I have decided that I would like to create a movie of this, although I will probably wait for another release of SNES9x with button remapping.
Anyways, I think it would be best to start doing some planning for it.
First off, the fastest time I've heard of is 9:17:41, but that was with fast-forwarding through long speeches and such. However, I believe that, depending on how well randomness can be manipulated, I can get quite a better time than that.
The only glitch that I know of is the Rock Candy trick, which, while time-consuming to do, would probably be beneficial. It all depends on how much money I can scrounge up while rushing through as quickly as I can.
I will now be playing though it, testing out various things, discovering how the randomness works, etc. If anyone would like to help me learn a thing or two about this game, I'd be happy if you assisted, especially you people who know quite a bit about coding and the like :P
That 3 minute wait in front of the door will be at best vexing.
The game doesn't seem *very* speedrunable. Though if you can manipulate the worm you can power level there if need be.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Awesome, a Earthbound run plan... Well, when I tried to luck-maintain, its impossible to change to "always critical hit" and impossible to change battle (at least for me)
Well I didn't try frame based enter/leave house (to check randomness for critical hit / battle plan)
I suppose I might see someone actually use the Skip sandwitch then.
It might be interesting to see where you can warp at as well.
I take that back. This game, despite it being made slow on purpose, might be fun to watch. Though I doubt very much that it will fit under the file limit.
... Let me grap the source and see if I can't compile a version without a frame limit. Waiting for the new version for such a small upgrade is silly.
Plus it might give me an incentive to start working on SM:RPG (yeah, right... ^_^) and the ToP run might get worked on again. Not to mention FFIII not being in 5 different parts. And maybe even a Star Ocean run.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Me and Bill started double-teaming Earthbound about a week ago. Due to desync problems (and though I have solutions now, fixing it won't do anything: it desyncs in the first two or three minutes of the second part), we've decided to take Earthbound a little slower. I can only really give an estimation of how long it's been, at the moment: the movie files are on Bill's computer.
Part 1: 2:10:00 (rounded to the nearest ten, i'll get the exact time later)
This was from Power-On to just after defeating Master Belch. There was a slight mis-hap where all my members died and Ness had nearly been done in that I might go back and fix before I re-start Part 2.
Part 2: 1:45:00 (estimated, again, exact time later)
This was from the save at Saturn Valley, saving and quitting when you return to Threed to take the Sky Runner to Summers. I wasn't very pleased with how the Monkey Caves worked out (you needed to traverse it to get Psi Teleport..), and the area where you had to defeat the five moles (the one's that said they were all the third strongest). But, hey, it doesn't matter, because it desync'ed anyways, dropping 1 hour and 42 minutes down the crapper. Oh well.
That's just the progress so far. I'll be working out a plan for the Monkey Caves, and using Exit Mice is a smart idea as well. As for Skip Sandwiches, I really didn't find a need for it, except where I had alot of un-interrupted walking (i.e., Dusty Dunes Desert).
Now to bring up several topics while i'm on it:
The Rock Candy Glitch IS beneficial.. if you're playing the game casually. With slow-down, you can cut that down considerably, but you also have to take into account that Rock Candy only gives +1 to a RANDOM stat (which might be able to be manipulated, now that I think about it). So, unless you're willing to take the time to dump Rock Candy + Condiments into a specific stat, this is generally a glitch not worth abusing. However, if you use Sugar Packets or Jars of Delisauce as the condiment, you DO get a +2. But this is probably up to personal preference, since you can only do this glitch during battles. Not to mention, it'd be boring for the viewer, regardless of the speed.
Exit Mice: There are a few points in the game where you can nab an Exit Mouse, being mostly right after Onett, and one in the tunnel with the Moles. It'd be possible to teleport to Onett later in the game, nabbing one to get out of a dungeon quicker (the volcano, or the Scaraba dungeon, anyone?).
