I feel like my SMW opinion matters at least slightly, so here it is:
I think the small run looks much more impressive than the 11 exit run, which I think is the most boring of any (literally) SMW/SDW run ever on this site.
I mean I guess it depends on which star guideline you consider most important. If you want the one showcasing the most impressive TASing techniques or however it's phrased, the small run blows SMW11 out of the water without any debate possible, for instance.
Also, what Metroid run(s?) is/are the best suited for a star?
For the GBA ones I'd say either of the Metroid Zero Mission runs would fit. Personally I think the 100% one is a better pick due to having a lot of really really fast action, especially towards the end, as well as just being genuinely entertaining, but the any% is very good too (as well as being mroe up to date and shorter).
For Super Metroid I'd say it should have at least one star due to being such a fast paced and TAS friendly game. My opinion is that the 100% run is the best pick becuase it has more, as well as much faster and more diverse, action compared to the other ones. Other than that it just shows a lot of tricks and strategies you can't even come close to doing on console, clearly visible luckmanipulation very precise ammo/health management and a route which is impossible to do on console due to energy restrictions. And it shows a lot of the stuff done in the other runs as well.
If there where to be two starred Super Metroid runs (not saying that there should) I'd say that the other one should be the glitched run even though by many it is considered less entertaining than the two other any% runs. The reason is that while the 100% run basically shows pretty much everything there is to Super Metroid, making the non glitched any% runs pretty superfluous, the glitched run shows something completely different, and the sequence break in it is one of the most elaborate ones I can think of ever (and in practice it is impossible to do on console without getting extra items).
As for Metroid I don't really feel that strongly either way so I'll leave this for others.
EDIT: Also on the matter of SMW I agree completely with Fabian here. If I would pick the SMW run that visually best displays the power of tool assistance small only would most definitely be the one. I also think it is the most entertaining one.
Majora's Mask is extremely interesting, and it is also a popular game. It is probably better suited than Ocarina of Time because Ocarina of Time's upcoming run will pretty much butcher the gameplay. The upcoming submission that Swordless Link is work on will be a phenomenal run once completed, and I also think the current run is quite worthy as well.
With regard to Megaman runs, perhaps to avoid repetition we should only choose 1 Megaman run. If people see that run and really enjoy it, they will obviously look up the others. I would suggest Megaman 2 because it is often viewed as the best and most popular in the series.
I also think Rockman & Forte 100 CDs is one of the best movies on the site. The action packed zipping is beyond impressive. Though the game itself is somewhat unheard of, anyone who has played any game in the Megaman series will appreciate the run.
EDIT: King's Bounty is a little weak. It requires you to read the submission text to understand what is going on. I think it's awesome that a complex game can be beaten in 10 seconds. Without that, the video itself is pretty weak, and most people who aren't familiar with TASing will just end up confused.
I'd like to nominate the Super Mario Bros. walkathon. It's a fascinating restriction and I was amazed that it was at all possible. The latest run shows great tricks throughout that I'd never imagine pulling off playing real-time - backwards jumping, zipping through walls, wall-jumping... and watching the bullet bill slowly catch up to mario is highly entertaining!
I think it's unique and - along with Mario 64's 0-star and King's Bounty ultra-short run - is one of my favourites on the site.
Not too long, unique, clearly shows some great TASing performing the 'impossible'...
Kirkq wrote:
With regard to Megaman runs, perhaps to avoid repetition we should only choose 1 Megaman run. If people see that run and really enjoy it, they will obviously look up the others. I would suggest Megaman 2 because it is often viewed as the best and most popular in the series.
I think stars should be based on the quality of the actual movie - not the game. I'm not entirely qualified to judge, but if another has more techniques going on or looks more impressive to someone at all familiar with the series, that one should maybe be chosen rather than the one which simply reminds them of a game they enjoyed.
Of course, if #2 happens to be the best TAS, then fine. I'm just saying don't base it on the game - base it on the TAS.
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
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I'm sure I have a lot more opinions than this, but here are some suggestions:
Don't Star
any SMB/SMB2j runs
any Zelda movies
these movies generally entertain only those familiar with the game, and not a mass audience. As a result they violate one of the star guidelines.
Star
SMB2u warpless instead of SMB2u warps. There isn't anything in the warps that isn't in the warpless. Plus the warpless shows off a lot of tricks/glitches not in the warps. It also presents the most colorful and interesting levels of the game.
Nightmare on Elm street 4 - player
This isn't the most entertaining movie we have but it is definately a "must see". If someone ever does a more impressive 4 player run, it can take its star perhaps.
