Username:
B
I
U
S
"
url
img
#
code
sup
sub
font
size
color
smiley
embarassed
thumbsup
happy
Huh?
Angry
Roll Eyes
Undecided
Lips Sealed
Kiss
Cry
Grin
Wink
Tongue
Shocked
Cheesy
Smiley
Sad
<- 123456 ->
--
--
List results:
Search options:
Use \ before commas in usernames
Edit history:
Not Worthy: 2015-01-18 07:28:00 pm
I ran this through a third time, but I game-over'ed an hour in, while facing Gustav. I did find two general tips that can be helpful:

1. Pressing X and O alternately during dialogue will make it go by much quicker than just pressing X or O repeatedly.

2. If you're uncertain that you'll make a jump because you're too far to either the left or the right, you can move yourself midair using the sidestep. It helped me a bit; it could help you as well.

I've also played with this section:

Beginning of Game—Entrance into Sea Town fox hole

And although I didn't find any glitches that can be utilized there, I did a test within the castle's court room, and I've discovered that jumping forward repeatedly, or "bunnyhopping" is significantly slower than just runnung forward, so it should be avoided. One thing that can save time is jumping on the pressure pad before the text-box comes up, therefore not killing your momentum so much. From timing on my watch, the fastest I've completely this part is 3 minutes, 35 seconds, and this can be whittled down to a few more with an optimized fight with the Drill Sergeant and an optimal archery range section.
I messed around with Cutlass Isle and Gallagher, and I've discovered one definite time-saver, and one potential time-saver.

Definite Time-Saver

My previous time-saver had Kingsley going down the mountain just a little bit and then jumping off to activate the transition. I've discovered that you can activate this transition immediately from the top of the mountain. I just jumped from right where the path began to descend, and the transition activated. It is possible from the very top of the mountain.

Potential Time-Saver

It is potentially possible to juggle Gallagher so he won't hop onto a rock. I found that the rocks to the right of the M-shaped splotch on the island worked best. Get him to jump over there, and then hit him. He will try to jump to the right, but he'll fall short, letting me hit him two more times. He'll jump to the distant left, but still land in the water leaving him open to two more hits before jumping to a rock. I was able to get him mis-jumped once more after this, leading me to believe that it is possible to juggle ihm without activating a second cycle of jumping on a rock.

My best record from entering Sea Town to leaving Sea Town after defeating Gallagher is 5:10 (five minutes, ten seconds). Combined with my best time in training to Sea Town, and that would give me 8:45 (probably not counting the loading time to get to Sea Town).
Playing heavily through Snuff's Lair, I unfortunately couldn't find anything new, and I searched everywhere that I could possibly fathom. My best time, timing on a watch, is 11:49, and that was with a few mistakes in the conveyor belt room and an accidental death. That, combined with the minute-eight-seconds I took to get from the castle basement to Poorluck Village, took my time up to 21:42, projected. This most likely doesn't count loading screens from saves, but I don't know, to be honest.
I went through a single-segment run just now, and managed to get a time of 1:06:32, a fifty-second improvement. I didn't find anything extra from what I already know to speed up my time. I had four unnecessary deaths this time (instead of five, which seems to be my norm), and I struggled very heavily in the conveyor-belt room in Snuff's Lair; that's my worst room by far. I do think that sub-1:05 is ablsolutely possible.
Ran again, had a sixteen-second improvement. Now my personal best for a single-segment is 1:06:16, and that was with five deaths. Cry

Anywho, I think I discovered something that will help save a lot of time. It's not a skip or anything; it's just playing with the overhead camera instead of the back-camera. It appeared to cut down on lag for me. Either that, or I'm (finally) going mad. I would like some confirmation.

Also, if it's annoying to see all of these updates, please let me know. I apologize for not possessing any recording device as of yet. I'll keep practicing in the meantime, and shoot for under 1:05.
Heavy Metal Powered
Hi there Not Worthy

Great to see more interest in the game, and that's a very impressive data-dump you did. Some of it was known but not documented, and some stuff is surely new, including those skips.
Your times are looking mighty solid, I am looking forward to videos of them when you have set up a recording environment.
(Also, congratulations on getting the spelling of my nick wrong every time Tongue )

I took the liberty of firing up an emulator (since I currently can't access my console), and made some videos of those 2 Dungeon 1 skips you found:



It is a pleasure to see you, Warepire (I didn't mess it up this time! What's sad is that I messed it up first by putting Were instead of Ware... I apologize. :'(). The video also looks really cool; hopefully it will help me hit those skips consistently, as I'm having problems with it.

