Post subject: Ninja Gaiden 3
Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716
Started to try some speedrunning in this game, seems abit harder then NG2 but I have a pretty nice time comin' up! Patience, maybe 1 more week and it's done and ready to be posted.
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498
I made a run of the much easier Japanese version way back when. Maybe it'll be of some help to you? ^_^ http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=183
Joined: 5/9/2004
Posts: 114
Looks like this kinda dropped off the face of the earth. I don't know if there is already one out there but I just did the first two levels of this and it looks all right. Anything I should know about this? It's a little frustrating because enemies don't launch you and special weapons don't seem to do extra damage to the bosses. Not to mention the lack of ghost ninjas!!! But a little fancy windmill star work makes the stages go a little quicker. Are there any glitches/special strategies etc I should know about?
Joined: 6/13/2004
Posts: 37
I played through ng3 today (jap version) and its a very easy game overall, lots of room for tricks and decent moves however it may be impossible or close to it ..to beat the game without dying.. level 7 doesn't give you enough time to beat all the areas in one life. I was able to get to the last section with 16 seconds left ;-) your milage may vary of course. (it was my first time through to be honest)
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498
Yeah, you need to really get the hang of act 7 before you can get through it without dying. Check my VMV in the topic I linked to in the 2nd post...I finished act 7, including all 3 final bosses, with 59 seconds left on the clock. Surprised myself there, actually...o_O I haven't tried a run of the US version yet though...still, even considering all the enemies they added, and powerups they removed (most notably the fire wheel right in front of the door to the act 2 boss, and the scroll (o_O') on the collapsing bridge in 5-2), I don't think the timer's too short to finish act 7 on time. Maybe a 5-second loss, but that's all I'd guess...
Joined: 5/9/2004
Posts: 114
finished!! It's submitted if you people want to take a look. Final time 13:51 I think.
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I have started another run and hopefully this will produce a submission. I want to do no-damage, there are very few places it helps, and it just looks cool in this game. The subtleties to address: -Perfect wall climbing requires using frame advance. After some experimentation, I have found the optimal point to kick off the wall. Interestingly, your character never goes into the "holding onto the wall" animation, so it has a pretty sweet flying effect. This is also visibly faster than previous efforts by me or devindotcom. -Jumping and slashing immediately stunts your jump and slows you down. If you wait until you stop flipping there is no penalty. This does not apply to jumping from a wall or overhead hang. However, you must complete the slash before you hit the ground or you'll stop until you finish the slash. -Reconsidering weapon choices. In my first run I was kinda random, and devindotcom overused the windmill. Now I am using windmill more but looking at the big picture to make sure I do things right. I've found that in some cases it is possible to get some good action with the windmill without sacrificing speed.
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498
Something I noticed during my own experiments a few weeks ago: the vacuum wave (up-and-down firing special weapon) does cover a bit in front of and behind your character, and if you can stay right behind a slow-moving boss and keep hitting him with it, you will absolutely slaughter him... Try it with the first boss: jump behind him, quickly get as close to his back as you can without registering getting hit, and begin alternating between sword and vacuum wave...if you have the full 40 points, you should be able to take out 3/4 of his energy before running out of waves. o_O You can do similar with the 4th boss by luring him to the right after he jumps up out of the sand at the beginning of the fight...once he's started walking, he won't turn around, even if he falls to a lower platform...you'd have to inch forward slowly to maintain hittable range, but it seems like it'd work almost as well as with the 1st boss considering that you'd be using slow motion... Though, with the 4th boss, I haven't checked which technique is fastest: this one, the one you used in your run, or the one in my really old run (lots of fire wheels during the initial jump, then sword once he starts walking...though I had full points and all the scrolls up to that point, and I know getting that scroll in 3-2 is a big waste of time...) I haven't really tested this on any of the other bosses, though, but just from looking at their attack patterns, it seems this won't work too well anyway... The big question, though, may be if keeping the vacuum wave just for the boss would make up for skipping other weapons that might have saved time during the level... :/
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I'm pretty happy with my speed on the bosses in my v0.1 run. I'm sure that the correct strategy is using your ninja power to hit him when it's not possible to use the sword. All you get from using the wave next to a boss is an extra hit, and you can get that extra hit while he is jumping or out of sword range. I do end up with the wave on a couple bosses, but I don't think this is necessarily the best way to use it. There might be a place for this on 5th lvl boss. One more thing, your ninja gets more horizontal movement while falling if you hold down A. Strange but true, I get some good effects out of this, eg in lvl 2-1B and 3-2A. Hmm, I think I've given away all my tricks now. :) Wait, an update on the "stunted" jumps. This only happens if you hold down B or use turbo B. Very good news.
