I think having letters for names is awesome. Use normal names in a non-TAS imo. And even then I'm not sure.
(Actually if single letters were used, to be 100% optimal they'd have to fall in the range closest to the default letter, as follows:
ABC
JKS
STU
[Or something like that 'cuz I don't know if you can just hit start to skip to the next naming screen.]
But even I would rather see A B C D rather than A B C J since it's really easy to follow the story considering everyone would know in which order each character starts their quest.)
You know why I haven't named all the characters with single-letter names?
To quote Bill Gates: Frame improvements attributed to shorter names are not frames gained because of better tactics, precision or TASing skills. Therefore, it's useless.
... or something like that ...
Plus, I think it looks better to use the original names.
For the Default names vs A B C D character names, please view this topic/poll: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6691
It pretty much sums up (and justifies, see poll results) my point of view on character naming.
I respect if you don't based on not wanting to gain your frames simply from shorter names, but don't most RPG TAS's like dragon warriors have names like 'A' for their characters?
Dragon Warrior games have names of "!" because it affects their stats =p
All in all, I, as the TASer, chose to keep the default names. If you guys are not happy with that decision, you will have to make a TAS yourself (and beat my time). I say this in a semi-serious way, which means I'm not mad or anything, I'm just tired of the default vs A B C D debate on this game (because my decision was taken at the start of the previous run, and I am not going to change it).
I don't think a run should be obsoleted just for that reason. Because people seem to be bothered by it. If people weren't bothered then perhaps, but it's practically a paradox of sorts since if people weren't bothered by it, they would always put A B C D and there wouldn't be a debate, which further reinstates my first sentence of this post. Thus a new run would have to bring something more to the table.
(Further analysis can be found in the poll thread created by Hala.)
Alright, this is an old topic, but someone has brought it up in another thread, saying the download link had expired. To resolve this matter, I uploaded the file on my website.
Here's the link: Audio Commentary by NapstrPSX.mp3
How exactly would I listen to it? would I just open the movie file and mp3 file at the same time?
Also I just watched this run today, and I had never played the game before. To say the least, I hated the endless amount of cut scenes. I also thought the final boss was the stupidest final boss ever. I even made up some lyrics to the fourside theme in frustration.
"This run is really long, it is dragging on,
the run will never end, even though it says The End,
I can't get enough of these, traveling cut scenes."
These were made during the run, but the "run will never end" part was made after the end credits where it stays on "The End? for like, 10 friggin seconds.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Pekopon wrote:
I also thought the final boss was the stupidest final boss ever.
You cannot comprehend giygas's true form!
Seriously, please reserve your judgment for this game until after you've played through it yourself. While the TAS is highly awesome on several levels, it doesn't do the game justice (mostly because the game's dialog isn't really touched upon during the TAS).
Also, I just watched this run again about a week ago... Great job on the manipulations.
I also thought the final boss was the stupidest final boss ever.
You cannot comprehend giygas's true form!
Seriously, please reserve your judgment for this game until after you've played through it yourself. While the TAS is highly awesome on several levels, it doesn't do the game justice (mostly because the game's dialog isn't really touched upon during the TAS).
Also, I just watched this run again about a week ago... Great job on the manipulations.
I'm not judging the whole game here. I just hated the sheer amount of traveling cut scenes. XD
To someone who's never played the game before, the end boss just looks like one long cut scene.
I love the soundtrack for this game though. After watching the run, I went and listened to a bunch of it on the internet, and it's really great. Plus it's such a huge soundtrack. There's a different song for pretty much every place.
Oh, I listened to the commentary until the part where Ness stands behind the waterfall. I stupidly fast forwarded that part and forgot to adjust the commentary, so it started taking about the burp monster about 3 minutes after he was defeated. :P
I always wanted to play this game, but never made myself do it. I have trouble making myself play new RPGs.
The lyrics I made may sound like I'm bashing the game and the run, but that's not my intension. My brother and I always make insulting words to games songs when we're frustrated, even if we really love the game.
Oh, and I was startled to see the name Electrospecter in the game. I thought "So THAT'S where he got that!" (meaning your username)
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Pekopon wrote:
I'm not judging the whole game here. I just hated the sheer amount of traveling cut scenes. XD
To someone who's never played the game before, the end boss just looks like one long cut scene.
I love the soundtrack for this game though. After watching the run, I went and listened to a bunch of it on the internet, and it's really great. Plus it's such a huge soundtrack. There's a different song for pretty much every place.
Oh, I listened to the commentary until the part where Ness stands behind the waterfall. I stupidly fast forwarded that part and forgot to adjust the commentary, so it started taking about the burp monster about 3 minutes after he was defeated. :P
I always wanted to play this game, but never made myself do it. I have trouble making myself play new RPGs.
The lyrics I made may sound like I'm bashing the game and the run, but that's not my intension. My brother and I always make insulting words to games songs when we're frustrated, even if we really love the game.
Oh, and I was startled to see the name Electrospecter in the game. I thought "So THAT'S where he got that!" (meaning your username)
I'll agree with you that the Skyrunner scenes are exceptionally long, and definitely not suited to a TAS... you should see the Mr. Saturn coffee scene and the Tenda tea scene, haha.
And I understand about making insulting words to game songs... in fact, I can usually be found verbally abusing any character from a game where I get frustrated playing!
And yeah, this is where my avatar originated from... I am killed in this run.
In fact, Halamantariel, when you submit the new run, you should add to the run notes:
- Kills a forum member.
I'm not judging the whole game here. I just hated the sheer amount of traveling cut scenes. XD
To someone who's never played the game before, the end boss just looks like one long cut scene.
I love the soundtrack for this game though. After watching the run, I went and listened to a bunch of it on the internet, and it's really great. Plus it's such a huge soundtrack. There's a different song for pretty much every place.
Oh, I listened to the commentary until the part where Ness stands behind the waterfall. I stupidly fast forwarded that part and forgot to adjust the commentary, so it started taking about the burp monster about 3 minutes after he was defeated. :P
I always wanted to play this game, but never made myself do it. I have trouble making myself play new RPGs.
The lyrics I made may sound like I'm bashing the game and the run, but that's not my intension. My brother and I always make insulting words to games songs when we're frustrated, even if we really love the game.
Oh, and I was startled to see the name Electrospecter in the game. I thought "So THAT'S where he got that!" (meaning your username)
I'll agree with you that the Skyrunner scenes are exceptionally long, and definitely not suited to a TAS... you should see the Mr. Saturn coffee scene and the Tenda tea scene, haha.
And I understand about making insulting words to game songs... in fact, I can usually be found verbally abusing any character from a game where I get frustrated playing!
And yeah, this is where my avatar originated from... I am killed in this run.
In fact, Halamantariel, when you submit the new run, you should add to the run notes:
- Kills a forum member.
Yup. Those UFO scenes were the most painful. But there was so much more. Having to ride the purple dinosaur twice, riding the boat, riding the submarine, riding in all of those cars, and while they weren't traveling cut scenes, there were those band cut scenes. The one with the one lady dancing lasted for like, 3 stinkin minutes or something. O_o
Other than that, I did enjoy the run.
I do want to play the game sometime, though I don't think I ever will. I only hear good things about it, so I'm sure it would be fun. I just don't want to commit to an RPG.
Okay, I've discovered an insane walk-through-walls glitch, and I've reproduced it. Let's hope that ZSNES v1.42 is accurate compared to other emulators.
It involves two things:
1) If someone is taking damage out of battle (poisons, nausia, sunstroke, cold, or wading through Deep Darkness), and the character's HP drops to "critical" (about 25% of max HP), a message will appear.
2) When your party walks straight onto a downward staircase, the lead character will "catch" before starting the diagonal walking.
Combine the two: Time it so that a poisoned/etc. character prompts the critical message to display just as the lead character "catches" on the diagonal-downward path of the staircase.
The result? After clearing the critical-HP message, your party will now be able to walk anywhere, all the while always facing the same direction. You can restore physical contact with the world by entering a door/cave/some other path/warp.
I discovered this on accident while exploring the pyriamids. Looking at a map (http://starmen.net/mother2/maps/fullmap_small.png), I went completely north until I reached Giygas's lair, entered & exited the place (my party turned into robots in the process), and fought him.
Unfortunately, during the first prayer cutscene, the normal Saturn Valley music played, and the game stalled after the miner went to greet Dr. Andronuts. I guess a flag hadn't been set yet.
So, if this trick were used, we'd probably have to jump right to Ness's Nightmare or where Poo learns Starstorm omega. Still, a huge chunk of the game would be cut out.
I'm guessing that the earliest we could do this would be at the stairs in the underground passage in Threed. So we could maybe skip Poo.
Please tell me this wouldn't obsolete the current run.
A little note about the glitch -- you can never go below where you started to head down the stairs. Fortunately, the Threed & pyramid tunnels are quite low down on the map.
Also, have Ness use the Soundstone to redraw the tiles of the area you're in. Using the Town Map also does the trick, but only works in town areas.
Okay, I started a new file & did some mucking around.
As far as I can tell, the game plays normally until Jeff joins you. Then, get a cold from a zombie, head back down into the tunnel you just escaped from, and start the glitch.
Now, going right up to Giygas won't work -- the first prayer cutscene will fail. You also can't go right to the cave where you go back in time, because the warp-point you need to "unghost" yourself will trap you on the wrong side of the chasm.
So that means we need to figure out how to get Dr. Anrdonuts into Saturn Valley.
I've discovered that simply beating Magicant isn't enough. I went from the Threed tunnels to Magicant (the Sea of Eden doesn't have any doors), and levelled up a bit before heading up to Ness's Nightmare. Everyone had Earth Pendants, and Paula's PSI Shield sigma & prayers were enough to hold off the boss until it ran out of PP.
But, after arriving in Saturn Valley, only the Phase Distorter & a Mr. Saturn was there. No Apple Kid, gold miner, or Dr. Andronuts.
I'm guessing that we need to beat Starman DX to get them to appear.
So, here's my guess at the new route:
1) Play the game like normal.
2) After Jeff joins up with the others, get a cold on someone, and glitch-warp to Starman DX's room.
3) Beat Starman DX (keeping someone with a cold alive).
4) Backtrack through the base, and use the person's cold & one of the stairs within the base to glitch-warp to Magicant.
5) Beat Ness's Nightmare, and finish the game like normal.
Interesting notes:
- After Magicant, Ness woke up in Lillyput Steps.
- Poo mysteriously joined you (level 15), and Flying Man was still with me.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
It looks like the flag (00 4A) for the Mr. Saturn and the Phase distorter is turned on when you defeat Mani Mani (in the Sea of Eden) (or maybe even just talk to him before the battle).
[IFFLAGSET 04A C7C588]@(I'm the evil part of your brain.[PAUSE][LINE]@You can't beat me.[PAUSE][LINE]@Because you are the one who forced me into being...)[PAUSE][GOSUB C6857C][1B 03 C683DE][FLAGON 04A]
I'm having a very hard time finding when the Dr. Andonuts and Apple Kids flag (DC 00) is set though. I found the subroutine that handles the event flag ($C99CD8) but I can't figure out what points to the subroutine.
This may be of extreme help:
http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/script/script.txt
I'll keep looking.
By watching the appropriate addresses, I have determined that flags 0D1-0DC control which teleport destinations are available. In particular, flag 0DC is set when you enter the Lost Underworld.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Nitrodon wrote:
By watching the appropriate addresses, I have determined that flags 0D1-0DC control which teleport destinations are available. In particular, flag 0DC is set when you enter the Lost Underworld.
So then, is it safe to assume one would need to defeat Ness' Nightmare and enter the Lost Underworld briefly to set up all you need to go to the Cave of the Past?
I'm also wondering something now... the ending of the game is triggered by talking to Ness' mother. If the flag that makes this conversation possible is triggered by simply entering the Cave of the Past (or Giygas Lair) or something, one would be able to skip Giygas. Entirely. I will look in to this later when I have a bit of time.
EDIT: Looks like the flag is set during the scene when the spirits are released from the robots. Oh well.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
An SMV demonstration of the new glitch (also confirms that it works with SNES9x)
The next thing to confirm is if flag 0DC from entering the Lost Underworld really does make Dr. Andonuts and co. appear. Obviously, in the demo above, simply walking to Lost Underworld with the glitch and heading to Saturn Valley doesn't work, leading me to one of the following conclusions:
- I'm wrong about either the flag that makes Dr. A. appear, or wrong about when the flag is set.
- Perhaps the Phase Distorter flag (04A) needs to be set as well for all of the characters to appear (meaning you'd still need to kill Ness' Nightmare)
- I didn't check, but maybe the 0DC flag doesn't get turned on when you enter the Lost Underworld via the glitch method, and perhaps you'd need to enter a door there to be in the map proper. I don't think there's any stairs around to perform the glitch from the Lost Underworld though, so I'm thinking that one would have to save elsewhere and use a reset capable SNES9X if this last conclusion is the case.
I'll test more tomorrow.
To set flag 0DC, it appears that you need to fall down the hole in Lumine Hall. The hole counts as a door, so that part is easy. Unfortunately, I tried killing my party to return, and the game froze.
Also, it's probably worth mentioning that flags 04A and 0DC are cleared immediately before the first prayer scene, and set again immediately after it. This likely means that those flags are irrelevant here. My next step will probably be to play the scene in a debugger and determine exactly which flags are checked during the prayer scenes.
EDIT: The problem is flag 174, which is set when you use the Phase Distorter 3 to go back in time. This probably means you need to beat Ness's Nightmare and play the rest of the game normally.
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