My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet
Wesley 'Molotov' Corron's run
Verifier Responses
Note: Ignore any comments about the sound. Nate will mix in directly recorded audio for the final copy.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Fast menus and luck manipulation are two things that make a good Fire Emblem run.
Wesley 'Molotov' Corron's run
Verifier Responses
Note: Ignore any comments about the sound. Nate will mix in directly recorded audio for the final copy.
Quote:
Video: Passable. The camera angles could be better, but alas, still no good way to record DS games. Will Ninty ever give us some hardware support for such? Probably not, at this rate.
Audio: Also passable, all things considered. Again, DS recording sucks.
Gameplay: It's very no-nonsense, almost TAS'd. Quick movements, minimal time spent in menus when necessary, every boss dies to a crit, one unit pretty much runs the show, etc. Most battles consist of two turns: one to teleport the hero next to the boss, and one to capture the objective.
Segments 25 onward are somewhat out of focus (ironically after the runner makes a comment about hoping that it's not), but it doesn't matter much. It's still fairly obvious as to what's going on: Marth's teleporting around, selectively stabbing a scant few people while the rest just stand there and watch. Segment 31 displays the game's recorded times for each stage.
Also, the JP "normal" mode apparently might be easier then the US/EU "normal", though I haven't been able to 100% verify this.
Verdict: Accept. Mike's Abode scores another victorious run.
Audio: Also passable, all things considered. Again, DS recording sucks.
Gameplay: It's very no-nonsense, almost TAS'd. Quick movements, minimal time spent in menus when necessary, every boss dies to a crit, one unit pretty much runs the show, etc. Most battles consist of two turns: one to teleport the hero next to the boss, and one to capture the objective.
Segments 25 onward are somewhat out of focus (ironically after the runner makes a comment about hoping that it's not), but it doesn't matter much. It's still fairly obvious as to what's going on: Marth's teleporting around, selectively stabbing a scant few people while the rest just stand there and watch. Segment 31 displays the game's recorded times for each stage.
Also, the JP "normal" mode apparently might be easier then the US/EU "normal", though I haven't been able to 100% verify this.
Verdict: Accept. Mike's Abode scores another victorious run.
Quote:
I initially wrote out comments for each chapter. Then my computer crashed, and this was one of the only times
I've ever not pressed crtl+s before tabbing every single time v.v
So instead, here's a summary of my thoughts:
Manipulate stats in the early chapters. Up to about chapter 4, you should be getting STR, SPD and sometimes DEF,
every level. This isn't even that unlikely - it's 5% including defence, 25% without, and it'll help save time:
No using vulneraries any more, no using that Speedwing in chapter 10(?).
Execution is sometimes not as solid as it could be. When moving to warp, you could often navigate around walls
and things that stop the cursor. This would save a few seconds.
A segment is missing. IIRC it's between segments 11 and 12, when you use a map save unnecessarily and then the next chapter starts.
Chapter 17 has nothing but static for sound.
Gameplay wise, I'm going to have to reject. The planning is solid, but the execution as stated above, can be improved throughout, and in a game where every segment is about 30 seconds to 1 minute long, you should be getting closer to perfection.
Verdict: Reject. With a few gameplay improvements and sound recorded directly, it could be accepted.
Note: The game is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. FE11 is a fan name.
I've ever not pressed crtl+s before tabbing every single time v.v
So instead, here's a summary of my thoughts:
Manipulate stats in the early chapters. Up to about chapter 4, you should be getting STR, SPD and sometimes DEF,
every level. This isn't even that unlikely - it's 5% including defence, 25% without, and it'll help save time:
No using vulneraries any more, no using that Speedwing in chapter 10(?).
Execution is sometimes not as solid as it could be. When moving to warp, you could often navigate around walls
and things that stop the cursor. This would save a few seconds.
A segment is missing. IIRC it's between segments 11 and 12, when you use a map save unnecessarily and then the next chapter starts.
Chapter 17 has nothing but static for sound.
Gameplay wise, I'm going to have to reject. The planning is solid, but the execution as stated above, can be improved throughout, and in a game where every segment is about 30 seconds to 1 minute long, you should be getting closer to perfection.
Verdict: Reject. With a few gameplay improvements and sound recorded directly, it could be accepted.
Note: The game is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. FE11 is a fan name.
Quote:
Finished watching the fire emblem run, and its fast. the whole run just appears to use Marth to slash though all and only the bosses. some items where used, some magicians where involved. things got a little hairy. I can only beggin to imagine the amount of luck manipulation that was used often marth just runs through about 10 guys, solo, and comes out unscathed, thats pretty manly for such a femanine guy.
imppressive run, accept.
imppressive run, accept.
Quote:
A short run, so didn't take too long to judge.
General:
I know recording on the DS is tricky... but I would think making it vertically above the system wouldn't be a problem...
Kind of the most basic part after "the whole screens are in the frame". This is distinctly like a 70 degree angle, rather than 90.