SM - 100% and no other SM runs. I personally think the SM runs lack variety to anyone not familiar with the routes so I think only 1 should be starred. And the 100% runs have historically got the most votes, most attention, and highest ratings.
River City Ransom Playaround. Playarounds are a part of this site, but a lot of newcomers don't realize that. If not this movie, some playaround needs to be demonstrated, to show off this element of TASing.
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.
any Zelda movies
these movies generally entertain only those familiar with the game, and not a mass audience. As a result they violate one of the star guidelines.
I personally don't find this to be the case, and it's cetainly no more true than with Super Metriod or castlevania movies.
I do tend to feel that after the first two Zelda games, the appeal of TASes sharply declines. Majora's Mask may be a fantastic game (it's still my favorite of the 3D Zeldas) but in the end it's also still hours long, which makes it nigh-impossible to keep up what I like to call the "WTF pace" (that is, the rate at which the viewer says "WTF?!") that IMO is one of the requirements for a star.
If we're going to star a Zelda, NES Zelda second quest is the clear winner. I'd prefer first quest since more people have played that and there's more leeway to do things in weird orders, but the first-quest run's currently pretty outdate and the second quest is still pretty awesome. Bomb and health management, luck-manipulation of drops, and in particular rapidly clearing rooms of powerful enemies, are all standard features of the run.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
SMW
If only one star can be given, just make it to the shortest one
You know that just seeing Mario flying all the time can be boring. I forgot to mention that I haven't watched the "small only" movie. Maybe it has less flying.
Baxter wrote:
Some things pretty much everyone agrees on sofar:
- SMB3 any%
Just as I've stated before, the autoscrollers are not entertaining enough to everyone. This item should be replaced with:
- At least 1 Mario 64 run
AKA wrote:
Legend of Zelda: Great example of luck manipulation and health management
adelikat wrote:
Don't Star
any Zelda movies
I can agree with both (funny?), if adelikat referred to the NES ones. Especially, Legend of Zelda 2 is out-performed by Battle of Olympus. I don't want to comment on non-warped ALttP and those N64 ones.
EDIT:
I can agree with both (funny?), if adelikat referred to the NES ones.
I realize this sentence is illogical. So just ignore it.
EDIT 2: Thanks for the advice, Fabian! Not now, though.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
I forgot to mention that I haven't watched the "small only" movie. Maybe it has less flying.
Maybe less? Small only basically means no flying at all.
klmz wrote:
- At least 1 Mario 64 run
Most people are in favor of the 0 star run.
klmz wrote:
I can agree with both (funny?), if adelikat referred to the NES ones.
It is somewhat illogical indeed, although I find it probably illogical for different reasons. At page 3: klmz wrote:
OK:
* Arkanoid (awesome)
** Warpless
* NES Battle of Olympus (better than LoZ2 warped in my opinion)
* NES Castlevania
* NES Legend of Zelda (Can't you believe, huh?)
** Either
* NES Legend of Zelda 2
** Glitched
...
So it is true that you said that you preferred BoO over LoZ2... but you still suggested LoZ2, and you suggested LoZ1. So did you completely change your mind all of a sudden of both NES Zelda movies?
adelikat wrote:
River City Ransom Playaround. Playarounds are a part of this site, but a lot of newcomers don't realize that. If not this movie, some playaround needs to be demonstrated, to show off this element of TASing.
While of course essentially aiming for speed, isn't Gradius also a bit like a playaround? Goofing around is like 95% (or more) of the TAS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for how to move forward (first, a lot more debate and suggestions need to be made... so this is what I plan in the future), possibly:
Some stars which are too evident, and which will cause probably no debate at all (basically everyone agrees). So I'll list these then, and unless there are some really big objections, these will get stars without further debate (since basically everyone already agreed on this). For most stars however, this isn't so clear.
I think it would be good if I devided all the suggestions into groups of somewhat similar movies (depending on the group name). Each group will get a certain number (or range) (although possibly/ideally mostly 1) stars to be devided amongst the TASes of that group. I generally like it if there is some sort of choice element for the stars. This means the groups must be larger than just one TAS. And not just give a star to a movie because it's the only movie that shows a certain concept. So I plan on grouping several TASes together, to get a star list with variety.
Goldeneye has been previously suggested for instance... but are there any movies somewhat similar to say "this one gets a star, or maybe this one"? I could see a group of for instance "3D games" (or "N64 games"), and that would put Goldeneye for instance in a group with Majora's Mask... but on the other side, these movies are extremely different... so any ideas?
