Eternal Sonata - May 12, 2021

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2021-05-12 04:32:30 am

2021-04-26 03:22:22 am

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/EternalSonata.html

Eternal Sonata () (ps3) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'valor'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2021-04-26 03:22:22 am

Run Information

Eternal Sonata () (ps3) [Any %] [Single Segment]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/eternalsonata-v_IQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). If you wish to remain anonymous, you can also send a pm with your reply to 'sdaverification' (please state clearly in that case which run you have verified). This is not a contest where the majority wins - Each verification will be judged on its content.

LotBlind

2021-05-03 09:00:14 am

A/V: I think all the corruption I'm seeing is the kind I'll usually always see due to my poor Internet, so this should be okay.

Fighting: I think mostly good judgment is used when to try to sneak past enemies and when to take a fight that you quickly escape from instead, though I wonder... Occasionally you try to sneak past, but the enemy turns around at the last moment. Would some of those give you the first turn if you managed to quickly spin around to face the enemy so they don't "back attack" you? Looks like a few places where that could have been done maybe.

Man, the attacks deal such a variable amount of damage, it often feels like the other characters might as well be taking a break as the main DPS does his/her thing, which actually is the case in some fights. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye? Maybe everyone dealing blows means the archer is more likely to get left alone.

Also if you let the enemies take their turns first, they'll spend some time running to you, you'll take a few hits, but this may cause them to clump up so your attacks can hit both of them at once. This seems to work in your favor in the fight against the Florite Mice at 18:00 for example. But is it not overall better that way?

32:30 - Really? You have to feed those puny goats to get to cross the bridge? I say bowl them over!

1:38:10 - This is maybe a clear-cut mistake because it looks like you kind of run further left than you have to which causes the enemy to turn and chase you. Should have either tried to lure them further or stayed as far away as possible.

2:16:00 - Not sure if there was ever a chance to squeeze through there or not.

2:21:25 - That's a fake horse.

3:28:43 - Might be an unforced error to get this encounter.

The menuing isn't quite perfect: there's pauses for thought and wrong inputs here and there, but it's adequate for a 4-hour run. I think the runner is clearing the whole active inventory in many cases before restacking it to not have to count what's left in. Maybe in the future someone will manage a run where the existing items are kept and menus are a bit more "aggressive" in general. There's probably some improvisation involved. I notice you're almost out of items by the last big bosses. Similarly, there's some room for memorizing the room layouts better to beeline from corner to corner more precisely, but again, the runner doesn't get gratingly stuck anywhere for very long. A few cases do look kind of unnecessary. Like the last tower, there's multiple times when a room is entered, then re-entered straight after... or does that do something?

There's obviously more going on with all the fights and things than meets the untrained eye here. There's evidence of trying different strategies so these probably aren't the worst to go with. I'll see if the runner has time to reply here before giving my verdict.

A/V: I think all the corruption I'm seeing is the kind I'll usually always see due to my poor Internet, so this should be okay.

Fighting: I think mostly good judgment is used when to try to sneak past enemies and when to take a fight that you quickly escape from instead, though I wonder... Occasionally you try to sneak past, but the enemy turns around at the last moment. Would some of those give you the first turn if you managed to quickly spin around to face the enemy so they don't "back attack" you? Looks like a few places where that could have been done maybe.

Man, the attacks deal such a variable amount of damage, it often feels like the other characters might as well be taking a break as the main DPS does his/her thing, which actually is the case in some fights. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye? Maybe everyone dealing blows means the archer is more likely to get left alone.

Also if you let the enemies take their turns first, they'll spend some time running to you, you'll take a few hits, but this may cause them to clump up so your attacks can hit both of them at once. This seems to work in your favor in the fight against the Florite Mice at 18:00 for example. But is it not overall better that way?

32:30 - Really? You have to feed those puny goats to get to cross the bridge? I say bowl them over!

1:38:10 - This is maybe a clear-cut mistake because it looks like you kind of run further left than you have to which causes the enemy to turn and chase you. Should have either tried to lure them further or stayed as far away as possible.

2:16:00 - Not sure if there was ever a chance to squeeze through there or not.

2:21:25 - That's a fake horse.

3:28:43 - Might be an unforced error to get this encounter.

The menuing isn't quite perfect: there's pauses for thought and wrong inputs here and there, but it's adequate for a 4-hour run. I think the runner is clearing the whole active inventory in many cases before restacking it to not have to count what's left in. Maybe in the future someone will manage a run where the existing items are kept and menus are a bit more "aggressive" in general. There's probably some improvisation involved. I notice you're almost out of items by the last big bosses. Similarly, there's some room for memorizing the room layouts better to beeline from corner to corner more precisely, but again, the runner doesn't get gratingly stuck anywhere for very long. A few cases do look kind of unnecessary. Like the last tower, there's multiple times when a room is entered, then re-entered straight after... or does that do something?

