River City Ransom is a goofy game which deserves a goofy TAS.
Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.16
Does not aim for fastest time
Plays on Novice level
Uses time to save trashcan
We looked at previous submissions and demonstrations of this game and tried to include the most entertaining parts of what was available, and add in a few ideas of our own along the way. Hopefully you'll get a kick out of it.
Bonus: Watch this run with the option "Allow more than 8 sprites per scanline" checked to make it easier to see when there are many sprites on the screen at once. This option is located in the main menu under Config -> Video.
(Changing this option may require an emulator restart if the colors get messed up, but it will save this setting.)
Those who say that "[this movie] doesn't belong on this site" can go read WhyAndHow again.
A movie is entertaining when it is:
* Interesting (not slow, boring, or repetitive)
* Surprising (does the unexpected)
* Skillful (handles awkward situations efficiently and creatively)
and
our main goal is to create movies that are beautiful to watch.
In my opinion, this site needs more movies like this. This is the ideal.
However, such movies pose a judging problem. Movies that compete for speed
are easy to compare; just a scalar number against a scalar number.
But play-around movies like this; if you receive a couple of them, what should you
do? How can you judge them and decide which ones to keep and which ones to discard?
This is all politics, and that's where this submission is stuck at.
Does it honestly deserve the place it's aiming at?
Even the voting feedback does not make the decision all that clear.
We have to remember all the kind of bias that exists in the votes.
(Indeed, judging is not a democratic process;
the votes are there just to give an idea of audience reception.)
I am accepting this movie on the following grounds:
The votes have been positive for the most part.
The movie is consistent with the message of this site…
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
The beginning was very funny, it wore off slightly towards the end but it remained to be very charming :)
This game is more suited to entertainment and so I give my yes vote and my vote for it to obsolete the current run.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Very nice run (maybe I should refer to it as just "movie" since this isn't really a speedrun). I agree that this game is better suited for superplaying than speedrunning. You did some really crazy and funny stuff in this video, so I'm tossing in another yes.
I rolled over the floor laughing while watching this run, which is pretty rare actually.
I didn't mind too much the graphic glitch at the end, that I viewed as a "glitched rain" that added dramatism to the last scene (I view too much on that, heh). I think the run can be polished further on certain places, but as of now it's quite enjoyable, and has all the good things I loved from the starred run.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I think the funniest part was in the gym right after the "baseball game" when one player gets on the the tire being held (or whatever it is) and starts swinging the pipe. I could imagine him screaming "FORWARD! FORWARD!"
RCR is one of those classic lame overly rated games with a couple of minor memorable things. Firstly there is too much travelling not enough fighting and the fighting itself is lame comared to the likes of Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of Rage. While this movie is twice as slow as the current one I certainly wasn't twice as entertained infact compared to the current one I was less entertained. I would have given the other one a 5 for entertainment but this one gets a 3 from me. The additional glitches were horrible and the game lags far more.
Mortal Kombat shows off various stuff and cool quirks and does not blantant and needslessly waste time
This movie is nothing more than a pride movie playing for ego so 'no' vote.
I dunno. I had never played nor saw a RCR video and I thought this was pretty comedic. The way the characters react is really the way it works. The way they set up back and forth beat downs, throwing junk, throwing each other, etc, I think it's MORE entertaining than DD, FF or SoR. In those games it really seems to just be punching.
Again, there is zero goal of speed, so wasting time isn't really a valid argument. Is speed absolutely required in your eyes for it to be entertaining? If so, this video is absolutely not for you and while you can still vote, just keep in mind that it's in vain, is misguided, and you're probably just gaining the scorn of others.
Joined: 9/23/2006
Posts: 207
Location: Moreno Valley, California
B.S. on RCR being an overrated game. Travelling through towns and buying burgers and magic spells and BUTTNAKED SAUNAS is what more side scrolling beat-em-up's need. Plus enemies who say "Barf" when they die and morph into money. Beats eating barbecue from a trash can or summoning a police car out of nowhere.
"The way to move out of judgment is to move into gratitude." — Neale Donald Walsch
DannyLilithborne on IRC
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
I enjoyed watching the "scenic route" through River City Ransom, as I think adelikat was right on the money about the game having a depth which can't be shown off with a speedrun. I don't like the graphics glitches, but I don't think they detract so much that they ruin it completely.
Yes Vote, but I don't think it should obsolete the current run.
I don't like the graphics glitches, but I don't think they detract so much that they ruin it completely.
Yes Vote, but I don't think it should obsolete the current run.
Voted yes. I don't generally vote on a lot of runs, but in my opinion RCR is a game that is fun to play. The original speedrun captured this essence very well. I have kept up with the later speedruns, and they do not do as good a job as the original.
BUT
This is because they are being judged based on the original, whereas the original is judged based on merit. If the newer speedrun had been released with no prior speedrun to compare it against, I feel that it would have gathered more acclaim. I personally can state unequivocally that I would have enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed the original speedrun. However, because it was NOT the original speedrun, it is judged in relation to the original speedrun.
What are the runs that gather the most attention and interest? They tend to be in two categories: Original runs, or runs that are innovative and creative. A run that saves 30 or 300 frames through minor movement optimization or minor new tricks is technically interesting, but does not have the same kind of visceral excitement.
The existing published run succeeds in improving on the previous and is technically superior. In contrast, THIS run provides a visceral excitement that viewing the existing published run does not.
THAT is why I voted yes.
I liked the concept of a TAS run that doesn't aim for time in the least, just plays around with the game and does fun things, but I'm not sure this is all that it could be. River City Ransom seems like it has a great deal of playaround potential that went unused here in favor of player 1 and player 2 beating each other up and making a hurricane of glitched graphics.
I did appreciate the bit where you stopped and played baseball for a bit, and some of the other interesting stuff you did with carried objects, but all-in-all this fell quite a bit short of my expectations, and was kind of boring and repetetive for a significant portion of the movie. I'm afraid I have to vote no.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
I liked this movie. The boss fights were fun for the most part, and the antics of the two characters kept it fresh, though at times I was rolling my eyes at the transparent jokes. I'm kind of sad that using your partner as a weapon never came up, especially since the two characters spent most of the movie beating each other up, it would have fit quite nicely at least once. Simon's fight is what I have the most issue with. The glitching might have been cool for a bit, but the entire boss fight? It's too long to just have it glitching the entire time.
I say it's a yes vote, but it could be better.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Voting yes for the following reasons:
1. Extremely entertaining.
2. Is a concept I thoroughly enjoy.
3. Due to AKA's Post and Newton's third law of motion.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
The last minute looks eerily similar to vomit on the screen, however the majority of the rest of the movie was decent. I too don't see what the appeal of this game in general is, and I never understood why Sleepz movie was starred.
However, with that being said, I was mildly entertained, however there's no way this should obsolete the current movie. A playaround should aim for being as entertaining as possible, while still being somewhat concerned about how much time the viewer is going to be spending watching it. If the same amount of entertainment can be squeezed into a shorter movie, that one would obviously be better (everything else being equal). This movie does waste time at points, without providing a corresponding entertainment boost.
I vote meh.
Voted very much no. This belongs in the thread for "do something funny" not a published run on this site. Even though some parts were enjoyable, I don't see how following a girl around is "superplay" nor is randomly punching the other player, and other such ridiculous parts.
It will be entirely upsetting if this movie obsoletes the current one. I thought we were trying to avoid using 'subjective' things like entertainment to judge a movie.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
The run is very entertaining, but there's really nothing about it that strikes me as needing to have been tool-assisted, aside from the 2-player sync. (Or did you guys do it via netplay?)
I'll vote yes, but I agree with DarkKobold that there's no way this should obsolete the current run.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Solon wrote:
The run is very entertaining, but there's really nothing about it that strikes me as needing to have been tool-assisted, aside from the 2-player sync. (Or did you guys do it via netplay?)
Either you don't know the game so well or I am _really_ bad at this game. There are so many stunts in this movie that are very difficult to pull off. Take a look at those boss fights again. Also, just beating the dragon twins or the final boss with no power-ups is quite difficult in real-time play. This game is very RPG like in that you have to level up and also gain abilities before you stand a chance at the harder bosses.
Also these bosses were manipulated to do exactly what we needed them too, the glitches are also very unlikely to happen without precise timing. And, hey, it took a lot of planning to get the right weapons for that baseball game >_>
I actually haven't even played it; it's one of those games I heard of, made a mental note to try, and forgot about. Heck, the only reason I remembered it was that I saw this topic.
I'll give it a play through myself (after I'm done going through Front Mission 3 again) and see.
Joined: 12/27/2006
Posts: 532
Location: Göteborg, Sweden
I didn't like this movie. I am by no means an elitist that can never tolerate any entertainment tradeoffs, but this was a bit too much I think. That and the fact that not many of the stunts done actually amused me. Obviously this is a case of my humour not being the same as of the authors.
My published movies
[03:45:05] <Naohiro19> Soulrivers: ...
[03:45:19] <Soulrivers> ?
[03:46:35] <Naohiro19> <Soulrivers> No! <Naohiro19> So? <Soulrivers> Yes!
[03:46:48] <Naohiro19> joke
I thought we were trying to avoid using 'subjective' things like entertainment to judge a movie.
Actually, if you notice the poll question is "did you enjoy watching this movie?" That is a pretty subjective standard. And if you read through the FAQ (I think that's where it was anyway), Bisqwit says that he would use entertainment as the obsoletion criterion if he felt he could judge it fairly.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
