Posts for Emptyeye

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Posted: 4/28/2008 10:47 PM
(Edited: 4/30/2008 2:25 AM)
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
Woo, my password finally works again. Bizarre. Anyway, being the author of that SDA run (And I really should get more anal about people capitalizing my name properly..."EmptyEye" is the most common misspelling, though "Empty Eye" is another one. And let's not get into my cousin, who will occasionally intentionally misspell my real first name as "Mark" just to piss me off.), maybe I could lend some help in your preparing the TAS. -The first thing that came immediately to mind as far as "What could a TAS do to save time versus my run?" was...well, using a shorter name ("Marc" is my real first name, if you're curious. Also, I know you've looked at the run already, but check out the comments as well if you haven't yet.). The second thing that came to mind, though, was skipping the R. Armor, which saves you almost a minute plus some Rupias. I grabbed it because, my run being done on a console in real-time, it was worth losing the minute to permanently double my defense and avoid constant going to the menu for Defenee, as my menu manipulation skills are rather weak. -As others have said, definitely plan out precisely how much of everything you'll need, and grab exactly that, no more, no less (I actually went a little overboard in terms of grabbing Rupias later on). -Pretty much everything you could think of in terms of "This would be an awesome sequence break, why didn't Emptyeye do it?" is because I did try it and it didn't work. You already saw that with skipping Pukin; the other big one I could think of would be going to the end game without going to Sabaron's room first (Scheherazade simply never appears if you do this). -Defenee actually has nothing to do with attack power (The reason I kill Gilga's eyes in one hit is because I'm level 4); it doubles your defense power for a time. Since I imagine you can manipulate what enemies you want to appear or not, this is another reason to not get the R. Armor. -The Eclipses seemed, from my observations, to be time-based, with the timer reseting upon entering a new chapter. Incidentally, my Chapter 4 was the hardest one to decide precisely what I was going to do route-wise (Also, if you're not using the Eclipse, you can obviously skip the magics too, saving you more time), and I ended up wasting a bit of time waiting for said Eclipse, so I'm not surprised that it didn't show up for you (As you should obviously be quicker than me). -Tristal: Yeah, he changed classes because he had to, as he already explained. -R. Seeds, besides turning you invisible, also let you walk on water. This may be worth looking into to see whether you can optimize overworld routes more than I did. The practical application seems pretty limited from what I found--you can only exit screens through "official" exits as it were--but give it a try anyway. Hopefully some of that helps out.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 12/22/2007 3:03 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
M-M-M-M-MEGA BUMP!! I'm considering doing a console speedrun of this game, and was hoping some of the guys that worked on the various TASes may be able to help me with some aspects of it. More precisely, with the instant boss death glitch and whether it can be replicated reliably on console. As far as I can tell from watching the video and reading up on some of the other pages here, from an execution standpoint, it involves jumping toward the boss before you actually enter the door and unloading a boomerang plus a grenade immediately after entering the door. From a mechanical standpoint, you're apparently doing damage while the boss still has zero health, resulting in an instant win. Is the "execution" part of this doable in real-time, or does it require greater precision than a human can reliably pull off? The other glitch I'm curious about is the jump four blocks high glitch. Is this a console-possible trick, or TAS-only from a realistic perspective? Everything else seems self-explanatory--falling is faster than climbing ladders, only grab onto them at the last second before switching screens or you die, etc. Thanks for any help.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 12/9/2007 12:23 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I'm curious about this now. I recall long ago someone starting a TAS on this and stopping because of desyncs. I remember reading through it and being amused that whoever was doing it seemed to be dreading the Dark Force/Mother Brain gauntlet. You seem to have everything well in-hand here, but just in case, I'll link you to this topic anyway; it's from when I attempted a run of the game on console. The important stuff: -I finished the game with a party of Rolf/Rudo/Anna/Kain with levels of 18 across the board. I successfully run the Dark Force/Mother Brain gauntlet, though I do heal my HP before Mother Brain. Dark Force was straight up attack, Mother Brain was Snow Crown/Star Mist on the first round and go all-out on tech from there. -I bought NO weapons/armor, only healing items and Pipes. Being a TAS, you should be able to forgo the healing items as well. Weapons/armor were either found in dungeons (Specifically dams) or stolen. -I ran the game on the GBA version that was part of Phantasy Star Collection, but I don't think there are any difference from a speedrun strategy standpoint. If there's anything else you'd like to know, feel free to ask.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 3/19/2006 9:17 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I played through it legitimately some years back. I don't know if this can be called "liking the game", as I think I did it moreso just to be able to say I had done it, but still.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 3/13/2006 2:12 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
More than just what's already been mentioned, the mindset I would take as far as the fighting scenes go is "Can I manipulate a red star to quickly appear on any enemies?" I know there's the one red star you hit in Elimination Round B to turn the third guy into a Tusk Soldier, the first opponent of the World Tournament sometimes gets one on his lower body, and maybe one other enemy sometimes gets one too. I don't know how the game is coded, though, so I don't know if you can make it appear on any other enemies at all, and if so, how quickly.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 8/16/2005 6:51 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
Hmm, interesting on the items bit. I was mainly curious as to whether the developers got lazy with the item checking at that point, as over the course of normal play without using glitches, you need the first three items to get the others (More specifically, you need the Crossbow to get any of the last three items, you need the Pulley [Wheel-thing] to get the Crossbow, and you need the Grappling Weapon to get the Pulley). Given that, I'm surprised they were so diligent as to check to make sure you actually had the first three items. A few more things to note on NTSC/PAL differences, from my own playing around a bit on the PAL ROM: -Rygar hangs in the air longer when he jumps in the PAL version than the NTSC one. This lets him jump farther in the PAL version, which makes some things easier (And probably explains why jumping the river is PAL-only) and others harder. An example of this is the first big jump in Gran Mountain, at 00:37 in the current full video, 00:45 in the current glitch video. In the PAL version, you can actually stand on the right edge of the tree branch above the cliff you normally jump off of, and jump from the tree branch across the pit to the ground below (Without the use of slowdown). In the NTSC version, you'll come up well short of crossing the pit. As I stated, this increased jumping power actually makes certain things harder--in the NTSC version, for instance, I can hit Eruga 3-4 times before I jump to dodge his fireballs consistently in real time; in the PAL version, it's more like 2-3 times before each jump. This may be worth noting in the Rygar Tricks page, as it's probably, as mentioned above, the reason you can only jump the river in the PAL version. -The Last values at which Rygar gains additional life bubbles are competely different, particularly after life bubble 5. I have no clue precisely what the values are, as I didn't check that far, but bubble 6 seems to be at about 250 in the PAL version, 7 at 500 or so, and 8 at, I'm guessing, around 1000. In contrast, 1000 Last is good for 9 life bubbles in the NTSC version, and it's possible to earn another 3 on top of that (Thanks to the maximum Tone/Last being 4095). -One similarity is that the giving out of experience works the same in both versions; if you're close enough to the max of a given version such that killing an enemy would put you over the max, you'll get nothing for that stat.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 8/16/2005 1:30 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
Emptyeye wrote:
By the way, this run is absolutely nuts. How you beat Belzar and this somehow beat the game, in particular, was great.
You mean Ligar? Because that's the only boss I beat in this version. You can see from his projectiles that it really is Ligar that is glitched up and floating in the air. [/quote] Yeah, you're right, it's Ligar. Wasn't paying attention to the projectiles, but then as I thought through the sequence of events in bed last night (Combined with the previous glitch that dying when you go through the door of Belzar's room takes you outside of Ligar's lair), I realized that you're killing, at the very least, something the game thinks is Ligar, and which behaves like Ligar in every way except for looks. I'm guessing the room data for those two bosses would be "located" right next to one another if you were to plot them on a map, similar to how A Link to the Past's dungeons are actually one huge dungeon?
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 8/16/2005 1:41 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I'm the "EmpyEye" in question in the comments. Close enough, considering the many manglings of my given last name I've heard throughout the years. ;) Anyway, thanks for the kind words regarding my run...I trust you (And everyone else here) already know it's useless to directly compare a console run to a TAS even disregarding the differences between PAL and NTSC found in Rygar. Question: In the Rygar Tricks page, you mention that by using a variant of the left+right glitch you can effectively double-jump in the overhead sections. In the words of the page itself, "In overhead levels such as Garloz and Dorago's palace, when you press left+right or up+down+right at the same time while performing a jump, the game allows Rygar to jump again from any place between the jump." Could you possibly use this to jump the river in the NTSC version (I know you've said you don't plan to, I'm just curious), or does the game require you to be "over" solid ground for it to work? (EDIT: Never mind, apparently it doesn't work over rivers) On the "curiousity for its own sake" note, has anyone bothered to look at precisely what the game checks for when you go to play the Pegasus Flute to open the Sky Castle? At the very least, it makes sure you have the Flute, Coat of Arms, and Indora's Armor (Which seems to actually serve no purpose in the game if you check damage at various points without it versus with it); what I'm wondering is if it checks for the grappling weapon/pulley/crossbow (As you normally need all three to acquire the Coat of Arms and/or Indora's Armor). Again, I doubt it would help in a speedrun of any kind (Tool-assisted or not), but I'm curious all the same. By the way, this run is absolutely nuts. How you beat Belzar and this somehow beat the game, in particular, was great. EDIT: The main thing that differentiates the PAL version from the NTSC, besides the jumping-the-river glitch, is, as Walker mentioned in a roundabout way, the fact that Rygar can become much stronger in the NTSC version than the PAL one. To my understanding, Rygar's Tone and Last max at 1023 in the PAL version (Which, if a FAQ on Rygar is correct, should actually get Rygar up to a maximum of 9 life balls), whereas you can get both up to 4095 in the NTSC version, giving a potential total of 12 life balls. In my run (Keep in mind it's a console run), I end with 2094 Tone and 1897 Last, which makes me roughly twice as powerful as a PAL version's maxed-out Rygar. One thing to note is that, while the maximums on the NTSC version are 4095, you'll receive no Tone/Last from enemies that should give it to you if that number would put you over 4095. As an example, if I have 4000 tone, and I kill a snail that's worth 118 tone, I get nothing (Because 4118 is greater than 4095) and my tone stays at 4000. I don't know if the PAL version works the same way.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 7/30/2005 4:49 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The fact that the PSP plays ITS COMPETITOR'S GAMES (Apparently really well, too) is commonly being touted as its best feature says more about the actual Sony offerings on the system than I ever could. Granting, "homebrew" as a whole is more than just NES and SNES emulators, but every time I see the PSP mentioned for actually doing something good, it's not some killer new game for it, it's "OMG L@@K IT R PLAYING NES GAMES1!111!".
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 7/9/2005 4:47 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I suppose it's a subset of "fastest completion database" more than anything else, but I'll download a run of a game I'm planning to speed through on console to see if there's anything I can pick up and use that I didn't think of before, and almost as importantly, if any of these methods are actually console friendly. Sometimes I pick up stuff that only saves a few frames, sometimes I see things that arguably don't save time when executed by a human but look really cool (Going through one of the sets of spikes in Level 9 of Battletoads; by the time I set up for going through them, it's probably just as fast to just go around them. ;)), but they help me out either way.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 7/9/2005 12:19 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
Well, like I said, it was mainly that I wanted to be first. I actually have another run down that improves upon that by about two minutes, though I manage to die in annoying yet amusing fashion a couple times. I'm just looking for something to fill out the tape with. At this point, I'm attempting to run through Rygar, which is actually pretty annoying to go through quickly without dying! Edit: True, you beat my time by a good margin, but part of that is that you boot Scuzz in level 10, right? As for what I said, of the twelve levels, level 2 is more-or-less forced speed, 3 has the Turbo Tunnel, 5 is almost entirely forced-scroll, as is 6, 7 has another forced scroll part, as does 9, and 11 until the boss is entirely forced-scroll. So over half the levels have at least some forced scrolling. Granting, by warping you skip quite a few of them, but going through all twelve levels has quite a few moments of "fixed" time.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 7/5/2005 12:17 AM
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Emptyeye
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Posts: 60
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but if you were to get good enough at winging the projectiles at enemies, could the time saved from that (Vs. walking to the enemies and stabbing) equal out the extra time taken to get the rod? I doubt it, seeing as you'd then still have to kill Ganon (Or "PRINCE DARKNESS 'GANNON'" as the original intro calls him) with the Wooden Sword, but again, I'm mainly arguing the other side for its own sake.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 7/3/2005 3:44 AM
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Emptyeye
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Posts: 60
Still not quite sure about the Hammerheads in level 9. Argh. My best guess is that they begin to spawn when you enter a certain radius from them, but said radius is extremely large (Which may explain why they seem to appear more often when I get aggressive with the robot above). Note that I have no definitive evidence to back this up, however. And while I said hitting it and jumping over it would probably be too risky,it may NOT be overly risky to attack it once and RUN past it. Oh, and you were right about Level 4 vs. Level 5....I timed each route (From the start of level 3 to the start of level 6), and presuming my execution of each route is close to optimal for a human player, it's quite a bit faster (Roughly 20 seconds) to go 1-3-5-6 than it is 1-3-4-6. Obviously, it means I should do my own homework about these things rather than blindly following what I see in tool-assisted videos.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 6/25/2005 6:26 PM
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Emptyeye
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Yeah, that's almost too risky to pull off on the NES. It's weird, killing it the traditional way (Pop him against the ceiling 3 times and strong punching him) seems to cause the hammerheads to appear LESS than if I do it one of the quicker ways (Pop him once and then ram-butt him). Like I said, it's got me confused. Oh well, I'll figure it out.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 6/25/2005 5:06 PM
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Emptyeye
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Oh, I die many many times. ;) Working on a full-game run where I die, well, less then many many times. :P Question: Working with the game, did you ever happen to figure out what causes the Hammerheads to appear (Or not) out of their generator in the third (I think it's the third) section of Level 9? I hate pretty much that entire level, but that part in particular has me baffled; how quickly or slowly you arrive there seems to have nothing to do with the number of Hammerheads you encounter when you do get there. Maybe it's something to do with how you kill previous enemies in the stage?
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 6/12/2005 9:19 PM
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Emptyeye
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Hey, Bumping this up a bit to let you know I submitted a console run of the game to SDA, and it should eventually make its way to Twin Galaxies. I performed under slightly different rules than you (Namely, completing all of level 10), and ironically took the 1-3-4-6 path because I had seen it in your videos. :P I'm curious as to whether anyone has actually definitively done research on which path is faster for a human player at full speed, 1-3-5-6 or 1-3-4-6. Level 5's being mostly autoscroll should make it pretty easy to figure out an approximate time for it, so I guess how quickly you can go through 4 is the big determining factor. The run I sent in isn't really particularly good--somewhere around 26 minutes with several deaths--though I ironically manage to execute level 11 (Which as you know has a pseudo-fixed speed) almost perfectly. So yeah, look for that to be up at SDA soon.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 2/1/2005 8:31 PM
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Emptyeye
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a little late on this, but depending on how the checkpoints of level 9 work (If you're lucky, only the first person past the checkpoint gets the bonus), he may have to earn extra points. :( And I agree, stick with the American version. I actually downloaded the Japanese ROM awhile ago, and you're right, it's so much easier than the American that I honestly don't even consider it the same game. Having said that, consider that the auto-scrolling parts tend to move slower in the Japanese version (You'll be most affected here by level 3, which you have to do all of if you want the level 4 warp), and I'm honestly not sure the time difference will be as great as you think it would be anyway.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/23/2005 5:15 AM
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Emptyeye
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Posts: 60
Blechy wrote:
I know there was extensive discussion regarding Varia Suit and Gravity Suit, and if the Gravity Suit completely obsoletes the Varia Suit. Was a conclusion drawn about this? If it was, since you get the Gravity Suit before visiting Norfair the Varia Suit might not be necessary.
If I recall correctly--and I may not--the conclusion was that the Gravity Suit obsoleted the varia EXCEPT for when Mother Brain plasters Samus against the wall. Note that it's quite possible I'm remembering this wrong.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/23/2005 2:20 AM
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Emptyeye
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If memory serves, you actually have to do the controller 2 "Mega Jump" to get enough distance to clear the ground in front of you. But yeah, bisqwit's got the gist of it.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/22/2005 6:13 PM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
NecroVMX wrote:
that's not even true, so few people use dialup these days, and having a 28.8 bit connection is ridiculous, if you must use dialup, at least go out and buy a 56k modem, seriously. "only a select group of people have broadband" is not true at all, maybe it was a few years ago but the vast majority of internet users are on at least an ADSL connection or up these days. I don't personally know any of my freinds that has dialup.
This may be true in the US (And even here, there are plenty of rural areas and the like where broadband isn't necessarily an option), but consider the situation worldwide, and I bet the percentage of people who have broadband drops considerably. Just a thought. and the current system works fine for the most part. The hardest part about it was actually finding the correct version of the emulators to play the .fmv/.fce/etc. files. :P
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/22/2005 2:39 AM
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Emptyeye
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Joined: 12/5/2004
Posts: 60
I presume you're using the warps in levels 1, 4, and 6, correct? If so, then yes, Level 3 before the bikes is probably the best place to do it. Your other options (Which won't send you back to a checkpoint) are level 2, and boss fights at the end of levels 1, 8, and 10. Also, if you're going purely for speed, you'll want to look into distributing points+1-ups better than the current video does--I know in that one, Player 2 arrives at level 11 with MORE points/lives than player 1, which is a bit of a waste if you think about it. EDIT: Yeah, if you're using warps, we can strike both levels 1 and 2 as viable places to lose lives. If you Boot Scuzz in level 10, we can take that out as well. This leaves level 3 and the level 8 boss fight.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/22/2005 2:33 AM
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Emptyeye
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Posts: 60
Sorry I'm late on this. You can cut a few seconds off of the present (27:33) run by making sure you're right at the bottom of the screen at the end of level 2. Unlike most (All?) of the other levels, it cuts to the cinema screen as soon as your Toad scrolls off the screen. Being at the bottom for that = less scroll time.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/16/2005 5:32 AM
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Emptyeye
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I must confess to having not watched the video, but don't forget that the magic system in FF is nothing like in subsequent games. Long story short is that, playing through it normally (And it doesn't change much in a time attack, thanks to the limited-to-nonexistant ability to manipulate enemies), you don't have the luxury of blasting through every battle with magic. Considering this is a time attack, with limited leveling, I wouldn't be that surprised if Bolt 2 wasn't an option at all through a large portion of it.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/14/2005 11:41 PM
Post subject: Re: Big O' List, Gameboy-Fu
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Emptyeye
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Posts: 60
BombAHead wrote:
Battletoads (Isn't the GB one different? >>)
Yes. Kind of. There are two Battletoads games on the Game Boy. The one simply called "Battletoads" is completely different from the NES version. The one called "Battletoads in Ragnarok's World" is a port of the NES version with some levels removed. Both, I would argue, are harder than the NES game(The first one in particular).
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
Posted: 1/12/2005 5:12 PM
Post subject: Re: Dwelling of Duels > Minibosses.
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Emptyeye
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NrgSpoon wrote:
http://dwellingoduels.rock-out.net/ Monthly (more or less) competition to see who can make the best video game cover with live instruments. This usually means lots of rock guitar, but some other gems too. I might post a follow-up to this once I find a link with downloads for the runner-up mp3s.
I've actually done a few songs for this, and I believe most of them are up at VGMix.
Emptyeye.com- Come for the music, stay for the blog.
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