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Joined: 4/17/2004
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Okay, I watched it. Thanks for showing us. I am at a different computer than from the one I watched it at, but here is what I remember: - I think you can start to blast the starfish rings before they appear fully. I don't think you did this every time. - Before you start to slide on the ice, isn't it possible to have more horizontal speed in the upwards jump? - The ending of the shark level was cool. :) Are you trying to swim in as a straight line as possible? I think the turns cost you some time. Just like when you avoid the jellyfish in level 1 - looks cool, but probably it would be faster if you could go straighter. - Are you skipping the upgrades on purpose? I guess you are, but I think the death sonar is pretty essential on the last few levels. Perhaps you can gain it some other way later? I don't quite remember this. I also don't remember what the second upgrade is. That's what I can think of at the moment...
nesrocks
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Truncated wrote:
- I think you can start to blast the starfish rings before they appear fully. I don't think you did this every time.
yea, i think that i waited half second for one moment, but all other moments were as fast as possible. it's because of ecco's movement being so truncated hehe.. you can't turn on any pixel you want, he seems to swim according to a matrix of let's say, every 30 pixels.
Truncated wrote:
- Before you start to slide on the ice, isn't it possible to have more horizontal speed in the upwards jump?
again, it's because of his movement. there is not enough room to get out of water more horizonataly, or the swim speed up needed to be high to get out of the downwards waterflow, resulting on a high jump.
Truncated wrote:
- The ending of the shark level was cool. :) Are you trying to swim in as a straight line as possible? I think the turns cost you some time. Just like when you avoid the jellyfish in level 1 - looks cool, but probably it would be faster if you could go straighter.
i prefer to go for entertainment. it doesn't cost so much time i guess. (maybe 1 second for the whole level). and looks much more interesting.
Truncated wrote:
- Are you skipping the upgrades on purpose? I guess you are, but I think the death sonar is pretty essential on the last few levels. Perhaps you can gain it some other way later? I don't quite remember this. I also don't remember what the second upgrade is.
there is an upgrade that stuns the small creatures. gained from rescuing the dolphins. but it's pretty much useless. even if you are not time attacking. that big creature made of spheres gives the only needed upgrade after it's returned to him the missing sphere.
nesrocks
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these are the times so far: (in mins:seconds.centiseconds) total time - stage time - name 00:28.91 - 0:28.91 - the whole intro + first level 00:55.95 - 0:27.04 - The Undercaves 01:40.00 - 0:44.05 - The Undercaves 2 02:02.45 - 0:22.45 - The Vents 03:28.05 - 1:25.60 - The Lagoon 04:48.50 - 1:20.45 - Ridge Water 05:39.08 - 0:50.58 - Open Ocean 06:06.66 - 0:27.58 - The Ice Zone 06:34.80 - 0:28.14 - Hard Water Zone 07:26.01 - 0:51.21 - Cold Water Zone 08:23.46 - 0:57.45 - The Island Zone 08:54.50 - 0:31.04 - Deep Water Zone 09:27.50 - 0:33.00 - The Marble Sea 10:00.83 - 0:33.33 - The Library 10:55.71 - 0:54.88 - Deep City 11:32.61 - 0:36.90 - City of Forever 12:31.96 - 0:59.35 - Jurassic Beach - :. Pteranodon Pond - :. Origin Beach - :. Trilobite Circle - :. Dark Water - :. Deep Water 2 - :. City of Forever 2 - :. The Tube - :. The Machine
nesrocks
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hmmmm do you guys want me to finish this? i have been a bit out of time, you still want to see it or not? i did not walk in straight lines on some parts cause i thought it would be less boring to watch, but i guess it does indeed take some time. should someone else do it from start? it's very hard to control that sleeky mammal...
xou
Joined: 4/26/2004
Posts: 118
Location: france
Well... I'll watch it for sure if its finished some days :)
hello world !
