Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/EarthBound.html
Earthbound (ntscus) (snes) [Any %] [Single Segment]
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to Andrew 'andyperfect' Woolston!
Earthbound (ntscus) (snes) [Any %] [Single Segment]
Verifier Responses
Quote from CyberBotX:
A/V good, no cheating detected. While this run isn't perfect, it is pretty damn good. Very little in the mistakes department, some bad luck, but way more good luck to offset that. For a run that uses no glitches, this is very top tier. Only way I can see the time on this getting any lower is through better luck, and since the run is nearly 4 hours long, I can see that taking a while to happen. So, I say accept!
Quote from LotBlind:
AV and cheating check out.
This run proves two things: a) The runner has been playing the game for a good while b) The game has been run for a good while! One of the only things I can pick up on execution-wise is the seemingly somewhat conservative usage of teleport movement in the Deep Darkness. As evidenced elsewhere in the run you can move a bit further with each one.
3:15:45 - Could've used another teleport here to get to the sea pendant faster seeing as movement in this area is slow. And more teleports too. Maybe he was scared of hitting trees? Or spell point issues?
3:46:20 - So easy to say but I saw this encounter coming, just couldn't have squeezed through in time.
In the Giygas fight after reaching the "pray pray pray" stage I'm thinking would it be worth it to just kill Ness off? Is that even possible? Can you somehow just make him die? Less menu cursoring afterwards.
I'd forgotten how OP the rockets are. Holy cow!
Accept (strong, king-sized one)
This run proves two things: a) The runner has been playing the game for a good while b) The game has been run for a good while! One of the only things I can pick up on execution-wise is the seemingly somewhat conservative usage of teleport movement in the Deep Darkness. As evidenced elsewhere in the run you can move a bit further with each one.
3:15:45 - Could've used another teleport here to get to the sea pendant faster seeing as movement in this area is slow. And more teleports too. Maybe he was scared of hitting trees? Or spell point issues?
3:46:20 - So easy to say but I saw this encounter coming, just couldn't have squeezed through in time.
In the Giygas fight after reaching the "pray pray pray" stage I'm thinking would it be worth it to just kill Ness off? Is that even possible? Can you somehow just make him die? Less menu cursoring afterwards.
I'd forgotten how OP the rockets are. Holy cow!
Accept (strong, king-sized one)
Quote from __sdfg:
A/V: I watched the HQ encode all the way through and flipped through the MQ and LQ encodes. They look and sound okay. There are some minor video artifacts (occasional jumping and flicker) due to the capture card used, but the run currently on the site for this category used the same model of capture card and therefore has the same artifacts, so this run should be fine.
Cheating: Nah.
Timing: Going frame-by-frame, I get 1:34.8 to 3:58:01.6, which works out to 3:56:26.8. So, depending on rounding and how much I can trust Avidemux to report accurate timestamps in an MP4, somewhere around 3:56:26.
Gameplay: This run saves about 8 minutes versus the run currently on the site thanks to a new RNG manipulation route, and another 7 minutes on top of that thanks to being way better. There are a few parts that could be improved, but most of the common trouble spots in the run went extremely well. As in, several areas went well enough that they'd each be the highlight of a typical run on their own, except they're all together in this one run. The runner got good luck where it really counted and he absolutely took full advantage of it. The result is that the run makes some of the most difficult and frustrating areas of the game look like you can just walk through them, which is what you really want to see in a speedrun.
This is gonna be a really tough run to beat and I look forward to seeing the runner crank out a 3:54 next month despite mistakenly teleporting to Onett three times and dropping the Rabbit's foot.
Accept.
Cheating: Nah.
Timing: Going frame-by-frame, I get 1:34.8 to 3:58:01.6, which works out to 3:56:26.8. So, depending on rounding and how much I can trust Avidemux to report accurate timestamps in an MP4, somewhere around 3:56:26.
Gameplay: This run saves about 8 minutes versus the run currently on the site thanks to a new RNG manipulation route, and another 7 minutes on top of that thanks to being way better. There are a few parts that could be improved, but most of the common trouble spots in the run went extremely well. As in, several areas went well enough that they'd each be the highlight of a typical run on their own, except they're all together in this one run. The runner got good luck where it really counted and he absolutely took full advantage of it. The result is that the run makes some of the most difficult and frustrating areas of the game look like you can just walk through them, which is what you really want to see in a speedrun.
This is gonna be a really tough run to beat and I look forward to seeing the runner crank out a 3:54 next month despite mistakenly teleporting to Onett three times and dropping the Rabbit's foot.
Accept.
Quote:
By my count, over half of the improvement in this run vs the current one comes before even reaching Twoson. It's not quite so crazy after that, albeit still well done. Barring the Scaraba misfire, the teleporting is often quite impressive with how close it comes to walls, while the efforts the runner takes to despawn enemies usually pay off compared to trying to battle them. Menuing could be a touch better in places but overall the final time speaks for itself. There's a small blip in the sound as Carbon Dog is changing form but aside from that the movie quality is good too. Accept!
Quote:
Estimated run time: 3:56:26 (From gaining control of Ness to Paula starting the last prayer against Giygas)
Run Quality: The run has smooth RNG, and several typically dangerous places has exceptionally good luck. Menu navigation is smooth and quick with few mistakes or moments of hesitation.
A/V Quality: In the MQ and LQ videos, there is a slight audio glitch at around 3:20:17 when the Carbon Dog transforms into the Diamond Dog. However, a similar glitch is in other EarthBound videos, so it's probably just a weird encoding artifact.
Decision: Accept
Onett
Luck manipulation is used until exiting Onett. In terms of execution, menu actions are done quickly and with little hesitation. The runner does sometimes take a less direct route when walking through some places, but the effect on time is minimal.
In terms of battles, the SMAAAASH!! hits in the Arcade are attained about as optimally as anyone can ask for, and only 2 rounds are spent against the Titanic Ant. The Police Station is good as well.
In terms of routing, no extraneous items are obtained or bought--only the Tee Ball Bat and Bombs are obtained because they save time overall. I can think of only a couple of possible time saves: first, the runner doesn't death warp out of the First Sanctuary Cave. There might be a reason not to death warp in glitchless that I'm not aware of, but I believe death warping can save about 30 seconds with manipulation of Black Antoids. Second (and this is a minor point), the runner takes a tiny detour to get the Bread Roll to give to the Apple Kid but skips the Hamburger in the trash can that he walks by anyway. I'm guessing getting the Bread Roll is a holdover from the time when luck manipulation was done only up through Starman Jr.
Twoson/Peaceful Rest Valley/Happy Happy Village
The walk to/from the Pencil statue seems better than average. I believe there is one enemy spawn near the entrance to PRV that can be avoided, but it looks like the run ends up triggering it once while returning from the Pencil statue. Magic Butterfly luck seems good, as 2 of them spawned and the runner didn't have to spend time chasing them down.
The walk through PRV on the way to Happy Happy Village is very good, with only 1 enemy that needed to be despawned. No random enemies spawned in Happy Happy Village either.
It's possible to death warp from Happy Happy Village back to Twoson, but the runner opts not to do this. The time difference is RNG dependent, but the difference seems to be small enough that it mostly doesn't matter.
Threed/Winters/Grapefruit Falls
A No Good Fly corners the runner near the zombies in the northwest graveyard, but there wasn't much the runner could do about this. The runner was fortunate enough to get a green swirl and run away, so the time loss is minimal.
Winters luck seems pretty typical, except for maybe a Tessie Watching Club member playing zone defense against the runner. The Mad Duck and the Worthless Protoplasm aren't skipped, but those skips aren't easy to do, and at least none of the Protoplasms successfully calls for help. The Fourth Sanctuary Cave might look a little rough, but the cave has many active spawns, so it rarely goes smoothly.
Threed after Jeff is always scarybecause of all the zombies and ghosts
Luck in Grapefruit Falls is good until the runner has to exit and reenter 8 times on the way to Belch's Factory. This cost about 40 seconds. No Fobbies at the bottom of the first ladder in Belch's Factory is very lucky, and spawns are cooperative in general throughout the factory.
Dusty Dunes Desert/Fourside/Moonside
There is a nice bit of stutter-stepping around a Thirsty Coil Snake. The chance of no enemies spawning there is only about 25%, so stutter-stepping was probably the right choice over exiting/reentering.
The runner does enter a random battle before the 4th mole, but apparently the spawn there has a 95% chance of activating, so avoiding an encounter there is difficult.
The rest of this section goes well. No real hitch in the Dept. Store and Moonside, and all Sentry Robots are avoided in the Monotoli building. The only somewhat rough spot is the Monkey Cave, where a random enemy is encountered and the wrong Teleport destination is selected.
Winters/Summers/Scaraba
The Shrooom! fight is just about ideal, scattering spores only on the Teddy Bear.
The Kraken fight is a bit spoiled by low damage rolls from the Big Bottle Rocket and Mummy Wrap, but the Kraken itself cooperates by using its pale green light attack that essentially does nothing.
In Scaraba, the runner accidentally Teleports to Onett. This ends up costing about 32 seconds, which certainly isn't a big deal at all in a run as long as this.
The Pyramid seems decent, though there is an encounter with a hieroglyph that can be skipped. Poo also falls unconscious in this fight, and that possibly prevents a 1 round Guardian General. About 20 seconds might've been lost here.
Southern Scaraba has a couple of nice enemy dodges. No random enemy encounters here, and only 1 in Dungeon Man.
Deep Darkness/Stonehenge/Lumine Hall
No random encounters in Deep Darkness. Enemies appearing near the party after a Teleport can easily lead to an ambush, but that doesn't happen.
The first few rooms of Stonehenge are very smooth, but it becomes something a bit more typical after that. A few green swirls off of Starmen are missed, which cost roughly 30 seconds or so.
The Seventh Sanctuary Cave looks very good. Not many enemies needed to be despawned in the lower level, and the area around the Rabbit's Foot is clear. The spawns before the Shining Spot are particularly troublesome because they have an 80% chance of activating, but it looks like a couple of spawns leading to the Rabbit's Foot didn't activate.
Sanctuary cleanup
In the sewers, only 1 spawn in the water activates. The spawn near the Shining Spot apparently has an almost 100% chance of activating, but the Filthy Attack Roach that appears is successfully despawned.
Pink Cloud has several spawns that have a more than 80% chance of activating, so avoiding enemies is very unlikely. This run is no exception, but the runner's luck with running away from fights is perfectly fine.
In the Lost Underworld, the runner has to Teleport around only 1 enemy--the rest of the way is clear.
Fire Spring is another area that has many spawns with high activation rates, so one can't expect smooth RNG here. The runner does a good job of using a combination of exploiting enemy weaknesses, getting green swirls, and despawning enemies to avoid losing too much time to any single spawn.
Magicant
By luck or skill, the runner manages to narrowly avoid several close encounters. 3 out of 5 encounters before the Sea of Eden are green swirls, and the 2 blue swirl fights are escaped on the 2nd round.
All 3 Krakens are avoided with some clever dodging, and Ness's Nightmare is defeated with no problems. Pretty much all of Magicant is very good.
Invaded Onett
All random encounters are successfully avoided with Teleport. There is one moment where the runner Teleports directly into a spawned enemy, but an encounter is narrowly avoided with some quick uses of Teleport.
Cave of the Past
The Cave of the Past is yet another area full of highly active spawns, so while the run does get into quite a few encounters, you can't expect anything different without amazing luck. The only real faults here are 1 red swirl and a troll Magic Butterfly that touches the tail end of the party while under the effect of a Skip Sandwich DX.
Giygas
First phase is 2 rounds, which is fine. The second phase is 3 rounds, which is 1 more than you want, but unfortunately Poo falls to Giygas's Flash equivalent attack, which is random in what effect it has.
Run Quality: The run has smooth RNG, and several typically dangerous places has exceptionally good luck. Menu navigation is smooth and quick with few mistakes or moments of hesitation.
A/V Quality: In the MQ and LQ videos, there is a slight audio glitch at around 3:20:17 when the Carbon Dog transforms into the Diamond Dog. However, a similar glitch is in other EarthBound videos, so it's probably just a weird encoding artifact.
Decision: Accept
Onett
Luck manipulation is used until exiting Onett. In terms of execution, menu actions are done quickly and with little hesitation. The runner does sometimes take a less direct route when walking through some places, but the effect on time is minimal.
In terms of battles, the SMAAAASH!! hits in the Arcade are attained about as optimally as anyone can ask for, and only 2 rounds are spent against the Titanic Ant. The Police Station is good as well.
In terms of routing, no extraneous items are obtained or bought--only the Tee Ball Bat and Bombs are obtained because they save time overall. I can think of only a couple of possible time saves: first, the runner doesn't death warp out of the First Sanctuary Cave. There might be a reason not to death warp in glitchless that I'm not aware of, but I believe death warping can save about 30 seconds with manipulation of Black Antoids. Second (and this is a minor point), the runner takes a tiny detour to get the Bread Roll to give to the Apple Kid but skips the Hamburger in the trash can that he walks by anyway. I'm guessing getting the Bread Roll is a holdover from the time when luck manipulation was done only up through Starman Jr.
Twoson/Peaceful Rest Valley/Happy Happy Village
The walk to/from the Pencil statue seems better than average. I believe there is one enemy spawn near the entrance to PRV that can be avoided, but it looks like the run ends up triggering it once while returning from the Pencil statue. Magic Butterfly luck seems good, as 2 of them spawned and the runner didn't have to spend time chasing them down.
The walk through PRV on the way to Happy Happy Village is very good, with only 1 enemy that needed to be despawned. No random enemies spawned in Happy Happy Village either.
It's possible to death warp from Happy Happy Village back to Twoson, but the runner opts not to do this. The time difference is RNG dependent, but the difference seems to be small enough that it mostly doesn't matter.
Threed/Winters/Grapefruit Falls
A No Good Fly corners the runner near the zombies in the northwest graveyard, but there wasn't much the runner could do about this. The runner was fortunate enough to get a green swirl and run away, so the time loss is minimal.
Winters luck seems pretty typical, except for maybe a Tessie Watching Club member playing zone defense against the runner. The Mad Duck and the Worthless Protoplasm aren't skipped, but those skips aren't easy to do, and at least none of the Protoplasms successfully calls for help. The Fourth Sanctuary Cave might look a little rough, but the cave has many active spawns, so it rarely goes smoothly.
Threed after Jeff is always scary
Luck in Grapefruit Falls is good until the runner has to exit and reenter 8 times on the way to Belch's Factory. This cost about 40 seconds. No Fobbies at the bottom of the first ladder in Belch's Factory is very lucky, and spawns are cooperative in general throughout the factory.
Dusty Dunes Desert/Fourside/Moonside
There is a nice bit of stutter-stepping around a Thirsty Coil Snake. The chance of no enemies spawning there is only about 25%, so stutter-stepping was probably the right choice over exiting/reentering.
The runner does enter a random battle before the 4th mole, but apparently the spawn there has a 95% chance of activating, so avoiding an encounter there is difficult.
The rest of this section goes well. No real hitch in the Dept. Store and Moonside, and all Sentry Robots are avoided in the Monotoli building. The only somewhat rough spot is the Monkey Cave, where a random enemy is encountered and the wrong Teleport destination is selected.
Winters/Summers/Scaraba
The Shrooom! fight is just about ideal, scattering spores only on the Teddy Bear.
The Kraken fight is a bit spoiled by low damage rolls from the Big Bottle Rocket and Mummy Wrap, but the Kraken itself cooperates by using its pale green light attack that essentially does nothing.
In Scaraba, the runner accidentally Teleports to Onett. This ends up costing about 32 seconds, which certainly isn't a big deal at all in a run as long as this.
The Pyramid seems decent, though there is an encounter with a hieroglyph that can be skipped. Poo also falls unconscious in this fight, and that possibly prevents a 1 round Guardian General. About 20 seconds might've been lost here.
Southern Scaraba has a couple of nice enemy dodges. No random enemy encounters here, and only 1 in Dungeon Man.
Deep Darkness/Stonehenge/Lumine Hall
No random encounters in Deep Darkness. Enemies appearing near the party after a Teleport can easily lead to an ambush, but that doesn't happen.
The first few rooms of Stonehenge are very smooth, but it becomes something a bit more typical after that. A few green swirls off of Starmen are missed, which cost roughly 30 seconds or so.
The Seventh Sanctuary Cave looks very good. Not many enemies needed to be despawned in the lower level, and the area around the Rabbit's Foot is clear. The spawns before the Shining Spot are particularly troublesome because they have an 80% chance of activating, but it looks like a couple of spawns leading to the Rabbit's Foot didn't activate.
Sanctuary cleanup
In the sewers, only 1 spawn in the water activates. The spawn near the Shining Spot apparently has an almost 100% chance of activating, but the Filthy Attack Roach that appears is successfully despawned.
Pink Cloud has several spawns that have a more than 80% chance of activating, so avoiding enemies is very unlikely. This run is no exception, but the runner's luck with running away from fights is perfectly fine.
In the Lost Underworld, the runner has to Teleport around only 1 enemy--the rest of the way is clear.
Fire Spring is another area that has many spawns with high activation rates, so one can't expect smooth RNG here. The runner does a good job of using a combination of exploiting enemy weaknesses, getting green swirls, and despawning enemies to avoid losing too much time to any single spawn.
Magicant
By luck or skill, the runner manages to narrowly avoid several close encounters. 3 out of 5 encounters before the Sea of Eden are green swirls, and the 2 blue swirl fights are escaped on the 2nd round.
All 3 Krakens are avoided with some clever dodging, and Ness's Nightmare is defeated with no problems. Pretty much all of Magicant is very good.
Invaded Onett
All random encounters are successfully avoided with Teleport. There is one moment where the runner Teleports directly into a spawned enemy, but an encounter is narrowly avoided with some quick uses of Teleport.
Cave of the Past
The Cave of the Past is yet another area full of highly active spawns, so while the run does get into quite a few encounters, you can't expect anything different without amazing luck. The only real faults here are 1 red swirl and a troll Magic Butterfly that touches the tail end of the party while under the effect of a Skip Sandwich DX.
Giygas
First phase is 2 rounds, which is fine. The second phase is 3 rounds, which is 1 more than you want, but unfortunately Poo falls to Giygas's Flash equivalent attack, which is random in what effect it has.
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to Andrew 'andyperfect' Woolston!
Thread title:
