My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/MegaManX4.html
Patrik 'Cremator' Salonen and Dan Enright's low% run as X
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: X just got serious.
Patrik 'Cremator' Salonen and Dan Enright's low% run as X
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Holy fuck.
This is probably one of the cleanest runs I've ever verified. At least to my eyes, I didn't see any major mistakes, at all. The biggest inefficiency I saw was the Peacock refight. I don't know if that could be more attributed to bad luck with his spawning points, but there were definitely some mistakes there. Nothing major though. I guess Sigma 3 laser gun form probably could have been one rounded based on what I saw as well but that would have required better luck than the runner got, I think. Other than that, there were some movement mistakes that I saw, and I guess the runner didn't hit the bosses at the first frame that they could be attacked at consistently, but that's REALLY reaching here. Easy accept, and well done!
I'd also like to point out that X4 probably has the worst script in the entire X series. >_>
This is probably one of the cleanest runs I've ever verified. At least to my eyes, I didn't see any major mistakes, at all. The biggest inefficiency I saw was the Peacock refight. I don't know if that could be more attributed to bad luck with his spawning points, but there were definitely some mistakes there. Nothing major though. I guess Sigma 3 laser gun form probably could have been one rounded based on what I saw as well but that would have required better luck than the runner got, I think. Other than that, there were some movement mistakes that I saw, and I guess the runner didn't hit the bosses at the first frame that they could be attacked at consistently, but that's REALLY reaching here. Easy accept, and well done!
I'd also like to point out that X4 probably has the worst script in the entire X series. >_>
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Ah, X4. I'm predominately a Zero player, so I'm a little out of my element watching X play, but that's no excuse. Audio and video quality are fine, so on with the stages!
Prologue: He takes a hit and fires an accidental unpowered shot on the boss, both throw off the rhythm a little, but probably less than a second.
Magma Dragoon: He doesn't clear the first and second big bots, but at least those hits take you in the right direction! I'm not sure if dash-slashing the blocks is faster than jump slashing. There's an excellent Dragoon fight, it's just a shame he doesn't quite have enough time to take the last shot without jumping over him. :[
Frost Walrus: He takes a hit on a little snowman, but it saves the charge shot for the more damaging bear, so it's all good. He gets caught slightly when exiting the ice blocks. Walrus has a meltdown, and there was much rejoicing.
Jet Stingway: Air dashes both of the acts like a pro, not slowing down for anything. Stingway goes awesome, with only one shot missing, and even then the boss was in the middle of a dash.
Slash Beast: A little misplacement toward the end of Act 1 breaks the flow of dash jumps. Shortly into Act 2 he accidentally drops his charge, which I believe makes him take an extra hit. A split-second gets lost picking up health at the end. Everything else goes well in this gauntlet of enemies. Beast really needs to work on not tripping over himself.
Colonel: This is the terror that always made me play as Zero as a kid, since he skips this stage and gets a wonderfully acted cutscene instead. The runner takes him down like it's nothing. Well fought.
Web Spider: I never knew those spinning annoyances could be destroyed. I didn't know you could skip the last falling log either. The whole stage goes very well, and Spider gets cut down with ease.
Split Mushroom: In this stage, X jumps a lot and says "Jump!" a lot. Taking the hit from that last flower was clever. The Mushroom fight is pretty electrifying.
Cyber Peacock: I liked that alternate path through the last little bit of Act 1. Act 2 went perfectly, Peacock went perfectly, my favorite stage went perfectly.
Storm Owell: Avoiding that heart tank was SLICK, as was brutally abusing Owell's off-screen damage recovery.
Space Port: Dropping right through the center of those shield enemies was a gutsy move. Unfortunately, he follows it up by getting hit by the first set of bouncy spiky things. For the Colonel, round two is like round one with more warping. In other words, dominated.
Final Weapon: Really good Duo fight, even with the missed shot. Taking the hit from the tiny cannon bot allows him to bounce in the right direction on his big brother behind him. I'm not familiar with the General fight as X, but it looks like good luck to me, at least for a low health X.
Boss Rush: I know the run notes say it's faster, but Dragoon just looks a little wonky to me. He accidentally jumps over Mushroom's pad, and the Peacock fight isn't as clean due to a little bad luck. Everything else goes the same as before, and he does it all without healing his tiny life gauge!
Sigma: Phase 1 is phase 1. There's one misfire on phase 2, but it barely wastes time as he speeds through it. Phase 3's cannon form looks like it could be barely one-roundable, but it's balanced with excellent luck on the head form. All we're left with is the ending cutscene and fade to credits!
Pretty much everything negative I pointed out up there is fairly trivial, and there's a reason. I really don't have anything else to criticize. The run is just that good. It's low% and faster than the current X time, even though this run is segmented. Definite accept.