There's obviously more going on with all the fights and things than meets the untrained eye here. There's evidence of trying different strategies so these probably aren't the worst to go with. I'll see if the runner has time to reply here before giving my verdict.

valor

2021-05-03 01:48:08 pm

Fights - it's usually one person for dps and the others support, and your damage dealer is either Viola or Falsetto. Exceptions to this are trick or treat, where Jazz deals great damage alongside Viola, and death crow, where Falsetto can help a little with the damage, and you need to build echoes anyway in case the adds are revived. Also, in the hidden one + white jewel fights, your big combo doesn't quite kill the boss, so you need some extra damage from Viola's arrows (50k and 100k respectively).

Sneaking past - yes, you usually get the first turn unless it's a back attack. But in my experience the characters turn quite slowly and it's not a good approach to try and turn last minute. If you keep running, you have a chance for the mob to stutter step and lose interest, or else to reach the end of its designated area. For the mobs that have been catching me in past runs quite often, I tend to run into them directly and just take the 6-7 second time loss. But sometimes you forget which mobs are the dangerous ones, or maybe you see the mob away from its usual spot and hope to get lucky. This is actually quite an interesting aspect of the run, as you can always wait longer / run directly in, but playing it riskier gives you a lot of little time saves that add up nicely sometimes.

1:30:10 - was a mistake, you can run by on the right.

2:16:00 - 90% of the time its easy to run past that mob, but here he was in a specific spot, would have been better to just wait for him to move.

3:28:43 - Yes, I was put off by the onion mob, changed direction too drastically and went back into the mouse.

Last tower - It's not intentional. I'm holding the direction stick as each screen loads to get moving a half second sooner. Need to memorize the spots where there's a danger of backing into the previous screen.

From the comments I've submitted you can get a sense of how good the run is, as I've gone through the segments where the most time was lost (compared with best splits).

Hope this helps.

Fights - it's usually one person for dps and the others support, and your damage dealer is either Viola or Falsetto. Exceptions to this are trick or treat, where Jazz deals great damage alongside Viola, and death crow, where Falsetto can help a little with the damage, and you need to build echoes anyway in case the adds are revived. Also, in the hidden one + white jewel fights, your big combo doesn't quite kill the boss, so you need some extra damage from Viola's arrows (50k and 100k respectively).

Sneaking past - yes, you usually get the first turn unless it's a back attack. But in my experience the characters turn quite slowly and it's not a good approach to try and turn last minute. If you keep running, you have a chance for the mob to stutter step and lose interest, or else to reach the end of its designated area. For the mobs that have been catching me in past runs quite often, I tend to run into them directly and just take the 6-7 second time loss. But sometimes you forget which mobs are the dangerous ones, or maybe you see the mob away from its usual spot and hope to get lucky. This is actually quite an interesting aspect of the run, as you can always wait longer / run directly in, but playing it riskier gives you a lot of little time saves that add up nicely sometimes.

1:30:10 - was a mistake, you can run by on the right.

2:16:00 - 90% of the time its easy to run past that mob, but here he was in a specific spot, would have been better to just wait for him to move.

3:28:43 - Yes, I was put off by the onion mob, changed direction too drastically and went back into the mouse.

Last tower - It's not intentional. I'm holding the direction stick as each screen loads to get moving a half second sooner. Need to memorize the spots where there's a danger of backing into the previous screen.

From the comments I've submitted you can get a sense of how good the run is, as I've gone through the segments where the most time was lost (compared with best splits).

Hope this helps.

SDAVerification

2021-05-03 03:49:32 pm

Sharing quotes from a pm discussion about the difference between the PS3 and the X360 versions.

Quote:

This isn't comparable to [...] xbox360 times, while this is the ps3 version which has extra areas/bosses etc.

The new sections in the ps3 version are quite consistent and account for 21-23 minutes of the time difference. Other than that, the boss fights are generally slower, because the level of your characters is lower (exp reduced) and some of the fights have been reworked, increasing the difficulty. Also, random encounters are harder to avoid, meaning that running through each area takes a little bit longer.

[...] the amount of rng is only slightly higher than on xbox, it’s mainly just a longer run with more opportunities for a game over if you misplay.

For the first ~1 hour 40 min, up to Dolce, the runs look very similar and the times aren’t so different.

LotBlind

2021-05-04 05:37:21 am

Right, it's clear there's a lot of work been put into this game already and so I think the little mistakes I pointed out (and the ones I didn't) won't shake the verdict here. Clearly bigger time losses were avoided just surviving each fight.

accept

Worn_Traveler

2021-05-05 03:10:25 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

A/V is good. No cheating detected.

Well researched and executed. The runner takes what the game gives and does the best with it. That was enjoyable to watch.

Accept.

SDAVerification

2021-05-12 04:32:31 am

Decision posted.