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Daisuke 'Hattori' Hattori's nightmare mode run

Verifier Responses

Quote:
Fatal Frame III (JPN)
Nightmare mode, New Game
Clear Time: 3hr 08min 29sec

Movie Quality: Good enough

Mode: Nightmare, New Game
To unlock Nightmare mode, we need to beat Normal mode once and Hard mode once, at least. In most case, people play this most difficult mode as a *Load Game* with maximized Camera(Weapon). However, Hattori started to play this mode from the *New Game* (out of box) without having any advantage of previous plays. No doubt this is the most difficult condition to play FF3. Normally, people have difficulty even beating this mode under this condition (because of lack of films and recovery items).

Saving Data: No cheating
Number of Savings: Relatively more than usual. But considering the difficulty of many enemy fighting parts (including randomization), that's acceptable.

Techniques for speedrunning: Hattori's strategy is outstanding, although it's not perfect (Hattori himself mentions it in his comment). One big defect is lack of *stairway technique* that could've improved his result time by several minutes, I guess. This play was completed in 2005 and at that time this stairway technique was not discovered yet. We cannot blame him. And I don't want to reject this play just because of that. Considering the amount of new information we can obtain from his play, *stairway technique* is very subtle. Next challenger probably should use this technique though.

Strategy 1: Calculating the points to upgrade Camera
Strategy 2: Optimize upgrading to defeat enemies quickly
Strategy 3: Calculating the damage to enemies to establish fighting strategies (the damage is different depends on films and Lv of Camera). And this strategy directly connected to Strategy 1.
Strategy 4: Try to run along the wall (sometimes not successful because of the difficult game controlling system).

Route of playing:
As Hattori himself mentions in his comment, some routes could be improved. Such as in Hour 6, 12, and 13. But he didn't lose so much time because of this. So, this is no problem.

Fighting with Enemies:
Hattori fought with enemies only when it was necessary to beat the game. Amazing strategies supported by his fatal frame technique and his knowledge of this game. Hattori himself mentions in his comment that some enemy fighting didn't go well as he expected (But in most case, subsequent fighting went well enough to obtain successful short result time in the end of the segments). However, they are still well done enough for speedrunning. Next challenger will be able to improve his strategy after watching this movie.

Summary:
Overall, this is a great strategic play. Although there are some mistakes in this play (some are obvious and others are not so obvious), this play definitely give us many strategies and ideas to improve and understand the speedrun of this game. This play will be a great step to obtain the *perfect play* some time in the close future by some other FF3 speedrunners. it's definitely worth being published at SDA for the 1st speedrun play of Fatal Frame series. As far as I know, this will be the only super-play of FF3 available on-line by far.

Conclusion: Accept


Quote:
Fatal Frame 3

Segment 1

Before I begin, I’d like to start off with a short explanation of where I’m coming from as this might help understand my comments better.  I played Fatal Frame 1 & 2 long after each came out and loved them.  Fatal Frame 3 is one of the few games I preordered and picked up on release, and I love it even more than the others.  In what other game can you use a camera to defeat your enemies?

…okay, don’t answer that.  I’m living in blissful ignorance here, and I rather like it…

ANYWAY, this segment is rather lack luster as it’s the intro to the game itself.  Obviously, route memorization is clearly going to be key to speed running this game.  With that in mind, the first and only ghost fight shows why speed running this game is going to be somewhat problematic: the ghosts seem to be rather random as they disappear and reappear somewhere in the vicinity of the player.  The other problem is going to be the controls.  If I remember correctly, the third person controls aren’t the best controls in the world.  You can see it where the runner kind of swerves at times in order to position himself for the next screen or to get to a door quickly.

Still, the segment’s done rather cleanly and there’s no evidence of cheating.

NITPICKER’S CORNER: The first picture the runner takes, he accidentally moves the camera in the wrong spot, then needs to readjust to take the photo.  Then, at around 9:45 in this clip, the runner runs into a corner of the wall while trying to run back downstairs to talk to Miku.

Okay…fair warning: I am, in fact, a lawyer, so I may write a LOT…

Segment 2
It’s pretty amazing to watch the runner know exactly where to be pointing to take photos of some of the harmless spirits of the manor without needing to move the viewfinder all that much.  That’s a good way to build up SP for the upgrades he gets.

In his spirit fight of the segment, I love how he gets a ridiculous six hit combo.  I think the best I ever did with that was around three. Slight problem where one of his shots doesn’t seem to register though.  Again, the problem with this game is going to be the randomness of it.  Sometimes, your photo shots just don’t register as hits for no good reason.  It happens at 8:45.  I wouldn’t say it degrades the run at all, but it does make him lose a fair amount of seconds I’d say.

NITPICKER’S CORNER: The runner keeps scraping into walls which is obviously slowing him down.  It’s noticeable to me only because I’m looking for it in this segment.  Nothing as noticeable as running into the corner of the wall in the first segment.

Segment 3
Another mostly clean segment with some actual fights against a few vengeful spirits which is always exciting.  I forgot how powerful that Type-61 film is, but the difference can be clearly seen in this segment.  Once again, capturing a couple of harmless spirits directly in his path to collect Spirit Points is done rather quickly with pretty good precision.  The vengeful spirit fights go relatively well.  At least one unlucky spot where the runner racks up a serious combo only to have the spirit fall back into and through the wall, preventing any more combo shots.

These fights also remind me he is playing this as a pure new game on Nightmare.  Darned ghosts take forever to kill…even with the Type-61 film he has to take four shots to kill one spirit.

I also believe he gets a load of spirit points in these fights with all the combos and the like.  Upgrading the camera is essential in this game…but as I’ve noticed, the runner has planned his upgrades carefully.

Watching this run made me want to play the game again myself.  After having done so over the past hour and watching this, I realize I was correct about the control scheme.  It doesn’t make speedrunning easy.  What else is great about this game is the story…not that you get any of it by watching this run, but still…love this game.

NITPICKER’S CORNER: At 9:46 again, the runner’s nemesis, the corner of the upstairs wall, strikes again and he gets caught on it, losing like maybe a half second or less.  Again, it’s just a small thing, but it’s rather noticeable on an otherwise very clean segment.

Segment 4
Short segment, but clean and quick.  I don’t think the developers really expected players to run away from all of the optional vengeful spirits since most of their attacks are extremely slow and their movements are just as slow.  Twice vengeful spirits appear directly next to the runner and he just zooms right past them.

I’ve also just realized I don’t believe the runner has taken any damage yet.  That’s either quite amazing, or I just really suck at this game…though those aren’t mutually exclusive…and I know, he probably ran this segment like 10 times or more to get this down to this time, but still…I can’t play the game on Normal without getting hit…

Not much to this segment otherwise really.  Item gathering for later I’m assuming.

Segment 5
Watching the first vengeful spirit fight in this, I’ve realized something else about this runner: he knows when the spirit is defeated before it goes through its death animation.

In the second he pulls off a seven hit combo.  If the run does not get posted, I would post this segment alone for the sheer ownage of it all.

Rei’s house time again, but no evil corners to contend with this time.  While these parts of the game serve as a mental break for a normal player to let you figure out the story, since we don’t care about the story in a speed run they’re rather dull segments if you haven’t played the game before.  Doesn’t degrade the quality of the run or anything, I just wanna get back to the action!  Ya know, the great action of taking pictures of spirits trying to kill you.  … *ahem*  I might like this game a bit too much…

Segment 6
Miku’s first segment and I must say I completely geeked out when I found out you got to play with the main character from the first Fatal Frame game.  Not to mention you start off in an area that looks exactly like the mansion from the first game too.  Gosh it’s creepy and I freaking loved it.

First spirit fight: a five and three hit combo, taking the knife wielding spirit out rather quickly.  It starts off with the runner darting over towards the right wall which at first is seemingly random, but according to the runner’s comments (again, through a translator), he goes to the corner in order to manipulate where the vengeful spirit will go, giving him the best place to combo it.

Second Spirit fight: I hate this room.  I hated this room in Fatal Frame 1, and they brought it back in this game.  Limited movement, small space in general, annoyingly quick moving spirit…yeah, it sucks.  The Runner makes pretty quick work out of it though.  A few missed shots, but that happens a lot in this game as the spirits fall into the walls

Third Spirit fight: Miku’s slow down special ability really comes in handy at times, making amazingly quick work out of this one.  You can tell the game really wants Miku to fight because she’s the one with all the experience with the Camera Obscura.

NITPICKER’S CORNER: Around 9:12 when the runner comes out of Miku’s room, he runs into the wall directly across the hallway, going in the wrong direction.  I still blame the control scheme on this.

