This has always been one of my favorite games for the SNES and I think it's suitable for making a TAS of - lots of planning involved, and luck manipulation could be taken to the extreme to manipulate food drops so that the better stuff in each world can be gotten before having to go against the boss, without taking (much) extra time.
funny how the only other topic on this so far is just another one of someone asking if there is a speedrun and you saying for them to search the forums. I ran a search on the forums and there really isn't anything being done on this game, nor much talk about it either. Whats wrong with someone placing a request in if no one is talking about it to begin with?
My bad, I had just done the search inside of the SNES forum - didn't see the one in the offtopic forum.
EDIT: Like D_Rok said, there are no threads in this forum about it - only a short mention of it buried in a couple threads.
Not that it really matters, the reply to that topic is the same as this one. "use a search"
There isn't really a topic on this game because no one bothered to get a topic actually started, just someone telling the person to go away.
I would really like to see a speedrun on this game as well, the chances of someone actually taking up that task are probably pretty small though
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Hmm... the thread seems to have poofed, along with the discussion that occured.
Anyways, it was agreed that manipulating magical food from the smallest meat dropping enemies would be good, but only to maximize teeth and legs/fins/wings, with the latter being more prioritized. You really only need to get good attack for the bosses, and even then, a good system based on movement could negate any attack upgrades.
Other than that, the game would be pretty straightforward. Never upgrade anything you dont need to, don't kill unless you have to, and find ways to use enemies for speed (like bouncing in the later levels).
A while back, there was discussion of this game on the SDA forums. While that didn't immediately produce an on-console run, I will share some things from that conversation that may prove useful for any form of speedrun of this game.
This first portion was something I came up with for the dinosaur's maximum speed:
These assume the following conditions:
Dorsal Fin - Pronesaurus Dorsal Fin
Body - Slick Body
Size - Small
Tail - Invincible Tail
Back of the head - Ptenodons Crest
All results for the 4-legged form and 2-legged form were tested with the longer neck, but I don't think neck size makes a difference in speed. (With the transitional stage in between, the long neck is the only size neck available.)
The Bird Jaw results were tested with Phonocos Jaws but will apply to any set of jaws listed below Tyrasaurus Jaws. Normal Jaw results were tested with Tyrasaurus Jaws and above. The 'hybrid form' refers to the transitional stage between true 4-legged form and true 2-legged form.
4-Legged Form, Bird Jaws = 14
4-Legged Form, Normal Jaws = 11
Hybrid Form, Bird Jaws = 15
Hybrid Form, Normal Jaws = 12
2-Legged Form, Bird Jaws = 18
2-Legged Form, Normal Jaws = 15
This speed difference is why I pushed for the 2-legged form earlier in the discussion. The 'bird jaws' thing was done just to prove a point of maximum speed.
A little after this part of the discussion, Enhasa added the following note:
Just to be complete inside this thread, the max speed for the mammal is 14 and the bird is 18.
For a console runner, 2-legged form with normal jaws was our overall pick. BUT - since TASers can simply reload savestates if things don't go their way, and thus can often get away with lower actual attack power, using the 'bird' jaw types for the dinosaur could probably wind up faster in a TAS than the 'normal' types of jaws.
E.V.O. is an awesome game. It is classed in my favorite Snes game. I was just thinking of making a run of it when i saw this post. I dont remember ever finishing the game. Id always get killed by that crazy Stone age guy. Thats when i played it on the console but with emulators much is possible. Even though its a long game, id like to try it. Does anyone know how long it takes to get through?
Joined: 8/1/2004
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Location: Seattle, WA
It will be longer than 23 minutes, methinks. There is a lot of slow progression in this game. Unless you put priority on fins/legs/wings for speed, and then grab anything on the side for jaws, it will break 30 minutes.
For sure it will beat it! I think hours is more like it. Its kinda long to upgrade your stats in this game... Accept with T-Rex ..... But still, id bet on one hour minimum
Yeah, I'm also calling an hour minimum on this one. I know you can manipulate for glowing super-meat on every enemy you roll up on, so obviously that's where most of your rerecords are going to end up going. That and getting chained bites in. You can bite the everlovin' crap out of the shark boss if you get wedged in there right and have the best jaws.
