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My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Jacob 'UltraJMan' Ritz's single-segment run

Verifier Responses

Quote:
First off, I approve of the video and audio quality. Second comes ye olde timing. Counting from when the player gains control of the character, the final boss dies in 2 hours, 27 minutes and 7 seconds. If you count until the player picks up the item needed to activate the ending, then the time is 2 hours, 27 minutes and 13 seconds. If you're going to bother keeping track of seconds at all, I'd suggest just going with the boss kill since the player is at no risk whatsoever after that point and it's just useless time waiting for the item to spawn.

The only previous speed run of this game that is fairly prominent (in the small speed running community for this game anyway) which you can draw comparisons to is szsk's real-time attack done in 2 hours, 30 minutes and 43 seconds. This was a highly regarded run and looked fairly impressive, so it's certainly noteworthy that the submitted run is a solid 3 and a half minutes faster than it. It's also worth noting that szsk's run used save/loading for quick money manipulation, something that the runner did not have the option of abusing in a true single segment run. I might reference szsk's run during this verification, but will call it "the RTA" from now on.

The runner demonstrates a clear understanding of optimal movement in this game, jumping forward (instead of the slower method of walking) and damage boosting off enemies at almost every optimal spot early in the run. There are some visible errors that can be attributed to the player, such as missing a few jumps here and there (the misses about 16 minutes into the run are pretty ugly), but a lot of the errors are due to luck. This game, on top of being ridiculously huge and maze-like, is very random. Anyone who has played this game hates bats because they seriously just do whatever the hell they feel like and can get in your path at a moment's notice. There's not much that can be done in many instances to avoid being knocked back by them.

As the run progresses, the player abuses the damage boosts less and less but this can be attributed to the fact that the luck factor bites harder and harder as you go. The fact that the player deliberately runs the first half hour or so with a very risky health bar (the puzzle done in the lava around 29:00 and everything a bit after that is TENSE) is impressive. The first hour of the run seems very smooth. The biggest time waster (perhaps in the entire run) is by no fault of the player, but because of an entirely luck-based puzzle (about 50 minutes in). There are some missed wall jumps and stuff, but the controls of the game are a little wonky anyway so it's understandable.

The second hour of the run seems acceptable. The Endless Corridor glitch is cool. From watching several of the player's practice runs in his live stream, it is apparent that he makes a notable error with his own plan in the Dimensional Corridor, and while such a mistake might cause some runners to panic and stop the run, he reacts nicely and saves the run with a minimized loss of time that is acceptable for a game that is this long, confusing, unfair, and genuinely difficult.

As the run closes, the player chooses to grind right before the final battle to enter it at full health. This is a questionable decision in my mind considering the amount of health that was there before grinding, but as with most things in this game, the Mother fight has some luck in it and I'm sure the player didn't want luck ending the run during its finale. However, I feel that this decision was uncharacteristic of how the game was being played up to this point and came across as a waste of time (especially considering how little damage was actually taken during the final battle... I suppose it would've been close but eh). If the runner is to go for an improvement, I'd highly suggest sticking with the risky business the whole way instead of tightening up and being overly conservative at the end. It's a hard thing to do in a long run with as much luck and diabolical mischief in it as this, but the game is already being played at a high level so an improvement needs to go to that next step.

As I switched between watching this run and the RTA, I noticed that the RTA had several more areas reloaded due to mishaps than the submitted one. A lot of the player's error in both cases can be attributed to dumb luck or the fact that the game's controls are possessed at times, but the runner obviously has a firm grasp of the game's weird controls and executes with precision on a far more consistent basis than the previous best speed run of this game. The only "reload" that comes to mind off the top of my head after watching is after messing up the Endless Corridor wall glitch, but that only costs a few seconds.

It is hard to tell whether the route for this run is completely optimal due to the lack of discussion for it, but because the run turned out faster than one that saved/loaded for money and warping, we can at least say it is the best known route to date for speed running this game. The La-Mulana thread on SDA had very few contributors, and in fact had no additional contributors after the runner already had a solid plan for a SS run in place. The runner did especially well with the route planning considering how few resources were available (perhaps just the RTA, pretty much?). Hopefully there are more people who jump in on discussion for running this game if there is to be an improvement made for it.

All in all, this run is pretty smooth (and starts out beyond expectation) but has some ugly, avoidable mistakes scattered throughout. However, this should almost always be anticipated in such a long run of a game with very questionable design and control choices. The biggest time wasters in the run can be attributed to luck rather than the skill of the player, which speaks well for the run. A La-Mulana SS run without multiple minutes wasted is unexpectable at this time. The bottom line is that this is a true SS run that is faster than a nice looking RTA which abuses save/loading, so it stands as the best example of speed running for this game yet and deserves a spot on SDA.


ACCEPT!


It's nice to have a run for another big freeware title (besides Iji... sorry Merry Gear Solid, I don't really count you). This might be the #2 most popular freeware behind Cave Story thanks to Aeon Genesis and YouTube but I'm not certain of that. Either way, still waiting on a Cave Story run! Get it done (Nitrodon >_> ) so SDA can have the freeware giants' gauntlet out of the way!


Quote:
a/v is good, no cheating seen and is a solid run for such a great freeware  game.
accept.


Quote:
Hi,
Sorry its taken a while to respond, had some computer crashing issues but its fine now.

Firstly I must say, this is the most impressive run I've seen of this game and would like to congradulate you for your hard work.

There was no cheating (I'm also really suprised that you considered english patch a mod since most people don't but it really does change parts of the game.)

Time: 2:27:12
Feet Touched Ground at 0:00:17 and Treasure Collected at 2:27:29

Audio/Video Quality: Well heres where some issues are. Room changes were often laggy. There was a point in the run where a virus protection message came up in the middle of the run. And Lastly, About Half way through the run there was a slight out of sync, it wasn't to noticing but at the Tiamat fight it got worse, then worse from there to the end of the game. I was very noticeable and sorta ruined the last part of the run.

Detailed Thoughts about run:


Ok well I thought that the run was pretty flawless in the beginning. You had a couple of bad encounters with enemies but otherwise good. There was also a jump in the Guiadance Gate that you missed twice that is actually an impossible jump to make without the boots. Bahomut and Ellmac seemed to have been practiced many times because Ellmack was basically a perfect Run and Bahamut could have been faster if at some points you fired three instead of two Shurikens.

The Amphisbaena fight could have been faster if you would have fired flare while you attacked with the axe. After Amphisbaena it seem you were a little less familliar with the the run and often paused and waisted a couple seconds to try and remember what needed to be done next. Viy was very good, i only say this because for some reason i always have the hardest time to beat this boss. Sakit I noticed you screwed up on multiple times and you probably could have beaten him twice as fast.

Baphomet was pretty good, could have gone better but not by much. Palenque is just a joke to you isn't he. That made me laugh so hard, most people find him the hardest boss in the game and you just destroy him like he was nothing.

Tiamat you sorta messed up after the endless seal was broken. But Tiamat isn't an easy boss either and its so late in the run that I'm not going to look very poorly on it.

Now That virus defence program message that came up was unacceptable. Next Time Turn off all programs, also disconnect from the internet then shut off the program so your computer isn't in any danger and you are still able to coninue the run with out interference.

When you went down to get those extra weights in the endless corridor, it was uneeded as you ended up with over 20 weights those weight didn't seem to matter for anything, it was a huge waist of time.

I'm really glad that all of your sub weapon ammo was used up. You seemed to have those supplies very well thought out and i will look upon that very well.

Now last thing. The sound quality. Your sound was very desync in the last half and makes this run look very unprofessional and makes you and SDA look bad for having a speed run with such bad quality. Now I'm not going to imediatly disqualify your run for this since it can be fixed and i recommend that you or you ask someone to fix this desync error.

