Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Anyone else here played this game? I'm working on a speedrun for it, but I decided I'd get some input from you guys.
1st: Do you think this would be a good speedrun movie? It'll end up being a mutlihour movie, probably longer than the current Super Mario RPG movie. Nevertheless, people who've played it would be interested in seeing it done in (significantly) less than 20 hours, and it's diverse enough that people who've never seen it might be interested in it. (For a while, at least.)
A possible alternative to doing a speedrun of the game proper would be a speedrun of the Ancient Dungeon, using Gift mode.
2nd: Anyone know how to manipulate luck for this game? I can't figure out how to force critical hits or even how to get enemies to use certain attacks. (If I could, it would really knock down the time on this game. Some bosses have moves that do literally nothing, and if I could force that I could cut down drastically on the amount of levelling and equipment collecting I have to do.) I already know how to avoid random battles on the world map and have a vague idea of how to force certain monster spawns in dungeons.
Also, if anyone knows how to change monsters' movement patterns in dungeons that would help a lot, too. (I've got what I think to be an optimal path through the first two dungeons, but I had to basically test every step and re-record if a monster moved in the wrong direction. If I can force certain movements the re-record count will drop dramatically.)
3rd: If anyone's got any reasonable requests for this game, I can do them. Just so you know, I'm skipping all the capsule monsters. They don't contribute enough to boss battles to justify the time it takes to get them, and I don't have to fight enough non-boss battles to worry about them.
Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
I've never played Lufia II, though I'd really like to. But I probably won't get a chance to for a long time, and by then, I'll probably be more interested in playing other games. For that reason alone, I'd like to watch this run.
Also, er... 20 hours? That would be hardcore.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Based on how long it's taken me to get through the first three dungeons (18 minutes, give or take) and knowing that plot takes up a significant amount of time in the game, I'd say a perfect run would finish in about 5 hours. I could be way off, though.
I own a Lufia 2 cart, and I played them like more than 5 times. For #3 that you have, I kind of disagree.. sometime they hit really hard, harder than heroes can hit.
My idea is pick out 1 of capsule (maybe Armor Dog?), and luck maintain their action.
quietkane wrote:
A possible alternative to doing a speedrun of the game proper would be a speedrun of the Ancient Dungeon, using Gift mode.
That would be cool.. if Bisqwit allows saved SRAM that has unlocked Gift Mode.
This post probably will be totally useless, but I'd like to let you know that I would love to see that game time attacked. You have my full support on this one.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
ventuz wrote:
I own a Lufia 2 cart, and I played them like more than 5 times. For #3 that you have, I kind of disagree.. sometime they hit really hard, harder than heroes can hit.
My idea is pick out 1 of capsule (maybe Armor Dog?), and luck maintain their action.
Well, Armor Dog involves going out of your way a good bit, plus solving a puzzle that I'd rather not have to optimize. If I pick up any it'll most likely be the Wind capsule. He's just sitting there, in a room right off the path through whatever Tower he's in. No locks, no puzzles, no nothin'.
But when I said that they're not the trouble their worth, I was really thinking more in terms of how I'm probably not going to have the equipment necessary to up their forms to useful levels, but I suppose I could try luck-forcing a particular craving for something I already have. But I dread figuring out how to do that.
And I haven't gotten to any of the really hard bosses, yet. (Like Idura.) It's possible that Flash might be very useful in such battles. I suppose I'll have to wait and see.
ventuz wrote:
quietkane wrote:
A possible alternative to doing a speedrun of the game proper would be a speedrun of the Ancient Dungeon, using Gift mode.
That would be cool.. if Bisqwit allows saved SRAM that has unlocked Gift Mode.
:\ I don't see why not, actually. I can't imagine that it's possible to encrypt data into an SRAM file that would act like a hack if you started a new game. But I don't know much about the innards of the program, so I could be wrong.
I played this ages ago, probably the same summer I played most of the Final Fantasies. Meaning that I have no useful input to give, but I would enjoy watching an attack.
Ugh, please no about the gift run. It would be useless to watch, it would envolve manipulating the floors to get one with an exit which is close to you, and then just killing yourself at the boss when your level 1.
Infact, you can see what I did to prove the point here: here
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
If you're going to do a time attack on this game, please use the E version.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
The U 1. 0 version has many many bugs in it (stuff not usefull for a time attack either like garbage text appearing on the menus when you switch weapons), and major graphic corruption in two places.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
No. Here are all the versions of Lufia II:
Estpolis Denki II (J) [f1].smc
Estpolis Denki II (J) [h1].smc
Estpolis Denki II (J) [t1].smc
Estpolis Denki II (J).smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (E) [!].smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (G) [t1].smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (G).smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (S).smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (U) [f1].smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (U) [T+Dut].smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (U) [t1].smc
Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (U).smc
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
ventuz wrote:
Oh, so the E version is much cleaner. No gameplay change?
No.
Omega wrote:
That's the U 1.0 version. Is there a 1.1 version?
One that's pretty impossible to get ahold of.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
I've been recording with (U) v1.0. I haven't noticed any "garbage text" aside from stray spaces in conversations. Since each character of text takes exactly 1 frame to display and I've only seen two such extra characters, I'm not going to change the version until either
1) I notice a serious bug.
