Marathon Practice

2010-09-17 02:45:07 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

I haven't been practicing a whole lot, and I do need to step it up soon, but I still have some games to comment on.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: I think this game will be quite doable for the marathon. I'll just need to practice a lot so I can memorize everything and nail the hard tricks more consistently. If you want to see my progress with the game, you can look at this post.

Castle Crashers: I played this a week or two ago because someone requested it. I thought I did really badly, but it just turns out I was doing okay and mostly just forgot how to fight the bosses. If I do a referesher course on bosses, I should be okay.

Mickey_Mage

2010-09-17 07:34:39 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

I've been doing some practice. Since moving to my new place with 3 other people, setting up my SNES in my new room will take awhile (it's small as shit and I have stuff to organize still...). Doing OK so far. Twenty minutes sounds like a good estimate for Mickey's Magical Quest right now, considering luck involved with some bosses and stages, but I know I can get that down since I am a bit rusty.

Seeing as how my run on the site is in the 16 minute range, I'm hoping to get to where 18 minutes is average. But we'll see in a few months. Tongue

tjp7154

2010-09-17 08:23:51 pm

#Casual

Been practicing as well:

DKC 100%, yeah, easy, but will probably make more mistakes than last marathon since I haven't been playing 100% as long

Metroid Prime 2: TODO

neskamikaze

2010-09-25 09:55:15 pm

Finally feel like I'm about marathon ready on all three of my games. Did practice runs on both Dr. Mario and Tetris Attack today, getting a 37:25 (marathon goal sub-39) and 5:55 (marathon goal sub-7 because of possible horrendous luck), so I'm in the clear. And with the steady attempts over the past several months of Tony Hawk 2 I've been ready on this one, just haven't quite hit the golden run yet.

Carcinogen

2010-09-30 04:24:02 am

I'm gonna get back on track during October. One game to practice per month, methinks. RE1-3 is no problem, RE4 Wii is at the 2:15 mark on the spreadsheet but I'm ideally trying for sub-2 hours, RE5 with Rane is getting pretty close to our target time (need to go to Gainesville sometime soon for LAN practice), and I've decided to just stick with the PlayStation version of MGS.

mikwuyma

2010-10-01 04:35:15 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Quote from Carcinogen:

and I've decided to just stick with the PlayStation version of MGS.

Can you please do the twin snakes version? I have a feeling I'm going to be incredibly tight on time when it comes to scheduling.

Carcinogen

2010-10-04 06:52:39 pm

Yeah

Emptyeye

2010-10-09 05:52:11 pm

Talk to the Hand

Did some Final Fight practice today. I'm coming to the horrifying realization that Cody "That ultra popular/smart/jock dude in high school" Travers is actually the best choice for a speedrun. Sad

AniMeowzerz

Edit history:

AniMeowzerz: 2010-10-10 02:12:00 pm

AniMeowzerz: 2010-10-10 02:11:49 pm

AniMeowzerz: 2010-10-10 02:11:19 pm

AniMeowzerz: 2010-10-10 02:10:53 pm

2010-10-10 02:09:59 pm

Some people might already know this, but I've been practicing alot of Sly Cooper for the marathon. I'm pretty much finding new breaks every day so the estimate is getting lower and lower, and it's generally looking more awesome Tongue

It might even reach sub 2 hours or really damn close. Should be good material for the marathon

flicky

2010-10-20 05:10:53 am

$15 per rant/allegory

Started real practice again for bayonetta. Almost finished on a fill single segment plan and I've also devised a backup plan incase anything goes wrong (cheap glitch ahoy). I will finish my final speed run attempts of Chapter 3 and 4 and then go full into the run. Chapter 3 is horrible to speedrun well so I just want it out of the way. I imagine I'll record a worthy time while practicing on Chapter 4 anyway so I'll go with that.

PJ

2010-10-20 10:54:21 am

Is PJ

I've been playing Actraiser a lot recently. I am in pretty great shape for my race, I think.

