Post subject: Zelda, Oracle of Ages / Seasons
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
i dont think this has ever been mentionned for a speedrun, but i think you could do interesting things with this. If your going for pure speedrun, then like all zelda games it would be entertaining, and u could also do a 100% run with both games (because theres some items that u need to have beaten both games to get or something like that ) , although im not sure how this would work on an emulator.. any thoughts? or if there is a run of this and i just never heard of it let me know
Joined: 6/6/2005
Posts: 384
I don't we'll see any of the Gameboy Zelda games until VBA (or similar) gets rerecording implemented. It'd take a really high level of knowledge and skill to get through the games without slowing down or getting hit and such. Plus all those hideous dancing games in Ages would be a pain without rerecording. At least, I've always had trouble getting them on the first try. ><
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Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Well, I'd be fine with just regular GameBoy having rerecording first. I mean, it's basically a mini NES. I don't know if link cables would confuse it all up, though.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51
For when/if someone actually does this, since I have both games, I know it's possible to do it without link cables. At the end of the game, you recieve a password, and that password activates certain events should you use it to start the other game. It's a long process. 1. Beat Seasons first to get a password. 2. Use the password to start a game on Ages. 3. In Ages, there will be people who don't apear normally, and they will give you a password. Copy that password down. 4. In Seasons find someone to give the password to. They will be new too. They will give you another password. Copy it down. 5. Give that password to the first person in Ages 6. Beat the game with extra bosses. In a speed run, you would condense 3-5 into seconds of password entry. You'd probably only bother with the sword, ring, and mabey the shield or ringbox ones. Beat the Heroes cave ASAP to get the Power Ring L-3, which gives you 2.5xdamage. Or you could get it from the ring password (get the ring, put it in Seasons, get the new Ring Password to use in a faster Ages time attack). You'd also want to keep password runs seperate from non password runs, what with those bosses...
mew.
Post subject: Zelda : Oracle of Ages / Seasons
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
Im surprised no one made a topic for these zelda games yet I made one topic for both since they are pretty similar.. hey this is like THE zelda game without any current speedrun out yet so you might have to find everything yourself, or group discussion. A bit more of a challenge if you ask me. anyways, anyone thinking of working on this in the future or the present ? :D
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I'd love to see it myself. Perhas there could be two different runs for each of these two games? One starting normally, and one with a password from the other? IE: After finishing Ages normally, use that password for a time-attack of Seasons to get the 'true' ending. And then do a normal run of Seasons and use that password to get the true ending with Ages. Granted that might be a bit repetitive, and each game doesn't change that much with started with a password, but some of the items you get in the second run might save some time, I'm not sure... And since the gameplay is essentially divided up in the two it might just be easier to only do one run each with a clean new game. Perhaps someone should just tackle that first, then decide whether or not to do a passworded game...
Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51
If passwords are allowed, you can get all the rings in one password to save time. I'm pretty sure you can do that without starting a second game. It'd be a royal pain to do fast though, since noone has cracked the passwords (that I know of). Their are more changes if you do Seasons first, mabey a run where you play through Seasons, get the ring that doubles offense, and use it (and any upgrades that are time effective) through Ages to see the true ending... Wow, that'd be alot of work. 8)
mew.
Joined: 7/14/2004
Posts: 89
Actually, with the passwords you simply start off with an extra heart and plot changes. I don't think that rings are carried over from the games.
SWOOOOOOOM
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
You can carry rings over, actually, by talking to the Ring guy once you finish the game, he gives you another password (it's all passwords) and then you give it to the ring guy in the other game. And voila, you get all your rings back.