All in all a rather quick and mostly clean segment again.  I haven’t mentioned it in awhile, but I see no evidence of cheating or modification as of yet.

Segment 7
Oh, it’s time for Kei’s segment.  I didn’t really like these all that much when I played the game.  The first few segments I had to hide from the spirits a lot, but later I powered up his camera enough to just fight everything I came across.

*watches segment*

…BULLS***.  I mean…really?  You can just completely ignore Kei’s entire gameplay mechanic and just run past everything?  The spirits Kei faces all have blind spots Kei’s supposed to hide in because he really sucks with the camera and basically needs to run from everything.  This is reinforced in the instruction book and the game itself like twice.  Yet, the runner disregards all of this and just runs past and sometimes through the spirits chasing him because their attack animations are just that slow.  Worse yet, the runner runs directly next to the Tattooed Maiden and grabs the Camera Obscura, and she doesn’t even notice he’s there until he starts running away.  How do you even think of that?

And no, he’s not cheating, he’s just exploiting the in game AI to in order to rush through the game like any other good speed runner.  It’s a good, clean segment; I’m just pissed I didn’t realize you could do that. -.-

This is where you start to notice that the runner REALLY knows this game well.  If you don’t know you can do this, you will spend an hour or more doing exactly what TECMO wants you to do: hide and slowly creep around until you get that one moment to run to the next area.

Segment 8
I hate the fight with the little girl spirit in the rafters.  …not the fight in the run, just the fight in general.  The run shows off why I hate this fight; very limited space, the spirit falls into the wall a lot of the time, making combos really hard to pull off, and she’s really small (ya know…being a little girl and all…).  It does hold the runner up a bit, but I doubt it could have been done much faster without an extreme amount of luck, and considering how the rest of the segment went, I’d say he got his luck on the rest of the segment.

Unless you know this game, you might not understand how hard it is to position yourself for a vengeful spirit fight.  Heck, I’m not even sure I know how to do it right; I just ran around and took pictures.

The required fight around 11:30 is done very nicely.  Not only does the runner take care of him quickly, he nicely uses his Booster Shot twice in the same battle.  This shows the different between Normal and Nightmare since the Spirit would have been dead long before the Runner would have been able to charge up his SP enough to make a second Boost Shot.

Not much else to say here.  The segment’s quite clean and goes overall smoothly.

Segment 9
Now I see why the runner decided to leave the Manor at the end of segment 8 without finishing the objective; the first spirit battle he comes to can likely be done much quicker if he reenters the Manor from that point, rather than trying to fight the spirit when entering the room from the opposite side.  Clever.  I might be thinking too much into it though as he might just have needed to replenish his items.  Certain items in your inventory reset every time you leave the Manor, which you can do at will so long as you reach an exit.

The Runner tries to use his flashes to back the spirits up to get them in a better position for a Fatal Frame shot.  It works well on the first battle, but the second battle, no such luck.  Maybe there’s another reason he’s doing it, but for the life of me I can’t figure it out.

NOTE: I have since been given an explanation by the runner (through a translator) that the reason for the flashes is indeed to keep the spirit coming towards him at all times.  Guess it does actually work…the problem is if the viewer doesn’t know what’s going on, it LOOKS like a mistake, but according to the Runner, this is exactly what he intended.

NITPICKER’S CORNER: Once again the controls get in the way of an otherwise smooth run.  At around 1:37 the runner gets caught on a corner again and it’s decently noticeable.

The Japanese voice acting is a lot better than the English version.  At least the voices don’t sound like they were recorded in a small, empty room…

Segment 10
There’s a part of this part of the game that’s really creepy.  The player, as Miku, gets into a crawl space under the manor and starts crawling to the next destination when a creepy, crawling woman spirit jumps out at you and you have to fight it.

…or, at least you’re supposed to do that.  This guy?  Nah; just crawl past her.  She apparently won’t hurt you at all so long as you just keep moving forward, as is the case with most of the spirits in this game…

The battle against the little girl spirit was very quick.  Nice use of the maxed double shot with Miku’s ability, going into an easy four combo kill…well, easy for the runner anyway.

It’s too bad a good chunk of this segment is slow walking/crawling.  From walking in the rafters to tiny crawl spaces; you really couldn’t do this part much faster.  Although, even with the slow walking, the darned spirits still can’t attack a moving target.  Amazing…

Bad AI = Easier speed run I guess.  I’m not even sure this is “Bad AI” as it could just be bad design but still…

Segment 11
Start off with some navigating hallways and item collecting.  Not really that exciting, but hey…it’s part of the game.  I really wish I spoke Japanese…the creepy voices really fit the mood.