2) I learn enough Hex-editing to make the movie synch properly.
As an answer to how far along I've gotten, I've cleared the Alunze dungeon, (the 3rd dungeon in the game) but the movie's de-synching at the entrance to the cave at Sudeltan. (With the Earthquake Catfish. 2nd dungeon in the game.) The Alunze dungeon's a piece of cake, so I don't mind if I lose that, but forcing the Catfish to drop the Catfish rock was a real pain, and I'd hate to have to repeat that. (Not to mention that I have to survive the Catfish and the monsters surrounding Tia before I can reach a healing circle or an inn, unless I feel like backtracking to Sudeltan after the fight with the catfish. Which is just too much.) If I can't get it to synch again I'm going to be very pissed.
Anyway, the answer either way is that I haven't gotten very far in terms of percentage of the game, so you're welcome to start a run of your own. I warn you, though, there's a lot of path planning, and you'll probably have to test out several different ways of taking on each dungeon before you find one that's significantly faster than another. For example, you need to be at least level 3 to take on the Lizardman in the cave to Sudelton, but actually reaching level 3 is possible in so many different ways and at so many different times that it took me three runs before I found one that I liked.
But ultimately, I think having some competition would be good. We could compare notes on luck manipulation, if nothing else. (This game is a bitch to force luck issues on. Monster spawns, for example, are determined when you enter the floor the monster's in. That means that you have to force each half of the spawns in the Alunze dungeon all at once.) I still have no clue whether critical hits and misses are even forceable at all. (Though I have found a way to force certain attack patterns from monsters. Unfortunately, there seem to be certain rounds that have a fixed action no matter what pattern they're using.)
I've been recording with (U) v1.0. I haven't noticed any "garbage text" aside from stray spaces in conversations. Since each character of text takes exactly 1 frame to display and I've only seen two such extra characters, I'm not going to change the version until either
1) I notice a serious bug.
I think there is a serious graphical bug later in the game at a water temple or something like that... It's a short place you just have to walk through but the graphics make no sense at all. Nothing people that've played through the US version haven't seen before.
quietkane wrote:
As an answer to how far along I've gotten, I've cleared the Alunze dungeon, (the 3rd dungeon in the game) but the movie's de-synching at the entrance to the cave at Sudeltan. ... If I can't get it to synch again I'm going to be very pissed.
Uh-oh... what emulator version are you using, and what are your settings?
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Oh, yeah. When you go to get the Dual Sword for the first time. 'd forgotten about that. But still, it doesn't make my time any worse, and it might be more entertaining for people to watch. (They'd think it's being glitched, or something. I dunno. If nothing else, it's a change of pace.)
I'm using 1.43+, v7. (Props for that, by the way. Great idea and it's very handy.)
I recorded without WIP1 timing, but since I don't know what that is, I don't know what that means in terms of what I should do to get it to de-synch. I've tried changing all the viewing/recording settings, and I've messed with the sound settings several times, but it's still de-synching. I have no clue what's up, and if I can't figure it out by tomorrow, I'm just gonna start from where it de-synchs and re-record it. Shouldn't take more than a day, anyway.
Edit - Ok. Scratch that. New discovery: Tia sells items. I had forgotten this. What this means, however, is that I can save about 20 seconds in the fight against the Lizardman in the cave to Sudletan plus however long I spent getting the third level I "required" to beat him.
Translation: I'm gonna re-do the whole run. Since I still have no clue why it's de-synching and I honestly don't know what killing the Lizardman will do to the rest of the run anyway, I'm just gonna start clean. The intro doesn't take long, so I'll just start the whole thing over. I'm also going to go grab the European version, so that the game in general is cleaner. Hopefully by Sunday I'll have something worth posting here.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Sounds good to me.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 6/20/2004
Posts: 292
Location: United Kingdom
There's an E version? I didn't think the game was released in Europe. The only cart I could find after hours and hours of searching was an australian version, which just happens to be PAL, and seeming as the first wasn't released there it was called the first one (which makes some sorta sense with the storyline). It is an official cart and all.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this movie. I still haven't finished the game yet (it'll take me years as i usually loose interest then when i come back i start the game from the beginning!). I haven't honestly played it much so i don't know about the capsule monsters... I'm certainly looking forward to this though!
There's an E version? I didn't think the game was released in Europe. The only cart I could find after hours and hours of searching was an australian version, which just happens to be PAL, and seeming as the first wasn't released there it was called the first one (which makes some sorta sense with the storyline). It is an official cart and all.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this movie. I still haven't finished the game yet (it'll take me years as i usually loose interest then when i come back i start the game from the beginning!). I haven't honestly played it much so i don't know about the capsule monsters... I'm certainly looking forward to this though!
Lufia II is called only Lufia in Europe, Lufia I wasn't released here
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Vrai. The true irony of this, however, is that the first Lufia game (the one which wasn't released in Europe) happens after this one. (And, in fact, the opening scenes/battles of Lufia and the Fortress of Doom are the final scenes/battles in Lufia II.) So it's really more appropriate to call this one Lufia and the other Lufia II.
(Except that there's no character named Lufia in this game. *smirks*)
So.... does anyone know of a free hosting site that I can host the run on? I wouldn't need to use it for anything else, since the only other things I ever work with are images, and photobucket works for that. Any help would be appreciated.
