My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/TetrisAttack.html
Craig 'cyghfer' Gordon's very hard difficulty versus mode run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's yet another improvement to Tetris Attack.
Craig 'cyghfer' Gordon's very hard difficulty versus mode run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Verifier: okay, quick verify of the tetris attack run
Verifier: Video & Audio: Everything is synced fine, although the game looks surprisingly bad in verification quality
Verifier: The strategies are clearly adjusted to produce the garbage blocks that the specific AI is least likely to handle properly with larger blocks earlier and smaller blocks broken by combo blocks later on to reduce the garbage clearing time
Verifier: I'm quite impressed at the ability to string the combos into the chains which are necessary for the strategy to work out
Verifier: The enemies tend to fail spectacularly, although there is still room for more luck, but it's not easy to ge them to cooperate. Especially Bowser dies a pretty humiliating death.
Verifier: There's a few screw ups, especially the piranha plant and kamek fights don't quite work out as intended. Both could have been finished a bit faster, the piranha fight by stacking the blocks in the correct order to start the final chain earlier, and the runner seems to have blanked on potential combos in the kamek fight for a moment
Verifier: Overall still an impressive play with quite a bit of good luck. Easy accept.
Verifier: Video & Audio: Everything is synced fine, although the game looks surprisingly bad in verification quality
Verifier: The strategies are clearly adjusted to produce the garbage blocks that the specific AI is least likely to handle properly with larger blocks earlier and smaller blocks broken by combo blocks later on to reduce the garbage clearing time
Verifier: I'm quite impressed at the ability to string the combos into the chains which are necessary for the strategy to work out
Verifier: The enemies tend to fail spectacularly, although there is still room for more luck, but it's not easy to ge them to cooperate. Especially Bowser dies a pretty humiliating death.
Verifier: There's a few screw ups, especially the piranha plant and kamek fights don't quite work out as intended. Both could have been finished a bit faster, the piranha fight by stacking the blocks in the correct order to start the final chain earlier, and the runner seems to have blanked on potential combos in the kamek fight for a moment
Verifier: Overall still an impressive play with quite a bit of good luck. Easy accept.
Quote:
Verifier: but it wasn't quite as simple as I thought it would be
Verifier: wow, this is a thrashing of the existing run lol
Verifier: my faith in darkwing duck is shattered ;_;
Verifier: (yes, these are effectively my verifier comments)
Verifier: wow, this is a thrashing of the existing run lol
Verifier: my faith in darkwing duck is shattered ;_;
Verifier: (yes, these are effectively my verifier comments)
Quote:
I just watched this right away and I'm going to type up my comments in this reply bawx.
This run really is solid. I don't remember Darkwing Duck's run, but who would after improving his run by 1/6th, like A CERTAIN SOMEONE did for Faxanadu? Anyway, our mystery runner is not just a typical "OMG GET A x14 CHAIN RAPE RAPE RAPE" player, he uses tact and good timing to try not to overkill the computers, and do only what is necessary, and quickly. I'll point out cool stuff in every stage.
Stage 1: Starts with a cross-clear 5-combo. These are not only a little weird to spot, but also hard to chain after, and he gets an awesome x6 chain out of it too. Almost gets x7 but that would have been overkill. Flawless.
Stage 2: Hilarious levitating 6-combo, fails to follow up with a chain though. Could have got a x4 out of it easily. However it becomes a diversion for Bumpty while he sets up the main course, which finishes him off nicely.
Stage 3: I hate Poochy's music, sorry Mystery Runner. Sounds too much like Pokemon Puzzle League's licorice-flavoured elevator muzak. Anyway, his opening assault is genius, he sees a lot of things I usually wouldn't look for...that's the beauty of watching other people play this game. He stops short of easily continuing the chain too, which means he had time to look over to Poochy's screen. The extra combo dropped at the end speeds up his death, because the garbage is already through the roof and the extra drop causes instant death. This technique should be considered for future runs.
Stage 4: Wiggler gets to yell CRAP a few times, but can't stand up to yet another cross-clear and then a massive x8 chain. Crushed. The perfect delivery.
Stage 5: The right-T 5-combo was cool. It's a shame he missed the triangles to end that chain, but it's possible Froggy would have used his hearts to clear it anyway. He was in the middle of attacking though, maybe Froggy would have overspent and gotten raped (a literal term I use meaning no possible clears...wait no, he had more hearts). Bah, I'm splitting hairs over nothing, these matches can vary so much every time.
Stage 6: Another awesome T combo and sizeable chain. Gotta look for those T-combos more, they're pretty easy to chain after because they open up so many possibilities for continuation. He really is looking at the other side a lot because instead of continuing to attack, he just spins the cursor. (I just realized the Mystery Runner could be a woman. But there's mention of a sister, she should beat this run)
What's funny is that Blargg denies himself an early chain almost on purpose. He really sucked that match, runner got lucky for sure.
Stage 7: Awesome L-combo. He has already started trying his new strat of two smaller sized attacks, but it sort of backfires because the first attack is too small (or too big, causes the big screen-shake). Or the second attack isn't big enough, depending on how you look at it. Thankfully, Lunge Fish gets raped and delays the inevitable. The AI tends to do that a lot in Tetris Attack, Nintendo sadly got rid of this in later games. Stupid Level 20 AI matches carrying on for over 15 minutes...
Stage 8: Raphael gets off to a lousy start and panics when some stuff lands on him. Another cool T combo too.
Stage 9: I go through a mixture of laughing and cringing when I see that easy chain dropped. He can't decide between dropping the high heart (which he could have set up beforehand, too) or the middle one, then gets caught between them and misses it. Hookbill clears his garbage after doing two stupid attacks, and the runner (accidentally?) clears Hookbill's attack...thankfully Hookbill dies shortly after. Clearing garbage before the stack is full is a horrible idea because your assault gets put on hold until it clears. Also missed a chance to recycle a diamond for a 5-combo to start a x2 chain, but Hookbill was already dead.
Stage 10: I thought Naval Pirahna said "safe sex" but someone corrected me and told me he actually says "crazy bitch". He's one of my favourites to play, either way. Or Yoshi just for the neverending chromatically rising music getting on everyone's nerves after a 6 minute endurance match.
Stage 11: Kamek is more of a bitch than Bowser, usually. These stages are a little slower because the AI gets a lot faster, but not really smarter. But this stage being slower is mostly his fault, imo. The opening small chain goes great (I would have gone for the 6-combo and stopped dead), but the follow up is cut short by dropping a star by mistake. Should have looked one panel higher before lining up more stuff. I think he was a few pixels short of putting the pressure on Kamek, but it doesn't matter because he clears it. So now the runner has a chance to cut loose and absolutely go off now that Kamek's stuff is clearing, but instead he just acts awkward and gets an 8-combo and x2 chain. This clears Kamek's stuff too and the assault comes to a grinding halt. Thankfully Kamek falls behind and dies before it can get any weirder, this stage almost killed the run.
Stage 12: Bowser's a big blowhard in this game too. But watching his side, I'm surprised he wasn't capable of living longer. The runner nearly gets himself raped while watching Bowser, although he had lots of options left and wasn't necessarily about to lose. I guess for a speedrun you have to check the CPU opponent a lot but it shouldn't take more than a glance to notice "oh, he's got 3 rows left at the top, guess I'll drop a x17 chain" or whatever. At least that's what I'd do.
Anyway, why did I type all this? All I had to say was something like "CRAP! CRAZY BITCH! *does x9 chains* VIDEO IS CRYSTAL CLEAR, AUDIO WILL MAKE ME DREAM ABOUT THIS GAME." Accept it, it's a no-brainer.
P.S. mystery runner, money match me at this game for $20? I have Planet Puzzle League. =D
This run really is solid. I don't remember Darkwing Duck's run, but who would after improving his run by 1/6th, like A CERTAIN SOMEONE did for Faxanadu? Anyway, our mystery runner is not just a typical "OMG GET A x14 CHAIN RAPE RAPE RAPE" player, he uses tact and good timing to try not to overkill the computers, and do only what is necessary, and quickly. I'll point out cool stuff in every stage.
Stage 1: Starts with a cross-clear 5-combo. These are not only a little weird to spot, but also hard to chain after, and he gets an awesome x6 chain out of it too. Almost gets x7 but that would have been overkill. Flawless.
Stage 2: Hilarious levitating 6-combo, fails to follow up with a chain though. Could have got a x4 out of it easily. However it becomes a diversion for Bumpty while he sets up the main course, which finishes him off nicely.
Stage 3: I hate Poochy's music, sorry Mystery Runner. Sounds too much like Pokemon Puzzle League's licorice-flavoured elevator muzak. Anyway, his opening assault is genius, he sees a lot of things I usually wouldn't look for...that's the beauty of watching other people play this game. He stops short of easily continuing the chain too, which means he had time to look over to Poochy's screen. The extra combo dropped at the end speeds up his death, because the garbage is already through the roof and the extra drop causes instant death. This technique should be considered for future runs.
Stage 4: Wiggler gets to yell CRAP a few times, but can't stand up to yet another cross-clear and then a massive x8 chain. Crushed. The perfect delivery.
Stage 5: The right-T 5-combo was cool. It's a shame he missed the triangles to end that chain, but it's possible Froggy would have used his hearts to clear it anyway. He was in the middle of attacking though, maybe Froggy would have overspent and gotten raped (a literal term I use meaning no possible clears...wait no, he had more hearts). Bah, I'm splitting hairs over nothing, these matches can vary so much every time.
Stage 6: Another awesome T combo and sizeable chain. Gotta look for those T-combos more, they're pretty easy to chain after because they open up so many possibilities for continuation. He really is looking at the other side a lot because instead of continuing to attack, he just spins the cursor. (I just realized the Mystery Runner could be a woman. But there's mention of a sister, she should beat this run)
What's funny is that Blargg denies himself an early chain almost on purpose. He really sucked that match, runner got lucky for sure.
Stage 7: Awesome L-combo. He has already started trying his new strat of two smaller sized attacks, but it sort of backfires because the first attack is too small (or too big, causes the big screen-shake). Or the second attack isn't big enough, depending on how you look at it. Thankfully, Lunge Fish gets raped and delays the inevitable. The AI tends to do that a lot in Tetris Attack, Nintendo sadly got rid of this in later games. Stupid Level 20 AI matches carrying on for over 15 minutes...
Stage 8: Raphael gets off to a lousy start and panics when some stuff lands on him. Another cool T combo too.
Stage 9: I go through a mixture of laughing and cringing when I see that easy chain dropped. He can't decide between dropping the high heart (which he could have set up beforehand, too) or the middle one, then gets caught between them and misses it. Hookbill clears his garbage after doing two stupid attacks, and the runner (accidentally?) clears Hookbill's attack...thankfully Hookbill dies shortly after. Clearing garbage before the stack is full is a horrible idea because your assault gets put on hold until it clears. Also missed a chance to recycle a diamond for a 5-combo to start a x2 chain, but Hookbill was already dead.
Stage 10: I thought Naval Pirahna said "safe sex" but someone corrected me and told me he actually says "crazy bitch". He's one of my favourites to play, either way. Or Yoshi just for the neverending chromatically rising music getting on everyone's nerves after a 6 minute endurance match.
Stage 11: Kamek is more of a bitch than Bowser, usually. These stages are a little slower because the AI gets a lot faster, but not really smarter. But this stage being slower is mostly his fault, imo. The opening small chain goes great (I would have gone for the 6-combo and stopped dead), but the follow up is cut short by dropping a star by mistake. Should have looked one panel higher before lining up more stuff. I think he was a few pixels short of putting the pressure on Kamek, but it doesn't matter because he clears it. So now the runner has a chance to cut loose and absolutely go off now that Kamek's stuff is clearing, but instead he just acts awkward and gets an 8-combo and x2 chain. This clears Kamek's stuff too and the assault comes to a grinding halt. Thankfully Kamek falls behind and dies before it can get any weirder, this stage almost killed the run.
Stage 12: Bowser's a big blowhard in this game too. But watching his side, I'm surprised he wasn't capable of living longer. The runner nearly gets himself raped while watching Bowser, although he had lots of options left and wasn't necessarily about to lose. I guess for a speedrun you have to check the CPU opponent a lot but it shouldn't take more than a glance to notice "oh, he's got 3 rows left at the top, guess I'll drop a x17 chain" or whatever. At least that's what I'd do.
Anyway, why did I type all this? All I had to say was something like "CRAP! CRAZY BITCH! *does x9 chains* VIDEO IS CRYSTAL CLEAR, AUDIO WILL MAKE ME DREAM ABOUT THIS GAME." Accept it, it's a no-brainer.
P.S. mystery runner, money match me at this game for $20? I have Planet Puzzle League. =D
Quote:
Audio is good, video is good.
Comments:
Stage 1:
Hard to see how this could go better.
Stage 2:
Could have gone a bit better. Notice the hesistation when the runner messes up his combo near the start. You can just picture him staring at the screen, trying to find a backup plan. Good recovery. Maybe a second lost?
Stage 3:
Really good. Good job recognizing that Poochy was real high and not continuing the combo.
Stage 4:
Good job again. Too bad Wiggler cleared a line to take some time away from the runner, but what can you do? Another second lost?
Stage 5:
Deciding not to make that combo bigger looks bad since Froggy clears, but I donèt think it really matters. Looks to me like he would still have made it to 22 seconds either way. He's already clearing a line when the big block falls, and his cursor is really close to the line that he has to clear to keep the stage going. I don't think any time was lost here from player error. 1st clear of the run.
Stage 6:
Not much to say. Really quick.
Stage 7:
Yeah, not making one of the 2 combos 1 line bigger makes about a 2-3 second difference here, and it looks terrible, especially since both combos were easy to continue.
Stage 8:
Raphael the Raven is badass, but only when player-controlled.
Stage 9:
Looks good.
Stage 10:
Like the runner says, it's hard to tell if Navel would have died without all the errors (which might not be so apparent to casual players). Still, this is the worst stage in the run.
Stage 11:
Maybe the mistakes don't end up costing time, but they aren't visually pleasing, that's for sure. Runner appears hesistant after the mistake at 0:10 for a second or two.
Stage 12:
Good job on Bowser, no complaints. Taunting is good!
Stage comparison
Stage New Total Old Total Change
1 0:13 0:16 -0:03
2 0:28 0:31 -0:03
3 0:43 0:48 -0:05
4 1:00 1:27 -0:27
5 1:22 1:40 -0:18
6 1:36 2:10 -0:34
7 2:02 2:58 -0:56
8 2:18 3:35 -1:17
9 2:45 4:01 -1:16
10 3:19 4:16 -0:57
11 3:55 4:50 -0:55
12 4:19 5:12 -0:53
Verdict:
Clear accept, it is much quicker than the current runner. I really hope the runner keeps trying to improve his run though, because it is apparent that a better time is definitely possible. Sub 4:00 is definitely something to shoot for. Sub 3:45, on the other end, might end up
Comments:
Stage 1:
Hard to see how this could go better.
Stage 2:
Could have gone a bit better. Notice the hesistation when the runner messes up his combo near the start. You can just picture him staring at the screen, trying to find a backup plan. Good recovery. Maybe a second lost?
Stage 3:
Really good. Good job recognizing that Poochy was real high and not continuing the combo.
Stage 4:
Good job again. Too bad Wiggler cleared a line to take some time away from the runner, but what can you do? Another second lost?
Stage 5:
Deciding not to make that combo bigger looks bad since Froggy clears, but I donèt think it really matters. Looks to me like he would still have made it to 22 seconds either way. He's already clearing a line when the big block falls, and his cursor is really close to the line that he has to clear to keep the stage going. I don't think any time was lost here from player error. 1st clear of the run.
Stage 6:
Not much to say. Really quick.
Stage 7:
Yeah, not making one of the 2 combos 1 line bigger makes about a 2-3 second difference here, and it looks terrible, especially since both combos were easy to continue.
Stage 8:
Raphael the Raven is badass, but only when player-controlled.
Stage 9:
Looks good.
Stage 10:
Like the runner says, it's hard to tell if Navel would have died without all the errors (which might not be so apparent to casual players). Still, this is the worst stage in the run.
Stage 11:
Maybe the mistakes don't end up costing time, but they aren't visually pleasing, that's for sure. Runner appears hesistant after the mistake at 0:10 for a second or two.
Stage 12:
Good job on Bowser, no complaints. Taunting is good!
Stage comparison
Stage New Total Old Total Change
1 0:13 0:16 -0:03
2 0:28 0:31 -0:03
3 0:43 0:48 -0:05
4 1:00 1:27 -0:27
5 1:22 1:40 -0:18
6 1:36 2:10 -0:34
7 2:02 2:58 -0:56
8 2:18 3:35 -1:17
9 2:45 4:01 -1:16
10 3:19 4:16 -0:57
11 3:55 4:50 -0:55
12 4:19 5:12 -0:53
Verdict:
Clear accept, it is much quicker than the current runner. I really hope the runner keeps trying to improve his run though, because it is apparent that a better time is definitely possible. Sub 4:00 is definitely something to shoot for. Sub 3:45, on the other end, might end up
Quote:
A/V: Fine
Cheating: No
Only thing I can think of to say about the run is "stupid."
Stupid Wiggler not clearing once, dieing 22 seconds faster.
Stupid Blargg not being a pain, dieing 16 seconds faster.
Stupid Lungefish being only a slight pain instead of a royal one, dieing 22 seconds faster.
60 seconds in three stages. It's why the run is 53 seconds faster, 4:19 by my count. No bad stages.
Can't think why it wouldn't be an obvious accept.
Cheating: No
Only thing I can think of to say about the run is "stupid."
Stupid Wiggler not clearing once, dieing 22 seconds faster.
Stupid Blargg not being a pain, dieing 16 seconds faster.
Stupid Lungefish being only a slight pain instead of a royal one, dieing 22 seconds faster.
60 seconds in three stages. It's why the run is 53 seconds faster, 4:19 by my count. No bad stages.
Can't think why it wouldn't be an obvious accept.
Quote:
St. Canard has fallen. How could Darkwing Duck let this happen?
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's yet another improvement to Tetris Attack.
Thread title:
