This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7055: lapogne36's PSX Valkyrie Profile "best ending" in 2:24:12.48

Ah yeah, there's the long movie of April Fools that's acceptable. Inject that straight into my publication shotgun.

The first three battles Chimeras, demons, and wizards can take the first attack with adjustments.

The first three battles Chimeras, demons, and wizards can take the first attack with adjustments.

Left＆circle button push flamenumber battle in

The first three battles Chimeras, demons, and wizards can take the first attack with adjustments.

Left＆circle button push flamenumber battle in

I checked and now I understand what you meant. For the first 3 battles, you are supposed to go second and the game doesn't even use the RNG to determine this, but for some reason if you press the left or right button at the beginning of the battle, the game will use the standard RNG check to determine if you go first or second. However for the first battle, it turns out that the RNG makes you go second if you use this trick, and as far as I know you can't manipulate the RNG at any point before this battle, so you can only save time with it for the 2nd and 3rd battles (around 10s time save in total). I will try to hex-edit my way through the game, though I will probably have trouble syncing the RNG.

I checked and now I understand what you meant. For the first 3 battles, you are supposed to go second and the game doesn't even use the RNG to determine this, but for some reason if you press the left or right button at the beginning of the battle, the game will use the standard RNG check to determine if you go first or second. However for the first battle, it turns out that the RNG makes you go second if you use this trick, and as far as I know you can't manipulate the RNG at any point before this battle, so you can only save time with it for the 2nd and 3rd battles (around 10s time save in total). I will try to hex-edit my way through the game, though I will probably have trouble syncing the RNG.

It should have changed on the frame where you pressed and held left and 0 when closing the message window. But I'm not sure if it's all the same ahead of time, since it has to do with combat randomness. I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I haven't touched the debug mode since it was created.

With the removed cutscenes encode, I was able to watch the gameplay and actually understand what the game is like. The movement is actually really fast and fun to watch, it’s just unfortunate that cutscenes take up the majority of the run time. Still I’d consider it to be worth watching. Yes vote.

So, there needs to be a bit of a discussion about the category and whether or not this run can be Vaulted. "Best ending" runs can be considered full completion of a game under certain circumstances, but Valkyrie Profile is a bit weird. The way Valkyrie Profile was designed, there is no possible way of attaining actual full completion in a single playthrough. Dungeons, of which there are many unseen in this run, are locked by difficulty (this run was done on Hard, which has MOST dungeons unlocked, but there is still one that is only available on Easy/Normal). Not all characters and unique items can be kept, as the central mechanic of the game is literally sending characters and unique items to Valhalla. The problem I personally have with considering this run full completion is how much of the game's content is skipped. There's something like 20 available dungeons, of which only 3 are completed, and I'd hesitate to call the final one a fun and exciting dungeon in and of itself. I'd conservatively estimate that an "all available dungeons" version of this run would be about 4 hours long, but that extra time would be all gameplay and evenly spread out over the course of the run. I could see it easily making Moons, actually. And that's kind of the problem. We need a clear consensus on full completion for this game in order to figure out what to do with this run. As per the rules, this technically qualifies for Vault, as it achieves the game's only "full completion" metric possible on a single playthrough, but as per the extreme amount of skipped content, accepting this would mean having to deal with a potential future "max completion" run or something, a run that collects as much as possible and completes as much content as possible. Would that run obsolete this one if this one was accepted, or would we consider them separate categories? If that run would obsolete this one, can we even accept this one? I'd like a few peoples' opinions on this before I make a decision. Feel free to ask questions. I'm pretty familiar with the game so I should be able to clarify.

First of all, I found this movie entertainning for the gameplay part and like a "film" for the rest of the movie (a really long film) but even if less entertainning, pretty interresting. So I give it a Yes vote. For the problem that we have, I already discussed on discord so I will summarize my pov of the situation : - For this movie, I feel like the B & C endings aren't the proper endings for this game, by the way the devs named the endings (A, B & C) and that we can't consider B & C as completing the game (C is for sure because bad ending but not all will agree for the B ending). -> This would mean that this submission could be considered as "no branch" and accepted to Moons without beeing obsoletable by a full completion TAS. - For full completion on this game, this current submission can't be considered as full completion to me because it skips some content. I so come up with 3 different solutions to define it and I begin with the ones I like the less and don't really agree anymore with : * Doing 3 runs for the 3 endings with the proper difficulty to then complete all dungeons of the game once (if available in 2 different game only do it in one of them), getting all end-dungeon items and characters. * Completing All dungeons of the game while getting their items and also characters + finishing the A ending. means a game on eazy to just get the item of the eazy-only dungeon and also items or characters only available on eazy if any and then the third solution. * Doing a run on hard for the A ending while getting all characters and end-of-dungeon items. For all solutions, sending any characters or items off to Valhalla doesn't have to be a problem, we can do as we wish, the only thing that matters is getting them at one point in the run.

