostage platform unharmed, but doing so causes the hostage to disappear due to a glitch, rendering the level unbeatable. (Bit of a shame because making the jump also causes another glitch that permanently disarms the shieldman.) I'll just have to get to the platform in two jumps.
0:41 By walking right and delaying the jump up to the uppermost platform, I can change how the gunman fires later.
0:44 The gunman fires too early, allowing me to jump right past him without having to dodge bullets.
0:45 By just barely landing on the upper platform, I can start walking right, giving me enough momentum to reach the right side of the gunman on the hostage platform. By landing as far right as possible without missing the platform, I conserve frames.
0:49 Thank you, Mr. Gunman, for adding a bit of pizzaz to an otherwise typical jump. I didn't plan this bullet but it's nice to have.
0:55 I'd rather take the low route, but every time I tried that, I either lost a hostage to a glitch or summoned an earthquake that dropped rocks in a very inconvient place. So I take the high route instead.
0:58 It's possible to jump over both of these rolling pillbug guys cleanly, but it's faster to get bumped over the second one.
1:00 The shieldman bump lets me stun the shieldman and fly through a bullet, too. It also means that the gunman won't try shooting to the right, so there's only one more real obstacle in the level.
Edit: It is possible to land to the left of the shieldman and pogo over him, the gunman and the rolypolyman. However, it's three frames slower. I'd love to land to the right of the shieldman--you can survive that if you jump out of the shieldman/gunman trap immediately. However, that route is blocked by a rolypolyman and it takes too long to move him out of the way.
1:01 I have to stay to the left of Mr Roly Poly long enough to keep him from rolling right and blocking the exit. After the brief stall, Shinobi can glide to the exit unmolested and pick up the second Peaceful Bonus.
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Do you have a WIP? I'd very much like to see this.
I've a recording of 1-1 and 1-2 that needs redoing. I didn't record 2-1 through 4-1 (4-1 is possible with use of ninja magic!) as they were just (very sloppy) proof of concept runs accessed via the level select code.
Oh, and I'm not looking foward to the boss levels or bonus levels. Boss levels break theme terribly and, while it's possible to keep theme in the bonus levels, that would be extremely boring, as you don't have to dodge survivors in those rounds. (Well, not shooting anybody in the bonus round might be interesting the first time to anyone who played the game without finding out that shooting nothing in the bonus round is worth a 1up. However, that would only be interesting the first time and there's multiple bonus rounds.)
4-2, on the other hand, just might prove impossible or at least impossible-for-me after all. The darkness makes it very difficult for me to time jumps, mislead enemies, etc. and there's the possiblity that I'll be forced to use ninja magic much earlier than I want to in order to prevent the hostage-vanishes-from-game glitch. The best I can do so far is get within a screen or two from the exit before I'm pinned down by a parade of ninjas and such.
Is there anyway to turn off the darkness layer in Gens? I'd do much better at level 4-2 if I could see all the sprites all of the time.
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Good grief--it is possible to pass 3-2 with making no attacks other than the one use of ninja magic (and bumping a ninja or two off of the Statue of Liberty). Haven't tried level 4 but there's a fair chance that's a possible mission, even if I have to use both magic and the dog. I'm not looking forward to level 5 (there's a room with lots of green guys that, AFAIK, cannot be bumped ever). However, there's no end-of-round-bonuses at the end of level 5, so I might just pull out the sword finish the run normally from there.
Should be a heck of a video once I get it all together.
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Yet another update--Round 3-1 cleared peacefully (but with use of magic) on a trial run. (Don't have videos of 2-1 through 3-1 though--used a level skip, wasted frames, etc. It's just a proof of concept at the moment. And my level 1-1 has at least one unnessary frame, so that's going to be redone. This may take awhile).
I don't have any good feelings about round 3-2, though. Lots of red ninjas and the best way to peacefully deal with red ninjas (run away!) is impossible, as the entire level takes place on a single platform.
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Update: Peaceful Bonus achieved on a practice 2-1 run. Currently I have to forsake the didn't-use-magic bonus, but it's doable. (At least with tool assistance. Lotsa luck doing it on a console.)
Another Update: Peaceful Bonus achieve on a practice 2-2 run by using magic. Oddly enough, I may have to use the magic bonus here just to keep a hostage from glitching out of the game [which makes the level unbeatable]. I can certainly reach where the hostage is supposed to be without any weapons at all, but the hostage tends to vanish if I do.
As far as I can tell, he game just doesn't expect that many red ninjas to not be killed and loses track of a hostage in the process.
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Highness wrote:
This seems impressive. I have played that game like a billion times, and I've never heard anything about peaceful bonuses.
I strongly encourage you to continue this run.
...
The run should be submitted when the last boss dies.
Well, that's the problem. The theme of the run is obliterated after round 1-2.
On the other hand, I've trimmed down rounds 1-1 and 1-2 to be almost as fast I can make them. They're pretty fast as is, but (to my utter disappointment) I'm going to have to rerecord some more as I just found another move that saves one frame.
Still, the existing movie, while not as fast as a conventional attacks-are-allowed speedrun, is still quite quick. (Round 1-1 ends with 2:39 on the game clock round with 2:34 on the game clock.)
