Lost age is the sequel to the first Golden sun. It's a pretty typical RPG which takes inspiration from mythical things like Atlantis, alchemy and magic. It's got some pretty good music too.
I made this ridiculously long TAS a couple of years ago. I didn't use the "Retreat glitch" which allows you to pretty much skip all dungeons. It would probably save a couple of HOURS of time since the dungeons are so long. The ingame time of this run is 6:01.
You can't skip random encounters in this game. Sometimes I fight instead of running away because running away would take a longer time.
I use a glitch to "walk on lava" in the Magma Rock dungeon, but other than that I don't think there's any glitches used.
I use resets several times to warp from a dungeon back to a sanctum.
The vbm movie file has some desync issues. It worked nice when I had made the TAS, but later when I accidentally screwed up my computer and had to format my harddrive, the TAS was lost, and when I recovered it, I guess it got messed up somehow. But at least one user (badpotato) got it to work, and he made a mkv of it which you can download on the topic: Forum/Topics/8159
I also made some hex-editing which made it sync for me almost to the end.
Well, I just wanted to say that I had no problem playing the movie all the way to the credits (though I did it at about 400% speed). It looked fine, but... it's just very long. Very, very long. I have to wonder how much time could be saved by optimizing movement and menus.
I mean, it might not seem much to pick up a few frames here or there, but when the movie is over 6 hours long... it could turn out to be substantial. And considering the amount of text in this game, there's probably a bunch of time to be saved just by naming all 8 nameable characters to 1-letter names. I mean, I usually don't like that sort of thing, but they're awfully chatty.
Why didn't you use the retreat glitch, anyway?
And what's this I hear about transfering data from the first Golden Sun?
You can enter passwords (or link) to transfer data from the 1st game to the 2nd. Doing a password would be obnoxious, since the best password (Gold) is 260 characters. there are Silver and Bronze passwords that don't transfer as much, but are much shorter (61 and 16 characters, respectively).
You can read up on it here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/44287
(Go to Appendix E.)
I have to wonder how much time could be saved by optimizing movement and menus.
I would guess around 8 minutes. To make a better approximation you could compare my run with the beginning of the improved TAS to see how much he saved in 10 minutes for example, and then calculate how much that would be in 6.5 hours. I didn't use frame advance in the menus (just slow motion) which is why they aren't as fast as possible.
Why didn't you use the retreat glitch, anyway?
I thought it was lame because it skips so much of the game. But now later, I think it would have been an interesting idea, because it would have made the boss fights harder (more strategy would be required).
adelikat wrote:
Since you are a published author under nfq, that should be the name on all your submissions for consistency
I see, I'll keep that in mind next time if I submit something.
Why exactly did you get the Eclipse tablet if you never used it? Also, manipulating RNG to get some Excaliburs to replace the Shift Sword with would've probably been quicker in the long run.
Why exactly did you get the Eclipse tablet if you never used it?
It's necessary to get before being able to get other items from the center ring.
Also, manipulating RNG to get some Excaliburs to replace the Shift Sword with would've probably been quicker in the long run.
As far as I know, the orihalcons which are required to forge Excaliburs can only be obtained after you've got the teleport magic near the end of the game (Mars Lighthouse), so you'd have to backtrack a lot, so it would probably lose a lot of time. Forging items takes a long time too.
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I tried watching this (it did sync, at least the parts I saw). I haven't played this game before, and I just couldn't follow any of the story even at 1x speed. This kept me from really getting into the game.
It's a shame, because it seems like this game has a lot of good elements for an RPG. The graphics are pretty clean. The fights seem pretty interesting. The puzzles I saw are runarounds but were fairly cool (sort of like the Lufia II run). However, I just couldn't stay through to watch the whole thing without any idea of what was going on. As such, I will refrain from voting.
Concerning questions about optimization, I would say that if the run doesn't noticeably seem sloppy in terms of strategies and movement, and the run demonstrates TAS-like control of the battles and luck manipulation, then this could still be accepted as a first run of the game. It would serve as a challenge for other people to go and improve. I don't know how I feel about the lack of a retreat glitch though.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
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
What would be even more fun would be to see a Golden Sun 1 run and then a Lost Age run that uses that runs End Data.
Oh and imo the retreat glitch should be used for future runs. Dungeons are jsut not interesting enough to watch, to warrent te added time.
Sir VG wrote:
You can enter passwords (or link) to transfer data from the 1st game to the 2nd. Doing a password would be obnoxious, since the best password (Gold) is 260 characters. there are Silver and Bronze passwords that don't transfer as much, but are much shorter (61 and 16 characters, respectively).
Can't VBA emulate a Link between GS and GS-TLA?
mklip2001 wrote:
I tried watching this (it did sync, at least the parts I saw). I haven't played this game before, and I just couldn't follow any of the story even at 1x speed. This kept me from really getting into the game.
It's a shame, because it seems like this game has a lot of good elements for an RPG. The graphics are pretty clean. The fights seem pretty interesting. The puzzles I saw are runarounds but were fairly cool (sort of like the Lufia II run). However, I just couldn't stay through to watch the whole thing without any idea of what was going on. As such, I will refrain from voting.
You haven't played Golden Sun? Well then get to it. It's the best damn RPG on the GBA.
I think there is merit for both a glitched and non-glitched run for both games in the series. I think perhaps judges should recommend a decision on that if this particular run happens to be rejected.
This run was played with autofire buttons and even slowed down in menu sections, thus I don't think it demonstrates good TAS quality. This run is good as a test run, but I think much is missing that could've been done to make a game this text heavy more entertaining. (RNG optimization, sanctum warp, and optimal menu movement were all missing.)
Unfortunately I have to vote no, because this appears to be largely of test run quality.
Slowking wrote:
What would be even more fun would be to see a Golden Sun 1 run and then a Lost Age run that uses that runs End Data.
I think the GS1 data would actually have worse characters than the GS2 default.
Watched the entire thing today, reckoned a yes vote as a solid first foray of it on here---quite liked the Slots and Medal game doings, as well as generally commanding the battles along.
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So there is a glitch that could save HOURS on this TAS. How does avoiding increase the entertainment value? (This is a serious non-rhetorical question that I hope the author and others attempt to answer)
This submission has no doubt put the site at a very difficult spot, clearly it's sub optimal and filled with endless text, the other thing you should note is that it doesn't use the gold password to transfer max stats over from the previous game which would no doubt be a vast time saver late on. It would also be pretty cool to see how 260 random characters are inputed. The retreat glitch is a bit mehvote, but it's still good in terms of being a WTF glitch. I personally don't think it's justifyable to make it a seperate category given how long and boring the game is at times. On the other hand it's a well known epic game, that definitley inspires interest from within the speedrunning community (me included). So while publishing wouldn't be quite as bad as something on the scale of this. It might encourage a more speedy obseletion that there otherwise would have been.
So there is a glitch that could save HOURS on this TAS. How does avoiding increase the entertainment value? (This is a serious non-rhetorical question that I hope the author and others attempt to answer)
I answered it here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=248633&highlight=#248633
It takes away a lot of stuff from the game. It's like if there's a glitch that saves hours of time in Ocarina of Time... it skips a lot of the game, so there's room for a "all quests/dungeons" TAS. Another example is the "warpless" Castlevania TASes for GBA: 1, 2. In Flashback there's also a glitch that saves a lot of time (run through walls), but I think it would be interesting to see the game without that glitch, because it skips so much from the game.
Mitsuja wrote:
the other thing you should note is that it doesn't use the gold password to transfer max stats over from the previous game which would no doubt be a vast time saver late on.
Personally, I don't think that should be done... I mean, isn't it kinda like starting a game using cheats? The fights would become boring because they would require less strategy.
So while publishing wouldn't be quite as bad as something on the scale of this.
Hm... that Ocarina of time run was 100 times more optimized than this run (a realistic number based on the amount of rerecordings), so even though this is my own TAS I have to say that publishing this would be much worse than that.
I agree with nfq's post. Especially the part about the OoT bias.
We also don't really know how much text the retreat glitch skips currently as it is hard to gauge what sort of glitch warp locations exist. I also think it will remove much of the continuity of the run.
I agree that the retreat glitch run is more entertaining, but I think there is room for a no save retreat run. I also think the full game run should perhaps consider making arrangements to leave the story readable, but that is an entirely different discussion.
That isn't a good comparison. That run lasts less than three hours, while your run's length is double that. The length of your movie makes hard keeping it entertaining, which isn't a problem with the aforementioned TAS.
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I think the GS1 data would actually have worse characters than the GS2 default.
Which would lead to some fun strategies.
The GS1 TAS could manipulate a few powerfull items around the end of the game and transfare them.
Also GS1 and GS2 are basically one game that was split in two. So it would be nice to see them TASed as one.
But I guess a really overpowered team with nice items from a gold password could also be fun. Either way I would be happy. But starting a game from scratch is a missed oportunity, imo...
I agree that the retreat glitch run is more entertaining, but I think there is room for a no save retreat run. I also think the full game run should perhaps consider making arrangements to leave the story readable, but that is an entirely different discussion.
I do hope a full game run would be entertaining enough to be accepted, otherwise, it'll probally waste alot of the TASer's time.
That isn't a good comparison. That run lasts less than three hours, while your run's length is double that. The length of your movie makes hard keeping it entertaining, which isn't a problem with the aforementioned TAS.
Yeah, that's a good point. But that's the way RPG games are: they are long. Some people like it, some people don't. If long TASes can't get accepted, does that mean we'll never see TASes like FFVII, FFVIII, FFX, which would be even longer than 6.5 hours?
Kitsune wrote:
Since it doesn't look like this will be getting published, could we at least get a downloadable Encode?
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nfq wrote:
But that's the way RPG games are: they are long. Some people like it, some people don't. If long TASes can't get accepted, does that mean we'll never see TASes like FFVII, FFVIII, FFX, which would be even longer than 6.5 hours?
The nature of RPG TASes have an a unique consequence in that they are more purely a popularity contest than any other TAS genre. Because as you said, either you like it or you don't. RPG games I've played all the way through I can follow a TAS of and enjoy it. The others are zzz. As such popular RPG games like FF games will get a large audience approval and thus be published, while more obscure ones get poor audience reception and a date with the grue.
The exception though is glitches generally. While many oppose glitched RPG runs (usually the fans of the game) they often have more general audience appeal, since you don't have to know the game to know that poor game is getting abused and of course the glitches make it shorter, and hold the attention span of the general audience better.
As for this TAS, there is more than enough examples of improvements in this movie. While a movie doesn't need to be perfect for me to consider publication, I think this movie falls short of the bar. As such, I am going to reject it based on technical quality.
This leaves the verdict of game choice open. The votes & audience reception is quite mixed on that issue, so I don't think there is enough to gauge that adequately.
