My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet.
Mike 'mike89' Mckenzie's 100% run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Good job on the improvement, Mike89!
Mike 'mike89' Mckenzie's 100% run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Holy crap... someone actually pulled this off. It took me weeks of searching to find all of the Chao my first time around; seeing this pulled off is a like a fantastic blow to my pride.
Technical: Visual quality isn't the greatest, but that'd be because it's on GBA! (So it's "as good as it can get", so to speak). Audio is flawless and timed perfectly. No complaints.
Cheating: None detected.
General commentary: I was rooted the entire time, which is a really good thing. All of the teams used make logical sense and are played well. So no complaints about the route. The stages themselves... damn, some of them are nearly flawless and are incredibly fast even with the mandatory detours that the Chao and keys require. There were extremely few mistakes in stages that had any major impact, which is great; and no deaths makes things fantastic. I am a little saddened by some of the boss fights, but I'm also fully aware of just how random a lot of them are - getting 'alright' luck at worst is more than enough to satisfy me.
Whole-hearted Accept. It's not beyond improvement - but as things stand now, I believe that any significant improvement will require either A) a new route/significant new tricks to be used, or B) way better boss luck; and if that's all that can improve it, I think it deserves to be recognised.
EDIT: Manual timing went from 0:01:00 (first moment of input) to 1:21:22 (moment last hit is landed on final boss), meaning I'm seeing a final result of 1:20:22 (unless I have the timing method wrong)
Technical: Visual quality isn't the greatest, but that'd be because it's on GBA! (So it's "as good as it can get", so to speak). Audio is flawless and timed perfectly. No complaints.
Cheating: None detected.
General commentary: I was rooted the entire time, which is a really good thing. All of the teams used make logical sense and are played well. So no complaints about the route. The stages themselves... damn, some of them are nearly flawless and are incredibly fast even with the mandatory detours that the Chao and keys require. There were extremely few mistakes in stages that had any major impact, which is great; and no deaths makes things fantastic. I am a little saddened by some of the boss fights, but I'm also fully aware of just how random a lot of them are - getting 'alright' luck at worst is more than enough to satisfy me.
Whole-hearted Accept. It's not beyond improvement - but as things stand now, I believe that any significant improvement will require either A) a new route/significant new tricks to be used, or B) way better boss luck; and if that's all that can improve it, I think it deserves to be recognised.
EDIT: Manual timing went from 0:01:00 (first moment of input) to 1:21:22 (moment last hit is landed on final boss), meaning I'm seeing a final result of 1:20:22 (unless I have the timing method wrong)
Quote:
Audio/Video: Looks/Sounds good to me. Not perfect but with GBA games that's kinda hard to do.
Cheating: Nope.
So without further ado...
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Route 99 Zone:
Act 3 - How silly, not going in order! But jokes aside, execution of this level was pretty good.
Act 2 - Hm... I dunno if that hit 27 seconds in was intentional or not but yeesh that enemy's annoying. I'm also tempted to say going over the loop through the rails would be slightly faster than the method displayed here, but only a few seconds tops.
Act 1 - Definitely a few mistakes, but not too much time lost.
Special Stage - If you didn't get 240 rings I would have rejected it here! But seriously, since all the special stages are effectively autoscrollers, there's nothing to say about any of them.
Boss - Looked fairly good. Not much I can say here.
Sunset Hill Zone:
Act # - All pretty good here, although if this is rerun the key near the end of act 2 should probably be the target.
Boss - A shame it's annoying to manipulate boss exiting time on this boss. Aside from taking that last hit it came out fairly well though.
Ocean Base Zone:
Act 1 - The block at 58 seconds can be reached a cycle earlier if the first chao is grabbed by going up the leftward steep hill and going left until dropping at the waterfall. Would only be about a 3-5 second cut though. And then the mistake at the end... Could be worse, but could be better.
Act 2/3 - Looked pretty good.
Boss - Okay, yeah, this could be a bit better, but still good enough. Interesting to know that he can land the two hits when the feet close up though.
Toy Kingdom Zone:
Act 3 - I feel there's a few minor mistakes and/or improvements that can be made here that don't matter much because they'd be mostly tiny changes that wouldn't detract much from the fact that this is a pretty good run of this level.
Act 2 - That was simply stunning execution. Would have been cool if he jumped off the last elephant but the time difference isn't even remotely large if you jump or slide.
Act 1 - Well done!
Boss - This boss sucks. With that said, again, nothing to say. As stated, this boss is 100% random.
Twinkle Snow Zone:
Act 1 - A few really minor mistakes here and there but a good run overall.
Act 2 - Also pretty good.
Act 3 - Okay, Sonic didn't beat the first minecart to the end, that was horrible. But seriously, good run, could probably save maybe one or two seconds but that's it.
Boss - Came out fairly well!
Cyber Track Zone:
Act 1/2 - Look pretty good to me.
Act 3 - A shame it took three tries to get the trick to work the first time. And yeah, lucky Gemerl fight is lucky. He's got this really annoying missile attack that eats away at the time due to its length, but all ground dashes is more or less the best setup you can get.
Boss - This boss sucks. It's annoying to land a hit even if you do have some of it down, but the runner explained the annoyance of this boss enough.
Chaos Angel Zone:
Act 1 - Yikes, that mistake at the end... That was... well, at least it was recovered from, despite the detriment, and that last part is a choker in itself. Still...
Act 2 - Another one of those "few minor mistakes but otherwise great execution" levels.
Act 3 - Ah, this level... Only complaint I can make here (And I feel like I should have said something about this in the past) is that when you press B to roll up in your jump, you can choose which direction to glide after a walldash jump. That (for the last part) and making the first part in two glides end up being the slower scenario, but not by a large margin.
Boss - Wow, I didn't realize you had that much leniance with the spikes there. Knuckles is clearly touching them, and yet not! Great except he should have been on the left side so the boss can leave quicker. The quicker he leaves, the quicker you gain control. But it's only a few seconds difference.
Altar Emerald:
Boss - Wow, talk about clutch victories.
CONGRATULATIONS!
...
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
Alter Emerald, AGAIN:
Went pretty well!
Nonaggression:
A decent amount of lost time here, but this boss is pretty annoying.
--------
Here we Go!! So how does this measure up? Well, there's definitely a good level of skill, understanding, and execution in plenty of this (I was particularly impressed by Toy Kingdom 2) and very few sizable mistakes (Most noteworthy being the choke spot at Chaos Angel 1). Also, no death!
Accept.
Cheating: Nope.
So without further ado...
--------
Route 99 Zone:
Act 3 - How silly, not going in order! But jokes aside, execution of this level was pretty good.
Act 2 - Hm... I dunno if that hit 27 seconds in was intentional or not but yeesh that enemy's annoying. I'm also tempted to say going over the loop through the rails would be slightly faster than the method displayed here, but only a few seconds tops.
Act 1 - Definitely a few mistakes, but not too much time lost.
Special Stage - If you didn't get 240 rings I would have rejected it here! But seriously, since all the special stages are effectively autoscrollers, there's nothing to say about any of them.
Boss - Looked fairly good. Not much I can say here.
Sunset Hill Zone:
Act # - All pretty good here, although if this is rerun the key near the end of act 2 should probably be the target.
Boss - A shame it's annoying to manipulate boss exiting time on this boss. Aside from taking that last hit it came out fairly well though.
Ocean Base Zone:
Act 1 - The block at 58 seconds can be reached a cycle earlier if the first chao is grabbed by going up the leftward steep hill and going left until dropping at the waterfall. Would only be about a 3-5 second cut though. And then the mistake at the end... Could be worse, but could be better.
Act 2/3 - Looked pretty good.
Boss - Okay, yeah, this could be a bit better, but still good enough. Interesting to know that he can land the two hits when the feet close up though.
Toy Kingdom Zone:
Act 3 - I feel there's a few minor mistakes and/or improvements that can be made here that don't matter much because they'd be mostly tiny changes that wouldn't detract much from the fact that this is a pretty good run of this level.
Act 2 - That was simply stunning execution. Would have been cool if he jumped off the last elephant but the time difference isn't even remotely large if you jump or slide.
Act 1 - Well done!
Boss - This boss sucks. With that said, again, nothing to say. As stated, this boss is 100% random.
Twinkle Snow Zone:
Act 1 - A few really minor mistakes here and there but a good run overall.
Act 2 - Also pretty good.
Act 3 - Okay, Sonic didn't beat the first minecart to the end, that was horrible. But seriously, good run, could probably save maybe one or two seconds but that's it.
Boss - Came out fairly well!
Cyber Track Zone:
Act 1/2 - Look pretty good to me.
Act 3 - A shame it took three tries to get the trick to work the first time. And yeah, lucky Gemerl fight is lucky. He's got this really annoying missile attack that eats away at the time due to its length, but all ground dashes is more or less the best setup you can get.
Boss - This boss sucks. It's annoying to land a hit even if you do have some of it down, but the runner explained the annoyance of this boss enough.
Chaos Angel Zone:
Act 1 - Yikes, that mistake at the end... That was... well, at least it was recovered from, despite the detriment, and that last part is a choker in itself. Still...
Act 2 - Another one of those "few minor mistakes but otherwise great execution" levels.
Act 3 - Ah, this level... Only complaint I can make here (And I feel like I should have said something about this in the past) is that when you press B to roll up in your jump, you can choose which direction to glide after a walldash jump. That (for the last part) and making the first part in two glides end up being the slower scenario, but not by a large margin.
Boss - Wow, I didn't realize you had that much leniance with the spikes there. Knuckles is clearly touching them, and yet not! Great except he should have been on the left side so the boss can leave quicker. The quicker he leaves, the quicker you gain control. But it's only a few seconds difference.
Altar Emerald:
Boss - Wow, talk about clutch victories.
CONGRATULATIONS!
...
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
Alter Emerald, AGAIN:
Went pretty well!
Nonaggression:
A decent amount of lost time here, but this boss is pretty annoying.
--------
Here we Go!! So how does this measure up? Well, there's definitely a good level of skill, understanding, and execution in plenty of this (I was particularly impressed by Toy Kingdom 2) and very few sizable mistakes (Most noteworthy being the choke spot at Chaos Angel 1). Also, no death!
Accept.
Quote:
It's certainly an improvement over the previous run; there aren't any deaths or significant mistakes, and the problems with the route have been solved. The route in general was well-thought out and the character combinations and Chao routes were planned and done well. There didn't seem to be any cheating, and everything was synched.
It's an accept.
It's an accept.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Good job on the improvement, Mike89!
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