This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3424: link_7777's NES Legend of the Ghost Lion in 36:53.79

This game looks pretty good, especially for a knock-off as you said. Having a main character a summoner is unique for a game this old (I think?) and the fight system seems generally interesting. I thought the music was really good too. The plot was rubbish, at least what I got from watching this TAS, but oh well. (And check out the cover art!) For a TAS, it looks well done, but it's a little boring. Much of the game is spent avoiding battles, and during the battles the summons only ever do one attack, or occasionally block. Obviously there's a lot of luck manipulation going on and you don't exactly see that by just watching. The music really made the run more enjoyable. Overall, weak yes vote. Some questions: is it really worth it to use the dagger when you do? Or is that more to do with luck manipulation. Or maybe there's no faster action when all your summons are out. And, do you know why some later dungeons need you to go into the menu to avoid battles?

The dagger is pretty useless, but its either that or use an item that has no effect. I'm not sure there is much of a time difference. I don't think it had much of an effect on luck. I usually tried most if not all options in battle every turn, but I didn't always go back to redo previous turns unless I had to. Early on and on the world map the encounters seem pretty well tied to a 16 frame RNG. Later on there also seems to be some hard count tied to steps. Stepping any direction would get me the same battle, even if I waited. Bringing up the menu was the fastest way I found to reset/change the count.

Yes vote. Nice to see so short, but interesting in story and graphic RPG. Nice to hear music from this http://tasvideos.org/1086M.html game.

Link to video video file (60 fps lossless) http://www.multiupload.com/9X241V3CS2

  File: Legend of the Ghost Lion (U) [!].nes
CRC-32: 5d83c1e5
   MD4: 5eaf4c939ccfbdde2a32962fade5bc31
   MD5: 37cce2956409bbe4575eb674ae6c7c5c
 SHA-1: cf21cd7746e04b8b056419f534b85a52b85f8827

I finally got a chance to check this out. This is a strange Dragon Warrior knockoff indeed. The battle system is pretty nifty. It was nice to hear music that was distinctly from Kemco (XYZ mentions Mickey Mouse 3, and I was also reminded of Shadowgate and Uninvited). It wasn't clear what all the plot things were needed for, though. For instance, it seems the Dog's Eyes only get you the Horn, which gets you the Broom, which gets you the ability to warp to places you've been. Given how long it takes to even do these steps to get the broom, is the broom actually worth it? Also, although it may not be your fault, the run just doesn't have the polish that a lot of good RPG TASes have. The pauses to avoid battles are very pronounced. Some of the battles look really bad (like the fights against Slug and against the final boss), where you miss plenty of attacks. The music, while good, gets old fast, especially the battle music. I'm not sure what to vote right now, but I'm leaning towards Meh. Even if the run is impressive to people who know the game, it doesn't really come off as such to a casual viewer.

The horn is needed to get into the part of the world map where the witch is. I stop and play it to get rid of the giant rock in my way, this happens around 8:26 in the encode. You keep the horn after this, so getting the broom is just a matter of stopping to see the witch. I only warp a few times, but I think it was worth the extra walk. I didn't find an easy way to manipulate actions in battle. Timing and input didn't seem to do anything to change the results. Previous actions were the only thing useful. I often miss because the alternative is to attack and die. Early in the game and on the world map encounters are timing based, so I can avoid them by waiting a few frames. Later there is some sort of hard count, and the fastest way I found to avoid the encounter was bringing up the menu. Definitely not the most riveting game on here, but it goes by reasonably fast for an RPG.

After watching it for 10 minutes, I got bored (too slow game), so I throw a meh vote.

Almost a meh, but the music held me in enough to ignore some of the more boring aspects. I must admit the lack of grinding and how fast this went made up for some of the tedium. Not often you can see a half decent RPG whipped through quickly. Definitely can see some of the technical prowess required on this one. Yes vote. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

The votes on this one are pretty positive, but the reception in the thread is rather mixed. Some more opinions on this would be great so if you watched this can you please post your opinion. Thanks!

I'm a fan of Dragon Warrior style games, but I've still only watched about half of the video, so I haven't voted or commented yet. But from what I've seen, it's precisely avoiding tons of encounters, and doing a good job with all the battles. Sure, there's no game-breaking glitches exploited here, but does there always need to be that kind of stuff in a TAS?

There were some battle scenes where it really looked like there was some time wasted. I think those could be much better optimized, but I have no proof of that.

Just wondering, why do you avoid battles in some cases by waiting and in some cases (mainly later in the game) by going to the menu? It would seem that the latter way is slower. (I don't feel that the submission text explains this perfectly). Cool music in the game.

With regards to the battles themselves things like missing attacks make the battle seem sloppy, but often the alternative was death. I often explored all options for each turn, or even for sets of 2 or 3 turns to determine the best outcome. Further recursion exploring all battle options could save some frames, but would take quite a while to do. Part of the difficulty is that the outcomes in battle seem to be based on previous actions only. I was not able to manipulate battles by changing the timing or by adding in additional input. Now to address the issue of avoiding battles. Early in the game and on the world map encounters are based off of an RNG that changes every 16 frames, generally I could avoid battles by waiting a few frames. In later dungeons there also seems to be some sort of hard step count, bringing up the menu was the quickest way I found to reset the count and avoid the encounter.

I liked it. I'd be curious to see how more advanced luck manipulation techniques could be used. Also, it appears at one point, you summon a god-ish-type-thing multiple times for luck manipulation. Perhaps this could be abused more....

So it varies between areas? Interesting. I guess I'll call upon "weakyes". It wasn't super exciting to watch, but a decent first edition TAS, and a RPG to boot.

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1961] NES Legend of the Ghost Lion by link_7777 in 36:53.79

Having a main character a summoner is unique for a game this old (I think?)

It is worth noting that Wizardry IV came out in 1987, featuring a main character that summons underlings. Given how popular Wizardry is in Japan, I wouldn't find impossible to imagine the developers played it.