Introduction
This is my first attempt at a tool-assisted speed run. I started making this mainly for my own amusement, and because Crystalis is one of my favorite games. When I finished my first run, I was surprised that it didn't look like total trash, so I decided to try and clean it up a little bit and submit it at the site. I did several console speed runs for this game about a year ago (although the videos were never online), that finished in approximately 1:22 and 1:14. I did the second one after I found out about the "Ghetto Flight Bug" that enables you to bypass Evil Spirit Island. I came up with the route myself, with some help from a few people at Speed Demos Archive. The leveling up and warping strategies are modified slightly in a tool-assisted run because perfection is now an option (and usually required).
- This run is 9775 frames (roughly 2 minutes and 43 seconds) faster than my first run
- This run is not meant to obsolete the already-published Wild Warp run
About the Game
Crystalis is set in 1997, where some people have mutated into monsters, or something. As with any NES adventure game, the plot is largely vague and generally inconsequential (or nonexistent). You play the role of a young man in a fetching purple outfit, who has been cryogenically frozen (or otherwise preserved) for 100 years. He automatically thaws (or otherwise de-preserves) when the "Tower is activated." Apparently the bright idea in 1897 was to build a Tower in the sky to "oppress evil forever," but it didn't work the way it was supposed to. There's also an android named Azteca who means good but succumbs to evil, allowing Draygon, a riteous soldier turned bad news, to feed off of Azteca's evil thoughts and build an empire bent on the devastation of earth. I've always thought the plot was cool, or at least cooler than most NES RPG-ish games, but now that I'm older I can't tell if it's cool or just really cheesy. But I've noticed that those two blend together more often than you'd think.
Some trivia: The game was called "Godslayer" in Japan, but apparently Americans can't handle slaying gods, so it was changed to the slightly wimpier "Crystalis." Also, although this is pure hearsay, I've read that your purple friend Mesia is an allusion to Messiah, making it totally religious and completely unfit for children of any age, color, or sex (but only if they're American). Apparently the Japanese kids can handle vague, 8-bit references to the works of Handel and the obliteration of evil gods better than the Americans. Sometimes I wonder if I would've grown up to be a serial killer had I played Godslayer instead of Crystalis.
- Used FCEU 0.98.16 (my first run seemed to desync in 0.98.12 but worked fine with 0.98.16, so I'd suggest playing back in something other than .12)
- Abuses programming errors
- Uses death as a shortcut
- Takes damage to save time
- Aims for fastest time
- No warps
Glitches/Tricks
Power Up Sword While Moving and the Shop Bug
Read TheAxeMan's explanation.
Getting Through the Petrified People
I may have been the first one to discover this. I figured this out in about 1993 when I first got this game. I thought it was a pretty well known trick, but no one else really seems to know about it. Basically, any stationary NPC who's preventing you from getting somewhere can be bypassed. This includes the petrified people in the waterfall, the guards outside Shyron, the guy guarding the Queen's room in Portoa, the guy guarding the door that leads behind the Queen's throne room in Portoa, and the girl who guards the door to the Amazon leader's room in Amazones. It's difficult to explain, but basically you just keep running into the stationary person, while holding the horizontal direction you want to travel, and the opposite vertical direction you want to travel. So, since I want to go up and the left, I hold down+left to get by the petrified people in the waterfall. This is easily done on a console.
Skipping the Ball of Fire
I've been trying to think of a cool name for this glitch, since I'm the first one to use it publicly, but I have no creativity for this kind of thing. The best I could come up with was the "menu-save-death-skip-the-ball-of-fire-glitch," and that doesn't roll off the tongue very well. So, I'm open to suggestions. I read about this glitch on some easily forgettable site, so I don't know who the credit goes to for discovering this. Basically, this allows you to power up a sword to level two despite not having the associated ball. However, it's not as useful as you might think, since many of the game's triggers are dependent on having a ball (ha ha!). To do it, power up a sword to level two, go to the menu screen and choose a different sword that has no ball. Then save. Then die. Then continue. Now your sword with no ball will have level two capabilities. If you access the menu (i.e. press select or start), your level two capabilities go away. Since the menu cannot be accessed, this makes for some careful planning.
"Ghetto Flight Bug"
This was brought to my attention and named by Dragondarch from Speed Demos Archive. It enables you to abuse some faulty programming involving the dolphin, allowing you to fly over the angry sea long before you should be able to. This allows you to skip Evil Spirit Island entirely, shaving off about six minutes. It's also really cool. When you land the dolphin, immediately jump into the water. If done at the correct time, you will fly over the water, instead of being stopped by the water. I'm not sure why it works, or why you can make the dolphin disappear for a little while, but it's pretty awesome. This is a little trickier to do on a console, but it can be done.
Triggers
Much of speed running this game is figuring out what triggers what. Here's a semi-complete list of all the non-obvious triggers as I understand them.
