Post subject: Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Joined: 5/2/2008
Posts: 65
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbadvance/file/561356/37987 "Play as only Felix" and "Walk in Lava" have some use. As of now, I found two sequence breaks inside Magma Rock. 1. In the second area (after the first blue gem door), climb down the two ladders, go south into the next room and use Burst on the statue on the ledge to skip straight to the next area. 2. Follow the normal route until you get to the three pillars you have to push into place. Ignore them and use Burst on the left statue. Go back to the previous room, climb the ladder next to the chest and jump onto the moving platform to continue like normal. ---------- Aside from the fact that I'd love to see a TAS of this game, the main reason for this thread is that I just encountered a weird glitch. It seems unlikely that it can be properly researched without TASing, and I'm unable to do so. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H90BUkBhTeE Read the video description for details.
Active player (308)
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
BLAH BLAH BLAH.... use the search function before creating topics... BLAH BLAH BLAH (if there's no topic about it, disconsider the stuff in middle) heheh
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA
Easy there, p_s. Three topics about Golden Sun, none about GS: The Lost Age...though one does mention it: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6120
Former player
Joined: 5/29/2006
Posts: 200
Both Golden sun games are way too tl;dr to make decent TASes. Hours of unskippable text isn't good.
Joined: 5/2/2008
Posts: 65
Actually, the Burst glitch works on pillars, too, and possibly other Burst objects. Time for a new Magma Rock route.
Joined: 3/3/2007
Posts: 53
Lufia II also had a lot of text during certain parts. No one was bothered by that either.... I would love to see a TLA TAS
Former player
Joined: 5/29/2006
Posts: 200
Golden Sun also has two other major problems with it. One is that the number of steps until the next random encounter is picked as you beat the previous encounter, so you can't just walk around forever with no encounters. Secondly, the randomness in the game isn't manipulatable easily. You have to actually perform an action that explicitly advances the RNG, such as attacking, to get it to move forward, and even then it'll move to the same number no matter what you do.
nfq
Player (93)
Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204
cheetah 7071 wrote:
Golden Sun also has two other major problems with it. One is that the number of steps until the next random encounter is picked as you beat the previous encounter, so you can't just walk around forever with no encounters.
Not that you would want to walk around forever without encounters, because it would be impossible to defeat some of the bosses without levelling up a little. It's often faster to fight the enemies instead of running away because trying to run away often fails at low levels, and you have to wait when the enemies attack you.
Active player (283)
Joined: 3/4/2006
Posts: 341
nfq wrote:
it would be impossible to defeat some of the bosses without levelling up a little.
tujudi737 disagrees with you on that point. But I agree that defeating enemies may be faster than running away, especially considering how long it would take to manipulate the RNG.
nfq
Player (93)
Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204
impressive videos. i hope he also does a video of the last boss :P but even if it was possible to skip all fights, these boss fights would take so long to do at low levels that i wonder if it would save much time at all.
Joe
Joined: 6/10/2006
Posts: 152
Location: Wisconsin
Definitely a game I'd be interested seeing TAS'd
Joined: 5/2/2008
Posts: 65
In the first random encounter after a hard reset, you're guaranteed to escape successfully on the first try. Especially if you're going for in-game time, your strategy for monster areas is encounter -> escape -> save -> hard reset -> encounter. I've also 100%ed the game with starting equipment and no random encounters fought, so leveling is definitely not required. It's pretty straightforward, actually - get most Djinn along the way and maybe Eclipse, but aside from that, proper tactics and lv4 summons are everything you need.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
Alright, I'm going to post in this thread from now on, because the other one is the GS1 thread. After a bit of testing I found a way to skip most of the Kandorean Temple with the retreat glitch. I actually only have to do one room, and than I can port into a room that is very close to the end. I will make a movie of this soon. Edit: Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8fSUqgUpOc
nfq
Player (93)
Joined: 5/10/2005
Posts: 1204
NinG (from the other topic) wrote:
The 'Return to last Sanctum'-trick can be performed, when controlling Felix the very first time with the result, that you will be in the sactum of daila, skipping a LOT of dialogue. With this trick I was able to save a bunch of frames over the submitted run, which adds up to 5585 - yup, 5585 - frames saved until leaving daila. :D
Cool, I heard about this from KirkQQ before. It's good I didn't spend too much time optimizing my run since it's this easy to find improvements to the strategy :P. Would be nice if you could make an avi or post your progress on youtube, because I and several others still can't get it to sync.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
Good news! There seems to be a way to manipulate the RNG. Some Psynergys like 'Move' manipulate the kind of enemys and their behaviour, but it still doesn't affect the number of steps until a random encounter. However, Psynergys like 'Whirlwind' or 'Mind Read' don't seem to influence the RNG in any way. Since I don't have the mysterious card from the chest I have found another strategy to kill the 3 chestbeaters in 2 turns (without loosing damage luckily :P): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW-IyJCNYtI
Active player (308)
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
http://goldensun.wikia.com/wiki/Random_Number_Generator
Yes I saw this, but it only deals with how to obtain item drops... and that is actually not what I want to manipulate ;)
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
By the way, I think the best way to lose all your PP is to take damage and use cure once per party member if the conditions are right.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
The WIP's up
Kirkq wrote:
By the way, I think the best way to lose all your PP is to take damage and use cure once per party member if the conditions are right.