Other groups I could see are for instance like: "Castlevania games", "wire games", "special concept TASes" etc. (just to give some ideas of what I'm thinking of). In the "special concept" case, these TASes could probably all have their own group, consisting of just that one TAS. An example of this is: adelikat wrote:
Nightmare on Elm street 4 - player
This isn't the most entertaining movie we have but it is definately a "must see". If someone ever does a more impressive 4 player run, it can take its star perhaps.
But since I wouldn't want to give a TAS a star just because it's the only option in that category. The actual movie should also matter, not just the concept... so I plan on grouping movies like this together, and probably have a few potential stars for them... but still have some debate on what particular concepts are the best suited.
I think Umihara Kawase makes for a bad starred movie as the game is obscure, the graphics are weird, and the gameplay is uncomprehensible.
I'd vote to bring back the star on Monopoly as it's very short and the best example of luck manipulation in a well-known game that is infamous for how long it usually takes. Also, it's a game that people that have never owned a console knows.
Though I won't vote about keeping/taking away the star on the dual Megaman X & X2 TAS, I think that it is a concept that sounds better than it actually plays.
I miss the stars on the rygar runs, oh well. :(
I think Umihara Kawase makes for a bad starred movie as the game is obscure, the graphics are weird, and the gameplay is uncomprehensible.
Being an obscure game shouldn't disqualify it for a star. The graphics are maybe different, but still nice, the gameplay is quite straightforward... everyone knows what is going on. I'm not saying it should have a star, as it has some though competition with some others... but I do disagree with your statements.
DrJones wrote:
I'd vote to bring back the star on Monopoly as it's very short and the best example of luck manipulation in a well-known game that is infamous for how long it usually takes. Also, it's a game that people that have never owned a console knows.
Are you talking about the regular version, or the one with 4 cpu's?
DrJones wrote:
I miss the stars on the rygar runs, oh well. :(
I'll take this as a suggestion. Same question: warpless version or warp glitch version?
I think it would be good if I devided all the suggestions into groups of somewhat similar movies (depending on the group name). Each group will get a certain number (or range) (although possibly/ideally mostly 1) stars to be devided amongst the TASes of that group. I generally like it if there is some sort of choice element for the stars. This means the groups must be larger than just one TAS. And not just give a star to a movie because it's the only movie that shows a certain concept.
Debating within each group seems like it'll definitely help streamline all the thoughts. Rather than vote within each group, why not just use the groups as a way to force focused discussion - after you bring forward a group, folk can suggest games to be added as 'potential stars' to that group and when making suggestions - or even voting - folk can always suggest that no game in that group be starred, even if there's only 1 or 2 nominees. You can suggest a range that should be added from a group - say 1-2 movies or 0-1...
With a range rather than a 'definite number', games won't be automatically included just because they're in a small group.
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
I can agree with both (funny?), if adelikat referred to the NES ones.
It is somewhat illogical indeed, although I find it probably illogical for different reasons. At page 3: klmz wrote:
OK:
* Arkanoid (awesome)
** Warpless
* NES Battle of Olympus (better than LoZ2 warped in my opinion)
* NES Castlevania
* NES Legend of Zelda (Can't you believe, huh?)
** Either
* NES Legend of Zelda 2
** Glitched
...
So it is true that you said that you preferred BoO over LoZ2... but you still suggested LoZ2, and you suggested LoZ1. So did you completely change your mind all of a sudden of both NES Zelda movies?
In that post, my "OK" was restricted to mean "acceptable" instead of "with no doubt". And I merely used to think that LoZ2 was acceptable although it felt inferior to BoO, until I realized that we wouldn't need two very similar movies in this category right now. I didn't change my mind of LoZ1 as I thought it was acceptable.
I'm sorry for the confusion.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do
Debating within each group seems like it'll definitely help streamline all the thoughts. Rather than vote within each group, why not just use the groups as a way to force focused discussion
Yeah, it is more meant to cause discussion and draw conclusions from that than voting.
Bezman wrote:
after you bring forward a group
It can't really be done 1 by 1. Some TASes could technically be in multiple groups and it would cause problems. I don't plan on nominations for groups specifically either. I hope that there will be more discussion about which runs should be starred, and then from all suggestions, arguments and whatnot, I will post all groups with their TASes and possible amount of stars at once.
Personally I think that Umihara Kawase has much better wire physics than any of the other grappling games we have on the site. The only problem is that most of the other grappling games feature a main character who naturally moves much more quickly, which means that the grappling sees less use. So I'm not certain that "games with grappling hooks" is a good "category" to use here, since there's really only two games that take that element seriously (Umihara Kawase and Bionic Commando) and they're so totally different that comparisons aren't really feasible.
