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1-Up!
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/HalfMinuteHero.html

Half-Minute Hero (Any %) (Single Segment) (Normal) [Hero 300]
Half-Minute Hero (Any %) (Individual Level) (Normal) [Hero 30]

Verifier Responses
SS Hero 300
Quote:
Once again, I find myself with an easy verification where if the submittion is faster than the one currently in place, it is an easy auto accept.

What I find fasinating is how right in the first part of this run, the runner was actually able to to save four seconds over the current run, but falls behind the current run in the 2nd half so that the runner can level up some more, and while the current run had entered the dark lord's castle first, the runner was able to not only able to catch up, but was able to beat the dark lord faster and move on from there.  It was from here that the runner took off with it and left the current run in the dust, leaving am improvement of 35 seconds.

well actually the game's final clear time was 2'53'52, so when you compare this to the current run of  3'28'50, it is an improvement of 34.98.  Regardless, the run did what it needed to do, and as hard as it is to bleive that Hero 300 was able to be under 3 minutes, I'm as shocked as I am impressed.  Accept

Now for the ILs...  Now granted this one is much harder to do since I only have half the runs to go off of for references while the rest will be based on judgement, but it should still be good.

...

I'm going to be looking at them all right now, but I wanted to at least leave the hero 300 in and get that out of the way.


Quote:
A/V: The resolution on mq is really tiny. I think the runner made his mq encodes at half resolution, which is excessive for a PSP game IMO because PSP is not high-resolution. Aside from that, the quality is fine. HQ looks great.

Hero 300: This run is really good! All movement outside of town is tightly optimized. I only saw one or two movement errors, and the hp management was tight. The in-town movement is not so hot, but that only makes you look bad and doesn't count against your time. Tongue The only significant improvement I see is dying faster in the desert, since it took 3 battles for the runner to die in the desert. It's been a while since I played this game so I don't know if that's a luck factor, or a factor of which tile you're in when you encounter an enemy.

One note about this run: It's the record on both the PSP and XBLA leaderboards, but one quick look at the Steam leaderboards suggest there are two better times. One is 2:21.xx which I personally think is crap because I don't see how that much time can come off this run, especially considering how long the final continent is. However, the other time is 2:44.xx, which does seem possible with better death abuse from the desert and maybe even tighter hp management/better planning somewhere? I know Dowolf says in his comments that sub-2:50 is ridiculously hard, but maybe there's a way to do it. I thought 3 minutes was impossible at some point.

Regardless, this run is really great, and it's the fastest recorded run, and that's what counts in my book. Smiley

One random idea I had for the final boss encounter (the final final one). Would it be worth it to advance slowly and retreat so you don't hit the boss when the boss charges at you? It seems like that's wasted dashing since you're not hitting the mirror.

I'll post about the ILs later. It shouldn't take more than a day or two. I will say this though, the ILs don't really become fun to run until about stage 8 or so, because you have more equipment options at that point.


Quote:
I guess I'm gonna follow the trend here and just start with Hero 300 for now.  I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said, it's a great run and definitely an accept from me.

(Oh yeah, Audio/Video.  Audio's cool, video's cool although I'm also curious about the resolution shift on normal quality, but it's still viewable.)

And now for this huge list of ILs.  I'll get back to you on that.


Hero 30 ILs
Quote:
Was gonna get this written up yesterday but something came up.

So!  ILs.  They're cool.  Audio/Video's the same as my statements in the Hero 300 run.  I can't really think of anything to point out in any specific one, they all look pretty good to me.  They're pretty snappy, the movement is top notch all around, and the strats look pretty good.  Some pretty impressive stuff, gonna have to give it an accept.


Quote:
Talk about last minute verifications.  My apologizes but November always seems like a busy month.  Anyway for the IL verifications.

I will say this right now, I've watched all the IL runs, and I was impressed by all of them.  The quality was good and the execution was spectacular as well.

Does this mean that I accept them all?

...

Actually no.

Allow me to explain.  I love to verify ILs of games that are already in the library since that means it can be compared to the existing run and can be used as a means to ensure that they are faster.  Of course while many of them blew Xaruga's time out of the water due to better equipment, better set up, and a two year gap to discover more tricks, you would be shocked to find out that the runner actually got beat out by Xarugas once!

On the very first stage, if you compare the times, here is what turns up for Stage 1-
Runner- 34'23
Xarugas- 34'15

With a difference of .07 seconds, that does mean that Xarugas has the faster time!

If the runner was hoping to get a flawless victory here, he will be in for a huge disappointment.  Because of this, I accept all except for the first stage.


Decision: Accept Hero 300, Accept Hero 30 ILs

Reason: The only close call here is Level 1, which is pointed out to be .07 seconds slower than in xarugas's segmented run. However, since it is the first level in the first segment of his run, I sort of consider it to be IL quality, so the fact that this runner is only .07 behind is an acceptable margin for me, given the circumstances.

Congratulations to Jim 'Dowolf' Dobler!
Thread title:  
Edit history:
MAS8705: 2012-12-09 05:56:17 pm
SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)
.07 seconds?  Now who would be crazy enough to actually go through and look into such details to actually do that?

*Evil Grin*

I admit, I love half-Minute hero, and I'm happy to see improvements on an existing game, but yeah when I was doing comparisons, I noticed that slight part there about how Xarugas was a bit faster.  Still, I'm not going to argue the results.  It is like a 99% approval anyway, and all I can do it just point it out.  Still, great job on the run.

Edit reply to below post: No worries, we all know the first stage of Hero 30 is the most annoying.  As long as it is accepted, that's all what matter.  Again, Congrats.
Comments on comments

--Sub 2:50 on PSP version is impossible AFAIK. All sub 2:50 times on the Steam version except for mine are by known cheaters (cross-reference with the Hero 3 list, and sigh). I got a 2:45 though and that wasn't nearly perfect, so yeah. Sub 2:40's certainly possible on Steam. Dunno about XBox, but I'm working under the assumption that Steam and XBox versions are identical.

--Dying in the desert: I want enough gold to buy the Spike Shield. Ideally, I would have died one kill earlier, but there's enough luck around there that I'll take this run and run with it.

--I dunno what happened with the MQ version; I just used Anri-chan and know nothing about video quality >_>

--On the final boss, the boss actually advances for a set amount of time, and then retreats for a set amount of time. Running into him stops movement, but doesn't adjust the timer, so blocking him actually saves time. Intriguingly, you can actually abuse the **** out of this on the Steam version (which has significantly less knockback) to basically one-cycle the boss by slowing down his forward movement so much that, when he retreats, he retreats behind the shield. Which is hilarious (and one of the reasons the Steam version is so much faster), but I digress.

Also sorry about level 1. In my defense, I hate it. It's basically playing the level for 3 minutes which basically don't matter followed by 3 seconds of dashing and praying for crits, which is... yeah. Worst level in the game by far >_> I mean, I know Xarugas actually got a sub-34 that he didn't record, which should put that level in perspective <_<.

But thanks!
My feelings on The Demon Rush
Dowolf: I didn't get around to watching all of the Hero 30 runs, but I will say that most of your runs are good, but you really should have consulted with others on the forums, because some of your strats are very bad. I can tell you for a fact that the Level 7 north strategy is slow by 4 or 5 seconds, and my PB is at least 3 seconds faster than your time. I told Flip I accepted your runs anyway because most of them are very good.

I need to play the steam version (I have it but I haven't played it yet), but I think you're right about XBLA and Steam being identical aside from XBLA having butchered Evil Lord, Knight, and Princess modes.

Does the Steam version have the less than 5 second trick on the final boss? (go into the boss fight with less than five seconds left and the boss is much weaker)

And yeah Level 1 sux. Sad
Edit history:
Dowolf: 2012-12-09 08:59:07 pm
steam has the five second trick on Last Battle, yeah. Which makes the level really... weird. Not bad per se, but weird. It also has the butchered extra modes, too, though you can only play them with neo cartoon graphics and it does restore the real versions. And it does not have Another Goddess, which makes me a sad wolf.

By 7 North, do you mean Courage Mountain or Infinite Desert? (i.e. NC reckoning or PSP reckoning)? If the former, then I'd be shocked if you saved 4-5 seconds, as I don't believe the stage was changed much at all, I don't know of any inefficiencies in my route, and there's not even any Steam times that are sub-20. If you mean the latter, then this is actually one of the stages that was changed the most between the two versions. Specifically, Barbara costs 150g less to hire and the snakes the Evil Lord shoots out are made laughably easy to kill (if you are even one lower level than I was when I tackled it in the PSP version, they will murder you). EDIT: also all the random encounters in the last section were made easier, but drop the same exp/gold.

Indeed, most of the stages with >30 second target time were changed. Other stages that I know off the top of my head were changed are: Road to Land or Sea (mentioned in the other topic), The Have-nots (you get so much more gold), Golem Valley (only one rock to break), and of course Last Battle.
My feelings on The Demon Rush
Infinite Desert, and if they really changed the stage that much between versions well then I guess I have nothing to complain about.