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Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/SecretOfMana.html

Secret of Mana (Any %) (Single Segment)

Verifier Responses
Quote:
Audio / Video:
I have only watched the HQ version. Audio is fine. The video sometimes gets a little shaky/laggy (?) for a short period of time (i.e. after Spikey Tiger/Metal Mantis/Dread Slime, before Hexas)

I did not see any sign of cheating.

Used glitches:
  • weapon overcharge
  • money glitch
  • item trashing glitch
  • experience glitch
  • large skip glitches (using the soft-reset save warp and trials barrier skip)
  • some small ones like infinite mana sword

Gameplay:
Overall this is a pretty solid run. The runner skilfully progresses fast through most screens, which is often quite hard due to the bad AI of the to CPU controlled characters. This run uses a combination of magic spamming and the overcharge glitch for the bosses, sometimes both are combined nicely (for example while refilling mana). Especially in approx. the first half of the game the runner shows very fast menuing and some nice boss AI manipulation. The menuing gets a bit chaotic sometimes towards the end of the game, but nothing serious.

The Mech Rider 3 battle could easily be improved by AI manipulation - just walk to the bottom and the boss gets nice and calm Wink
Is there a reason why the sprite does not equip the gauntlet right away after buying it from Neko at the Grand Palace?

Timing:
I am unsure of the start and end points, but my estimate would be from the text box at the waterfall to the last hit of Mana Beast: 3:16:57
New start and end points, from movement after waterfall to party gathering after Mana Beast: 3:16:39

I am very happy to see a new run for this game Cheesy ACCEPT!

Quote from CyberBotX:
A/V good, no cheating detected. Overall, the run was very well done, even despite some sloppy moments, most of which were probably not the runner's fault but because of RNG. Menuing seemed well done for the most part with it getting a bit crazier near the end of the game. Some of the bosses trolled but most were taken out quickly. The runner has stated most of the improvable spots. For now, I say that this one should be given an accept! I do look forward to the runner beating the time, though.

Quote:
Here we go, let's hope I'm not too detailed on all of this.

No cheating detected.

Audio/Video Issues: Shaky/jumpy video at different points in the video, i.e. 28 minutes, 1:04:00.

Mantis Ant: Poor rabite areas. Got hit several times, and skipped a couple of quick kills. Bad bush slashing. Good mantis, though.

Tropicallo: Good first few areas outside Potos. Runs through Gaia's Navel with no problems. 4 cycle on the boss.

Spikey Tiger: Good kills outside Gaia's Navel. Werewolves #1 go ok. Lots of time wasted with an inefficient method of killing eye spies. No RNG trolling on Spikey.

Fire Gigas: Good start, no issues up to Tonpole. Does iceless Underground Palace. Good Fire Gigas with 1 extra Freeze used to negate damage RNG.

Wall Face: Forges the Axe so it can be used for the overcharge glitch. Bad movement through the ruins, but still acceptable. Good Wall Face.

Kilroy: Good manipulation, misses first overcharge because of RNG. 2nd hit connects.

Jabberwocky: Good manipulation and RNG.

Spring Beak: Saves and resets for no reason at the water palace, this is slower than walking out normally. Bad RNG and menus on pebblers. Poor running through the Great Forest. Good Spring Beak.

Great Viper: Bit of bad RNG while killing silktails, bad movement in general during this segment. OK Viper with a bit of trolling.

Mech Rider I: Missed initial chance at the overcharge hit.

Frost Gigas: Uses stone saber instead of ice saber for no reason. Bad wolves areas. First use of 2 AI overcharges at Boreal Face. Goes well here. Good ice palace movement. Almost perfect tonpoles, but doesn't get enough overcharge to kill them all. Good Frost Gigas.

Minotaur: Wastes time casting Lava Wave at the Fire Palace entrance. Good Minotaur.

Doom's Wall: Excellent sewers. Good ruins. Good Doom's Wall.

Vampire: Good Vampire.

Metal Mantis: Terrible movement after Ruins. Bad RNG on Mantis as already noted.

Mech Rider II: Bad movement through the castle. Weird RNG at Mech Rider with Wave Cannon. Bad RNG with overcharges missing.

Dopples: Good movement all around, misses barrier skip 3 times before getting it. No significant issues in the trials area.

Lime Slime: Good experience glitching with excellent RNG.  Good movement through the Palace of Darkness.  Decent Lime Slime with 1 overcharge miss.

Blue Spike: Spikey trolls for a good bit.  Bad menus during the fight.

Gorgon Bull: Good fight.

Aegagropilon: Bad RNG on this fight.  Overcharge characters keep getting hit with magic.

Snap Dragon: Decent Grand Palace with some trouble at the end.  Good Snap Dragon.

Hexas: Spell Spam is too strong. Good fight with an overcharge hit.

Mech Rider III: Misses a couple of times and the boss runs across twice.  Bad fight.

Dragon Worm: Messes up inventory by having too many wrist items.  Bad menus overall. Good movement through first areas. OK fight, but messes up menus a few times.

Snow Dragon: Good movement. Wastes some casts on Snow Dragon.  Good fight otherwise.

Axe Beak: Good movement.  Boss gets wrecked.

Fire Dragon: Good movement.  Freeze is OP.

Thunder Gigas: Gets hit a lot in this bit, but OK otherwise. Wastes some casts, but good otherwise.

Blue Dragon: A little bit slow getting to the boss.  Bad menus during this fight.

Buffy: Good movement until the end with Tsunami hits.  Excellent Buffy fight.

Dread Slime: OK movement.  Lots of RNG misses on this boss.

Dark Lich: Bad movement.  Good boss, other than missing the two attempted overcharges.

Mana Beast: Weird casting of Dispel Magic on the Mana Beast. Bad menus occasionally.  5 Cycle.

Time: 3:16:39

Summary: Overall it was really good.  There's some obvious mistakes here and there, but it's still well done. Accept

Quote:
This is surely a difficult game to run, with its constant juggling of multiple glitches and strategic elements combined with disagreeable controls and randomness. Having said that, this recording still comes off as having plenty of room for improvement. There are more than a few menu selection and timing mistakes, and the overall luck isn't great either, with frequent misses or attack cancels occurring. I wasn't expecting magic to still be playing such a large part either, although with such a seemingly low chance of hitting things properly later in the game it's understandable.

To the run's credit, the major skips and general planning elements are predominantly well-executed. I'd be on the fence if this weren't such a large improvement, but as it stands, I'm going to make an accept-ion (and a terrible pun).

Quote:
Audio/Video is fine.  I'm watching via VLC so I didn't see the issues at the time points other verifier pointed out.

Haven't seen anyone do a 1P1C run before (I think the site should classify this as so since 1P2C can go at such a low time comparitively)

Pretty ok run.  Unfortunately rng is a factor that played against the player but it's not something to dwell on.  First time seeing a 1P1C run as I'm used to seeing 1P2C runs.  The other verifiers cover most of the stuff in detail but I liked what I seen. 

I'll side with accept.


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'Crow!'
Thread title:  
What's that gemma?
Hooray!

I have noticed that the videos I encode don't display well on windows media player, but play fine on VLC.  If someone can figure out what's going on there, that would be great.  If the video doesn't play well for a lot of SDA's viewers, that would be a shame.

I'll get back on this run sometime; I'm pretty sure sub-3-hours is doable with a few route changes I've made since this run, but right now I'm working on other odd things (Rune Factory Frontier marriages gogogo!).  Getting a good time by actually executing the game properly doesn't excite me as much as finding new, better strategies.
But time flows like a river...
Congratulations, finally a decent SoM SpeedRun. Cheesy
Congrats on this run. Cheesy

About the video porblem: I am the first verifier and noticed video problems using VLC (although on Linux).
Congratulation Crow! Cheesy

I suppose this is NTSC ?