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Run is going well, I have completed act 4 and am getting into the real interesting parts. I have managed to outdo myself in every section so far. Stepping through frame-by-frame is really the only way to go. A4 was easy because necessary waiting for the platforms and spikes made speed less critical. 5-1 will be a bit tougher...
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So act 5 wasn't as tough as I thought, I didn't really have to slow down at all. Vacuum wave is becoming my favorite weapon, I spammed it out through all the tough parts. I used it on the boss and got the 2 for 1 hits like devindotcom described. Both waves don't hit right away because we are both jumping up and down, but the fact that there are 2 hits at some point from the wave really helped. I killed him so fast I that found out there is in fact a waiting period between hits on the bosses. So thanks for the tip. I might try it on the final boss too, but I still don't see any benefit on the others. At this point I am about 30 seconds ahead of my initial run which finished in 13:15. Well, act 6 boss could potentially be tougher than before, I got a lucky break and it's hard to manipulate things in this game. Hopefully there will be a submission soon...
Post subject: done, but should I submit?
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Joined: 7/17/2004
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Ok, finished the run, final time is about 12:12. It's very fast and quite stylish if I do say so myself, but I have some ideas to make it faster, and I totally forgot to jump at the beginning of 6-1C. The question is, should I submit this before I start working on the next version? In next version I will probably takes damage as well, though it will only buy a few seconds. http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/TheAxeMan-Ninja_Gaiden_3v1.0.zip
Joined: 5/22/2004
Posts: 462
If you're going to make a new version anyways, don't bother submitting this one. People can always wait a week or two if they want an .avi.
Joined: 6/27/2004
Posts: 550
Location: New York
Looks great, it's by far my favorite ninja gaiden run yet. The vertical corridors look superb, though it's possible some of the horizontal corridors need some work: sometimes it seemed that you paused your horizontal movement in order to attack an enemy when you could have hit them earlier during your jump, so that you wouldn't have to sacrifice movement. I only watched it once so I'm not sure about some of these, but some specific things. I'm sure you had reasons for many: The jump in 2-2B, before the last door, where you stop to hit the edge. You climb along vines at some point in 3-1, when I think you could have attacked that robot. 3-2D in general. Last jump in 5-2B where you jump early, and end up at the bottom of the wall you're about to climb. In 7-2B I'm not sure what powerup you jumped back for. And, of course, what everybody tends to forget- if you're going down a vertical corridor, often if you jump before you fall over the edge you will descend it faster, as by the time you're at the edge you're already falling as fast as possible. Don't let these comments fool you, it really looked great. I wrote that the end of 7-3A sticks out in particular. I'm sure you had reasons for most of the above things, and it would definitely be submittable if you weren't planning on making another very soon. But since you are, you might as well wait until then.