Need to work on Battletoads before the marathon, though. Some of my tricks are still inconsistent.

feasel

2010-10-20 02:00:52 pm

difficult and stupidly random

Been practicing.
I've managed to get a couple deathless warpless runs of Snake Rattle N Roll, finally. Best time so far 12:46. (For reference, my twin galaxies record from several years ago was 14:42, with deaths). I'm not expecting a deathless run live (though it's not outside the realm of possibility).

I have discovered some new shortcuts: In level 4 you don't need to eat any pibbleys -- it turns out you can trick one of the anvils into landing on the scale, which opens the exit door. And in level 5 you can jump from the platform with the first pibbley dispenser directly to platform with the last pibbley dispenser (skipping the lower part of the level).

For good measure, i've also been recording with-warps attempts. My best time so far with warps is 6:50.

For River City Ransom i'm just practicing by going through the game 1-player with the same route I used for my most recent submission. So far I've had several completions, but haven't managed to beat my old time.

At the last marathon i found that the most difficult thing was the distraction -- everybody talking, moving around, etc. Particularly the commentators -- not that they're doing anything wrong (far from it), but merely that I find the commentary interesting and it's hard not to listen to them and forget what i'm trying to do. (That's how i ended up in the wrong corridor in the last level of Bionic Commando). So this year i'm trying to practice with distractions -- listening to podcasts and talk-radio, practicing when my roommate has friends over, etc. I need to be focused on nothing but the game, even if the ceiling starts caving in.

Been practicing.
I've managed to get a couple deathless warpless runs of Snake Rattle N Roll, finally.  Best time so far 12:46.  (For reference, my twin galaxies record from several years ago was 14:42, with deaths).   I'm not expecting a deathless run live (though it's not outside the realm of possibility).

I have discovered some new shortcuts:  In level 4 you don't need to eat any pibbleys -- it turns out you can trick one of the anvils into landing on the scale, which opens the exit door.   And in level 5 you can jump from the platform with the first pibbley dispenser directly to platform with the last pibbley dispenser (skipping the lower part of the level).

For good measure, i've also been recording with-warps attempts.  My best time so far with warps is 6:50.

For River City Ransom i'm just practicing by going through the game 1-player with the same route I used for my most recent submission.  So far I've had several completions, but haven't managed to beat my old time.

At the last marathon i found that the most difficult thing was the distraction -- everybody talking, moving around, etc.  Particularly the commentators -- not that they're doing anything wrong (far from it), but merely that I find the commentary interesting and it's hard not to listen to them and forget what i'm trying to do.  (That's how i ended up in the wrong corridor in the last level of Bionic Commando).  So this year i'm trying to practice with distractions -- listening to podcasts and talk-radio, practicing when my roommate has friends over, etc.  I need to be focused on nothing but the game, even if the ceiling starts caving in.

tjp7154

2010-10-20 02:25:22 pm

#Casual

Nice distraction practice, Feasel.

VERY Valid point. Another good way for those who can do it is to stream your practice and have a skype conversation going on at the same time.

Examples: romscout, UltraJMan, Jiano & Gang, tjp7154

Essentia

2010-10-22 02:19:25 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Chrono Trigger: So I was having trouble with the Magus battle for the past few months. I'd been going off the Ultima Garden RTA strategy, but I was having a really hard time figuring out exactly what they did (google-translated Japanese barely resembles English). I knew I was doing something wrong, because I was able to beat Magus only about half the time. Plus the battle would take forever - I'm talking 20 minutes or more. So I decided to take some time off and come back to it with a hopefully fresh view.

That time off turned out to be almost 4 months - much longer than I'd meant it to be. It seemed to be worth it, though, since tonight everything just clicked, and I've now figured out how to beat Magus every time. The length of the battle is still random, depending on what elemental weaknesses he chooses, but with some bad luck I was getting around 9 minutes.

Emptyeye

2010-10-25 11:37:08 am

Talk to the Hand

I practiced Battletoads yesterday. It was kind of amusing to try and get back into the swing of things...like "okay let's try this...lol not even close, that's obviously not how I did it before."

Axel Ryman

2010-10-26 08:49:46 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Did some practice with KH2 earlier. A few comparisons of what occurred in the practice compared to my current run.

Day 2(Roxas): Full second saved on the letter delivery. Current run has a mistake where I missed the 2nd bird.

Day 3: Twilight Thorn battle ends much faster. I use Reversal after an air combo or 2 to not get hit or avoid some damage.

Day 4: Need to work on the Struggle matches. Current run is able to beat Hayner and Vivi before time is up. So far I get around 190-198 orbs. Axel 1 fight I can beat without him becoming invulnerable.

Day 5: The wall and sewer mystery locations just need a bit of improvement. Wall one I just need to imitate the current run. Sewer is mainly Vivi's movement patterns, but he does the same thing each time. Shadow Roxas is easy and the 4th mystery is simple.

Day 6: First forced battle with the Dusks and Assassins goes well. Dusks go down with the simple 1-2-Reversal combo, Assassin gets their first attack Guarded so I can combo kill them. Second forced battle needs a little work since I tried alternating between the last Dusk and the 2 Assassins that spawned. Axel 2 battle I use Spikevegeta's strategy, which results in a fast kill with no invulnerability.

Twilight Town(Sora): I get as close to level 7 as possible, which is usually around level 6 with less than 100 exp left.

Hollow Bastion: Unlike my run where Valor ran out before I reached the Bailey, I managed to reach it with about half a full Drive Gauge left. Changes were mainly using Reversal against the Nobodies when arriving there.

Land of Dragons: Had a few issues on the way up the mountain. I'll have to kill off the enemies first before I actually attempt to break down the rocks. Got a good amount of levels during the fight with the Rapid Thrusters and Bolt Towers on the Summit. Shan-Yu I tried using Spikevegeta's new strategy, but I didn't manage to kill him before he went into Rage mode a 2nd time. I only needed a finishing hit on him too. The strategy works, I just need to work around it.

Post Land of Dragons: Screwed up and went to Beast's Castle instead of Olympus. Quit after the Beast battle when I realized it(Yeah took me that long...job application, shopping, and not eating didn't help either).

I already have a few new ideas for the later parts of the game, particularly the final battles in The World That Never Was. Mainly just need to spam Trinity and Knocksmash/Whirligoof, which I didn't do much in my run(I think I was more focused on surviving then).

Did some practice with KH2 earlier. A few comparisons of what occurred in the practice compared to my current run.

Day 2(Roxas): Full second saved on the letter delivery. Current run has a mistake where I missed the 2nd bird.

Day 3: Twilight Thorn battle ends much faster. I use Reversal after an air combo or 2 to not get hit or avoid some damage.

Day 4: Need to work on the Struggle matches. Current run is able to beat Hayner and Vivi before time is up. So far I get around 190-198 orbs. Axel 1 fight I can beat without him becoming invulnerable.

Day 5: The wall and sewer mystery locations just need a bit of improvement. Wall one I just need to imitate the current run. Sewer is mainly Vivi's movement patterns, but he does the same thing each time. Shadow Roxas is easy and the 4th mystery is simple.

Day 6: First forced battle with the Dusks and Assassins goes well. Dusks go down with the simple 1-2-Reversal combo, Assassin gets their first attack Guarded so I can combo kill them. Second forced battle needs a little work since I tried alternating between the last Dusk and the 2 Assassins that spawned. Axel 2 battle I use Spikevegeta's strategy, which results in a fast kill with no invulnerability.

Twilight Town(Sora): I get as close to level 7 as possible, which is usually around level 6 with less than 100 exp left.

Hollow Bastion: Unlike my run where Valor ran out before I reached the Bailey, I managed to reach it with about half a full Drive Gauge left. Changes were mainly using Reversal against the Nobodies when arriving there.

Land of Dragons: Had a few issues on the way up the mountain. I'll have to kill off the enemies first before I actually attempt to break down the rocks. Got a good amount of levels during the fight with the Rapid Thrusters and Bolt Towers on the Summit. Shan-Yu I tried using Spikevegeta's new strategy, but I didn't manage to kill him before he went into Rage mode a 2nd time. I only needed a finishing hit on him too. The strategy works, I just need to work around it.

Post Land of Dragons: Screwed up and went to Beast's Castle instead of Olympus. Quit after the Beast battle when I realized it(Yeah took me that long...job application, shopping, and not eating didn't help either).

