Is there a Shantae runner in the house?

2012-03-13 08:11:47 pm

Anything you can do I can do halfass

I've searched the forums here, and searched tasvideos, and I'm not actually seeing any signs of a Shantae running community. While I'm not superincrediblysurprised, I am at least mildly surprised.

I've long held that I have more resources and knowledge than serious running talent, and last time I tried to do any serious speedrunning, my very attempts evoked better runs from the community than I was aiming for before I'd even properly gotten into practice. But perhaps I've finally hit a title where resources, knowledge, and patience are the requisite combination Smiley

All the same, it will take me long enough to clock any serious attempt that I thought I'd start the discussion and if the community wants to preempt me again, so be it.

The game: Shantae (Gameboy Color)
The Platform: GBC on GBA (player) - "GBA enhanced" only pops the colors to counteract palette issues on early GBAs according to http://www.1up.com/features/shantae

The run: 100% as defined by
- all labyrinths (don't even know if there's a skip for these)
- all hearts
- all talismans
- all fireflies (with or without redeeming them? *)
- all warp squids (with or without redeeming them? *)
* all menu-screen dances? (this implicitly means all squids/fireflies, but requires taking extra time in revisits and boring dialogue)

The 100% decision is purely as a function of my skill right now. I don't want to even attempt a low% right off, I'll never have the patience to strategize over optimal acquires on an any%, and I'll be segmenting regardless if I'm the runner, so why not go all-out?

The goal: 4-5 hours? I've clocked about 6 spending too much time as human and too much time actually fighting enemies. I suspect sub-5 is doable, sub-4... well, that's part of why I'm asking at the outset if anyone has really seriously run this one before. If sub-4 is "very doable" for 100%, I'm going to be way out of my league.

The high-level notion:

Segment: start -> Scuttle Town
Target: no trolling by canon balls or the boss

Segment: Scuttle Town -> Scuttle Town
Target: dancemania. Quickly raise funds at the dance house. A perfect B-level dance will net ~75 gems (98? won - 20 paid). I'll at least need to stock up some vanishing cream, and I actually kinda suspect that between bosses and minibosses (notably the claw-things in labyrinths 1 & 4, the rock golems in labyrinth 2, and the labyrinth 1 & 4 main bosses) buying the first two Fighter Gears will pay off even if it could take 10-15 minutes of dancing to score 900 gems.

Segment: Scuttle Town -> Water Town -> Labyrinth 1 save
Target: Don't get trolled by the field enemies, and if I'm getting them at all, get the fighter gear. Pick up convenient fireflies if it's night.

Segment: Labyrinth 1 -> Oasis Town -> Labyrinth 2 save
Target: good boss luck on L1; 4 L1 squids, grab the field-near-Scuttle heart, squid Scuttle town, grab the (no vanishing cream actually required) heart in the naga steppes

Segment: Labyrinth 2 -> Labyrinth 2
Target: 4 L2 squids, boss lets me crack it open on one of its first few attack patterns. I don't recall much luck being needed on this dungeon, and the boss can be 1-rounded with the jump-kick once you get its weak point open. Only big reason this is its own segment is because L2 -> Zombie is a really long distance through some of my least-favorite overworld.

Segment: Labyrinth 2 -> Zombie Caravan
Target: Nothing new to pick up between L2 and Scuttle, so just warp back there. Break open the shortcuts in the woods, snail-plains, and graveyard-woods. Detour at the waterfalls to grab the Monkey Claw (will save a lot of time and headache on L3 sub boss). Just generally get through the ~6 overworld areas with execution I can be proud of. Grab convenient fireflies. Squid the Caravan*

Segment: Zombie Caravan -> Zombie Caravan
Target: If I get comfortable memorizing and executing the footrace, this will probably merge into an adjacent segment, but as it stands, one slip here will wreck the segment so I don't want to chance it.

Segment: ZC -> Labyrinth 3 -> Bandit Town
Target: Decent patterns on the L3 boss, not getting trolled by the vampire-girls, 4 L3 squids. What I can now pick up between here and Scuttle I don't think I actually need right now, so warp to Scuttle. Grab the cave-heart in the tar pits. If I ever decide I want the Advance Dance, grab it now, 'cause I don't want to come back. If I need to check in all squids, squid Bandit Town, otherwise drive-by squid Oasis Town.