After 1-2 without using the dog/magic/sword/stars/kicks[1], one must shoot the boss with stars. And, starting with round 2-1, there's too many enemies to dodge and/or bump out of the way. In other words, the game forces a standard non-pacifist speedrun once round 1-2 ends. And, if I was going to do a pure speedrun, I'd start from scratch as I wouldn't be getting Peaceful Bonuses in rounds 1-1 and round 1-2 as there's a few enemies I'd rather kick than bump.
If I need to complete a standard-all-the-way-to-the-end speedrun and then add this movie on the side, I can do that (It'll take me awhile though.) However, I, while I can keep trimming frames of 1-1 and 1-2, I can't see how this run with a very unusual theme theme can go any further than end of 1-2.
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Update: I just found a way to cut about 6 seconds off a pacifist speedru of 1-1 while adding in a single kick that collects the hidden 1up token. (I think pacifists are allowed to kick inanimate objects.) That means round 1-1 gets cleared with 2:39 left on the game clock--not as fast as a perfect speedrun, but still quite impressive given that I have to bump into a few foes.
Looks like I've lots more research to do before submitting this movie, though.
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The game isn't at what I would consider the highest difficulty level--but maybe it's just me. (I consider the no-shuriken mode + level 3 to be a higher difficulty level than just "plain" level 3.)
Also the opening menus could be sped up. As far as I know, this is the fastest way to get into the options:
* Press start immediately after frame 0:01:34.
* Press start again immediately after frame 0:02:31
* Press down immediately after frame 0:02:42
* Press start immediately after frame 0:02:43
* You can start executing menu commands after frame 0:02:44.
(And yeah, I'm working on my own Shadow Dancer video, too, but it's a pacifist run.)
--edit: All frames were off by three.
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Can you damage bosses with the dog or magic? Or do you need to kill things to get them?
The magic does damage bosses but you only get one use of magic per boss and it never does enough damage to kill a boss alone--you have to use ninja stars, too. The dog never deals any damage at any time (The dog is used to temporarily restrain several non-boss characters).
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FODA wrote:
I think if its such a hard goal then you should finish the movie getting the peacefull bonus on every stage that it is possible (this is in essence a pacifist run then?)
Yes, and a game recognized one, too. (However, by forsaking the dog and magic, I exceed the requirements for the Peaceful Bonus in rounds 1-1 and 1-2.)
On the other hand a Peaceful Bonus 2-1 might be possible but I may have to die a few times while ridding the round of shieldmen/hostages. Shieldmen plus enemy ninjas plus no weapons tends to equal death for poor Shinobi. (Bumping into people wielding two katanas just isn't healthy.) I need to do more research into this stage, however.
FODA wrote:
looks hard to do and therefore a good thing, if it doesnt obsolete the other movie it should have 2 movies of that game since its such a Mega Drive classic. Just make sure your run is precise and doesnt take hits that really could be avoided without wasting time (or too much).
[/quote]
Already got in multiple manuevers done at the first/last possible frame. (E.g., ducking a bullet at the last possible frame).
There are a few sections that slow me down, though. There's two bad guys in the 1-1 that have to be bumped at least once--one stabs you from behind if you jump over him, the other obstructs a ledge that must be jumped over. The end of 1-2 is tricky in that you have to both keep the enemies where you want them and, even worse, there's a glitch that can make the second to last hostage vanish from the game, making the level impassible. (It seems game characters vanish when the screen gets too crowded.) There's a few jumps in my current 1-2 run that don't go as far forward as I'd like but they're there to keep the enemies from stabbing/shooting me in the back or the hostage from getting glitched.
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Edit: Changed title. See later messages for WIP details.
I understand that the typical tool-assisted-run goes all the way through a game. I have completed a tool-assisted-run of levels 1-1 and 1-2 of the hardest setting of Shadow Dancer, without using the sword, kicks, ninja magic, the dog, or any offensive manuevers other than intentionall bumping into enemies when necessary. This earns two Peaceful Bonus-es, a video game bonus so rare that Google only knows of one site that mentions it, and that site just lists a cheat code for getting the bonus.
Naturually, the peaceful bonus movie is a bit slower at clearing those levels than a pre-existing Shadow Dander tool-assissted-run as the ninja in my movie has spend a bit of extra time avoiding or bumping enemies that one would normally kill.
I'm not sure there's much point in extending the movie, as the next stage is a boss stage (can't get a Peaceful Bonus there as the boss must die) and the remaining non-boss stages seem to have so many enemies that the Peaceful Bonus may not be possible.
What do I do with such a movie?
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AngerFist wrote:
Why are you sending your run for only one level?
a) Because I can't get level 1-2 to work--I'll get that level in as soon as I figure out how to get the de-syncing to stop.
b) The move may end up stopping a level 1-2 with "Peaceful Bonus"es on both levels.
As far as I know, extremely few people know that the Peaceful Bonus even exists. Googling "peaceful bonus" yields only one Shadow Dancer site and it's how to get that bonus by using a cheat device. I'm not sure how many people have achieved the bonus at all, let alone without use of the dog and/or magic (which is how I used to get the bonus back in the early 1990's.) So, while the movie only lasts for one level, it does take the game to places most players probably didn't know existed.
But why stop at 1-2? It's impossible to get a Peaceful Bonus on any boss, and I strongly suspect that it's impossible to get the Peaceful Bonus on any stage past 1-2.