Post subject: Zelda Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS)
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
I know that there isn't any DS emulators with Re-record support but I can give you a few pointers on Zelda Phantom Hourglass which will become useful in the future. The annoying feature (even more for a TAS at times) is the dizziness condition caused by rolling or Spin attacking too many times. It's usually either 4 continous rolls or Spin attacks that makes Link dizzy. It mainly lose frames but it could save frames from damage boosting by a near by enemy, when this happens it should reset the roll/spin counter to 0. Using the Hammer or Grappling hook freezes the roll/spin counter@ For example: I did 3 rolls then I take my Hammer out I use it for 5 seconds then did another roll and Link gets dizzy. During Linebeck sailing segments you should spam the jump button it's notably faster for some reason. The drawing in a TAS will be odd because it's touch operated not D-pad/Analouge, maybe you should make a "special frame" that has the entire icon made and let the game do it as fast as possible. I tried drawing the line on the Map (on Linebeck's sea chart when making ship paths) from the bottom to the top of the screen and the feather doesn't catch up with the stylus so it has cap a max speed for drawing. If the re-record Emulator is made and doesn't have Reset support (like Mupen) don't worry there is a Save & Quit feature which can be useful for both Save Warping and resetting NPC ship positions. There is a save warp that is really useful for Joleane's second battle (as she is nearer to your ship after save & quit has been made). I know a bit on Weapon damage and Bosses HP as I'll list most of them on here Weapon Damage points (DP):[/ Simple strikes (Stab or slash) are 10 DP Jump attacks are 15 DP Spin attacks are 20 DP Bombs explosions are 30 DP. Bombchu deals the same damage as Bombs. Grapple hook: 10 DP Boomerang ? Arrows: (15 or 20 DP) Hammer ? (I think it's 30 DP) Super Hammer ? ( 2x stronger than Hammer probably 60 DP) [/u]Boss stats and tactics for TAS:[/u] Blaaz: 300Hp. Each cycle he warps out after reciving 100Hp of Damage. Cyclok: 300HP. Recovers after taking 6 hits from any weapon, since Bombs is the strongest weapon at this time, spam the weapon because it's possible to face it with only 2 cycles. Giant Water beast: 5 hits. Try and not let the boss use his attack twice in a row. Crayk: 7 Hits (doesn't matter how strong the weapon is it's always 7 hits) Joleane: 3 Hits, followed by chance. Luck manipulation is useful on this mini-boss Eox: Manipulate his arrows, they are easier to avoid, easier to hit his weak spots and takes longer to finish his attack. His second phase is easy too. He only takes 14 hits no matter what weapon is used. After 10 hits he tries to shake you off, use a bomb this gives you Temporary invincibility that will keep you on his head during the shake and deal the last 3 hits. 6 Eye fish boss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVqmwyG_Bag Very annoying boss. Manipulate the projectiles coming from him and a good time would be before his 2nd near unavoidable charge attack. Dongorongo: 1st Phase: Make sure he is near to Link's side to deliver bombchus quickly (probably quite cool to make a bombchu path before he is down to shock the players thinking he's psychic). Do not let the boss use his charge attack he becomes invincible and charges you. 2nd Phase: Don't get the bomb flower you don't get enough time to chuck it in his mouth. Use bombs on his weak spot and manipulate Bomb drops from the minions coming from the ground. Gleeok: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxe0z7NXREY Very linear battle. Entertain it by doing world record damage boosts in a Zelda Game. 2nd Phase: Make sure that the bosses don't try to bite you too much. It's usually 1 chomp and then a charging beam attack. When the boss is vunerable use: Bomb (set it before you take it down), Hammer hit then Super hammer hit. This should defeat them instantly but there is a bug that prevents you to clear the boss in under 3 tidal waves. They accept death after the 3rd tidal wave. Joleane Round 2: It's possible to make her charge attack all of the time. You can do a neat trick which is to use the boomerang around Link which is possible to hit her back during the Charge strike. It's 3 hits then a Chance and then another hit. Bellum: The 1st Bellum Battle in the pool. 150 HP. 55HP he (usually) reacts and goes away, best damaging way is 3 jumps, Spin = 65 But I do 5 jumps on the first 2 and usually a double hit spin/ single hit spin + stab/slash. Manipulate this phase by keeping him near Link's side. Bellum Floor 1 5 eyes. No rotation attack in this one. Go around the room and shoot arrows. These eyes don't close. 1st Bellum Battle in pool. second time Again 150 hp it's possible that Bellum doesn't go away. Bellum Floor 1 again. After 3 out of 5 eyes destroyed It rotates anti-clockwise 2 tiles per turn twice. Bellum Floor 2 : After destroying every 2 eyes: It rotates anti-clockwise 2 tiles per turn. Up to 4 turns. (expect this to happen again after the 4th eye has gone). 1st Bellum Time Freeze Number of Normal attacks. 400 HP. (20 Spins). Do a double hit spin 3 times then constantly perform jump attacks and in the last 30 Phantom freeze time seconds. perform another double hit spin. Jump attacks doesn't change the spin counter so it's best to perform the 4th double hit spin last. The second boss battle I can't really tell much about this one, it's unique and all I can say is that you can defeat the boss quicker if you destroy one side of the ship in the first visit (I.e. Right then Left -- destroy all of the left side ones then finish off the right ones). Manipulate the boss' attacks and get every shot on each eye. Final Bellum Eye weak spot: 500HP. 3 cycles = At least over 165 DP per cycle!! Sounds hard but not really, activate the time freeze when the eye is opened and perform 3 double spin hits = 120 DP so far, then continue performing Jump attacks until you have 30 freeze time seconds to perform the last double hit spin. That amount can be around over 200 DP. After dealing around 350-400+ of Damage he usually performs a spin attack, the quickest way to end is to avoid it and not counter it by spinning back. It's possible that he doesn't so make sure in the TAS he doesn't use the great spin attack.
greenalink.blogspot.com
Player (80)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
How do you know all of this? Did you do a speedrun of this game or something?
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=30A9888389FF7B64 Yes I have, it's been up like 8 months ago and I completed it late March 2008. I learnt the mechanics and others whilst making it.
greenalink.blogspot.com
Player (80)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
Hah hah hah! That's pretty darn good! When they make a DS emulator you would be worthy on TASing Phantom Hourglass, its my favorite DS game.
P0H
Joined: 11/23/2008
Posts: 6
I don't know if ZPH will be a good idea to TAS because of the difficulty of using the sword, rolling... But it's worth to give it a shot.
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103
do you even realize what you're saying?
P0H
Joined: 11/23/2008
Posts: 6
Cheezwizz wrote:
do you even realize what you're saying?
?
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Just been experimenting how making a TAS of this game works. For rolling the instruction manual says produce a small circle by the edge of the touch screen. For TASing inputs you can see on the image is the "edge" of the screen. The roll needs at least one touch input that is in between the edge and the centra of the screen. Therefore a roll requires at least 3 frames of input. So what's the frame input sequence (basic detail) Frame 1: Stylus input near to the edge of the screen (near the red edge line from image) Frame 2: Stylus input somewhere inbetween the Blus dashing lines and the Red edge line. Frame 3: Stylus input that is similar/exact to the first stylus frame input. Edit: Testing the rolls and how long you've got to wait til you can roll again. Here are some numbers Frame 20xx 45 46 47 (2045, 2046, 2047) Roll lasts 30 frames til you can start the next accepted sequence 77 78 79 (2077, 2078, 2079) A small trick that I've found when playing around a long time ago is that during the 4th roll quick/sucessive roll, Link starts to get dizzy. If you use the 4th Roll and stop onto an door entry trigger. It would show Link's Dizziness for a few frames but because he is on a door trigger, he enters the room and the Roll dizzyness counter is reset.
greenalink.blogspot.com
Former player
Joined: 10/6/2007
Posts: 86
You really know your stuff. I'd love to watch it, the only thing I think could be criticized about the run is the Temple of the Ocean King, since you have to repeat it several times. Other than that I think it would be awesomez. Quick question, how are you going to do be able to do that screen closing trick in the TAS? Does the emulator give you an option to put the DS into sleep mode?
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
I'm guessing that LID in the Input Configuration actually closes up the DS. But what's going to be more important to work out is proper voices when ordering the Treasure Crane for Linebeck's ship. I will need to add some more images about how I input the thrusts and spin attacks. Small TAS Sample up to completing sword training.
greenalink.blogspot.com
Joined: 3/25/2008
Posts: 64
That was awesome, is the entire game stable at this point with the emulator?
