My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Final Fantasy 1 100% run (in-game definition)
Verifier Responses
Decision: Reject
Reason: The planning is good, but the execution needs a lot of work.
The run will be available to download for a month, just PM me if you want the link.
Final Fantasy 1 100% run (in-game definition)
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Didn't spot any graphical glitches and the audio was synched with the game. No cheats were used.
The route is fine apart from a detour to get equipment. Segment 15 isn't particularly great, he mentions that as part of the run comments. He takes a six-minute detour in Segment 10 to buy armour before the Terra Cavern dungeon, from a city he'd visit directly afterward. He does admit in the run comments that this is over-preparation, and Terra Cavern could be done with weaker armour (saying that, the chances of doing so and not being slaughtered are pretty slim). It's not exactly grounds for rejection, but only because of the general lack of many mistakes elsewhere.
Apart from a few segments which could perhaps have had a slightly better encounter rate, losing a few seconds due to using the slower entrance to a castle in Segment 9 and not using a Cottage in Segment 25, those are the only questionable parts of the run. The bosses are beaten fairly quickly and the strategy is mostly effective. If there'd been another dodgy segment I might have said reject, but as it is it's acceptable.
The route is fine apart from a detour to get equipment. Segment 15 isn't particularly great, he mentions that as part of the run comments. He takes a six-minute detour in Segment 10 to buy armour before the Terra Cavern dungeon, from a city he'd visit directly afterward. He does admit in the run comments that this is over-preparation, and Terra Cavern could be done with weaker armour (saying that, the chances of doing so and not being slaughtered are pretty slim). It's not exactly grounds for rejection, but only because of the general lack of many mistakes elsewhere.
Apart from a few segments which could perhaps have had a slightly better encounter rate, losing a few seconds due to using the slower entrance to a castle in Segment 9 and not using a Cottage in Segment 25, those are the only questionable parts of the run. The bosses are beaten fairly quickly and the strategy is mostly effective. If there'd been another dodgy segment I might have said reject, but as it is it's acceptable.
Quote:
Ugh. It pains me to do this, but I have to reject this run. Because I am rejecting this run, I will give detailed comments over pretty much everything that went into this decision.
MOVEMENT
I'll give the runner the benefit of the doubt for a lot of what I felt seemed like sloppy movement errors. There are TONS of forced encounter tiles in FF1. However, there were some examples where it was pretty obvious that the runner was not precise in their movement manipulation.
- overshooting chests (various occurrences)
- messed up going to the inn in Provaka at the end of segment 3
- odd pathing around certain chests, such as taking the long way around to get to a chest, and I KNOW these were errors because the runner then went the way that WOULD have been shorter to go back
I'm sure the runner knows where all these things occurred. Normally this wouldn't bother me too much, but it is a segmented run and there were WAY too many of these things happening.
MENU MANIPULATION
Ugh. I hate to say it, but menu manipulation in this run as a whole was pretty poor, especially in battle. Too many times the runner accidentally selected to use a spell or attack when they wanted to run. If it happened just a few times, that's fine, but it happened WAY too many times. The runner also seemed very unsure of themselves when organizing items in the menu at at least two points. The play here needs to be much tighter. Also, when the runner attempted to select items to use in battle, the runner seemed unsure of where the item was or what was actually intended to be used.
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
This is where it starts to get pretty bad in my opinion. At the beginning of at least one segment (segment 7 immediately comes to mind), no further than 1-2 minutes into the segment or sooner, the runner gets into an ambushed encounter, and/or running from this encounter fails at least once. For me, this just cannot happen. I might overlook this if the rest of the run is tight, but between this and everything else, I just couldn't accept it. On top of that, the runner does not appear to have a specific plan on which encounters to fight and which not to. I understand that they are random and you need to level up to beat this game, but some consistency may help save time. A couple of the more notable examples were when the runner was boating along the sea, an encounter occurred with a few Sahagins and a single eye enemy, the runner attempts to run, and fails, and then just kills the enemies. Further along, the runner gets into the SAME random encounter with an additional eye enemy, and an attempt to run was never made, the runner simply killed the enemies. This happened quite a few times, as well as the runner giving up running from enemies and proceeding to kill them. If you're going to do that, it may be faster to just kill everything I think right from the start. Also, I would have liked to see more efficient combat. Mt. Gulg in particular had a few instances where one Knight used the Healing Staff instead of attacking, and it would have ended the battle one round sooner if the Knight had actually attacked instead. Lastly, the runner gave off the impression at at least two points where they weren't even sure they should fight the battle or not.
Mt. Gulg, Hellhounds - the runner fights 4 of them once, the battle takes a lot longer than it really was worth, and then the runner runs away from the next encounter.
Soldier, I believe in the Sky Palace - the runner fights one of these once, the battles takes quite a few rounds, and then the runner runs away from the next one.
Both gave me the impression that the runner wasn't sure what to expect when fighting these enemies.
TIAMAT
The Knight spamming the Venom Sword when it wasn't working, not sure I liked that too much. I realize the runner found out after the fact that Tiamat is not weak to poison, but armed with that knowledge, that Knight could have done something marginally more useful like attacking, which would have taken up less time, and POSSIBLY ended the fight a round sooner (you never know).
FIENDS, ROUND 2
Specifically I believe it was Tiamat, I see no reason why Tiamat needed to take so long. The other two knights weren't doing much and the red wizard, in my opinion, should have cast Haste on at least one other Knight. The battle would have gone much faster (at least 1-2 rounds less). This can apply to at least Kraken as well.
DEATHS
I think I can accept the Astos death, although I would try my damndest to get that segment deathless, it was a short segment. On the other hand, what transpired in the Cave of Trials was pretty much what started me on the path of rejecting this run. That was, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. There was no reason to allow that first Warrior to die in the first place, but what happened at the end was just bad. This wasted a lot more time than it appeared to up front, as the runner had to go out of their way in the next segment to revive the fallen party members.
That's about it for what caused me to reject the run. It sounds harsh, but the runner really gave off the impression that they didn't practice all that much for this run. It's not all bad though!
The planning and route were very good. I'm not sure that could get any better. And I have a few suggestions in case the run does get rejected and the runner plans to try again:
- tighter movement, much tighter, in a segmented run there is no reason to ever have to restart a segment other than bad luck
- menu manipulation needs to be faster and more confident
- to that end, I would suggest practicing over and over again with handling the item sorting in the menu, there aren't any surprise random items in each segment, you KNOW what you're going to collect, so keep at it until you can sort those items with your eyes closed
- I would suggest moving the items you'll use in battle to the top of the item list for quicker access
- stay away from using the "sort" option in the item menu, I don't think ever using it really helped at all
- determine which random battles are worth fighting and which aren't, and do not give up from running away from the inefficient fights
- to that end, I noticed that some of the battles that had an attempt to flee really didn't take that long to just outright win, so you really need to figure this one out, you'll save tons of time
I think that's about it. Most of what caused me to reject this run was more execution mistakes than anything else. I know all of this sounds really bad, but it was more just a LOT of very minor errors that can easily be corrected with a little more planning, and a few really bad ones.
But whatever happens here, it was a good attempt. I know FF1 can be a bitch to run, and sometimes you'll get really screwed by RNGs. All I can say is just keep at it and you'll eventually come out with a really great run. I'll be happy to verify any future submissions.
MOVEMENT
I'll give the runner the benefit of the doubt for a lot of what I felt seemed like sloppy movement errors. There are TONS of forced encounter tiles in FF1. However, there were some examples where it was pretty obvious that the runner was not precise in their movement manipulation.
