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Posted: 7/6/2005 11:53 AM
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Gigafrost
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Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
Actually, it looks worse than 1 frame of lag...it's been 4 frames every time I've measured it.
07-24-2009: 2595 anime DVDs and counting...
Posted: 7/6/2005 3:03 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Yeah.... whatever. It's still a time saver to power it up for later boss fights, and that's all that matters. I made sure to use a nice combonation of buster and sabre against the enemies, so if simply hitting someone with a weapon levels it up, the buster should get the 4th pellet upgrade before I get back to Maha/the train.
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Posted: 7/7/2005 4:51 AM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
OK, so here is my finalized route for my run. -Obviously, I'll do the Underground Lab and then the Disposal Factory. I have Aztec Falcon dead as of right now (I had to redo the fight twice, but he is optimally owned now). -Destroy the Train. I should level up both the sabre and buster during this mission, hopefully. I am THIS close to researching weapon leveling... -The Desert Level. I should get the second sabre upgrade during my trek to Anubis, but I doubt I'll have the buster powerup. I'll try to get it while I'm walking the trooper back. -Retrieve the Data. Thankfully, I don't have to walk anyone back at a slow rate, but Maha will just be one big manipulation-fest. I think I should be able to make him romp in place. Does the Thunder Chip amplify normal slashes and semi-charged buster shots? -Occupy the Factory. Should be straightforward. I still need to tinker with the retarded floating platform area, but I think I might be able to skip most of it with some ideal wall hopping. I should be able to finish off the boss in very few turns. -DRILL MOLE MECHANOTHINGER OF DOOM. Pretty simple slashes with supplemental buster shots. Should be really really quick. -Second Desert Level. More basic dash/slash. I don't know if I will have either powered up weapons by now, but the Thunder enhancement would make Fefnir a breeze. -Find the Hidden Base. Aside from finding a quick route from hostage to hostage, my only qualm is manipulating Blizzack to use his retarded ice beam attack, giving me ample time to charge up and slash him with the Fire Chip. -Harpuia's Stage. I need to test every ledge here for possible shortcuts, but it seems like I can avoid every ladder in the stage. I may have to wound one of those lame tortoise things, though. Harpuia is a joke with the Ice Chip. -Protect Factory mission. Once Phantom gets out of my way, this should be a breeze. I need to find out what his optimal fight pattern is. I think I may have to manipulate him to use the hovering shuriken attack instead of his multiform. The bomb path seems simple enough. Might take damage to bypass some electrical beams... -Stop the Hacking. I'm testing mike's shortcut in the submarine area, but I intend to do it without the triple rod. No promises, though. I also need to see if it's faster to destroy the computers with my buster as opposed to the spinning slash. Leviathan is a joke, but not as easy to beat as Harpuia is/was. -Defend the Base. Useless mission. The monkey boss will be manipulated to eat super-heated sabre. -Neo Arcadia I. I can slip past anything here, but I need to further test the two minibosses. If the first set of fliers have no recovery time, they are disposable via buster. The second duder can be manipulated to toss his blades. Then, aside from tinkering with the teleporting platforms, Herculious should be manipulatable to just launch salvos of energy balls. -NeoArcadia II. Stupid elevator... Also, since I'm not using Totten, I have spikes to worry about... The boss shouldn't be a hassle. I need to stop saying that. Neo Arcadia III. I have my mini/boss fight orders set up based on the least amount of chip shifting. I should walk into X's fight with the Ice Chip on so that I can use it on Angel-X immediately. I haven't really learned Angel-X's methods and whatnot yet, but I'll be sure to do that fight as well as I care to do. Anyways, I will release my test WIP once I beat the stupid Mechanowhatever tank. Be sure to leave feedback if you want to.
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Posted: 7/7/2005 1:23 PM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
I really don't know the specifics to how weapon leveling works. I think if you just hit an enemy with a weapon you will level the weapon up even if you don't kill the enemy, but I don't know for sure. If you can level up your weapon without killing enemies then I made a big mistake when it came to leveling up the buster. About elemental chips, you need to fully charge the weapon to use them. Charging the buster up to the green level doesn't work. You should really test whether some bosses are faster simply using the standing slash trick. I'm almost positive Hanumachine (defend the base) and Stagroff (find hidden base) are faster due to the lack of invincibility. You did standing slash Aztec Falcon to death, right? If you do find a way to pull of the submarine shortcut without the triple rod then props to you. The trick is you need to be on the upper half of the sub and the game will automatically push you up onto the sub. I could never find a way to do this without the triple rod. Have you considered doing retrieve data later? Thunder attacks make Maha Ganesheriff a lot faster considering his bomb attack (then again you can probably manipulate him to use it a lot less) takes up a lot of time. This mission doesn't open up any new stages, its only purpose is to give you the triple rod and shield boomerang.
Posted: 7/7/2005 3:21 PM
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Zurreco
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Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
mikwuyma wrote:
-I think if you just hit an enemy with a weapon you will level the weapon up even if you don't kill the enemy, but I don't know for sure. -If you can level up your weapon without killing enemies then I made a big mistake when it came to leveling up the buster. -You should really test whether some bosses are faster simply using the standing slash trick. I'm almost positive Hanumachine (defend the base) and Stagroff (find hidden base) are faster due to the lack of invincibility. You did standing slash Aztec Falcon to death, right? -The trick is you need to be on the upper half of the sub and the game will automatically push you up onto the sub. -Have you considered doing retrieve data later?
-I have noticed that, whenever I replay my file on my cart, I can level the sabre during my fight with Maha or Anubis. Therefore, either simply striking gives you exp, or striking bosses gives exp, whereas killing enemies gives other exp. -I am taking the precaution of firing off a few shots on some enemies before I slash them, just in case this does give me buster exp. -What is the standing slash trick? I've heard something about it, where the first attack in Zero's ground sabre combo doesn't cause invincibility because it is meant to allow your combo to do full damage. I need to know what this is before I can use it. As for Aztec Falcon, I start the fight with a charged buster shot (3 damage) and then continue on with optimised mid-air slashes (4 damage). It's enough to finish him very very quickly. However, I haven't really moved too much further yet, so maybe I can salvage that fight... -Define "on the upper half". You mean grabbing on to the side of the sub? -The thing about doing Retrieve the Data when I do it: I don't expect to have any charge abilities at that time. The level is really simple, and I'm fairly sure I can get Maha to just walk or slap (although walking is preferred). Any rolling or wrecking ball attacks would make me restart the fight. The Thunder Chip would make the fight way faster, but I'm just not confident that I'll have a chargeable weapon by then.
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Posted: 7/7/2005 9:11 PM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2623
You definately don't need to kill enemies, my first time through the game I leveled my buster up to 4 by just shooting one of the rotating things over and over and over again.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 7/7/2005 9:27 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
The sooner your sabre or buster reach a chargeable level, every enemy and boss in the game can be killed 2x faster. However, I'm not going to stop anywhere to level up any of my weapons, since that is essentially a waste of time and none of us know what it takes to get certain levels. Also, shooting the lazer grids can give exp? Hm...
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Posted: 7/8/2005 1:16 AM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Oh yeah, I forgot about leveling up weapons hitting bosses. That's happened to me too. Wonder why I forgot. Laser grids? Sorry, I haven't played this game in a while. Actually your battle with Aztec Falcon isn't optimized. He has 32 hp so 8 saber slashes should kill him. If you hit him with a charged buster shot it takes more time to kill him because you would have to hit him 9 times. Also, you need to know the standing slash trick, it's brain dead easy. It is literally just using a ground slashing while standing (don't hold left or right), you can watch Gigafrost's Hanumachine battle as an example (if you have the SRAM for it). If you have combo slashes don't use them, just wait for your first slash to end, then hit the boss again. This works on every boss that can be hit on the ground, including Aztec Falcon. Yes, this means you should redo the battle because your battle is suboptimal. This also means having charged up saber and buster for bosses isn't as important as you think it is. I'm suggesting doing retrieve data later because Maha is one of the bosses that can't be ground slashed. About the upper half, I mean when you try to jump on the side of the sub. It's too hard for me to explain, but you will probably understand what I mean when you get to Stop the Hacking.
Posted: 7/8/2005 1:49 AM
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Zurreco
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Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Right, OK. You do know that I am playing on normal difficulty, right? Somehow, when fighting Aztec, it only took 6 slashes to take him down to 3 health. Whatever, though: standing slash has like 1/3 the recovery time compared to any other hits. Therefore, everyone I can use this on will just have to take a ground slash - charged buster tactic. By lazer grids, I meant those floating circular things that rotate with electric beams poking out. Also, the bad news for you: simply hitting, not killing, an enemy gives you weapon exp. 36 landed slashes will get you to level 2 sabre. Haven't testes the buster yet, and I haven't tested if enemies, like the aforementioned rotating lazer things, can give exp. If yes, I could take a few seconds to power-level the buster during Retrieve the Data. That means I can get a charged buster ability for Maha, which obsoletes your need for a charged buster power. The first time I should need the powered up sabre will be Phantom or Leviathan. Bad news for me is.... my computer won't turn on anymore. I just replaced the power supply and sound card, and all of a sudden I am getting to activity from the outlet to my tower. As soon as it is back up and running, I can go back to finishing this.
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Posted: 7/8/2005 5:33 AM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2623
Zurreco wrote:
By lazer grids, I meant those floating circular things that rotate with electric beams poking out.
That is indeed what I was talking about.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 7/9/2005 4:35 PM
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Mlandry
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
mikwuyma wrote:
. Laser grids? Sorry, I haven't played this game in a while.
im pretty sure that's what he was answering =p
Posted: 7/9/2005 11:10 PM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2623
Yes, but my first post on the topic wasn't very clear as to what I was talking about.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 7/10/2005 5:27 AM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
If you can level up weapons on the rotating laser grids then why not power level the saber a bit there? Just jump slash and wobble (left, right, etc.) like crazy. Yes, I know you are playing on normal, but that has no effect on damage values. I have no idea how you got Aztec Falcon to 3 hp in 6 hits.　 If you use ground dash slashes you can get him 2 hp in 6 hits (5*6=30 damage). Argh, my S-rank run can be easily beaten now :(
Posted: 7/10/2005 7:36 AM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
The thing about power leveling weapons: while the buster can get it's exp fix every other frame, the sabre needs something along 12 frames to get a new exp fix. The reason for this is that the sabre doesn't usually hit more than once per swing, and I doubt I'll have the rolling slash by this point. So, unless I get lucky or exclusively use the sabre until that point, I may just have to power level the buster and hope that the sabre will be ready for my fight with Leviathan. Then again, I haven't tested this, yet. My computer is acting strangely: sometimes I will come into my room and my PC will be on. Then it might randomly turn off or something, and then it won't respond to the power button. I think there may be something wrong with my motherboard, which pisses me off to many extents. If I can get my PC to calm down for a few moments, I will put VBA+ and all of my VBA ROMs and vbm files onto my new USB flash drive and haul them over to my other computer, which is safe but has no internet connection. More on everything as it comes around.
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Posted: 7/10/2005 3:20 PM
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McBAIN
Joined: 1/9/2005
Posts: 219
Location: The Netherlands
Wow, bisqwit goes down on me for a few days (obviously not for the rest of you guys) and there's already 2 pages about this game. Well, i haven't read every single line from this topic, but watching Fnx' movie, there are some big flaws that really stand out. I thought i should point them out to make sure no one who attemps to run this game makes the same big mistakes. Now, off we go; 1) In the intro stage, if you don't care about your rank, just get hit by the golem to shorten the battle. 2) Never, EVER do a dash slash, since it slows you down. If you want to use the saber (note, as said earlier, slashing an enemy with the saber slows you down by one frame) do a dashed jumped slash over/through the enemy. Or just use the buster. 3) i believe using only normal jumping is the fastest way to climb walls, not dashed jumping. 4) In the Aztec stage, only kill the wind machine that blows to the left. Don't kill the one that blows to the right, because that means you can travel faster. 5) Manipulate Anubis Necromancess into only using the crushing pillars 3 times in total. Never four. 6) Kill the zombie-droids risen by AN to level up with your desired weapon only, not mixed with the buster or something. 7) After you saved the resistance member from AN and head back to the base, use a jumped slash (when they're beneath you) for the bear traps to kill them as fast as possible (so the resistance member never has to stand still) 8) You can slash Maha Ganeshariff's cord when he's swinging. 9) you can dash under the camels. 10) you can hit Phantom when he's doing his 4-shadows technique... one flickers brighter than the others. 11) you might consider not doing Anubis Necromancess "first", rather later, when you have powered up your saber. (not sure if it's possible to get it to charged before any other options for bosses run out) Since this is an airborne enemy, you can't combo him. Rather, if you do other bosses first and use combos to kill them faster, you can use a charged slash to kill AN to shorten the battle. 12) In stop the hacking, it's possible to take a shortcut and jump up on a submarine while in the water. It requires using the triple rod to rod-jump on top of an enemy and to land on the submarine. I should have a movie from that somewhere on my harddisk, but i can't find it. Mike found out about this trick. There are other obvious mistakes, but since this is a test run i didn't name 'em. However, imo the other things i pointed out are not because of this being a test run, rather because of lack of knowledge of the game. I'd also suggest watching Mike's MMZ1 run on this for all your other basics and boss fights. Check www.megazpeed.com
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Posted: 7/10/2005 6:01 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
McBAIN: I suggest you read the stuff that Giga, mike, and I have been talking about. However, some of those tips still apply to me. Can someone explain exactly what the conditions are to speed up the Golem fight? From what I've tested, only bringing yourself to 2 health will initiate the sabre dialogue. SO, either I take lots of damage and whatnot on my trek to him, which looks really ugly, or I am missing something here.
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Posted: 7/10/2005 6:09 PM
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McBAIN
Joined: 1/9/2005
Posts: 219
Location: The Netherlands
If you go by whatever is fastest, i'd suggest you get hit by 2 bombs or so to get the bigger damage. Getting hit constantly by the Golem is possible, but iirc the floating bombs do more damage. I guess it's not as pretty, but anyone who's seen blechy's (sorry for any misspelling) X1 intro stage, well, he gets hit on his way to Vile. It may look a bit wierd, but anyone who knows the game knows how ingenious it is/was. (because nobody else had come up with getting hit earlier on) However, as a matter of fact, i actually don't know what happens when you enter the room with 1/2 health left. I'd be funny to see Zero instantly say "Damn bla bla". I'll read the whole topic later. I did some quick reading, but as far as i could see, all the discussion was about the shield boomerang, and not the other pointers i give. But, i'll do read it :) Edit: oh and yah, if one is to run this game, be sure to give mike an i updates (read, the actual run movie) so we can get rid of flaws as soon as possible and you won't have to redo half the game or something. Edit2: Found the submarine movie. Grab it here
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Posted: 7/10/2005 9:16 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Like I said, mike, McBAIN, and Giga (along with my IRC support group) will get my WIPs so that I can get feedback. Also, I found out that entering the Golem fight with low life won't activate the sabre sequence. I have to get hit at least twice, so that means that one bomb + two Golem hits should initiate the dialogue. This also puts me right in front of the Golem when I get the sabre, so I don't have to dash across the room again.
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Posted: 7/10/2005 10:39 PM
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McBAIN
Joined: 1/9/2005
Posts: 219
Location: The Netherlands
phew! read all, that took a while. i understand some of my comments are trash now, forget them -_- (sumarine etc) As for your question "Does the Thunder Chip amplify normal slashes and semi-charged buster shots?" As far as my knowledge goes, only fully charged attacks use elemental powers, though i haven't tested this out. (my experience just says no) However, certain enemies do die faster when using charged elementals. Also, you're assumingly gonna kill a lot of enemies with your buster and all, to gain levels and exp. Might it be a good idea to keep a maximum rank of B or lower? When you have A/S, some bosses will likely do their A/S attacks, and can't be hit in this state. As far as my knowledge goes, some bosses can't be manipulated out of using their A/S attack, (Fefnir for one) while some can (Phantom & Copy X) You might want to find ways to keep your rank down (not killing a lot of enemies, gettig 0% on missions, etc) However, i'm not sure that killing only a few necessary enemies for a lower rank can live up to having fully chargable buster shots at your disposal against bossfights. However, once you have what you want (fully charged buster shots at max speed) you might build your rank down to b or lower, so that in the final level (for one), the bosses won't use their A/S attacks anymore.
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Posted: 7/11/2005 3:33 AM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I don't care about rank. Chances are, I will get low ranks in enemy and mission status, which means I'll be stuck around A/B until I start with Fefnir, Phantom, and Leviathan. By then I will be taking some damage to speed things up, which might lower my rank more. We will see. I have never seen Harpuia's S rank attack, and he won't have time to use it... The only S rank attacks I really need to avoid are Phantom and Fefnir's, but I would probably be able to kill Phantom before he has a chance to use it. Do they even use S rank attacks in normal mode? I thought that was only in hard/jackson mode... I wouldn't know, I kept a solid B through normal and a solid S through hard, so far. This is why I'm running everything by you and mike beforehand :)
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Posted: 7/11/2005 4:38 AM
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Gigafrost
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Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
They use them in normal mode. Yeah, Harpuia's isn't a problem because you can knock him out of the air before he'll use it. I suppose that's fortunate because I think his is the most time consuming attack of the Guardians. Also, my guess is that Fefnir can be taken down before he can use his simply because he's always on the ground. I haven't tested it, though.
07-24-2009: 2595 anime DVDs and counting...
Posted: 7/11/2005 3:35 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I'm sure that Phantom can lose at least one whole bar of life before he begins his second attack, simply because he dashes right at Zero off the bat and can be stunned by a slash. Fefnir can be ground slashed a few times, but as soon as he charges up for a stronger dash-grab attack, I don't know if you can stall him. Harpuia is useless if you have the Ice chip. Simple jump-shoot-charge-jump-shoot tactics can be taken with him. It's almost disgusting. If you want, you could probably very easily ground him, jump over him and lay into him with the ground slash, and then cancel his flight as soon as he takes off after his third swing. Then, you can hop over and lay into him all over again. Leviathan is the only boss that I am truly worried about. She's the only one that flies out of range of my attacks, and she's the only one that never hangs low enough to get a lot of slashes off on her. Also, I've never hit her with a charged fire buster shot (I noticed that the sabre did nice damage and that was that), so I don't know if I can use that attack to do big damage. Bleh.
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Posted: 7/12/2005 1:45 AM
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Gigafrost
Former player
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
Leviathan will probably only be a problem later. I take it you haven't seen either of my posted boss battles from before. Of course, I didn't explicitly say what they were, either, so I will only blame myself. http://www.kraftfam.org/~erk/nesvideos/gigammz.zip It contains a few movie files. One is a tool-assisted battle against Leviathan that I did using just the buster and the saber in weapon mode A. To summarize it, the ground level the first time you fight her is just right for serious pwnage, allowing you to lay a final hit into her shortly after she begins her ice-dropping, height-gaining attack. If anything your battle with her could be faster. The second round doesn't look as promising, though. It also contains a battle against Harpuia. Don't need the ice chip to keep him down but it could speed up the battle a little. The battle against the twin Flying X Drones is very fast and started way too late into the warning to be easily watched, but if anything you should be able to do it faster than that... and it's a really entertaining little movie. The four-armed sword-wielding miniboss can clearly be better optimized. Mostly just forcing him to jump towards the back of the room better. This movie as well as the disappearing block movie are pretty much just for fun. The TriRod movie was how I measured the time it takes to get the triple rod. It could possibly be optimized a bit but probably by only a few frames. This movie is good enough for approximation purposes, anyways. About my "run"...I'm tired of lack of progress, and since I'm not expecting to submit it anyways I'm just not going to get the triple rod nor the shield boomerang. If I'm going to submit anything I'll do a double pass through the game and use this first run as a timing guide. However, if anybody else does a hard mode run and decides to get the rod+shield, I'm 95% sure you should sacrifice the Train Core battle to get the shield. I believe Anubis stands to gain MUCH more time from the shield than the train, especially since the train can be defeated before it can do its A+ Rank attack. The trick is to take advantage of the pistons to standing slash it. If you don't know what I mean, you can check out that part of my beta run. http://www.kraftfam.org/~erk/nesvideos/mmz.zip MMZ10 - Start of level MMZ5 - Start of boss fight Otherwise, I don't expect to post any more of the run unless I do something in the movie I feel needs pointing out. Or if somebody asks for more, but there's going to be better runs coming soon so there's no need, methinks.
07-24-2009: 2595 anime DVDs and counting...
Posted: 7/13/2005 6:17 AM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Gigafrost, I watched your WIP and I only have two questions/comments. In the intro stage you jumped really high when the "ciel falling" event occured. I think you can trigger it faster by being on the ground when you trigger it. Does shooting bullets over Aztec Falcon's head force him into a fixed pattern?
Posted: 7/13/2005 3:40 PM
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Zurreco
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
mikwuyma wrote:
In the intro stage you jumped really high when the "ciel falling" event occured. I think you can trigger it faster by being on the ground when you trigger it.
As long as Ciel isn't standing at the break point before Zero lands, I'm fairly sure that it won't affect the timing of the sequence. Still, it might be safer to just dash up to that point. *Isn't Gigafrost*
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