I already have a few new ideas for the later parts of the game, particularly the final battles in The World That Never Was. Mainly just need to spam Trinity and Knocksmash/Whirligoof, which I didn't do much in my run(I think I was more focused on surviving then).

Lag.Com

2010-10-27 07:54:15 am

sda loyalist

Streamed a run through Morrowind earlier. Main sticking points are the initial jump towards Odrosal and not dying in the Heart of Lorkhan chamber. Other than that it's easy.

tjp7154

2010-10-27 10:35:41 am

#Casual

Yesterday, I finally got through Metroid Prime 2. I used a route that doesn't have as many secret worlds as the new any% route with skipping of losing your items.

I beat it during my stream last night for a time of 2:07 with 37% items on Normal difficulty. I picked a couple of extra items as buffer so I don't have embarrassing deaths at next SDA marathon...

I beat the Spider Guardian, although I'll probably skip him in the marathon.

Funny thing, I had a dream last night about the secret world required to skip spider guardian <_< Too much. Ha!

But, woo!

Sir VG

2010-10-27 03:00:28 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Played Kirby NiDL. Sucked.
Played ActRaiser. Can't perform the glitch. Got extremely frustrated.

At least I'm fine with Rondo. About my only saving grace so far.

I swear, I'm getting too old for this crap.

Flip

2010-10-27 03:04:08 pm

1-Up!

Quote from Sir VG:

I swear, I'm getting too old for this crap.

Darkwing Duck

Edit history:

Darkwing Duck: 2010-10-27 03:27:57 pm

2010-10-27 03:27:17 pm

Highly Evolved

Ah, it's too bad it didn't include Glover's cameo in the movie Maverick.

Sir VG

2010-10-28 05:57:12 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Took another stab at NiDL. I only made one real major screwup (missing stone in 6-3) but found a way to actually recover from it if it happens during marathon time. Died a few times, lots of hits, but actually was able to finish...about 5 minutes behind my old time. But I FINISHED. Unlike during the stream where I screwed up in 6-1 and pretty much had to ragequit.

Thanks for the laugh, Flip. I need it.

feasel

Edit history:

feasel: 2010-11-04 02:06:23 pm

feasel: 2010-11-04 02:01:58 pm

feasel: 2010-11-04 02:00:13 pm

2010-11-04 01:57:11 pm

difficult and stupidly random

Got two more successful completions of River City Ransom. I managed to tie my current best time (8:01). Two completions in a week might not seem like much, but when I was running the game earlier this year it took me nearly 20 hours to get two completions (as opposed to about 4 hours this time). FYI: No, this is not the route I'll be using at the marathon.

Snake Rattle and Roll is quickly becoming my bitch. Full game (no deaths) is down to 12:39. With-warps is down to 6:20. Even though I'll be playing full-game during the marathon, I'm especially encouraged by the with-warps time. My goal is to beat Giel Goertz's PAL time (6:00 after accounting for the PAL/NTSC conversion). Playing it on NTSC is like playing the PAL version at 120% speed, so I'd be pretty psyched if I could beat the (adjusted) PAL time despite this handicap. The sum of my best per-level times works out to be barely less than 6:00, so this goal is possible though not probable.

Axel Ryman

2010-11-08 06:54:46 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Tried to do half of a SS run today while also saving data at the start of worlds so I could practice them. At the save point before the 1000 Heartless battle, I was 8 minutes behind my SS time, though this is mostly from a 2-3 minute pause to grab cigarettes and soda for mom, doing one of the Gummi Routes earlier than intended(another 2-3 minutes), menu mismanagement(I check every so often to see what's equipped and what I should have and shouldn't have equipped as well, which totals up to a minute ot 2), and a few different strategies for battles(Most are faster, some had a bit of bad luck added in making them a bit longer than they should). The other bits of time were from a few bad screw ups I made(Space Paranoids was bad overall).

So far some of my strategies are as followed.

Path from Hade's Throne room + Cerberus: I use Auron's Limit when running from Hades, but instead of using Spiral, I just use the Stop. Spiral takes up too much time and knocks all the enemies away with a number of them not dead yet. Since they're bunched together, I can kill them with a simple combo. For Cerberus, it's mostly just Air Combos, however when he starts shooting projectiles and biting, I use Auron's Limit to avoid taking hits and deal some good damage, again stopping at Spiral. At the end of it, I got the Reaction prompt, did ground combos(Should of done Air, but I figured Combo Boost would of been helpful here, though it wasn't), and almost killed him.

Hydra: Start the battle out with air combos on the single head, then perform the reaction command when prompted. Take out the 3 heads that spawn, then use Trinity Limit when the 5 heads appear. Change into Valor form, smack one of the 5 heads for a bit, Revert back to normal, Trinity again, then finish the battle with the reaction command.

Thresholder and Possessor: I used Valor form near the beginning of the battle. I ended the battle with Valor, but I didn't have enough time to be reverted by an event. When I use it, I gotta do it at the start of the 2nd round, or anywhere near it.

Shadow Stalker: Spikevegeta uses Valor form, I didn't have it so I instead used Trinity Limit while Beast was in the party so I could use Sora's Solo Trinity. Didn't kill him but I got close. With the previous mentioned boss's strategy, I'll have Valor form so I can use Trinity->Valor to finish this fight.

Dark Thorn: Didn't use the reaction command for this, but the battle went by quite well. Had a bit of trouble at first but it went by smoothly when I was hitting him. Finished him with Trinity after my MP recharged from the previous battle's use.

Pete Battle Part 3: Fell off the Crane. I think when I hit Triangle for the Reaction command it either didn't register or I couldn't do it during Sora's animation, so I had to wait about 10 seconds. In the process, I lost my Valor form at the very end of the battle.

Pete Part 4: He only had a tiny bit of health after 2 of the Reaction commands. Tried to hit him with Thunder but I used Blizzard instead, forgetting I moved Thunder.

Barbossa: Went beautifully. It was similar to Spikevegeta's Barbossa fight, only I used Trinity when he had a bar of HP left.

Pre-Agrabah: Did the Gummi route for Halloween Town, mainly just to get it out of the way. I'd rather do World->World->World then add a Gummi route in between them really.

Twilight Town Nobodies: Had problems with the 3 Berserkers. I have a save before that point so I can practice it though.

Space Paranoids: As mentioned, this was a bit of a bad attempt at it. The Parts puzzle I had to do twice cause I lost it, Light Cycle went fine, Freezing the computers went fine, and the Hostile Program battle...well at first I thought it was going fine but then it feels like it went on too long. I need to repeat that battle a few times.

Demyx Battle: Managed to beat him without him summoning his extra 10 clones. Got lucky with Valor here cause I thought I'd get Anti-Form.

Post 1000 Heartless Battle: Did Beast's Castle before Land of Dragons, but only up to when I get Rumbling Rose. After that I switched to Land of Dragons

Storm Rider: Got Anti-Form when it had a little over a bar of HP left, which was bad since I had to wait about 2 minutes more to kill him.

Xaldin battle: Beat it, enough said.

Stopped after the Xaldin battle. I made a save before it so I could practice facing Xaldin blindfolded. So far it's simple as I won on my first two attempts(The only two I've done so far). I'll be practicing it blindfolded a bit more though if the idea is approved for using it for Donations.

Other stuff: Counted up the amount of Ether's I had before I started the final set of battles, then counted them off as I used them. I noticed I had about 4 spare Ether's in my inventory(Not counting ones I had equipped on Sora and Riku), so I have plenty to spam for the last few sets of battles like I should of in my SS.

Tried to do half of a SS run today while also saving data at the start of worlds so I could practice them. At the save point before the 1000 Heartless battle, I was 8 minutes behind my SS time, though this is mostly from a 2-3 minute pause to grab cigarettes and soda for mom, doing one of the Gummi Routes earlier than intended(another 2-3 minutes), menu mismanagement(I check every so often to see what's equipped and what I should have and shouldn't have equipped as well, which totals up to a minute ot 2), and a few different strategies for battles(Most are faster, some had a bit of bad luck added in making them a bit longer than they should). The other bits of time were from a few bad screw ups I made(Space Paranoids was bad overall).