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Ah yes, there are many tricks so some things do seem strange. As far as pausing horizontally to attack enemies, this is unavoidable at times. Jumping and slashing does not slow you down at all, as long as you only hold B one frame. Jumping and using special weapon loses 1 frame horizontally as you must hold just up and B for that frame, but if you are only looking at vertical then it is free! 1 frame is a pretty good deal, especially if an enemy is coming up behind you. However, every jump is the same, so if you do an extra jump and have to fall in place to land on a platform then it may be better to take a few frames penalty to kill an enemy. The hit detection sometimes makes it hard to jump over enemies. I have to say most annoying are the cannons which are invincible until they fire. Since I am moving fast, they often won't open up until I am past them. It's possible to jump them, but they are often positioned inconveniently for this. Exceptions to this are the ice in 6-1, which lets me slide and slash or special with no movement penalty, and any beam I can hang from, since I can fall under and jump back, getting a slash in each way for only a frame or 2 penalty, I haven't checked this amount exactly. I do this a lot in 7-1. As far as jumping to fall faster through vertical corridors, this will only be a speedup if you can use the horizontal distance of the jump (since all jumps are the same.) Otherwise the faster fall is offset by the height of the jump. I take advantage of this where possible, but sometimes I can't jump from the right spot for some reason. So to address the specifics: 2-2B: It's not possible to jump the gap. It looks like I should fall and fireball the slime down there, not sure if I tried this. It does seem like there's a better option, I'll check next time through. 3-1: I have to wait for those two diagonal platforms with the 1-up, so I thought I would just sneak under that robot instead. 3-2D: I lose a couple frames so I don't come down on top of that first enemy. Because I am stuck with just one jump height and the platforms are spaced out too much to skip any, I am stuck waiting to land, so I picked up that powerup. I was thinking I might try picking up the earlier one that I skipped while invincible so I would have an extra shot of invincibility. Throughout 3-2 I consider the water currents and get a boost if I can. 5-2B: These two armored cannons were a pain. I don't think it was possible to jump the second one and get in the door so I nailed it with the fire wheel. As for the first one, I could jump it and be in an even worse position, and jumping close to it and slashing on the way up didn't put me in a great spot either. I might be wrong, but I think this is the best I can do. 7-2B: Super sword!! Hey, with no jump and slash or shadow doubles, I need to take what I can get. In fact, I make sure to get this every level (except for 3 where it's just too far out of the way.) The vertical and horizontal extension is just too useful, and it sure makes the bosses go way faster. On 7 I was wondering if I should get it in 7-3, but this might force delay in some places in between. Also, I need the ninja power and vacuum wave which are up there too. I had tried picking up fire wheel in 7-1A so I could shoot it down, but the fire wheel was too far out of the way and it also leaves my rear defenseless when that bee thing swoops from behind. You might notice that in act2 I make an extra jump to get super sword and I get and hold onto fire wheel all through 4-1 just so I can shoot it down at the start of 4-2. Other times it's easy to get. Well, other comments are still welcome, particularly while it's fresh on my mind...
Joined: 11/1/2004
Posts: 12
AxeMan, your speed run is very impressive and well received. Just the other day I was wondering why this game hadn't been speedran yet. I especially like the vertical flips up the wall-wow! Didn't even know that was possible. There were 2 things I noticed that I wanted to bring to your attention. First, there seemed to be so many times where you could've shaved off time had you just taken damage. While it does look smooth finishing the game without a scratch, I'd say the primary goal in a speedrun is to finish as quickly as possible. Things like no damage would be secondary IMHO. Also, around 8:15, it started out walking and it made you slip a little on the ice, therefore slowing you down. Would it be faster to do a quick hop in order to avoid sliding or would that throw the timing off altogether? Just some ideas if you plan on doing a version 2.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
He said he specifically wanted to do a no-damage run because in this game it looks impressive (similar to the published Batman movie on this site) and doesn't cost you more than 5 seconds at the most. I, for one, agree with him, though I would like to see an as-fast-as-possible run as well. -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
