My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet.
Serris's normal difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Note: Some of the responses complain about the sound in each segment, this problem has been fixed.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a good start, and the final segments are very well-optimized.
Serris's normal difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Note: Some of the responses complain about the sound in each segment, this problem has been fixed.
Quote:
Technical issues:
Segment 1's audio has been put on all of the segments, so can't comment on audio things. The end of segment 2 goes way out of focus (I guess the 3d on the DS is too convincing?) and segment 3 is slightly out of focus. In segment 2's stuff, you can't really make out anything but the characters, whereas segment 3 is just a little fuzzy. Thumbs get in the way a lot in the early segments. Small video skip at the start of 17.
Cheating: None.
Gameplay:
Going to go segment by segment here, and yeah, easy to tell who I am, but necessary to make comparisons on the early parts, which are the ones with the most questionable gameplay.
His route is very well researched and I can only think of one improvement. There are some strategies within the route though that I think can be improved (again, mainly in the early parts).
The runner doesn't use jump kicks as the main form of movement after getting double jump. I don't know how much time it costs in total (it's certainly not a near-zero amount), but it's an easy improvement that really should have been done (and that the runner would have known about for sure).
Another thing that I should get out of the way is that I really don't care about excuses of recording setup making it harder to do stuff, or grip being weird. This is just because he should have played with his setup until it became natural to do things. The second is that if the DS is stuck to something (sticky tack on a table etc.) you can change your grip without moving the DS. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm aware that the runner did spend a lot of time trying to get a good setup, but judging by how his gameplay noticably improves during the run, I think it would have been a good idea for him to have practiced with it for a while longer before this.
Segment 1: The tutorial goes quite well, kudos for figuring out the trick to killing the skeletons quickly.
Once you get into the Monastery though, I really disagree with your pacificism. By not killing anything, you don't level up, which makes the boss slower, and it actually takes more time to slide into the enemies than kill them. There's also a couple places that should have been an auto-restart. You get hit by the flying horsehead, which then causes you to get hit by the Banshee. It's only 2 or 3 seconds, but in a segment as easy as this (and where it's likely that such an event won't happen next time) I think it should have been a restart. You also mess up on Magnes, which in addition to doing that first section the slow way, should have been a restart.
There's one platforming error, I only noticed because his platforming everywhere else is godly.
Because you're not attacking anywhere, you don't break the candles, meaning you don't get the hearts, meaning you miss out on a potential glyph union on the boss. The boss fight, because of not leveling up and not having hearts, is about 10 seconds slower than it would be if he had done these things.
Segment 2: Well, I have another list of stuff that I'd change in this segment, but wasn't able to get a faster time than this, so hopefully I don't come off as being too full of myself. There are two things which I really disagree with though, he doesn't kill the Axe Armors, which cost him a lot of time from getting hit AND means that he can't damage boost on a bunch of stuff in the level. I'll admit that getting hit so much was just bad luck, but killing them would have prevented it. A mismatched glyph union kills them in one hit, and he has the hearts for it.
The other nitpick I have is in the Kalidus Channel. You don't really have to wait for the Mermen, you can either kill or damage boost through all of them. I think that in a timed section like this the runner would have made more effort to seeing how he could manipulate it into being faster. In this run, he goes into the map with enough HP for 2 boosts (again, could be alleviated by killing the Axe Armors). He has to stop to wait for almost all of them, even getting knocked the wrong way twice.
Now, that was a lot of complaining, but he only lost 4 seconds in Kalidus Channel over my attempt at it, but it's still time that would have been easily saved if he messed around with that area a bit more. More importantly, it just looks really bad to have to wait, and then getting hit after waiting to wait some more.
Also, at least one of the verifiers will try to bring it up, but standing near a glyph doesn't matter, it takes the same amount of time to suck in, and travel time after the initial suck-in is fixed. I timed it a few times on my own, and for more proff, the TAS test run pulls in glyphs from far away as well (even opting not to stand close when possible).
Segment 3: This side of Kalidus Channel goes much better, there's a couple time/health savers, but they're less than a second so not a big deal.
His big skeleton fight goes really well. The rooms after could use some damage boosting, but it's a pretty negligible amount of time saved. He gets hit the wrong way, this is just from jumping way too late. It's not a huge time loss or anything, but it just gives the feeling that he didn't mess around nearly enough and try to find damage boosts or enemy patterns.
Again, he's in pacifist mode, but I'll admit that it's pretty hard to kill the Armor Knights without slowing down, so I guess I'll concede that. Stuff goes well again, he's really good at platforms. In the room with the spiked guillotines, it would have been better to either kill them or damage boost off of them (nice boost from Frankenstein's monster though). You should have backdash canceled your weapon attacks. But, like everything else I've been pointing out, it's only fractions of a second of improvement.
That last jump is
It's tricky to time and I won't fault you for it. Aside from that, after the boss, you could have saved 5 seconds in total by doing the things I said.
Segment 4: It's unfortunate that the runner started this run when he did. Like 3 days before he posted this gocha made a couple TAS test segments. For this segment particularly, that TAS was almost a minute faster, and it wouldn't have been too hard to change tactics a little bit and save a a lot of time on this easily. Still, there are some things which should have been clear even before the TAS.
Slow Magnes usage again. After this there are a few things I don't like. First is obviously not killing the enemies. you lose time and health. Second is you can't cancel the weapon attack when opening the Falcis statue, if you had held left after fallingg off the final ledge, then attacked, it would have broken the statue and canceled the attack when you landed. Then you jump back on the ledge and start absorbing when the glyph appears, saving like two seconds over what you did.
This robot fight was done wrong. Instead of using Dominus here, it should be saved for the boss. The simple reason is that on this robot, the glyph union does more damage than Dominus. On the boss, Dominus does more damage than the glyph union. The easy way for this fight is, union, backdash, union, backdash, union, run and hit a few times and robot is dead (you can just run up and attack plainly, it won't be able to shoot fast enough). This first section is 9 seconds slower than optimal.
On to the lighthouse. Slow Magnes is slow. Twice even... At the start, just jump somewhere near the pole thing and tap R. In the boss room, if you stand near the middle and tap R you'll fly up to the first platform, no Magnes pulling at all.
Now for the boss. Your strategy wasn't that bad, but there's a couple simple reasons that this ended up being so long. First, you have hearts 4 for glyph unions, you use them all on the last phase. It would have been faster to space them out, meaning use at least one on each phase when he was out of normal reach. The other thing is that when he's in rage mode in the first phase, you go to attack him during the bubble attack, and yet don't attack his claw when he breaks the ceiling. You can still do damage here, and since you have to wait anyway it would have payed off to attack for a bit. By doing this, you could have skipped both the non-rage bubble attacks, saving probably another 10 seconds.