He places those four orbs rather quickly then nicely skips past the singing children.

Spirit fight!  Now we’re gonna get to see some action.  I believe this is a boss fight too, or as close to a boss fight as this game gets.  No combos but I don’t think you CAN combo this one.  The randomness of this game haunts the run again (ha!  Get it?  HAUNTS the run?  HA!  Okay I’ll shut up now…).  Anyway, the spirit randomly teleports away; you need to get really lucky for it to stay still for a moment.  The runner makes a good choice and finally just takes the final picture not waiting for the Fatal Frame shot.  Lucky for him, it was the final shot he needed to kill it.

More running and less running into walls.  At the end the runner has to listen to a few audio tapes…well…he has to play them anyway.  The game doesn’t force you to actually sit through them all as they can be skipped.

Segment 12
I don’t know what it’s called in Japanese, but the “Manor of Sleep” doesn’t really sound all that threatening…

Oh great, Kei again.

The runner starts off by picking up Type-14 film.  I wonder what he needed it for since you always start off with 30 shots of it every time you enter the Manor.

Oh look, a spirit you’re supposed to hide from.  Hey look, the runner’s just running past it…whadda know?  He’s not even hiding, he’s GOADING it to follow him so he can waste enough time for the Crimson Butterfly (reference to Fatal Frame 2) to show up and run into the door he needs to.  WTF…WHY DOES THAT LOOK SO EASY?  WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?

Oh, and I HATED this puzzle here…ya know, the one the Runner take all of seven seconds to open?  Yeah…that one.

I see the reason for the Type-14 film pick up now.  Kei is so weak with the camera that it takes many shots to kill the one spirit he must fight.  The Runner lights this one up like the spirit’s posing for Playboy.  I highly doubt there’s a faster way to do this, even if it looks a little odd to be taking all sorts of low powered shots rather than the high powered use of the Camera Obscura we’re used to watching him do.  Kei really is that much worse with the camera.

Rather smooth segment.  It doesn’t look the greatest because of Kei’s fight, but that’s not the fault of the runner’s; that’s exactly how that fight goes.

Segment 13
The runner’s getting better at cornering.  This is an eerie part of the game indeed.

Hey look…a spirit appear he has to fight.  Oh look, a five hit combo and it’s dead in no time at all.

Hey look…the segment’s over…wow…that was quick.  I don’t have comments to base this off of, but I’m guessing that spirit fight can be rather random and a segment was warranted.

Segment 14
It might look like a mistake at :40 where the runner moves to his viewfinder for no reason, but that, I believe, stops an animation from happening, saving a few seconds or more here.

More navigating through the manner, grabbing items and unsealing doors.  A few quick upgrades of the lenses and we’re right back on track.  I don’t know why he picked right THEN to upgrade, but considering he doesn’t have to ever go into the menu otherwise, a slight detour to get there is understandable.

Another deliciously amazing picture combo later and another vengeful spirit beaten down.

Again, if I may say I love the way the story’s given in this game.  I love the eerie tone, I love the atmosphere…none of which you really get in this speed run, but some of it remains.  This segment shows that nicely.  Evil spirits are released into the manor and from now on you have to grab candles to protect yourself.  If you let the Holy Candle burn down to nothing, you’ll have the Tattooed Maiden chase after you, and you cannot kill or stop her.  …I rather doubt the runner will really care too much about that considering his disregard for the other game mechanics, but hey…whatever.

Kei’s back, but we only see him run around a bit until the end of the segment.  Apparently that’s all he’s good for.

Segment 15
The video quality of the start of this segment is awful!  It’s all black and white and grainy!  …oh wait…that’s the way the game is at this point…always thought this part was strange, but when you’re into the game, it fits.

Anyway, we’re starting with Kei, and once again the runner is running past all the spirits he is normally supposed to “hide” from.

Once again the runner is grabbing film I don’t know what he needs for yet, but I am sure there will be a reason to grab the extra Type-14 film.

The game forces the runner to slow down as he walks across wooden beams in the rafters.  That leads directly to what I would consider a boss fight.  Two vengeful spirits at once with the weakest character in the game…yeah, not fair.  There is one or two missed opportunities for combo shots or Fatal Frames here, but considering what the runner is dealing with, he seems to be focusing on charging up his spirit power to use the special lenses.

