This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5171: xy2_'s Arcade Osman "playaround" in 09:26.23

Link to video edit: Video is now unlisted.

Thank you, Lars_Hendrick, for the encode! That made this movie much easier to watch. First of all, as much as I have liked Osman runs recently, I'm a little confused by the purpose of this run. It seems like it's trying to replace the purpose of the max-score run as a way to show off more of the game. This run shows off some glitches, such as the HP exploit on Slaver, which the max-score run doesn't do. I do appreciate the extra move variety, where I can appreciate the wrestling and backdrops done on enemies. (The divebomb of Herio in the refight was especially cool, for instance.) One thing that got on my nerves, though, is that you have a few places where it looks like you play around for a while without really demonstrating much novelty. The first stage is great, but then you fool around during the bossfight by going off to the upper-right corner where there seems to be nothing major to show off. In the second stage, you manage to get to the left of some vehicle, in a way that you're not supposed to do, but then you hang out there a while for no real apparent reason. In that jungle-like area, before you fight Cannons, you seem to loop through the stage a couple times. All in all, I do enjoy this movie, and I voted Yes. But I feel like the run could benefit from a more cohesive plan for showing off combos or glitches that keeps things fresh the whole way through. Maybe you had that plan in mind, but it doesn't seem apparent that way for an inexperienced eye.

Osman is a cool game, with a strange art direction and nice music, so I enjoyed watching this playaround of it. However, the difference between any% and this playaround (to my Osman-untrained eye) doesn't seem that big. No major skips exist in the game, so both runs complete the same levels in a similarly awesome and completely incomprehensibly hectic manner, even though the playaround faffs around a bit more in favor of some extra funny moments and meets some extra mini-bosses. I dunno... as far as "demonstrating" the game goes, this TAS still rushes through things pretty fast and the experience feels similar to any%. I might have enjoyed this TAS even more if the player gave the game more room to "breathe". Maybe even show some of the short cutscenes between the levels to give the viewer some context regarding the madness happening on the screen, and thus gain more appreciation for it? That's my two cents at least. Overall it still gets a 'yes' from me, even though I criticize the hectic style that feels too similar in spirit to the any%. (But could it even be helped, considering what crazy action this whole game is...?)

om, nom, nom... blech, salty!