After that fight, things went well. You missed jumping to cancel the landing animation in the next room, but I'm guessing you weren't super focused at that moment. The water place went pretty flawlessly. The one hit which I have complaint with is the one next to the treasure, but I'm guessing you just forgot randomly (it happens).
So yeah, lots of time lost due to a couple bad strategy decisions.
Segment 5: Almost no complaints on this one, exiting the water goes perfectly.
Tymeo Mountains also looks good. I can't begin to tell you how happy I was when I saw you kill an enemy instead of slide through it, nice work. Slow Magnes is still slow. Just jump near the first thing and tap R to make it most of the room, try to time another tap near the middle, and if you don't think you'll make it to the end, hold R to grab onto the last pole. Saves 2 seconds potentially over slow Magnes.
I'm really confused about why you took a hit from an enemy that dies in one hit, which you were killing earlier (winged skeleton after Magnes room). You take a couple other hits from then as well, all from the front where you could have shorthopped an attack. Time lost on them is maybe 1 second though, so it just looks worse than it is.
Segment 6: Great damage boosts. Not very much to say about this at all, you don't take any unintentional hits or miss any jumps. Language change is unnecessary because verification copies have the wrong sound!
You should have stood closer to the Vol Macir glyph when absorbing it, you lost approximately 8 seconds.
>_>
<_<
Segment 7: Actually, I only have good things to say about this.
In the OoE thread, two people criticized your way of killing some of the enemies, where you did 2 shorthopped attacks. They then said you should have attacked on the ground, followed by backdashing to cancel the attack. You did it right. By attacking in the air, you can still move during the startup of the weapon, and pause only for the necessary amount of time to not run into the enemy. If you were to have attacked on the ground, you'd be stopped for the weapon's startup, then you'd have to BACKDASH, moving you even further from your goal of "forward". So yeah, good job at you, neener neener at the wrong people.
Also, can't really fault you for dodging some enemies rather than killing them, since now stuff doesn't die in just a hit. HOWEVER, you should have been breaking candles from the beginning like you were in this segment.
Also, I wonder how close to exploding your eyes were when you had 1 HP and one more raptor to run past. You saved so fast hahaha
Segment 8: Small time saver: Alternate attacking and using your unions. You should also be backdashing the unions, but then you have to space it out (since the timers between hits are really long in this game) so do a hit or two. Overall, this would have saved about a second, had everything else in your strategy been the same. You could have also probably done an extra ground attack (and canceled it) to save another second or so. I don't have a recorded attempt on this boss so I can't say for certain (although the union cancel is a definitely necessary).
Great platforming up to the Tower Ring room, but why aren't you killing the winged skeletons? They take longer to avoid than kill.
Anyway, you get the Tower Ring, thwarting my future complaints about not killing stuff, it's always faster to run through them now.
I don't see why that boulder hit you? Barely costs any time but it's pretty easy to avoid.
Ugh, the weird lines on the screen hurt my eyes in all these foggy rooms. Warn people not to fullscreen this part.
Segment 9: More swimming, so not a whole lot to say. This segment is about luck manipulation, so the one or two little mistakes don't matter.
Segment 10: More luck manipulation, proof of meticulous route planning.
Segment 11: Could have avoided the hit with backdash canceling, but other than that half second, the segment was error free. Amazing boss pattern too. Seeing the rare chest after this boss leads me to suggest my only route improvement: cut out the last segment and pick up the rare chest in this segment. It could save over 30 seconds and a Magical Ticket.
Segment 12: Haha, nice use of the Falcis union. There's really not going to be that much to say for the upcoming segments, mainly because there's not really anything going on anymore.
Segment 13: Fine boss fight. Only other thing of note is that you forgot to jump to cancel the landing animation again.
Segment 14: Hmm, you jump cancel the landing this time...
Nice use of damage boosting. Slow Magnes is still slow. Nothing else of note.
Segment 15: Great boss fight.I remember having a lot of trouble with this but you got a good pattern and had very good execution.
Segment 16: Two hugely minor mistakes, accidentally got stuck in the swamp for a split second, and walked up some stairs instead of jumping.
Segment 17: No comments.
Segment 18: Probably about as fast of a boss fight as one could get.
Segment 19: More nothing to say.
Segment 20: Excellent platforming, I really liked the use of kicking off of the Peeping Eye to get to a higher platform. You could have done the same off the Anubis just before Wallman to get onto the lower right platform.
Segment 21: Good platforming, it's tough to drop down platforms so quickly without getting a double jump at some point (although it might just be me). Your occasional use of kicking over enemies makes me sad that you aren't using it everywhere for movement.
Segment 22: Blackmore strat - Up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, start, menu it up, start, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y
It's a 5 second fight, but you can cut it down to 2-3 by doing this. Nitesco doesn't really have a limit on rate of attack. Your second and third hit are only .4 seconds apart. Nitesco has a startup of .24 seconds (it'll sweep everything in front of you by this time) and after this, it takes .56 seconds until you can use it again. By backdashing (I include the down -> right so you cancel the backdash and remain in about the same spot), even if you're slow at it, each hit will be about .4 seconds apart, which is twice as fast.
Didn't see any other problems.
It might seem like I'm not being overly picky about a couple of seconds when earlier I would say they they didn't make a huge difference, so let me explain. The only places where there could be improvement in the segments after the Tower Ring are the boss fights, nothing else happens except floowing a route through a level and jumping on the platforms correctly. There's very little chance of error and no way to speed the sections up, so the only places to go faster are by having better boss fights, so yeah, I'm going to be a dick about them.
Segment 23: Nothing especially important to note. Missed out on an easy spot for Rapidus Fio at the end.
Segment 24: Everything looks good, impressive timing of the Macir union.
Segment 25: The return of slow Magnes! Although in almost all of the uses in this segment there's not a way around it. Consistently good platforming again.
Segment 26: Sword Masters are the coolest enemy in the game IMO.
Segment 27: The leg clip you found is awesome. This was the best boss fight so far. Nice @ backdashing the Nitesco, wish you always did that...
Segment 28: Oh, so now you realize how good backdashing is... Great fight, looks like it probably took a while to manipulate for a convenient pattern like that. Good platforming as always.
Segment 29: More backdashing, yay! Nice work passing "judgement" on Dracula.
Decision: Reject. Going into this, I was pretty deadset on accepting it no matter what, and I'm still borderline on this, but there are two huge problems that I can't overlook.