- Talking to Zebu triggers the sleepy Windmill guard
- Talking to anyone in Oak triggers Stom
- Defeating Stom triggers the lost kid in the Poison Forest
- Using "your power to open the way" (breaking the ice wall) behind Zebu in Mt. Sabre South triggers the people of Leaf to be captured
- Talking to the rabbit (or whatever that thing is) in Leaf triggers Mt. Sabre North [there are two triggers to enter Mt. Sabre North]
- Showing Tornel the Tornado Bracelet triggers Mt. Sabre North
- Getting the Ball of Water triggers Asina and the sick dolphin behind the throne room in Portoa, and also triggers the Fog Lamp owner to reappear in his house
- Talking to Kensu in the hut enables you to use the Shell Flute
- Activating Joel (the town) as a warp point triggers the entrance to Evil Spirit Island
- Talking to Stom in Swan triggers Kensu's various disguises
- Approaching the iron wall at the entrance to Goa Fortress triggers the Shyron massacre
Other Information
Much of this game is spent leveling up, which is pretty boring. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, but that's not always a realistic goal when it conflicts with speed. The fast-forward button is your friend, particularly when I kill those blue spiny things in Mt. Sabre North for several minutes. However, I think this run is pretty entertaining, especially if you're at all familiar with this game, at least moreso than the Wild Warp run. The Wild Warp gives you access to the end of the game nearly immediately, so you spend 35 minutes finishing arbitrary sidequests and furiously leveling up. I liked watching it, but I like watching this one better (although I'm a little sick of both of them right now).
To the best of my knowledge, I chose the fastest possible places to level up. Sometimes I was hindered by respawning issues, but overall, I think the leveling up went particularly well. It even gets less boring to watch near the end of the game (or at least takes less time). My boss fights were optimal to the best of my knowledge, save two. Let me first say that Stom is a little bastard. I beat him in approximately 380 frames in my first run, and could not replicate that to save my life on this run. I spent about 6 hours and over 300 rerecords trying to manipulate that pumpkin-pie haircutted freak, but to no avail. I tried dodging his attacks, pressing different buttons, waiting before entering, but nothing seemed to change his attack. I even wrote down exactly the interval between my sword strikes from my first run, and copied it exactly on this one, but it did no good. So the Stom fight in the submitted version is about 3 seconds slower than the one in my first run.
Also, Mado the first time around gave me some serious problems. It appears that his attack pattern is determined as soon as you enter Shyron, and even after I figured that out, I had to wait about 10-15 frames just to manipulate his attack pattern, and it didn't seem to manipulate into something that was considerably better than his original pattern. So I stuck with his original pattern. That battle is about 100 frames slower than the one done by TheAxeMan in the wild warp run. Otherwise, all the bosses went down nice and easy.
I equipped the Sacred Shield only because it makes the sprite look cooler. I figured it was worth 3 frames to do that.
Fun Facts
Because I never really understood how these things were made until I started making one, I thought it might interest some people to know a few things about the making of this movie.
- My keyboard was setup as follows: HOME was up, END was down, PAGE DOWN was right, and DELETE was left. INSERT was select, PAGE UP was start, . [period] was B, / [next to period] was A, and 4 on the numpad was frame advance.
- I made the entire movie, save maybe 10 seconds, using frame advance. Those 10 seconds were usually long, boring walks, which I played in real time.
- I still don't really understand all the features on the emulator, like the save slots, so I just went to Save State As... and Load State From... every time I saved or loaded a savestate (I'm assuming there's a more efficient way to do it). My first run used 1277 savestates and my final run used 1240 savestates.
- Interesting screenshots: 1316, 181429, 188790
Suggested Screenshots: 105602, 123114, 164185, 189029
Enjoy.
adelikat: I'd like some more opinions on this one.
adelikat: I have decided to reject this run.
- boring if you haven't played the game, and few people have.
- there is luck manipulation but no where near the ammount present in many of the published rpg's. Compare the 2500 re-record count to say that of ff1 (25k), dw2 (21k), dw4 (110k). The ridiculous luck manipulation is the life blood of an entertaining rpg TAS. This isn't exactly an RPG but fits mostly into the category.
- While controversial, we have a "wild warps" run to satisfy the craving of the few who love & want to see a run of this game
- Even most of the yes voters mentioned it being boring but either wanted it to replace the current run or should be published anyway.
mmbossman: This submission has been given another chance at publication. If you feel it should be published, instead of returning to the grue, please post WHY in the thread. Similarly, if you do NOT think this movie should be published, post WHY.
mmbossman: After taking a look at the Crystalis manual, I have confirmed that it does not mention the "wild warps" glitch, which is utilized in the current run. Every other run which uses button input from the second controller has made mention of this functionality in the manual, and I don't believe this guideline should have been broken originally. Because of this, I am accepting this run to obsolete the currently published run, to better conform to site rules.
ccfreak2k: Publification underway.