Prologue: He takes a hit and fires an accidental unpowered shot on the boss, both throw off the rhythm a little, but probably less than a second.
Magma Dragoon: He doesn't clear the first and second big bots, but at least those hits take you in the right direction! I'm not sure if dash-slashing the blocks is faster than jump slashing. There's an excellent Dragoon fight, it's just a shame he doesn't quite have enough time to take the last shot without jumping over him. :[
Frost Walrus: He takes a hit on a little snowman, but it saves the charge shot for the more damaging bear, so it's all good. He gets caught slightly when exiting the ice blocks. Walrus has a meltdown, and there was much rejoicing.
Jet Stingway: Air dashes both of the acts like a pro, not slowing down for anything. Stingway goes awesome, with only one shot missing, and even then the boss was in the middle of a dash.
Slash Beast: A little misplacement toward the end of Act 1 breaks the flow of dash jumps. Shortly into Act 2 he accidentally drops his charge, which I believe makes him take an extra hit. A split-second gets lost picking up health at the end. Everything else goes well in this gauntlet of enemies. Beast really needs to work on not tripping over himself.
Colonel: This is the terror that always made me play as Zero as a kid, since he skips this stage and gets a wonderfully acted cutscene instead. The runner takes him down like it's nothing. Well fought.
Web Spider: I never knew those spinning annoyances could be destroyed. I didn't know you could skip the last falling log either. The whole stage goes very well, and Spider gets cut down with ease.
Split Mushroom: In this stage, X jumps a lot and says "Jump!" a lot. Taking the hit from that last flower was clever. The Mushroom fight is pretty electrifying.
Cyber Peacock: I liked that alternate path through the last little bit of Act 1. Act 2 went perfectly, Peacock went perfectly, my favorite stage went perfectly.
Storm Owell: Avoiding that heart tank was SLICK, as was brutally abusing Owell's off-screen damage recovery.
Space Port: Dropping right through the center of those shield enemies was a gutsy move. Unfortunately, he follows it up by getting hit by the first set of bouncy spiky things. For the Colonel, round two is like round one with more warping. In other words, dominated.
Final Weapon: Really good Duo fight, even with the missed shot. Taking the hit from the tiny cannon bot allows him to bounce in the right direction on his big brother behind him. I'm not familiar with the General fight as X, but it looks like good luck to me, at least for a low health X.
Boss Rush: I know the run notes say it's faster, but Dragoon just looks a little wonky to me. He accidentally jumps over Mushroom's pad, and the Peacock fight isn't as clean due to a little bad luck. Everything else goes the same as before, and he does it all without healing his tiny life gauge!
Sigma: Phase 1 is phase 1. There's one misfire on phase 2, but it barely wastes time as he speeds through it. Phase 3's cannon form looks like it could be barely one-roundable, but it's balanced with excellent luck on the head form. All we're left with is the ending cutscene and fade to credits!
Pretty much everything negative I pointed out up there is fairly trivial, and there's a reason. I really don't have anything else to criticize. The run is just that good. It's low% and faster than the current X time, even though this run is segmented. Definite accept.
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@verifier1: Really? You singled this one out as the worst? Even though 50% of X5's script is ellipses? And X6's is barely in English?
Quality is fine, buy Cromarty's segments are a little better than Cremator's. Also, while all of Cremator's videos are slightly bordered, 7, 9, and 12's borders are considerably larger than 2, 4, and 13's.
This is a very interesting case here. It's a cross platform collaboration between two runners. I take it the loading times will be factored out in order to making timing fair. Cause at least to my knowledge, that is the only difference gameplay wise between versions of X4.
Sky Lagoon
Act 1 was flawless. Act 2 was almost too. They took damage on Egregion early on and missed a half charge. Minor setback, but I'm surprised this was left in.
Magma Dragoon
Jumping over the big missile guys isn't easy, so I won't dock him for the few hits. Nice job getting the best pattern on Dragoon.
Frost Walrus
That miniboss must've been annoying to get to cooperate.
Jet Stingray
Wow that's a weird audio bug. And it's nice to see the buster strategy works.
Slash Beast
Act 2 is a little rough. But I can't blame him; there's a lot of shit.
Colonel
Perfect.
Web Spider
I like that use of Rising Fire toward the end. The Spider fight was really cool. Did the hit at the end cost any time?
Split Mushroom
Nothing to complain about.
Cyber Peacock
I kinda wonder why this strategy was used on the boss. Why not force him to use Aiming Laser to get some uncharged shots in? Is his stun time too long even with that? Is the damage not worth it? Or is X's health too low to warrant the risk?
Storm Owl
Act 1 was very smooth. And that invincibility bug on Owl is quite bizarre.
Space Port
Very nice job.
Final Weapon 1
Again, nice job. Especially making Double look easy. I never got the hang of that fight.