- overshooting chests (various occurrences)
- messed up going to the inn in Provaka at the end of segment 3
- odd pathing around certain chests, such as taking the long way around to get to a chest, and I KNOW these were errors because the runner then went the way that WOULD have been shorter to go back
I'm sure the runner knows where all these things occurred. Normally this wouldn't bother me too much, but it is a segmented run and there were WAY too many of these things happening.
MENU MANIPULATION
Ugh. I hate to say it, but menu manipulation in this run as a whole was pretty poor, especially in battle. Too many times the runner accidentally selected to use a spell or attack when they wanted to run. If it happened just a few times, that's fine, but it happened WAY too many times. The runner also seemed very unsure of themselves when organizing items in the menu at at least two points. The play here needs to be much tighter. Also, when the runner attempted to select items to use in battle, the runner seemed unsure of where the item was or what was actually intended to be used.
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS
This is where it starts to get pretty bad in my opinion. At the beginning of at least one segment (segment 7 immediately comes to mind), no further than 1-2 minutes into the segment or sooner, the runner gets into an ambushed encounter, and/or running from this encounter fails at least once. For me, this just cannot happen. I might overlook this if the rest of the run is tight, but between this and everything else, I just couldn't accept it. On top of that, the runner does not appear to have a specific plan on which encounters to fight and which not to. I understand that they are random and you need to level up to beat this game, but some consistency may help save time. A couple of the more notable examples were when the runner was boating along the sea, an encounter occurred with a few Sahagins and a single eye enemy, the runner attempts to run, and fails, and then just kills the enemies. Further along, the runner gets into the SAME random encounter with an additional eye enemy, and an attempt to run was never made, the runner simply killed the enemies. This happened quite a few times, as well as the runner giving up running from enemies and proceeding to kill them. If you're going to do that, it may be faster to just kill everything I think right from the start. Also, I would have liked to see more efficient combat. Mt. Gulg in particular had a few instances where one Knight used the Healing Staff instead of attacking, and it would have ended the battle one round sooner if the Knight had actually attacked instead. Lastly, the runner gave off the impression at at least two points where they weren't even sure they should fight the battle or not.
Mt. Gulg, Hellhounds - the runner fights 4 of them once, the battle takes a lot longer than it really was worth, and then the runner runs away from the next encounter.
Soldier, I believe in the Sky Palace - the runner fights one of these once, the battles takes quite a few rounds, and then the runner runs away from the next one.
Both gave me the impression that the runner wasn't sure what to expect when fighting these enemies.
TIAMAT
The Knight spamming the Venom Sword when it wasn't working, not sure I liked that too much. I realize the runner found out after the fact that Tiamat is not weak to poison, but armed with that knowledge, that Knight could have done something marginally more useful like attacking, which would have taken up less time, and POSSIBLY ended the fight a round sooner (you never know).
FIENDS, ROUND 2
Specifically I believe it was Tiamat, I see no reason why Tiamat needed to take so long. The other two knights weren't doing much and the red wizard, in my opinion, should have cast Haste on at least one other Knight. The battle would have gone much faster (at least 1-2 rounds less). This can apply to at least Kraken as well.
DEATHS
I think I can accept the Astos death, although I would try my damndest to get that segment deathless, it was a short segment. On the other hand, what transpired in the Cave of Trials was pretty much what started me on the path of rejecting this run. That was, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. There was no reason to allow that first Warrior to die in the first place, but what happened at the end was just bad. This wasted a lot more time than it appeared to up front, as the runner had to go out of their way in the next segment to revive the fallen party members.
That's about it for what caused me to reject the run. It sounds harsh, but the runner really gave off the impression that they didn't practice all that much for this run. It's not all bad though!