Segment: Bandit Town -> Labyrinth 4 -> left slope save
Target: 5 squids. Execution & boss luck. Lots of 1-hit-death potential in L4, and the boss can occasionally decide not to play nice.

Segment: World Tour -> Oasis Town
Target: anything and everything not yet collected. Route TBD*

Segment: Endgame
Target: Risky is the only nondeterministic element I can think of here, other than not skewering Harpy. But Risky... *sigh* Monkey Power ftw, I think, but that's assuming she gives me any kind of openings.

* General Strategery and Hijinks
Lots of monkey. Not lots of fighting. Route-plan item collection, and warp intelligently.
Scuttle Town gets squidded early because it's the practical world-loop midpoint and can generally save half the walking distance between each labyrinth.
Zombie Caravan gets squidded early because I anticipate it playing rather a nice role in the world tour, maybe earlier, particularly with luck manipulation. At very least, warping there should make it night-time for easy fireflies. At best, since it moves every night, I suspect (until tested or proven wrong) that with a little bit of luck or timing manip, I could use it to warp me to near anywhere.
I haven't mapped all fireflies yet, so I make very few comments on them so far. It will be daytime at the start of every segment, but presumably if I'm any kind of consistent, it will be reliably night time as I pass certain screens. Whether it pays for me to wait for night in certain spots to avoid world-tour revisits is open for discussion. And what I need to revisit when will likely inform what shortcuts I even bother breaking open.
The world tour will at least need to hit the 3 prior labyrinths at least once each, so barring extreme zombie warp fever, starting with Mt. Pointy -> left -> L3 collecting hearts & fireflies seems like a good start. From there, I need to make it to the Water Town vicinity for the Elephant Tote and a firefly, but since I haven't had squids for it yet, that could be a problem. The heart near L2 is a gimme once I'm there for the squid. Scuttle Town and a straight rush right for the talon, heart, L2, and Water Town stuff might make the most sense. Likewise, the heart near L3 is a gimme, but which town to start from is a trick. The big unknown is which way and when it's practical to grab the Spider Venom from the tar pits. The only worse middle-of-nowhere location is the zombie bog once ZC has moved Tongue

So. I've obviously put far too much thought into this. Anyone care to blow everything away with an existing TAS or casual run, or can I actually get serious this time? Wink

Also, no, my copy is not for sale or loan. It cost too much, in too good condition, and I enjoy it far too thoroughly. But if I stumble across another short of trolling ebay, I do plan to do something like buy it and put it up as a run bounty to be awarded preemptively to the first person who posts a trustworthy no-cheating emulated run with intent to do an official run ASAP Smiley

Thread title:

I've searched the forums here, and searched tasvideos, and I'm not actually seeing any signs of a Shantae running community.  While I'm not [i]superincrediblysurprised[/i], I am at least mildly surprised.

I've long held that I have more resources and knowledge than serious running talent, and last time I tried to do any serious speedrunning, my very attempts evoked better runs from the community than I was aiming for before I'd even properly gotten into practice.  But perhaps I've finally hit a title where resources, knowledge, and patience are the requisite combination :)  All the same, it will take me long enough to clock any serious attempt that I thought I'd start the discussion and if the community wants to preempt me again, so be it.

The game: Shantae (Gameboy Color)
The Platform: GBC on GBA (player) - "GBA enhanced" only pops the colors to counteract palette issues on early GBAs according to http://www.1up.com/features/shantae

The run: 100% as defined by
- all labyrinths (don't even know if there's a skip for these)
- all hearts
- all talismans
- all fireflies (with or without redeeming them? *)
- all warp squids (with or without redeeming them? *)
* all menu-screen dances? (this implicitly means all squids/fireflies, but requires taking extra time in revisits and boring dialogue)

The 100% decision is purely as a function of my skill right now.  I don't want to even attempt a low% right off, I'll never have the patience to strategize over optimal acquires on an any%, and I'll be segmenting regardless if I'm the runner, so why not go all-out?

The goal: 4-5 hours?  I've clocked about 6 spending too much time as human and too much time actually fighting enemies.  I suspect sub-5 is doable, sub-4... well, that's part of why I'm asking at the outset if anyone has really seriously run this one before.  If sub-4 is "very doable" for 100%, I'm going to be way out of my league.

The high-level notion:

Segment: start -> Scuttle Town
Target: no trolling by canon balls or the boss

Segment: Scuttle Town -> Scuttle Town
Target: dancemania.  Quickly raise funds at the dance house.  A perfect B-level dance will net ~75 gems (98? won - 20 paid).  I'll at least need to stock up some vanishing cream, and I actually kinda suspect that between bosses and minibosses (notably the claw-things in labyrinths 1 & 4, the rock golems in labyrinth 2, and the labyrinth 1 & 4 main bosses) buying the first two Fighter Gears will pay off even if it could take 10-15 minutes of dancing to score 900 gems.

Segment: Scuttle Town -> Water Town -> Labyrinth 1 save
Target: Don't get trolled by the field enemies, and if I'm getting them at all, get the fighter gear.  Pick up convenient fireflies if it's night.

Segment: Labyrinth 1 -> Oasis Town -> Labyrinth 2 save
Target: good boss luck on L1; 4 L1 squids, grab the field-near-Scuttle heart, squid Scuttle town, grab the (no vanishing cream actually required) heart in the naga steppes

Segment: Labyrinth 2 -> Labyrinth 2
Target: 4 L2 squids, boss lets me crack it open on one of its first few attack patterns.  I don't recall much luck being needed on this dungeon, and the boss can be 1-rounded with the jump-kick once you get its weak point open.  Only big reason this is its own segment is because L2 -> Zombie is a really long distance through some of my least-favorite overworld.

Segment: Labyrinth 2 -> Zombie Caravan
Target: Nothing new to pick up between L2 and Scuttle, so just warp back there.  Break open the shortcuts in the woods, snail-plains, and graveyard-woods.  Detour at the waterfalls to grab the Monkey Claw (will save a lot of time and headache on L3 sub boss).  Just generally get through the ~6 overworld areas with execution I can be proud of.  Grab convenient fireflies.  Squid the Caravan*

Segment: Zombie Caravan -> Zombie Caravan
Target: If I get comfortable memorizing and executing the footrace, this will probably merge into an adjacent segment, but as it stands, one slip here will wreck the segment so I don't want to chance it.

Segment: ZC -> Labyrinth 3 -> Bandit Town
Target: Decent patterns on the L3 boss, not getting trolled by the vampire-girls, 4 L3 squids.  What I can now pick up between here and Scuttle I don't think I actually need right now, so warp to Scuttle.  Grab the cave-heart in the tar pits.  If I ever decide I want the Advance Dance, grab it now, 'cause I don't want to come back.  If I need to check in all squids, squid Bandit Town, otherwise drive-by squid Oasis Town.

Segment: Bandit Town -> Labyrinth 4 -> left slope save
Target: 5 squids.  Execution & boss luck.  Lots of 1-hit-death potential in L4, and the boss [i]can[/i] occasionally decide not to play nice.

Segment: World Tour -> Oasis Town
Target: anything and everything not yet collected.  Route TBD*

Segment: Endgame
Target: Risky is the only nondeterministic element I can think of here, other than not skewering Harpy.  But Risky... *sigh*  Monkey Power ftw, I think, but that's assuming she gives me any kind of openings.

* General Strategery and Hijinks
Lots of monkey.  Not lots of fighting.  Route-plan item collection, and warp intelligently.
Scuttle Town gets squidded early because it's the practical world-loop midpoint and can generally save half the walking distance between each labyrinth.
Zombie Caravan gets squidded early because I anticipate it playing rather a nice role in the world tour, maybe earlier, particularly with luck manipulation.  At very least, warping there should make it night-time for easy fireflies.  At best, since it moves every night, I suspect (until tested or proven wrong) that with a little bit of luck or timing manip, I could use it to warp me to near anywhere.  
I haven't mapped all fireflies yet, so I make very few comments on them so far.  It will be daytime at the start of every segment, but presumably if I'm any kind of consistent, it will be reliably night time as I pass certain screens.  Whether it pays for me to wait for night in certain spots to avoid world-tour revisits is open for discussion.  And what I need to revisit when will likely inform what shortcuts I even bother breaking open.
The world tour will at least need to hit the 3 prior labyrinths at least once each, so barring extreme zombie warp fever, starting with Mt. Pointy -> left -> L3 collecting hearts & fireflies seems like a good start.  From there, I need to make it to the Water Town vicinity for the Elephant Tote and a firefly, but since I haven't had squids for it yet, that could be a problem.  The heart near L2 is a gimme once I'm there for the squid.  Scuttle Town and a straight rush right for the talon, heart, L2, and Water Town stuff might make the most sense.  Likewise, the heart near L3 is a gimme, but which town to start from is a trick.  The big unknown is which way and when it's practical to grab the Spider Venom from the tar pits.  The only worse middle-of-nowhere location is the zombie bog once ZC has moved :P

So.  I've obviously put far too much thought into this.  Anyone care to blow everything away with an existing TAS or casual run, or can I actually get serious this time? ;)

Also, no, my copy is not for sale or loan.  It cost too much, in too good condition, and I enjoy it far too thoroughly.  But if I stumble across another short of trolling ebay, I do plan to do something like buy it and put it up as a run bounty to be awarded preemptively to the first person who posts a trustworthy no-cheating emulated run with intent to do an official run ASAP :)

ZenicReverie

2012-03-13 08:53:18 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

give me $200 and I'll run this game... (money goes towards purchase of the game.)

Exo

2012-03-14 05:46:45 am

Sandbagging

Quote from ZenicReverie:

give me $200 and I'll run this game... (money goes towards purchase of the game.)

I think everybody is in that situation Zenic Tongue

André

2012-03-14 06:47:40 am

Main Work!!!

Quote from Exo:

Quote from ZenicReverie:

give me $200 and I'll run this game... (money goes towards purchase of the game.)

I think everybody is in that situation Zenic Tongue

You're right Exo, I don't even know the game and I would be ready to run it if someone buy it for me Tongue

.

cyghfer

2012-03-14 08:34:54 am

Quote from ZenicReverie:

give me $200 and I'll run this game... (money goes towards purchase of the game.)

yeah, lol

i am, however, seriously surprised there's no completed TAS of the game yet of any kind. i think it has to do with the fact that it has that gba mode thing which can't be emulated with vba-rr yet or something, not sure though

ZenicReverie

Edit history:

ZenicReverie: 2012-03-14 09:40:04 am

2012-03-14 09:34:30 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

There's actually a listing for a CIB copy of the game on Amazon, only $400. Sounds like a good deal. O.o. I wonder if WayForward will do anything to get the game released on the DS Virtual Console. This looks encouraging: http://wayforward.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/14/shantae-on-the-3ds-virtual-console.html If it does happen, then we still need a way to record 3DS. Although, a re-release may lower the price for the actual cart as well. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

While I spend $200 on several games easily, it's hard to convince myself to spend all of it on one game.

dballin

2012-03-14 03:38:56 pm

Balls jerky

You could always get this VGA graded one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Game-Boy-Color-Shantae-VGA-Gold-85-Truly-Rare-Valuable-/110837512970?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item19ce6e3b0a

Lone_Kilted_Ninja

2012-03-14 06:31:15 pm

Anything you can do I can do halfass

The game runs on Color or Advance, and the gameplay is identical. If there are rules over what it "may" be played on for submission, I'll need to hear of them, since the only ways I have to capture are my GBA Player and an RCA-out modded GBA. Any practice I'd do would likely be on KiGB, which runs it just fine with or without "pretend to be Gameboy Advance" enabled.

The bigger issue perhaps with running/practicing is that while there's a save system, there's no file management (it's Play or Erase only), so you can't save a good segment, copy it off, and practice the next segment saving your best times. You'll need to just get a sense for what a good time is, and then commit to the first segment you feel is the best you can do.

For pricing, $400 CIB is ludicrous. I got my copy ~3 weeks ago CIB for $250 (now, granted, I did see a cart-only for $300, but all other (~3?) listings were less complete and less expensive).