I think the battle is a little rough around the edges, but again, most of the battles in this game have a good deal of luck attached to them.  I think the segment as a whole shows the Runner’s mastery of the game and the runner does a very good job taking out the vengeful spirits as quickly as he can.

Segment 16
Another part in Rei’s house.  I forgot how much this game forces you to slow down and take the story in.  In the context of the game, it’s nice…for speed running, they’re just in the way.

Another segment with Miku, my favorite character.  She was the only character I felt comfortable with running around the Manor exploring with.  I might be biased though because I loved Fatal Frame 1.

Smooth sailing for the first half of the segment.  More finding of powerful film for later.  As much as I’m surprised to see the runner pick up a Holy Candle, it was in his way.  It’s very possible the game forced him to find it.

I haven’t been commenting on this too much lately, but the runner, at times, still has a few issues with running into walls or scraping up against corners.  After playing the game again, I don’t take issue with this.  The controls are quite awkward for speed running.  You weren’t supposed to blast through this game.

Another nice and smooth segment.  No action though, but it’s following the necessary path to get to where you need to be for the story to continue. 

Segment 17
Boss battle!  …and three shots later it’s over!  Wow, that was quick.  That’s what you save up the good film for…not family pictures, but to defeat boss spirits.

Segment 18
Candle’s getting low, but I think Miku part’s almost over.  I think the runner’s gotten better at controlling the character now, as running down the long spiral stairway goes very smoothly.

Another boss fight against multiple sprits.  All die in short order.  Again we’re placed back in the real world and it’s more of a chore than actual gameplay.  Again, these parts are great for the story…not so much here.  Still, he gets around the house cleanly here.  Another short segment.

Segment 19
Another required battle with Miku.  I forgot how much you get to use her near the end here.  The runner kills this thing rather quickly.  I don’t remember this being too hard per say, but still, the speed the runner is killing these things on Nightmare is impressive.  Of course, Miku sees the spirit of her lost brother and has to follow…putting her into a permanent sleep…unless Rei and Kei can do something about it!  Well…mostly Rei…because Kei sucks.  This also is my favorite cut-scene of the game, which, of course, is skipped.

Required story time; going to boyfriend’s room and reading all sorts of stuff I can’t understand because it’s in Japanese.  As the segment ends, we’re about to head into the dream world and fight the evil spirits!  …kinda like a Nightmare of Elm Street movie…except with a camera…anyway, good house maneuvering, does things as quickly as possible.

Segment 20
A required battle with Kei…oh boy.  It takes the runner a 5 hit combo, a powered up lens ability shot, and another two more combos or so to defeat it.  He picks up some more Type-14, but at this point I’m convinced he’ll need it.  He practically used all of it on the last fight.

Puzzle solving goes fast and smooth.  Guess it’s easy when you’ve memorized the entire game.  It’s really amazing how little you need to use Kei’s “hide” ability in a normal play through at this point.  I remember upping his abilities enough to be able to fight everything that came my way with him.

Slight turning mistake at 8:55.  I’ll blame the controls and the time lost is extremely minimal.  Candle goes out and the game goes black and white and grainy.  At this point, he’s constantly being chased by the Tattooed Maiden…but that doesn’t seem to matter since, once again, the power of running beats everyone.

Another slight turning mistake as he makes a complete circle to turn right.  It’s strange since the runner’s been doing so well with that lately.

Segment 21
The game continues with Kei.  We get to see the runner run down the spiral stair case again.  Now Kei has a boss fight, and this is why the runner picked up the extra film back in Segment 20.  The thing about this fight that no one may notice unless they’ve played it is that this spirit is actually attacking him.  The Runner apparently just side steps all of the attacks while in first person mode, and that is REALLY hard to coordinate.

Finally it’s dead, and with only 12 shots of Type-14 left, he needed all of the film pick ups he made before.  Using his stock of Type-7, the worst film in the game, would have made that fight take so much longer.

So, Kei disappeared from the real world and now it’s all up to Rei.  But first, another story segment where you have to listen to audio tapes in order to advance the story.  Thankfully you don’t have to sit there and wait for the tapes to play.  I love how everything Rei needs to beat the evil spirit once and for all is in her own house and she didn’t even know it until the end of the game.  Do you never go into your attic, woman?!

