Power Blade 2 - December 13, 2013

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2013-12-13 02:11:28 am

2013-11-29 02:37:23 pm

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Power Blade 2 (Any %) (Single Segment)

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'InfestedRiche'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2013-11-29 02:37:32 pm

Run Information

Power Blade 2 (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/powerblade2-v_HQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by Dec. 13, 2013.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.

ktwo

2013-11-30 07:59:53 am

I have played through this game a while ago.

A/V: Good ol' NES quality.
Legit: Yeah!
Category note: This was played on the Japanese version. It looks like there is only text differences from the US-version, but I haven't played this game enough to catch any minor version differences (if there are any). Either way, this should be labeled ntsc-j.

Game play: Really awesome to see this game being speedrun. It's a good speedrun too. Most of the execution mistakes are minor. Mini-boss #2 (in the underwater section) is unfortunate as the runner had to wait an extra cycle for the last hit. The run comments attribute this to bad luck and that 14 secs were lost due to bad rng. Looks more like 4-5 secs to me. Even the (wip) tases can't finish him off in the first cycle on the right side, so I'm not sure where the other 10 secs were lost? Anyways, the execution in this run is overall up to par.
As for the strats, it mostly looks good, but there were a few thoughts that popped up in my head while watching the run:
- On the underwater mini-boss, wouldn't it have been faster to use the "flying" suit? I'm tempted to say that you can deal more damage per time unit than with the red boomerang. You can also use the slide to deal a few more units of damage when the boss moves from one side of the screen to the other.
- In section 2-7, was it overall necessary to switch back to normal Nova? You spent 29 time units and the suit energy ticks down every 5-6 time units or so. At the end of the game, you had a lot suit energy left. The same comment can be applied to 5-2 (22 time units as Nova). There are a bunch of other auto-scrollers, but most of them are longer and it's probabaly wise to not exaggerate the time spent in a suit.
- The battery pack in 6-9 looks to be one of the more accessible ones in the game? As an example, the one in 4-4 was pretty far out of the way in comparison.
- The run finishes with one health and one battery refill in stock. The battery was technically not necessary, but still understandable as the runner was one unit away from having to use it. However, for anyone trying to beat this run, there's no reason to pick up the extra one. I'm not sure where the extra health refill was meant to be used though?
Still, overall a solid product, carrying the Swedish quality seal! Grattis och bra jobbat!

ACCEPT!!!

Time: Control starts at 8.391 (slightly before reaching the entrance to the first stage). Control ends at 22:41.126. SDA-time is therefore 0:22:32.

I have played through this game a while ago.

A/V: Good ol' NES quality.
Legit: Yeah!
Category note: This was played on the Japanese version. It looks like there is only text differences from the US-version, but I haven't played this game enough to catch any minor version differences (if there are any). Either way, this should be labeled ntsc-j.

Game play: Really awesome to see this game being speedrun. It's a good speedrun too. Most of the execution mistakes are minor. Mini-boss #2 (in the underwater section) is unfortunate as the runner had to wait an extra cycle for the last hit. The run comments attribute this to bad luck and that 14 secs were lost due to bad rng. Looks more like 4-5 secs to me. Even the (wip) tases can't finish him off in the first cycle on the right side, so I'm not sure where the other 10 secs were lost? Anyways, the execution in this run is overall up to par. 
As for the strats, it mostly looks good, but there were a few thoughts that popped up in my head while watching the run:
- On the underwater mini-boss, wouldn't it have been faster to use the "flying" suit? I'm tempted to say that you can deal more damage per time unit than with the red boomerang. You can also use the slide to deal a few more units of damage when the boss moves from one side of the screen to the other.
- In section 2-7, was it overall necessary to switch back to normal Nova? You spent 29 time units and the suit energy ticks down every 5-6 time units or so. At the end of the game, you had a lot suit energy left. The same comment can be applied to 5-2 (22 time units as Nova). There are a bunch of other auto-scrollers, but most of them are longer and it's probabaly wise to not exaggerate the time spent in a suit.
- The battery pack in 6-9 looks to be one of the more accessible ones in the game? As an example, the one in 4-4 was pretty far out of the way in comparison.
- The run finishes with one health and one battery refill in stock. The battery was technically not necessary, but still understandable as the runner was one unit away from having to use it. However, for anyone trying to beat this run, there's no reason to pick up the extra one. I'm not sure where the extra health refill was meant to be used though?
Still, overall a solid product, carrying the Swedish quality seal! Grattis och bra jobbat!

ACCEPT!!!

Time: Control starts at 8.391 (slightly before reaching the entrance to the first stage). Control ends at 22:41.126. SDA-time is therefore 0:22:32.

Eternalspirit

2013-12-02 08:48:44 pm

Why the hell is Duke Nukem the main character in this game? Anyways..

