I don't understand how speed isn't entertainment. I've seen so many comments on how you should "sacrifice some speed for entertainment". I think anything that sacrifices speed becomes less entertaining.
Totally false. Best example: any fighting game. Fastest way could be to use the same attack over and over and over and over again... that would be incredibly boring. Using diversity is longer, but it's a lot more entertaining.
What I'm saying here is that it depends on the occasions. Sometimes, doing something funny can justify losing a few frames. For example, FODA took a little more time in Mario 64 to make a good screenshot for his run (Mario having his face "fusionned" with a star) instead of simply turning around. He lost a few frames but it was worth it because it created a funny moment.
Speed is not ALWAYS more entertaining, and being too slow can also be less entertaining. It all depends.
After playing around with it, Jeff dead sometimes seems the faster route. For example when your team first meets up in Threed to go kill Master Barf and the Sponge Boss (3rd sanctuary), jeff is only mildly useful. The thing to remember about his wasted turns, is that it's not only the defend/attack part that's waste. Whenever a monster does multi-person stuff (crying on everyone, stench on everyone, defense down on everyone), it's also taking time to show jeff getting affected by this stuff.
As I was saying when you first get him, he's not that insanely useful. I suppose you could load him down with MB's though. But it would take a little time to buy them all (can only buy 1 at a time, gotta say who to give it to, gotta trash some of his junk inv that he might have). On the plus side when he's alive, he acts as a nice meat shield (manipulating the boss into bashing him instead of, say, paula).
Problem is by that point, his MB's do maybe 80-120 damage. Ness can Psi Rockin to everything for that much, or smaaaash for that much, and paula can manipulate psi thunder for around 180 damage. I dunno why this all got started, but when I was fighting barf and the sponge, jeff went down quick and it was a longer battle keeping him alive (via healing or manipulating) than it was to let him die and finish the battle. I guess it could depend on as-required situations.
Later in the game when you get the Healing PSI that revives people, you could let him die (carbon dog battle perfect example) then quick revive afterwards. That would allow him to get in a couple good shots, but not waste time with his turns. I hate to say it but even when you manipulate lots of offense he's just not that strong. :-(
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
After playing around with it, Jeff dead sometimes seems the faster route. For example when your team first meets up in Threed to go kill Master Barf and the Sponge Boss (3rd sanctuary), jeff is only mildly useful. The thing to remember about his wasted turns, is that it's not only the defend/attack part that's waste. Whenever a monster does multi-person stuff (crying on everyone, stench on everyone, defense down on everyone), it's also taking time to show jeff getting affected by this stuff.
I'm sure things like this can be manipulated, either by not having the enemy do it at all in the fight, or if it's unavoidable (Something like that tree thing when going to the Happy Happy Village comes to mind), just avoid the enemy completely and get a favorable one instead. That would be much faster than just killing him off.
Though Jeff being a meat shield would do nicely instead of killing him off. =P
Bob has it right again. The 3rd boss (sprout, why did I keep calling it sponge???) has only 3 choices to manipulate for 'safe' battle, and not all 3 are good. Other than attacking he can do the following things:
A. Diamondize you (thats bad)
B. Flash you all (jeff takes time with his text, feeling strange is bad for you all, crying could suck if you need to bash/shoot)
C. PSI Shield (seems harmless but you want this thing off so your big damage psi attacks hit).
D. Paralyze (not bad for paula, but bad for ness/jeff if ness runs out of PP. Jeff is utterly worthless if paralyzed)
So what's the best option? Use jeff as a meat shield, of course! I found the fastest way for this battle was basically having everyone rotate the turns being bash'd by the sprout. Paula took 2 hits (survived at 1 hp). Ness took about 3 or 4. Jeff took 3 or 4 to die with (I can't remember). This is with pretty much zero armor, btw since I didn't waste time with that.
By spreading out the bashes from the boss, everyone stayed alive long enough to do their job. And it doesn't matter because when you goto the sound spot, you get full revive (revive life too? I forgot to check). However by the last couple of rounds, it was much more difficult to keep jeff alive than to just let him eat that last bash and die off. Giving more exp for the other two, as well. I ended up keeping him alive in my test but it was waaaaay more work than I think was even worth it. Worst case, Saturn Valley's doctor is right there (you gotta pass by on the way out) and it's free too.
UPDATE: Wow I can't believe I let this one slip by me... although it still requires a lot of manipulation, the Travel Charm (free, talk to entertainer right after unlocking shack in onett) protects against Paralysis. Wow, how the heck did I miss this, seriously? I even had it in my inventory! Put this on anyone and manipulate the boss into paralyzing that person over and over. Kind of a pain to make it do that AND do the right person, but in theory it seems less painful than other options. Plus it's pretty funny to be 100% immune to a bosses only attack.
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
Jeff will actually get a good ability when he has 30 IQ. He will be able to make the "Shield Killer" out of the Broken Tube you find in the attic of Dr. Andonuts Laboratory. It will take only a few seconds to collect.
If you plan to do this run, I think the Shield Killer will be a must for later battles. A lot of the higher bosses will have shields when starting the battle. Such as the Diamond Dog.
Plus, Jeff will also get items such as the Hungry HP Sucker. Heavy Bazooka and the Multi Bottle Rocket. He is the most damaging character in the game with the Multi Bottle Rocket. So not increasing his level, would be a big mistake.
Jeff might be very weak at earlier levels and can't do much, but once he gets to use all the high-damaging gadgets at later levels, he can make bosses go much faster. You'd have to buy him the gadgets, but towards the end you should've gotten enough money from your father to be able to afford a few rockets for essential battles. And some things are only made once Jeff reaches a certain IQ number, so that means you'd have to either abuse the Rock Candy trick or level him up.
And I agree with several posters - the game would look much better without being "red" all the time with Jeff dead.
That, in addition with him being able to damage enemies very heavily in later levels, leads me to believe it is worth keeping Jeff alive. You could just have him defend or use items.
But, hey, it's your TAS. You decide.
IMO, don't even bother leveling jeff, there is no point other than to raise his IQ to use certain items, you're better off just using bottle rockets with him, multi-bottle rockets near the end of the game do 1500+ dmg to enemies, big bottle rockets do 500 and they both can be bought from the military guy. Don't bother leveling jeff.
Not sure if this will help but I made a normal play through of Earthbound. Maybe someone could use it to skip to a particular area or something else useful.
After watching this, I have only one thing to say: Now THAT'S a reminder of Electro Specter's reflecting shield! :D
On a more serious note, this will indeed be of some help when doing the actual TAS of the game. The basic storyline and sequence of events is lined out. Pretty useful!
Thanks for that!
And I say you SHOULD bother leveling Jeff.
Otherwise Jeff is just Cannon Fodder, and odds are will never get off a single attack.
It would be hard on my eyes to have the text red all of the time, not to mention very annoying.
Plus, the higher his Level, the MORE damage the bottle rockets will do.
Plus. When his IQ is high enough, he'll make a very damaging Bazooka, that can do 300+ damage on it's own, rendering Bottle Rockets and Big Bottle Rockets pretty much un-needed, and will save money in the long run for Multi-Bottle Rockets.
bazooka becomes useless later on during big fights, especially bad for a TAS since it hits everything near it and at the end, doing 50 dmg to a starman doesn't help, it only does decent damage to the selected target and the regular bazooka is only about 150 somewhat dmg not 300, thats the super bazooka and I believe that requires a IQ of 50+ some to make, which means taking Jeff well into his 50's for lvls, hardly time worthy in a TAS.
bazooka becomes useless later on during big fights, especially bad for a TAS since it hits everything near it and at the end, doing 50 dmg to a starman doesn't help, it only does decent damage to the selected target and the regular bazooka is only about 150 somewhat dmg not 300, thats the super bazooka and I believe that requires a IQ of 50+ some to make, which means taking Jeff well into his 50's for lvls, hardly time worthy in a TAS.
So you can't manipulate his IQ gain when he levels up? I'm pretty sure Jeff doesn't get 1 IQ point per level.
So you can't manipulate his IQ gain when he levels up? I'm pretty sure Jeff doesn't get 1 IQ point per level.
It is possible to "manipulate" stats gained from each level, but to a certain point. I mean it's not possible to get like 10 IQ points a level, but it certainly could be possible to get about 3 or 4, depending on what the game allows.
What I think is that each level up have a certain range of stats to gain, and it's random how much you get on each. You can only manipulate inside the range, and can't get more than what the game allows.
At least, that's what I am led to believe after my TAS attempt a while ago.
bazooka becomes useless later on during big fights, especially bad for a TAS since it hits everything near it and at the end, doing 50 dmg to a starman doesn't help, it only does decent damage to the selected target and the regular bazooka is only about 150 somewhat dmg not 300, thats the super bazooka and I believe that requires a IQ of 50+ some to make, which means taking Jeff well into his 50's for lvls, hardly time worthy in a TAS.
So you can't manipulate his IQ gain when he levels up? I'm pretty sure Jeff doesn't get 1 IQ point per level.
Im not sure, out of the 12 playthroughs i've done, getting 3 IQ per level is really really rare. Most of the time with jeff im getting no Iq per level =/. Im not sure how the stats are calculated, if their before the battle, or during, or after enemies are killed, but I do know normally his IQ progression is very slow. Even still, bottle rockets still do more damage than any item he can use, even at low levels. Half of the junk he can make would be useless.
It is called the Heavy Bazooka, and requires 45 IQ to make. Depending on how well you can manipulate Jeff's IQ stat, you could easily get that in at least twenty levels.
If you can manage to get at least 2 IQ per level, you'll be able to make a lot of the good stuff in around twenty five levels.
