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mikwuyma: 2011-05-06 08:11:34 am
My feelings on The Demon Rush
Just to clarify, this is the original 3, not 6/3US.

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

'Dominator's (ドミネーター) Famicom version run with some broken broken glitches.

Verifier Responses

Quote:
Alright, comments on the Final Fantasy III run:

  • Audio/Video is nice.
  • Audio sync is fine in all segments.

The run has pretty weird segmentation and movement choices which mainly have to do with manipulating item changes. It would probably be nice to see translated comments to go along with the original if this run gets posted so English viewers could have an easier time understanding what's going on. The comments are pretty long and could be a total pain though, so if they're more trouble than it's worth, then never mind this request. I'm not exactly familiar with the glitch that's activated on the 1st character outside of information posted in this thread, so if any other verifiers are more familiar with it then hopefully they could pick up on whether or not any cheating or poor optimization choices are happening. For my comments, I'm going to assume that the runner's movements and item swaps are all intentional for manipulation purposes.

Now outside of that, the run is pretty damn impressive if you've ever played the game before. The runner skips huge sections of the game by getting key items to advance the plot way earlier than you're supposed to. Also, there's an item upgrade glitch that makes the first character some ridiculously high level ")5" right at the beginning of the game, making the rest of the game a slaughterfest. The other thing the runner does is manipulate the random encounters to pretty much nothing. He basically never ran into any enemies he didn't want to (aside from the very beginning). He did this by using cure spells or potions right before the encounter was supposed to take place, resetting the number of steps to encounter an enemy. The entire run seemed extremely well planned out with virtually no mistakes made (unless better route changes are found). I forget the exact timing, since I was more than likely timing it wrong anyways, but this run clocked in the neighborhood of 1:30 to give people an idea on how fast this really was.

Here are comments on each segment:

1: Grabs a couple of chests, uses potions to avoid some battles. Kills his first party member in the boss fight and saves the southwind items to sell later. Grabs some cash from the first cave and sells nearly all his items in exchange for precisely 99 potions. Right before he saves, he moves the potions to the bottom of the inventory list. All the menu item swapping is very important for the various upcoming glitches in this run.

2: Goes in the mine and revives some skeletons for a potion drop. It takes him 2 battles to get it. This activates the character glitch, then the runner talks to Cid and revives everyone. He got some dumb luck with some characters at 2:04 and 9:21 not moving out of the way fast enough. He paces back and forth in front of the wheel to the airship, which I can only assume is to manipulate enemy encounters later. Kills the boss in the cave of seal in one hit. Here begins the journey of the most beastly Red Mage of all time. Runner grabs some free Ice2 magic to kill the rat with (one hit of course).

3/4: Both segments are just the runner encountering an enemy and swapping some items, which end up converting the items. He gets Exit magic at the end of segment 4 from this.

5: It's worth noting that the Red Mage's has "99い7" max HP after the intentional fight he gets into when the segment starts. Breezes through Tower of Owen using sure spells to skip all fights. Runner decides to kill his own teammates at the Medusa boss; this red mage is going solo for the rest of the game. Goes to the dwarf cave and buys 2 Tyrving swords as he passes by. Runner proceeds to breeze through Underground Lake, Flame Cave, Hyne Castle, Water Temple, and Water Cave with relative ease.

6: Heads through the sewer, Goldor's mansion, grabs a chocobo real quick to get back to his ship, then plays the lute to get Unne in the party. Oh yeah, the runner skipped the Temple of Time, as well as a huge quest to get the SylxKey by getting the lute through item swapping at the start of this segment. Continues to Ancient Ruins to get the best ship in the game. Goes to cave of darkness, then makes his uber mage a dark knight and defeats the boss easily for an earth fang. Changes back to Red Mage and goes out to the river below Salonia and saves.

7/8/9/10/11: All of these segments are pretty much only here to convert some of the items he's gathered into more useful things. He gets into a battle, swaps items, then saves.

12: He does one final random battle and gets an Onion Sword, the overpowered joke weapon of the game. He also got the SylxKey from his previous segments, making it pretty easy to enter the last area of the game. He changes to an Onion Knight so he can use the sword, and blasts through the final areas of the game with his stockpile of potions. Final boss is killed in 3 hits, which is insane for how hard this boss normally is.

I trust the runner and his tactics in that he is more than likely not cheating. Looking at the website he thanks in his comments shows that this game is more than broken when it comes to the item and character upgrade glitches. The only possible suggestions I could even come up with is if it's at all possible to skip more dungeons with a few more item manipulations, but for now I feel this is a great run that was very carefully planned out, so it's a very clear accept.


Quote:
Video/Audio seems fine on all segments. I started timing on segment 1 when the player gains control in the opening battle, not when the opening cutscene starts. I stopped timing on the final segment when the final hit on the last boss is dealt. This is different from the timing that the author uses in his notes (from power on to ending) but is based off standard SDA timing.

Segment 1 - 6:07.48
------------------------------------
This is one of those runs that is comparable to the RBA run from OoT in that a lot of the glitches that speed up the run are based around manipulating the game's RAM to give you exactly what you want. While I have not messed around with running the game like this myself, I have seen both this run and a RTA now that abuse memory address glitches in FF3 and get the gist of what's going on. So, to keep it simple, the runner does a lot of strange things in the run in order to manipulate the inventory and 1st character's stats. Examples of this in the first segment include killing off the first character in the boss battle and switching the position of the 99 potions to the final slot in the menu. Not much else to say about it here.

Segment 2 - 14:40.68
------------------------------------
I started timing on segments when the file selection was made and ended it when the save was made. The runner needed a potion drop for glitchy goodness and got it fairly quickly. Getting it on the second battle, while not optimal, is sufficient for a run with segments of this length. After gaining access to the airship, one of the NPCs decides to borrow AGDQ marathon strats from the FF4 NPCs and block the runner. Loses a bit more than a second there. I'm not sure what's up with the walkingi n the airship. I know the battles in the NES FFs are step-based, but I didn't think steps within the airship went toward that here. Maybe I'm wrong. Probably so since the runner pretty much avoids encounters in the next dungeon. The OHKO on both bosses in this segment are NICE! Oh yea, and speaking of step-based battles, the runner will be avoiding a lot of encounters in the game by using certain items (well, potions at least) after a designated number of steps.

Segment 3 - 0:44.33
------------------------------------
Just a random encounter and some inventory switching for more glitching setup.

Segment 4 - 0:46.76
------------------------------------
Pretty much the same as segment 3, except the runner obtains Teleport/Exit (whatever you wanna call it) from the previous setup and finishes the segment by setting up the 99 items glitch again.

Segment 5 - 20:35.71
------------------------------------
In case the power of the glitches so far wasn't apparent to people yet, it should be now when the next battle starts. Yea, character 1 is a beast and a half. Unstoppable. To save time, the runner kills off the rest of his team because they're just bringing the Beastinator down. Now that Tankasaurus is good to go, all the remaining item glitches in the game will pretty much be purely for skipping events. By the way, there's no way you can tell, but just for reference in case a viewer is wondering how this single character is going to handle multi-thousand point hits from later bosses, the max HP on this dude is now 42,529... yea.

Segment 6 - 19:52.63
------------------------------------
The Adventures of Tankasaurus (official name now btw) continue. The runner skips 2 long sequences in the game with a method that would make OoT RBA runners proud. Unne apparently made a nasty comment to Tankasaurus about his red clothing, because he decides to pull out the dark armor for the upcoming boss fight. I suppose the high attack power might've had something to do with it, too. :p

Segment 7 - 0:30.53
------------------------------------
Much like segments 3+4, this segment is only here to help set up glitches for upgrades/skips.

Segment 8 - 0:29.00
------------------------------------
Same deal as 7. Everything going on here is to make it so all the runner has to do is bolt through the Sylx Tower and Dark World in the final segment.

Segment 9 - 0:30.66
------------------------------------
Same as 7+8.

Segment 10 - 0:29.68
------------------------------------
Same as 7-9.

Segment 11 - 0:30.06
------------------------------------
Same as 7-10.

Segment 12 - 22:06.08
------------------------------------
The final segment! As strong as Tankasaurus is, he is in a bit of a rush so he... I wanted to say grab or steal, but I don't think there's an appropriate verb for his actions. Anyway, he obtains the OP'd onion sword and then turns into an onion kid again as he arrogantly walks right around the final elemental crystal as if it means nothing (spoilers: it does mean nothing). He also sees no point in saying hi to those lonely sages in Eureka, so they're probably contemplating suicide now without anyone else's company. I find it funny that Tankasaurus can't defeat the final boss in Sylx Tower and has to help it out by insta-killing himself in the scripted battle. But no matter, for in the next area, the dark crystal guardians keep pounding hits of 8000-9999 on Tankasaurus and he just laughs it off and crushinates them. The final boss, when vulnerable, stood no chance. And thus, the Adventures of Tankasaurus conclude with a big chuckle.

FINAL TIME - 1:27:23.65 (the author said the time was 1:27:18, might need comparison)
------------------------------------
As someone who spent a lot of time with this game, but not necessarily for speed, this run was incredibly entertaining to watch. Then again, I'm a sucker for funny glitches. There are some sections, especially in the early segments, that could be SLIGHTLY more optimal, but it would take a humongous effort to improve this run and this baby needs to go up just for showcasing the glitchathon this game has become anyway. I'm considering doing an audio commentary on the run so people on SDA who don't read Japanese (which would be the vast majority) can enjoy and appreciate the run more, but we'll see.

The run had great planning and definitely met the expectations of manipulation for a segmented submission. I don't know if the runner ever plans on submitting a RTA of this type of run, but I would certainly welcome such a run to SDA. Get this up on the site ASAP for the world to gawk at (well, at least hardcore Final Fantasy fans or people who like RPG runs since this is one of the lesser played FF titles).

Accept!!!!


This last response is in Japanese. In the verifier's final words, he says there are a couple of mistakes, but they're only a matter of seconds, and the level of play in this run is very high.

Quote:
【画質】
リプレイ確認には問題ありません。

【チート】
各セーブ地点前後を確認しましたがチートの形跡はありませんでした。

【戦略・プレイの質】
下記の点から全体的な戦略・プレイの質ともにハイレベルであると判断します。
 ・可能な限り、エンカウント飛ばしで不要な戦闘をすべてスキップしている。
 ・アイテム変化ワザで適切にイベントをスキップしている。
 ・セーブポイントも最小限にとどめている。(乱数調整の直前のみ)
 ・また、同ワザにより早期にテレポを生成しておりマップ移動時間短縮を行っている。
 ・ウィンドウが表示されて消すまでの時間に影響するコマンド入力のタイミングも全体的に良い。


・通常イベント遂行、アイテム変化によるイベントカットについて
私の方でも再検証しましたが、プレイヤーのとったルートがもっとも適切だと思われます。
 ・ネプトの目は生成するのに時間が掛かる。
 ・ドワーフの角、時の歯車、各種きばは生成しても使えないのでイベント消化するしかない。
 

・オニオンソード生成について
プレイヤーはオニオンソードの生成に約2分割いていますが、
まけんし(こてつ+きくいちもんじ装備)でボス戦を行った場合と比較して、
ボス戦で短縮できるターン数をそれぞれ見積もると
ザンデ、ケルベロスー>2ターン
アーリマン、エキドナ、2ヘッドドラゴンー>4ターン
くらやみのくもー>6ターン
の合計22ターンです。

コマンド入力を含めた1ターンを平均8秒と短めに概算しても計176秒ー>約3分と、
1分近い短縮効果が得られています。
またターン数短縮のため、実際のボス戦時の被ダメージ(即死魔法を含む)が減り、
プレイの安定性という点でのアドバンテージもあがります。
このためオニオンソード生成は妥当だと判断できます。


【その他:改善点】
・ゲーム開始~ミスリル鉱山まで
 かわのたて2個の回収が本当に必要かどうかが疑問点です。
 少なくとも封印の洞窟~ランドタートル戦での効果はリプレイのシーンの限りでは0です。
 
 たて2個を回収しないと、ウルで購入できるポーション数が1つ減る
 (ミスリル鉱山でのアイテム99個ワザが安定しなくなる)ので、
 売却目的で回収して、装備はしないというプレイングだけでもいいかと思います。


・隊列変更のタイミング
 ミスリル鉱山でのエンカウント戦のためにいったんキャラを後列に下げていますが、
 キャラの前列復帰のタイミングは次のウィンドウオープン時でいいはず。
 (隊列変更だけなら乱数(歩数カウント)は消費しません。)

 戦闘時にはコマンド入力対象のキャラが最前列まで移動するアクションがあるので、
 その時間が削れます。タイムロス時間はかなり短く30秒もないと思いますが、
 特にネプト神殿戦で、後列小人の移動タイムがもったいないと感じましたので
 提案させていただきます。


・浮遊大陸~難破船までのルート
 各種攻略本・サイトの掲載マップを見る限りは、左ー>下と行くルートが最短。
 この場合針路変更となる目印が何も無いので難しいですが、
 最速タイムを狙うならこちらのルートでしょう。


【結論】
 Accept.
 その他では改善点をいくつか挙げましたが、いずれも秒単位のオーダーです。
 このことから今回のルート・プランは非常に昇華されたものであるように感じました。
 また、実際プレイヤーのスキルも高く、
 カズス~ネプト神殿、オーエンの搭~水の神殿、地下水道~暗黒の洞窟、ラストダンジョンの
 各ノーセーブプレイは非常に素晴らしく、感動致しました。


Quote:
【画質】
視聴に十分な画質です。
問題ありません。

【チート】
不自然な点はありませんでした。
チートなしのプレイだと判断します。

【戦略・プレイの質】
各種バグ技・裏技をフル活用しています。
アイテム99個超え技、エンカウント飛ばし、電源オフ後の状況再現は特に重要です。
アイテム99個超え技に、状況再現を組み込むことによりアイテム99個超え技の再現率を上げています。
一部は100%再現ではないものの、普通にやるより高い確率でアイテムドロップを期待できるのでプレイの安定性も上がります。

ボス敵撃破の基本方針は、アイテム99個超え技を使い1人目のキャラを最強化してごり押しです。
エキドナ戦のブレクガが危険ですが残りは安定します。

雑魚敵の基本方針はエンカウント飛ばしです。
FF3では、敵の出現乱数と回復行動の乱数が共用されているために
敵が出現する1歩前でポーションなどを使い回復を行うと敵が出現する歩数をスキップできます。
つまり、敵が出現する1歩前で回復を繰り返すことにより雑魚敵の出現を完全に封印できます。

また、アイテム99個超え技でアイテムを捏造し、シナリオのショートカットを行っています。
アイテムの存在自体がフラグになっているものと、アイテムの入手がフラグになっているものがありますが、
そのあたりもきちんと調査されており無駄がありません。

かなりレベルの高いプレイだと思います。

【その他】
アイテム99個超え技によるシナリオショートカットは、
ゲーム全てを飛ばすようなものではないのでこれの使用は問題ないと判断します。

本プレイでは、最終的な武器に最強武器のオニオンソードを採用していますが、
アイテム捏造の時間短縮のためにえんげつりんを使うという選択肢もあります。

どちらが早いか判断に迷ったので、プレイヤーに質問したところ
えんげつりんパターンもプレイヤーが調査済みでボス敵の撃破タイムの遅れ、
エキドナ対策にげんじのかぶと(→リボン)の入手時間、
エンカウント飛ばしにかかる時間(アイテムの位置がずれるため)などを考慮すると
1分以上えんげつりんパターンのほうが遅いということでした。

【結論】
掲載を受理したいと思います。 


Decision: Accept

Reason: An amazing run by a well-respected Final Fantasy player. Also, we're only one game away from completing the NES/Famicom FF trilogy.
Thread title:  
Weegee Time
Quote:
1:27:18

What!?
Is PJ
o.O
Edit history:
MAS8705: 2011-05-03 04:02:34 pm
SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)
*Seeing final time*

@_@  YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!?!?!  A FINAL FANTASY GAME BEATEN IN UNDER AN 90 MINUTES?!?!

Can't... Compute... Anything... Anymore!

((Video is an overexaggeration of how I felt after reading this, I don't know if it maybe considered inappropriate or not using anime, so I'll leave it hidden))
Disregard the title of the video, but yea, my feelings to reading the comments was just about like this...


R.I.P. MAS8705: 1987-2011 >_<


Anyway, getting back to being serious.  Very nice Job by the runner!  The library is not only complete for the NES and Famicom, but now this should be an even bigger drive for us to get a proper FFVIII run added too so that we can have the first ten Final Fantasy games in the library (and XII and XIII, but one step at a time)
While I share MAS's excitement, I don't think FF2 has been accepted yet, but please prove me wrong if I can't read. I'll hold on my "whoohoo!" on the original trilogy getting up until it's actually up. Until then, whoohoo, FF3 is up! ^_^
SEGA Junkie
Quote from mikwuyma:
Reason: An amazing run by a well-respected Final Fantasy player. Also, we're only one game away from completing the NES/Famicom FF trilogy.


Yep, you can't read. Wink
Edit history:
HalfMillennium: 2011-05-04 02:33:35 pm
HalfMillennium: 2011-05-04 02:33:17 pm
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
You know, the day after this was posted, scientists reported a few of Einstein's theories of space and time warping had been proven correct. Any relation?
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Hi. I'm the one helped Dominator submitting his run to SDA. I really appreciate all the verifiers efforts and their 'accept' decision. I just let you guys know there will be one more verifier's comment coming in this column (written in Japanese though).

> I don't know if the runner ever plans on submitting a RTA of this type of run, but I would certainly welcome such a run to SDA.

Actually, Dominator is a RTA player. This submission is one of his rare cases of regular speedrun. He has already done RTA of this FF3 either with or without using glitches (uploaded to nicovideo).

http://hwm6.gyao.ne.jp/dominator/records.html

But currently, SDA does not accept RTA as far as I know (I discussed this issue with Mike a while ago). So, I don't think there will be any RTA submission from Japan (unless it's a single-segmented run). As you already know, RTA does not limit the usage of savings during the play. But once you use the savings, regular speedrun strategy (that requires a lot of "luck") is much faster. So, the normal RTA strategy won't fit any of the current SDA categories, if I understand correctly.

with regards,
that Metroidvania guy
Quote from MT:
But currently, SDA does not accept RTA as far as I know (I discussed this issue with Mike a while ago). So, I don't think there will be any RTA submission from Japan (unless it's a single-segmented run). As you already know, RTA does not limit the usage of savings during the play. But once you use the savings, regular speedrun strategy (that requires a lot of "luck") is much faster. So, the normal RTA strategy won't fit any of the current SDA categories, if I understand correctly.

with regards,


Actually, the rules for that changed this year. SDA will now accept RTAs. Smiley So it would be cool if Dominator submits them.
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Hi romscout,

Is that so ?!
I'm apparently out of date XD. Thank you for letting me know Smiley

MT
Exoray
Actually no. The only thing in the rules say pretty much the opposite, except for the special cases.

Quote:
Loading a save file is only permitted in single-segment runs for games or categories (such as New Game Plus) that require doing so to progress. If the player saves and then retries multiple parts of the game individually, the run is considered segmented.

Edit history:
romscout: 2011-05-11 04:04:25 pm
that Metroidvania guy
I'm pretty sure that multiple admins (Flip and Uyama especially) kept saying they'd update the rules to expand the definition of an acceptable RTA after AGDQ was done, and these extra conditions were agreed upon in another thread already (VorpalEdge's updated rules thread perhaps?).

But yea, I was wrong to post that without extra detail. A "poor man's segmented run", as Uyama and Breakdown would put it, isn't necessarily an acceptable RTA here, and that is exactly what RTAs of this game would do if there was a reset used in it at all. Therefore, a real time attack with resets probably wouldn't be acceptable for this particular game. However, I'm pretty sure they agreed to allow save warping and glitches that required a reset (such as the BiT glitch in Zelda: TP, or one of the OoB glitches in Earthbound) for RTAs. Of course, it seems like we either need another rules update or one of the admins to pop in and clarify to be sure, since I obviously am not an official voice here.
My feelings on The Demon Rush
It's more of a conditional game-by-game basis. We can't allow it for every game because 99% of PC RTAs would just be really shitty segmented runs (and therefore 99% of PC games shouldn't get this sort of category).

They also can't be called RTA because RTA is a catch-all for a run done in one sitting, whether it's SS or a run with loads/resets.

The whole category and such wasn't really considered until after AGDQ.

In other words rom, don't post such generalized statements as rules. Angry
that Metroidvania guy
*whistles*
I've seen that guy on Ultimagarden and skimmed through a few of his RTA reports. Crazy stuff. I hope he sends more. =D
THIS RUN CONTAINS SECRET WORLDS
I want to watch this run so much.
The first two verifiers say that the runner's first item glitch manipulation is done with potions, but it's actually done with eyedrops - a good call since they're much cheaper in the store.

Sorry, I'm anal and couldn't help myself. Carry on!