• Emulator used: Dega 1.14 (1.16 doesn't work)
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck (in fights and to avoid random encounters)
I made this TAS two years ago so I don't remember so much about it anymore, but I'll try to remember the most important things. About half of the time of this TAS is spent leveling up, so those parts can be pretty boring. I manipulate luck so that I only get 8x "barbarians" because they give a lot of money, which I need to advance in the game. When I don't need any money anymore, I kill "evildeads" because they give most experience points for the shortest amount of time. I need the experience to get the open spell so that I can get into the last dungeons. Once I have all the experience and money, I skip all fights by luck manipulation.
I used a macro program to test all the frames in fights so that they would be as fast as possible. The macro was: pause, load state, advance frame, save state and hold A while unpausing. I would just press one button and the macro would do all these things, so I could test all frames fast and see which resulted in the shortest fights. That made it a lot easier.
I made use of a HP memory address in the last fight ("darkfalz", which is supposed to mean "dark force" but they couldn't write it because they could only fit 8 letters) to kill off one of the two "parts" of the boss so that it can only attack once. Because my level is pretty low, I need to eat hamburgers to survive the fight.
The rerecord count in this video is about 10000 more than it should be because I overwrote a testrun that I made previously that had about 10000 rerecords. Earlier I also made a testrun with the GBA version of the game which is much slower than this, and I remember that just when I came to the last boss, which is kinda like the devil of this game, the frame count was 666666.. just a little bit of trivia there.
If you have any questions about this TAS, ask and I'll explain in the submission thread.

FractalFusion: This run is technically well-done. Some parts (such as the leveling up) may be boring, but, being a long RPG, only technical merit is considered. Accepting for publication.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2560: nfq's SMS Phantasy Star in 2:17:37.97
Joined: 7/10/2007
Posts: 280
This desyncs right after the first dungeon in Dega 1.16-Doze, I'll try 1.14. 1.14 works. I was entertained, voted yes.
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Point of note, this requires the v1.3 rom and not the v1.2. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
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Just a few questions before I vote... now that I've watched this.. and outside of UGH for grinding.. 10 meseta in Motavia cave + 3 red slimes = faster then 2x4 scorpions? 10 Meseta chest... why? Ice Digger leaves you with 10 Meseta left After getting the Torch.. why not use the Ice Digger? Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
nfq
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Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
10 meseta in Motavia cave + 3 red slimes = faster then 2x4 scorpions?
Yes, because when you are in a cave there is no fade in and fade out as there is in the overworld when a fight begins, so it's faster.
10 Meseta chest... why? Ice Digger leaves you with 10 Meseta left
Are you talking about the same meseta chest here? I don't remember right now why I took it but I can watch the run later and try to remember. If someone could make a temporary avi it would help too.
After getting the Torch.. why not use the Ice Digger?
Because strangely, it's faster to walk because it takes time to go to the menu (fade ins and fade outs). BTW, I removed the "takes damage to save time" from the submission comments because I don't remember any place where I did that (I don't think I ever went to a place full of gas). If someone saw me take damage to save time, let me know.
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Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
Point of note, this requires the v1.3 rom and not the v1.2.
Eh, ran just fine on with 1.2 for me in dega 1.14. Technically, this run was rather impressive. Having played the game in my youth, and spending hours upon hours grinding for enough money to get good armor, the ice digger, etc. watching this tas, it blows me away how fast it can be beaten. On an entertainment level however, to be honest, it's kinda boring, since it's pretty much just a shitload of grinding with the occasional sprinkle of story that you're likely to miss. For now, I'm unsure as to how to vote. I'll get back to that later after I've thought about it.
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nfq wrote:
10 Meseta chest... why? Ice Digger leaves you with 10 Meseta left
Are you talking about the same meseta chest here? I don't remember right now why I took it but I can watch the run later and try to remember. If someone could make a temporary avi it would help too.
Yes.. this was exactly what I meant... same chest. It seemed like a waste of a few seconds since you had enough Meseta without it for the Ice Digger. [Actually, woulda looked truly pro being 100% broke after getting the Digger] And I must admit for the other point about the digger.. never expected the walking part faster. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
mklip2001
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I definitely had to fast forward a lot of parts of this movie. However, I still liked it. The run definitely looks well-planned and well-executed, and I sort of liked seeing an RPG run for once where the characters do have to level up, and even then they barely get out of the final fights. I think this is high enough quality for publication. Yes vote. Good job nfq!