First, you don't jump kick. each kick saves a small amount of time, and it adds up really quickly, I can't say for certain, but I think that upwards of one minute could have been saved with this alone. It's something you really should have known about as being faster for movement and since you don't have to worry about knockback with the Tower Ring and almost every level has long stretches of flat ground, I can't think of a good reason why you would possibly exclude this easy time saver.
The second thing is that the majority of the game is "run through enemies from point A to B," there's not really any chance for improvements on strategy or execution, there's just nothing that's really going on. The first segments do have a lot of stuff that's heavily dependent on execution and strategy within the route, and as you may have read, I took issue with just about everything you did in the early segments. Brachyura was more or less the turning point for deciding to reject this, your fight is more than twice as long than the TAS, and I think you should have restarted after seeing it. Well, that and before double jump the only way to speed things up is by damage boosting, which you did rarely, and I'll point you back to my Kalidus Channel complaints.
But yeah, there are few parts where the run could have been sped up, which coincide with levels where there is very little going on, but the runner did not speed them up. I can't really think of how to word it as I want, so hopefully that makes sense. I really dislike giving untested timing approximations that I can't back up with tests, but I'd say that 2 minutes could be saved from this run (without the route change I suggested, which is admittedly pretty ridiculous).
Segment 1's audio has been put on all of the segments, so can't comment on audio things. The end of segment 2 goes way out of focus (I guess the 3d on the DS is too convincing?) and segment 3 is slightly out of focus. In segment 2's stuff, you can't really make out anything but the characters, whereas segment 3 is just a little fuzzy. Thumbs get in the way a lot in the early segments. Small video skip at the start of 17.
Cheating: None.
Gameplay:
Going to go segment by segment here, and yeah, easy to tell who I am, but necessary to make comparisons on the early parts, which are the ones with the most questionable gameplay.
His route is very well researched and I can only think of one improvement. There are some strategies within the route though that I think can be improved (again, mainly in the early parts).
The runner doesn't use jump kicks as the main form of movement after getting double jump. I don't know how much time it costs in total (it's certainly not a near-zero amount), but it's an easy improvement that really should have been done (and that the runner would have known about for sure).
Another thing that I should get out of the way is that I really don't care about excuses of recording setup making it harder to do stuff, or grip being weird. This is just because he should have played with his setup until it became natural to do things. The second is that if the DS is stuck to something (sticky tack on a table etc.) you can change your grip without moving the DS. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm aware that the runner did spend a lot of time trying to get a good setup, but judging by how his gameplay noticably improves during the run, I think it would have been a good idea for him to have practiced with it for a while longer before this.
Segment 1: The tutorial goes quite well, kudos for figuring out the trick to killing the skeletons quickly.
Once you get into the Monastery though, I really disagree with your pacificism. By not killing anything, you don't level up, which makes the boss slower, and it actually takes more time to slide into the enemies than kill them. There's also a couple places that should have been an auto-restart. You get hit by the flying horsehead, which then causes you to get hit by the Banshee. It's only 2 or 3 seconds, but in a segment as easy as this (and where it's likely that such an event won't happen next time) I think it should have been a restart. You also mess up on Magnes, which in addition to doing that first section the slow way, should have been a restart.
There's one platforming error, I only noticed because his platforming everywhere else is godly.
Because you're not attacking anywhere, you don't break the candles, meaning you don't get the hearts, meaning you miss out on a potential glyph union on the boss. The boss fight, because of not leveling up and not having hearts, is about 10 seconds slower than it would be if he had done these things.
Segment 2: Well, I have another list of stuff that I'd change in this segment, but wasn't able to get a faster time than this, so hopefully I don't come off as being too full of myself. There are two things which I really disagree with though, he doesn't kill the Axe Armors, which cost him a lot of time from getting hit AND means that he can't damage boost on a bunch of stuff in the level. I'll admit that getting hit so much was just bad luck, but killing them would have prevented it. A mismatched glyph union kills them in one hit, and he has the hearts for it.
The other nitpick I have is in the Kalidus Channel. You don't really have to wait for the Mermen, you can either kill or damage boost through all of them. I think that in a timed section like this the runner would have made more effort to seeing how he could manipulate it into being faster. In this run, he goes into the map with enough HP for 2 boosts (again, could be alleviated by killing the Axe Armors). He has to stop to wait for almost all of them, even getting knocked the wrong way twice.
Now, that was a lot of complaining, but he only lost 4 seconds in Kalidus Channel over my attempt at it, but it's still time that would have been easily saved if he messed around with that area a bit more. More importantly, it just looks really bad to have to wait, and then getting hit after waiting to wait some more.
Also, at least one of the verifiers will try to bring it up, but standing near a glyph doesn't matter, it takes the same amount of time to suck in, and travel time after the initial suck-in is fixed. I timed it a few times on my own, and for more proff, the TAS test run pulls in glyphs from far away as well (even opting not to stand close when possible).
Segment 3: This side of Kalidus Channel goes much better, there's a couple time/health savers, but they're less than a second so not a big deal.
His big skeleton fight goes really well. The rooms after could use some damage boosting, but it's a pretty negligible amount of time saved. He gets hit the wrong way, this is just from jumping way too late. It's not a huge time loss or anything, but it just gives the feeling that he didn't mess around nearly enough and try to find damage boosts or enemy patterns.
Again, he's in pacifist mode, but I'll admit that it's pretty hard to kill the Armor Knights without slowing down, so I guess I'll concede that. Stuff goes well again, he's really good at platforms. In the room with the spiked guillotines, it would have been better to either kill them or damage boost off of them (nice boost from Frankenstein's monster though). You should have backdash canceled your weapon attacks. But, like everything else I've been pointing out, it's only fractions of a second of improvement.
That last jump is
Segment 4: It's unfortunate that the runner started this run when he did. Like 3 days before he posted this gocha made a couple TAS test segments. For this segment particularly, that TAS was almost a minute faster, and it wouldn't have been too hard to change tactics a little bit and save a a lot of time on this easily. Still, there are some things which should have been clear even before the TAS.
Slow Magnes usage again. After this there are a few things I don't like. First is obviously not killing the enemies. you lose time and health. Second is you can't cancel the weapon attack when opening the Falcis statue, if you had held left after fallingg off the final ledge, then attacked, it would have broken the statue and canceled the attack when you landed. Then you jump back on the ledge and start absorbing when the glyph appears, saving like two seconds over what you did.
This robot fight was done wrong. Instead of using Dominus here, it should be saved for the boss. The simple reason is that on this robot, the glyph union does more damage than Dominus. On the boss, Dominus does more damage than the glyph union. The easy way for this fight is, union, backdash, union, backdash, union, run and hit a few times and robot is dead (you can just run up and attack plainly, it won't be able to shoot fast enough). This first section is 9 seconds slower than optimal.
