Post subject: CtrlAltDestroy's GBA Kirby - Boss Endurance in 3:32
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Joined: 2/23/2005
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Since the site's engine isn't configured to handle submissions such as this one, I'll make it a "fake" submission and post it here. I chose the GBA port of this game over the original NES Kirby's Adventure because I used to speedrun this on my GBA all the time, and I was interested in seeing the theoretical speed limit from running it tool-assisted. My best time was around 4:55, but here, I get an astounding time of 3:25. The movie starts from a savestate because it plays an unlockable minigame which would otherwise be impossible to record a movie of. I found a SRAM file on Zophar's Domain (It can be found here), loaded it into VBA, took a savestate on frame 0, and began recording from there. The object of this minigame is to defeat the 9 bosses of Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, all in a row, with only 6 hit points. You can't get any powers except for those available in the boss stages, and if you beat a boss with a power, you can carry that power over to the next stage. I believe it's almost as fast as possible, though it looks like I may be able to squeeze an extra 5 seconds or so through better luck manipulation. What do you think?
Former player
Joined: 3/31/2005
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Um, I have the version with the monkey intro. Why is the "Remove Intro" option grayed out in the re-recording version of VBA? Oh, well.
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GeminiSaint wrote:
Um, I have the version with the monkey intro. Why is the "Remove Intro" option grayed out in the re-recording version of VBA? Oh, well.
That option didn't work right, but you could try using GBATA to remove the intro from the ROM. CtrlAltDestroy: Why did you start this movie from a savestate instead of from the SRAM? There's a "start from SRAM" option in VBA, which works for GBA games such as this. This movie could be converted to start from it, actually, by pasting its input into a movie that starts from the same SRAM, and such movies will submit properly (an exception would have to be made to accept it for publishing, but depending on the movie I think it would be a reasonable exception if enough people are sure of its validity).
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I didn't see that option. All I know is that my sram kept getting erased when I would play the movie back, and this is the only method I could think of to get around that.
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CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
I didn't see that option. All I know is that my sram kept getting erased when I would play the movie back, and this is the only method I could think of to get around that.
It says "From reset (SRAM)" in the movie record dialog. If you select that it will save the SRAM into the movie instead of erasing it like normal. EDIT: I just checked to make sure there's not a bug with this, and there isn't - the feature does work without erasing the SRAM on playback. (Not to make a big deal of this, if you didn't intend this to really be submitted in the first place.)
Joined: 6/14/2004
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If you do a run from SRAM, I'd also like to see a Metaknight run of the game.
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Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
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Yeah, a Metaknight run would be really cool!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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i've made an air grind perfect run *-* *useless*
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What's the time on that one?
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lvl3 difficult - 37:52 - rate 1000
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Post subject: Kirby - Nightmare in Dreamland
Editor, Expert player (2330)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3933
Location: Germany
I would like to discuss why a KNID TAS should be rejected just because it's too similar to its NES version "Kirby's Adventure". Wolf4Knowledge's Guide on Changes between the corresponding games The games differ much from each other, rooms got changed (one completly in accordance with the guide). Some got removed, and in each room the proportions in size are not the same as in the NES version. It's not like the Mario Advance series or NESclassics, where NES games simply got copied onto a GBA module and were sold. I'm interested in seeing your opinions about this topic =) While not having posted this topic beforehand I started a TAS. (It's hard to find the ROM (775 - Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland (U)) since 98% of all KNID USA ROMs provided on the internet are intro hacked. So I provide an .avi as well.) Movie file Avi
Joined: 6/14/2004
Posts: 646
I think there might be a better chance of a GBA run being accepted now, since it doesn't have the newly discovered benefit of the UFO ability keeping glitch. So if you feel like continuing this, I won't complain. Hopefully you won't be stuck using Burning for most of it.
I like my "thank you"s in monetary form.
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
Another distinction would be a 100% run, that gets all the switches along the way. That would certainly get it accepted. Just don't make it boring and have the same power for most of the run. Kirby is all about getting all the different powers for varied gameplay. The KSS run suffers from this. Be willing to accept that it may just not be a great game for an interesting TAS.
Player (36)
Joined: 10/8/2006
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Looked good, maybe something intresting will come of not being able to always use UFO. I'm also amazed at how little the lag in this game is compared to Kirby's Adventure.
Sir_VG
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I agree with the idea of going for 100%. It'll give it some distinguishing feature besides being a little different from the original game.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
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What about playing the extra modes in the game? Could you do them after the regular completion?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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100% KNID run? Doesn't sound good to me.. Wouldn't a Kirby's Adventure 100% run look better in addition to a 'Nightmare in Dreamland' any% run? @ Bag of Magic Food: The only mode that makes sense is playing as Metaknight. This could be what I do after 'Nightmare In Dreamland' ^^
Sir_VG
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Bag of Magic Food wrote:
What about playing the extra modes in the game? Could you do them after the regular completion?
The Extra mode for be worthless on a TAS, as all it does is chop your HP in half. However Nightmare mode would be ok, as you're playing as Meta Knight instead of Kirby.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Editor, Expert player (2330)
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Run complete! The Rom used, seems to be hacked. I'll redo it with the (E) ROM in the next weeks ;( It seems there is a problem with GoodGBA as it names the KNID ROM I use [hI], although there is no hacked intro. The TAS I made works with another ROM I found as well. Any% Completion time: 34:24 I'll probably submit it later. It's rather testrun quality though because the optimization level is pretty low. I tried to make it look clean, but didn't optimize things, so I may lose frames here and there. I didn't want to work half a year on this run if it might get rejected afterwards. I may consider working on a more optimized version later.
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I think I would only watch it if it was 100% I've seemed to notice that whenever someone suggests you do a 100%, you turn it down. I fail to see how 100% would not be good. And keeping Fire Ball the whole time in a any% run would be super boring. (I always call it the original name of Fire Ball since it makes more sense than burning) I personally liked the KSS that kept Wheelie Rider the whole time. One thing I noticed that is missing in the faq in the first post is that attacks are a lot weaker than in Kirby's Adventure. So for example, Throw isn't anywhere near as effective as in Kirby's Adventure. This is just one example.
Joined: 2/12/2006
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even if the games are too similar to warrant a separate run, it makes no sense to me to conclude that the published run should be of the famicom version. the gba version is much better, and consequently obsoletes the famicom version.
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a ha ha. That's where you are very wrong. The NES version is way better if you've played both of them. Remakes are always worse than the original. Sure, the graphic may be better, but that's hardly any reason for it to be better. Egg catcher and crane game were way better than the new mini games, Ball ability lost all of it's original good use due to the new mechanics, the attacks are way weaker, the music doesn't have the same charm that the new version has, Dedede is super ugly in this version, Backdrop's new mechanics suck compared to the old ones, stone and needle have become easier to use which makes the game easier, (which sucks) Fire and ice take extra long to shoot, in butter buildings the got rid of the spinny castle for the parts where you just stand around and wait for the clouds to leave. (also left out of the FAQ in the first post) All bosses and mini bosses move slower, Phan Phan is way easier than Rolling Turtle. The list goes on and on. I personally think that Nightmare in Dream Land is unnecessary to run. The NES version is way better. (though it does have a lot more lag) Nightmare in Dream Land is just an easier, dumbed down version of Adventure, and while trying to improve things like the music and graphics, they made them worse. I think the only thing that would make sense to run in this game is Meta Knightmare. It's unfortunate that they are porting Kirby Super Star to the DS, since it's also gonna be ruined in remaking. God only knows how dumbed down the Great Cave offensive and Gourmet Race will be.
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Pekopon wrote:
I think I would only watch it if it was 100% I've seemed to notice that whenever someone suggests you do a 100%, you turn it down. I fail to see how 100% would not be good.
I'm just afraid that it maybe won't be accepted in the end, and 100% always means more planning etc. Originally, since the movie time is now something like 34min, I thought it would surprise people, because the NES glitched version is 36min long.
And keeping Fire Ball the whole time in a any% run would be super boring. (I always call it the original name of Fire Ball since it makes more sense than burning)
The run doesn't use burning all the time ;) To be honest, it uses it only two levels (or something).
One thing I noticed that is missing in the faq in the first post is that attacks are a lot weaker than in Kirby's Adventure. So for example, Throw isn't anywhere near as effective as in Kirby's Adventure. This is just one example.
Another fact that should impress people if you look at the movie times.
Joined: 6/14/2004
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Since you were coming up with comparisons between the NES and GBA versions, here's one that I found a disappointment: The GBA version doesn't have the rotating Butter Building scenes like its NES counterpart.
I like my "thank you"s in monetary form.
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pekopon: to say that all remakes are worse is a judgement i certainly don't share. the only (enhanced) remake i've found that i'm sceptical of is gba final fantasy 1. (back on subject,) i've played both, and i haven't noticed any of the gameplay differences you mentioned. i judge the graphics and sound very favorably compared to the fc version, which rather shows its age. i suspect that you're a purist, tho tell me if i'm wrong.