Japanese talking over a black screen.  This is the last time you have to enter the Manor.

Big story reveal time!  Lots of stuff going on that I can’t understand and can barely remember.  Focusing on the game play, there’s a lot of running around to do and the runner does so rather smoothly.  He picks up a couple of lenses for the camera which I don’t think he equips, but the game just gives to you.  I’ve also noticed he hasn’t upgraded anything lately.  I do wonder why, but it’s possible the ten seconds or so it would take for him to upgrade his camera would be a waste of time.

By now you have access to the entire Manor.  Figuring out where to go is hard enough, but even if you know where to go it’s extremely easy to get turned around and end up on the opposite side of the Manor, (and I’m speaking from experience, but I also have a horrible sense of direction).  Thankfully, once you’ve collected everything you need, the game plops you right outside the door to the final area of the game.

Segment 22
Aha…so, remember how I said I didn’t know why the runner wasn’t upgrading his camera?  He does so here.  Makes sense to wait for the beginning of a segment.  It would suck to have to redo an entire segment just because you screwed up scrolling through menus.  And WOW that’s a lot of points...but he spends them on upgrading the sensitivity of the camera and the range of the view finder.  The sensitivity I get, but I don’t know about the range…it seems odd since I don’t think he’d really need it.  He also upgrades the Boost Shot to its max level, which WILL be useful later.

Quick item grab of what I think is Type-00 film (the most powerful film of the game) and we’re off to the final area.  With the boost shot being leveled up as high as it can go, this boss fight goes rather smoothly.  It’s the same spirit Kei fought…I guess spirits really don’t die.  There is a piece of equipment you can get to show the health of the spirits, and that would have been helpful to show the people watching the run how effective certain shots are…but it’s so far out of the way and pointless to get…still, you can tell when he gets a good shot based on the number of points and the amount of bonuses he gets per shot, shown by the phrases that appear after each shot it taken.

Boss dead, clean and easy. More item grabs, and the segment ends.

Segment 23
A few more items grabbed.  The film he needed, but the film comes with a healing item which he doesn’t need.  But, you get both at the same time, so whatever…

This Vengeful spirit fight is either required or one of those fights he needs to do because space is so limited that even running away might not help.  I’m leaning towards required.  The timing the runner has to avoid taking damage is sickening.  If you’re timing is good, when a spirit grabs you, you can snap a quick picture, forcing the spirit off of you with the Camera’s flash.

Just as I complement the runner for upgrading at the beginning of a segment, he goes and does it at the end of this segment.  And he makes a slight mistake navigating though the menus.  It’s just odd he would choose to do that right then rather than saving the game, and starting off the next segment with it.  But, no time is really lost.  Maybe a second or so.  It’s noticeable, but nothing major.

Segment 24
If I recall correctly, the final boss has the ability to one hit kill you, or at least do major damage to you with certain attacks.

The Runner pulls out the super special awesome Type-00 film and uses the boost shot to get enough points to upgrade the Slow lens to level 3.  The Runner then uses the slow shot on the boss.  …I didn’t know that actually worked.  Combos here and there where he can.

And…just like that the final boss is dead.  Wow…that was fast.  Complete ownage of the final boss.  Skip the ending and we have an in game time of 3:08:29, and an S rank on Nightmare.

Final Verifier Comments
Okay, so if you don’t know this game, you probably won’t understand just how badly the Runner has completely crushed it.  It’s clear that TECMO did not intend anyone to beat this game in about three hours.  If anyone out there ever reads this and then watches the speed run, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pick the game up and play it yourself.

As for the run itself, there are a number of small mistakes throughout the entire run.  I believe the runner admits the game play is not picture perfect.  This run is a little hard to verify in that we weren’t given the runner’s comments since they’re all in Japanese and apparently very long.  We WERE given a contact to whom we could ask questions to, which, while helpful, means I have to think of the questions to ask.  Even though I have beaten this game before, I might not know what I need to ask to understand what the runner is doing.

It is also somewhat hard to keep track of item numbers to check for tampering since your health, Type-14 and Type-7 film stocks are restored every time you exit the Manor.  Your healing items are too, but the runner never even took damage in the run, so that doesn’t matter.

