Submission Text Full Submission Page Publication Page
Movie features:
  • Emulator used: Gens 11a
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
This is a 2000 frames (33:20) improvement to previous run made by Uintathere.
Thanks to Uintathere's run my work was just to calculate how much time is gained taking damage in every occasion. Credits also to Aqfaq for pointing out the memory address of bosses' HP (00FF04B3).
What happens and what is needed to be done:
On far right there is a castle and to complete it we need to find a key. So we head left to enter the tree where the key is located. While inside the tree, another key is found and it allows us to enter the well and climb up to the fields. 
00:38 taking two damage saves 1:30 and one damage saves 0:40
01:17 waiting costs 0:22
01:27 waiting costs 0:27
01:40 orb grants energy wave attack and is needed to get teleporter working
02:35 lever deactivates a forcefield around power potion (at 4:16)
02:47 waiting 0:07 saves one health
02:59 waiting a total of 0:25 saves one health
03:28 crouching trades 0:13 for one health
03:51 taking two more damage saves 0:50
03:58 waiting 0:10 saves one health
04:08 waiting 0:11 saves one health
04:16 power potion increases your attack ten-fold against the next boss
04:38 finishing off dragon with flying kick saves 0:03
05:00 potions inside stone piles can't be taken with flying kick
06:44 a torch let's us to see in otherwise dark castle
07:19 waiting 0:12 saves one health
07:43 boxing trades 0:26 for one health
07:58 turning and killing an enemy would spawn rolling axes. It takes 1:42 to go unharmed
08:27 waiting 0:05 saves one health
09:01 jumping costs 0:41
09:25 taking one damage saves 0:40 compared to no damage, loses 0:21 compared to two damage
09:50 takind damage saves 11:42
Improved the jetpack stage by 1:02 compared to previous run. Mostly thanks to timing of boss shooting. 
11:08 potions inside tombstones can be taken with flying kick
11:51 flying kick saves 0:01 compared to punching
11:51 boss takes two damage in close combat and one if damaged farther. Thank you boss HP memory address (Aqfaq)!
11:56 I have 5 health left because there was no place where losing health would have saved time
cpadolf: Viewer response and votes has overall been good, and the run looks well worked through. Accepting for publication.
Raiscan: Processing.

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Posted: 10/16/2009 3:35 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2425: maTO's Genesis Shadow of the Beast in 11:56.90
Posted: 10/16/2009 6:51 PM
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Aqfaq
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Sega TASer of 2008 Lucky TAS of 2008
Despite the stiffness of the game, the run was entertaining, because it was done precisely and the health management was planned very well. Also, many of the enemies look funny. Voting yes.
Posted: 10/16/2009 7:54 PM
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nifboy
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Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 375
I remember using a Game Genie to turn invincibility on, still couldn't beat the game because of certain insta-kill spots. Big yes vote.
Posted: 10/17/2009 1:03 AM
(Edited: 10/17/2009 8:11 AM)
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
DailyMotion. Mediafire. Sorry the quality is crap in the running segments, I need to actually save myself that variable bitrate script rather then a single one throughout the whole movie.
Posted: 10/17/2009 2:45 AM
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mklip2001
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Location: Georgia, USA
Wow, this game is... interesting. This seems like a strange cross between Heart of Darkness and Altered Beast. It was definitely clear where your work went into picking damage spots. I have two small questions. First, near the end of the first stage (I think), you climb up a ladder to get a potion while still at 8 health. It doesn't seem that potion gives you any more health: what does it do? Secondly, at the very end, you still beat the boss with 5 health left, so would it save any time to get fewer health powerups? This run still deserves a yes vote. It definitely shows TAS mastery of a clunky game.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Posted: 10/17/2009 3:11 AM
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Priam
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
From one who's never seen this game before, holy crap was it boring. It would be far, far more entertaining if you explained in the submission text what the goals were, what you need to get and do, and what kinds of things are in the way and need manipulated or managed. As it was, it was just a dude, running, running, running, running, running, running, and smacking anything that got in the way--a very simple process, seen in myriad other games which have been rejected offhand for moviemaking because of monotony. I have no doubt there was significant route planning and damage management that went into this, but except in rare instances, I can't see it. I'll abstain from voting, in the hopes that submission text becomes more informative so I can give a more favorable vote than I would otherwise give currently.
Posted: 10/17/2009 6:44 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Priam wrote:
As it was, it was just a dude, running, running, running, running, running, running, and smacking anything that got in the way--a very simple process, seen in myriad other games which have been rejected offhand for moviemaking because of monotony.
Uh oh, now you've got me worried that a TAS of MegaMan Battle Network will get the same sort of reaction, since it'll have fewer than twenty battles over the course of an hour. Do you think it will help that it's a popular game and I explain it all in the submission like you said?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 10/17/2009 12:21 PM
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maTO
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Sega TASer of 2009
mklip2001: Collecting health potions in the last level doesn't take any extra time. Priam: I edited the submission text and tried to explain objectives, briefly. Submission text needs a general description about the game. Should I just copy it from Wikipedia?
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Posted: 10/18/2009 4:02 PM
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Priam
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
Bag of Magic Food: I don't think you'll have a problem; battles in that game are a more involved affair, and the system is generally suitably flashy to create something amusing, and the backgrounds have a lot of variety, visually--I don't see a Battle Network run having the monotony issues. I could always be wrong, though. maTO: A general description, possibly from wikipedia, would do the submission text well, I think, but even better would be a list of objectives to get to the end--I'm thinking of ketomei's Ultima VI run text, though there are probably better examples of games less meritorious of a novella--explanations why the gun is needed (or sought), why the well is a necessary stop--basically, why you can't go to the endboss immediately, that kind of thing. What was that game, published just a couple months ago, half composed of walking across the map to get to the necromancer final boss the hard way? Can't remember the name, but if someone else does, it's a really good example of how a very boring-looking run can be made entertaining by informative submission text.
Posted: 10/18/2009 4:35 PM
(Edited: 10/19/2009 6:15 PM)
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mklip2001
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Priam, you're thinking of Magician. I think that for that run, subtitles were awesome because the game showed you so little helpful information on the main screen. Thus, without the subtitles, you wouldn't appreciate how close the character was to running out of magic or health, etc. For this game, it's true that the objectives are a little unclear. (Thanks to maTO for some explanation, but a little more explanation about the well might be good.) On the other hand, the health number is very noticeable in this game, and it's not hard to figure out what the player's options are. Magician is much more complicated in terms of spell choice. For me, what kept this game marginally interesting was its music, its graphics layers, and the sheer difficulty of the game. In the meantime, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Beast. EDIT: Oops, I guess the game wasn't Magician. Thanks for clearing that up, Priam. I guess we just find different stuff interesting after all.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Posted: 10/19/2009 5:32 PM
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Priam
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
I wasn't that impressed with the music, but I'll give you that the graphics layering techniques were surprising and interesting. Also, it wasn't Magician; I dare not compare something that's actually captioned with something played on a system that does not yet allow for easy captioning. The movie I was referencing was Aqfaq's Faery Tale Adventure run (which I had thought, erroneously, had gotten published, but nonetheless is an example that I feel comfortable citing). Aqfaq, therein, notes the difficulties, the specific properties of crucial elements, and the reason for the long trudge towards the goal--and what those goals are. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Posted: 10/19/2009 8:01 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Priam wrote:
I don't think you'll have a problem; battles in that game are a more involved affair,
All right, if you say so, but I imagine that adding tool-assistance to speedrunning only increases the tendency to use one or two killer strategies that reduce every battle to about 10 seconds long. Then with the ability to avoid all random battles, you've got a movie that's 95% running through a maze or between towns. Not that that can't be interesting to the right audience, but... Well, you can always give more opinions about that in the GBA topic.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 10/19/2009 8:45 PM
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Priam
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
Oh snaps, hitting a topic that's not linked in the Submissions from the main page? Unheardof! I might just try that.
Posted: 10/29/2009 5:25 AM
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OmnipotentEntity
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Flygon was remarking at how poorly this movie encodes so I thought I'd give it a shot. I wound up with an average bitrate of 700.... ugh And... what's with the blimps in the background? As far as the gameplay. Meh. The main character moves like a mix between Mario from Donkey Kong and the guy from Kung Fu.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 10/29/2009 10:16 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
69mb of Omnipotent's encode vs 52mb of mine. Lets find out! I encoded the indoor areas at 500 and the running areas at 1250 (Yes, I am serious, they are that bad). I'll be running an encode with the indoor areas at 800 and outdoor at 1150 overnight (Because there is STILL some issues with the video quality indoors, and Omnipotents encode NEARLY irons them out, I hope the extra 100 boosts that up). Now if the thing out upload to Mediafire, we're a happy family. I am VERY worried about this movie having a filesize issue however, not unlike Gunstar Heroes. If things go the way they do, the filesize is going to break the 4 to 1 ratio. =| Mediafire download. IMPORTANT EDIT My new encode has the indoor segments at 800, the outdor at 1200. It is 80mb. I know it breaks the file size restrictions by twice, but it is quite apperantly the only one that keeps the quality high. Click here to download.
Posted: 10/29/2009 10:21 PM
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moozooh
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Wow, those are mighty fast snails. :o I was better opinion of Psygnosis's level design. It looks like "we drew all these boring objects, let's make them move towards the player as he runs through long straight corridors". Meh. Good run, though, and it's a yes vote. Btw, I watched Omni's encode, and while I don't have any qualms with its video quality, I don't understand what in particular makes this game hard to encode. The indoor locations are all static as hell, and the outdoor ones only have parallax scrolling in the bottom 20% of the screen. Two years ago I proved it was possible to make Gunstar Heroes — a much heavier to encode game — look excellent at 500 kbps, there's no reason for this to look worse after so many useful improvements in x264.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 10/29/2009 10:31 PM
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OmnipotentEntity
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moozooh, there is parallax scrolling all over the place for much of the screen, the trees move at a different rate from the background, which move at a different rate from the clouds, which move at a different rate from the blimp.... The trees have lots of little holes all over the place, which makes the screen look like a blurry mess if it the bitrate isn't high enough. As far as the indoor segments are concerned, I just don't know why it's so high, there is that one warp part that is horrible, but that's the only thing I can think of. It's just the outdoor segments and the x264 codec just doesn't mix, at least not as well as most video games (which have ridiculously low bitrates typically.)
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 10/29/2009 10:33 PM
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moozooh
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Well, I can understand parallax scrolling to be a difficulty when the layers are very close or within the macroblock boundaries (which really breaks everything), but, say, clouds moving at different pace is not a problem since they are so far apart. Guess I'll just give it a shot and see what can be done about it.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 10/30/2009 4:22 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
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Location: Australia, Victoria
The reason I made my indoor segments higher was because of the fact that Omni was unhappy with the artifacts (God forbid I can spell this right) surrounding sprites still, so I chucked another 100 onto the bitrate. Personally, I say just stick with the indoor areas at a 500 to 700 range, it isn't that bad (And honestly, Gunstar looks worse anyway). UPDATE: Mediafire download here. This is my final offer, a 65mb 650/1105 encode, I refuse to encode this game anymore... it just takes forever to both encode (3 hours for a 'proper' one) and upload (Another hour). That, and I think I've hit the wall of quality.
Posted: 11/5/2009 6:15 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1379] Genesis Shadow of the Beast by maTO in 11:56.90