This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2861: nfq's GBA Golden Sun: The Lost Age "No retreat glitch" in 6:30:44.40

Ok, let me encode Pokemon, then I'll encode this big giant stuff.

Encode it in HQx.

Wow, this is a record breaker. I'd be interested in watching this gradually, and I usually prefer watching from the .vbm itself since it takes up less space. So I have two questions: 1) Does this submission file actually play through to the end? (If it doesn't, we can't make encodes either...) 2) Could you provide a few savestates, so that we can watch it incrementally as opposed to leaving the emulator running for 6 hours? Thanks!

I will go to a trip from Friday morning. I will start the encode at Thursday night then. Don't expect my encode before Monday.

Encode it in HQx.

Never!

Oh my God, and I thought Breath of Fire was long. I played it on 5x speed, the max my computer could handle. It synced fine for me until the end. I used VBA v23 svn217. Try deleting your vba settings file and it may sync. Given the run's incredible length and the site's tradition to accept well-made runs of long RPG games, we certainly need different considerations to vote on this. At first, I looked away from this submission because I didn't think 12k rerecords were enough to optimize a 6-hour movie. However, I must admit that, at least on fast-forward, it seemed well done. I liked how you used the last-sanctum trick to save time, and the walk-over-lava glitch near the end. Boss battles looked long, especially Doom Dragon, but I don't know how they could be shortened. In general, the run resembled a good Let's Play, and the game is pretty well known and a good addition to the site. I'm inclined to vote Yes, but I'll marathon it in real time in the weekend to give more constructive comments. Anyway, congratulations for the longest TAS submitted (apart from Desert Bus...). I suggest that you clean the run tag and put the attribute "Forgoes time-saving glitches".

1) Does this submission file actually play through to the end? (If it doesn't, we can't make encodes either...)

For me it doesn't even go past the 'name entering screen' for some reason, but some get it to play to the end (I'll have to try what p4wn3r said, but I've tried pretty much everything). Badpotato made some save states for this, you can download them in the topic I linked to.

Can't get to sync. It writes a name like crazy and then writes AAAAAAAA... as the password, just to be told it doesn't work. I tried with VBA20, 21, 22 and 23.

Nice to see someone else that got it synced. Now thinking about it, I got a desync with an another computer running with a 64bit operating system. So you might want to try it with a 32bit OS. @mklip2001 if you can sync the movie about 20 seconds, you should be able to sync it all the way! About the movie, very nice but still, I feel somewhat puzzled if this look like more as a "test run" or a "run". Thought, since the game is very long and require a lot of determination to go all the way, I'll yes vote on this if you plan to work on a subtitle commentary. This would be very appreciated :) edith: could someone mirror my old encode, dropbox seem to dislike this:

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Hi everybody, I'm pretty new to these forums, and I actually started tasing this game three days ago without even knowing, that a run was in progress, because I really wanted to see a run of this game on the site. But I have to say, that this run is pretty unoptimized. I've only tased the very first part of the game so far, because I was playing around alot and stuff like that, but even until the second fight, my run is nearly 400 frames ahead, although this part is almost only dialogue. That's mostly because of better running and menu scrolling. I didn't watch the entire movie yet, but I think, planning is good and all, but execution is not really that good that it could be. Maybe the run should nonetheless be published, because I don't know, if I will actually finish my run and even if I do, it would take a long time to do so. Oh, and if my english is bad, that's because I use a translator for most of my english text :P Edit: I just looked at my run again, and I'm actually over 500 frames ahead after the 2. fight.

Welcome newbie! You might want to upload your WIP (work in progress) to Microstorage (and post the link here) to let us verify how much you're ahead. I will wait for an encode before watching it.

Why No retreat glitch? If it can save time, then you should use it. Also, 12357 rerecords for a 6 hour long movie seems low. Are you sure this is optimized?

Here it is: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/733718994/Golden%20Sun%202.vbm you can see faster menu scrolling for example, when I change the text speed in the settings (2. room of the lighthouse) and running improvements (at the stairs before the 2. fight)

Interesting, I'll probably watch this from an encode as well.

Nice to see someone else that got it synced. Now thinking about it, I got a desync with an another computer running with a 64bit operating system. So you might want to try it with a 32bit OS.

I don't have a 32-bit OS. Unless there's nothing to do with the number of bits, I think I might give up and let someone who has a 32-bit OS to do the job. Anyway, I'm seeing complaints about unoptimization. I don't know if it's a good idea to waste at least 20 hours on encoding this.

I intend to watch this over the weekend. I've done some work with this game, and was intending to TAS the first game at some point.

I actually started tasing this game three days ago

Do you intend to use the retreat glitch and the save retreat glitch as shown in my video here?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i6c6BfK_u0 I can show some more uses for this as they relate to the first game. Honestly, I think TASing Golden Sun 1 is a much simpler run than The Lost Age. I think it makes more sense to learn things while TASing a shorter game before investing 6 hours in doing The Lost Age optimally. We should move discussion to here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8159

Boss battles looked long, especially Doom Dragon, but I don't know how they could be shortened.

the last boss battle could have been done a few seconds faster if i had killed my first party earlier so that i would have had time to use more of the summons of the other party. this last part was a little annoying to do because loading and saving states took like 1 second, maybe because of the large size of the vbm file or the save states, plus i did it on my old slower computer.

I'm inclined to vote Yes, but I'll marathon it in real time in the weekend to give more constructive comments.

thanks, that would be useful if i do another TAS of this in the future.

Also, 12357 rerecords for a 6 hour long movie seems low. Are you sure this is optimized?

lol... not 100% sure, but 99... nah, i know it's a little unoptimized, at least the execution, like walking in perfectly straight lines and doing stuff in menus, but the route and planning should be decent. in a long TAS like this, it's hard to find out the best route and strategies, so if there's a mistake somewhere, all that effort that it took to perfect it would have to be redone, so i didn't put that much time on the execution. perfect execution would only save maybe 10 minutes from this run (and it would be very time consuming), while a simple strat change could save 30 minutes (for example, kirkQQ mentioned sacred feathers, which could probably be used to save several minutes). another reason for the low rerecord count is because there's so much text and walking. the text doesn't require any rerecords, just autofire (except if you really want to optimize it, you might have to do it frame by frame).

Here it is: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/733718994/Golden%20Sun%202.vbm

for some reason, i can't get this to sync either (i have a 32-bit OS btw). maybe there's something wrong with my rom. that would have been interesting to see, even though it's short. maybe you could post your progress on your youtube channel if you have one? - these no-exp boss fights are quite impressive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVgme8nOkq4 there's probably some useful strategies there that could be used in a TAS.

Why did you submit this under the username 3iikka instead of nfq?

To quote GameFaqs: Hard Mode You need to have a ''Clear Data'' file and an empty file. Select ''New Game'' and after you transfer data or choose not to, then it will ask you if you want to play ''Easy Mode''. Select the ''No'' option and it will ask if you want to play ''Hard Mode''. Select ''Yes''. Hard Mode is like Regular mode except all enemies are a lot stronger. Higher difficulties are preferable even if it's a NewGame+, right? And what's this I hear about transfering data from the first Golden Sun?

Higher difficulties are usually preferable, but it depends on how they're made harder. For example, if the additional difficulty just results in each fight taking longer as you must whittle away more hitpoints and stop more often to heal (i.e. fights are longer but do not have new strategies), then hard mode is not preferable. This often happens in beat-em-up games, for example.

What is the CRC/MD5/SHA1 of the rom, that is known to sync properly with this movie?

Why did you submit this under the username 3iikka instead of nfq?

Mostly just for the lulz I guess. But I don't really have a universal username online, so that could be one reason too.

Since you are a published author under nfq, that should be the name on all your submissions for consistency

Just another person thinking this nifty in general and waiting to view an encode. Giant runs that don't wind up skipping much of a game in order to satisfy the "blazing through it" criteria tend to be lots of fun to marathon in my experience. If some ultra-perfect run along the same lines comes later, ok, that'll be cool for then and this for now---not to mention possibly inspiring other TAsfolk.