This is a (02:53.37) improvement over the previous rejected movie.
(some copy paste from wiki)
Castlevania Adventure takes place before Castlevania events, you play an ancestor of Simon, Christopher.
The game consists of four stages, and unlike other Castlevania games, there are no sub-weapons, hearts are used to restore health.
Whip can be upgraded with crystals, but any enemy damage will downgrade an upgraded weapon. (start with leather whip, then chain, and chain+fireballs)
There are no stairs, unlike other Castlevania games. At the end of each level, there is a "primary evil" to confront.
There is also a point counter, and at 10,000 points, a player receives an extra life, and also receives one for every 20,000 points after that. Each stage also has a time limit in which to complete the level.
The main improvement come simply from trying to manage the lag instead of fully submitting to it, the rejected run yielded 23676 lag frames, and this one 10'000 less.
Lag is the main problem while tasing this game, the previous runner just ignored it, although i think he didn’t have a lag counter, he obviously didn’t care about the issue.
In this game, even if there’s nothing on screens (no enemy, no candles, no animation) it will still lag a lot, apparently the lag would come from the music, in boss sequences, there’s no lag (the music is looping and very short).
Basically the main strategy for lag reduction i used was to kill enemies as fast as possible, avoid destroying candles, don’t "land" jump on a lag frame etc... etc... nothing too fancy.
Taking damage is not very cool since you would loose whip power, in first stage i take damage from an eyeball because it shorten a rope climbing, and i regain power 2 candles farther.
For Dracula it went very helpful to take damage, this shortened the fight considerably compared to rejected.
Although the quality of the rejected run is more than doubtful, he did find some neat trick (luck?), depending on subpixel adjustment, you can jump toward a rope and get to the bottom of it, this sadly only works in 1 place but save a bunch of frames.
I didn’t take care to note it, but i get a higher score than the rejected movie.
Improvements
Ill list here all know improvements
The start screen can be shorten by about 20 frames, im not sure why or how but i missed it (found by mugg)
Manipulating the second boss could be better, i get 2 top holes spawn (the rejected movie get 3), if dropping to 1 or 0 would save some here (100 frames per top hole, can use pause to manipulate, found by mugg).
In stage4, on rejected movie the runner managed in 7th room to get on the floor before the boomerang would hit him, this was impossible in my run somehow, i tried many things to manipulate it but nothing worked, few frames can be saved maybe.
Dracula might be improvable, i don’t know how though
More later!
Closing
This movie is not perfect, and could be better eventually, yet i hope youll enjoy it, i have to say this game was assy to tas.
Its really not fun and extremely rigid controls, on top the lag is the biggest i ever had to deal with, this is also the worse Castlevania game on consoles i think.
Btw, the reason im not using the Konami Collection (J) is simply vba hang on loading games, there’s no usa release, also the color game is less laggy than old grey usa one (not by a lot thought).
Special thanks to fsvgm777 for pointing me a rope shortcut in stage4 while i was broadcasting :p Also thanks to Nach for convincing me to do this tas.
Nach: Votes for this run were rather interesting. Many many yes votes, as well as excited comments about the run in IRC, but also more than a handful of no votes. This game is a bit ridiculous in how hard it is to jump, and to the extent the player gets attacked unexpectedly. For those familiar with the game, this run is easily identifiable as a superplay, as enemies are consistently shot at before they appear on screen, no missed jumps, things manipulated well enough that Christopher is never unexpectedly attacked, as well as insanely fast boss fights. This run it is also much faster than other runs made for this game till now. Based on the demand for this game, and positive responses, I'd be willing to discount no votes by those unfamiliar with the game. Some runs like Gradius look amazing to anyone, even those unfamiliar with the game. Some runs like Super Metroid are appraised highly by the majority of members, but those unfamiliar with the game find it long and boring, and it gets its share of low ratings. Castlevania Adventure suffers from being less well known, like most early Gameboy games, hence several thinking the run looks too easy. However, there were several no votes by those who were familiar with the game for this run being noticeably suboptimal to them. Therefore, I'm going to reject this run because it needs more improvement.
arukAdo: Allright
Congratulations, you just made a very hard game look easy.
Yes vote and claiming for encoding.
EDIT: Encode is up on Mediafire:
http://www.mediafire.com/?on9ejiv5ext0a18
EDIT 2: Uploaded to Dailymotion:
Link to video
Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
It had a very high technical gameplay with many nice tricks but the characters slow movement just prevented this from being as entertaining as it could be.
Meh vote.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I watched this on Sonikkustar's live stream, and I liked it. It seems like one of those "bad game to play, but makes for a nice TAS"-game. Here's my yes vote.
What a horrible game to have a TAS.
Kudos on your quest to kill dracula in all incarnations on all systems, but this was just boring. Lag everywhere, painfully slow movement, and then came the auto-scroller. There are few enemies, most of them pretty generic, and the level design is bland.
Worst of all, there was nothing that made up for the boring parts. The bosses were just wacked a couple of times, there were no glitches and no clever tricks.
Sorry, voting no due to game choice.
Ever since I watched the previous run on Youtube I was attracted by this game and its music. I didn't play this game, but it is one of the only Castlevania games that I like. All the other games seem to be "mainstream", meaning they have a very large fanbase following the series and there were numerous things I don't like about it, which is also the case with Metroid case for me.
When I heard you wanted to work on a run of this game, I was interested in assisting you. But while you were dealing with this game, I was working on Super Mario Land. Hearing about the issues with the game (lag, slow pace) kept me away for a while until I found the interest in trying it myself. I was under the impression that your run (that you now submitted) could be improvable in some spots in stage 1. Eventually, you finished your run and I gave up trying to TAS it myself, but found some improvements that now amount to 500 frames.
Let me get to a different topic now. I'm not happy about how some things went and how you treated me at some times. Since I didn't find TASing this game fun and gave up, I wanted to at least assist you so I made a lua script for you (x-pos and whip). However, contrary to what I was told before, you already seemed to have those addresses and just ignored what work I put into finding them, saying you didn't take much time finding them yourself (though, your .wch file in your svn had many X-pos, leading me to believe that you just didn't care about memory addresses (you also stated it)). Sometimes, you would ignore my statements about lag behavior and about memory findings, saying that "you aren't alone thinking the music causes the lag but anyway...", although that simply isn't true and I also proved it. I can understand that you didn't want to take it too serious with this run but at least try to be less arrogant in the future.
If we had more closely worked on this run together, we could have saved 5 seconds. Now I have the RNG address, the enemy slots and other things at hand to better understand the lag in the game but it's too late now. I already stated that I don't want to work on this game anymore. I will keep the new lua script I made for myself since you can't make use of it anyway. Sorry.
As for this run, I like it but I withdraw from voting. You may wonder why I'm making a fuss like this now, but it concerns me to some extent... I'd like to work with you on future projects, but not this castlevania game.
One thing I have to question. In Stage 4, on the alternating rising/sinking spike platforms, why do you sometimes ride the last one to the top and sometimes not? The one at 13:18, you do, yet the one in the very next room you don't.
May I ask why you feel this game should be published? The gameplay is mediocre and slow, the lag is horrendous, and I'm really not seeing anything impressive for the average viewer here. Technically it may be an achievement, but I'm just not convinced this is a publishable game in any sense.
Abstaining from voting to give author a chance to explain his reasoning, but I'm definitely leaning towards "no" at this point.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Huge improvement over a rejected run is not an immediate reason to publish.
The rejected run used the original Castlevania Adventure (U) game. This uses a super game boy (E) version. I think that accounts for a large amount of the time difference. The boss fights look much different and I think the lag pattern is different.
There are several places where the rope wasn't grabbed as low as possible. For example, at 5:09 you should have jumped. Same issue at 14:54 too.
A while back I made a test run on the original version but only finished the first two stages. The second boss isn't well manipulated. I have no idea how my attempt compares to Phil's or MUGG's. Difference in lag pattern could easily influence some decisions so it's hard to compare to this run.
I vote meh because I want to see this done on the original version.
Mugg: i didnt asked you anything beside tasing this with me, you sayd no (after saying yes and no 40 times already), seriously i dont want to tas anything again with you, your just painfull, you keep talking to say nothing in that post, and in the end you didnt even voted, your a waste, no wonder you have no team submission, its too annoying to try anything with you. Thank you for that long whinning post, was exactly what i needed to decide not ever working with you, oh and btw, no need to try to be sry, obviously you are not. Maybe im arrogant but you are an asshole, i didnt asked you anything about mem search or making a lua, you just made it without asking me anyway.
And about your bs on mario land, you told me 50 times no need for me to wait you, that you would not tas castlevania.
SirVG: even tho those 2 rooms look identical, timings on plateforms are apparently different, i timed both method in each rooms, somehow in first was faster to wait it to rise, then in next room it wasnt. (we speak of about 20 frames differences here)
Acheron86: Your question is basicly, is this super play, all i can answer is yes it is superplay. Try yourself the game, if you beat stage1 without loosing a life your definitly good, average gamer dont go over the 3rd room. This game is hard, it doesnt look hard maybe, but the lag prevent smooth jumping or aiming (real time i mean), its a frustrating game.
My reasoning was that in the first place, the older run wasnt rejected for bad game choice, instead for been sloppy run, i tryed to correct this. (and it was quite easy to do better)
Now if your question was rather, does the game is good ? no, its not, i think its the worse castlevania available on consoles aside maybe from haunted castle msx.
Yet its still castlevania, and "Kudos on your quest to kill dracula in all incarnations on all systems" is just correct, i love castlevania, i feel compel to do them all, especially this one, because no one else made a better run in 4 years now.
I did richter on saturn sotn, didnt was that much of an issue to get it rejected for bad game choice, ill live :p
If this is rejected for bad game choice, its allright, but i think technically the run "now" (as opposed to previous rejected runs) is warrant publication.
TheAxeMan: the places you point out are "low" floor ropes, you cant jump them, well when i tested it wasnt faster than just walking down, i dont remember testing subpixels on thoses ones but well, maybe it can be done better if you say it.
I wasnt able to get your test run to compare it, since the link give a 404 (in the old topic in gb forum).
Like i sayd in submission, the reasons for gbc version is there is less lag and also the game look way better in color, alltho the lag difference is not "that" large, this one still lag a lot dont worry. I realy dont understand the point in running a more laggy version.
Mugg: i didnt asked you anything beside tasing this with me, you sayd no (after saying yes and no 40 times already), seriously i dont want to tas anything again with you, your just painfull, you keep talking to say nothing in that post, and in the end you didnt even voted, your a waste, no wonder you have no team submission, its too annoying to try anything with you. Thank you for that long whinning post, was exactly what i needed to decide not ever working with you, oh and btw, no need to try to be sry, obviously you are not. Maybe im arrogant but you are an asshole, i didnt asked you anything about mem search or making a lua, you just made it without asking me anyway.
And about your bs on mario land, you told me 50 times no need for me to wait you, that you would not tas castlevania.
Are you kidding me?
He clearly stated that he was busy, so you treat him like he is "a waste" and tell him you don't want to do anything with him ever again?
Also, he has the right not to vote, the fact that he even took the time to comment on your submission is NOT a waste. You should be thankful that people are willing to go out of their way to assist you with your runs! I also don't like how you act like he needs permission to make lua scripts for this game.
tl;dr: I may be quite young, but you are acting more childish than I usually do, and that is really saying something.
Anyways, about the run, I enjoyed it so my vote is yes.
Mugg: i didnt asked you anything beside tasing this with me, you sayd no (after saying yes and no 40 times already),
I was unsure to TAS this game since you were refering to Castlevania Legends but kept telling about that it was the same as Adventure and eventually it turns out Legends is a completely different game (apparently). You eventually began your run and I followed your progress to some extent, saying that I want to try out some things. Trying to TAS with you seemed unreasonable as your progress was fast and I was busy with other things.
seriously i dont want to tas anything again with you, your just painfull, you keep talking to say nothing in that post, and in the end you didnt even voted, your a waste,
Why are you getting offensive? I wrote my post in a mostly neutral way, with the intention to solve present problems. I said a whole lot in my post and I wrote it because it concerned me quite a bit. And seeing your reply now, I don't regret having not voted yet.
no wonder you have no team submission, its too annoying to try anything with you.
Your reasoning is completely wrong. I have never encountered refusal to work on a team project with the reason I'm "painful or annoying" before. In fact, I'm open for team projects and worked with people on some runs before. You, as a teampartner, were hard and tedious to deal with, with you complicated svn shit. You didn't hand me a vbm when I kindly asked for it nor linked to it in your svn for a long time. Instead, you insisted on me installing a program for 2 hours and learning how to use it (only to work on this TAS alone) whereas you could have handed your movie to me within 10 seconds.
i didnt asked you anything about mem search or making a lua, you just made it without asking me anyway.
I had asked you whether you did memory search and your reply was something along the lines of "I didn't do well when mem searching". I tried searching for addresses myself eventually and came up with some. You then uttered that you already had those and that you don't care about memory addresses for this game. This belongs more in the section of "things didn't went well" rather than "the way you treated me" and your statement that I call you arrogant for not being thankful is not true.
Ironically, you always say you aren't in a hurry but you still manage to finish this game within a week. The first time I said I wouldn't TAS this game was when I made my first testings (after I saved 25 frames). You were somewhere in stage 3 at this point.
<arukAdo> but dont change your mind 50 times per day
<arukAdo> he already did that for hokuto
I actually wanted to work on that game, but I thoroughly had explained that Dega's savestate mechanism is crappy to such a great extent I can't deal with it. Stop making up things.
<arukAdo> nah he didnt sayd im busy, he sayd go for it
<arukAdo> he even sayd we would do a v2 [of CVA]
I said this after I made my testings. And I was saying "maybe v2".
<arukAdo> see with sonikkustar, we sayd we are going to do Vigilante
<arukAdo> we are not like, hurry hurry hurry
Nobody said I'm in a hurry. You interpret wrong things into "Let me quickly finish xy" and ever since, you refer to me as being in a hurry.
I didn't want an argument with you but apparently it can't be helped. You are ignoring my messages and thus wasting my time. You seem to be a complete dick and my statement about you being a bit arrogant (although ignorant would have been a better term) didn't turn out false. I'd like to not get involved with this game nor with you again in the future.
No Voted. Basically what Warepire said.
I could see some huge improvements, but just because it was a big improvement doesn't mean it should be published.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
I watched the run, but I'll refrain from voting, because of possible improvements by MUGG and possibly Phil (I'd like to see those movie files posted here).
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
I never played this game before, but I did play a lot of Belmont's Revenge, which I think is its sequel (the character sprite is about the same, and that game also has no stairs). Wow, this game is worse than Belmont's Revenge in just about every way! Seriously, whip downgrades for each instance of taking damage? Almost a quarter of this movie is lag, and that's WITH lag reduction efforts? Boring-as-hell second boss? Autoscroller in stage 3?
There are a few advantages this game has, though:
1) It's shorter.
2) You don't have delays when grabbing powerup crystals.
3) It looks like you have easier enemy patterns than in Belmont's Revenge.
4) You can inflict more damage on bosses.
I'd be curious to see what claimed large improvements are possible with this run, but overall this is a pretty bad Castlevania game to watch. The lack of subweapons really hurts entertainment. I think the quality of this run is good enough for a Meh vote (some of the boss fights are really fast, for instance), but not an absolute Yes.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.
Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)
Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)
Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!
Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
It was hard to choose whether or not I should vote yes given the fact that the run is painfully slow, but due to the fact that it is a castlevania game technically high run, I'll vote yes.
I'm going to vote meh as well. The execution is good, but again it comes down to game choice. The game is really slow and doesn't offer much variety. And the color is terrible. Stage 1's colors are far too warm and happy for a Castlevania, and Stage 3's background is a solid piss yellow.
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
I wasnt able to get your test run to compare it, since the link give a 404 (in the old topic in gb forum).
Sorry about that but the link I just posted above uses microstorage and should work.
You can grab the rope lower in both of those places by jumping. You do need subpixel optimization but it is not hard.
Well, I guess less lag is good, but I like to work with the classic, original versions.
Acheron86: Your question is basicly, is this super play, all i can answer is yes it is superplay. Try yourself the game, if you beat stage1 without loosing a life your definitly good, average gamer dont go over the 3rd room. This game is hard, it doesnt look hard maybe, but the lag prevent smooth jumping or aiming (real time i mean), its a frustrating game.
This argument isn't enough to warrant publication of this run. The site is about INTERESTING superplay, not this run's boring superplay.
Regarding the technical side, I'm amazed that lag frames are around 25% of the movie's length, and still, seeing from the submission text and the previous replies, very little effort was put on minimizing lag. Also, the improvements you listed don't seem very hard to implement, leading me to believe this movie would be obsoleted in a short amount of time if it were published.
Voted No, since I didn't find anything special in the entertaining and technical aspects.
EDIT: Apologies, it seems a lot of lag was actually reduced. I think I didn't read it with the depth I should have. My vote is still No, for game choice. Sorry for misunderstanding.
seeing from the submission text and the previous replies, very little effort was put on minimizing lag.
Very little effort indeed, only ~50% of the lag was removed. (10'000 frames)
The whole movie is about reducing lag, maybe you missed the point, anyway.
Edit: Fair enought, p4wn3r
TheAxeMan, i meant while doing run i didnt had your file to compare with (i tryed to ask others around irc but nobody kept it), im sorry, maybe i should have posted in the forum, the topic was so old i felt like it would be pointless necro posting, i was wrong apparently.
Also klmz told me something about the sgb version is konami collection 3 or 4, im not the pro on this matter, i just know its gbc, its the original but just with colors, now dont ask me why theres less lag, its realy small differences (we speak about a couple of frames here on a 300 frames test).
Voting no. Sorry but imo this game shouldn't be TASed unless a glitch is found that skips 99% of it.
I was bored out of my mind after a minute of watching. that slooow movement and that laaaag. >.<
Is that lag in the actual game or is it an emulator problem?