Anyway, best of luck to anyone who tries it. The game is slow as sin even when done quickly.
Edit: At 50% speed and getting waaaay too much meat to boost everything, I clocked in at like 10 seconds shy of 10 minutes in world 1. World 2 shouldn't take too long, either. It's just getting a pair of jaws capable of dealing with the first boss. There AREN'T a lot of options at that point. I mean, the first tail is only 100 points and you can shoot down dragonflies after that to help speed crap along... really, you only need enough to get you to the cockroach level. Those things give like 40pts a pop, with glowy meats giving 150. You could build your dude up really fast there.
If you forgo powering your defenses up - and let's be honest, why would you in a TAS? - you'll be able to fly like MAD by the end. There's a jumping fin thing that = wings and the best tail also helps. I had the 5000pt body last time I played through and I could ALMOST jump high enough to chow down on the Queen Bee.
Might I add - It sucks ASS to sit there manipulating each enemy for glowing meat.
It's been over a month since the last reply, but I have some suggestions for strategy after becoming a bird. After leaving Mt. Brave, immediately go to the cloud floating around the world map. In the cloud maze, it's probably a good idea to get the red crystal for the dragon form. The dragon form has the overall best offensive abilities in the game (bite power of 30), so it could be saved to make boss fights faster without having to waste EP. After the end of the cloud maze, go to the left-most asteroid, where you will find a blue crystal that will give you 9999 EP, which will save you a lot of tedious critter-eating. Use this to evolve Long-tailed bird tail, ptenodon crest, and segosaurus fin to give you 20 agility (provided you're small, which you always should be). The segosaurus fin gives you the same speed boost as the Pronesaurus fin for half the price. Once you reach the end of the monkey-human cave, it might be a good idea to permanently evolve tyrasaurus jaws, since there are many boss fights in relatively short succession at the end of the game, and you can only have one green crystal at a time. I hope this is helpful to whoever does this.
Manipulating to get the glowing meat is not as complicated as i thought. The only problem is that most enemies are different (I think). Like most games, manipulating is based on the positions of sprites and random presses on random frames. There is surely mathematical way to do this but it requires some brains that i ain't got :P
If anyone is interested, hope this helps :)
Here is some testing
Here's the address of the HP of the enemies:
7E093B XX 1st Enemy
7E093C XX 2nd Enemy
7E093D XX 3rd Enemy
7E093E XX 4th Enemy
It also works for some enemies, but don't know when it's updated...
Seems that only 4 monsters can show at max in the screen, so there's no 5th not 6th enemy HP address... The bosses will take the 1st address....
What would be best?
#1 Boost speed until reaching enemies with good items ( tougher enemies).
Or VV
#2 Boost strenght to kill enemies faster then upgrade speed.
I thought that i should first upgrade teeth but not the strongest ones yet since they are 800 EVO pts. Just something to make me defeat enemies with one byte. But since morphing take quite some time i am not sure what would be best.... :( Any ideas, anyone?
Well, that would depend on the situation. If there are several enemies close & you need to kill them, then boost the attack. If you only need to travel, then the speed.
I would think that in general, the speed is more crucial. You could only boost speed to travel & then upgrade the attack for sub/bosses.
I played again this game & in most of the cases, you need to go here & there, so speed is a must...
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Legs/fins/wings are prioritized until you max out speed. After that, either pump jaws or create a surplus of points for high damage horns (depends on how many times you need to attack before the next major shift).
e: I got enough free time to finish a sloppy test for this. I stopped using FA after the first meat, and everything went downhill from there. Regardless, the game still went by quickly enough. Sub-60 would be a piece of cake. Test can be found here.
I wanted an "inelegantly hump my way through the first level" run. Not a test, per se. It was mostly to amuse myself and play around with luck manipulation... since anyone who's played this damn game knows how awesome it would be to get this many "big xp" thingies all at once. I stop at the end of the first level because... well, the rest of the game holds no interest for me.
Anything less than 20 xp is probably not worth the time spent. Anything using the default body, probably not worth the trouble when you can just get the red jewel and go on a killing spree.
Seven minutes. Doesn't inclide the title screen, or anything after jumping on land.