.II
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Yeah, the game seems to be more stable but the cave graphics isn't perfect when set to SoftRasterizer. I wonder if it's stable when I go to the sea, spamming the jump button to go faster will nearly take a day to complete. Edit: Added attack input methods All of the attack requires no stylus inputs on the previous frame other wise Link would do something else like an unnessary roll. Thrust Attacks Start the stylus input on A (near Link) and hold that position for 3 frames, then on the 4th frame go on to where B it (few steps away from Link) and hold that position for 3 frames, on the 7th frame you release it (if you want to) and Link should do a Thrust. [URL=http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thrustinput.png][/URL] [URL=http://g.imageshack.us/img217/thrustinput.png/1/][/URL] Spin attack input 1 (Diamond input) I performed the first spin attack with this input and it seems like I hold the stylus on each position for 2-3 frames each (couldn't remember). You don't need to let go of the stylus for Link to perform this move. I named it the Diamond input because if you "dot to dot" on each letter it should form a diamond shape. [URL=http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spinattack1.png][/URL] [URL=http://g.imageshack.us/img217/spinattack1.png/1/][/URL] Spin attack input 2 (the Octagon input) This spin attack was done by this input instead of 4 spots, there is now 8 spots. It might be longer to do a full 360 turn but it's more likely that Link will perform a spin attack because the stylus input is more circular. [URL=http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spinattack2.png][/URL] [URL=http://g.imageshack.us/img217/spinattack2.png/1/][/URL]
greenalink.blogspot.com
Player (80)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Utah
Now I know your right-handed. :P
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
GreenaLink wrote:
It might be longer to do a full 360 turn but it's more likely that Link will perform a spin attack because the stylus input is more circular.
What about pentagon, hexagon?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Cool video and a good start, I think. It's too bad that, if I remember the game right, a large portion of the final video will be unskippable cutscenes (doors opening, etc).
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
The only cut scenes that are unskippable are: *Boss' death animation sequence, *Doors opening *A phantom guard "debut" teleport *The cut scene after the credits. *Minor talking scenes (people talking to you, non-cinematic) Fortunately the main cut scenes are skippable like Twilight Princess :D
What about pentagon, hexagon?
Haven't tried them yet, I'm not sure it will work as effectively as the Octagon input because it's less points but not as circular compared to the octagon (I went for the more logic directions (4 and 8 points)).
greenalink.blogspot.com
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
GreenaLink wrote:
Haven't tried them yet, I'm not sure it will work as effectively as the Octagon input because it's less points but not as circular compared to the octagon (I went for the more logic directions (4 and 8 points)).
Does it make a difference in the game, actually, except obvious input time? I haven't played it so I don't know.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
There's no differences to what shape I use. It's always a circular spin attack. I've just did some frame counting and it seems like all of the shapes I do Link performs a spin attack after 18 frames. And for each spot, you can keep your stylus at least 2 frames minimum each. If I hold a spot for 1 frame Link will just wobble left and right, getting confused where to go.
greenalink.blogspot.com
Player (118)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
how are you going to do the part where you have to blow the dust away on an emualor?
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (40)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1914
Location: Floating Tower
There's a built in microphone sound setting in there that simulates blowing into the microphone.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Joined: 7/10/2007
Posts: 17
*spoilers* Can you explain how to use the microphone to blow out the candles at Summit Path? I have the microphone key hotkeyed to M button and i'm standing right in front of the candle and pressing M but nothing's happening. The microphone worked when i needed to shout out to the fortune teller.
Joined: 1/25/2009
Posts: 29
Location: Finland
Hmm... How about the point where you need to press the map with the crest??? is there a way to do that too??
still a nooby in speedrunning
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
I think there is an option from the Emulator that you can set it to Sleep mode (which causes the Crest icon to be on your Map).
greenalink.blogspot.com
Joined: 1/25/2009
Posts: 29
Location: Finland
GreenaLink wrote:
I think there is an option from the Emulator that you can set it to Sleep mode (which causes the Crest icon to be on your Map).
Oh then its possible to make :)
still a nooby in speedrunning
Player (62)
Joined: 9/2/2008
Posts: 289
Location: United Kingdom
Well this problem hasn't been fully solved yet:
Can you explain how to use the microphone to blow out the candles at Summit Path? I have the microphone key hotkeyed to M button and i'm standing right in front of the candle and pressing M but nothing's happening. The microphone worked when i needed to shout out to the fortune teller.
And the second ship part you need to buy that requires a proper word spoken into the mic.
greenalink.blogspot.com