Vandaeron

2013-06-20 03:38:41 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

This bit of news should make the game more speedrun-accessible (though perhaps not TOO much more accessible.)

http://www.wayforward.com/blog/2013/5/17/shantae-is-ret-2-go.html

For the record, the date listed on this blog post has been pushed back to "somewhere in July."

RedArremer

2013-06-20 05:32:56 pm

Well VC is certainly more accessible than buying a cart for several hundred bucks. Wink

I'm actually excited about this! I love Shantae, it's a fun little game. I might actually jump in on the routing phase for this, I'd love to work on routing for a game that hasn't really been done before yet.

Lone_Kilted_Ninja

2013-06-20 08:02:18 pm

Anything you can do I can do halfass

The route will almost necessarily involve good use of squids. I'd imagine Scuttle Town will be the first key spot, since it's half way to your destination between any two dungeons for most of the game (barring the sort of sequence break that I'm pretty sure isn't possible). I'd also love to see some research put into any possible patterns in the zombie caravan- if you can predict where it will show up, odds are planting a warp there will let you get anywhere pretty fast.

I began roughing an any% route, but then decided I really wanted to get down on paper where all the fireflies were and see whether a 100% route would be any more/less feasible. Then I got distracted Tongue

Another fair question is whether any of the attack items are worth getting- they get progressively more powerful, but progressively more difficult to pull off, and also very expensive...

Vandaeron

2013-06-20 11:02:40 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

I'm pretty certain that the first two battle items, the jump kick and the spinning kick, will be worth it, as soon as any form of gambling or skill game are available. (Can you do the dance parlor thing at the very start? I remember not being able to do it until I beat the first dungeon, but I have no idea whether that was because it was at night when I tried, and I know the only qualifier for being able to do the dice game is that it has to be daytime.) If you CAN do the dance parlor at the start, you could do one E rank to afford higher ones, then either C or, if you're especially crazy, B rank until you can afford both of those skills (I think they're 300 and 400?) The drill kick is as strong as 3 or 4 hair whips, and is pretty easy to execute in a small handful of frames if you're gunning for it. Also if you hold B and press up repeatedly, you'll do a bunch of one-frame drill kicks. It's not fast, but if there's several enemies right in front of you that need to die, you can just transform into a slow-moving pile of pain. Not as strong as the literal slow-moving pile of pain (the elephant,) but you don't need to dance to access it. Tongue

The elbow drive would probably never be useful. It takes several seconds to charge, you can only charge while standing, and when it's charged you cannot do anything but release it. For all the times I've held B to be ready to run while on a moving platform and gotten killed because I charged the attack and could only release it to rush into spikes, I cannot recommend avoiding this enough, until like, super late in a 100% run.

As far as warps go, I would think getting the water town and then the desert town might end up saving more total walking distance across a run, because they're... more or less on opposite sides of the world, and throughout the basic progression of the game you need to visit both twice, just as a transition to new areas. And since the telescope thingy is near the desert town, that one will be good for approaching the endgame too. Warping to the caravan might end up being better than the water town for two reasons that I've imagined. One is it's hard to reach, obviously, and the other is that warping to it appears to set the time to the exact beginning of the night. If you're doing 100%, that can be extremely important for cleaning up fireflies, since it's completely impossible to sweep the world in a night. (You can warp there to set the time, then immediately warp again to another town that's closer to the flies you're after.)

Basically what I'm thinking is, dance up some money in Scuttle Town, go to Water Town and get the first two attack upgrades, complete the first dungeon with 4 squids (4 of them in each dungeon are possible first visit and then one in each requires harpy, right?) head back to water town or the caravan if it works out you can manipulate a night where it's close, then go to the desert town, to the second dungeon, 4 squids, get desert town warp, warp to water or caravan, do 3rd dungeon, squids not necessary in any%, warp to desert town, trigger 4th dungeon in pirate town, continue to 4th dungeon, warp back to desert town again, go to final area.

For an any% route and a barebones to work up a 100% from. That was my first impression of how a run would pan out, at least.

Also sorry for disjointed text walls.

I'm pretty certain that the first two battle items, the jump kick and the spinning kick, will be worth it, as soon as any form of gambling or skill game are available.  (Can you do the dance parlor thing at the very start?  I remember not being able to do it until I beat the first dungeon, but I have no idea whether that was because it was at night when I tried, and I know the only qualifier for being able to do the dice game is that it has to be daytime.)  If you CAN do the dance parlor at the start, you could do one E rank to afford higher ones, then either C or, if you're especially crazy, B rank until you can afford both of those skills (I think they're 300 and 400?)  The drill kick is as strong as 3 or 4 hair whips, and is pretty easy to execute in a small handful of frames if you're gunning for it.  Also if you hold B and press up repeatedly, you'll do a bunch of one-frame drill kicks.  It's not fast, but if there's several enemies right in front of you that need to die, you can just transform into a slow-moving pile of pain.  Not as strong as the literal slow-moving pile of pain (the elephant,) but you don't need to dance to access it.  :P

The elbow drive would probably never be useful.  It takes several seconds to charge, you can only charge while standing, and when it's charged you cannot do anything but release it.  For all the times I've held B to be ready to run while on a moving platform and gotten killed because I charged the attack and could only release it to rush into spikes, I cannot recommend avoiding this enough, until like, super late in a 100% run.

As far as warps go, I would think getting the water town and then the desert town might end up saving more total walking distance across a run, because they're...  more or less on opposite sides of the world, and throughout the basic progression of the game you need to visit both twice, just as a transition to new areas.  And since the telescope thingy is near the desert town, that one will be good for approaching the endgame too.  Warping to the caravan might end up being better than the water town for two reasons that I've imagined.  One is it's hard to reach, obviously, and the other is that warping to it appears to set the time to the exact beginning of the night.  If you're doing 100%, that can be extremely important for cleaning up fireflies, since it's completely impossible to sweep the world in a night.  (You can warp there to set the time, then immediately warp again to another town that's closer to the flies you're after.)

Basically what I'm thinking is, dance up some money in Scuttle Town, go to Water Town and get the first two attack upgrades, complete the first dungeon with 4 squids (4 of them in each dungeon are possible first visit and then one in each requires harpy, right?) head back to water town or the caravan if it works out you can manipulate a night where it's close, then go to the desert town, to the second dungeon, 4 squids, get desert town warp, warp to water or caravan, do 3rd dungeon, squids not necessary in any%, warp to desert town, trigger 4th dungeon in pirate town, continue to 4th dungeon, warp back to desert town again, go to final area.

For an any% route and a barebones to work up a 100% from.  That was my first impression of how a run would pan out, at least.

Also sorry for disjointed text walls.

Vandaeron

2013-06-21 04:12:28 am

The best defense is invincibility.

I've been wondering about the Harpy Talon. It gives an extremely powerful attack to an extremely mobile form (I think it's the same damage as the elephant charge, which I think is 8 hair whips,) but since you would only be using it in the final area, I'm unsure as to whether the damage output would be worth extra transformation time plus the time to go get it, even though it's not far out of the way. I'm confident it'll save the most time when you're destroying the core of the steam robot.

Vandaeron

2013-06-21 01:22:55 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

Ah, I see. It has to be NIGHT to do the dance minigame. That's... Really bad, actually. Basically, if you wait out the first night near Scuttle Town and then farm up money dancing, you get to go to Water Town and get the attack items immediately, and reap the time gain from the drill kick for basically the entire run.

If you don't do that, you end up going to Water Town then to the first dungeon, most likely setting your first warp there and then running to Scuttle Town, hoping it's night then, then you get the money there OR if it's not night then either, waiting til you get to the desert town to gamble for the gems which is RNG (easily manageable RNG, but RNG nonetheless,) which you may have to do before or after the second dungeon (or never, if neither visit ends up in the day.) Those are basically the only times you can minigame to get the money necessary for the attack items. There are other times you'd visit the desert town, but they'd probably be too late in the run to justify.

Also to note, if you're farming Rank C dances to build the money, it costs 20 gems to get in, and a perfect rewards you with 76 gems, so you net 56 each time. Given the possibility that you'd be farming enemies the entire day if you want to do that on the first night, you'd probably have to clear it 10 times. If for some reason you go in with exactly 20 gems, you'd have to do it 13 times to get the 700 needed.

This is a very extreme opportunity cost to measure for time's worth. In 100% it's easy to justify because you probably have to get all those since they're permanent, one-time upgrades. But since I'm looking mostly at any% at least for now, it will take a large chunk of time to afford those abilities, but they will also pay themselves back extremely well. I'm most likely going to route around getting them and then afterward compare the time to not getting them, because I am confident getting them will win out.

Ah, I see.  It has to be NIGHT to do the dance minigame.  That's...  Really bad, actually.  Basically, if you wait out the first night near Scuttle Town and then farm up money dancing, you get to go to Water Town and get the attack items immediately, and reap the time gain from the drill kick for basically the entire run.

If you don't do that, you end up going to Water Town then to the first dungeon, most likely setting your first warp there and then running to Scuttle Town, hoping it's night then, then you get the money there OR if it's not night then either, waiting til you get to the desert town to gamble for the gems which is RNG (easily manageable RNG, but RNG nonetheless,) which you may have to do before or after the second dungeon (or never, if neither visit ends up in the day.)  Those are basically the only times you can minigame to get the money necessary for the attack items.  There are other times you'd visit the desert town, but they'd probably be too late in the run to justify.

Also to note, if you're farming Rank C dances to build the money, it costs 20 gems to get in, and a perfect rewards you with 76 gems, so you net 56 each time.  Given the possibility that you'd be farming enemies the entire day if you want to do that on the first night, you'd probably have to clear it 10 times.  If for some reason you go in with exactly 20 gems, you'd have to do it 13 times to get the 700 needed.

This is a very extreme opportunity cost to measure for time's worth.  In 100% it's easy to justify because you probably have to get all those since they're permanent, one-time upgrades.  But since I'm looking mostly at any% at least for now, it will take a large chunk of time to afford those abilities, but they will also pay themselves back extremely well.  I'm most likely going to route around getting them and then afterward compare the time to not getting them, because I am confident getting them will win out.

Vandaeron

2013-06-21 01:24:35 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

I'll look into actually putting this together later, likely after the weekend. I have to lay low and get some work finished up first.

Lone_Kilted_Ninja

Edit history:

Lone_Kilted_Ninja: 2013-06-21 06:30:25 pm

2013-06-21 06:27:38 pm

Anything you can do I can do halfass

Unless Harpy Talon is specifically useful for certain bosses, or right in line with where you need to go anyway (I honestly forget where it is...), I'm not sure it would be worthwhile given you only have harpy for the very endgame. I've always been impressed with how mobile Monkey is for being the first transformation, and I got quite a lot of use out of Monkey Claw playing casually. Trouble is, it's stuffed way down a dead-end, and the first time you could even reach it, you aren't even heading the right way to detour conveniently Tongue

But yeah, I'd forgotten about the dance game. That had occurred to me as well, now that I think about it, and I even began practicing dance to see how easily/reliably it could be a moneymaker.

[edit: *facepalm* reading my original "route," I was absolutely thinking of dancing for early cash/gear]

Depending on how long this takes you, I may dive back in. I'm bad enough getting one run worked up, let alone contemplating two in parallel, and right now the few cycles I have to allocate to SDA are going to Slime World mapping/routing Tongue

Unless Harpy Talon is specifically useful for certain bosses, or right in line with where you need to go anyway (I honestly forget where it is...), I'm not sure it would be worthwhile given you only have harpy for the very endgame.  I've always been impressed with how mobile Monkey is for being the first transformation, and I got quite a lot of use out of Monkey Claw playing casually.  Trouble is, it's stuffed way down a dead-end, and the first time you could even reach it, you aren't even heading the right way to detour conveniently :P  But yeah, I'd forgotten about the dance game.  That had occurred to me as well, now that I think about it, and I even began practicing dance to see how easily/reliably it could be a moneymaker.

[edit: *facepalm* reading my original "route," I was absolutely thinking of dancing for early cash/gear]

Depending on how long this takes you, I may dive back in.  I'm bad enough getting one run worked up, let alone contemplating two in parallel, and right now the few cycles I have to allocate to SDA are going to Slime World mapping/routing :P

Vandaeron

2013-06-23 11:33:24 am

The best defense is invincibility.

Either at some point today, or at some point early in the week, I want to do some testing shenanigans on emulator, and probably stream it. Would either of you be interested in hanging out and maybe working some stuff out together? What kinda times would be convenient for you? (I have a thing at 9:30 EST tonight, and I'll probably be doing dinner-type stuff for awhile after that, but Monday and Tuesday I'm pretty much wide open.)

Vandaeron

2013-06-23 06:32:23 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

Today didn't end up being a thing, so I guess I'll stream tomorrow and/or Tuesday, do some testing and/or routing, in the afternoon and/or evening. I'll probably post when I'm gonna do it, but go ahead and throw a follow if you wanna catch me when I start.

http://www.twitch.tv/vandaeron

Dana Crysalis

2013-07-20 11:43:26 am

Let's Dance!

I just got this for 3DS, is the A-Rank dance just completely silly? I keep replaying it with the same pattern (VC save state) but the timing seems COMPLETELY off.

Vandaeron

2013-07-21 07:32:36 pm

The best defense is invincibility.

The thing with the B and A rank dances is that they have like, 2 and 1 frame windows for the presses, respectively. At one point when I was first looking into running this I did like a couple hours of grinding A-Rank on emulator, and I've never gotten a perfect score on A, and I think I got enough to pass it at all one time. Doing C-Rank and getting perfect is more profitable than a 99% perfect A-Rank; it's silly. Not to mention higher ranks have way more potential for sensory overload with how it's presented.

Anyway sorry for going dark on this thread for a while, but I've still been working on this. Whether or not I can run it for submission (which is my goal) depends greatly on my birthday next month. If I can get 3DS capture for my birthday (which includes another couple weeks of waiting for it to get done,) I can be running it on 3DS in September. If I don't get it for my birthday, I can't get it until I scrape up enough quarters to get it myself. In that case, I'll just run it on emulator and not be able to submit.

That aside, the actual route for the game is pretty much cement, except for 3 and a half different routes for speeding up completion. The main concepts are A) dance grind for special attacks in water town, B) get nothing until after the 4th dungeon, get the harpy talon, and use that for all high-HP enemies in the final area (alternatively, use elephant for these enemies, but not all can be hit that way,) or C) Pike Balls or Storm Puffs with dungeon cash. The half a route possibility is in the sense that there's a lot of possible overlap between these concepts.

I'm not timing this or making any estimates yet, just playing it a bunch to get the general way through things down pat, so I have no idea which of those means saves the most net time.

The thing with the B and A rank dances is that they have like, 2 and 1 frame windows for the presses, respectively.  At one point when I was first looking into running this I did like a couple hours of grinding A-Rank on emulator, and I've never gotten a perfect score on A, and I think I got enough to pass it at all one time.  Doing C-Rank and getting perfect is more profitable than a 99% perfect A-Rank; it's silly.  Not to mention higher ranks have way more potential for sensory overload with how it's presented.

Anyway sorry for going dark on this thread for a while, but I've still been working on this.  Whether or not I can run it for submission (which is my goal) depends greatly on my birthday next month.  If I can get 3DS capture for my birthday (which includes another couple weeks of waiting for it to get done,) I can be running it on 3DS in September.  If I don't get it for my birthday, I can't get it until I scrape up enough quarters to get it myself.  In that case, I'll just run it on emulator and not be able to submit.

That aside, the actual route for the game is pretty much cement, except for 3 and a half different routes for speeding up completion.  The main concepts are A) dance grind for special attacks in water town, B) get nothing until after the 4th dungeon, get the harpy talon, and use that for all high-HP enemies in the final area (alternatively, use elephant for these enemies, but not all can be hit that way,) or C) Pike Balls or Storm Puffs with dungeon cash.  The half a route possibility is in the sense that there's a lot of possible overlap between these concepts.

I'm not timing this or making any estimates yet, just playing it a bunch to get the general way through things down pat, so I have no idea which of those means saves the most net time.

Dana Crysalis

2013-07-21 07:36:28 pm

Let's Dance!

I know it's RNG-heavy, but would the Gecko Race be a faster alternative to money-ing?