Some thoughts/things I might look into later if I feel like messing with this again:
*Do we actually have to eat the yellow crystal, or can we just pop in and leave? Easy test- I'm just lazy.
*The volcano is manipulable to some extent. Around 12000, I went left, and the volcano wasn't triggered. Going *up* however, triggered the eruption earlier. Don't know how that works.
*I still have no idea how to manipulate the xp bonuses, but judging from 7th Saga (another Enix game) the RNG is at 7e00df and de. Examining the values in this movie might shed some light on which exact values are needed.
*Red crystal killing spree + luck manpulation = most of your upgrades. I was stingy and only upgraded things that would give 1 agi/100 xp, when I probably could have gone all-out and still get the 800 xp jaw just by being less sloppy with the manipulation in the volcano scene.
*The blue crystal costs, I think ~1400 frames, using my upgrades, which could easily have been better. I doubt it's worth getting.
*I think it might be possible to skip some of the text (the seaweeds for example) by using a trick similar to the one Hero of the Day found for Chrono Trigger. Someone's going to have to go experiment with that and watch for any counter variables that might coincide with triggering the text... that someone is probably me. :/
*You can't get through the wall at the end. Well, you can, but you shouldn't. Watch this movie for an alternate ending where I squirm through a barrier and wreck up the game. Requires 7e00d3 to be set to ff, because I switch bodies over and over for a few minutes. But, it looks like it's possible to squirm through (possibly) any wall, given enough metamorphoses. Fin on, fin off...
*I'm guessing there's no reason to use the X-gulp thing, ever.
Edit: WTF is wrong with my url tags?
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
The problem with the red crystal is that you'll upgrade to the slow stingray unless you bump fins beforehand. The speedier eel makes for more exp in the bubbly area, and you're goin to up your agi that way regardless.
First yellow gem is unskippable. Many convos/levels can be skipped.
I believe you're mistaken about the fin. Unless my brain has failed completely, I didn't upgrade anything in my movie(s) until later on. Different timing caused me to become the stingray, though.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Hrm... it has always played out in normal play that a faster form rolls eel, while a more buff form rolls stingray. I could easily be wrong, though. Which form serves the better purpose, though? The stingray's attack is cool and all, but you have to give chase too much for that to be a big plus. I prefer picking off two victims, then taking on 4 turning fish.
Skip the blue orb: you'll only really need EP for the first fins and best jaws. Extra stuff on top of that won't give a significant enough bump in speed to undo thr eating/evolving shebang. The only hard parts, EP wise, for the whole run come from improving your fish speed and pumping you reptile body for the Degustega/Prime Frog fights.
Has it been decided whether turning mammal (mane + fierce jaw + rabbit body) after a bout of dino killing is faster than assailing Mt. Brave, evolving in to a bird, and keeping that form to the end? I would prefer the mammal route, since it requires less levels/upgrades/nonchalance, but that's just me.
Hrm... it has always played out in normal play that a faster form rolls eel, while a more buff form rolls stingray. I could easily be wrong, though.
I think my last post was ambiguous. I meant that I stopped the movie, (if I let it play, I become the grey eel) and the change in timing caused me to transform into the stingray instead. It may be using the RNG.
Which form serves the better purpose, though? The stingray's attack is cool and all, but you have to give chase too much for that to be a big plus. I prefer picking off two victims, then taking on 4 turning fish.
Comparing our test movies, my eel scored 14 kills, compared to your stingray's three.
Thanks for the cool test Dromiceius!
Now i know what is best.
#1 Upgrade fin.
#2 Reach volcano then boost teeth.
#3 The green fish that separates in two could be a good source of exp.
Also it is true that some levels are skippable and i think the first pearl is one of them but i dont remember how... Maybe in some walkthrough on the net i could find out how.
Btw, i will try your other Enix RNG address to see if it works... That would be awesome!!! Here is the address for Evo's speed 7E05C3,1u
Edit: Well... I checked out the address and it does not seem to have any relation with randomness. Maybe i just did it wrong. I looked at the value as soon as i byte the fish and when the meat comes out but it is different with every enemies so how can i tell the difference?
I should probably have a look at the game with the debugger to make sure the address I found wasn't irrelevant, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to figure out any more than that.