Final Weapon 2
Dragoon did look awkward, and Peacock was slowed down a tiny bit, but getting through the boss rush without having to heal is incredible to me. Then again, I'm more familiar with Zero. Whoa, why are the Sigma songs mixed up? Jumped the gun a bit for 1st phase's second hit. Otherwise perfect. 2nd Phase was cool. Nearly single cycled the gunner form. The junk head never sucked, he only blowed. And the yellow head only attacked once. He got very lucky overall on that final fight.
Performance is solid throughout by both runners. Accept it.
Quality is fine, buy Cromarty's segments are a little better than Cremator's. Also, while all of Cremator's videos are slightly bordered, 7, 9, and 12's borders are considerably larger than 2, 4, and 13's.
This is a very interesting case here. It's a cross platform collaboration between two runners. I take it the loading times will be factored out in order to making timing fair. Cause at least to my knowledge, that is the only difference gameplay wise between versions of X4.
Sky Lagoon
Act 1 was flawless. Act 2 was almost too. They took damage on Egregion early on and missed a half charge. Minor setback, but I'm surprised this was left in.
Magma Dragoon
Jumping over the big missile guys isn't easy, so I won't dock him for the few hits. Nice job getting the best pattern on Dragoon.
Frost Walrus
That miniboss must've been annoying to get to cooperate.
Jet Stingray
Wow that's a weird audio bug. And it's nice to see the buster strategy works.
Slash Beast
Act 2 is a little rough. But I can't blame him; there's a lot of shit.
Colonel
Perfect.
Web Spider
I like that use of Rising Fire toward the end. The Spider fight was really cool. Did the hit at the end cost any time?
Split Mushroom
Nothing to complain about.
Cyber Peacock
I kinda wonder why this strategy was used on the boss. Why not force him to use Aiming Laser to get some uncharged shots in? Is his stun time too long even with that? Is the damage not worth it? Or is X's health too low to warrant the risk?
Storm Owl
Act 1 was very smooth. And that invincibility bug on Owl is quite bizarre.
Space Port
Very nice job.
Final Weapon 1
Again, nice job. Especially making Double look easy. I never got the hang of that fight.
Final Weapon 2
Dragoon did look awkward, and Peacock was slowed down a tiny bit, but getting through the boss rush without having to heal is incredible to me. Then again, I'm more familiar with Zero. Whoa, why are the Sigma songs mixed up? Jumped the gun a bit for 1st phase's second hit. Otherwise perfect. 2nd Phase was cool. Nearly single cycled the gunner form. The junk head never sucked, he only blowed. And the yellow head only attacked once. He got very lucky overall on that final fight.
Performance is solid throughout by both runners. Accept it.
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Audio/video quality are fine. Load times are inconsistent between segments, which I'm guessing is due to the runners using different editions of the game (original PS1, PS2 MMX Collection, and GameCube MMX Collection are the ones I'm familiar with - hopefully they've already cleared this with the SDA staff). Gameplay is outstanding, with the runners using some new damage boosts and subweapon tricks that I haven't seen in X4 runs before to great effect, and most mistakes are very trivial and cost little time. It would have been nice to see a 1-round kill on Laser Cannon Sigma, but that would require a lot of luck.
Assuming the reason for the differing load times is OK with the SDA staff, I vote to accept.
Not being able to tell from the comments for some of the segments which runner was playing though, I did sometimes find myself wondering who I was verifying fooooooorrrr (sorry, couldn't resist).
Assuming the reason for the differing load times is OK with the SDA staff, I vote to accept.
Not being able to tell from the comments for some of the segments which runner was playing though, I did sometimes find myself wondering who I was verifying fooooooorrrr (sorry, couldn't resist).
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Intro Stage: The Boss could be manipulated to do a better action, otherwise, looks good.
Magma Dragoon: Why using jump slash to destroy the blocks prior to dragoon, it is slighty faster to just dashslash, but this is something very minor.
Frost Walrus: Little sloppy during the second part, but the midboss manipulation and that ice quick dash is worthy enough.
Jet Stingray: Only noticed ground dashes wich should be an accident, but the segment looks great enough.
Slash Beast: While using the robot, you should get hit more instead of slashing all the way.
Colonel 1: When you released the last Frost Tower, you should have moved to the left right away, killing the delay of X walking all the way to it.
Web Spider: I think that this method is slower by a 2-3 seconds each time you cut his web.
Split Mushroom: Same goes for this boss.
Cyber Peacock: Everything is OK.
Storm Owl: OK.
Colonel 2: Very Nice.
General: The Double Fight should start with a Charged Shot. The General fight could be done with better luck, he should throw his punchs so you hit him contantly.