What's more the distance could be closer, the color could be better balanced, and the audio, by SDA standards, cannot be taken over-the-air like this. The button taps are clearly audible. And... like, people are talking.
Also the system isn't secured well, it shakes quite a bit when buttons are pushed. I usually preffer to use the stylus in those situations, even if you have it secured, it shakes less when you're using the stylus.
So... I'll leave that up to SDA's jugement. I'm a perfectionist with recording over the DS. Haven't finished a run yet but I spent forever making it look nothing like this, so I know it's possible.
Especially for a 15 minute run, you would think you'd try to get the record quality a bit higher seeing as it doesn't need to be setup for months and months.
If SDA considers this quality good enough, I'm fine with it, too. But I'm iffy about it being too LQ to be accepted.
I can read Japanese and could tell if there's anything wrong here, can't see anything that suggests it. But like I said, can't see the screen too well, can't read complex kanjis.
All battle animations, HP-bars going down, and entire battle phase, showing who lives, dies, and is killed and similar things are skipped. So it makes it pretty hard to tell what's going on, but the settings are all setup to do everything as fast as possible as per the speedrunning guidlines, so nothing wrong with that.
Analysis of the Run:
Basically the battle stratagy seems to be "have Marth run in and get to the end boss as fast as possible".
It's kinda hard to tell what's going on so I'm not entirely sure why Marth doesn't die... The level is ended almost every turn, minimizing attacks on him, though we don't see those because they're skipped for speed purposes.
The Paladin is used a lot in earlier levels to beat some upfront opponents. Unnecessary things like unlockable characters and things are skipped.
Marth switches weapons and healing items a bit and I think buys better items from shops.
There's clearly a stratagy here but it's hard to tell what it is. Marth uses vulnarys and stays alive the whole time. If any allies die, which they probably do, they're skipped.
In segment 7 Lena, the cleric, is saved. Then the teleport (warp) rod is used to basically skip a few levels. This is done a lot, though that items has limited uses (5 per-staff) so it doesn't happen every level.
I don't really get how enough experienced is gained, except assumably Marth has very good luck so he doesn't easily die, so his being shoved in the middle of enemies with no one helping him probably gains him a lot of experience.
Since nobody else is reall being used at all, this makes sense and saves time without any long-term problems.
In segment 9 everyone else just isn't even used anymore.
The player takes advantage of the fact that there's a limit to how much an opponant can attack one player character. It's limited by how many sides they can attack from.
In later segments, the non-Marth characters are just left in their original spot. Marth just ignores everything and is warped straight to the boss or what are around them almost every time.
Other characters that are picked up are used for warp later. Auto-join ones, like Boah. Who has a larger default magic and therefore can warp farther in the larger levels.
A few turns are taken with Wolf and Jagen to get a warp from a thief in segment 21.
In a few pre-battle segments better items are given to Marth and more warps are given to Boah. So same stratagy...
Bunch of other items whose names I can't read because of the blurriness of the screen get traded, seems to be to warp Marth...
He... probably used Hammern to resore a Warp somewhere.
It pretty much goes like that till the end. Marth fights somebody every round, but is kept in a place where he won't get too many attacks.
He uses the unlocked Nagi. Warped Marth with one warp used by Boah and Nagi with a warp used by Lena.
Nagi defeats the opponent in front of Medeus, then Marth gets a critical on Madeus himself, the final boss.
That I assume used luck manipulation. The final battle in Fire Emblem can never be skipped, the animation I mean. Dunno why, but it's like that in other FE speedruns, regardless of options.
Assesment:
Accept
That's on the condition there's another audio stream which is NOT done over the air and SDA doesn't mind how bad the recording is. The description suggested this is a "second audio stream". So maybe the audio of the game we're hearing is done by the camera and there's a second one recorded on the computer, which was simultaneously playing it to help the player focus. I do something like that.
The gameplay does everything I could imagine to speed things up, though it's pretty hard to tell what's happening all the time (due to skipping everything), nothing observable was wrong and in this game a "death" would be Marth dying, which certainly doesn't happen.
So, if it's just gameplay I'm judging, than accept. If it's the quality of the video and there's nothing to be done I'd have to reject. The screen's passable, but could be MUCH better. Though I dunno how strict SDA is on that.
And the latter is the case, I'd encourage the runner to redo this with a better setup and less dying zombies in the background. Because it's a short run, though kind of shame to be recorded like this.
As for gameplay very little is visible, assumably the runner knows what's happening where so knows when stuff is "working". I didn't see anyone who was necessary to kill that wasn't, so perhaps luck manipulation was used enough to get that. You can only see criticals if the battle animation is displayed.
But it SEEMS like the fastest possible rout. No going through menus is done badly. I dunno exactly where the runner lost the seconds where he says made him not reach the "possible" fastest time, but it seemed done perfectly to me.
General:
I know recording on the DS is tricky... but I would think making it vertically above the system wouldn't be a problem...
Kind of the most basic part after "the whole screens are in the frame". This is distinctly like a 70 degree angle, rather than 90.