On to the lighthouse. Slow Magnes is slow. Twice even... At the start, just jump somewhere near the pole thing and tap R. In the boss room, if you stand near the middle and tap R you'll fly up to the first platform, no Magnes pulling at all.
Now for the boss. Your strategy wasn't that bad, but there's a couple simple reasons that this ended up being so long. First, you have hearts 4 for glyph unions, you use them all on the last phase. It would have been faster to space them out, meaning use at least one on each phase when he was out of normal reach. The other thing is that when he's in rage mode in the first phase, you go to attack him during the bubble attack, and yet don't attack his claw when he breaks the ceiling. You can still do damage here, and since you have to wait anyway it would have payed off to attack for a bit. By doing this, you could have skipped both the non-rage bubble attacks, saving probably another 10 seconds.
After that fight, things went well. You missed jumping to cancel the landing animation in the next room, but I'm guessing you weren't super focused at that moment. The water place went pretty flawlessly. The one hit which I have complaint with is the one next to the treasure, but I'm guessing you just forgot randomly (it happens).
So yeah, lots of time lost due to a couple bad strategy decisions.
Segment 5: Almost no complaints on this one, exiting the water goes perfectly.
Tymeo Mountains also looks good. I can't begin to tell you how happy I was when I saw you kill an enemy instead of slide through it, nice work. Slow Magnes is still slow. Just jump near the first thing and tap R to make it most of the room, try to time another tap near the middle, and if you don't think you'll make it to the end, hold R to grab onto the last pole. Saves 2 seconds potentially over slow Magnes.
I'm really confused about why you took a hit from an enemy that dies in one hit, which you were killing earlier (winged skeleton after Magnes room). You take a couple other hits from then as well, all from the front where you could have shorthopped an attack. Time lost on them is maybe 1 second though, so it just looks worse than it is.
Segment 6: Great damage boosts. Not very much to say about this at all, you don't take any unintentional hits or miss any jumps. Language change is unnecessary because verification copies have the wrong sound!
You should have stood closer to the Vol Macir glyph when absorbing it, you lost approximately 8 seconds.
>_>
<_<
Segment 7: Actually, I only have good things to say about this.
In the OoE thread, two people criticized your way of killing some of the enemies, where you did 2 shorthopped attacks. They then said you should have attacked on the ground, followed by backdashing to cancel the attack. You did it right. By attacking in the air, you can still move during the startup of the weapon, and pause only for the necessary amount of time to not run into the enemy. If you were to have attacked on the ground, you'd be stopped for the weapon's startup, then you'd have to BACKDASH, moving you even further from your goal of "forward". So yeah, good job at you, neener neener at the wrong people.
Also, can't really fault you for dodging some enemies rather than killing them, since now stuff doesn't die in just a hit. HOWEVER, you should have been breaking candles from the beginning like you were in this segment.
Also, I wonder how close to exploding your eyes were when you had 1 HP and one more raptor to run past. You saved so fast hahaha
Segment 8: Small time saver: Alternate attacking and using your unions. You should also be backdashing the unions, but then you have to space it out (since the timers between hits are really long in this game) so do a hit or two. Overall, this would have saved about a second, had everything else in your strategy been the same. You could have also probably done an extra ground attack (and canceled it) to save another second or so. I don't have a recorded attempt on this boss so I can't say for certain (although the union cancel is a definitely necessary).
Great platforming up to the Tower Ring room, but why aren't you killing the winged skeletons? They take longer to avoid than kill.
Anyway, you get the Tower Ring, thwarting my future complaints about not killing stuff, it's always faster to run through them now.
I don't see why that boulder hit you? Barely costs any time but it's pretty easy to avoid.
Ugh, the weird lines on the screen hurt my eyes in all these foggy rooms. Warn people not to fullscreen this part.
Segment 9: More swimming, so not a whole lot to say. This segment is about luck manipulation, so the one or two little mistakes don't matter.
Segment 10: More luck manipulation, proof of meticulous route planning.
Segment 11: Could have avoided the hit with backdash canceling, but other than that half second, the segment was error free. Amazing boss pattern too. Seeing the rare chest after this boss leads me to suggest my only route improvement: cut out the last segment and pick up the rare chest in this segment. It could save over 30 seconds and a Magical Ticket.
Segment 12: Haha, nice use of the Falcis union. There's really not going to be that much to say for the upcoming segments, mainly because there's not really anything going on anymore.
Segment 13: Fine boss fight. Only other thing of note is that you forgot to jump to cancel the landing animation again.
Segment 14: Hmm, you jump cancel the landing this time...
Nice use of damage boosting. Slow Magnes is still slow. Nothing else of note.
Segment 15: Great boss fight.I remember having a lot of trouble with this but you got a good pattern and had very good execution.
Segment 16: Two hugely minor mistakes, accidentally got stuck in the swamp for a split second, and walked up some stairs instead of jumping.
Segment 17: No comments.
Segment 18: Probably about as fast of a boss fight as one could get.
Segment 19: More nothing to say.
Segment 20: Excellent platforming, I really liked the use of kicking off of the Peeping Eye to get to a higher platform. You could have done the same off the Anubis just before Wallman to get onto the lower right platform.
Segment 21: Good platforming, it's tough to drop down platforms so quickly without getting a double jump at some point (although it might just be me). Your occasional use of kicking over enemies makes me sad that you aren't using it everywhere for movement.
Segment 22: Blackmore strat - Up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y, L, down, right, start, menu it up, start, up+Y, L, down, right, up+Y
It's a 5 second fight, but you can cut it down to 2-3 by doing this. Nitesco doesn't really have a limit on rate of attack. Your second and third hit are only .4 seconds apart. Nitesco has a startup of .24 seconds (it'll sweep everything in front of you by this time) and after this, it takes .56 seconds until you can use it again. By backdashing (I include the down -> right so you cancel the backdash and remain in about the same spot), even if you're slow at it, each hit will be about .4 seconds apart, which is twice as fast.
Didn't see any other problems.
It might seem like I'm not being overly picky about a couple of seconds when earlier I would say they they didn't make a huge difference, so let me explain. The only places where there could be improvement in the segments after the Tower Ring are the boss fights, nothing else happens except floowing a route through a level and jumping on the platforms correctly. There's very little chance of error and no way to speed the sections up, so the only places to go faster are by having better boss fights, so yeah, I'm going to be a dick about them.
Segment 23: Nothing especially important to note. Missed out on an easy spot for Rapidus Fio at the end.
Segment 24: Everything looks good, impressive timing of the Macir union.