In conclusion, I loved this run and I was extremely impressed at everything that was done, your route was quite amazing and this is deffinatly the best speed run I've ever seen of this game. The sound was very desynced though and that made me look very poorly on your run.

Accept or Reject:

Accept

Reason being that this run was quite amazing and it does say in your notes that you sent it to nate to be fixed so hopefully it does get fixed but other than that its up to the other verifiers to decide whether this run is accepted or not.


Decision: Accept

Reason: It's nice to have another big freeware title up on SDA, even if it's one designed confuse and baffle the player.
Thread title:  
#Casual
congrats, J!  Finally after all that hard work, sweat, and rage.  I do hope you will improve it in the future, though.

Good job!
It's time for some HEErooooOOOOHi cs!
Quote from tjp7154:
congrats, J!  Finally after all that hard work, sweat, and rage.  I do hope you will improve it in the future, though.

Good job!


Oh of course! I just need a good long rest before I jump back into it, I'm also glad everyone enjoyed the run, I had no idea the desynch was still in it as I thought it went to Nate then to verifiers but I'm kinda new at this ^^;

Regardless, the kind words are encouraging and reading some of the verifier comments gives me motivation to improve in the future, as well as providing some interesting quick time savers I'm surprised didn't come to mind *3 shuriken Bahamut, flares while axing Amphis, etc.*
that Metroidvania guy
I'm not sure how verifier #3 was watching the run, but on VLC it didn't desync at all for a lot of it, and maybe the sound was off by a very small fraction of a second in the final 6-7 minutes? I didn't even notice til I had to go back and see since you mentioned desync. Is that what you were talking about? There was certainly no significant desync I could notice watching the whole thing again.

Also, congrats J. Make sure you demolish the Wii one when it comes out (or if it ever comes out at this point :p )!
Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time
Congrats J! Can't wait to watch this (and listening to the La Mulana hour: starring UltraJman and Romscout :P).
Metroidvanias are God Tier
romscout, i am verifier 3, i was watching it on media player, it was pretty off after tiamat, I don't know maybe I got the bad version of the run or something, anyways congrats on getting accepted ultrajman.
There's a word for that
Oh hey awesome. I expect there'll be a lot of double-takes when the news announcement comes up with "La-Mulana single-segment done in 2:27" Cheesy
that Metroidvania guy
Quote from Mickey_Mage:
Congrats J! Can't wait to watch this (and listening to the La Mulana hour: starring UltraJman and Romscout :P).

Rane definitely talked way more than me.

Quote from Anonymous52555:
romscout, i am verifier 3, i was watching it on media player, it was pretty off after tiamat, I don't know maybe I got the bad version of the run or something, anyways congrats on getting accepted ultrajman.


hm, guess I'll check it out in media player...
It's time for some HEErooooOOOOHi cs!
Quote from romscout:
Quote from Mickey_Mage:
Congrats J! Can't wait to watch this (and listening to the La Mulana hour: starring UltraJman and Romscout :P).

Rane definitely talked way more than me.


There is talk of unicorns and other magical nonsense, but yeah it was half informative/half silly. If only cause the run notes say everything I wanted to say as far as actually explaining things heh.
from red to blue
Quote from UltraJMan:
Quote from romscout:
Quote from Mickey_Mage:
Congrats J! Can't wait to watch this (and listening to the La Mulana hour: starring UltraJman and Romscout :P).

Rane definitely talked way more than me.


There is talk of unicorns and other magical nonsense, but yeah it was half informative/half silly. If only cause the run notes say everything I wanted to say as far as actually explaining things heh.


Doesn't matter, the rap to the mausoleum MUST be somewhere. =D
It's time for some HEErooooOOOOHi cs!
The mausoleum rap didn't exist at the time of the run commentary, thankfully :p