What's more the distance could be closer, the color could be better balanced, and the audio, by SDA standards, cannot be taken over-the-air like this. The button taps are clearly audible. And... like, people are talking.
Also the system isn't secured well, it shakes quite a bit when buttons are pushed. I usually preffer to use the stylus in those situations, even if you have it secured, it shakes less when you're using the stylus.
So... I'll leave that up to SDA's jugement. I'm a perfectionist with recording over the DS. Haven't finished a run yet but I spent forever making it look nothing like this, so I know it's possible.
Especially for a 15 minute run, you would think you'd try to get the record quality a bit higher seeing as it doesn't need to be setup for months and months.
If SDA considers this quality good enough, I'm fine with it, too. But I'm iffy about it being too LQ to be accepted.
I can read Japanese and could tell if there's anything wrong here, can't see anything that suggests it. But like I said, can't see the screen too well, can't read complex kanjis.
All battle animations, HP-bars going down, and entire battle phase, showing who lives, dies, and is killed and similar things are skipped. So it makes it pretty hard to tell what's going on, but the settings are all setup to do everything as fast as possible as per the speedrunning guidlines, so nothing wrong with that.
Analysis of the Run:
Basically the battle stratagy seems to be "have Marth run in and get to the end boss as fast as possible".
It's kinda hard to tell what's going on so I'm not entirely sure why Marth doesn't die... The level is ended almost every turn, minimizing attacks on him, though we don't see those because they're skipped for speed purposes.
The Paladin is used a lot in earlier levels to beat some upfront opponents. Unnecessary things like unlockable characters and things are skipped.
Marth switches weapons and healing items a bit and I think buys better items from shops.
There's clearly a stratagy here but it's hard to tell what it is. Marth uses vulnarys and stays alive the whole time. If any allies die, which they probably do, they're skipped.
In segment 7 Lena, the cleric, is saved. Then the teleport (warp) rod is used to basically skip a few levels. This is done a lot, though that items has limited uses (5 per-staff) so it doesn't happen every level.
I don't really get how enough experienced is gained, except assumably Marth has very good luck so he doesn't easily die, so his being shoved in the middle of enemies with no one helping him probably gains him a lot of experience.
Since nobody else is reall being used at all, this makes sense and saves time without any long-term problems.
In segment 9 everyone else just isn't even used anymore.
The player takes advantage of the fact that there's a limit to how much an opponant can attack one player character. It's limited by how many sides they can attack from.
In later segments, the non-Marth characters are just left in their original spot. Marth just ignores everything and is warped straight to the boss or what are around them almost every time.
Other characters that are picked up are used for warp later. Auto-join ones, like Boah. Who has a larger default magic and therefore can warp farther in the larger levels.
A few turns are taken with Wolf and Jagen to get a warp from a thief in segment 21.
In a few pre-battle segments better items are given to Marth and more warps are given to Boah. So same stratagy...
Bunch of other items whose names I can't read because of the blurriness of the screen get traded, seems to be to warp Marth...
He... probably used Hammern to resore a Warp somewhere.
It pretty much goes like that till the end. Marth fights somebody every round, but is kept in a place where he won't get too many attacks.
He uses the unlocked Nagi. Warped Marth with one warp used by Boah and Nagi with a warp used by Lena.
Nagi defeats the opponent in front of Medeus, then Marth gets a critical on Madeus himself, the final boss.
That I assume used luck manipulation. The final battle in Fire Emblem can never be skipped, the animation I mean. Dunno why, but it's like that in other FE speedruns, regardless of options.
Assesment:
Accept
That's on the condition there's another audio stream which is NOT done over the air and SDA doesn't mind how bad the recording is. The description suggested this is a "second audio stream". So maybe the audio of the game we're hearing is done by the camera and there's a second one recorded on the computer, which was simultaneously playing it to help the player focus. I do something like that.
The gameplay does everything I could imagine to speed things up, though it's pretty hard to tell what's happening all the time (due to skipping everything), nothing observable was wrong and in this game a "death" would be Marth dying, which certainly doesn't happen.
So, if it's just gameplay I'm judging, than accept. If it's the quality of the video and there's nothing to be done I'd have to reject. The screen's passable, but could be MUCH better. Though I dunno how strict SDA is on that.
And the latter is the case, I'd encourage the runner to redo this with a better setup and less dying zombies in the background. Because it's a short run, though kind of shame to be recorded like this.
As for gameplay very little is visible, assumably the runner knows what's happening where so knows when stuff is "working". I didn't see anyone who was necessary to kill that wasn't, so perhaps luck manipulation was used enough to get that. You can only see criticals if the battle animation is displayed.
But it SEEMS like the fastest possible rout. No going through menus is done badly. I dunno exactly where the runner lost the seconds where he says made him not reach the "possible" fastest time, but it seemed done perfectly to me.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Fast menus and luck manipulation are two things that make a good Fire Emblem run.
Thread title: