Topic by AnotherGamer

Posted: 9/28/2005 2:10 PM

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AnotherGamer

Former player

Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198

But I thought they said he looked like him and....oh nevermind.

Posted: 11/23/2005 2:40 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden

Mr Monkeyman's website seems to be up again at http://www.mrmonkeyman.com/ but the Alien Soldier video is not available there. I emailed him and asked if it was possible to make some kind of arrangement since it would be a great help if/when i decide to do this. We'll see if anything happens.

Posted: 12/8/2005 2:36 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

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Here's a little something I slapped together in a few days. It runs in the "Alien Soldier (A)" rom under European mode. At first I just thought I'd record trough it to see if the end demo works in this version (it does), but then I decided I might as well learn something about the game in the process. Some of the levels/bosses are very fast, some are craptacular (like the first one). I recorded it mostly at 50% speed and with only one savestate. For anyone interested, here it is: http://133an.sytes.net/~truncated/AS(A).zip (Cut n' paste it, the url function seems to be out of order.) It goes up to the last boss, but there I lost my motivation. I'm considering making a real (good) version as soon as I get it back.

Posted: 12/29/2005 2:36 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

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Started this one up, making it by frame advance only. Here, have a preview: http://133an.sytes.net/~truncated/Asoldier(A).gmv (The url function for some reason again refuses to work.) Finishes only the first level so far. I'm unsure about the first boss, I will experiment some more there before moving on. ROM: Alien Soldier (A) Mode: European (50 Hz) Comments are as always very welcome.

Posted: 12/31/2005 11:41 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
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New version up, same link as above. This one completes four levels and three bosses. The last boss is only played with slowdown, I will redo it later. Perhaps try to manipulate away that bomb I have to jump over... but it is always there as far as I can remember, it is only when the bossfight starts that the bombs fall randomly. Bosses have been very cooperative so far. :)

Posted: 1/9/2006 10:02 PM

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moozooh

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Joined: 8/4/2005
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Just had a look at it, and liked it. It's a pity the game becomes terribly repetitive when TAS'd, though… You just fly through the level without any noticeable action, same with bosses.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 1/13/2006 8:01 PM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
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Whoo, a reply! The later bosses take some more effort to mow down, but yeah, not a lot of them will be more than a few seconds. At least there are spectacular graphics (explosions), and to anyone who has played it before, knowing how hard the game really is might help the entertainment too. I finished 10 levels so far, but I might have to redo 2 due to a miscalculation with the weapon refills. :/

Posted: 2/8/2006 6:42 AM

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mikwuyma

Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226

MrMonkeyMan started speedrunning this game again. He has both a supereasy and superhard run on the topic below. I haven't watched the superhard run yet, but the supereasy run is very good and has almost no mistakes. I'm not too sure how much these runs will help a TAS, but I'm almost positive his weapon selection/usage is optimal. http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=consoles_older;action=display;num=1123087248;start=30#30

Posted: 3/4/2006 9:53 PM

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MrMonkeyMan

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 4

I did a quick tool assisted run that I think could be of some use if anyone is actually still going to attempt this. It's on Super Hard and beats the game in 10.24 according to the game's timer. The only thing I know about the rom version was that it was a Japanese version. Anyway, it's right here. http://www.mrmonkeyman.com/aliensoldier_hard_1024_mrmonkeyman.gmv

Posted: 3/5/2006 12:47 AM

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moozooh

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Joined: 8/4/2005
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MrMonkeyMan wrote:

I did a quick tool assisted run that I think could be of some use if anyone is actually still going to attempt this. It's on Super Hard and beats the game in 10.24 according to the game's timer.

Actually, the run is great! Why don't you submit it?

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 3/5/2006 10:21 PM

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Truncated

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>Actually, the run is great! Why don't you submit it? Because in the 10 first levels he is 24 seconds (1432 frames at 60 Hz) behind the movie I'm making. Mine runs at 50 Hz (european version), so it looks slower in actual time if you don't compare the number of frames. In any case it's always good to have another reference to compare with. I should really get to writing those tricks for the speedrun which I promised I would list like two weeks ago.

Posted: 3/5/2006 10:54 PM

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MrMonkeyMan

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 4

Can I ask why you are even using the European version?

Posted: 3/5/2006 10:59 PM

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moozooh

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Joined: 8/4/2005
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Truncated wrote:

Because in the 10 first levels he is 24 seconds (1432 frames at 60 Hz) behind the movie I'm making. Mine runs at 50 Hz (european version), so it looks slower in actual time if you don't compare the number of frames.

I somehow didn't realize it back then, but what was the exact reason you didn't take the 60 Hz version of the rom? 50 FPS look ridiculously slow compared to MrMonkeyMan's run, even if yours is frame perfect.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 3/6/2006 12:24 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

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>Can I ask why you are even using the European version? Because the end demo doesn't work properly in any Japanese version I've seen so far. But if you know of a Japanese ROM version in which the end demo doesn't crash, perhaps I can switch. (Hopefully I can hexedit in my progress so far so I don't have to start all over.)