Hmm, you're probably right, but that means, I will have to manipulate a fight where I get as much damage as possible. I will test it to see, how it turns out :P
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
New WIP In the Kandorean Temple, I had to manipulate one random fight, where I could do the two following things: - loose my pp as fast as possible to perform the retreat glitch and - manipulate the three chestbeaters to NOT use any herbs. In order to loose my pp as fast as possible, I needed to get damage with all three characters in one turn and use quake and earthquake as often as possible. But I still had to manipulate the chestbeaters, that's why I threw in some attacks. After the fight, I only have to heal everyone, and loose the remaining pp with 'move'. Now, I still needed to get one fight with 2 enemys that I can escape from on the way to the boss, otherwise they would have used at least one herb again. In order to do so, I found out that you can change random fights by - waiting ~ 50-100 frames and - running a few frames in different directions. In this case, I ran one step right and one step left before entering the stairs, which wastes only 3 frames but manipulates a good random fight. After all, the bossfight still isn't perfect, but I think it would take a longer time to manipulate a fight where you don't take any damage than just cure yourself one time, because, other than random fights, you can't manipulate the bossfight by just waiting some frames or changing input or something like that. You can only manipulate the bossfight with battle actions.
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
The WIP is quite good. It seems you're considering everything well. I would encourage you to look at my video in the Golden Sun thread and test out save retreat glitching in Kandorean Temple to see if a faster route can be found. Your route could be the fastest, but save retreat glitching may open other possibilities. I posted a lua script earlier in the Golden Sun thread that hacks your PP to zero and removes all random encounters to make testing easier.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
There doesn't seem to be a faster route in the Kandorean temple, even with using the save retreat glitch. But I've encountered a problem: It's possible to skip most of the Dehkan plateau(and probably a lot of the other dungeons, too), so it brings up the question, what we really need to complete the game. Therefore, I will have to do a lot of testing. And that means, that there probably won't be concrete progress for some time. Oh, and thanks for the lua script. It really makes testing a lot easier. :P
Joined: 12/6/2008
Posts: 1193
Are yo starting this game from scratch? Imo that's kinda a missed oportunity. Either making a GS1 TAS first and starting from that password or using a made up passowrd with fun characters in it would make a way more fun TAS, imo. So maybe reconsider... or ask the people what they'd like to see? Other than that nice that somebody takes on these games, finally. Will watch the WIP as soon as I find time...
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
I would prefer a run without a password. Starting from the GS1 password actually makes the run slower I think. Thought: It may be faster to waste PP by casting move close to a wall or object. I don't remember if you did this or not. This guy uploaded some retreat glitches. I also found an important faster Kandorean Temple skip in the comments. http://www.youtube.com/user/lelouiscama Re: Kandorean Temple # W0lframTarant 10 months ago I did this even faster -- after the first Wrong Warp, go down and to the other door and Wrong Warp again. You can skip the fight that way.
Joined: 6/5/2010
Posts: 18
Slowking wrote:
Are yo starting this game from scratch? Imo that's kinda a missed oportunity. Either making a GS1 TAS first and starting from that password or using a made up passowrd with fun characters in it would make a way more fun TAS, imo.
Yes, it might be funny to see a TAS that completes GS1 first, and then GS2, using the password, but I'm not going to do it, simply because one run alone is 5 hours long, and I really don't want to make a TAS that's 10 hours, because it would just be too much for viewers and for the one who makes the TAS.
Kirkq wrote:
Thought: It may be faster to waste PP by casting move close to a wall or object. I don't remember if you did this or not.
I've tested it some days ago, and it doesn't look faster. I didn't actually count the frames, but I think it doesn't matter where you cast move.
Kirkq wrote:
This guy uploaded some retreat glitches. I also found an important faster Kandorean Temple skip in the comments. [...] I did this even faster -- after the first Wrong Warp, go down and to the other door and Wrong Warp again. You can skip the fight that way.
I actually don't know what door he is talking about. I couldn't find a door that skips the fight with the retreat glitch. It's still possible by using the retreat glitch and then 'fall down' in the room with the ropes, though. I think I will make a video of that and upload it soon, but I'm not sure if it is faster, since you would have to enter the temple through the main door again, and then perform the retreat glitch another time, if you want to get the djinni.