Joined: 7/14/2004
Posts: 89
Ah, I had forgotten about the various other passwords. Back when I still had Seasons on cart, I remember using a password generator to let me play the linked version. I'm not sure where someone could get that now but I'm pretty sure you could use that to get any of the important things. Also, Ages sux lol
SWOOOOOOOM
Joined: 4/6/2004
Posts: 74
Location: California
The password generator is my creation, actually. =) It's probably easiest to download from Zophar's, since they put up a copy there when I released it way back. Admittedly, I didn't crack the passwords by studying them, although it's possible to some degree with ring passwords, since they're stored as consecutive bits. I had to use an emulator with debugger to track down and isolate the password-generating code, then mimic the process in a separate program. Quite a bit of work, but definitely worth it. =)
TSA
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 186
Trying to get the Private Key, eh? Pretty impressive stuff, but an encryption is only as complex as you make it...do you know what bit the password system was for Oracles?
Joined: 4/6/2004
Posts: 74
Location: California
Thanks. Yeah, that's right about the complexity, although the algorithm is customized and doesn't seem like a typical encryption routine (except insofar as it uses exclusive-or operations :). In more-or-less of a nutshell, it takes the relevant data and packs the bits of it together in a specific area of memory, spread out so that there's 6 bits per byte. This way it's packed and other factors are determined by the kind of password it is making. Part of the packed data is also randomness originally taken from system timers at the time of password-creation during endgame (15 bits.. the so-called "Game ID" in my program). Another part is a simple checksum calculated on the rest of the data, which is then merged into a reserved spot of the packed data. Then it transforms all of the packed 6-bit data bytes using values from xor-tables in the ROM. Then these transformed values, which are in the range of 0 to 63 by virtue of being 6 bits wide, become password characters via direct lookup from a password-character table. The one common element to all 3 kinds of passwords is the Game ID.. it's not much of a key in the encryption sense, since it has a limited influence on which of the xor tables to use. When you start a game with a password, all subsequent passwords from that game inherit the Game ID from the starting password. Hmm, clear as mud? :-} Ah well, these things are kind of hard to explain.
Joined: 4/11/2005
Posts: 57
I tried to make a test run for OoS, but I somehow screwed it and now there is nothing left ._. It took around 1,5 hours to get into level 7. The hardest thing is probably planning the usage of pegasus seeds. They run out fast, you can only have 20 of them, meaning you have to restock at least after each dungeon, maybe even more often. So, is anyone else trying these games? Edit: First dungeon done
I won't give up unless my victory is assured!
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Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7468
Location: Arzareth
Ego Buff wrote:
First dungeon done
Not knowing this game, this looks okay.
Joined: 4/11/2005
Posts: 57
Second dungeon done The bomb used in the first miniboss is not required, I don't know if it did anything, but at least it didn't slow me down so I left it there. The first boss could've been faster, there is a period of second or so I couldn't attack because it was too far away from me. The second miniboss is fine, imo. The second boss is annoying. It can only be damaged when it opens its mouth, and after 2nd and 3rd hit it uses that ******* rush attack before opening its mouth. I didn't get the boomerang, it would've taken too much time, it isn't necessary and it doesn't save enough time to be worth it. Edit: Third dungeon done. Nothing special, thank god I didn't need to buy a shield. Edit2: Fourth dungeon done. It takes a long, long time before I can enter the fourth dungeon. I had to defeat the first golden beast (for red ring), walk to sunken city, get the zora flippers, swim to the mountains, go to subrosia, get my feather back, get the spirit of spring, get the key and then go to the keyhole. The dungeon itself is not long. Edit3: Fifth dungeon done. It feels really stupid to do this when nobody seems to be interested. The bosses of the dungeon are really annoying. The tiger miniboss is invunerable a lot. The boss itself is not hard, until they split into 4 fast-moving small annoying monsters which must be killed with the hard-to-control magnetic spikeball. Or then hack them with the sword twice(?), which is much harder and probably slower. Soon I get the noble sword, and after the sixth dungeon I'll get the red ring. It takes some time to get them, but they kill the few last bosses (5 out of 6 are killed with the sword) much faster
I won't give up unless my victory is assured!