I recently switched from the PS3 to the PS2, to try and reduce lag. It worked in some places, but I still ended up with a time of 1:07:39. Two unnecessary deaths, and I think (besides my still-rusty skills) the controller gave me some problems. It's a Gamestop controller, and the sticks are very flimsy, making movement really finicky.

I'll still try and get it to under 1:05. I could perhaps record my gameplay on a tablet, but the quality would be horrendous and damn-near unwatchable. I'll be honest: I don't know how to pick out a PS2 capture card, even with the help of SDA. All the technical jargon, honestly, went over me, and I'm sure they made it as simple as possible.

Anywho, I'll record any more tricks I find here. I have Sea Town and Cutlass Isle on save, so I'll futz around with that for a while. If there was a way to clip through the doors of Snuff's Lair, a lot of time could be saved; alas, I have no idea how clipping, in general videogaming, works.
I redid training a few times, and I can't get under my PB of 3:35 yet. I did find a few timesavers worth noting here:

1. In general, once a tutorial text box is about to appear, it's wise to press jump right before, to get a little bit of forward distance before it comes up. I believe the minimum time the text box remains up is the same, whether Kingsley is on the ground or airborne, so that few extra... units (:-\) ahead will come in handy. This is especially important, I believe I've already mentioned, at the first jumping challenge, as jumping right before the tutorial tells you how will land you on the platform. I can do this about 75-80% of the time.

2. The above is also applicable to the Drill Sergeant—and to bosses in general. Jump forward once he is about to talk, amd you'll be right in front of him. Once you defeat him, jump forward, skip his dialogue while you're going forward in air, and proceed onward without very little, if any, momentum lost.

3. There is a way to not activate the tutorial box for pushing and pulling the box. I've done it about three times now, but I'm not sure exactly what activate it.

Those are the new timesavers I found in the tutorial.
I ran the game again, but gave up after 47 minutes from exceeding my one-death cap. I'm still struggling in certain places, and I know I need a lot more practice. I've found two timesavers that will be useful, at the beginning:

1. It's possible, in the training room with the large brick, to not activate one of the tutorial boxes, saving a half-second. I've not figured out how to do that, though.

2. In Sea Town Dungeon 1, with the three barrels and the three hallways, it is possible to jump over the water of the third one and be crushed on the desired side, setting me forward a half-second to a second. It just requires hairpin turns, and I've only done this once.

I've also tried to manipulate the battle with Snuff to enable me to get infinite hits by guiding him to behind his chair. That didn't work, though; it hopped over the back of his chair. I thought it would've been too tall for him. I've also tried manipulating Gallagher to get him to fall short of his jumping on the platforms, but I couldn't figure out how to guide him. I tried reading the disc on my computer, but it just played the soundtrack, so I've got nothing there.
Edit history:
Not Worthy: 2015-01-27 07:41:12 pm
I'm playing through the game at the moment, and I've found out that it is possible, by jumping, to get to Gustav's lair before Cornflour makes the bridge appear. From the castle to his lair, the area I used to jump is to the left, but not too far from it. It's a left-diagonal jump, not a straightforward jump. I attempted this once I beat Reggie, so I don't know if it does anything to the story before beating him (e.g. getting the gem before even facing Reggie). The bridge won't appear once you defeat him, at least not for me, and I couldn't make it back, but luckily I was teleported to the other side once I fell into the water, so all's well so far. No backtracking necessary if you beat the other dark knights before Gustav and Oscar. It should save at least a minute, although I had to jump quite a few times (not an obscene amount) to get to safe ground.

After testing it, it won't get you the gem, and it won't skip Reggie.
Edit history:
Not Worthy: 2015-01-27 11:28:12 pm
To make an adjustment to the previous post, I'm pretty sure you can do it by jumping on the first place rightwards where the grass comes down the mountain.

HOWEVER!

This can also be done right where you first meet Cornflour. If you talk to him, he'll open the door to Reggie's Castle (which still needs to be done). Once you're done with that, go by the golden tree next to the cliff. On YOUR side of the cliff, there should be a slight part of the cliff wall that's jutting outward; I've been using this to jump from. On the OTHER side of the mountain is a grass pattern that looks like an M; at the center of it is a triangular prism that's horizontal enough to jump on. You'll have to jump up the wall a few times, both to avoid falling in the water and to climb up the face wall. Once you're up, you can go and face Gustav, and then go to the normal side of the river in order to do Reggie's Castle.