Segment 25: The return of slow Magnes! Although in almost all of the uses in this segment there's not a way around it. Consistently good platforming again.
Segment 26: Sword Masters are the coolest enemy in the game IMO.
Segment 27: The leg clip you found is awesome. This was the best boss fight so far. Nice @ backdashing the Nitesco, wish you always did that...
Segment 28: Oh, so now you realize how good backdashing is... Great fight, looks like it probably took a while to manipulate for a convenient pattern like that. Good platforming as always.
Segment 29: More backdashing, yay! Nice work passing "judgement" on Dracula.
Decision: Reject. Going into this, I was pretty deadset on accepting it no matter what, and I'm still borderline on this, but there are two huge problems that I can't overlook.
First, you don't jump kick. each kick saves a small amount of time, and it adds up really quickly, I can't say for certain, but I think that upwards of one minute could have been saved with this alone. It's something you really should have known about as being faster for movement and since you don't have to worry about knockback with the Tower Ring and almost every level has long stretches of flat ground, I can't think of a good reason why you would possibly exclude this easy time saver.
The second thing is that the majority of the game is "run through enemies from point A to B," there's not really any chance for improvements on strategy or execution, there's just nothing that's really going on. The first segments do have a lot of stuff that's heavily dependent on execution and strategy within the route, and as you may have read, I took issue with just about everything you did in the early segments. Brachyura was more or less the turning point for deciding to reject this, your fight is more than twice as long than the TAS, and I think you should have restarted after seeing it. Well, that and before double jump the only way to speed things up is by damage boosting, which you did rarely, and I'll point you back to my Kalidus Channel complaints.
But yeah, there are few parts where the run could have been sped up, which coincide with levels where there is very little going on, but the runner did not speed them up. I can't really think of how to word it as I want, so hopefully that makes sense. I really dislike giving untested timing approximations that I can't back up with tests, but I'd say that 2 minutes could be saved from this run (without the route change I suggested, which is admittedly pretty ridiculous).
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hmm, this run is very interesting to watch, though painful aswell, no doubt the quality of gameplay is high, with only minor acceptable movement errors, especially as the segment can be quite long. It was interesting to watch as it was one of the very few runs that appeard to follow the story line and do everything that needed to be done and all in the right order, so basically a speedrunners nightmare.
boss battles were good, especeially the later ones, but then thats to be expected as items apear to scale exponentially in this game. Can't see any improvements to the route, there's barely any real backtraking in this game but when there is you can be sure the runner teleports efficiently
though this game does reek of "easy" its executed nicely and is actually a good watch, a true demonstration of how we would all like to be able to play.
i did have problem with the audio and visuals though, whilst they were mostly acceptable, at times it became too fuzzy and blurry to and i could hardly see what was happening, thankfully it didn't go over any names of things so no loss of contingency or anything but still a pain to watch at times.
my audios were also mixed up, each segment had a different track so i had to sync up each segment with its youtube part to be able to watch, definetly something to sort out though it may just be a problem my end.
an accept because of the high quality of gameplay, would be nice to have some audio commentary, or possibly some more coments though of course thats at the runner disgretion.
just something to add that i forgot as a possible improvement, use of the dracula(dominus) glyphs would have been nice for some of the earilier boss fights, as ussing them combined with the unions may have finished them faster
boss battles were good, especeially the later ones, but then thats to be expected as items apear to scale exponentially in this game. Can't see any improvements to the route, there's barely any real backtraking in this game but when there is you can be sure the runner teleports efficiently
though this game does reek of "easy" its executed nicely and is actually a good watch, a true demonstration of how we would all like to be able to play.
i did have problem with the audio and visuals though, whilst they were mostly acceptable, at times it became too fuzzy and blurry to and i could hardly see what was happening, thankfully it didn't go over any names of things so no loss of contingency or anything but still a pain to watch at times.
my audios were also mixed up, each segment had a different track so i had to sync up each segment with its youtube part to be able to watch, definetly something to sort out though it may just be a problem my end.
an accept because of the high quality of gameplay, would be nice to have some audio commentary, or possibly some more coments though of course thats at the runner disgretion.
just something to add that i forgot as a possible improvement, use of the dracula(dominus) glyphs would have been nice for some of the earilier boss fights, as ussing them combined with the unions may have finished them faster
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OoE Run. A/V is fine now, though this leaves me wanting more from DS runs in general. Am I to presume that Nate is not going to crop out the thumbs along the sides of the capture video? Note that this goes for the best ending.
For starters, Persona doesn't have a gender: Persona transcends pejorative titles.
Thankfully, this game is incredibly linear, so the majority of verification pertains to how well the runner handles the game. There is some planning necessary though, and it's done quite well for how quickly this seemed to pop up in the thread.
S1: Training at the academy is very straightforward. It's unfortunate that the backdashing seen in the tool assisted demos can't really be used in console runs. The time it would take to kill enemies in the Monastery would be made up by one level before the boss fight. The Magnes room is a little sloppy, especially when the runner doesn't shoot the doorway properly. A bit of time is lost getting hit by the Ghost and then the Banshee, but whatever. The boss fight is somehow IMPERFECT but the time loss is really small in the big picture. Segment ends in the town. I think this seg could be a little tighter and shave a second or two, but it's not that important. The real question is to whether getting the glyph from the Skeleton Knights is worth the time or not.
S2: Ruvas Forest is one of the many SMB 1-1 levels in this game. The runner spent the time to get a Magical Ticket and a Heart Repair, both of which will save lots of time later on. The luck with enemies is a bit sucky, but it's hard to get through the whole area with both chests, the Macir glyph, and having good enemy AI. Tiny dumb mistake in Kalidus (thought you had the double jump, eh?) costs a half second or so. I wonder if killing the Mermen is faster than waiting before safely jumping.
S3: I don't get why this Mermen avoiding tactic wasn't used in S2. Another IMPERFECT boss fight GOSH. Getting him to kick more is the fastest way to kill him, but you're so weak at this point that it's asking a lot just to go all out and not die.
S4: Magical Ticket manipulated here. These are like Library Cards in SOTN, by the way. The runner then kills a Tin Man using the new Dominus soul (at the expense of HP) in order to get a Strength Ring, which is totally helpful this early on. I don't get why the Glyph Sleeve was skipped, since it totally streamlines the run later on. The Brachyura fight was efficient, and the underside of Kalidus only had a few mistakes with enemies. Lots of skipped treasure chests for some reason.
S5: Theoretically, you can get a damage boost across the last gap in Tymeo in order to release one townsfolk early, but I don't think anyone has demonstrated it effectively. Why switch to Japanese?