Posted: 3/6/2006 5:39 AM

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MrMonkeyMan

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 4

Hmm, I've never seen one that doesn't have screwed up graphics at the end of the credits, but is it really that important? Oh well. I hope to see you finish off your run. I'm curious to see what kinds of strategies you've come up with. I can't believe I had never even thought to try your method on the first boss.

Posted: 3/6/2006 9:37 PM

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Truncated

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Well, I thought it would be nice to have a working end demo, so I picked the one that worked. It didn't occur to me that people would be put off by the fact that that version ran at 50 Hz. Anyway, progress is nil so far since January, sorry 'bout that. I hope I can muster the energy to finish it some time.

Posted: 3/13/2006 12:25 AM

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MrMonkeyMan

Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 4

I made another quick video because I felt like it, and I wanted to get a time under 10 minutes. It's on easy though. Same Japanese Rom I used last time. This one is in 9:36. http://www.mrmonkeyman.com/aliensoldier-easy-936-mrmonkeyman.gmv

Posted: 9/13/2006 10:55 AM

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Truncated

Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)

Joined: 4/17/2004
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Topic revive! I've restarted this project for anyone interested. Completed two levels in the last few days, and I'm now up to level 15. Level 13 had a mind-numbingly boring "luck-manipulate to reduce lag" section which had me put off for a good while. I'm pretty sure that it isn't optimal, but it's good enough and I don't want to completely give up because of that spot. Boss 13 went incredibly well. After some testing I managed to do it 8 seconds faster than what the Japanese site lists as best time under optimal conditions. Level and boss 14 were nothing special, so now it's on to the flower impersonator. I need to test how fast the phoenix is compared to just flaming him, but after that the next two levels are easy.

Posted: 4/23/2008 8:17 AM

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daibakusho_curry

Joined: 4/23/2008
Posts: 1
Location: Japan

My English is not fluent, excuse me. Anyone seeing? I made a TAS video last year. Using only statesaves, superhard, in 9:35. I made this run to estimate how long perfect not-TAS run will be. So strategies in this video are designed for not-TAS run. However, they will be help for making more optimized TAS video, I think. http://dbcurry.s336.xrea.com/files/Alien-Soldier-0935.gmv Please use Japanese rom.

Posted: 4/26/2008 9:12 AM

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Truncated

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Thank you for your nice movie, 大爆笑＿カレー. :) Even though most of your strategies are meant to be simple, I think for example that your movie's boss 10 is faster than everything I've seen before. Boss 17 (Epsilon1) is also faster, but it requires not using the phoenix on boss 16 (the spider). I think your strategy is still faster overall. Sylpheed force was fantastic. :D I didn't know you could use the phoenix there. In stage 22, I think there must be some easier strategy. It seems you are gambling a bit, and not guaranteed that you will have full life for the boss. I also do not understand why you collect the life upgrades. You do not need the higher maximum life, and only twice you need the full life (to perform the phoenix).

Posted: 4/29/2008 4:30 PM

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moozooh

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Joined: 8/4/2005
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Well, that was a pretty sweet run. How does it compare to your WIP, Truncated?

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 4/29/2008 7:22 PM

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ventuz

He/Him

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Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940

Nice, I have seen Truncated's WIP so it's some faster (bosses kill), and some slower (like picking up health bonus). I'm starting to get bored of WoW so I might begin working on it sometime but I'm getting GTA4 today. I might work on it from time to time.

Posted: 4/29/2008 7:28 PM

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I haven't made any frame-exact measurements, but it is slower or about the same speed on all levels and bosses except for boss 10 and boss 17 like mentioned above, and surprisingly (at least to me), boss 3. My movie is at boss 18 (like it always has been), so no comparisons there. But like I mentioned the Sylpheed force method is innovative. ---- moozooh told me he was after the total time difference at the latest comparison point. Is is 3010 frames. But note that daibakusho_curry's movie is made with the (J) version and mine with (E). The game runs at the same amount of action per frame, or very close, but I don't know about cut scenes, transitions and such. The intro is equally fast in both versions, though.

Posted: 5/13/2008 10:50 PM

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ventuz

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Joined: 10/4/2004
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Ok, I have gotten around spending spare time on this game. Here's WIP. If there's any mistake that I have overlooked, let me know.

Posted: 5/14/2008 7:05 PM

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Truncated

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You don't pick up any weapon powerups - why not? Some bosses take more than 1000 weapon energy to kill, so you will be forced to switch in the middle of the fight. I was worried that you lost time at the start of the second level, but I found the adress for the scroll position (00FFA900, 2 byte) and saw that it was not so. You copied my strategy for the third boss, but as noted above, daibakusho_curry's strategy for that boss is better.