Is there any easy way to check whether some completion criterion has been satisfied? For example, for anything that's decided to be (or not to be) a part of full completion, if it's displayed somewhere in the game or acknowledged in-game in some other way, it's a more clear criterion than things you need to just know where they are, how many of them is there, and whether or not they have been completed, by comparing the movie with guides.

As far as I know, you can't check for any of that. In fact, once you are in the final dungeon, you can't backtrack anymore.

We can't even prove that we've completed everything we needed without going "just remember that there's X of these, now this is how they are being completed"?

Is there any easy way to check whether some completion criterion has been satisfied? For example, for anything that's decided to be (or not to be) a part of full completion, if it's displayed somewhere in the game or acknowledged in-game in some other way, it's a more clear criterion than things you need to just know where they are, how many of them is there, and whether or not they have been completed, by comparing the movie with guides.

There's no in-game acknowledgement of completion percentage. It could end up being the same as what I decided for Tomb Raider "all secrets", where I felt that only secrets were required for full completion due to them being the only stated finite collectable per level. I think my main issue with categorizing this submission is that accepting it would probably require either some sort of weird re-imagining of the rules to accept it to Vault, or a sudden uptick in voting and feedback to push it comfortably up to Moons and not have to worry about rule weirdness or obsoletion chains. This isn't a fastest completion run because of the save glitch run, which debug menus its way to this same ending. I'd hesitate to call it full completion because there's so much gameplay skipped. If we were talking, say, a run that does 17 out of 20 dungeons and skips 3 instead of this run that does 3 out of 20 dungeons and skips 17, it would be much easier to claim full completion in that case, but the nature of the game itself kinda makes it impossible to really define what full completion should be. My opinion's more or less been the same as ViGadeomes', where a "full completion" playthrough would require maximizing whatever is possible in a single playthrough. I'd even say that potential run has a high chance of making Moons, thus not having to even worry about the nature of full completion. I think what I really want to know is what would happen if that potential run were to actually exist. Would it be considered a more suitable full completion run and thus obsolete this one? If so, can we publish this run as full completion at all? If the "fuller" run doesn't obsolete this one, then how do we classify this one to begin with, since fastest completion is already taken care of? ...This is why audience feedback is so important. A few more Yes votes and a couple more positive posts and this run would have been published already, and that potential "maximum completion" run would just swiftly obsolete it on both content overlap and entertainment.

The way I see the available options. I agree that it's too little content to call it "full", because the same metric can be applied way further, increasing the same kind of content as shown here. So there's no sense in stopping here if we want to maximize it. Ideally this would just be sent to Moons, but it looks like it'd be non-trivial to achieve due to lack of interest. At the very least it's a borderline movie because there are good votes but almost no posts supporting it in terms of entertainment. Are there any RPGs on the site that are similar in gameplay to this one? If so, do they usually get Moons ratings? Might feel like a dirty hack (or a neat workaround?), but there's an option to just push it to Moons as a blank branch, and if it ever gets definitively bad rating, obsolete it with a future full completion run. Why not? We couldn't get people to post here, so they shouldn't complain that we're solving this by making them rate instead :D As for future full completion definition, simply playing all dungeons available in hard mode feels weird. Because how would you call it? "Most dungeons"? Playing all dungeons at least makes sure it really plays them all, even if it's 2 playthroughs. As for items and chars, I'd need more details on how they work, how you know you have some of them collected right now, and what sending to Valhalla means, and what the effect is.

As for future full completion definition, simply playing all dungeons available in hard mode feels weird. Because how would you call it? "Most dungeons"? Playing all dungeons at least makes sure it really plays them all, even if it's 2 playthroughs.

My main issue with that is that it kills pacing and entertainment value by requiring another 2 full hours of cutscenes just to play a single extra dungeon. It would essentially be tacking this submission onto the end of a 4-ish hour run.

As for items and chars, I'd need more details on how they work, how you know you have some of them collected right now, and what sending to Valhalla means, and what the effect is.

Each dungeon has a couple unique items (artifacts) as completion rewards. When receiving these artifacts, you are given the choice to either keep them, or tribute them to Odin (i.e, send to Valhalla). Tributing artifacts will raise your Evaluation Rating, which basically a measure of how loyal of a valkyrie Lenneth is being. Keeping these items lowers your Evaluation Rating, since, y'know, bad valkyries are selfish, or something. If your Evaluation Rating drops to 0, you receive the worst ending: C. This can happen at any point during the game. It's the same sort of thing with characters: The job of a valkyrie is to bring dead warriors to Valhalla, so that's what you're given the option to do in each chapter of the game. Sending characters to Valhalla effectively removes them from use for most, potentially all of the game. The more of the in-game requirements characters meet when they're sent up, the more Evaluation Rating you get, and the better chance you'll have at getting them back. Not doing this will absolutely tank your Evaluation Rating. For the A ending, one specific character is required to be sent up and survive. Contrary to what I initially believed, it may be possible to keep every artifact just by sending up characters good enough to keep Evaluation above 0, and by extension these characters can be "kept" as long as they survive in Valhalla. Perhaps the RTA 100% runs are already doing that, I have yet to find the time to sit down and watch one in full. Basically, VP is super complicated, I don't know how we can adapt our current rules to what it does. It might actually just be easier to send this to Moons and see if a proper full completion run comes along in the future. Hell, I could even be the one who makes it.