That being said, I have detected no signs of outside manipulation or other cheating.  I would say the run is mostly smooth, and while a little rough at times due to small mistakes, I do not believe accepting the run would degrade the quality expected on SDA.  The controls of this game lend themselves to easy cornering mistakes and turning problems.  Again, you’re not supposed to rush though this game.

The small mistakes the Runner does make are overshadowed by how skillfully he blows though this game.  As much as there are a lot of low points in the game, when there is action it is very intense.  The runner makes it look a lot less intense simply because he kills everything so efficiently.  Those combos are not the easiest thing to chain together.

Least we forget, this run was completely on Nightmare mode.  The Spirits have a lot more health than on normal, and do much more damage.  Granted, the second part of that didn’t come into play as the runner didn’t take any damage through the run, but still.  I think this run could have been done faster, but hey, that just means there’s a record out there for another runner to beat.

This is the first time I’ve verified a run for SDA, but I don’t think I’m being too forgiving here.  For the reasons above, I vote to accept this run.

…holy crap I wrote a lot…

TL;DR: Vote to accept the run despite a few mistakes here and there as it shows complete mastery of the game, total ownage of vengeful spirits, and finishes in just over three hours in a game that takes at least twenty to beat normally.


This next response is in Japanese. All you really need to know is that this verifier said there were no problems with the video quality, no cheating, and said there were no problems with the run aside from no "step trick".

Quote:
【画質】
問題ありません。
綺麗に撮れてます。


【チート】
各セーブタイムやカメラの装備状態を見るかぎり、チートした形跡は無し。


【戦略・プレイの質】
浮遊霊などの撮影により「撮影ポイント」を効果的に稼いでいる。
また撮影におけるミスがほとんど無いのもGood

Nightmareモードでのプレイなので、「FATAL FRAME」のタイミングが難しいですが上手く撮影できていると思います。
戦闘時の霊との距離のとり方も上手いです。

○四ノ刻&九ノ刻
物が落ちてきた時の「驚きモーション」の硬直時間を
ファインダーモードにすることによって上手にキャンセルできている。

○五ノ刻
「刺青の巫女」を通路左側からスルーすることにより、ダメージを受けずにタイムの大幅な短縮ができている。

○全体
セーブ・アイテム取得時は、ボタンが反応するギリギリの距離で行っているのでタイムロスが少ない。
仕掛け解除も素早く行えているし目立ったミスはないです。


【全体】
○改善できると思われる点
・階段を高速で移動する技が未使用なので、それを利用すればタイムはもっと縮まります。
 移動操作では少しフラフラしたり壁にこすったりしている部分があるのでその部分も改善できると思います。
・ファイルを読む時のスキップ連打スピード。
・セーブ回数。
・戦闘でのランダム要素。
 霊の出現位置が悪かった部分があったのでここで運が良いと更にタイムは縮まりそう。

○まとめ
「撮影ポイント」の稼ぎ方や、カメラのどの機能をどのタイミングでレベルアップさせるか、
といった点について、ベストの方法は分からないのですが、
こういうパターンがあるというのを把握する上では非常に良いプレイだと思います。(特に戦闘方法)

NightmareモードでのプレイではあるのですがNormalモードでのプレイの際にも、とても参考になります。

全体的に見てプレイ内容は掲載して問題ないと判断します。


Decision: Accept

Reason: Congratulations on extending our survival horror games past Resident Evil and Silent Hill, Hattori!
Thread title:  
Castlevania?
Congrats Hattori and <3 MT!
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Thank you, Persona Smiley Now, I will be waiting for YOUR Fatal Frame run at SDA ! Wink

I really appreciate that all verifiers (and Mike) understood the importance of this play. I hope those who are interested in Fatal Frame series enjoy watching this play !
The Gaming Lawyer
There is a distinct lack of Fatal Frame runs on SDA Wink  Glad at least one of them finally hit the site Smiley

...and damn I write a lot...
Quote from TimADugan:
...and damn I write a lot...



You can't be a verifier without being at least a little nitpicky.
The Gaming Lawyer
Quote from Carcinogen:
Quote from TimADugan:
...and damn I write a lot...



You can't be a verifier without being at least a little nitpicky.


Good point Wink  Still, I wrote a 12-13 page document to verify this thing Tongue

I noticed the other two verifiers mentioned the "stairway technique," and I believe it was brought up in PM discussions...I must be doing it wrong (which is likely) because I started playing this game again while watching the run, and for the life of me, I couldn't see how it would have saved that much time, if any.