Castlevania: CotM

2006-02-04 05:45:12 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Quote:

I'm quitting CV speedrunning (for now). So if anyone is attempting to do a mag mode run and wanted a set goal, my time is 20m 47s before Dracula.

I hope someone would beat my time so I don't have to finish the video in the future.

I read the rant you posted, and I can't say I really disagree with any of it. How you and I differ though, is that I don't really let any of that bother me. The part that comes closest to bothering me is:

The last thing I would also like to mention that turns me off completely (and I bet it does for you too) and that most people can't tell the difference between a good or a sub-par speedrun. People with subpar runs sometimes get a lot more credit than people who actual do a much better job. Heck, some people might not even tell the difference between a tool assisted run and a speedrun. They'll probably be like, "video A (tool assisted) is good and video B (legit) sucks right?". Anyone in the speedrun community for sometime will know about this.

Especially the first couple sentences. For me, it's not so much someone getting inordinate credit than another person, than it is a run getting inordinate credit simply because it's a more popular game and people wouldn't even know if the time could be cut in half or not. But that isn't any different from better games not getting the credit they deserve, which happens all the time, but that isn't going to keep me from playing what I like. It's just human nature.

In the end, this will bother you if you care about recognition. I think anyone who runs to let others watch instead of running for themselves would do well to think about what you have thought of. Personally, I am blessed to not give a rat's ass about credit and what most other gamers think on the Internet. At any rate, this just means you'll have more time for combo videos and such. Wink

You're still going to follow this community, just not contribute for the foreseeable future?

Oh, I guess I do disagree with one thing. You really ought to finish up your magician mode run. Gotta go out on a bang, ya know? Wink

[quote]I'm quitting CV speedrunning (for now). So if anyone is attempting to do a mag mode run and wanted a set goal, my time is 20m 47s before Dracula.

I hope someone would beat my time so I don't have to finish the video in the future.[/quote]
I read [url=http://persona-world.com/page/index.html]the rant[/url] you posted, and I can't say I really disagree with [i]any[/i] of it. How you and I differ though, is that I don't really let any of that bother me. The part that comes closest to bothering me is:

[i]The last thing I would also like to mention that turns me off completely (and I bet it does for you too) and that most people can't tell the difference between a good or a sub-par speedrun. People with subpar runs sometimes get a lot more credit than people who actual do a much better job. Heck, some people might not even tell the difference between a tool assisted run and a speedrun. They'll probably be like, "video A (tool assisted) is good and video B (legit) sucks right?". Anyone in the speedrun community for sometime will know about this.[/i]

Especially the first couple sentences. For me, it's not so much someone getting inordinate credit than another person, than it is a run getting inordinate credit simply because it's a more popular game and people wouldn't even know if the time could be cut in half or not. But that isn't any different from better games not getting the credit they deserve, which happens [i]all the time[/i], but that isn't going to keep me from playing what I like. It's just human nature.

In the end, this will bother you if you care about recognition. I think anyone who runs to let others watch instead of running for themselves would do well to think about what you have thought of. Personally, I am blessed to not give a rat's ass about credit and what most other gamers think on the Internet. At any rate, this just means you'll have more time for combo videos and such. ;) You're still going to follow this community, just not contribute for the foreseeable future?

Oh, I guess I do disagree with one thing. You really ought to finish up your magician mode run. Gotta go out on a bang, ya know? ;)

StrangenessDSS

2006-02-04 09:49:42 am

Sleeping Terror

Well. I can say that I disagree with a lot of it. I'm not posting this just to be contrary, but because I feel I have to respond - I'm one of those people who "can't tell the difference between a good or a subpar speedrun". I initially disbelieved that the current Magician run could be improved by as much as you're getting.

I'm generally pretty good at telling if a game is played well or not. But my ability to tell if the route and tactics are planned well enough only extends as far as my knowledge of the game. And often, my knowledge isn't too deep, even if it's a game I've played before.

Just because I liked the current Magician run doesn't mean I don't want to see yours. Actually, it makes your run seem more impressive - instead of thinking "Wow, that's fast!", I'll think "Wow, that's twice as fast as what I thought was fast!".

And you know what? No matter what you're talking about, the majority of people will always be unable to tell the difference between a good ____ and a subpar ____. People will also view things differently than you, leading them to form different conclusions about what's good and what's subpar. That's simply the way people are. You'll run up against that whether you're doing speedruns or not.

Also - though this is only anecdotal - the majority of normal gamers I've talked to would rather watch a legit run than a tool-assisted run.

Well. I [i]can[/i] say that I disagree with a lot of it. I'm not posting this just to be contrary, but because I feel I have to respond - I'm one of those people who "can't tell the difference between a good or a subpar speedrun". I initially disbelieved that the current Magician run could be improved by as much as you're getting.

I'm generally pretty good at telling if a game is [i]played[/i] well or not. But my ability to tell if the route and tactics are [i]planned[/i] well enough only extends as far as my knowledge of the game. And often, my knowledge isn't too deep, even if it's a game I've played before.

Just because I liked the current Magician run doesn't mean I don't want to see yours. Actually, it makes your run seem more impressive - instead of thinking "Wow, that's fast!", I'll think "Wow, that's twice as fast as what I thought was fast!".

And you know what? No matter what you're talking about, the majority of people will always be unable to tell the difference between a good ____ and a subpar ____. People will also view things differently than you, leading them to form different conclusions about what's good and what's subpar. That's simply the way people are. You'll run up against that whether you're doing speedruns or not.

Also - though this is only anecdotal - the majority of normal gamers [i]I've[/i] talked to would rather watch a legit run than a tool-assisted run.

getter77

2006-02-04 01:04:40 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Lose not your heart Persona! Cry

Ultimately, as long as YOU have a sense of satisfaction that you've deftly ripped a game apart for all those that enjoy such feats of human accomplishment to see...then damn all the naysayers and just don't worry about the 133t'ish folk....they are often times totally inconsequential in at least as much as speedrunning.

Still, a break never hurt anybody. I say live it up then continue to challenge games you enjoy for your own satisfaction...as well as perhaps, I'm sure, the MANY people on SDA and such that thoroughly enjoy seeing your fine works.

Persona

Edit history:

Persona: 2006-02-04 01:30:11 pm

2006-02-04 01:18:42 pm

Castlevania?

Sorry if some of the stuff said sounded a bit harsh, I was in a really bad mood and had to get things off my chest.

Even though I watch tool assisted vids, I still blame them for destroying most of the community. No matter what people will always come by and say stuff like, "You guys suck, this video (tool assisted) is way better".

As for fame, at first I made CV speedruns for my own personal pleasure, but when time goes by, the enjoyment for it starts to fade and it feels more like work. I blame myself for it.

It also looks I won't be able to keep my promise for Mike Uyama about doing a run and sending it to SDA. Maybe I can send in one of my older vids? Lol I dunno. Huh?

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-04 10:47:59 pm

2006-02-04 10:37:47 pm

Well, it is the "off season" for running (I think that ends at the start of summer). Might be why you feel the stuff is declining at the moment.
I never expected anyone but me to be interested in this game. But look now.

Go take a break, dude ;).

getter77

2006-02-04 11:28:53 pm

100% runs=great to watch

No such thing as a bad Castlevania game soteos...regardless of the mode or character used. Law of the universe. 8)...

:dreams one day witnessing another's revenge on "interior decorator EXTREME" Castlevania GBA game:

Enhasa

Edit history:

Enhasa: 2006-02-05 07:35:02 pm

2006-02-05 07:32:25 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I guess I should clarify my defending of what Persona said. Wink

I agreed with the major points he was saying, but not the tone/sentiments at all. And actually, I do disagree with some of the minor points. I must have skimmed too fast.

The biggest thing is, I do actually agree that on a superficial sense, "speedrunning" (not SDA) is losing its hype. This is a lot easier to see if you have friends who aren't big gamers. I have had people from 3 different pockets of friends (who don't know each other, and with different interests) IM me about Morimoto's SMB3, and later spezzafer's Mario 64. Those 2 TAS's are speedrunning's 15 minutes of fame (think an Internet meme like Hampster Dance or something), especially the SMB3. And the only reason why most people find them noteworthy is that they think that it's legit and done by "some Japanese player."

Of course combo videos are even much more niche than speedruns, but it's doing whatever makes you happy.

I thought you said that only the select group would fully appreciate the run, but since you said download the run, I don't see this one. You only have site statistics for your own site (which is not very well known), but there are loads of people at SDA who only watch the videos or casually lurk in the forums. I actually met two people IRL who I had not seen in years who recognized me from SDA (just from my username) and another who tracked me down to ask me in person if the run on your site was mine. And I've only done one run, and I've only bothered telling 2-3 friends what speedrunning is or that I do it, and they are not the kind of people that would probably tell anyone else. Anyway, I would safely say most people just enjoy the finished product and don't care about planning.

If you care about recognition, I don't think it's ever really been worth the time and effort. It'd be better to just host a site like TSA.

In the end, you can't blame someone for being impressed by a subpar run. It's not like they know any better. If the original FF2 run was 8 hours like this guy's (scroll down to the bottom for a taste of his attitude), I'm sure most people would have loved it just the same and been like "ZOMG! Did you see? FF2 in sub 8 hours!!" Or how Dragondarch's Crystalis run is, night and day, SO much better than his Mario & Luigi run, yet it almost certainly has many fewer viewers. That's just the way things are.

Couple things everyone else can skip:
That SS3 combo video was great and the editing especially blew me away! It's so easy to watch it all the way through, while I usually seek around even in speedruns that I like. Anyway, I liked Nakoruru's the best. I liked Rimururu's too, but most of that might be because I was a Rim player. Wink

Do you know about the Tales RPG series? People put together combo videos and special move compilations for that, although they're not on the same level.

Also, now you made me curious. What are the site statistics like for runs on your site?

I guess I should clarify my defending of what Persona said. ;)

I agreed with the major points he was saying, but not the tone/sentiments at all. And actually, I do disagree with some of the minor points. I must have skimmed too fast.

The biggest thing is, I do actually agree that on a superficial sense, "speedrunning" (not SDA) is losing its hype. This is a lot easier to see if you have friends who aren't big gamers. I have had people from 3 different pockets of friends (who don't know each other, and with different interests) IM me about Morimoto's SMB3, and later spezzafer's Mario 64. Those 2 TAS's are speedrunning's 15 minutes of fame (think an Internet meme like Hampster Dance or something), especially the SMB3. And the only reason why most people find them noteworthy is that they think that it's legit and done by "some Japanese player."

Of course combo videos are even much more niche than speedruns, but it's doing whatever makes you happy.

I thought you said that only the select group would fully appreciate the run, but since you said download the run, I don't see this one. You only have site statistics for your own site (which is not very well known), but there are loads of people at SDA who only watch the videos or casually lurk in the forums. I actually met two people IRL who I had not seen in years who recognized me from SDA (just from my username) and another who tracked me down to ask me in person if the run on your site was mine. And I've only done one run, and I've only bothered telling 2-3 friends what speedrunning is or that I do it, and they are not the kind of people that would probably tell anyone else. Anyway, I would safely say most people just enjoy the finished product and don't care about planning.

If you care about recognition, I don't think it's ever really been worth the time and effort. It'd be better to just host a site like TSA.

In the end, you can't blame someone for being impressed by a subpar run. It's not like they know any better. If the original FF2 run was 8 hours like [url=http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/final_fantasy_ii_speed.txt]this guy's[/url] (scroll down to the bottom for a taste of his attitude), I'm sure most people would have loved it just the same and been like "ZOMG! Did you see? FF2 in sub 8 hours!!" Or how Dragondarch's Crystalis run is, night and day, SO much better than his Mario & Luigi run, yet it almost certainly has many fewer viewers. That's just the way things are.

[u]Couple things everyone else can skip[/u]:
That SS3 combo video was great and the editing especially blew me away! It's so easy to watch it all the way through, while I usually seek around even in speedruns that I like. Anyway, I liked Nakoruru's the best. I liked Rimururu's too, but most of that might be because I was a Rim player. ;) Do you know about the Tales RPG series? People put together [url=http://www.holystar.ch.vu/]combo videos[/url] and special move compilations for that, although they're not on the same level.

Also, now you made me curious. What are the site statistics like for runs on your site?

Gorash

2006-02-05 10:35:46 pm

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When I read Persona's post I was curious too, so I went and looked at some download statistics at archive.

The numbers for single segment stuff I found (since I don't trust them about multi segment stuff) were between 10 downloads for little known games to far over thousand downloads for classics.

How do you interpret this? I'd say, if the game is classic, people are interested in it. If the game is little known, only a handful of die-hard players will bother it. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

But I think it's futile to want some kind of recognition out of it. It's not that the people can't judge wether a run is good or not, even if they can, your ordinary jerk won't acknowledge that you did something great even if his life were at stake. When marsh's Diablo2 run was posted (which I cared a lot about) the news spread rather fast and was also posted as a news on the biggest german D2 page. The comments were quick, numerous, and total bullshit. A lot of people claimed that it's no feat at all, a lot of people just told the world in general that it doesn't count if you abuse map knowledge or segmenting. The occasional idiot even claimed he'd beaten that already single segment.
Long story short, you can't get recognition for something that only a few people really understand. If you post a run here at SDA, you can be sure at least 50 people watch it if it's a popular game. Not all will give you feedback, but it is a kind of silent recognition. Most will not know if a run is done well, but if one out of fifty recognizes a run as being subpar, and writes it into the forums, isn't the job done? I myself have watched almost every video of the games I have played, and a lot of videos of games I know I will never touch in my life and I know for sure that it's possible that I'd miss a time saver in every single one of them if I don't spend a lot of time trying to improve the route myself.

When I read Persona's post I was curious too, so I went and looked at some download statistics at archive.

The numbers for single segment stuff I found (since I don't trust them about multi segment stuff) were between 10 downloads for little known games to far over thousand downloads for classics.

How do you interpret this? I'd say, if the game is classic, people are interested in it. If the game is little known, only a handful of die-hard players will bother it. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

But I think it's futile to want some kind of recognition out of it. It's not that the people can't judge wether a run is good or not, even if they can, your ordinary jerk won't acknowledge that you did something great even if his life were at stake. When marsh's Diablo2 run was posted (which I cared a lot about) the news spread rather fast and was also posted as a news on the biggest german D2 page. The comments were quick, numerous, and total bullshit. A lot of people claimed that it's no feat at all, a lot of people just told the world in general that it doesn't count if you abuse map knowledge or segmenting. The occasional idiot even claimed he'd beaten that already single segment.
Long story short, you can't get recognition for something that only a few people really understand. If you post a run here at SDA, you can be sure at least 50 people watch it if it's a popular game. Not all will give you feedback, but it is a kind of silent recognition. Most will not know if a run is done well, but if one out of fifty recognizes a run as being subpar, and writes it into the forums, isn't the job done? I myself have watched almost every video of the games I have played, and a lot of videos of games I know I will never touch in my life and I know for sure that it's possible that I'd miss a time saver in every single one of them if I don't spend a lot of time trying to improve the route myself.

Radix

2006-02-05 10:43:59 pm

I'm addicted to games

The numbers at archive don't mean very much.

Enhasa

Edit history:

Enhasa: 2006-02-06 05:22:11 am

2006-02-06 04:43:55 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Quote:

Most will not know if a run is done well, but if one out of fifty recognizes a run as being subpar, and writes it into the forums, isn't the job done?

This doesn't happen though, because thankfully we have a nice community and there's no point in being mean and singling out a run that's already gone up. Many times, someone will go back and improve it later anyway, if it's obvious. You can check out this thread to see what I think, but basically I'd like to see the most knowledgable people for a particular game be the verifiers.

And SDA has an active forum, so I think I have a good enough general handle on popularity for curiosity's sake. I was just wondering about Persona's site since it's lesser known.

Edit: For what it's worth, I've been told that combo videos actually have a larger market than speedruns. Maybe this is true. I knew that the fighting game community is much larger than the speedrun community, but I don't know how many of them are into combo videos.

[quote]Most will not know if a run is done well, but if one out of fifty recognizes a run as being subpar, and writes it into the forums, isn't the job done?[/quote]
This doesn't happen though, because thankfully we have a nice community and there's no point in being mean and singling out a run that's already gone up. Many times, someone will go back and improve it later anyway, if it's obvious. You can check out [url=http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=sda_site;action=display;num=1136756664;start=54#54]this thread[/url] to see what I think, but basically I'd like to see the most knowledgable people for a particular game be the verifiers.

And SDA has an active forum, so I think I have a good enough general handle on popularity for curiosity's sake. I was just wondering about Persona's site since it's lesser known.

Edit: For what it's worth, I've been told that combo videos actually have a larger market than speedruns. Maybe this is true. I knew that the fighting game community is much larger than the speedrun community, but I don't know how many of them are into combo videos.

Persona

Edit history:

Persona: 2006-02-07 05:33:31 pm

2006-02-07 05:06:31 pm

Castlevania?

Hmm the only active speedruns at my site these days is FF1, FF2, and all the SOTN vids. Even though I did the FF runs way back in 2004, they still seem to be the most popular runs at the site, even though they're insanely old (a couple of hundred of dls for an old run like that in a couple of days is good in my book).

Another reason why I think certain speedruns will be popular or not is that when it comes to speedrunning and console game, there's like 210925811319581851 games to choose from, and not everyone is gonna care for a lot of games in that amount. Fighting games on the other hand is much more limited, so the average fighting gamer will most probably know most of the fighting game series out there. People will either love a certain speedrun or most probably won't even know what game that is. Fighting games is more balanced but most probably won't be as popular as certain games that are made into speedruns (popular series like Mario, Metroid, Zelda come to mind). Castlevania is also a popular series IMO, but from what I can tell from my CV run stats, it's always about SOTN. Other games don't even get noticed, even if it's from the same series. I'm most probably guessing people care for a specific game rather than the series since there's 1202113951598 different games when it comes to consoles and speedrunning.

I'd be happy enough if my CV Chronicles run can reach 10 downloads in a month unlike the FF runs where the chinese community keep asking me when I'm gonna make a FF3 run or all those people who keep asking for my SOTN 2nd vid.

As for fighting game vids, I can pull off a noobish vid out of my ass and still get a 3 times more downloads than any of my speedruns. An example is the MOTW Rock Howard vid, a 2 min vid which gets at least 9000 downloads compared to my AOS vid which takes hours and hours to make into a 1 hour vid and gets around only 1500 downloads for all the hard effort.

I don't know really, maybe it's because everyone prefers the oldschool me more. I never really noticed it until people came telling me how happy they were that I'm taking a break from speedrunning and went back to focusing on fighting games.

Fighting games is my mainstream while speedrunning is a side hobby for me, but lately I've been handling speedruns like it's my mainstream hobby. And since making most speedruns are really frustrating (combo vids are frustrating too, but you don't have to sit for countless of hours to get one segment right), I start to become stressed and paranoid about a lot of things. I probably need to take a break to clear my mind like what soteos said.

As for the amount of downloads vids get at my site, it's usually:

anything related to fighting games > FF runs > SOTN runs > temp downloads > the rest.

And I pull my hair with frustration every time people ask me for a new SOTN vid or a FF3 vid. People never give up. -_____-

I also wanted to get the CotM run done before I took a break, but the game won't let me throw 8 large bones (most I ever got was 7 and died) on Dracula. Luck isn't by my side.

CV DoS will probably pull my interests for speedrunning CV games again, but so far there's no way to cap DS games. Sad

McBAIN invited me to speedrun a game where there's 2+ characters/routes so we could work together on a project. Hopefully it'll be good and Radix would put it up on SDA. Smiley

Hmm the only active speedruns at my site these days is FF1, FF2, and all the SOTN vids. Even though I did the FF runs way back in 2004, they still seem to be the most popular runs at the site, even though they're insanely old (a couple of hundred of dls for an old run like that in a couple of days is good in my book).

Another reason why I think certain speedruns will be popular or not is that when it comes to speedrunning and console game, there's like 210925811319581851 games to choose from, and not everyone is gonna care for a lot of games in that amount. Fighting games on the other hand is much more limited, so the average fighting gamer will most probably know most of the fighting game series out there. People will either love a certain speedrun or most probably won't even know what game that is. Fighting games is more balanced but most probably won't be as popular as certain games that are made into speedruns (popular series like Mario, Metroid, Zelda come to mind). Castlevania is also a popular series IMO, but from what I can tell from my CV run stats, it's always about SOTN. Other games don't even get noticed, even if it's from the same series. I'm most probably guessing people care for a specific game rather than the series since there's 1202113951598 different games when it comes to consoles and speedrunning.

I'd be happy enough if my CV Chronicles run can reach 10 downloads in a month unlike the FF runs where the chinese community keep asking me when I'm gonna make a FF3 run or all those people who keep asking for my SOTN 2nd vid.

As for fighting game vids, I can pull off a noobish vid out of my ass and still get a 3 times more downloads than any of my speedruns. An example is the MOTW Rock Howard vid, a 2 min vid which gets at least 9000 downloads compared to my AOS vid which takes hours and hours to make into a 1 hour vid and gets around only 1500 downloads for all the hard effort.

I don't know really, maybe it's because everyone prefers the oldschool me more. I never really noticed it until people came telling me how happy they were that I'm taking a break from speedrunning and went back to focusing on fighting games.

Fighting games is my mainstream while speedrunning is a side hobby for me, but lately I've been handling speedruns like it's my mainstream hobby. And since making most speedruns are really frustrating (combo vids are frustrating too, but you don't have to sit for countless of hours to get one segment right), I start to become stressed and paranoid about a lot of things. I probably need to take a break to clear my mind like what soteos said.

As for the amount of downloads vids get at my site, it's usually:

anything related to fighting games > FF runs > SOTN runs > temp downloads > the rest.

And I pull my hair with frustration every time people ask me for a new SOTN vid or a FF3 vid. People never give up. -_____-

I also wanted to get the CotM run done before I took a break, but the game won't let me throw 8 large bones (most I ever got was 7 and died) on Dracula. Luck isn't by my side.

CV DoS will probably pull my interests for speedrunning CV games again, but so far there's no way to cap DS games. :(

McBAIN invited me to speedrun a game where there's 2+ characters/routes so we could work together on a project. Hopefully it'll be good and Radix would put it up on SDA. :)

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-07 10:57:26 pm

2006-02-07 10:56:50 pm

Hey, Persona, maybe you could send me or someone the cartridge to finish up the magician run (since it is so close to being done). But for me, probably not until summer, which I would imagine would give you plenty of time to consider finishing it up yourself if you wanted to. I'd let you take whatever credit you want, full or partial, for the run. So hold on to whatever recordings you have of it so far.

Haven't been working on the normal run much, because some personal problems have come up. But I still have until end of March to get this run down good. I decided to try and get 2 Gauntlets from the hoppers below Cerberus' room.

Is master-88 still around?

Enhasa

2006-02-14 02:31:40 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I didn't even know there was a Fatal Frame 3 until I saw it in a store today.

Quote:

McBAIN invited me to speedrun a game where there's 2+ characters/routes so we could work together on a project. Hopefully it'll be good and Radix would put it up on SDA. Smiley

Hey, sounds great! Any ideas on a game? You won't believe how much that last sentence cracks me up. Smiley

You were already known in the fighting game community, so I think download stats on your site will of course be skewed towards the fighter vids. As opposed to most SDA visitors probably don't know about your site.

Last thing: I like the Vampire Savior combo video. Do you have anything for other Darkstalkers games like the first one? On another note, are there combo videos for doujin games out there? I'm sure there are, but I never tried looking. (I thought of this because I recently found out that Melty Blood was released in Japanese arcades.) I'd give anyone $10 that could find me some good Valkyrie Fight or Valkyrie Fight Tag videos, heh. Gotta let the VP homer in me shine through. Smiley

I didn't even know there was a Fatal Frame 3 until I saw it in a store today.

[quote]McBAIN invited me to speedrun a game where there's 2+ characters/routes so we could work together on a project. Hopefully it'll be good and Radix would put it up on SDA. :)[/quote]
Hey, sounds great! Any ideas on a game? You won't believe how much that last sentence cracks me up. :)

You were already known in the fighting game community, so I think download stats on your site will of course be skewed towards the fighter vids. As opposed to most SDA visitors probably don't know about your site.

Last thing: I like the Vampire Savior combo video. Do you have anything for other Darkstalkers games like the first one? On another note, are there combo videos for doujin games out there? I'm sure there are, but I never tried looking. (I thought of this because I recently found out that Melty Blood was released in Japanese arcades.) I'd give anyone $10 that could find me some good Valkyrie Fight or Valkyrie Fight Tag videos, heh. Gotta let the VP homer in me shine through. :)

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-17 05:28:16 am

2006-02-17 05:02:57 am

Okay, finally been able to work a little bit on this (math exam pushed back til Monday). I am at before the werewolf path, and this game really does not want to give me a night suit. Seriously, two and a half hours of trying and the hyenas won't drop the goddamn thing. This is worse than Necromancer turning into a ball 14 times in a row.
I have a predicament. I am thinking of making the thunderbird card, the first and second strength ring (getting them right before Adremelech) their own segment each. One 25 second segment and two 15 second segments (about). Any thoughts on this?
Oh, and am thinking same thing for Catoblepas with soldier fatigues.

Rael

2006-02-17 05:08:59 am

I don't see a problem. Anything for speed.

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-18 02:01:27 am

2006-02-18 02:00:10 am

Zomg my old run is pwned! (duh)
I am at the save before Hugh, suited up with both rings, fatigues and cards with a time of 42 minutes (and this is a practice run too). I recant my previous statement of the run taking over an hour (unless the last segment takes 18 minutes, which I will then kill myself).
So yeah, the Devil teleported into me six times in a row, killing me six times. I'm taking a break. (btw, 2 more hours of practice didn't get me that night suit >:()
I'll finish it later. I'm enjoying my Friday now.

Rael

2006-02-18 02:31:08 am

Awesome!! Can't wait for the final run!

what cards did you ending up getting/using?

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-18 03:06:28 am

2006-02-18 03:04:53 am

Mercury + salamander (fire whip, actually only useful for Cerberus)
Venus + salamander (+25% damage)
Venus + thunderbird (damage based on map uncovered)
Jupiter + thunderbird (1/2 damage taken, useful for last segment)

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-18 10:44:47 pm

2006-02-18 10:35:24 pm

Alrighty, beat it in 52 minutes, with my very last crucifix killing him. The jupiter card worked nicely, and not only for the meteors. It's looking like 14 segments, with 4 of those being really quick item grabbers.
Any more practice runs I do I'll just post the overall game time. Other than that, I wait until the end of March to record (yay :-/).

Edit: maybe I'll work on a shooter mode. Hmm... we'll see.

Radix

2006-02-18 11:24:56 pm

I'm addicted to games

Additional segments for picking up the cards you mentioned, which I obviously didn't need in fighter... ?

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-19 01:01:10 am

2006-02-18 11:52:09 pm

Meh, sure, I'll try fewer segments in the next practice run.

I'll just skip shooter, since I probably won't have time to record it anyways.

And if anyone has any advice on how to get a night suit, two strength rings, and a thunderbird card in two segments, I would love to hear it.

Radix

2006-02-19 03:47:59 am

I'm addicted to games

Quote:

Meh, sure, I'll try fewer segments in the next practice run.

Uh I wasn't criticising you for more segments, just wondering where they came from.

The only thing I can saw about getting all the stuff you want for drops is ... you know start + a + b + select resets the GBA game right? Tongue

soteos

Edit history:

soteos: 2006-02-19 04:11:27 am

2006-02-19 04:10:25 am

Oh, ok. Well one segment is the Thunderbird card, but I'm thinking of making it part of a longer segment, since I go through that area and kill the panthers anyways.
Another two are the strength rings, where I quickly get them near the save before Adremelech.
The fourth one is the solider fatigues from catoblepas.
If you have any criticisms about these, go ahead. I'm just worried that if I try to incorporate them into longer segments, I might struggle with getting this done before spring break ends.

I know about the reset, but thanks. Smiley

soteos

2006-03-04 04:48:20 am

I had hoped the next post I would make here would be a new time. It seems things will not be moving in a sure direction during the time of spring break.

I am dropping out of college, on the 14th of March, until summer ends. I believe it's for the best. I will have to be away from SDA for a while, I'll come back when I've settled, and do this run.
With full access to a vcr, and a slow-as-hell internet connection.

Rael

2006-03-04 05:41:13 am

Sorry to hear that. Hope everything works out. Put off the run as long as you need, we can wait.