Battle of Olympus

2010-01-24 12:49:53 pm

Haters gonna hate

Just shy of three years ago I was a little amazed that there was not only no run for this game on the site, but also no discussion of one whatsoever. At that point I started messing around with it a little, found out in a hurry what I was getting myself into, and stopped being amazed by the lack of run/discussion. In the back of my mind, however, it's always been one I've wanted to work on and this last MAGfest I found the cart for cheap, so I gave it another look. It's still going to be a hell of a game to run, but it seems much less daunting than I remember it being, so I'm going to give it a shot.

The route is basically stolen from the last no L+R TAS done of the game by JeffC aka arc (which you can check out yourself here) with a couple detours and allowances to make up for the fact that I can't play with frame advance. I also don't plan to use death abuse, because death abuse is lame. Tongue

Here's the route in brief:

Arcadia
- Farm up a bunch of olives using a neat little method I discovered (more on that later)
- Talk to Zeus
- Head to. . .

Argolis
- Take the right cave, tag Hermes's Temple and get told he's not there
- Exit via the salamander pit and head back to. . .

Arcadia
- Back to Zeus's Temple to get the sandals
- Head to. . .

Peloponnes
- Head to the Hydra, kill it, get the sword
- Grab the harp from Apollo
- Nab the free ambrosia (health extender/refill) on the way to the Cyclops
- Kill the Cyclops, exit to. . .

Laconia
- Hit up Poseidon for the ocarina (60 olives)
- Grab the flask on the way to the ocean
- Use the ocarina and cross to the Siren's island, kill her
- Kill the Graeae (yes, in the dark) for the Eye of Graeae, exit to the start of Laconia
- Head to the idol and take Pegasus to. . .

Arcadia
- Take a little time out to farm up close to 70 total olives
- Head to. . .

Argolis
- Take the left cave, uncover the hidden door, get the first piece of love.
- Head back to start and take Pegasus to. . .

Attica
- Fill up health and flask at Athena's fountain
- Grab the key
- Kill enemies until I have 70 olives if I don't already
- Go wake up and kill Gaea, exit to. . .

Phthia

- Head left at the start and get the Divine Sword from Hephaestos (70 olives, last thing I need to buy)
- Grab the ambrosia just out of the way on my way back
- Head to the waterfall cave, uncover the secret door in the top cave, get piece of love number 2
- Head back to the sun idol and ride Pegasus to Laconia, straight shot right to get to. . .

Crete
- Depending where my health's at make a tiny detour one room over for a health/nectar refill
- Kill the Minotaur, get the last piece of love.
- Depending how the minotaur fight went, refill again
- Exit Crete via the Argolis path, and once there take the now revealed entrance to. . .

Tartarus
- Kill Cerberus
- Make my way to Hades's Palace, hitting up Aphrodite's servants on the way for refills if need be
- Get through the palace, kill Hades without the Moon Pearl (more on that later), win

Sounds easy enough, right? Smiley

Now a little more detail on certain points:

Super cool olive farming method:

It turns out you can handle this in a similar way to how the Rygar run power levels, though I've only found one enemy type it'll work with. You can generate a bunch of the little slime things that appear on the ceiling in Arcadia by slowly walking away from the point where they spawn and there's a spot where I can walk back and forth between two spawning points. If done well I can get 4 kills every 5 seconds or so, though this can get slowed down a bit if I miss any of them when they drop as I then have to wait for them to hop before I can kill them and killing all of them when they're bunched up is a little tricky. Even with that, it's still by far the most efficient method I've found, and since it's in the first area I can do a good chunk of the grinding right out of the gate and ensure decent luck on the first round (olives cap at 99, otherwise I'd get much closer to the 130 total right then). Really the only thing still up in the air for me is when to stop each round as I don't want to make any olive drops I get while actually progressing useless to me. Right now I'm thinking 70-ish for the first round and stopping in the 60-65 range in the second. It won't be fun to watch after the initial "oh, that's kinda neat" moment, but the next best spot will not only take longer, but lack that initial moment, so I think I'm running with this one.

Skipping the Staff of Fennel:

There's a couple points in the game where the designers obviously intended for you to have this, but both are definitely doable without. The first is the one bush you're supposed to burn on the way to the Hydra, and you can simply damage boost through it. The other is the two mandatory dark caves in Laconia. One's a simple "hold a direction and up to enter a door" affair. The other is the Graeae cave, which features a boss fight, some platforming, and a death pit. The layout's easy enough to memorize and the boss fight also takes place in a convenient little ditch where you can't really kill yourself. Avoiding the pit is the tricky part, but at the same time not too overly complicated if you have the layout memorized.

Tartarus in general:

This is stretch that really necessitates the 4 items I get that the TAS doesn't (flask, Divine Sword, and two ambrosia). First off, Cerberus is nigh on impossible to kill without the Divine Sword as he regenerates over time. The TAS manages with the regular sword, but if you watch it you'll see how long it takes, and that's with frame perfect hits. Without the attack upgrade (which costs 80 olives, so that's out) it's still really hard to kill him without getting a fake death sequence (he'll start his death animation, but still heal, and heal enough to regenerate a head before he disappears). The safest and most consistent method I've found is to let this happen and basically just kill him twice, but there's a fairly hefty time saving to be had if I can find a good method to get him on the first one. Something I need to work on still.

The path to the temple and the temple itself is just murder. Only one right path and lots of annoying enemies that hit hard and like to knock you off said path. The worst part of this being that while I'll have nectar I CAN'T use it in this stretch, hence why I'll be hitting up the healing nymphs on the way. I've been practicing this stretch a ton, and have pretty solid methods for most of the rooms, but there's next to no margin for error in most of them. I fully expect to lose a few runs in this home stretch.

Why can't I use the nectar? Because I need full health for the final boss. There's a method for him that's pretty cheesy looking, but actually pretty difficult to pull off, and that is firing sword projectiles while ducking. Since the input for it is Up+Attack you basically have to crouch, swing, and then hit up in the window after the attack animation starts but before it resolves. It's pretty tricky to do, and I have to do it 28 times in a row to kill him. Add to this the fact that each projectile takes half a life unit to throw without the attack upgrade and after the two ambrosia I have 16 life units, not to mention the fact that I can't even see the guy, and you can see I have a pretty tense fight on my hands for how lame it's going to look.

That ran pretty long, and there's definitely more stuff I could talk about, but that hits the high points. If anybody has anything to add or ideas to throw around, I'm open to them. Wish me luck.

Thread title:

Just shy of three years ago I was a little amazed that there was not only no run for this game on the site, but also no discussion of one whatsoever.  At that point I started messing around with it a little, found out in a hurry what I was getting myself into, and stopped being amazed by the lack of run/discussion.  In the back of my mind, however, it's always been one I've wanted to work on and this last MAGfest I found the cart for cheap, so I gave it another look.  It's still going to be a hell of a game to run, but it seems much less daunting than I remember it being, so I'm going to give it a shot.

The route is basically stolen from the last no L+R TAS done of the game by JeffC aka arc (which you can check out yourself [url=http://www.tasvideos.org/292M.html]here[/url]) with a couple detours and allowances to make up for the fact that I can't play with frame advance.  I also don't plan to use death abuse, because death abuse is lame. :P  Here's the route in brief:

Arcadia
- Farm up a bunch of olives using a neat little method I discovered (more on that later)
- Talk to Zeus
- Head to. . .

Argolis
- Take the right cave, tag Hermes's Temple and get told he's not there
- Exit via the salamander pit and head back to. . .

Arcadia
- Back to Zeus's Temple to get the sandals
- Head to. . .

Peloponnes
- Head to the Hydra, kill it, get the sword
- Grab the harp from Apollo
- Nab the free ambrosia (health extender/refill) on the way to the Cyclops
- Kill the Cyclops, exit to. . .

Laconia
- Hit up Poseidon for the ocarina (60 olives)
- Grab the flask on the way to the ocean
- Use the ocarina and cross to the Siren's island, kill her
- Kill the Graeae (yes, in the dark) for the Eye of Graeae, exit to the start of Laconia
- Head to the idol and take Pegasus to. . .

Arcadia
- Take a little time out to farm up close to 70 total olives
- Head to. . .

Argolis
- Take the left cave, uncover the hidden door, get the first piece of love.
- Head back to start and take Pegasus to. . .

Attica
- Fill up health and flask at Athena's fountain
- Grab the key
- Kill enemies until I have 70 olives if I don't already
- Go wake up and kill Gaea, exit to. . .

Phthia

- Head left at the start and get the Divine Sword from Hephaestos (70 olives, last thing I need to buy)
- Grab the ambrosia just out of the way on my way back
- Head to the waterfall cave, uncover the secret door in the top cave, get piece of love number 2
- Head back to the sun idol and ride Pegasus to Laconia, straight shot right to get to. . .

Crete
- Depending where my health's at make a tiny detour one room over for a health/nectar refill
- Kill the Minotaur, get the last piece of love.
- Depending how the minotaur fight went, refill again
- Exit Crete via the Argolis path, and once there take the now revealed entrance to. . .

Tartarus
- Kill Cerberus
- Make my way to Hades's Palace, hitting up Aphrodite's servants on the way for refills if need be
- Get through the palace, kill Hades without the Moon Pearl (more on that later), win

Sounds easy enough, right? :)

Now a little more detail on certain points:

Super cool olive farming method:

It turns out you can handle this in a similar way to how the Rygar run power levels, though I've only found one enemy type it'll work with.  You can generate a bunch of the little slime things that appear on the ceiling in Arcadia by slowly walking away from the point where they spawn and there's a spot where I can walk back and forth between two spawning points.  If done well I can get 4 kills every 5 seconds or so, though this can get slowed down a bit if I miss any of them when they drop as I then have to wait for them to hop before I can kill them and killing all of them when they're bunched up is a little tricky.  Even with that, it's still by far the most efficient method I've found, and since it's in the first area I can do a good chunk of the grinding right out of the gate and ensure decent luck on the first round (olives cap at 99, otherwise I'd get much closer to the 130 total right then).  Really the only thing still up in the air for me is when to stop each round as I don't want to make any olive drops I get while actually progressing useless to me.  Right now I'm thinking 70-ish for the first round and stopping in the 60-65 range in the second.  It won't be fun to watch after the initial "oh, that's kinda neat" moment, but the next best spot will not only take longer, but lack that initial moment, so I think I'm running with this one.

Skipping the Staff of Fennel:

There's a couple points in the game where the designers obviously intended for you to have this, but both are definitely doable without.  The first is the one bush you're supposed to burn on the way to the Hydra, and you can simply damage boost through it.  The other is the two mandatory dark caves in Laconia.  One's a simple "hold a direction and up to enter a door" affair.  The other is the Graeae cave, which features a boss fight, some platforming, and a death pit.  The layout's easy enough to memorize and the boss fight also takes place in a convenient little ditch where you can't really kill yourself.  Avoiding the pit is the tricky part, but at the same time not too overly complicated if you have the layout memorized.

Tartarus in general:

This is stretch that really necessitates the 4 items I get that the TAS doesn't (flask, Divine Sword, and two ambrosia).  First off, Cerberus is nigh on impossible to kill without the Divine Sword as he regenerates over time.  The TAS manages with the regular sword, but if you watch it you'll see how long it takes, and that's with frame perfect hits.  Without the attack upgrade (which costs 80 olives, so that's out) it's still really hard to kill him without getting a fake death sequence (he'll start his death animation, but still heal, and heal enough to regenerate a head before he disappears).  The safest and most consistent method I've found is to let this happen and basically just kill him twice, but there's a fairly hefty time saving to be had if I can find a good method to get him on the first one.  Something I need to work on still.

The path to the temple and the temple itself is just murder.  Only one right path and lots of annoying enemies that hit hard and like to knock you off said path.  The worst part of this being that while I'll have nectar I CAN'T use it in this stretch, hence why I'll be hitting up the healing nymphs on the way.  I've been practicing this stretch a ton, and have pretty solid methods for most of the rooms, but there's next to no margin for error in most of them.  I fully expect to lose a few runs in this home stretch.

Why can't I use the nectar?  Because I need full health for the final boss.  There's a method for him that's pretty cheesy looking, but actually pretty difficult to pull off, and that is firing sword projectiles while ducking.  Since the input for it is Up+Attack you basically have to crouch, swing, and then hit up in the window after the attack animation starts but before it resolves.  It's pretty tricky to do, and I have to do it 28 times in a row to kill him.  Add to this the fact that each projectile takes half a life unit to throw without the attack upgrade and after the two ambrosia I have 16 life units, not to mention the fact that I can't even see the guy, and you can see I have a pretty tense fight on my hands for how lame it's going to look.

That ran pretty long, and there's definitely more stuff I could talk about, but that hits the high points.  If anybody has anything to add or ideas to throw around, I'm open to them.  Wish me luck.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-24 01:41:38 pm

Highly Evolved

Seems like the second best olive farming area you mentioned has to be in Attica against the two scorpion/two faun combo.

Why not get the attack upgrade? I'm trying to remember where it is. Probably the olive cost being the biggest detriment?

Arctic_Eagle

2010-01-24 02:21:24 pm

You must be mad, good luck! I'm one of the proud ones who have completed this game. The sequence "die, farm olives, die, farm olives, die..." springs to mind.

A speedrun of Battle of Olympus would be mindblowing, and I would really like to see it. Death abuse will cut your olivecount in half here, so rather lame, yeah Wink

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-24 02:40:54 pm

Highly Evolved

Quote from Arctic_Eagle:

You must be mad, good luck! I'm one of the proud ones who have completed this game. The sequence "die, farm olives, die, farm olives, die..." springs to mind.

I seem to recall doing that getting the best sword MANY times.

Although I can't say I beat the game without help, as I had no idea about the heart fragments so I ended up stuck for a long time in Crete before I succumbed and looked up help.

Arctic_Eagle

2010-01-24 03:14:18 pm

I am also one of the not so proud ones who had to shortly see a walkthrough to get through the game Wink

I was stuck in Crete or Pthtia, can't remember. I was sure I had missed something important because of the difficulty, but as far as I remember I had only missed a lifemeter-upgrader or two. After all, you have to hit the correct tree of 10000 trees in the game, without the game seemingly giving any hints about where it is whatsoever. Though the game pissed me off a lot, when looking at it in hindsight, it's a really good game.

A speedrun of this game without the attack-upgrade would be an awesome achievement!

Breakdown

Edit history:

Breakdown: 2010-01-24 03:55:26 pm

2010-01-24 03:49:14 pm

Haters gonna hate

Quote from Arctic_Eagle:

Death abuse will cut your olivecount in half here, so rather lame, yeah Wink

There's a couple spots after I'm done buying stuff where it would be pretty helpful (right after the ambrosia in Phthia, and right after each of the first two pieces of love), but it doesn't take that much more time to tough it out, and going deathless just seems like such a greater accomplishment in my mind.

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Seems like the second best olive farming area you mentioned has to be in Attica against the two scorpion/two faun combo.

That's the one, and while it would be slightly more action packed farming (if there is such a thing), it is decidedly slower. That spot will see a little play if the last few potential olive drops after the second round of slime farming aren't kind, however.

Quote:

Why not get the attack upgrade? I'm trying to remember where it is. Probably the olive cost being the biggest detriment?

The attack upgrade is in Crete, and it's definitely the olive cost that keeps it out. There's really only so many enemies that need killing after it's available, and the time it would save on bosses doesn't come close to outweighing the time it would take to get the 80 olives for it.

And thanks for the support guys, good to know there's some interest.

[quote="Arctic_Eagle"]
Death abuse will cut your olivecount in half here, so rather lame, yeah  ;)[/quote]

There's a couple spots after I'm done buying stuff where it would be pretty helpful (right after the ambrosia in Phthia, and right after each of the first two pieces of love), but it doesn't take that much more time to tough it out, and going deathless just seems like such a greater accomplishment in my mind.

[quote="Darkwing Duck"]
Seems like the second best olive farming area you mentioned has to be in Attica against the two scorpion/two faun combo.[/quote]

That's the one, and while it would be slightly more action packed farming (if there is such a thing), it is decidedly slower.  That spot will see a little play if the last few potential olive drops after the second round of slime farming aren't kind, however.

[quote]Why not get the attack upgrade?  I'm trying to remember where it is.  Probably the olive cost being the biggest detriment?[/quote]

The attack upgrade is in Crete, and it's definitely the olive cost that keeps it out.  There's really only so many enemies that need killing after it's available, and the time it would save on bosses doesn't come close to outweighing the time it would take to get the 80 olives for it.

And thanks for the support guys, good to know there's some interest.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-24 06:59:07 pm

Highly Evolved

Do you really think that final boss strategy is viable enough to work with any decent rate of success?

How long are you looking at? Maybe it won't be so hair ripping.

ShinerCCC

2010-01-25 02:00:14 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Death abuse is lame, says the former Faxanadu master =P

I haven't played this game but I remember reading about it in that Top Secret Passwords book Nintendo Power made. Looks like a great Faxanadu-style game. I look forward to seeing this run =D

Ishmayl

2010-01-25 10:47:35 am

AWESOME! When you were running Faxanadu at MagFest, I was thinking how awesome it would be to see you run this game. Glad to see it in progress!

ktwo

2010-01-25 11:01:14 am

When I saw this topic my heart almost stopped (ok, I'm exaggerating a little bit). Anyways, this is a game I'm very fond of. I've also been thinking on and off running it. Problems getting a copy of the game and the apparent complexity (olive farming, Hades, ...) have quickly put my ideas to rest each time though. I can't say that I have anything to add at this point regarding the planning, but I'll definitely follow any news on the development of this run with great interest. And no deaths !!!

Breakdown

2010-01-25 09:36:39 pm

Haters gonna hate

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Do you really think that final boss strategy is viable enough to work with any decent rate of success?

I don't see it as being any less viable than trying to chain 28 jump slashes together against an invisible target. This has at least a little margin for error as if I happen to miss a projectile I can duck and spam attack a bit and he'll likely back off a bit and let me try again. With this strat I can miss 3 times, more if I have some health prior to using the nectar going in. Screw up the jump attacks and recovering is really hard to do, especially considering how hard he hits without the golden apple.

Quote:

How long are you looking at? Maybe it won't be so hair ripping.

I don't really have a good estimate yet as I'm still not really sure how long a good olive farming session takes exactly. The TAS I linked to clocks in at just under 20 minutes, and I think the detours themselves and lack of death abuse will add about 2 or 3 minutes to that (most of that's Phthia, Argolis is maybe an extra 20 seconds). I do gain a little back from faster boss fights, but do have to tack on a little more over the course of the run because I'm not a robot. I'm guessing I'm looking at something in the range of 30 minutes, sub 30 is probably possible with really good farming luck.

Speaking of faster boss fights, I found a decent one round Cerberus kill. The big difference from the two round kill I was talking about earlier is about 6 kinda tricky slightly advancing jump slashes to get him cornered. This is compared to a bunch of easy attacks plus one very tricky attack after the fake death to get him back in the pattern (him "dying" not only throws off my attack rhythm, but also resets his attack pattern, so he bounds at you differently afterwards), so the difficulty trade off is pretty even, and it's probably about 15-20 seconds faster. This is another one of those fights where I have to pick a strat and run with it, and if I screw it up at all I'm basically dead. His hitbox is a weird shape, and if he gets out of my attack pattern it's very hard to pin him down again.

Still practicing primarily on emulator for now, though I think I'm going to make the jump to console pretty soon here. I'm still a ways off trying to record anything though. Probably be getting some use out of the (super long) password feature for more practice, but don't want to get too used to a keyboard before it's time to start.

[quote="Darkwing Duck"]
Do you really think that final boss strategy is viable enough to work with any decent rate of success?[/quote]

I don't see it as being any less viable than trying to chain 28 jump slashes together against an invisible target.  This has at least a little margin for error as if I happen to miss a projectile I can duck and spam attack a bit and he'll likely back off a bit and let me try again.  With this strat I can miss 3 times, more if I have some health prior to using the nectar going in.  Screw up the jump attacks and recovering is really hard to do, especially considering how hard he hits without the golden apple.

[quote]How long are you looking at?  Maybe it won't be so hair ripping.[/quote]

I don't really have a good estimate yet as I'm still not really sure how long a good olive farming session takes exactly.  The TAS I linked to clocks in at just under 20 minutes, and I think the detours themselves and lack of death abuse will add about 2 or 3 minutes to that (most of that's Phthia, Argolis is maybe an extra 20 seconds).  I do gain a little back from faster boss fights, but do have to tack on a little more over the course of the run because I'm not a robot.  I'm guessing I'm looking at something in the range of 30 minutes, sub 30 is probably possible with really good farming luck.

Speaking of faster boss fights, I found a decent one round Cerberus kill.  The big difference from the two round kill I was talking about earlier is about 6 kinda tricky slightly advancing jump slashes to get him cornered.  This is compared to a bunch of easy attacks plus one very tricky attack after the fake death to get him back in the pattern (him "dying" not only throws off my attack rhythm, but also resets his attack pattern, so he bounds at you differently afterwards), so the difficulty trade off is pretty even, and it's probably about 15-20 seconds faster.  This is another one of those fights where I have to pick a strat and run with it, and if I screw it up at all I'm basically dead.  His hitbox is a weird shape, and if he gets out of my attack pattern it's very hard to pin him down again.

Still practicing primarily on emulator for now, though I think I'm going to make the jump to console pretty soon here.  I'm still a ways off trying to record anything though.  Probably be getting some use out of the (super long) password feature for more practice, but don't want to get too used to a keyboard before it's time to start.

Emptyeye

2010-01-26 09:12:19 pm

Talk to the Hand

I know what you mean about wanting to move to console sooner rather than later, but have you considered maybe buying a cheap USB controller? I have a $10 Saitek controller I bought at Wal-Mart back in like 2002, and it turned out to be a great investment for stuff like emulator practice. It's a bit slippery, and I wouldn't use it as a primary controller even if it had an NES hookup, but it's leaps and bounds better than trying to control using a keyboard.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-28 04:13:43 pm

Highly Evolved

So how's the progress?

Breakdown

2010-01-28 09:26:42 pm

Haters gonna hate

Quote from Emptyeye:

but have you considered maybe buying a cheap USB controller?

I've considered it, sure, but I've been doing the entirety of my emulated gaming on a keyboard for years now, and you'd be surprised what you can get used to. I've really only run into a handful of games I find flat out unplayable with it, and honestly in some cases I prefer it. This particular game does the L+R flying across the screen glitch in it, but here you actually have to really try to apply it as opposed to Zelda 2 (one the aforementioned games I find unplayable with a keyboard) where if you hit left and right at same time for a handful of frames you're suddenly halfway across the screen. I really don't mind it here at all.

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

So how's the progress?

Just tightening up certain screens for the most part currently. I have a method for most of the harder ones at the moment, but there's still a few of the easier ones I'd like to have an actual plan for instead of just winging my through them as even in the easier parts things can still go all to hell in a hurry. Still finding lots of little timesavers here and there.

Also been practicing the olive farming method. Mike actually pointed out to me the screen I planned to use isn't the best choice, so props to him for that. With the new location (third screen from the start as opposed to the fourth) you can generate like 7 or 8 of the slimes at time, and you can group them very tightly if you do it right. Basically how it goes is you cross the screen upon entering it and clear the slimes as you go, start walking back towards the center, turning back to kill the ones that appear behind and killing the ones in front. Once they stop appearing in front of you, turn around again, walk a little bit and when one spawns behind you start tapping in the direction your walking, and this generates a ton of them. It's easier to do while walking left as you can actually see the one spawn behind you, going right you kind of have to just know when it's coming, but once you get a feel for it you can rack up a ton of kills fast.

Getting to 70 olives still isn't exactly quick with this method though. I've been timing some attempts and the best I've managed from game start to 70 is about 6 minutes. The luck and execution on that could've been better, but I've also had far worse (slowest thus far was just shy of 10 minutes). I'm thinking once I have the method down better (and once I'm doing actual attempts I'll be getting lots of practice) I'll be looking for a time around 5 minutes or so to continue on, a very lucky run might clock in as low as 4. Not the most exciting way to kick off a run certainly, but it is a necessary evil.

[quote="Emptyeye"]
but have you considered maybe buying a cheap USB controller?
[/quote]

I've considered it, sure, but I've been doing the entirety of my emulated gaming on a keyboard for years now, and you'd be surprised what you can get used to.  I've really only run into a handful of games I find flat out unplayable with it, and honestly in some cases I prefer it.  This particular game does the L+R flying across the screen glitch in it, but here you actually have to really try to apply it as opposed to Zelda 2 (one the aforementioned games I find unplayable with a keyboard) where if you hit left and right at same time for a handful of frames you're suddenly halfway across the screen.  I really don't mind it here at all.

[quote="Darkwing Duck"]
So how's the progress?
[/quote]

Just tightening up certain screens for the most part currently.  I have a method for most of the harder ones at the moment, but there's still a few of the easier ones I'd like to have an actual plan for instead of just winging my through them as even in the easier parts things can still go all to hell in a hurry.  Still finding lots of little timesavers here and there.

Also been practicing the olive farming method.  Mike actually pointed out to me the screen I planned to use isn't the best choice, so props to him for that.  With the new location (third screen from the start as opposed to the fourth) you can generate like 7 or 8 of the slimes at time, and you can group them very tightly if you do it right.  Basically how it goes is you cross the screen upon entering it and clear the slimes as you go, start walking back towards the center, turning back to kill the ones that appear behind and killing the ones in front.  Once they stop appearing in front of you, turn around again, walk a little bit and when one spawns behind you start tapping in the direction your walking, and this generates a ton of them.  It's easier to do while walking left as you can actually see the one spawn behind you, going right you kind of have to just know when it's coming, but once you get a feel for it you can rack up a ton of kills fast.

Getting to 70 olives still isn't exactly quick with this method though.  I've been timing some attempts and the best I've managed from game start to 70 is about 6 minutes.  The luck and execution on that could've been better, but I've also had far worse (slowest thus far was just shy of 10 minutes).  I'm thinking once I have the method down better (and once I'm doing actual attempts I'll be getting [i]lots[/i] of practice) I'll be looking for a time around 5 minutes or so to continue on, a very lucky run might clock in as low as 4.  Not the most exciting way to kick off a run certainly, but it is a necessary evil.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-30 12:13:02 am

Highly Evolved

Quote from Breakdown:

Getting to 70 olives still isn't exactly quick with this method though. I've been timing some attempts and the best I've managed from game start to 70 is about 6 minutes. The luck and execution on that could've been better, but I've also had far worse (slowest thus far was just shy of 10 minutes). I'm thinking once I have the method down better (and once I'm doing actual attempts I'll be getting lots of practice) I'll be looking for a time around 5 minutes or so to continue on, a very lucky run might clock in as low as 4. Not the most exciting way to kick off a run certainly, but it is a necessary evil.

Uh, you're talking to the guy with the Dragon Warrior III run and is in progress with the original Dragon Warrior run. Somehow six minutes doesn't seem that long.

Darkwing Duck

2010-02-06 10:06:45 pm

Highly Evolved

I'm bumping this up since I really want to see a non TAS run. Seeing R+L abuse really put me off, and then the run that the TAS obsoleted was annoying because of manipulated olive gain.

Breakdown

2010-02-07 01:28:49 am

Haters gonna hate

The run's definitely not abandoned, I've just been spending the bulk of my free time watching the last batch of marathon vids. I'm almost through them, so I'll be back to this soon.

Breakdown

2010-02-07 03:50:41 pm

Haters gonna hate

Alright, spent some time with this on console today, the primary aim being to get passwords for practice purposes (I'm well aware I could've done this with an emulator, but figured what the heck). Figure I'll post them here just in case something happens to my hard copy, and if any of you guys want to try your hand at exactly what I'm up against, feel free.

1. At Zeus with 71 olives:

0MW9ln qT8lR65
GJ?cku wWScuUK

Basically the "from scratch" password, unless I really want to practice olive farming.

2. At Hermes with 83 olives:

gNXhH! kZ2rLCx
UH0ais uMAKcCi

Probably will see a good amount of use since Peloponnes is the first genuinely tricky area of the run.

3. At Apollo with 84 olives:

eZu2es tQBiS52
NOvjrw yQMWo8e

I'll probably never use this one since Poseidon's so soon after, maybe if I really want to drill the Cyclops fight.

4. At Poseidon with 24 olives:

HCdtT3 Yls19u7
ILyeel H!Zj!rV

Still could use some work on Siren and the Gracae, so this one will get some mileage.

5. At Zeus with 67 olives:

ShqKwa 98TQkJm
b6BRxG I0CMcye

The only out of the way password I got. Can't stop at Athena's because that gets me the shield, so a couple extra screens of travel to not have to deal with two bosses and olive farming every time I wanted to sit down and drill the start of Phthia seemed like a good trade off.

6. At Hephaestos with no further need for olives:

YVLdDJ I!cHveN
2biuOn vNx9SID

This is where the game starts getting brutal, so this one will definitely see some use.

7. At the old guy in Tartarus:

5Q4MyY 3ENWePc
pqT9Xe 8dguDZZ

Again, right before a truly brutal section. I'll probably have this one memorized before too long.

And as long as I'm posting, stuff I still need to work on:

Crouching projectiles: I'm pretty good at this right now, but I need to get pro at it. I have gotten 28 in a row practicing it, but only a couple times. By the time I'm doing serious attempts I want it to be nigh on automatic for me. With the right rhythm Hades is a joke, but if you screw up one. . .

Phthia after getting the sword: Tough, tough section. The way to the sword isn't too bad really, but coming back is pretty rough (and something I'm willing to bet most people who've played the game haven't actually dealt with). It takes some tech to get out of the first screen cleanly, the jump coming back from the ambrosia is the single hardest vanilla jump in the game, and there is one hit I simply have to take coming up some stairs. Then there's the centaur to deal with, he's a bitch both ways and the little monkey guys on either side of him don't help matters. But really, the whole thing wouldn't be too bad if not for the damn eagles. Single most random enemy in the whole game and if they appear at just the wrong time, height, and speed they can singlehandedly kill a run in a heartbeat. And even if they don't kill me they can still muck things up for me real good. Definitely have to be on my toes here.

The Minotaur: Crete is surprisingly easy once you know the way and the enemy habits, but this guy can be trouble. I'm going for the TAS style stun lock, and if I nail it he's a breeze, but if I mistime a hit and he gets another projectile off he's tough to corral again and my lifebar starts evaporating. There are definitely safer methods than this, but they're all tons slower so I'm keeping with this one. Just need more practice.

Cerberus: I've already talked about him a bunch, but he's still dangerous to me. My method is sound, it's just a matter of executing it.

Most rooms in Tartarus: I have methods for all of them, and even contingency plans for most of them, but I don't think I can have too much practice with this stretch. Simply surviving this part takes a lot of skill, running it requires some ridiculous precision at points. Throw in the fact a few screen have random elements (eagles again and the big, fire breathing snake) and there's a lot that can go wrong in a hurry even if I'm on point.

It won't be easy, but I think I can do this.

Alright, spent some time with this on console today, the primary aim being to get passwords for practice purposes (I'm well aware I could've done this with an emulator, but figured what the heck).  Figure I'll post them here just in case something happens to my hard copy, and if any of you guys want to try your hand at exactly what I'm up against, feel free.

1.  At Zeus with 71 olives:

0MW9ln qT8lR65
GJ?cku wWScuUK

Basically the "from scratch" password, unless I really want to practice olive farming.

2.  At Hermes with 83 olives:

gNXhH! kZ2rLCx
UH0ais uMAKcCi

Probably will see a good amount of use since Peloponnes is the first genuinely tricky area of the run.

3.  At Apollo with 84 olives:

eZu2es tQBiS52
NOvjrw yQMWo8e

I'll probably never use this one since Poseidon's so soon after, maybe if I really want to drill the Cyclops fight.

4.  At Poseidon with 24 olives:

HCdtT3 Yls19u7
ILyeel H!Zj!rV

Still could use some work on Siren and the Gracae, so this one will get some mileage.

5.  At Zeus with 67 olives:

ShqKwa 98TQkJm
b6BRxG I0CMcye

The only out of the way password I got.  Can't stop at Athena's because that gets me the shield, so a couple extra screens of travel to not have to deal with two bosses and olive farming every time I wanted to sit down and drill the start of Phthia seemed like a good trade off.

6.  At Hephaestos with no further need for olives:

YVLdDJ I!cHveN
2biuOn vNx9SID

This is where the game starts getting brutal, so this one will definitely see some use.

7.  At the old guy in Tartarus:

5Q4MyY 3ENWePc
pqT9Xe 8dguDZZ

Again, right before a truly brutal section.  I'll probably have this one memorized before too long.

And as long as I'm posting, stuff I still need to work on:

Crouching projectiles:  I'm pretty good at this right now, but I need to get pro at it.  I have gotten 28 in a row practicing it, but only a couple times.  By the time I'm doing serious attempts I want it to be nigh on automatic for me.  With the right rhythm Hades is a joke, but if you screw up one. . .

Phthia after getting the sword:  Tough, tough section.  The way to the sword isn't too bad really, but coming back is pretty rough (and something I'm willing to bet most people who've played the game haven't actually dealt with).  It takes some tech to get out of the first screen cleanly, the jump coming back from the ambrosia is the single hardest vanilla jump in the game, and there is one hit I simply have to take coming up some stairs.  Then there's the centaur to deal with, he's a bitch both ways and the little monkey guys on either side of him don't help matters.  But really, the whole thing wouldn't be too bad if not for the damn eagles.  Single most random enemy in the whole game and if they appear at just the wrong time, height, and speed they can singlehandedly kill a run in a heartbeat.  And even if they don't kill me they can still muck things up for me real good.  Definitely have to be on my toes here.

The Minotaur:  Crete is surprisingly easy once you know the way and the enemy habits, but this guy can be trouble.  I'm going for the TAS style stun lock, and if I nail it he's a breeze, but if I mistime a hit and he gets another projectile off he's tough to corral again and my lifebar starts evaporating.  There are definitely safer methods than this, but they're all tons slower so I'm keeping with this one.  Just need more practice.

Cerberus:  I've already talked about him a bunch, but he's still dangerous to me.  My method is sound, it's just a matter of executing it.

Most rooms in Tartarus:  I have methods for all of them, and even contingency plans for most of them, but I don't think I can have too much practice with this stretch.  Simply surviving this part takes a lot of skill, running it requires some ridiculous precision at points.  Throw in the fact a few screen have random elements (eagles again and the big, fire breathing snake) and there's a lot that can go wrong in a hurry even if I'm on point.

It won't be easy, but I think I can do this.

Breakdown

2010-02-14 10:28:19 pm

Haters gonna hate

Did some messing around with this the last couple days, and I'm happy to report that ducking projectiles can suck it. I was really not looking forward to having 30 minute plus runs hinge on nailing 28 tricky inputs in a fairly precise rhythm, so I figured I'd look into alternatives, and I found a good one. With a little help from the moon pearl I was able to actually study Hades's habits and found a method where I can effectively trap him in the corner and score hits. It's not foolproof, it would be if I could see him as I could time the attacks, but since I can't and his movements are still pretty erratic even when confined my best bet is just to mash. Since I can't be precise, he can get out of it and hit me, but it's easy enough to get him back in the trap if that happens. Really, the hardest part is cornering him. It is a good deal slower, but I think trading a chunk of time for a huge dose of consistency is worth it here.

I made a vid showing this method along with the rest of Tartarus:

It not the cleanest run I've ever had through this stretch, but I think this vid does well to illustrate a bunch of the little things that can go wrong on the way. The Hades fight can go faster certainly, I was just a smidge too close the first time I had him in the corner.

Another thing this new method does is give me the chance to cut one or both ambrosia and the flask from the route as I no longer strictly need them. I'm not sure if I'll go ahead with this yet, but at the very least not taking the time for the ambrosia in Phthia is looking pretty tempting right now. Needs more testing certainly.

Did some messing around with this the last couple days, and I'm happy to report that ducking projectiles can suck it.  I was really not looking forward to having 30 minute plus runs hinge on nailing 28 tricky inputs in a fairly precise rhythm, so I figured I'd look into alternatives, and I found a good one.  With a little help from the moon pearl I was able to actually study Hades's habits and found a method where I can effectively trap him in the corner and score hits.  It's not foolproof, it would be if I could see him as I could time the attacks, but since I can't and his movements are still pretty erratic even when confined my best bet is just to mash.  Since I can't be precise, he can get out of it and hit me, but it's easy enough to get him back in the trap if that happens.  Really, the hardest part is cornering him.  It is a good deal slower, but I think trading a chunk of time for a huge dose of consistency is worth it here.

I made a vid showing this method along with the rest of Tartarus:

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY5gSpQJDpQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY5gSpQJDpQ[/url]

It not the cleanest run I've ever had through this stretch, but I think this vid does well to illustrate a bunch of the little things that can go wrong on the way.  The Hades fight can go faster certainly, I was just a smidge too close the first time I had him in the corner.

Another thing this new method does is give me the chance to cut one or both ambrosia and the flask from the route as I no longer strictly need them.  I'm not sure if I'll go ahead with this yet, but at the very least not taking the time for the ambrosia in Phthia is looking pretty tempting right now.  Needs more testing certainly.

Darkwing Duck

2010-02-15 02:31:50 am

Highly Evolved

Why do you hesitate for the time you do against Hades? Is that part of the setup? For instance, a full second and a half at 4:00 of the vid after you clink his shield.

Breakdown

2010-02-15 09:49:29 am

Haters gonna hate

Probably should've explained that better. There's a very good chance that when I swing when he's on the ground he'll jump, and if I clinked his shield that means he was definitely on the ground, so the pause is to wait for him to definitely land first so I can make him jump again and advance to my spot without getting a sword to the face.

Breakdown

2010-02-15 09:22:37 pm

Haters gonna hate

Tried a couple start to finish runs for the heck of it today. The first one I didn't time but got through the game with about 3 continues. The second I died once in Laconia and eventually stopped it after I got killed by Hades. Timed that one, and I was at about 38:45 when I died, so if I'd have finished it would've been about 39:30 or so. It wasn't a pretty run by any stretch. My olive farming luck (and at times execution) was pretty miserable (~8 minutes to 70 on the initial round, the second was pretty slow too) and I think a good 5 minutes can realistically be saved on that alone. Lots of little mistakes here and there as well, and the first death set me back 20 seconds or so. Given this rough data to work with, I think I'm looking for a time in the 32-33 range, maybe lower if I get stupidly lucking with my farming.

And while neither of these runs were super stellar or anything, it felt good to charge the game like this start to finish. This one's caused me lots of headaches in the past, and to get through it this quickly does feel pretty good. I'm really looking forward to hitting the run.

Tried a couple start to finish runs for the heck of it today.  The first one I didn't time but got through the game with about 3 continues.  The second I died once in Laconia and eventually stopped it after I got killed by Hades.  Timed that one, and I was at about 38:45 when I died, so if I'd have finished it would've been about 39:30 or so.  It wasn't a pretty run by any stretch.  My olive farming luck (and at times execution) was pretty miserable (~8 minutes to 70 on the initial round, the second was pretty slow too) and I think a good 5 minutes can realistically be saved on that alone.  Lots of little mistakes here and there as well, and the first death set me back 20 seconds or so.  Given this rough data to work with, I think I'm looking for a time in the 32-33 range, maybe lower if I get stupidly lucking with my farming.

And while neither of these runs were super stellar or anything, it felt good to charge the game like this start to finish.  This one's caused me lots of headaches in the past, and to get through it this quickly does feel pretty good.  I'm really looking forward to hitting [i]the[/i] run.

tmont

2010-02-15 11:53:39 pm

Not going to school today

Just do you don't feel awkward talking to yourself on the internet, I'll throw in a supportive reply. I watched the TAS of this long ago and thought it was a really cool game; very Zelda 2-ish, which I'm totally all about.

So you know, good luck and stuff. I'd watch this run so hard.

Breakdown

2010-02-26 09:36:28 pm

Haters gonna hate

This is pretty much just a "this run is still on" post. Been practicing on console some lately, and it's all starting to come together pretty nicely. Nicely enough in fact that I'm seriously considering cutting an ambrosia from the route (the one in Phthia). That saves about 15 seconds and cuts out a deceptively tricky jump. I'm a little concerned about not getting the health refill that comes with it, but I do have nectar at that point and in practice it's been pretty rare that I get close to death after using it with picking up the ambrosia, so I should be able to manage. And once I'm to Crete the only place where health is really a concern at all is Hades' Temple, so while it ups the danger a bit, I think it'll be manageable.

Probably going to start recording soon.

Darkwing Duck

2010-02-26 11:12:26 pm

Highly Evolved

Thumbs up. Cheesy