So far some of my strategies are as followed.

Path from Hade's Throne room + Cerberus: I use Auron's Limit when running from Hades, but instead of using Spiral, I just use the Stop. Spiral takes up too much time and knocks all the enemies away with a number of them not dead yet. Since they're bunched together, I can kill them with a simple combo. For Cerberus, it's mostly just Air Combos, however when he starts shooting projectiles and biting, I use Auron's Limit to avoid taking hits and deal some good damage, again stopping at Spiral. At the end of it, I got the Reaction prompt, did ground combos(Should of done Air, but I figured Combo Boost would of been helpful here, though it wasn't), and almost killed him.

Hydra: Start the battle out with air combos on the single head, then perform the reaction command when prompted. Take out the 3 heads that spawn,  then use Trinity Limit when the 5 heads appear. Change into Valor form, smack one of the 5 heads for a bit, Revert back to normal, Trinity again, then finish the battle with the reaction command.

Thresholder and Possessor: I used Valor form near the beginning of the battle. I ended the battle with Valor, but I didn't have enough time to be reverted by an event. When I use it, I gotta do it at the start of the 2nd round, or anywhere near it.

Shadow Stalker: Spikevegeta uses Valor form, I didn't have it so I instead used Trinity Limit while Beast was in the party so I could use Sora's Solo Trinity. Didn't kill him but I got close. With the previous mentioned boss's strategy, I'll have Valor form so I can use Trinity->Valor to finish this fight.

Dark Thorn: Didn't use the reaction command for this, but the battle went by quite well. Had a bit of trouble at first but it went by smoothly when I was hitting him. Finished him with Trinity after my MP recharged from the previous battle's use.

Pete Battle Part 3: Fell off the Crane. I think when I hit Triangle for the Reaction command it either didn't register or I couldn't do it during Sora's animation, so I had to wait about 10 seconds. In the process, I lost my Valor form at the very end of the battle.

Pete Part 4: He only had a tiny bit of health after 2 of the Reaction commands. Tried to hit him with Thunder but I used Blizzard instead, forgetting I moved Thunder.

Barbossa: Went beautifully. It was similar to Spikevegeta's Barbossa fight, only I used Trinity when he had a bar of HP left.

Pre-Agrabah: Did the Gummi route for Halloween Town, mainly just to get it out of the way. I'd rather do World->World->World then add a Gummi route in between them really.

Twilight Town Nobodies: Had problems with the 3 Berserkers. I have a save before that point so I can practice it though.

Space Paranoids: As mentioned, this was a bit of a bad attempt at it. The Parts puzzle I had to do twice cause I lost it, Light Cycle went fine, Freezing the computers went fine, and the Hostile Program battle...well at first I thought it was going fine but then it feels like it went on too long. I need to repeat that battle a few times.

Demyx Battle: Managed to beat him without him summoning his extra 10 clones. Got lucky with Valor here cause I thought I'd get Anti-Form.

Post 1000 Heartless Battle: Did Beast's Castle before Land of Dragons, but only up to when I get Rumbling Rose. After that I switched to Land of Dragons

Storm Rider: Got Anti-Form when it had a little over a bar of HP left, which was bad since I had to wait about 2 minutes more to kill him.

Xaldin battle: Beat it, enough said.

Stopped after the Xaldin battle. I made a save before it so I could practice facing Xaldin blindfolded. So far it's simple as I won on my first two attempts(The only two I've done so far). I'll be practicing it blindfolded a bit more though if the idea is approved for using it for Donations.

Other stuff: Counted up the amount of Ether's I had before I started the final set of battles, then counted them off as I used them. I noticed I had about 4 spare Ether's in my inventory(Not counting ones I had equipped on Sora and Riku), so I have plenty to spam for the last few sets of battles like I should of in my SS.

VorpalEdge

2010-11-08 08:57:13 pm

welcome to the machine

I'm playing a game too.

So far I've finally started clearing songs in 6T. Got my first arcade clear in that mode (beautiful girl -> get out -> zet) today, and I've only really played the game for a few days, although I've had it for a couple weeks now. Can't wait to see how well I'll be doing by the time the marathon rolls around!