The planning and route were very good. I'm not sure that could get any better. And I have a few suggestions in case the run does get rejected and the runner plans to try again:
- tighter movement, much tighter, in a segmented run there is no reason to ever have to restart a segment other than bad luck
- menu manipulation needs to be faster and more confident
- to that end, I would suggest practicing over and over again with handling the item sorting in the menu, there aren't any surprise random items in each segment, you KNOW what you're going to collect, so keep at it until you can sort those items with your eyes closed
- I would suggest moving the items you'll use in battle to the top of the item list for quicker access
- stay away from using the "sort" option in the item menu, I don't think ever using it really helped at all
- determine which random battles are worth fighting and which aren't, and do not give up from running away from the inefficient fights
- to that end, I noticed that some of the battles that had an attempt to flee really didn't take that long to just outright win, so you really need to figure this one out, you'll save tons of time
I think that's about it. Most of what caused me to reject this run was more execution mistakes than anything else. I know all of this sounds really bad, but it was more just a LOT of very minor errors that can easily be corrected with a little more planning, and a few really bad ones.
But whatever happens here, it was a good attempt. I know FF1 can be a bitch to run, and sometimes you'll get really screwed by RNGs. All I can say is just keep at it and you'll eventually come out with a really great run. I'll be happy to verify any future submissions.
Quote:
Verifier: this double "SORT" into hand sorting is making me =(
[01:24] mikwuyma: what does that mean?
Verifier: Sorry but i mean he asks the game to sort his items twice
Verifier: then re-sorts it by hand
Verifier: wasting time; when he sorted them by hand earlier but only wanted to move one item
Verifier: it just seems like he rushed execution
Verifier: good planning, bad execution ya know?
[01:26] mikwuyma: yeah he did the run a while ago
[01:27] mikwuyma: and he was borrowing a friend's dvd recorder
[01:27] mikwuyma: well if you want to write up a more organized response about the run then feel free to
Verifier: yeah i wanna reject it on execution grounds.
He has the game plan but he either needs to be more patient in his attempts.
Verifier: There are a few too many times where there are little mistakes that glare at you (like sorting and resorting). It seems like he didn't mark everything down and in the order it'd go. A good idea for the runner would be on his re-try (which i hope he does cause he is close), to mark order of items as he gets them on a practice run then figure out when and where are good places to put items. Its sloppy to see him stagger around his inventory. He has good knowledge and the few times where i was like "Why waste the cure1's before a ... oh the HP wasn't quite there" and such. He knows what he is doing, but the execution is lacking. There are also a lot of "over steps" Probably because he isn't used to running for it and sometimes oversteps. Its a lot more common than it should be in this run.
Verifier: The game plan is solid, execution needs work. Reject;
[01:24] mikwuyma: what does that mean?
Verifier: Sorry but i mean he asks the game to sort his items twice
Verifier: then re-sorts it by hand
Verifier: wasting time; when he sorted them by hand earlier but only wanted to move one item
Verifier: it just seems like he rushed execution
Verifier: good planning, bad execution ya know?
[01:26] mikwuyma: yeah he did the run a while ago
[01:27] mikwuyma: and he was borrowing a friend's dvd recorder
[01:27] mikwuyma: well if you want to write up a more organized response about the run then feel free to
Verifier: yeah i wanna reject it on execution grounds.
He has the game plan but he either needs to be more patient in his attempts.
Verifier: There are a few too many times where there are little mistakes that glare at you (like sorting and resorting). It seems like he didn't mark everything down and in the order it'd go. A good idea for the runner would be on his re-try (which i hope he does cause he is close), to mark order of items as he gets them on a practice run then figure out when and where are good places to put items. Its sloppy to see him stagger around his inventory. He has good knowledge and the few times where i was like "Why waste the cure1's before a ... oh the HP wasn't quite there" and such. He knows what he is doing, but the execution is lacking. There are also a lot of "over steps" Probably because he isn't used to running for it and sometimes oversteps. Its a lot more common than it should be in this run.
Verifier: The game plan is solid, execution needs work. Reject;
Decision: Reject
Reason: The planning is good, but the execution needs a lot of work.
The run will be available to download for a month, just PM me if you want the link.
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