As a side note, I've noticed something odd sometimes when I enter the slime maze. Immediately once Kingsley warps from the previous room, his head tilts 90 degrees to the right, and he appears to be looking down at something on the ground. I'm not sure at what, though. There may be something to it, but it may just be a glitch. I'm not sure if anyone else that plays the game—anyone out there? I'm lonely:'(—has experienced this, or what triggers it if it is something special.

There's also something odd that happens when I fight Clarence. Sometimes when I hit him, it will register two hits wtih one swing of the sword. This has happened twice now, and not in the same battle. I'm not sure if this is manipulateable, or how I'd go about manipulating it. I am getting better in my fights with Gustav; I think there's a sort of timing that can keep at least four enemies where you can constantly hit them—these bosses being Reggie, Rex, Gustav and Bad Custard. As for the others, Gallagher is juggle-able and sidestepping seems to make Clarence attack faster. Out of the other three, I don't have anything for either Snuff or Judas, and I'm 90% sure you can't speed up the fight with Oscar in any way apart from just shooting with precise timing.
Edit history:
Not Worthy: 2015-01-28 11:49:21 pm
I had a bad speedrunning time just now; I went for two single-segment runs today, got to 40 minutes and an hour in, respectively, and game-over'ed. I'm still making mistakes in the conveyor belt level, I'm still averaging multiple unnecessary deaths, and these are in different and not-set rooms, and overall no matter how well I run one dungeon, I still reach a point at the same time as the last time. I need to get a capture card somehow, to show you what I mean.

I did discover something that will be useful. It turns out, if I'm right, that you CAN'T fight Gustav before fighting Reggie; the jump to get across the river seemed like it was cut in half, and I couldn't even touch the other side. It was after I beat Reggie and I was back in Aphasia that I was able to jump over the river. So it's possible to get to Gustav before being knighted, still saving backtracking, but most likely not before going through Reggie's Castle.

I should also say that, from what I can remember, if you save as you're entering Aphasia for the first time, then quit, and then load the file again, it might reset the odd half-jumping that took over my game. It is definitely the case that resetting the game will fix this, but I feel that with the loading time to get to the same location, this method isn't worth it. I'm too burned out to test it at the moment.

I haven't find anything about the double-hit yet, or anything else. My timing with Rex seemed to get better, but my timing with Gustav got worse.
I had a really good speedrunning time just now: 1:04:41. I really need to get a recording device. I utilized jumping across the river in Aphasia—at the point closer to Cornflour's House than the foxhole—and I made a few mistakes in the run, so it's definitely improvable. I'm very happy with myself, though, and I'll keep pushing the envelope on this game. I need to practice my fighting with Rex and Gustav, and Bad Custard and Reggie as well; they can be taken out in the same position as they start, and that's actually what I used to take out Bad Custard. Rex also has a finicky thing about him where elevation seems to matter; he can be in a place where I can't hit him, if he's a few pixels higher than me.
A few more speedrunning stats were found in Aphasia, mostly dealing with arrows:

1. In the room with the three cages, the three targets and the rats shooting at you, you can stand at where the arrows respawn and shoot the trgets without getting hit.

2. In that room where you have to move the statue along the path, if you're on the other side of that stream where the rat spawns after flipping the switch, if you wait for the blades behind him to hit the center, and then shoot an arrow, it can hit the target and you can proceed without taking a few extra seconds to fight that rat first.

That's it for now. My fighting of Gustav and Reggie hasn't gotten any better; I'm just not getting the timing down.
Edit history:
Warepire: 2015-01-31 04:51:38 am
Heavy Metal Powered
Even if I am not super-active as a logged in user I am following this thread closely. The progress you made sounds fantastic!

I am not entirely sure what the conditions behind the Aphasia river trick are. I have read your posts and tried some on emulator, but I am missing something. Would you mind explaining this trick in a better detail?
I would like to create a demo video of it.
Edit history:
Not Worthy: 2015-02-01 03:38:08 pm
Not Worthy: 2015-02-01 03:37:27 pm
I thank you for keeping up with this, and I will attempt to explain this as best as I can.

For both techniques, you must jump multiple times so you won't descend into the river.

The one furthest from Cornflour's house can be performed as such:

If you turn directly around from entering Aphasia, and go to the foot of the foxhole, you should see two trees on either side of it and a tree directly behind it (on the other side of the river); you can probably see part of Reggie's dilapidated castle to the right, and Cornflour might be roaming around to your left. The starting position for this technique is to the left of the tree on Kingsley's left, the golden brown one next to the river. There is a piece of brown cliffside that's sticking out in an obtuse angle towards the river, and this is right next to the tree I taled about earlier. If you're closer to the next tree over, you're too far over. Looking across the river, you should see the grassline on the cliff go up and down in a zigzag pattern; you should also see the river zigzag down below, although it will look more like waves. You should notice that the grass pattern looks like an M; you'll want to aim for the center of that M.

To reiterate, to the left of the golden tree next to the water, jump from the slightly jutting cliffside to the center of the M made by th zigzagging grassline. Then you will have to jump multiple times straight up the cliff wall. If you're descending, your jump was off. If you find yourself ascending, don't stop until you've reached the level grass.

This technique is suitable for segmented runs, if you're beginning a separate file from a single speedrun. It hasn't worked for me in single-segment, so in a single-segment run, I'd advise not taking this route.

The other method is closer to Cornflour's house. From his house, run along the side of the cliff until you come across two golden brown trees. Your starting position is on the right of the tree closer to the coast. Looking at the opposite cliff face, the grass runs level for the most part, but it forms a V if you look straight ahead. That is your target. Jump from the right of the tree to this V. Once you reach this, begin jumping slightly left multiple times (this is quicker than jumping straight up and down). Wait until you're level, and run forward and proceed with going to Gustav's lair.

This one's better to do single-segment; when I did it, I delivered the robe to Cornflour, left his house and did this jump-skip.

My photo-taking devices are not functioning, so I can't provide a precise picture for you. I hope this helps you.
Heavy Metal Powered
Those explanations are pretty great, I will try to record this during the week so that a video demo will accompany that very nice trick explanation.
Heavy Metal Powered
Didn't produce a video yet, this game is kinda hard to control in an emulator.

I did however make it over the river once (but failed to ascend) before entering Reggie's castle. If you go through the castle ruins and then to the fallen tower, the little landmass that sticks out that the fallen tower points at, right next to where the river makes a little curve, I jumped that gap diagonally towards the landmass of the bend. (If that makes sense?)
I wasn't able to recreate it, but perhaps you can do something with that.
I tested it out, and it is possible to get over on the other side from the place you indicated. It took a lot of jumps, though, more than either of the other two methods. And I haven't tested to see if it's possible to get over there in a single-segment run.
Heavy Metal Powered
It's interesting that your jump gets much longer after beating the tower/castle.
Either way, I've almost got it a few times now, but I think my angles are slightly off still for me to be able to continue ascending until the point where I get grip.

Just letting you know I am still trying to get those videos made.
I'm still trying to get a good run going, one where I don't make any unnecessary errors. I was able to get to Reggie's Castle, but I died at a far-off part of the room with the movable blocks. The jumps in that room are extremely precise, and I usually fall short in it.

I apologize for my lack of a video-capture device; I eagerly await your video(s).
animal people aaaaa
I came to see if there was anything new in this thread and oh man. Thank you for putting in so much work for this game Not Worthy.

The mountain skips you found in the first dungeon make me really happy. I had been looking for a way to do that since I first started playing the game. I'm probably going to start working on his game again soon once I finish some other projects.
I'll be looking forward to when you begin taking it up again. I, unfortunately, don't have any recording devices, and I have no idea what to look for in a PS2 capture card device thing, so I would be out of it. I will say that sub-65 minutes is possible, if you'd like to aim for that.
animal people aaaaa
Capturing PS2 is easy. I'm assuming that you're using composite cables (yellow/white/red cables). Those are the most common for PS2. You just need a capture device that can do composite https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/New_Recording_Devices Look at the capture device list. I bought the very first one on the list, although a newer version, for very cheap on amazon.com.

Then you need a splitter so you can split the video signals from the console to both the capture card and the TV. Just search "A/V splitter" on amazon or google and you should be able to find something around $50 (that's how much mine cost). You can also read up on recording on the SDA Knowledge base: https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Recording

I don't know how soon I'll get back to this game. I've got two projects I'm working on that I want to submit to AGDQ 2016, and then some casual stuff that I've been enjoying.
Thank you for the help, Fenns. It will be a few weeks before I can purchase either a capture device for composite cables and a splitter. I'll keep practicing in the meantime.