I do think that UK is done well, and personally I think it's worthy of a star, but I've played it quite a bit so I'm biased.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
So I'm not certain that "games with grappling hooks" is a good "category" to use here, since there's really only two games that take that element seriously
I've listed 4 nominees currently:
Ninja Five-0
Umihara Kawase
Spiderman 3
Bionic Commando
I think all of them 'take the wire element seriously'. I also think it's good to have this kind of category, just to be sure that at least one game with such physics gets represented in the star list... which is good for variety purpose; this kind of movement is generally hard to do in real time, and produces pretty distinct and awesome movies.
I'll post a tentative list of the groups and how many stars there might be reserved for the groups. Nothing is final or anything. I will be happy to hear suggestions for:
- Adding/removing/changing groups
- Adding/removing TASes to existing groups
- Changing the number of stars reserved for groups
- Anything you feel is important/overlooked
Opinions about movies in the group and which one should get a star is obviously also appreciated.
With the current, tentative, amount of stars assigned to the groups, there are a total of 23 stars, which is one more than the current amount (although currently Super Metroid doesn't have a star). Adding one or two might be possible.
Instant stars (4 Stars)SMB3 any%
Excitebike
Super Mario 64 "0 star"
GradiusSuper Mario World (1 Star)Super Mario World "small only"
Super Mario World any%
Super Mario World 96exit
Super Demo World 120exitSonic (2 Stars)Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2Metroid (2 Stars)Super Metroid 100%
Metroid Zero mission 100%
Metroid any%Megaman (1 Star)Mega Man 1
Mega Man 2Zelda (1 Star)Legend of Zelda
A Link to the Past
Links Awakening DXCastlevania (2 Stars)Castlevania
Castlevania: HoD
Castlevania: CotM
Super Castlevania IVWire TAS (1 Star)Ninja Five-0
Umihara Kawase
Spiderman 3
Bionic CommandoSpecial concept (2 Stars)MMX+MMX2 (2 games with one input)
Kings Bounty (skipped game by luck manipulation)
Monopoly (skipped game by luck manipulation)
Nightmare on Elmstreet “4player” (4 players)
Lost Vikings (3 players)
River City Ransom (playaround)NES games (3 Stars)Ninja Gaiden 2
Darkwing Duck
Mega Man 5
Gimmick!
Super Mario Bros 2
Journey to Silius
Batman
Arkanoid “Warpless”
Battle of Olympus
Legend of Zelda 2
Battletoads “2 player warpless”SNES games (2 Stars)Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Rockman and Forte "100 CDs"
Sparkster
Donkey Kong Country 1 any%
Biker Mice from Mars
The MaskGenesis (1 Star)Gunstar Heroes “ 2 player”
Ecco (which run?)
Dynamite headdy
Golden Axe
Comix ZoneN64 (1 Star)Majora’s Mask
Goldeneye
Mischief Makers
Super Mario 64 120 star
Super Mario World (1 Star)Super Mario World "small only"
Super Mario World any%
Super Mario World 96exit
Super Demo World 120exit
"Small only" gets my vote for this one. As noted, the other two SMW TASes suffer from the player flying over much of the level. And I don't feel that SDW should be starred, just as a personal bias.
Sonic (1 Star)Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Here I'd say either Sonic 1 or S3&K. I'm biased a bit against S3&K because I don't like the zip glitches -- IMO they're similar to flying over levels in SMW -- but the rest of the TAS is top-notch.
I'd actually say that the Metroid 2 glitched TAS could go onto this list too; it's highly entertaining for just how badly broken the game gets. I don't think we should have more than 1 100% starred TAS, though, and of those two SM 100% is the clear winner, if for no other reason than that, because of damage boosts and the fact that the shinespark drains health, resource management is much more crucial in SM than in ZM.
Megaman (1 Star)Mega Man 1
Mega Man 2
Tough choice. MM2 is a much better game on the whole, but MM1 is hilariously broken. I'm leaning towards MM2 here, though.
Zelda (1 Star)Legend of Zelda
A Link to the Past
Links Awakening DX
LoZ 2nd quest is my vote here. I'll grant that I haven't seen the LttP TAS lately, though. Link's Awakening is simply too long.
Castlevania (2 Stars)Castlevania
Castlevania: HoD
Castlevania: CotM
Super Castlevania IV
I think SCIV is an underrated game, but sadly it isn't as obviously challenging to play as the original Castlevania. I don't think CotM makes the cut in either short or long versions; the long version uses a glitch to skip much of the power curve in the game (by making use of magic spells that shouldn't be available) which I don't like much, and both versions have very boring boss battles. All that said, I really don't know which of these games should get starred; the only one I think is pretty secure is the original Castlevania.