Don't have much to add to the above verifier except that in sector 4, area 7, the runner does not immediately run towards crawlspace and ends up having to wait for the floor to move back into position so he can slide through. Would it not be faster to disregard taking out enemies here in order to get there ASAP in order to beat out the floor? That said, it looks like it would be awkward to try to slide through while the floor is moving up, and the floor's movement up would probably kill you before you reached the other side anyways (assuming that's how it works in this game). The same applies to the other slides in this room.

I also didn't see where the runner claimed to have used an extra ration against the boss of stage 4, nor did I see any sliding attack.

Aside from that, A/V is fine, no cheating.. having not played this game before, I can definitely say the runner makes this game look a LOT easier than I'm sure it actually is.

Accept.

PS. This game's soundtrack is fucking badass.

Why the hell is Duke Nukem the main character in this game? Anyways..

Don't have much to add to the above verifier except that in sector 4, area 7, the runner does not immediately run towards crawlspace and ends up having to wait for the floor to move back into position so he can slide through. Would it not be faster to disregard taking out enemies here in order to get there ASAP in order to beat out the floor? That said, it looks like it would be awkward to try to slide through while the floor is moving up, and the floor's movement up would probably kill you before you reached the other side anyways (assuming that's how it works in this game). The same applies to the other slides in this room.

I also didn't see where the runner claimed to have used an extra ration against the boss of stage 4, nor did I see any sliding attack.

Aside from that, A/V is fine, no cheating.. having not played this game before, I can definitely say the runner makes this game look a LOT easier than I'm sure it actually is.

Accept.

PS. This game's soundtrack is fucking badass.

djcj

2013-12-03 02:31:18 am

Quote from Eternalspirit:

Why the hell is Duke Nukem the main character in this game? Anyways..

[...]

PS. This game's soundtrack is fucking badass.

I second that. And I lol'd about the businessman at the end turning into Freeza.

A/V quality is nice.
The run looks really well executed. I agree with ktwo, picking up the energy pack in 4-4 took some time, chosing a different one might have been better. Aside of that, health and energy management looks really good. At the end of the game he was close to use the last energy pack. The last health pack might have been avoidable though.
It's an accept from me.

ktwo

2013-12-03 09:05:54 am

Quote from Eternalspirit:

Don't have much to add to the above verifier except that in sector 4, area 7, the runner does not immediately run towards crawlspace and ends up having to wait for the floor to move back into position so he can slide through. Would it not be faster to disregard taking out enemies here in order to get there ASAP in order to beat out the floor? That said, it looks like it would be awkward to try to slide through while the floor is moving up, and the floor's movement up would probably kill you before you reached the other side anyways (assuming that's how it works in this game). The same applies to the other slides in this room.

It's a good observation, but unfortunately not possible. You'll be killed if trying to slide through those passages when the floor is rising.

I agree that parts of the run comments are somewhat confusing. It's almost like the runner completed a run, wrote comments, beat the run and just edited the comments here and there. I dunno...

Eternalspirit

2013-12-03 04:57:13 pm

Thanks for clearing that up. Smiley

bangerra

Edit history:

bangerra: 2013-12-03 06:14:28 pm

bangerra: 2013-12-03 06:14:19 pm

bangerra: 2013-12-03 06:13:39 pm

2013-12-03 06:13:17 pm

A/V is fine for NES
no haxx
Nice run of a pretty darn difficult game (we did a blind race and everyone forfeit - something that doesn't happen too often)
As mentioned before, the underwater energy pack lost close to 10s, I saw at least 2 other ones that would've been only a 2-3 second detour.
I can see why he picks up the energy pack though, the only reason he has one left at the end is because he got 2 minor energy drops at the end.
If RNG would've given him none, or even only 1 he would've had to use the energy pack. I'd hate my run to have to be dependent on RNG drops.
The extra health is indeed unneccesairy, but the pick-up only loses a minor amount of time.

Accept

puwexil

2013-12-04 09:18:19 am

Professional Second Banana

Quote from bangerra:

If RNG would've given him none, or even only 1 he would've had to use the energy pack. I'd hate my run to have to be dependent on RNG drops.

I know in Power Blade 1 the drops follow a fixed pattern that can be routed out. Is that the case here too or are the drops actually random in PB2?

ktwo

2013-12-04 11:59:52 am

As far as I can tell, it's exactly like in Power Blade 1 (the drops can be determined in a speedrun route).

AlecK47

2013-12-04 03:26:40 pm

A/V good, no cheating detected

The run looks really good all in all. As mentioned by other verifiers some time could be saved, but this is still definitely worthy of an accept.

Nightdawn

2013-12-04 03:37:51 pm

Two cookies and a cheeto

A/V Good

Was actually fun to watch just because how hard this game is, there was some obvious time savers but I think most people agree on that and it have already been mentioned a lot, still it's really good.

SDAVerification

2013-12-13 02:11:31 am

Decision posted.