Radical Rex - March 20th, 2013

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Flip: 2013-03-20 09:35:42 pm

2013-03-06 09:29:15 pm

1-Up!

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Radical Rex (Any %) (Single Segment)

Decision: Accept

Reason: Radical planning and execution

Congratulations to Eric 'Omnigamer' Koziel!

Run Information

Radical Rex (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/Rex%20Torrent

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by March 20, 2013.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.

Thread title:

MURPHAGATOR!

2013-03-07 12:08:04 am

Terraffirmative!

As the person who sent Omnigamer this dino poo, I feel that I should probably give him a proper verification for it.

To start out with, this game has some weird physics issues that are hard to describe. The character isn't quite hard to control, but is just slippery enough that you never quite feel like he's responding to what you are doing. The skateboarding sections, especially, are fairly strange to control, and take a lot of time to get working quite right.

Anyways, verification

Stage 1 - RADICAL! Ideally he could have made it over that last dino head before getting hit, but whatever

Stage 2 - I really like the route omni came up with here. I also really love that the fallen trees kill in one hit in this game for some reason.

Stage 3 - This stage's physics are terrible, and omni really nailed it. Omni found a glitch that would have let him jump out of the tubes here, which could save time in a few locations, but didn't end up hitting it in this run. That said, its a 2 frame jump after landing a glitched entry to the pipe, so w/e.

Stage 4 - Really nice use of the roars to manage the pterodactyls. I still love the climbable objects that look like they should be just walls or nothing, such great stage design. Unfortunately due to the nature of the wind gusts here, its not really possible to gain a lot of time compared to this, so overall it's a great stage.

Stage 5 - This is where the stages start getting pretty obnoxious. This stage is big, has a ton of areas that look the same, and since this is where bosses start showing up, getting the powerups is suddenly hugely important. Omni has a nice route here again, collecting just what he needs to finish off the boss. The boss goes pretty well, he might have gone down in one less jump had he not hit omni once, but its not a big deal. Another point of great game design is taunting the played with the end boss, only to reveal that it's not the end, and you have to go through new versions of all the stages you already beat.

Stage 6 - In spite of starting exactly where he left off, and the fact that you have to go backwards, this is an entirely new stage. It's just as big and confusing as stage 5, but with more underwater sections where you instantly drown if you run out of air. This stage has fantastic planning, omni came within moments of running out of air at one point, but still made it. The boss here still amazes me, when I was playing this game I was convinced this boss was going to be the biggest problem area in the run, and omni makes him look like a chump.

Stage 7 - Once again the wind mechanics provide a buffer here that prevents time losses or gains early on in the stage from meaning much. One wrong move in this stage into the jaws of any skeletons will dump you down in the stage, which would be a nasty way to get a reset. Moderate to good luck on the boss here, he can completely put an end to a run if the RNG hates you.

Stage 8 - Bounce physics again here. Certainly a well planned route, and for the most part it goes well. Falling off the bubble here hurts pretty bad, as does missing a cycle in the bubble pit, but considering how slippery the physics are in this stage as well as the obnoxious enemy placement, its very understandable. The boss also gives him some bad luck with the bubble spawn pattern. Overall, this is definitely the stage with the biggest room for improvement, but most of that improvement revolves around mastering the completely terrible physics of the stage and getting just straight up better luck.

Stage 9 - RADICAL!

Stage 10 - Pterodactyl here is a real jerk. Omni missed some opportunities to do skateboard tricks here, thus reducing the radical level of the run, its very unfortunate. The final boss gives pretty good luck overall, and so Omni proves he's a radical enough dino to rescue his girlfriend.

As far as A/V goes, everything looks smooth. I believe timing starts at 0:19, and ends at 26:00, which would be 25:41.

I'd like to accept this run, but omni refused to do tricks in order to make the run as radical as possible.

As the person who sent Omnigamer this dino poo, I feel that I should probably give him a proper verification for it.

To start out with, this game has some weird physics issues that are hard to describe. The character isn't quite hard to control, but is just slippery enough that you never quite feel like he's responding to what you are doing. The skateboarding sections, especially, are fairly strange to control, and take a lot of time to get working quite right.

Anyways, verification

Stage 1 - RADICAL! Ideally he could have made it over that last dino head before getting hit, but whatever

Stage 2 - I really like the route omni came up with here. I also really love that the fallen trees kill in one hit in this game for some reason.

Stage 3 - This stage's physics are terrible, and omni really nailed it. Omni found a glitch that would have let him jump out of the tubes here, which could save time in a few locations, but didn't end up hitting it in this run. That said, its a 2 frame jump after landing a glitched entry to the pipe, so w/e.

Stage 4 - Really nice use of the roars to manage the pterodactyls. I still love the climbable objects that look like they should be just walls or nothing, such great stage design. Unfortunately due to the nature of the wind gusts here, its not really possible to gain a lot of time compared to this, so overall it's a great stage.

Stage 5 - This is where the stages start getting pretty obnoxious. This stage is big, has a ton of areas that look the same, and since this is where bosses start showing up, getting the powerups is suddenly hugely important. Omni has a nice route here again, collecting just what he needs to finish off the boss. The boss goes pretty well, he might have gone down in one less jump had he not hit omni once, but its not a big deal. Another point of great game design is taunting the played with the end boss, only to reveal that it's not the end, and you have to go through new versions of all the stages you already beat.

Stage 6 -  In spite of starting exactly where he left off, and the fact that you have to go backwards, this is an entirely new stage. It's just as big and confusing as stage 5, but with more underwater sections where you instantly drown if you run out of air. This stage has fantastic planning, omni came within moments of running out of air at one point, but still made it. The boss here still amazes me, when I was playing this game I was convinced this boss was going to be the biggest problem area in the run, and omni makes him look like a chump.

Stage 7 - Once again the wind mechanics provide a buffer here that prevents time losses or gains early on in the stage from meaning much. One wrong move in this stage into the jaws of any skeletons will dump you down in the stage, which would be a nasty way to get a reset. Moderate to good luck on the boss here, he can completely put an end to a run if the RNG hates you.

Stage 8 - Bounce physics again here. Certainly a well planned route, and for the most part it goes well. Falling off the bubble here hurts pretty bad, as does missing a cycle in the bubble pit, but considering how slippery the physics are in this stage as well as the obnoxious enemy placement, its very understandable. The boss also gives him some bad luck with the bubble spawn pattern. Overall, this is definitely the stage with the biggest room for improvement, but most of that improvement revolves around mastering the completely terrible physics of the stage and getting just straight up better luck.

Stage 9 - RADICAL!

Stage 10 - Pterodactyl here is a real jerk. Omni missed some opportunities to do skateboard tricks here, thus reducing the radical level of the run, its very unfortunate. The final boss gives pretty good luck overall, and so Omni proves he's a radical enough dino to rescue his girlfriend.

As far as A/V goes, everything looks smooth. I believe timing starts at 0:19, and ends at 26:00, which would be 25:41.

I'd like to accept this run, but omni refused to do tricks in order to make the run as radical as possible.

Omnigamer

2013-03-07 01:10:06 pm

All the things

Here's a YouTube version for those anxious to watch right away. As such remember that it is just YouTube quality, so be sure to download the file if you want to judge the A/V quality.

Steagle Colbeagle

2013-03-10 10:58:02 pm

The av is okay and I didn't see any cheating. Overall the run kept going at a good pace but he took a lot of damage from enemies and I felt the run was fairly sloppy. I feel the run could be improved to better meet sda standards.

reject

MURPHAGATOR!

2013-03-11 12:11:52 am

Terraffirmative!

Killing enemies in this game takes a ton of time, rex may be radical but he does not do damage worth anything. Damage boosting through them is way more effective a vast majority of the time.

Omnigamer

2013-03-11 09:47:44 am

All the things

I'm going to echo what Murph said. In general there's little point in trying to kill off the enemies, even on Easy. The placement is pretty awful too, so I try to make the best use of post-damage invincibility to skip by a bunch of them. There are some places where killing them is unavoidable (the Frog in Stage 2) but in general I feel I make the best use of enemies and invincibility.

Brossentia

2013-03-11 02:03:43 pm

No pain, no gain

Pinball stomach? Really? I'm mad now, Radical Rex!

Sound effects sound like they're from Windows 3.1 games. Seriously, though, what game takes you halfway through the game to only show your girlfriend taken back to the beginning? I bet they got the "radical" sound effect guy to write the story, too.

Right after the pterodactyl boss is my favorite -- great use of the platform there. Honestly, watching it through, there are some areas that could be improved towards the end (stomach2, for example), but it looks pretty solid. Damage boosting works great. You obviously took damage in some areas where you didn't need to, but only a few of these cost much time. Overall, I'd say accept.

PJ

2013-03-11 05:07:31 pm

Is PJ

A/V is good.

I had to make highlights for this and talk about it for like 4 weeks straight on TSSB, so I am pretty well aware of how far this run has come. I could probably just end the verification there, but instead I'll watch this run again and see what I can make of it.

Murph and Omnigamer both covered most of what is going on in this run. His route for level 2 is really clever, and he handles level 3 like a champ. Again, I have seen a fair number of his old runs of this so I have seen how easily the bouncy stomach can go wrong. He really makes that stage look intuitive.

I'm a big fan of level 4, mostly because I'm not the one who has to run it. Looks like a neat stage.

So this boss fight. Having seen one of the less-optimized versions of the final boss fight...and watched like all 4 minutes of it, I can say that all the time he spends collecting fire breath powerups is totally justified. It makes these bosses a hell of a lot more tolerable to watch. And it's faster I suppose. Tongue

Also, I think it's neat that Omni and Murph both send each other games that more or less have two loops. Karma is really powerful.

The Ptery fight at the end of stage...6 (I think?) was really really good. I approve.

Second stomach level was pretty rough. And by that I mean it was actually indicative of how the level normally goes. This physics just look terrible. I definitely don't fault Omni for most of those errors, but they are still there.

This run was really well planned and I think it shows. Rex is unfortunately very limited in what he can do to get around enemies, so it often looks like just sloppy damage boosting, but there is no real alternative. I believe that Omni actually optimized his powerup collection instead of just collecting all the fire powerups in each stage or just rushing to the boss. It looks like he did weigh out how long it takes to collect each powerup vs the payoff (and he did mention this in his comments). Considering he had to do all of this basically on his own is even more impressive. I give this run a really solid accept. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. This is still a very good run on its own regard though.

A/V is good.

I had to make highlights for this and talk about it for like 4 weeks straight on TSSB, so I am pretty well aware of how far this run has come.  I could probably just end the verification there, but instead I'll watch this run again and see what I can make of it.

Murph and Omnigamer both covered most of what is going on in this run.  His route for level 2 is really clever, and he handles level 3 like a champ.  Again, I have seen a fair number of his old runs of this so I have seen how easily the bouncy stomach can go wrong.  He really makes that stage look intuitive.

I'm a big fan of level 4, mostly because I'm not the one who has to run it.  Looks like a neat stage.

So this boss fight.  Having seen one of the less-optimized versions of the final boss fight...and watched like all 4 minutes of it, I can say that all the time he spends collecting fire breath powerups is totally justified.  It makes these bosses a hell of a lot more tolerable to watch.  And it's faster I suppose.  :P Also, I think it's neat that Omni and Murph both send each other games that more or less have two loops.  Karma is really powerful.

The Ptery fight at the end of stage...6 (I think?) was really really good.  I approve.

Second stomach level was pretty rough.  And by that I mean it was actually indicative of how the level normally goes.  This physics just look terrible.  I definitely don't fault Omni for most of those errors, but they are still there.

This run was really well planned and I think it shows.  Rex is unfortunately very limited in what he can do to get around enemies, so it often looks like just sloppy damage boosting, but there is no real alternative.  I believe that Omni actually optimized his powerup collection instead of just collecting all the fire powerups in each stage or just rushing to the boss.  It looks like he did weigh out how long it takes to collect each powerup vs the payoff (and he did mention this in his comments).  Considering he had to do all of this basically on his own is even more impressive.  I give this run a really solid [b]accept[/b].  Is there room for improvement?  Absolutely.  This is still a very good run on its own regard though.

__sdfg

2013-03-12 07:40:20 pm

D:

I played this recently and

Quote from PJ:

And by that I mean it was actually indicative of how the level normally goes.

this one part of PJ's comment covers most of the places where time is lost, except replace, "level," with, "game."

Someone could grind the game like mad and probably cut a bunch of time off, but I don't see a problem with accepting this run.

Heidrage

2013-03-12 11:06:04 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Still on vacation...

I don't see any reason for this to not be accepted. The run was well executed, don't know about planned but from what I saw it seems well thought out. The first boss seems a bit weird though. from what I saw, the boss I frames were a bit longer than what the runner was allowing, thus every other attack missed. That was just about the only thing I saw bad and it is super minor. A few unwanted hits as well but still this was a good watch.

I say accept.

Omnigamer

2013-03-12 11:20:53 pm

All the things

Note about the first (and incidentally last) boss: he doesn't get much invincibility from being hit, but instead is only vulnerable at certain times when he's attacking. What he does and when he actually becomes vulnerable is unpredictable, so my best bet is to just spam flames on him and hope that it will connect when he becomes vulnerable. It might look sloppy, but he actually gave me a reasonable pattern in this run. Each boss is a pain for different reasons, but they were all at least decent in this run.

Heidrage

2013-03-12 11:26:02 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Ya. I figured something was going on that I was un aware of. I point out things that almost always have a logical reason for being done or not done. But no harm in inquiring about it.

I do not read any other comments until I post mine for public verification. It seems the small things that I pointed out happened for a reason. Thanks for the response Omni.

Flip

2013-03-18 08:41:54 pm

1-Up!

Just a reminder, there are only a couple of days left for this public verification. If you have any comments to post, please do so quickly!

Flip

2013-03-20 09:36:01 pm

1-Up!

Verdict Posted.