Then you also have to take into account, late in the game, that you have to return home to finish the game completely (meaning you can end the movie). This, however, allows you the chance to explore. Perhaps we can think of something to do with this infinite time frame to do so? It's a shot in the dark, mostly.
I suspect that, on a speed-run, most of the harder bosses (Carbon Dog / Diamond Dog) and the later common enemies, will make for slower progress (but ultimately help with levelling).
I estimate that the lowest level to beat Giygas at is definetely somewhere around 50, 55 if at all possible. I'm saying this from personal experience: it took me somewhere around twenty tries to defeat Giygas / Heavily Armed Pokey back when I first downloaded the rom and get to the end of the game.
Anyways, just some stuff to think about for those of us who're also contemplating an Earthbound run.
I remember reading about, how, in Summers, you can leave a Shattered Man in the museum to beat up at the end of the game. That'd be something to try...but how long would it take?
Edit: Actually, it wouldn't really be the party, because by then you'd either be just Ness alone or Ness+Paula. Either one would have an easy battle if you powerleveled and it'd be something neat to show. I'm pretty sure it's either Ness by himself or with Paula if you didn't return her home. (I did it with just Ness. Wasn't too tough with Rockin Beta)
By that point, a Shattered Man would be nothing for the party to defeat. Probably not long at all.
| Name | HP | PP | Exp |Off|Def|IQ|Guts|Spd| $$$
Shattered Man | 694| 0| 44690| 72| 92|38| 25| 18| 2630
Then again, now that I think about it, the difficulty would likely depend which of the party members are with you at the end. If I remember correctly, I think it's just Paula. -shrug- It'd been a while since I beat Earthbound.
9:17:41?! Wow...that's more than twice as long as the records for Tales of Phantasia, FF4, and Chrono Trigger (once that movie's done--a guess.) could be a very tough video to make/watch. But an interesting game.
"If all you did this year was sit in your cubicle and masturbate...say you're a self-starter who proactively reengineered your personal inventory with Total Quality, conforming to all EEO/OSHA/ISO9000 requirements."-Scott Adams
It's a tougher video to make than it is to watch. And Earthbound was an increasingly deep game, and there were a few minor side quests you could take here and there, but otherwise, there was only the main story to follow. But i'm not griping: it's got one of the best storylines i've seen in an RPG.
Sadly, many RPG's these days don't quite stack up to Earthbound. :(
But, yeah: 9 hours seems like alot, but if i've got any luck, I can probably finish the project somewhere around 7 hours.
A PLLG would be A LOT more fun to see than power leveling. There are people on the gamefaqs boards that have done them and I think there are guides for a PLLG at the site as well.
If this is done I would like to see a Sword of Kings (starman supers) manipulated and a Gutsy Bat (bionic kraken (right before the fight with giygas)) manipulated.
Other than that I don't think power leveling will be needed. If you have decent gear when fighting giygas you should be more than able to kill him easily.
If it's possible to manipulate luck to the highest degree you could take it a step further and just force giygas to always miss. Making armor useless as well as levels.
A few notes of mine:
In the arcade you are forced into two fights. You can escape them to save time and yet trigger the flags to allow you to proceed. Franky (force him to say something nasty) and Franky Mark 2 (get smashes) are both killable without any previous leveling at all.
Titanic Ant is weak to sleep. His helpers will never attack but rather always cure TA. With luck manipulation you can keep him asleep the entire fight. Also allowing you to avoid any leveling up to that point.
The cops are rather hard due to high attack power. With proper luck manipulation you can make them miss and give you a smash each attack. Making them fall easily enough. No leveling needed up to this point.
The fight outside of the cabin where paula is held produces another fight. Two options here: you can save at the drugstore of happy happy and allow them to kill you. Avoiding exp and possibly saving time by using death as a shortcut.
Or you can kill them and earn exp yet lose time. This fight may be a good time to level up a bit. Cultists are worth a lot and they can call for help. Up to this point in the game I would suggest 0 fights aside from required then a serious level up at that point to earn some fast cash and exp. for Ness.