Special concept (2 Stars)MMX+MMX2
Kings Bounty
Nightmare on Elmstreet “4player”
Monopoly
River City Ransom
I'd go with Monopoly and RCR here. Reason being that while King's Bounty is very impressive if you know what's going on, it's not if you don't, while Monopoly, as noted earlier, is obviously behaving strangely. And the RCR TAS is just hilarious.
NES games (3 Stars)Ninja Gaiden 2
Darkwing Duck
Mega Man 5
Gimmick!
Super Mario Bros 2
Journey to Silius
Batman
Arkanoid “Warpless”
Battle of Olympus
Legend of Zelda 2
Battletoads “2 player warpless”
A.k.a. the miscellaneous section. I'm not going to explain my choices here because there's too many games in the list, but I'd suggest SMB2 warpless and one of Battletoads 2P warpless, LoZ2, or Battle of Olympus.
SNES games (2 Stars)Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
Rockman and Forte “100 CDs”
Sparkster
Donkey Kong Country (which run?)
Biker Mice from Mars
The Mask
I actually prefer the R&F Forte run (with the insane lightning zipping) over the 100 CDs run; Forte's a much more dynamic protagonist than Rockman is, and watching Rush dig for CDs really kills the pacing. Sparkster suffers from information overload -- there's so much going on at any given moment that the viewer gets tired. BMfM has camera issues. So I'd suggest DKC1, on the general theory that Rare got it right the first time and each sequel was slightly worse.
Genesis (1 Star)Gunstar Heroes “ 2 player”
Ecco (which run?)
Dynamite headdy
Golden Axe
Comix Zone
Gunstar Heroes 2P should be in the "no question" category, IMO. I don't know about the others. Brawlers tend to make poor TASes and Golden Axe is no exception. I haven't watched Comix Zone. Dynamite Heady was interesting but not that great. And the Ecco runs are neat but a bit incomprehensible.
N64 (1 Star)Majora’s Mask
Goldeneye
Mischief Makers
Super Mario 64 120 star
Hm. "MM" is an ambiguous acronym here. :) Majora's Mask is frankly too long, and while Mischief Makers was neat, in my opinion we have better platforming TASes available. SM64 120-star is also very long. And that leaves Goldeneye, which has rendering bugs. :\ I do think Goldeneye is the best of the lot here, especially considering that SM64 0-star is already on the auto-list.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Note to Derakon: I got very fast some reactions on why Sonic games only had 1 star assigned... and while I did this both for variety purposes and since I didn't want to distribute too many over groups right away (having one or two as backup stars is never bad :P), it seems like a great majority is in favor of two stars for the sonic games, so I changed it to two stars, instead of one, like written in your post.
Bablo wrote:
Why doesn't Megaman5 belong to the Megaman list?
It's indeed not very clear in this setting. I mainly formed groups first, then named them. Mega Man 1 and Mega Man 2 are in a group since probably either of them should at least have a star. There are quite a few similar aspects though, so probably not both. If I had for instance listed them in the NES section, and added an extra potential star to the NES section, then they might both be starred, which would be bad for variety.
MegaMan 5 is quite different than Megaman 1 and 2, and the NES section was first called "allround NES TASes, and I figured it fitted better there...
In a same way you might wanna ask why Rockman and Forte isn't listed there ;) It was just how groups were formed. If you think it should be changed, feel free to say so though.
Derakon wrote:
I actually prefer the R&F Forte run (with the insane lightning zipping) over the 100 CDs run
I'll remove the "100 CDs" part. If it gets voted on for a star, it can always be decided on then what version of the game gets the star... It was listed this way since most people suggested the 100 CD version (if people say "I'm against deciding that later, since I want to vote on a particular version, THEN I'll list both... for now, I'll just list the game.)
(if people say "I'm against deciding that later, since I want to vote on a particular version, THEN I'll list both... for now, I'll just list the game.)
I don't think it makes sense to vote on a game as opposed to a particular movie. If voting on a game, it's essentially getting the combined votes that all its movies would get.
Also, there's a few movies there that I've not seen. Can we be given a couple of weeks to watch them? Normally, I'd only need a day or two, but presentations are due and other folk may also have real-life complications.
2 movies I feel should be nominees: Your own Megaman 3,4,5,6 and HappyLee's SMB walkthrough.
I'm just some random guy. Don't let my words get you riled - I have my opinions but they're only mine.
