Submission Text Full Submission Page
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Best ending
  • Manipulates luck
  • Unofficial game
  • Takes damage to save time
Happy Halloween, everyone. I prepared TAS of scary(?) game for Halloween. This is well known for "EarthBound Halloween Hack", it is also the first appearance of Toby Fox's signature song, "Megalovania". Probably this is a most famous ROM Hack of EarthBound. The story of this Hack is that the bounty hunter Varik enters the memory of Dr. Andonuts and rescues Ness and Co. Unfortunately, Ness was not found until the end.
There are two endings in this Hack. First ending is that Varik kills the Dr. Andonuts who escaped into the machine.# Many players call it "bad ending". Then, is there any way we can leave him alone? When the option "Kill Him" appears, it is possible to NOT kill him by pressing the B button. That's why this game is also known as "Press the B Button, Stupid!". From now on, the conditions for "best ending" are met. Also Varik to regain stability and can be rescue his three missing friends, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. However, in this movie, I didn't need to do this unnecessary conversation because I changed the order of the events using "Skipping a trigger spot" glitch. Details of the tricks I used, including this glitch are here: GameResources/SNES/Earthbound

GoddessMaria: Judging...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5689: chatterbox's SNES EarthBound "best ending" in 20:29.82
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Excellent job! I'm not a great fan of RPG in laps by laps, but it's not a problem when luck manipulation minimised fighting. Unofficial game don't cause problem, because it allow to view other thing than official Earthbound's last submission (who's a great TAS by Pirohiko). Give a scared yes vote for this good run.
GAW sms... Totally destroyed
mklip2001
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This seems like a pretty well-made hack of the game. This is also a good run. I'm not sure, though, if it's entertaining enough to qualify for Moons tier, since the glitches skip a lot of the game. If this gets published, it needs to have an adult language warning.
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.
Blazephlozard
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Oh, I didn't notice this! I actually routed out a real-time RNG manip route for this game for Halloween, so I'll give this a good look. I was thinking about TASing it, but, I just wasn't sure this game can be Moon-tier, and as a hack, can't be Vaulted. However, right off the gate, with the very cool stutter step skip to immediately reach the Dearkhart fight (which I totally wouldn't have known about!), that's probably like a 10 minute time save at least, skipping the horribly slowest portions of the game, which IMO makes it viable for Moons. Beating Dearkhart with no Paula and no Freeze reflects is quite insane also, which can be seen in just how much RNG manip every turn needed. I think the enemy dodging in the Sea of Eve was especially great (I knew the hearts' hitboxes were wonky, but not THAT wonky), and for what it is (just enemy despawning/dodging and optimized boss fights), it's a good short TAS. And the connection to Toby Fox makes it more note-worthy than many other romhacks. However, there is one major thing missing from this, which luckily would be trivial to change if chatterbox wanted to since its at the end. The final boss, Dr. Andonuts, can be one-shot by diamondizing him. This can be done by Mirroring him with Poo, and having Poo do the "tear your limbs off" move. It looks like this would save 2 minutes. (It might also be possible, and way more unlikely, to Pray with the "confuse everyone" result, and have him diamondize himself; but I'm not sure if it'd be faster even if possible. The Pray confuse strat is done in real-time EB any% to have Ness's Nightmare PK Flash himself to death.) With the final boss having Megalovania playing and all, and having to get around how insanely under-leveled you are with insane SMASH/Pray RNG manipping, it could be argued that fighting Andonuts normally is more entertaining, but I dunno. 2 minutes is a lot in a 20 minute run, and having Andonuts just suddenly beaten in one turn is a pretty funny, unexpected way to end it off as well. Plus, it's kinda weird for the TAS to have a longer Andonuts fight than the real-time run... So, how it should go is, turn 1 after the Id, RNG is manipped so Poo's Mirror succeeds and he goes first turn 2, then turn 2 is manipped for him to do the limb move, and have it diamondize. Very easy to edit in. If that was changed, I definitely think that the romhack is notable enough, and the TAS is short enough and action-packed (about as action-packed as an EarthBound run can be) to be a Moon run. (Also, it doesn't really need a "best ending" category descriptor, this is just the normal ending. any% bad ending would just be a meme) Oh, and I have a big question for chatterbox: Was backtracking to get Paula required? Like, would the Sea of Eve have no exit if you only had Jeff and Poo with you? Or does getting Poo trigger the exit, was Paula only gotten to save time in bosses with her Pray attack? If Paula can be skipped, perhaps it would be worth it now, if she's not needed for Andonuts. That'd require redoing everything past Dearkhart, however, and Phaze/Id would be a lot more turns. (Phaze in particular would need some serious manipulation to beat with only Varik/Jeff, but the trip to Onett is pretty damn long, so I dunno.)
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Blazephlozard wrote:
However, there is one major thing missing from this, which luckily would be trivial to change if chatterbox wanted to since its at the end. The final boss, Dr. Andonuts, can be one-shot by diamondizing him. This can be done by Mirroring him with Poo, and having Poo do the "tear your limbs off" move. It looks like this would save 2 minutes. (It might also be possible, and way more unlikely, to Pray with the "confuse everyone" result, and have him diamondize himself; but I'm not sure if it'd be faster even if possible. The Pray confuse strat is done in real-time EB any% to have Ness's Nightmare PK Flash himself to death.)
Wow, I've been TASing this ROM Hack for a month, but I realized that I was still immature. I improved the existing record for 2 minutes by the way you suggested. I haven't implemented the rest yet, there seems to be a possibility that it will improve in that way. Under your opinion, I decided to cancel this submission. Thank you for the sharp advice, let's meet again with better improvement...
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... juicy!
Blazephlozard
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chatterbox wrote:
Blazephlozard wrote:
However, there is one major thing missing from this, which luckily would be trivial to change if chatterbox wanted to since its at the end. The final boss, Dr. Andonuts, can be one-shot by diamondizing him. This can be done by Mirroring him with Poo, and having Poo do the "tear your limbs off" move. It looks like this would save 2 minutes. (It might also be possible, and way more unlikely, to Pray with the "confuse everyone" result, and have him diamondize himself; but I'm not sure if it'd be faster even if possible. The Pray confuse strat is done in real-time EB any% to have Ness's Nightmare PK Flash himself to death.)
Wow, I've been TASing this ROM Hack for a month, but I realized that I was still immature. I improved the existing record for 2 minutes by the way you suggested. I haven't implemented the rest yet, there seems to be a possibility that it will improve in that way. Under your opinion, I decided to cancel this submission. Thank you for the sharp advice, let's meet again with better improvement...
Aww, dang, you're saying Paula is indeed not required? Well, kudos for looking into if it saves time, but it sucks for all that work to go to waste. (And also sucks for it to no longer be a Halloween-timed submission...) I suppose with only two combats that have to be done without her, it can probably save time. For Phaze Destrortur, I'd guess the fastest way to beat him is to just use the HP sucker for more turns. The HP sucker averages taking away 1/8th of his health +/- 50%, so the minimum would be 6 turns I believe? As you probably noticed, the amount it sucks can be manipulated by what frame you advance its text (in addition to typical manip), I think because its SFX call RNG, so that can help. You'd also want to manipulate him to be asleep during the turns he'd kill everyone, or get Jeff Guts saves. (It'd probably be faster temporarily for Varik to die, actually. Less level ups. But there's no free health refills, so he'd still be dead for the Id unless you heal at the Cave of the Past phase distorter... and Varik would have less attack for the Id... Sorry to suggest more annoying branching paths...) The Id would also be longer, but at least he's not dangerous. I'm not sure if the Planet Buster (which you grabbed) or Sword of kings would be worth grabbing to shave turns off, since they wouldn't be used against Andonuts. With the HP sucker, it should only take a maximum of 6, right? Probably 5 with Varik/Poo attacks. It looked like you did a really great job with all of the enemy despawning/avoiding sections, I hope all of that isn't too much trouble! Good luck!