That's all I can really recall from my lowest level game... I had hoped my topic at gamefaqs was still up... yet.. *sigh* no such luck.
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
In this game, battle outcomes are determined by the frame you enter the fight. This strongly detered me from doing this game, as well as many other outside factors.
Untrue, sorta. In my fight with Titanic Ant I was able to keep him asleep the entire fight by simply moving the cursor to another command without picking it a few times. Then by picking attack after moving it X number of times I was able to pick fight every single turn and easily manipulate him to stay asleep. I'm farily sure there is a way to manipulate him into staying asleep as well as getting you a smash each hit each turn.
The fights aren't as riggid as I think you think they are.
<i>A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.</i>
I can be of service. I have made a videogame walkthrough of this game a long time ago. It is set into 13 smv's or so. Leveled up before i done every part so i could get through it without problems, but this is before i had very much experience with rerecording. But you may want to watch the videos so you can learn a few things and create your route alot easier. If anyone else is interested in doing rpg runs, i have video walkthroughs for breath of fire 1, 2, chrono trigger, earthbounf, final fantasy 2,3,5,Mystic Quest, Zelda 3(100%) and a few others io forgot about.
Hey everyone!
I'd like to announce that I will do this Earthbound tool-assisted time-attack when I'll be finished with my Illusion of Gaia one. I played this game for many years as a child (this game helped me a LOT to learn English, by the way), and I think I mastered it quite well. Well enough to make a tool-assisted time-attack for it, anyways.
Culden: can you send me your wallthrough at halamantariel@hotmail.com please? I'll take the time to watch it before starting my run.
I'll give you some tips (albeit obvious ones):
(ab)use skip sandwiches/DX a lot.
Get the bicycle as soon as possible.
Use PSI Teleport A to move long distances very quickly. I'm assuming that the speed you move at compensates for the menu-accessing and the crashing animation.
Try to get the 1/256 items first try, if only just for fun.
And that's about all I can think of off the top of my head :P I'll be sure to provide input as you progress, however.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I had totally forgotten about Teleport A. That adds a HUGE amount of planning after the halfway mark in the game. I can't wait to see how you handle some areas now.
Also, am I to assume that {the girl}'s prayer command will be used/abused a bit from time to time? I'm sure that, with proper testing, you will be able to use her praying abilities more than her magic abilities for the first parts of the game. Just a thought...
Can't you move to cancel the teleport animation anyway?
Nope.. if I remember correctly, changing direction doesn't cancel a teleport; in fact, you can switch directions in order to give yourself more running room to teleport. And, I'm not entirely certain that it saves time over, say, the bicycle.
But that gives me another idea, maybe you could also manipulate this fact to be able to teleport from pretty much anywhere by just running around in circles really quickly?
Woah, that's a lot of comments before I even start my run!
Bladegash wrote:
Can't you move to cancel the teleport animation anyway?
No, you can't. PSI Teleport A allows you to change directions while teleporting. This way you can teleport while going in squares/rectangles if you like. I didn't test this yet, but I'm assuming that changing direction at evert frame would allow me to teleport inside a very small contained area. I could teleport from anywhere, I think.
Zurreco wrote:
am I to assume that {the girl}'s prayer command will be used/abused a bit from time to time? I'm sure that you will be able to use her praying abilities more than her magic abilities for the first parts of the game
Good idea. I'll take notes of all the comments and suggestions I get and will keep that notepad open when doing the time attack :)
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And now, some comments of my own.
I started the time-attack, but I only did the very beggining. I named all characters and things I had to name, and I go, for now, up to the very first enemy we encounter.
I also plan on using the Rock Candy Trick. I don't know where or when I'm going to use it, but I sure will.
By the way, I named all my things in the following order: Hala, Manta, Riel, Poo (default name .. ran out of imagination), King, Steak, Speed (PSI Speed :D)