Joined: 8/7/2004
Posts: 51
I'm interested! I just don't have much to add.
mew.
Joined: 4/11/2005
Posts: 57
Well, the run is completed. Now I just need to curse that it took under a minute over 2 hours :P The sixth miniboss (Vire?) is annoying. It is usually almost impossible to hit it (it runs away from your sword after he says something about being serious) and I had to do stupid-looking time-taking walking because it appeared where I wasn't before the last hit. The sixth boss is even more annoying. Thank god it was less annoying with save states. The bosses of seventh dungeon were... weak. The eight miniboss is the last boss that couldn't be hurt with a sword. The boss is the most pathetic boss I've ever seen. And the treasure... hyper slingshot? It is needed twice during the dungeon, and the miniboss is little easier compared to if you had to fight with your normal slingshot. I forgot to get bombs for the face-thingie in Onox's castle, so I had to waste time getting them from the spiders ._. Onox is weak. The extremely stupid mistake-looking thing in the ruins of the Temple of Seasons is to prevent a stupid spider from appearing right after the giant leap and preventing it. Bleh.
I won't give up unless my victory is assured!
Joined: 12/13/2004
Posts: 103
Spriteless wrote:
I'm interested! I just don't have much to add.
same here. I love almost all Zekda-games. I would love to see a speedrun of this.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 453
Location: Norway
Dunno how I missed this, but now that I have unmissed it I can comment :P Unfortunately I have never played this game, so its hard for me to give any accurate comments out over what I see :P Good things, you sometimes do nice tricks with bombs and such to kill things faster. Path also seems fairly well planned out (hard for me to judge). However, in dungeon 1 you seem to kill some bats you might have managed to avoid with some luck manipulation. (Killing them makes you stop moving) You dig for money before boxingmatch, which you should have been able to manipulate earlier. Also I'm wondering if taking some of the heart containers from bosses would allow you to take some damage more places (including self damage from bombs) Well yeah, submittable I think :)
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1299)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
I see what looks like a lot of errors due to imprecision (missing several sword swings (ex: frame 32570) and taking unnecessarily long paths (ex: frame 12067)), and I get the feeling that many possible time-savers (such as not killing/waiting for some enemies, or taking damage at different times) weren't fully looked into. But, it's still pretty entertaining, might as well submit and see what everyone else thinks. EDIT: Also, instead of choosing Save&Quit, it's faster to choose Save&Cont + immediate reset.
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Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7468
Location: Arzareth
nitsuja wrote:
EDIT: Also, instead of choosing Save&Quit, it's faster to choose Save&Cont + immediate reset.
But can reset be stored in a VBA movie?
Joined: 6/14/2004
Posts: 646
If it's the soft reset(A+B+Select+Start), then I'm pretty sure it can.
I like my "thank you"s in monetary form.
Joined: 4/11/2005
Posts: 57
I don't think heart containers would be really useful. If I really need health for something it is easy to get some hearts. Unless you are swimming, diagonal movement won't make you slower, as far I can tell. It was a pain to make the first boss not to use its dash attack (it would be invunerable for a long time). The missing slashes look bad, but they don't waste that much time. But it still looks ugly and many small time wasters add to a huge waste of time. No idea about the reset stuff, I should test it before starting the Ages run. Now I just must watch the whole run (haven't had time for that after completing it) and make some comments.
I won't give up unless my victory is assured!
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1299)
Joined: 12/21/2004
Posts: 2687
Bisqwit wrote:
But can reset be stored in a VBA movie?
Yes, even a hard reset will be recorded into the movie. (It stored in 1 frame of input.)
Ego Buff wrote:
Unless you are swimming, diagonal movement won't make you slower, as far I can tell.
That's only an illusion - use the frame counter and you'll see that it (extra diagonal movement) always slows you down compared to going straight. (Not cutting across corners diagonally also slows you down compared to walking around going one direction then the other.)