I'm planning to do a run for this game, only because it is known by some people as "the worst Genesis game ever". However, the only problem is that I haven't figured out how to beat it yet. I can beat all the rooms, and i'm assuming that the end of the game is supposed to be after you kill the Black Knight, but that would mean that the room where you get the fireball is completely useless, because I "beat" the game without it. I will do some more research and hopefully solve my problem.
Based on instruction manual (PC version) the game ends when "toppling
[the Black Knight] throne". Also it says that going to the Black Knight without fireball if almost certain death.
Personnaly, I have never been very far at this game.
I'm looking foward to your run.
Ok, I've figured it out. This game has 3 difficulty levels, starting at easy and working up to hard. Once you kill the Black Knight on easy, it goes to normal, kill him again and it goes to hard, kill him again and it loops back to easy. It's up to you guys whether or not you want to see me beat it on just easy, or play through all 3 difficulties. It can be beaten pretty quickly on easy, appx. 5 minutes at most, but once you get to hard, it takes about 5 minutes just to kill the Black Knight. I'll do which ever you want, just tell me soon so I can get started :)
I recorded myself beating it on easy, and it took me 1:37.56. All I did was make a bee-line to the Black Knight and dominate him. If any of you people want to see the movie, here it is.
http://dannyfowler.150m.com/gens_movies/dark_castle_v1_dan_.gmv
Edit: Here's a movie for the Hard mode of the game. It's a bit longer, at 3:07.2 and it involves me getting the shield before dominated the Black Knight. There are some spots for improvement, such as Trouble 2 and I also ended it with 2 elixers left, and instead of doing that, I could have used them to save time or not picked them up at all. Here's the link.
http://dannyfowler.150m.com/gens_movies/Dark_Castle_v2_dan_.gmv
The rom used is "Dark_Castle_(U)_[!].bin"
Version 2 of this horrible game is done. From now on all runs (if there are any more) will be done on hard mode, including this one. My time is 2:43.95. I will also be submitting this one to Bisqwit, in case anybody cared.
http://dannyfowler.150m.com/gens_movies/dark_castle.zip
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/4124/darkcast.gmv
Ok, 1 small improvement suggestion if aqfaq still has it in him to redo the movie again (literally, only a few frames saved I think), and a second idea for another area.
First, notice level 2, after climbing the 3rd ladder. By holding up left, the dude kind of warps to the steps, I believe this is a few frames faster than the other way of doing it.
Next, the final level, is there any way to manipulate it so that you can still not have to jump and not have the beer in your way like in my vid? There has gotta be a way around it, I don't see why you need to jump honestly or how that helps.
Edit: I don't blame you if you don't want to redo this, as these are really not going to amount to much time overall.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
stanski wrote:
By holding up left, the dude kind of warps to the steps
Small and impressive detail, it saves 1 frame. XD
stanski wrote:
Next, the final level, is there any way to manipulate it so that you can still not have to jump and not have the beer in your way like in my vid? There has gotta be a way around it, I don't see why you need to jump honestly or how that helps.
If you refer to the jumps in the beginning of the room:
Those jumps are needed so that the position is correct for the lever and the rope so that I can go through the wall. If I jump to the rope from a different position, the trick fails. If I recall correctly, you can reach the lever 8 frames faster without the jumps, but it takes more than 8 frames to adjust the position for the rope.
If you refer to the final mug dodging jump:
That would only end the input earlier, but it would not affect how fast the black knight falls. As far as I can tell, the only way to manipulate the pattern of the beer mugs is to leave the first room at different times. (I assume it's because of the rats. When there are rats on screen, the clock of randomness is ticking. There are no rats in the second room, so it does not affect the randomness.) Your SDA run is actually very lucky. I always had bad luck with the last mug and got killed without the jump. However, that is the one and only mug I actually need to dodge, so I suppose it's quite well done.
Thanks a lot, Joe. If I'm right, your ladder trick can be hex-edited in easily, because the second room does not affect the third room. Let's see...
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EDIT:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/4129/dark-castle-10-frames-improved.gmv
The trick is funny, because up-right gives different result than up-left. So I managed to improve the movie by 10 frames which is a lot. However, I think we'd better not submit it, because it does not look different.
Once again, I have no idea how to improve it.
The trick is funny, because up-right gives different result than up-left. So I managed to improve the movie by 10 frames which is a lot. However, I think we'd better not submit it, because it does not look different.
Once again, I have no idea how to improve it.
If they'll accept a submission improving Super Mario 1 by a single frame, they'll accept a submission improving this by 10, and this game is what...1/5 the length of SMB1?
If they'll accept a submission improving Super Mario 1 by a single frame, they'll accept a submission improving this by 10, and this game is what...1/5 the length of SMB1?
Dark Castle != Super Mario Bros.
Dark Castle != Well known, legendary platformer
I hope you'll get the point.
Yea, honestly, I didn't expect you to want to submit this, its really pointless, but I just thought i'd point it out in case someone (god knows who) decides they want to improve this and finds some uber awesome trick.
Joined: 4/8/2005
Posts: 1573
Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
moozooh wrote:
On the other hand, why not submit it? Would it hurt anyone, or something?
No, eating shit would not hurt anyone. :)
I am not conviced that it's perfect yet and it looks almost identical to the current movie. Even stanski seems to think that it's pointless to submit it although he was the one who discovered the improvement.