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Ah yes, I totally forgot to jump at the beginning of 6-2C, oops. Didn't notice this until I was done. Also, I am working on a takes-damage, as fast as possible run. I've just reached act 4-2 where damage will really speed things up on the spikes. Unfortunately, it's not easy to take hits that help in this game. Simply running into an enemy on level ground will throw you back a bit, wasting far too much time. Being hit while you have upward momentum is even worse. So the only time you can really take a hit gracefully is falling, you don't get thrown at all but just keep falling and regain control when you hit the ground. That's why so far I've only taken 3 hits which have probably bought about 20 frames of improvement total. Interestingly, I've found quite a few other improvements which really dwarf the damage shortcuts. For example jump down cliffs instead of falling, even if I have to wait a few frames. I've also cut off about 100 frames (~min and a half) on each of the first three bosses. Used correctly, vacuum wave can make boss kills much faster, so thanks again to devindotcom for that tip. This means I hold onto vacuum wave all through acts 1 and 3. It's not available in act 2, but I beat the 2nd boss much faster anyway by taking him head-on and balls-out. So not as much variety with the specials but I pull some nice tricks with the wave. Also, my wall-climbing jumps are even faster. So the results are that I have cut about 9 seconds off of just the first three acts. There's certainly room for much more in the rest of the game. We'll see how it goes with the spikes, I need to hit enemies and use the invincibility on the spikes as the spikes take off too much damage. The problem is the invincibility wears out pretty fast once you regain control. But anyway, it's gonna be pretty sweet so keep checking. I'll give you a peek at what I have so far: http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/Ninja_Gaiden_3_-_TheAxeManv2.1.fcm
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498
New run's looking great so far, I absolutely love the new and improved boss pwnage. :) I was surprised by your wall climbing improvements, I honestly thought you had it as fast as possible last run...o_O Just in case you didn't know, you might wanna give the invincible fire wheel a try; it, oddly, protects you from the spikes. o_O (At least it did when I tried it on the wall spikes in 7-3B...) Would be useful for some of the larger spike pits, though you'd still have to swap it for the v-wave at the end...
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Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
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The Batman run does take damage. For example at the boss with the electric attack thing. The only thing which I could think of improving in this video was the ice thing (already pointed out) and at 1:21 it looks like you could jump up on the platform instead of climbing.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
Truncated wrote:
The Batman run does take damage. For example at the boss with the electric attack thing.
Ah, forgot about that. I think that's the only time he does it, though. And if you were going for pure speed this would not make sense, as taking damage helps in other spots as well. So it still is more of an aesthetic run... -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
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Hmm, I should check out the invincible fire for the spikes. I noticed it in your jap run, but I don't know if it works in the american version. Even if it does, ifw is quite a liability as it uses so much ninja power. It could be practical in act 3, I would shoot it down with the shooting fire wheel and pick up wave in 3-2C. However, having in in 7-3 would require picking it up in 7-1 and holding onto it. The last wave is in 7-3A, so if I want to get this then I would have to get rid of it right away anyway. So regardless of whether it protects you from the spikes or not, this might be out of the question anyway for this version. I have been aware of the ice thing, that was a pretty big d'oh. In act 2-2A, climbing is the fastest way to go without getting hit. In my new version I take a hit here, though it's actually a pretty small gain.
Joined: 11/1/2004
Posts: 12
Actually, I think taking a bit of damage in key places in the run would save you quite a bit more time than 5 seconds. Mainly waiting for the spikes, although I do recognize you take massive damage from them. But would it really matter if those are the only places you chose to take damage? Food for thought.
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Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
Ok, sorry in advance for thread hijack. I thought the batman run didn't take damage elsewhere because it wasn't very benificial (long stun period), but I might be wrong. Where else would you benefit from damage? To get back on track, did anyone else have trouble with sound desynch in this avi? The sound is way ahead but I suspect it's only on my computer.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
This AVI played just fine for me, as did Turtles. Back when Kirby Super Star was published, I followed the instructions in the codec help page here, and everything's worked since. And Truncated, there are quite a few other places where taking damage would help. If anyone here still has Bisqwit's Batman movie, you can look at that for some examples. -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice