Hi everyone :D
My name is Wobmiar, I'm a girl from Quebec, and I'm here to present you my newest project: a TAS run of the Gamecube game Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
I'm not new on this community, but I was always more like a watcher than a runner. I learned recently TAS basics, and one of my dreams was to speedrun and have fun with one of my favorite games of all times, FFCC. Thanks to the Dolphin emulator, it's a wish I'm working on to come true.
This is a work in progress, I will attach here the link of my Youtube playlist where you can watch my videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCf7gguccllGS2AyRLZSJI-wU02uPM5ck
If you have questions, advices, or whatever you wanna talk about this awesome game and project, this is the right place. Enjoy ;)
Random notes (to be updated if necessary):
- I use Dolphin 4.0.2, the latest recommended build
- I use the Final Fantasy - Crystal Chronicles (Europe) game, in french because it's my first language
- Maelias, the character name, is the nickname of my girlfriend <3
- Of course it's not perfect, but I do my best and I have fun
- My current videos are 25 frames/second, and don't have the in game sound (I use some nice background music)
This is the sort of game that deserves the 4 player treatment, a feat not exactly recommended for a first project. However, I will be interested to see what you can do for the single character version.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2792
Location: Northern California
First off, welcome to the community! Second off, I used to love this game and I'm super excited to see what you'll be doing with it... Third off, on a bit of a down note, I would recommend changing the language back to English if it's not too much trouble. It's not a strict requirement by any means, but it would prevent some fuss later on down the road if you choose to submit this.
Y'know, back several years ago when I was still playing this, I did have an interest in speedrunning it... Maybe I'll dust off my old copy and see what I can do to help.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | CohostwarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
If for that reason my run is refused because of the language, I'll simply do another run, and better than the first one. Since I'm pretty sure the fastest language (I might test) is Japanese, I will check if another version of the game can be faster or not. If I want to try english, I'll probably use the NA version of the game :)
Sorry for the inconvenience
I don't think it needs 4 players,we can have more categories if it's different from a later made 4 playerTAS(cause we have none right now and we might never have the dolphin with gba emulation)
if the version text is the only difference,you're not obliged to use the fastest version(some prefer it,some prefer readability)
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
Dolphin needs to integrate a GBA Emulator (mGBA?) before something like this would be possible for TASing.
As it is now, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is one of the games the GBA<->GCN connection struggles with. Highly recommend either waiting or doing a single player TAS. But, from what I've seen of the single player, it will be a bit harder to make it entertaining.
This is a non-emulated related fact, but to record footage of the racing minigame on an actual console, you have to have a copy of the game, a Game Boy Player, a GCN-GBA cable, and two GameCubes. I wonder if the AVGN has a copy of the game.
Pretty much impossible to emulate tho :3 I would still really want to make a possible multiplayer mode TAS on this game, it would be so awesome :)
EDIT: finally completed part 2 (year 2)! That was so intense haha :D I'm posting it on Youtube ;) https://youtu.be/z_GPsf7BPis
As already pointed out, Co-op TASing is impossible since there is no way to sync the GBAs with Dolphin, or have any TAS tools at all lol.
However, since the GBAs' footage are of lesser significance in this game (as opposed to Four Swords Adventures) there might be another way.
This video shows a pseudo emulated GBA within Dolphin made by dragonbane that simply catches the data sent to the GBA and sends responses.
Link to video
As you can see, the Tingle Tuner perfectly "connects" and it is possible to make use of Tingle's functions.
The downside is that there exists no visible GBA screen so it would make things quite complicated to figure out
(like doing equips, item management, bonuses, etc).
It's probably doable as you could go into single player and check the inventory of each character to allocate necessary items, or could try to blindly navigate and drop them etc.
Bonuses could be figured out by beating the stage since they are displayed at the end.
Or, you search for adresses for major things like bonuses or key items.
I admit it's an extreme hassle and might be close to insanity, but yeah.
TASing requires some insanity :P
Either way, the current version is not capable of acting as a complete GBA, but it could be possible in the future (more likely than for a true GBA emulation within Dolphin).
If everything will sync and be stable is another question, too, but I just wanted to let you know.
(Of course, TASvideos would never accept a fake GBA, but from what I could tell, you aren't super serious on that matter anyway)
Aside from that, is there a specific reason for no audio and 25 FPS?
(Makes me wonder, how do you even dump 25FPS? lol)
Something silly I stumbled upon some time ago (might be known too, who knows):
When you leave an area by walking through the Miasma path (w/e it's called in English, I have no idea lol) and get back onto the overworld, the camera moves to the next area.
There's one frame (probably) before the camera moves on which you can call the menu and navigate through it.
This probably also works with ship travels, which are longer and might give more space for possibilities.
Though, it's most likely useless, but just throwing this in here.
Considering the general pace of FFCC, this is some good stuff so far!
Thanks for the info. Still sad... I don't feel able to do all of that blindly, I'm TASing pretty... "manually".
I'm dumb for dump. That's all. I'm following every steps and still have issues. Since I'm that bad, I just decided to present some videos, sorry :'(
Thanks for the info. Still sad... I don't feel able to do all of that blindly, I'm TASing pretty... "manually".(
Of course, this was all merely a theoretical concept far from being practical. I just like to think of what could be possible.
I didn't mean to push you at all, just take your time to collect more experience and do as you please.
Wobmiar wrote:
I'm dumb for dump. That's all. I'm following every steps and still have issues. Since I'm that bad, I just decided to present some videos, sorry :'(
Maybe we can figure things out if you explain what's wrong?
I am not too experienced myself in terms of creating "high quality" movies, I just dump frames and audio and put them together manually, but that's sufficient for my WIPs haha.
It's cool you've started this and published WIPs, need to start somewhere right?
Hello everyone ^^ After many testings, pauses, fun, other testings, I managed to get enough knowledge of the game (TAS and not TAS) to try myself an official submission. I'm starting a work in progress with a new route. I took the english version, with Dolphin 5.0, and I want to do an "All Dungeons", a known category in speedrunning, and probably the most entertaining.
So, first thing first, here is my overworld route and artefact:
Year 1:
River Belle Path
Moogle Pocket(B+0)(Command Slot+1)
The Mushroom Forest
Mage Masher(C)(Magic+1)
The Mine of Cathuriges
Cat's Bell(M)(Magic+1)
Year 2:
Goblin Wall
Winged Cap(B+0)(Magic+1)
Tida
Dragon's Wisker(B+0)(Magic+1)
Moschet Manor
Red Slippers(B+84)(Magic+3)
Year 3:
River Belle Path
Kris(B+0)(Magic+3)
Selepation Cave
Ring of Thunder(C)(Magic+1)
Daemon's Court
Wonder Wand(B+103)(Magic+3)
Year 4:
Kilanda
Ring of Fire(M)(Magic+1)
Conall Curach
Sage's Staff(B+0)(Magic+3)
Rebena Te Ra
Rune Bell(C)(Magic+3)
Year 5:
Lynari Desert
Noah's Lute(B+144)(Magic+5)
Veo Lu Sluice
Ring of Blizzard(B+0)(Magic+1)
Mount Vellenge
(Magic+3)
With this, here are where I achieve the different levels of magic. Yes I play a Yuke, I tested them and they are globally faster:
-15:Start
-20:Moschet Manor
-25:River Belle Path
-30:Kilanda
-35:Rebena Te Ra
-40:Lynari Desert
-45:Mount Vellenge
And there is some frame testings I did (because well, it's important). I calculated the duration of all basic tasks for all races, including the cooldown (before being able to regain control of your character):
Clavat
Attack:50
Focus Attack:69
Defense:27
Magic:55
Lilty
Attack:50
Focus Attack:68
Defense:19
Magic:68
Yuke
Attack:50
Focus Attack:63
Defense:21
Magic:48
Selkie
Attack:50
Focus Attack:60
Defense:31
Magic:58
I already finished the first dungeon, so I'll tell you as soon as I upload it on Youtube :)
I said it in the wind waker thread,i'll say it here too:
Forget the gameboy emulation help,just TAS the best you can with what you have,as most people didn't have the GBA feature in their experience with the game and won't miss it.As a matter of fact,I suspect a lot people would even condone a run using help from a bonus feature that most people didn't have access to(simply not "fair" between the players,i don't think this way but it was a sort of commentary i used to read in tingle tuner runs)
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
Tfw the intro is not in Japanase.
Jokes aside, it's just unusual, but it's great nonetheless; the vocalist emulates the original's style really well (not that any of this matters anyway).
Anyways, welcome back!
I think All Dungeons is a smart choice and creates a good balance between effort put in und the audience's appreciation.
The boss fight looked really cool with the use of Gravity, Fire and Firaga of course!
Level 3 spells just look so good in this game.
grassini wrote:
Forget the gameboy emulation help,just TAS the best you can with what you have,as most people didn't have the GBA feature in their experience with the game and won't miss it.
Regarding the GBA usage, I kind of disagree with grassini, because as opposed to TWW, FF CC was primarily made for multiplayer.
Of course, technical realization is a different matter, so singleplayer is the only way to go, but just wanted to point out that multiplayer brings the best out of this game, because it's more than just an "additional feature".
Either way, good luck with this project!
Thank you very much ^^ I discovered the way to make Firaga in this fight (after all those months of playing, I'm really slow to discover things). I managed to understand (a little) how it works (didn't even know it was possible) and I optimised it for a great result.
Concerning multiplayer, I tried hard to make it work. But even if I make it work, the only way to TAS it is to use savestate as an "illegal" matter just to synchronize everything (vba +dolphin). As hard as I wanted to TAS multiplayer, it's not possible for the moment, so I'm putting my efforts for my future submission on singleplayer :)
Here is part 2:
Link to video
New strategies, new techniques, I took Silver Bracer instead of Mage Masher simply because it changes nothing and is pure rng. Enjoy :)
Part 3 and end of year one, yeah :D I took Mage Masher for rng reasons, changes nothing again at all. This one was hard to do, especially with the parts where the camera don't follow me ^^
Link to video
For the people wanting a little longer video, here is year 1 in one video. It also proves that the .dtm works very well with no desync :)
Link to video
Part 4, the battle of the mages. Shortest video, but the most difficult to optimise, due to the arbitrary decisions I make in order to have enough money for the late game (and fruits). Perfect Gobling King fight. Sincerely everything planned worked perfectly, and even better (I improvised some new optimisations on the way).
Link to video