S6: The Blow Ring manipulated here is another statmod accessory. Nothing to fix here, really.
S7: Another Blow Ring attained. Now the runner can do the accessory trick to boost stats a lot. It's pretty interesting to see the runner get down to 1 health.
S8: This bossfight is pretty sloppy. Lot of time lost to jump attacking when you can just wait for it to approach the ground and then let off a combo on it. Still, the runner was able to land the appropriate double damage attacks, so good job. With the new double jump item, the runner goes back to free someone from the prison area, getting the Tower Ring at the same time. No more enemy knock back! Then we go back to Kalidus to get someone that we could've saved earlier, so I don't get the route now. Everything is sold for heals, tickets, and attack raising Battle Boots. After saving the guy in Tymeo, the runner uses a ticket even when the exit is literally right there. I don't get it.
S9: Wind Rings bump up slash damage, so now blades will be the strongest glyphs. It's a pretty hollow segment otherwise.
S10: Just getting another Wind Ring.
S11: Boss fight could have been better. Closing the gap while using the unions would have maybe not had that hit occur. Fast otherwise.
S12: The Giant's Dwelling is really straightforward now that the runner has the Tower Ring. I don't get why a union was used to get at that glyph, since the time saved is negligible compared to the time saved using that on the next boss.
S13: Not much time could be saved on the boss here, but it's still probably possible.
S14: Good work here. Nothing to fix.
S15: Holy crap, this bossfight was pretty much perfect. A little time is lost using the second ticket from the (useless) Academy visit. No complaints otherwise.
S16: Interesting method used to avoid the swamp slowdown. Could shave maybe a second off of this segment if you're lucky.
S17: Is the Schnitzel really worth that 5 second detour? It's a short seg otherwise.
S18: Time could be saved here by only using unions when you're too far to hit Albus, but it's maybe a whole second for the whole fight. The luck involved here is really hard to manage, and the runner did some good QC here.
S19: Fuck, that battle was fast. I always hated using the Dominus souls due to their sapping nature, but this is proof that small amounts can really speed up certain fights. Now that we're at Dracula's Castle, the runner has to decide when to return to town and when/which boss to take on.
S20: The great thing about the boss fight for Paries is that he always throws the first bombs in the same locations, so the fight always takes one turn (unless you want a Super Potion). This is the time where the Glyph Sleeve would be great, since you can make your normal strike set up on A, slash on B, and wall moving on C to save a lot of menu time. Meh. Lots of walking gets us to the first Cerebus soul needed to get to the top of the castle.
S21: Runner gets Nitesco here, which is the token laser beam attack that will buff up some unions. They also get some boots to make Shanoa walk faster.
S22: Proof of how badass Nitesco and Dominus can be together. A short trek later gets us Rapidus Fio, which is the Black Panther of OoE.
S23: Nothing but map movement.
S24: More map movement. Valkyrie Mail is all around better than any armor you're wearing by now.
S25: Lots and lots of fumbling to get to Magnes and back. I'd say that there's a lot of time being lost by not having Magnes active ASAP, and that adds up a lot here. The Death Ring gives you massive stat boosts all over in exchange for basically making you a one hit kill. Totally necessary despite the risks.
S26: Dash dash dash.
S27: Keep in mind that the runner is level 18 when they start raining down 1k+ strikes on this boss. The whole fight is really gimmicky, so I'm glad it's over with really quickly. Second part of the Cerebus glyphs here. I should mention that shooting the gap in Eligor's back legs is a little tricky, but it saves a lot of time. Good work here all around.
S28: As you can see, Death is slowly becoming more and more of a chump with each passing game. Last of the Cerebus souls attained, then later used to access the top floors and put away FOREVER. The runner gets Volaticus, which lets you fly at a slow-ass speed, and I don't think it's really needed. I think I read somewhere that you can make the jump before Dracula without it, but it was really contrived and I never felt like testing it. It's something to look in to, I suppose.
S29: This is what the end boss boils down to: four union strikes. The last blast is a mandatory storyline scene, so whatever. Run over.
In the end, this has a few tiny flaws here and there. Maybe 15 seconds of combined luck improvements (enemies and boss AI) and an additional 10 seconds of tactics and routing (townfolk order, Magnes use, Schnitzel). I'd also like to see the Glyph Sleeve used so that we don't have to watch glyphs get swapped out all the time, but that has no real impact on the timing. All in all, it's a good run and I learned a lot from it.
Accepted.
For starters, Persona doesn't have a gender: Persona transcends pejorative titles.
Thankfully, this game is incredibly linear, so the majority of verification pertains to how well the runner handles the game. There is some planning necessary though, and it's done quite well for how quickly this seemed to pop up in the thread.
S1: Training at the academy is very straightforward. It's unfortunate that the backdashing seen in the tool assisted demos can't really be used in console runs. The time it would take to kill enemies in the Monastery would be made up by one level before the boss fight. The Magnes room is a little sloppy, especially when the runner doesn't shoot the doorway properly. A bit of time is lost getting hit by the Ghost and then the Banshee, but whatever. The boss fight is somehow IMPERFECT but the time loss is really small in the big picture. Segment ends in the town. I think this seg could be a little tighter and shave a second or two, but it's not that important. The real question is to whether getting the glyph from the Skeleton Knights is worth the time or not.
S2: Ruvas Forest is one of the many SMB 1-1 levels in this game. The runner spent the time to get a Magical Ticket and a Heart Repair, both of which will save lots of time later on. The luck with enemies is a bit sucky, but it's hard to get through the whole area with both chests, the Macir glyph, and having good enemy AI. Tiny dumb mistake in Kalidus (thought you had the double jump, eh?) costs a half second or so. I wonder if killing the Mermen is faster than waiting before safely jumping.
S3: I don't get why this Mermen avoiding tactic wasn't used in S2. Another IMPERFECT boss fight GOSH. Getting him to kick more is the fastest way to kill him, but you're so weak at this point that it's asking a lot just to go all out and not die.
S4: Magical Ticket manipulated here. These are like Library Cards in SOTN, by the way. The runner then kills a Tin Man using the new Dominus soul (at the expense of HP) in order to get a Strength Ring, which is totally helpful this early on. I don't get why the Glyph Sleeve was skipped, since it totally streamlines the run later on. The Brachyura fight was efficient, and the underside of Kalidus only had a few mistakes with enemies. Lots of skipped treasure chests for some reason.
S5: Theoretically, you can get a damage boost across the last gap in Tymeo in order to release one townsfolk early, but I don't think anyone has demonstrated it effectively. Why switch to Japanese?
S6: The Blow Ring manipulated here is another statmod accessory. Nothing to fix here, really.
S7: Another Blow Ring attained. Now the runner can do the accessory trick to boost stats a lot. It's pretty interesting to see the runner get down to 1 health.
S8: This bossfight is pretty sloppy. Lot of time lost to jump attacking when you can just wait for it to approach the ground and then let off a combo on it. Still, the runner was able to land the appropriate double damage attacks, so good job. With the new double jump item, the runner goes back to free someone from the prison area, getting the Tower Ring at the same time. No more enemy knock back! Then we go back to Kalidus to get someone that we could've saved earlier, so I don't get the route now. Everything is sold for heals, tickets, and attack raising Battle Boots. After saving the guy in Tymeo, the runner uses a ticket even when the exit is literally right there. I don't get it.
S9: Wind Rings bump up slash damage, so now blades will be the strongest glyphs. It's a pretty hollow segment otherwise.
S10: Just getting another Wind Ring.
S11: Boss fight could have been better. Closing the gap while using the unions would have maybe not had that hit occur. Fast otherwise.
S12: The Giant's Dwelling is really straightforward now that the runner has the Tower Ring. I don't get why a union was used to get at that glyph, since the time saved is negligible compared to the time saved using that on the next boss.
S13: Not much time could be saved on the boss here, but it's still probably possible.
S14: Good work here. Nothing to fix.
S15: Holy crap, this bossfight was pretty much perfect. A little time is lost using the second ticket from the (useless) Academy visit. No complaints otherwise.
S16: Interesting method used to avoid the swamp slowdown. Could shave maybe a second off of this segment if you're lucky.
S17: Is the Schnitzel really worth that 5 second detour? It's a short seg otherwise.
S18: Time could be saved here by only using unions when you're too far to hit Albus, but it's maybe a whole second for the whole fight. The luck involved here is really hard to manage, and the runner did some good QC here.
S19: Fuck, that battle was fast. I always hated using the Dominus souls due to their sapping nature, but this is proof that small amounts can really speed up certain fights. Now that we're at Dracula's Castle, the runner has to decide when to return to town and when/which boss to take on.
S20: The great thing about the boss fight for Paries is that he always throws the first bombs in the same locations, so the fight always takes one turn (unless you want a Super Potion). This is the time where the Glyph Sleeve would be great, since you can make your normal strike set up on A, slash on B, and wall moving on C to save a lot of menu time. Meh. Lots of walking gets us to the first Cerebus soul needed to get to the top of the castle.
S21: Runner gets Nitesco here, which is the token laser beam attack that will buff up some unions. They also get some boots to make Shanoa walk faster.
S22: Proof of how badass Nitesco and Dominus can be together. A short trek later gets us Rapidus Fio, which is the Black Panther of OoE.
S23: Nothing but map movement.
S24: More map movement. Valkyrie Mail is all around better than any armor you're wearing by now.
S25: Lots and lots of fumbling to get to Magnes and back. I'd say that there's a lot of time being lost by not having Magnes active ASAP, and that adds up a lot here. The Death Ring gives you massive stat boosts all over in exchange for basically making you a one hit kill. Totally necessary despite the risks.
S26: Dash dash dash.
S27: Keep in mind that the runner is level 18 when they start raining down 1k+ strikes on this boss. The whole fight is really gimmicky, so I'm glad it's over with really quickly. Second part of the Cerebus glyphs here. I should mention that shooting the gap in Eligor's back legs is a little tricky, but it saves a lot of time. Good work here all around.
S28: As you can see, Death is slowly becoming more and more of a chump with each passing game. Last of the Cerebus souls attained, then later used to access the top floors and put away FOREVER. The runner gets Volaticus, which lets you fly at a slow-ass speed, and I don't think it's really needed. I think I read somewhere that you can make the jump before Dracula without it, but it was really contrived and I never felt like testing it. It's something to look in to, I suppose.
S29: This is what the end boss boils down to: four union strikes. The last blast is a mandatory storyline scene, so whatever. Run over.
In the end, this has a few tiny flaws here and there. Maybe 15 seconds of combined luck improvements (enemies and boss AI) and an additional 10 seconds of tactics and routing (townfolk order, Magnes use, Schnitzel). I'd also like to see the Glyph Sleeve used so that we don't have to watch glyphs get swapped out all the time, but that has no real impact on the timing. All in all, it's a good run and I learned a lot from it.
Accepted.
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Ugh, another run with next to no comments. This is a run that could really use them, too. At least Tiki's are funny. This one's just a big plug for PileOfSecrets.
The audio is disgustingly loud. I don't know why this problem persists throughout the run. It can't be that hard to fix.
I'm not sure what to say about the video quality. It's certainly not as good as, say, the NSMB run, but I have seen worse too. The DS does move around the screen quite a bit. Which might explain why the videos are widescreen. If Nate can fix this, then we're okay. His thumb gets in the way of the screen a lot, too. Not enough to completely obstruct what's going on, but it is kinda distracting.
On to the run itself:
Seg 1: I believe it was determined by Aftermath that killing things instead of avoiding them would pay off in the end. That, and I find the sliding through enemies ugly and no more faster than just killing the things. He doesn't collect any hearts from candles, which is very surprising in a game whose boss fights kinda demand hearts. He only used one union on the boss, so collecting all those hearts might have allowed him to use a second. The first time he used Magnes he fudged it. The room with the first Banshee was handled very terribly. Getting hit that much should result in an instant reset, no matter how difficult the recording setup is. The third Banshee can be avoided by jumping away from it, no need to slide. I'm still wondering if getting Secare would pay off later on. Thanks to all those issues, the fight feels really slow. I think this is a terrible start to the run.
Seg 2: This is where Secare may pay off. With it, it's easier to kill things in your way. Getting hit at :58 should not have been an option, luck manipulation be damned. It just looks really ugly. That whole second stretch in general looked ugly because of how much he got hit. And never for the better there. At least in the third stretch he managed a damage boost. He should've collected the Magical Ticket before rescuing Jacob; he would've got a small warp forward that way. Secare also makes killing the Mermen in Kalidus easier. He got knocked backward a lot here. And the focus was wacking out the whole time in Kalidus. Is that enough to reject a run? I don't know.
Seg 3: Okay, he fixed the focus issue here. So why couldn't he redo Segment 2 to get rid of that problem? If it's because of the luck involved there, that's no excuse. Just suck up your pride and try again. I'm the sure the hit on the boss was avoidable, but still that was a good fight. I would definitely kill the enemies in the way. He should be closer when absorbing the first Dominus; when you have to move forward anyway, the less the glyph has to travel, the better.