Joined: 6/20/2004
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Location: United Kingdom
I'd love to see you finish it, if you have the time.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
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?D?o?n??t? ?d?o? ?i?t? ?f?r?o?m? ?t?h?e? ?s?t?a?r?t?.? ?F?i?n?i?s?h? ?t?h?i?s? ?o?n?e? ?f?i?r?s?t?.? ?I?t??s? ?b?e?t?t?e?r? ?t?o? ?h?a?v?e? ?p?l?a?y?e?d? ?e?v?e?r?y? ?l?e?v?e?l? ?s?l?o?w?l?y? ?a?t?l?e?a?s?t? ?o?n?c?e? ?i?f? ?y?o?u? ?d?e?c?i?d?e? ?t?o? ?u?p?g?r?a?d?e? ?i?t?.? ? ? ? ?I??d? ?l?o?v?e? ?t?o? ?s?e?e? ?t?h?i?s? ?o?n?e? ?h?a?p?p?e?n?.?
nesrocks
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k, i'll try to find some time to do it then :)
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
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Haven't seen any progress in months now. Have you given up?
nesrocks
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i'm so busy guys sorry for that i dont know how to say this, but you know i dont care about credit so if anyone wants to continue this it's ok to take the WIP and i must say you should take the wip instead of starting over because it's a real pain to make a timeattack for this movie, i'm sorry i dont have free time to finish it, i'm also stopped on alex kidd and i wanted to do some other timeattacks too oh well
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
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I might try once I have a computer which allows it. After I've finished some other projects (upgrade Kid Chameleon and Shinobi 3), that is. Can I see the WIP? Which rom version are you using? My email is trunkerad at gmail dot com.
Joined: 6/14/2004
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You know what I haven't seen in a while? THIS.
I like my "thank you"s in monetary form.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
FODA sent me his work in progress, and this seems like it could be an interesting run to do. But at the moment I'm busy with Kid Chameleon, and it is progressing very slowly because I can only work on weekends on a borrowed computer. (See my userpage on NESvideos if you want more info.) Hopefully, I can get it done next weekend. After that I will do either this game or Shinobi 3, don't know yet. Do people have a preference? I know Shinobi 3 a lot better but I could switch if the interest for Ecco is bigger.
Joined: 7/22/2004
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I'd prefer to see Ecco, myself.
Joined: 1/1/2022
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Someone needs to finish this, and Ecco 2 as well. I might try to make the time if nobody steps up but i'd really rather just watch someone elses hard work :)
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
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I agree. I cannot do it at the moment (and probably won't be able in a while) though, so it's likely that you'll have to do it yourself. If you're serious, ask FODA for his wip, or I can send it to you if it's okay with him.
Joined: 1/1/2022
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I watched the link earlier in this thread, it had somewhere around 800 rerecords, and I think the levels he played could be improved upon a bit so maybe I would just start from scratch.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
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You could (do it already!) but it's always good to have a previous version to compare with. Otherwise you might finish a level quicker than him, but still missing some trick he did which would cut down time even more. A level time doesn't really tell you that much. Should you do it I would be glad to offer you any help I can give.
nesrocks
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there are problems to do this game: 1 - its hard to do it as fast as possible because of the repeatedly pressing C you will have to figure out how fast it has to be pressed (how many frames in between presses and how long it has to remain pressed each time). and then use it ALL the time, the movie would be 100% made with frame advance function, which is very disencouraging. 2 - ecco cant turn freely. when you decide to turn, he will usually wait some frames untill he is on the turning point of his movement, and then turn. its annoying because it looks sloppy. i dont know if theres anything that can be done about it. maybe if you get to the straight move (the one before the turn has to be done) on a different time, maybe on the end of the straight you can turn where you want. dont know if i made myself clear there, let me know if you got it. i find this a very very hard game to record precisely, so i was doing a run to look entertaining and just complete the game while swimming very fast. then i realized it looked sloppy. i remember someone saying i should have swimmed in straight lines instead of dodging all sorts of enemies up and down. well, i then moved to another run, it was too hard for me, and even though 800 re-recordings only, that is not really true because it was restarted many times, and lots of backtracking. and also it was played at 6% speed all the time. if you are going to start it all over i wish you good luck and lots of patience :P
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According to the tcrf page of this game, it seems you can beat the final boss earlier in the Japanese version.
On the fight with the Queen Vortex, you only need to drop her jaw twice, for a total of 8 hits. In the US version, you need to drop it 3 times, for 12 hits total.
Joined: 1/31/2005
Posts: 95
This game's been enjoying something of a renaissance on the realtime speedrunning side of things. Thought I'd share the new discoveries. Because Gens stores movie-start savestates outside the movie file for some inconvenient reason, all of these movies start from boot, so you can fast-forward through the first stage until they get to where they're going. Medusa Bay map skip: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1064819288/ecco-mapskip.gmv None of us have the slightest clue why this works, or where else in the game it could be useful (if anywhere). I've personally tried bringing up the map in a bunch of weird places, but nothing. It's as simple as it looks: go to that spot & bring up the map, and the end-stage trigger just happens to be there when you cancel back out. Lagoon skip: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1172427106/ecco-lagoonskip.gmv You have no idea how glad I am that this exists. Spike shaft clip: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1742255977/ecco-spikeshaftclip.gmv Don't know of anywhere this is useful. Can be done through both left and right walls. Seems to have something to do with the flipping animation Ecco does midair if you keep tapping C. Enemy bounce clip: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1895339660/ecco-enemybounceclip.gmv Same; don't have anywhere this is useful yet. Weirder glyph skips: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/792616493/ecco-glyphtech.gmv Given all the crazy stuff the TAS does with glyph skips, this was probably already known to some extent over here, but since none of us did I'm mentioning it anyways. If you idle, Ecco's idle floating will ignore the glyph's pushback (you can chain it by tapping forward to let it immediately restart from your current position), and then you can change the direction you're facing to get pushed out in a different direction. In realtime runs you can even sometimes save a badly-aligned skip by having it push you back into the correct alignment, but that shouldn't be an issue here. This particular gylph skip is the only one, to my knowledge, that was not considered possible before, at least in realtime, but is possible now (if glyphs weren't actual objects and didn't physically block so many passages, many more would be possible)... no idea whether this is slower or faster than the weird clip the existing TAS does at the end of Ridge Water, but it's worth a shot. route improvements: -going right across the ice at the start of ice zone is bad. The glyph is pretty much straight down-right from spawn. -island zone: there's a better choice for getting the key glyph. Go right across the four islands at the start, then down, then left and through the really small spike-lined passage. That glyph over there gives you exposition when you sonar it, which I assume is the reason why it was ruled out, but it also acts as a key. Weird. It'd be really awesome if someone started TASing this game again. I have no doubt there's more stuff yet to find. This game is broken as hell; we just don't know the particulars yet. Good luck!
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I never knew about those, even though I watched the Ecco speedrun at AGDQ 2013. The first one is just mind-blowing, how did anyone ever figure that one out?
I'm Espyo from the SRB2 Forums. Current project: A Pikmin fan engine, Pikifen
Joined: 1/31/2005
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By accident, heh.
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Posts: 95
there's a minute or so worth of new stuff. there's a second map skip, this one in Deep City, near the first glyph. That cuts out most of the level. Then there's a spot in Jurassic Beach, after swimming into the left volcano, where you can just swim into the wall and then swim straight to the end of the level. There's also a spot in Origin Beach, at the bottom of the current, where you can just swim into the right wall there too. But it seems useless. Finally, this was found years ago but I don't think it was posted over here? May as well rectify that. You can clip into the ceiling in some (not all) passages that are one block tall and lined with spikes on the bottom. See here. The long-standing SDA individual level for the lagoon uses it in the area where you get the key and there's a dolphin swimming around; you can skip having to sonar the starfish over to the rock and instead just clip into the ceiling and swim up. This was tantalizingly close to being the original lagoon sip, but there's an invisible wall in the middle of the wall between you and the exit. And the entire level is skipped now through a better method, so whatever. The only other place I know of where you can do this is a spot in the undercaves, but it's useless there too.
Patashu
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Apparently Ecco just got broken wide open. Time for a new TAS category? Copy pasting from the SDA thread at https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/ecco_the_dolphin_genesis_16.html
Rezard wrote:
one of my twitch viewer found an VERY huge game breaking glitch , i will give information later one. Trying it here. http://www.twitch.tv/rezard/new. Video of the undercave double glitch here (the dafuq skip + sonar map exit). with button input (it may help a lot) Acctualy this is very very timming based , you must stand still (no mouvement at all) then press down and sightly after or nearly at the same time press B , this will make the camera mess up. Then press up , then again Down +B ect , i repeate this is extremly tought to do. The pteranodon pond is also fully skipable, the glitch is almost the same but is harder to do , once i will knew the timming i will post a video with button input. Link to video edit : did the "tas" ridge water skip at the end , its possible on real condition. Video of it , the input may help for the timming , Mashing B like i do is a wrong idea but is cause of the timming , but i don't know what do do at the end , but this one doens't wroth the risk . The most interesting is the pterandond skip but i can't do it yet (basicaly , is the same but horizontaly, and visual clue is almost unexistant). Link to video
Newpants made a janky TAS and found the clip is possible in every stage except for two. RIP Ecco. Link to Newpants' video: http://www.twitch.tv/newpants87/c/2084668
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