How many potential full completion requirements will be met if you just maximize your evaluation rating? Does it have a known limit too?

How many potential full completion requirements will be met if you just maximize your evaluation rating? Does it have a known limit too?

There's no benefit or anything to maxing it, the only purpose it serves is to give you the C ending if it hits 0. It's really not much different to a normal healthbar in that regard.

Maybe no benefit, but is it displayed anywhere, and is there a hard cap for it?

It's displayed in the menu, and I believe it's capped at 100 (which is also where it starts).

Ah so you can send things to Valhalla without increasing it further if it's already full?

I'll skip further research/confirmation stuff and answer the unasked question directly: We are not considering evaluation rating as part of full completion under any circumstances. Like I said, it only serves a single purpose, and that's to give you the bad ending if you bottom it out at 0. "Maximizing" it does literally nothing except give you a little extra room to keep some artifacts or characters during the game itself, rather than getting them back at the end of the game. It's literally just like a healthbar. Reaches 0? Game over. Literally any other time? Just make sure it doesn't reach 0. As someone familiar with the game, my definition for "full completion" would be getting all story-available characters and completing all possible dungeons in Hard mode, in a single playthrough, while getting the A ending. Anything on top of that would just be arbitrary due to the complexity of the game itself. Requiring all dungeons is essentially doubling the length of the run by requiring a second playthrough of a game with at least 2 hours of unskippable cutscenes. Requiring the TASer to keep all artifacts/characters is impossible as it would cause a game over, plus characters are returned at the end of the game, plus sending up a character is required for the A ending anyway. I think all artifacts can be kept as long as you're keeping up on sending up good characters, but I imagine the artifacts would just be used/transmuted/sent up equipped on characters anyway.

What would be the amount of necessary dungeons for Easy, and how many of them are Easy-only?

That's also not a simple question to answer. There's nothing exclusive to Easy, everything available on Easy is also available in Normal (while Easy cuts out much more content, to the point where it ironically makes the game harder), and none of that content is required anyway. From what I can tell, none of these dungeons are even interesting or unique. There's more than I thought there were (4), but in general they just seem to be straightforward areas with mostly repeated enemies, even bosses that are just ascended versions of normal enemies. The only required dungeons in the game are the ones done in this run, and even then one of them is only required for the A ending, and even THEN the final dungeon in this run is exclusive to the A ending (B ending has a different end dungeon). Hell, there's a postgame dungeon with exclusive characters in it that's accessed from the main menu, which I would consider an entirely separate publishable mode as opposed to part of the game itself, so even playing through the main game a thousand times would never be considered true "full completion". The game is explicitly designed around multiple individual playthroughs, it's not designed to be "completed fully" in a single run by any stretch, so I'm steadfastly refusing to try to apply our generalized full completion rules to it. There's just no way in which they'll work for this game. My definition from my last post is the absolute maximum I would personally require for a Vaultable 100%, and frankly even that's a moot point because I seriously doubt it would even go to Vault in the first place.

Yeah I don't remember a single full completion run that was demanded to complete the game twice. So if there's a precedent for that, I haven't seen it. A possible argument for several playthroughs would be if the game tracks things you unlock that way, and then you can access them all in a single run. But this game doesn't allow it, so there are incompatible dungeons and items. I remember a similar situation in a mobile game I used to play a lot, Diamond Rush for Nokia. It has a room where you can only open one of the 2 chests, both containing purple diamonds (50 vs. 1). https://youtu.be/WtOlUaN-HSY&t=273 Since collecting the purple diamonds is a nice way to show off more of the game, one would have to allow this "all but one" clause, at least until someone finds a way to collect them all. Technically that would be "maximum diamonds". The game tracks how many you have, but you can replay any level indefinitely, getting more and more. So it doesn't make sense to play the level and open the left chest, and then play again and open the right one. Similarly, Valkyrie Profile doesn't let you play through "literally all dungeons" in one go. Since it doesn't seem to track how many you've visited overall, indeed it's better to maximize whatever we have available right away. Because otherwise, it'd be similar to Steam's 100% achievements. We don't want full completion rules to demand that "literally everything possible is maxed out". Also we don't have to call the branch "all X". If the definition is compound, just calling it 100% is much better, as long as it's what the community wants (the staff and the audience).