Dragoon Refight: I don't know why you guys decided to use this strat with double tornado, it is slower by like 1-2 seconds each time you use it. 2 Mid Charged Shots do the same damage as it and only cost 1 second, while double tornado cost like 4 seconds.
Mushroom Refight: Slower, but i guess that for a segment this long, you want to make your stuff reliable, i think that you should at least use some charged shots.
Stingray Refight: Little mistake, no big deal.
Spider Refight: The same as the stage run.
Grim Reaper: Bah
Sigma 1: I like your strategy to make the web dissapear, but there is one possible improvement, when you are behind him (when sigma fires his eye lasers) you should shoot a charged shot, a web and another charged shot.
Final Sigma: You got good luck on both parts of Sigma, only thing i could say is to shoot multiple rays at the head just to ensure you hit him ASAP.
Overall the run is ok, all that i said is the bad points i saw on it, everything else was perfect or good, my opinion is that you guys could do a little more of effort, but maybe i just demanding more than enough. Accept.
Magma Dragoon: Why using jump slash to destroy the blocks prior to dragoon, it is slighty faster to just dashslash, but this is something very minor.
Frost Walrus: Little sloppy during the second part, but the midboss manipulation and that ice quick dash is worthy enough.
Jet Stingray: Only noticed ground dashes wich should be an accident, but the segment looks great enough.
Slash Beast: While using the robot, you should get hit more instead of slashing all the way.
Colonel 1: When you released the last Frost Tower, you should have moved to the left right away, killing the delay of X walking all the way to it.
Web Spider: I think that this method is slower by a 2-3 seconds each time you cut his web.
Split Mushroom: Same goes for this boss.
Cyber Peacock: Everything is OK.
Storm Owl: OK.
Colonel 2: Very Nice.
General: The Double Fight should start with a Charged Shot. The General fight could be done with better luck, he should throw his punchs so you hit him contantly.
Dragoon Refight: I don't know why you guys decided to use this strat with double tornado, it is slower by like 1-2 seconds each time you use it. 2 Mid Charged Shots do the same damage as it and only cost 1 second, while double tornado cost like 4 seconds.
Mushroom Refight: Slower, but i guess that for a segment this long, you want to make your stuff reliable, i think that you should at least use some charged shots.
Stingray Refight: Little mistake, no big deal.
Spider Refight: The same as the stage run.
Grim Reaper: Bah
Sigma 1: I like your strategy to make the web dissapear, but there is one possible improvement, when you are behind him (when sigma fires his eye lasers) you should shoot a charged shot, a web and another charged shot.
Final Sigma: You got good luck on both parts of Sigma, only thing i could say is to shoot multiple rays at the head just to ensure you hit him ASAP.
Overall the run is ok, all that i said is the bad points i saw on it, everything else was perfect or good, my opinion is that you guys could do a little more of effort, but maybe i just demanding more than enough. Accept.
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I'm picturing my arrival to this thread like slowpoke entering an empty meeting room during the middle of the night. I might as well finish what I signed on for though. The sound and picture quality is fine from both parties. I must say that I was very impressed with a number of the stages and boss strategies. Cyber Peacock and his level, the Double battle, the colonel battles, Storm Owl and his level all stood out to me.
Everything with regards to improvement has been suggested by others already. Whether the runners are able to make those improvements or even willing to is up to a number of factors.
Most of my limited complaints come from the later segments. I think the general fight could have gone better in terms of attack manipulation and connected hits. The boss refights were good for the most part, but I feel Dragoon (who is at the start of the segment) and Web Spider could have gone much faster. Cyber Peacock has a few missed hits too, but they are immediately followed up on. There is a missed hit on Sigma 1 (which is recovered from right away too), but Sigma II and Sigma III went really well.
I accept this cool run and I hope these two tag team Zero low% next.
They missed an epic quote in their comments though - I'M GONNA RECYCLE YOU!
Actually, I've got another after trying to edit this post - WHAT AM I USING INTERNET EXPLORER FOOOOOOOOR!?
Everything with regards to improvement has been suggested by others already. Whether the runners are able to make those improvements or even willing to is up to a number of factors.
Most of my limited complaints come from the later segments. I think the general fight could have gone better in terms of attack manipulation and connected hits. The boss refights were good for the most part, but I feel Dragoon (who is at the start of the segment) and Web Spider could have gone much faster. Cyber Peacock has a few missed hits too, but they are immediately followed up on. There is a missed hit on Sigma 1 (which is recovered from right away too), but Sigma II and Sigma III went really well.
I accept this cool run and I hope these two tag team Zero low% next.
They missed an epic quote in their comments though - I'M GONNA RECYCLE YOU!
Actually, I've got another after trying to edit this post - WHAT AM I USING INTERNET EXPLORER FOOOOOOOOR!?
Decision: Accept
Reason: X just got serious.
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