Seg 4: I just noticed the fingernail on that thumb. Should I be saying she instead of he? Meh, I'm not here to judge that. Giant enemy crab went well. Some unnecessary hits from the blue things, but otherwise the rest was good.
Seg 5: The pause near the first bunch of spiders is really necessary? And you switched to the Japanese voices? What a weeaboo. lol
Seg 6: No problem.
Seg 7: Perhaps avoiding the hit at 1:08 would've allowed a bit more breathing room?
Seg 8: No problem.
Seg 9: If he could've avoided getting poisoned as early as he did, could he have had enough energy to take the hit from the fish person at 1:36?
Seg 10: It has to be possible to get two rare chests in one trip. It just has to. Hard as hell, though.
Seg 11: Not bad.
Seg 12: No problem.
Seg 13: Again, get closer to the glyph before you absorb it.
Seg 14: No problem.
Seg 15: Was a Vol Grando/weapon union not an option? The fight was very good, regardless. And the boss' death cry sounds infinitely less silly in Japanese. Why'd they even bother to redub that?
Seg 16: Kinda forgot about divekicking. This is the first time he's ever used it. I know some like to move around using small dive kicks in the DSVanias. It's marginally faster to do so, but annoying.
Seg 17: No problem.
Seg 18: Good to hear Albus' scream is ridiculous in both languages.
Seg 19: No problem.
Seg 20: Was collecting the orb necessary? Could he have avoided a hit or two somewhere?
Seg 21: No problem.
Seg 22: So, Blackmore lost.
Seg 23: No problem.
Seg 24: No problem.
Seg 25: Okay.
Seg 26: Smooth.
Seg 27: A smile always crawls across my face when a bitch like Eligor gets his just desserts. But why did it take two unions to break the front legs, but more than that on the hind legs? I thought they had the same stats.
Seg 28: He made Death look even easier than he already is. Well done.
Seg 29: Dracula got annihilated.
This run got off to a very bad start. But it did improve over time. The last batch of segments are nearly flawless, dare I say, like TAS. It's further under an hour that I would've imagined. And it's nice to finally see Serris' fingers get the exercise, instead of just his brain mapping out the routes. Because of that, I'm willing to give the first few a break for now, and I'll accept the run. But if an improvement comes around, I expect the first few segments to be WAY better.
The audio is disgustingly loud. I don't know why this problem persists throughout the run. It can't be that hard to fix.
I'm not sure what to say about the video quality. It's certainly not as good as, say, the NSMB run, but I have seen worse too. The DS does move around the screen quite a bit. Which might explain why the videos are widescreen. If Nate can fix this, then we're okay. His thumb gets in the way of the screen a lot, too. Not enough to completely obstruct what's going on, but it is kinda distracting.
On to the run itself:
Seg 1: I believe it was determined by Aftermath that killing things instead of avoiding them would pay off in the end. That, and I find the sliding through enemies ugly and no more faster than just killing the things. He doesn't collect any hearts from candles, which is very surprising in a game whose boss fights kinda demand hearts. He only used one union on the boss, so collecting all those hearts might have allowed him to use a second. The first time he used Magnes he fudged it. The room with the first Banshee was handled very terribly. Getting hit that much should result in an instant reset, no matter how difficult the recording setup is. The third Banshee can be avoided by jumping away from it, no need to slide. I'm still wondering if getting Secare would pay off later on. Thanks to all those issues, the fight feels really slow. I think this is a terrible start to the run.
Seg 2: This is where Secare may pay off. With it, it's easier to kill things in your way. Getting hit at :58 should not have been an option, luck manipulation be damned. It just looks really ugly. That whole second stretch in general looked ugly because of how much he got hit. And never for the better there. At least in the third stretch he managed a damage boost. He should've collected the Magical Ticket before rescuing Jacob; he would've got a small warp forward that way. Secare also makes killing the Mermen in Kalidus easier. He got knocked backward a lot here. And the focus was wacking out the whole time in Kalidus. Is that enough to reject a run? I don't know.
Seg 3: Okay, he fixed the focus issue here. So why couldn't he redo Segment 2 to get rid of that problem? If it's because of the luck involved there, that's no excuse. Just suck up your pride and try again. I'm the sure the hit on the boss was avoidable, but still that was a good fight. I would definitely kill the enemies in the way. He should be closer when absorbing the first Dominus; when you have to move forward anyway, the less the glyph has to travel, the better.
Seg 4: I just noticed the fingernail on that thumb. Should I be saying she instead of he? Meh, I'm not here to judge that. Giant enemy crab went well. Some unnecessary hits from the blue things, but otherwise the rest was good.
Seg 5: The pause near the first bunch of spiders is really necessary? And you switched to the Japanese voices? What a weeaboo. lol
Seg 6: No problem.
Seg 7: Perhaps avoiding the hit at 1:08 would've allowed a bit more breathing room?
Seg 8: No problem.
Seg 9: If he could've avoided getting poisoned as early as he did, could he have had enough energy to take the hit from the fish person at 1:36?
Seg 10: It has to be possible to get two rare chests in one trip. It just has to. Hard as hell, though.
Seg 11: Not bad.
Seg 12: No problem.
Seg 13: Again, get closer to the glyph before you absorb it.
Seg 14: No problem.
Seg 15: Was a Vol Grando/weapon union not an option? The fight was very good, regardless. And the boss' death cry sounds infinitely less silly in Japanese. Why'd they even bother to redub that?
Seg 16: Kinda forgot about divekicking. This is the first time he's ever used it. I know some like to move around using small dive kicks in the DSVanias. It's marginally faster to do so, but annoying.
Seg 17: No problem.
Seg 18: Good to hear Albus' scream is ridiculous in both languages.
Seg 19: No problem.
Seg 20: Was collecting the orb necessary? Could he have avoided a hit or two somewhere?
Seg 21: No problem.
Seg 22: So, Blackmore lost.
Seg 23: No problem.
Seg 24: No problem.
Seg 25: Okay.
Seg 26: Smooth.
Seg 27: A smile always crawls across my face when a bitch like Eligor gets his just desserts. But why did it take two unions to break the front legs, but more than that on the hind legs? I thought they had the same stats.
Seg 28: He made Death look even easier than he already is. Well done.
Seg 29: Dracula got annihilated.
This run got off to a very bad start. But it did improve over time. The last batch of segments are nearly flawless, dare I say, like TAS. It's further under an hour that I would've imagined. And it's nice to finally see Serris' fingers get the exercise, instead of just his brain mapping out the routes. Because of that, I'm willing to give the first few a break for now, and I'll accept the run. But if an improvement comes around, I expect the first few segments to be WAY better.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a good start, and the final segments are very well-optimized.
Thread title: