(flowplayer module removed)
This submission of Shining Soul II includes many glitches over both the published movie and the previous submission. The run looks more like Bomberman than SS2 for the first half of the movie. Hopefully you will enjoy it. This run is 17:58.75 faster than the published movie, and 05:26.60 faster than the previous submission.
  • Uses Glitches
  • Takes Damage
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Used Lua
The movie, according to Sonikkustar - "This is a movie about a game that has something about Shiningness or something. No, not the movie, The Shining, something more like the video game Shining series."

Item Duping

Item duping requires having the item you want duped followed by a blank space in your right-hand menu. You charge up to throw the item with B, and the frame after you release B you hit R to switch items. This substracts 1 from the empty space, as opposed to the item, and thus, there is a newly created thrown item, as well as the item still in the right-hand menu.

Getting an Early Bomb

While this wasn't the most difficult manipulation, it was still very important to the run. The random items the item seller has is decided right after the Book/intro disappears, so that means before the initial cutscene with Boken or the tournament. The need for the bomb is obvious, as this one bomb does the majority of the work of the run. The bomb does damage between 100-139, regardless of defense, and so it is extremely helpful during the entire run against high defense enemies.

Getting the Power Wine to Drop

Initially, after I had read about the glitch, I thought the only way to get the Power Wine was to fight four rounds in the Colosseum, which I estimated would take 5 minutes. I questioned whether or not just using the bomb for the entire run would be worth it.
To start, I the power wine drops exactly once in the 32,767 long RNG cycle. The RNG only executes 1-6 times a frame, with an average of about 1.3 times per frame. This means there are approximately 25,000 frames, or 7 minutes between each power wine drop, which I be killing an enemy on that exact frame, with no other RNG motion, to get the item to drop. I had to first figure out how the RNG worked, then, I had to record all the values the RNG took for 32K frames in advance (recorded on the title screen). Next, I fed those values into a script, and wrote all of those values back into the RNG while an enemy died, to watch it's drop. The first power wine drop is ~22000 RNG executions from booting the ROM. So, the final step was to track the progress of the RNG as I TAS'd, and watch for the power wine's RNG to come. I got lucky in the RNG loop progress, so it the power wine drop did not occur while I was in the castle, or in a boss battle. In the end, it looks like I only waste about 5 seconds to get the power water to drop, a far cry from the 5 minutes I had originally intended, which would have destroyed all the gains of the run.

Duping the Power Wine

Note that every time I dupe a power wine, it creates 3-5 frames of lag, giving a defined cost to creating the wine. Each wine takes ~50 frames to dupe. That said, I only dupe during forced waiting times. In total, I create 120 power wines over the course of the run. I get drunk with power!

Buying the Knapsack

First, after I defeat gobovitch, I dupe power wines until the chest has an orihaclron. Selling that gave me enough gold to buy the Knapsack. I then manipulate the item seller to sell a Knapsack, which extends your right-hand menu by 1 row. This item allowed me to dupe both bombs and power wines at the same time. Also, I put the bomb in two places in the menu, to save time when flicking through items.

Surviving Deadly Damage

This is only an aesthetic glitch, as it doesn't save time. If you take damage while a text box is open, the damage doesn't actually register. I technically die 3 times in the run, first against Captain Gully, my own bomb deals 67 damage to me. Later, Deatharte's green cloud kills me twice over, once for 83 damage, and once for 103 damage.

Early Victory Music

Once again, only an aesthetic glitch. I had to open the item menu to put the power wine in my right-hand menu after defeating Gobovitch. If a text box is opening, the game forces you out, and doesn't cost the 60 frames to close the menu. This also triggers the musical victory fanfare to start playing early.

Freeing Camille Glitch (Koldazhek Cave)

Since I have free bombs, this was easier to execute. I lay the bomb, create 2 power wines while waiting for it to explode, and leave the room as her dialogue begins. This save ~30 seconds of listening to her talk, but I still get the password to the Demons' Tower.
Lazy Kenny, on bosses - "They assume that they're going to kill you, but once they get blown up and slashed by a drunk ninja, they decide to tell you everything since they're dead anyway"

Suggested Screenshot

Actual Suggested Screenshot


klmz: Judging.
GabCM: Added FlowPlayer module. Samsara: Removed FlowPlayer module. It's literally 2022 and we don't have it anymore, haha, lmao,

klmz: Accepted as an improvement to the published run.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2833: DarkKobold's GBA Shining Soul II in 1:12:02.43
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Rolanmen1
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Sonikkustar wrote:
Yes
Onyx3173
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This is already being judged despite there being only 4 votes? I'd watch it and vote but I don't feel like figuring out how to run movie playbacks in VBA.
I am a figment of my imagination.
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It's been claimed for judging. No decision can be rendered until 72 hours are up, but now the other judges know they don't need to worry about this particular movie except as viewers.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
arflech
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Onyx3173 wrote:
This is already being judged despite there being only 4 votes? I'd watch it and vote but I don't feel like figuring out how to run movie playbacks in VBA.
1. Download VBA-rr 2. Download "Shining Soul II (U)" ROM 3. Download the submission 4. Open all the ZIP, RAR, 7z, etc. files; you should have a .exe, a .vba, and a .vbm somewhere. 5. Launch VBA-rr (no installation required), Open the ROM, then go to Tools>Movie>Play Movie and choose the submission file.
i imgur com/QiCaaH8 png
GabCM
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Encoding in SD.
Onyx3173
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Derakon wrote:
It's been claimed for judging. No decision can be rendered until 72 hours are up, but now the other judges know they don't need to worry about this particular movie except as viewers.
I see, I didn't know that.
arflech wrote:
1. Download VBA-rr 2. Download "Shining Soul II (U)" ROM 3. Download the submission 4. Open all the ZIP, RAR, 7z, etc. files; you should have a .exe, a .vba, and a .vbm somewhere. 5. Launch VBA-rr (no installation required), Open the ROM, then go to Tools>Movie>Play Movie and choose the submission file.
I should already have VBA-rr, (I think) I'm just being lazy.
I am a figment of my imagination.
mklip2001
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Nice improvements, DarkKobold! Except from a little extra lag, the use of the bomb early in the game was cool to watch. It was also funny to see power wines dropping everywhere when a boss was beaten. The only concern I have is whether more bombs should have been used in the later portions of the run (for instance, against Deatharte when you have to back away from the green cloud), but this still looks quite solid. Yes vote for chopping minutes off of an already speedy run.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
GabCM
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NitroGenesis
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Can't you improve the first game, I loved watching that.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1626] GBA Shining Soul II by DarkKobold in 1:12:02.43
Joined: 3/25/2010
Posts: 34
Voted yes on this while it was still a submission. I'm glad to see it published! The run was pretty brilliant and entertaining throughout. Was there a different route considered at any point? With how quick and efficient it is to duplicate Power Wines, I wonder if there's a way to improve this by just duping for a couple of minutes right when you get it and then purely slashing your way through the game (duping more during boss deaths as before). That said, I hope no one tries that improvement, even if it's possible! That type of run might be quicker, but it wouldn't be at all entertaining, while this is actually right at the pinnacle of awesome.
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I was looking through the list of runs with commentary, and noticed that the commentary for this run was 404:ed. Original link: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10132896 "If you came here while trying to watch a video or live stream, please contact the broadcaster or publisher." Perhaps someone has a backup? I added a note that the link is dead, for now.