Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
Glad to see a full run-through, swordless! I'm sure small amounts could come off most dungeon rooms with further effort, but overall a great looking TAS. A few comments...
1. I'd drop the 'minimalist' concept and just stick with 'swordless.' I think the topic's been kicked around enough and generated enough interest that you don't need any other category. Anyway, it's not really minimalist in any real sense, since you get MORE items than the any %! (which doesn't get the wand, though obviously it gets the sword much earlier)
2. Money, life and start-screen management do stick out as being a bit iffy...not a game-breaker but could definitely be a source of improvement if you redo
3. I was surprised at how similar the battles seemed to the sworded runs; guess one gets used to bombs exploding all over the place and doesn't really notice the sword much...
4. Overall, sweet! I'd encourage you to submit this run after 1 more redo, if you can stand it. (I'd vote for it to be published as is, but it'd clearly be vulnerable to obsoletion which might draw some protests)
Thanks for the comments and encouragement LordTom! :) I have in fact started a new one and in 2 days (about 22 hours worth of play) I got to the start of level 7 saving around 3200 frames. I have actually already incorporated most of what you suggested. The time saved mostly comes from (so far) 0 extra menu screen transitions, much better dungeon rooms, and the skip of entering level 5 from the bottom. I am considering trying to improve the room b4 the whistle with the darknuts because it took me 4 bombs to kill them all, and although an improvement over the fcm I posted, I know I can do it in 3 or even 2. Which would save me another 2 menu transitions in level 7 where I currently run out of bombs. I took some days off from this run because after those first 2 days i was a bit burned out, but I'm going to start working on it again today. Glad you enjoyed the posted run and thanks again!
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
22 hours in 2 days! Yep, those were the good old days! :)
One other thing I noticed is on your prior wip you used the money-making game 5 times; IIRC the published 1st quest uses it only twice and grabs 100 rupees from one of the "It's a secret" dudes. Just something to look at if you haven't already; you're buying an extra bomb and using the new overworld glitching, so that may change the math in favor of the money game.
Sounds like you're making great progress; I look forward to seeing it finished! No rush, though...it's easy to get burned out doing a TAS. I try to finish at a point where I'm getting a bit sick of the game but not yet feeling like I'll throw up if I ever see the title screen again!
One other thing I noticed is on your prior wip you used the money-making game 5 times; IIRC the published 1st quest uses it only twice and grabs 100 rupees from one of the "It's a secret" dudes. Just something to look at if you haven't already; you're buying an extra bomb and using the new overworld glitching, so that may change the math in favor of the money game.
I thought someone might point this out. The reason I do the money game more than the published 1st quest is because if I buy the candle on the way to lvl 4 to get the ladder, for some reason it arbitrarily sets my item to the candle after resetting, which makes me access the menu screen to get back to the bombs. I changed the candle pick-up to right before lvl 8 so I don't even have the candle when passing the bush for the 100 rupees.
In my first run that I posted I do the rupee game 1 too many times since i only need 241 total rupees to buy the required items and have 1 left for Ganon. I have removed 1 rupee game in my new version and pick up the rest of the needed rupees from enemies along the way. So basically at this point, I'm trading 2 money games for 1 menu screen and the 100 rupee pickup, allowing me to screen scroll past both the 1st candle room and the 100 rupee room. It turned out to be slightly faster to just do the rupee game. Also you will notice that getting the candle before lvl 8 allows me to travel up/right on the way in and down/left on the way out which saves a few frames from zigzagging vs the early candle pick up, and as a small bonus I get 2 enemy boosts, 1 each way.
I am currently just about to get the silver arrows in lvl 9 and was ~3800 frames ahead after getting the sword. So hopefully I can save a few more frames inside lvl 9 dropping the time to under 26:50. Hope to have this run finished soon and make my first submission to TASvideos! :)
Joined: 5/25/2007
Posts: 399
Location: New England
That makes sense; I'm glad you got the money-game count down to 4, that makes the tradeoff very reasonable. Be sure to point stuff like that out in the submission text, it'll save a lot of questions!
And there it is folks. My improved version is finished in a time of 26:43. I saved 4,140 frames over my posted WIP. This run is now extremely optimized in all facets of the game and someone would have to have insane luck to save much time, unless of course there's a breakthrough in the route that I somehow missed. This run isn't exactly perfect, but I have come to believe that there is no "perfect" run of this game. The enemy and drop manipulation is extremely hard and as has been said before anything you change will ultimately change everything beyond it. I think a "swordless" run is worthy of residing next to the any % runs and I hope it gets accepted. Well anyway, time for the submission text. Wish me luck! :)
The run has been submitted and you can check it out here:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9804
I guess it's on to a 100% run, although I'm a bit wary of starting this because the parameters for 100% completion are somewhat shaded atm.