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.
nfq
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Thanks, mklip2001. The fight with Darkfalz was a lot easier than the one with Lassic (because Lassic attacks all characters). I could have survived a few more rounds on Darkfalz, but not with Lassic.
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
Yes.. this was exactly what I meant... same chest. It seemed like a waste of a few seconds since you had enough Meseta without it for the Ice Digger. [Actually, woulda looked truly pro being 100% broke after getting the Digger]
Yeah, it was hard to know back then that the 10 mesetas would be unnecessary to have. Especially the hospital costs are hard to calculate exactly because they're tied to the characters HP and MP.
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it doesnt work with dega 1.16 mame core
Run..Run...Run.....
nfq
Player (94)
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wicked wrote:
it doesnt work with dega 1.16 mame core
The movie was done with the 1.14 version, try if it works with that one.
sgrunt
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Encode goodness: http://www.archive.org/download/SmsPhantasyStarIn21737.97ByNfq/phantasystar-tas-nfq.mp4 Stream here: http://www.zexsoft.com/aktan/?SmsPhantasyStarIn21737.97ByNfq/phantasystar-tas-nfq I haven't quite finished watching this yet; more comments when I have. EDIT: I have a notoriously short attention span, so it's very difficult to sit and watch a run of an RPG I haven't played before. This is no exception, and the long sequences of levelling up just make things worse. That having been said, it is obvious that there was a lot of planning that went into this, and it seems technically solid. I give this a Meh. (On a semi-unrelated note, the graphics are very good for SMS...)
Limne
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I'm always amazed to see games like this beaten so quickly! Definite yes.
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It's interesting enough to vote yes. A bit long and boring to actually watch though.
NitroGenesis
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Pretty long and a bit dull, but that's ok for an RPG. Yes vote.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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Now that I think back, the TAS is actually much less long and boring than playing the game normally. I played through this myself a while back and it is really just one levelup with monotonous dungeons that you really can't get through without a map.
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So, I started watching this, and the luck manipulation wasn't very apparent from the first few fights. For example, you fight a scorpion, and the scorpion and you trade blows, then you have to return and heal. Are there no misses? Criticals? It seemed very real time. I haven't played this game, so some info would help.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
nfq
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DarkKobold wrote:
For example, you fight a scorpion, and the scorpion and you trade blows, then you have to return and heal. Are there no misses? Criticals? It seemed very real time. I haven't played this game, so some info would help.
The enemies can miss you sometimes, but only if your level/defence is high enough. There isn't anything that I would call "criticals", but sometimes you do more damage. So, for example in the beginning when I fight the scorpions I manipulate luck so that I deal most damage possible (which isn't much: 2 HP), and also so that the enemy does least damage to me (1 HP). The scorpions in beginning can do at most 3 HP damage to you. When I do the final blow to an enemy, I usually manipulate luck so that I attack the enemy before it attacks me, because the enemy attack animation takes some time. After the first 2 scorpion fights, I have enough money to buy a new sword, so the fights become much faster, and can fight 2 scorpions at the same time. There's also a normal speedrun of this game on SDA (done with the slower GBA version): http://speeddemosarchive.com/PhantasyStar.html
Limne
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First time I played this game I fought a single scorpion and it totally wrecked me. You'd probably have to have played some of this game to appreciate how well the luck manipulation is pulled off. Has this been accepted yet? It's a bit long for something so dry, but it is skillful besides being interesting to anyone who likes this kind of thing.
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I do not like rpg. And this is long. But I watched it all, without fast forward, because it was entertaining. I am surprised, but I vote yes.
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
Well, I voted yes... It's a very good RPG, it's well done run and as entertaining as a classic RPG TAS can get without insane warps
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ
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There's a lot of dungeon crawling, as well as all the random encounters. I'd say the run is technically sound, even though the entertainment side is a bit lacking. The run does build itself up, slowly but surely.
Post subject: Movie published
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. ---- [1501] SMS Phantasy Star by nfq in 2:17:37.97
nfq
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Noob Irdoh wrote:
I do not like rpg. And this is long. But I watched it all, without fast forward, because it was entertaining. I am surprised, but I vote yes.
wow, i'm surprised too that someone would watch all those levelling ups without fast forward.