Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
The semi-new WIP to Cold Killer's tower looks pretty good so far. The ascent up the first part of the steps to Cold Killer's tower looks especially clean, where you are missing enemies by small distances. The last part of the ascent seems unusual though, like you swing a little out of your way to get to the bottoms of ladders. Can't you just enter some of these ladders sideways?
The other question this raises is whether it's worth having a run of Deadly Towers that beats all the towers as intended. For the moment, it's more important to work on a run that glitches to the end by beating Cold Killer twice. I'm not sure this game is interesting enough to also warrant an optimized run on the US version which beats all the towers.
(Side note: BizHawk 1.7.1 is the first version I've tried that actually runs 60fps on my machine! I was super happy that I didn't have to do anything funny with my processor to watch this WIP comfortably.)
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.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
Mashou WIP #2 - 1659 frame improvement from last stopping point.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/616103844/Mashou%20%28Japan%29%20TAS%20WIP%201.1.2014-07-22%2000.57.22.bkm
Massive improvement was due to new route change in the beginning. After defeating the first mini-boss, I went into the next screen and immediately entered Dungeon #4 (hidden in the upper left-hand quarter). From here (and similar to Luke's run), I grinded ludder from the Orange Tower enemies until I had enough to buy an Orange Scroll from the shop over on the next screen. Quick and easy; only needed to grind five Towers to obtain enough money.
Significant improvements were also made in getting the Hyper Boots (22 frames), and in Cold Killer's room (67 frames).
Whew! Now hopefully I won't have to redo the beginning anymore! The second trek through to the Main Hall is going to be a treat because I recently found a nice little sequence break that will cut down even more time.
Here a hint...
mklip2001
The last part of the ascent seems unusual though, like you swing a little out of your way to get to the bottoms of ladders. Can't you just enter some of these ladders sideways?
Not when you're coming from the left, unfortunately. Swinging in from an angle is the fastest way as you get struck in place trying to enter from the side.
mklip2001
The other question this raises is whether it's worth having a run of Deadly Towers that beats all the towers as intended. For the moment, it's more important to work on a run that glitches to the end by beating Cold Killer twice. I'm not sure this game is interesting enough to also warrant an optimized run on the US version which beats all the towers.
I think that the only way to make an 'all Towers' run enjoyable would be to also make a 100% run (i.e. obtain all the best equipment). Even so, I could picture it getting repetitive. Boss strategies would largely be the same (get in close, rapid-fire).
edit: Replaced gif to reflect faster method to sequence break past guards.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Spectacular improvement with this last one. The energy management was quite cool, being able to save all your damage boosts for the room with the hyper boots. It seems like you also found a better grinding spot in the orange area than Luke had.
Keep it up!
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.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
WIP #3!
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/806849963/Mashou%20%28Japan%29%20TAS%20WIP%201.1.2014-07-22%2000.57.22.bkm
About 81 seconds ahead of hisatoki's run on YouTube. The sequence break past the guards in the outer courtyard was the biggest time-saver, this time around. Better movement optimizations, and a faster Cold Killer re-run, contributed as well.
Well, we're looking at the final stretch! One last trek through the courtyard (with another time-saving sequence break) and a showdown with Rubas is all that remains. A sub-8 run definitely looks like a possibility; far exceeding my initial expectations.
mklip2001 & CookKirby (and everyone watching the WIPs) -- thanks for the encouragement!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
Can you explain the route for the second bit? I thought you were going to go back to the exact same tower, so you'd once again raise money and then buy a scroll. It seems you go into some other cave, find a different tower, but then fight Cold Killer anyway.
The enemy dodging is very well done, and I like the look of what I'm seeing, but I don't know the game well enough to know what that route is doing. (I figured the death in the flame is part of the main glitch.)
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.
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
mklip2001 wrote:
Can you explain the route for the second bit? I thought you were going to go back to the exact same tower, so you'd once again raise money and then buy a scroll. It seems you go into some other cave, find a different tower, but then fight Cold Killer anyway.
The enemy dodging is very well done, and I like the look of what I'm seeing, but I don't know the game well enough to know what that route is doing. (I figured the death in the flame is part of the main glitch.)
Good question. When you death-warp, the game resets your Ludder back down to 0, instead of the 50 you start the game with. This meant that I would have to grind about 23-25 Towers in order to obtain enough for an Orange Scroll, this time around. Much faster to sequence break through the courtyard. It's too bad, since I would've otherwise bought 2 scrolls and warped past the second Tower descent, instead.
As for the glitch, once you defeat Cold Killer again your inventory becomes bugged. However, for some reason you have to death warp a second time to get it to activate. From there, you have unlimited bells in your inventory.
...and the game REALLY starts to hate it when you go off burning more than 7 Bells :D
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Oh my god, I knew there was a pair of Hyper Boots hidden somewhere!
Believe it or not, I used to play this a lot as a kid, and I knew I had found a pair when I was younger, but couldn't for the life of me remember where it was (and none of the FAQs/maps I checked had it listed). These will be added to the RTA route for certain (I timed it out to being slightly more than 2x as fast going up diagonal stairs, and ~40% faster than walking diagonally anywhere else)
That damage boost through the guards I something Feasel and I had thought of when we were playing around with the game back in 2012. It's unfortunately not useful RTA since there's no guarantee on that Scorpion being where we need it to be, we'd end up skipping a Max Heart, and I think we timed it out to being only like 5 seconds faster than going around, though everything was tested in real-time so it's probably more for TAS.
Good(?) to see this game getting some love :P
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
Dragondarch wrote:
That damage boost through the guards I something Feasel and I had thought of when we were playing around with the game back in 2012. It's unfortunately not useful RTA since there's no guarantee on that Scorpion being where we need it to be, we'd end up skipping a Max Heart, and I think we timed it out to being only like 5 seconds faster than going around, though everything was tested in real-time so it's probably more for TAS.
Good(?) to see this game getting some love :P
My bad! I had an old gif up and replaced it with the newer method. Along with the Hyper Boots, a few well-timed diagonal shots will get you past those guards. I was able to pull it off in real-time after only three attempts.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
As for the glitch, once you defeat Cold Killer again your inventory becomes bugged. However, for some reason you have to death warp a second time to get it to activate. From there, you have unlimited bells in your inventory.
...and the game REALLY starts to hate it when you go off burning more than 7 Bells :D
That damage boost through the guards I something Feasel and I had thought of when we were playing around with the game back in 2012. It's unfortunately not useful RTA since there's no guarantee on that Scorpion being where we need it to be, we'd end up skipping a Max Heart, and I think we timed it out to being only like 5 seconds faster than going around, though everything was tested in real-time so it's probably more for TAS.
Good(?) to see this game getting some love :P
My bad! I had an old gif up and replaced it with the newer method. Along with the Hyper Boots, a few well-timed diagonal shots will get you past those guards. I was able to pull it off in real-time after only three attempts.
Unfortunately, I won't have the Hyper Boots at that point, but I did manage to find a way to do it without them by stunning the one on the right instead. Since all doors are skewed to the right a bit, you can slip past the left one into the door so long as the right one isn't in place yet.
Doing it near optimally seems to save 12-13 seconds over the other route, so it may be worth adding in to my runs. Unfortunately the Scorpion occasionally likes to be directly in the line of fire, preventing me from doing it quickly (or at all...), so this'll probably become the new reset point (Like I needed any more of those...)
Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA
jlun2 wrote:
Are those region exclusive glitches?
It can only be done on the Japanese version. In the USA release, you can defeat Cold Killer again and even have another bell appear, but it doesn't register in the inventory.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
