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SDAVerification: 2013-10-29 08:55:17 pm
1-Up!
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/SkiesOfArcadia.html

Skies of Arcadia (Any %) (Segmented)

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to 'junglechief'!
Thread title:  
1-Up!
Run Information

Skies of Arcadia (Any %) (Segmented)

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/SkiesOfArcadia/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by Sept. 26, 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.
Edit history:
Vulajin: 2013-09-15 03:26:47 pm
Since this run is insanely long - I just wanted to state my intent to verify in advance. I'll start downloading tonight and we'll see how long it takes to get it all.

(edit) The downloads finished overnight after I started them. I have everything but I've only had time to get through about 7 segments last night. I'll be working on this over the course of the week.
Not a walrus
Yeah two weeks is probably not long enough for this, Flip. Wink
I was thinking the same but held my tongue. >_>
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2013-09-18 11:40:44 am
Is there anyone at all familiar with the game or game series still planning to verify this? If there isn't, I'll get on this as well.

I currently get a 403 error accessing the verification files.
Not a walrus
Which ones? The few I checked worked fine.
I'm not really familiar with the game, but a friend of mine is.  I don't know if he'd make an account here just to verify this run, but I'll mention it to him.  Either way I hope to get through it myself before its time here is up.
Edit history:
Vulajin: 2013-09-26 04:54:49 am
Vulajin: 2013-09-23 04:24:25 am
Vulajin: 2013-09-22 08:03:09 pm
Vulajin: 2013-09-18 02:41:03 am
I'm planning to make some more progress tonight.

(edit) I'll just edit this post for my status. So far I have verified 26/134 segments. I'll be able to make a lot more progress on the weekend, but during the week it'll be pretty incremental.

(edit 2) I am through 83/134 segments. I'm hoping to finish tonight.

(edit 3) I am through 97/134 segments. It may take the rest of the week to finish. There's very little chance I'll finish by the 9/26 deadline.

(edit 4) I am through 122/134 segments. I expect to finish the remainder tomorrow night. Maybe. Please consider extending the deadline. ^^
Edit history:
LotBlind: 2013-09-19 09:11:11 am
Alright, so I'm also now getting started with this and will probably be done within 2-3 weeks. I guess I'm the second confirmed verifier now. I'm focusing on non-route things so in case someone knowledgeable comes along they should focus more on the "inside" stuff.
The Speedrunning Teacher
I'm planning on get this one verified. Just focusing on a couple other things tonight. Tomorrow I should be able to start watching it for verification.
So I get this run is in-game timer timed? Or was there a rule change about this at some point? Plus manually timing the last segment?
The Speedrunning Teacher
Quote from LotBlind:
So I get this run is in-game timer timed? Or was there a rule change about this at some point? Plus manually timing the last segment?

The in-game timer is considered accurate enough. It doesn't advance while in the menu, but considering the length of the run and the fact that runners should avoid going into it more than they need to, it works. The only time that you can see the time is when the game is loaded/saved, and it will not display the final time at the end, so the last segment is manually timed.

As it was also mentioned in another thread: IsrealiRD does the official timing of runs anyways. Verifiers should mainly be looking for integrity.
Dragon Power Supreme
The previous run was done by doing the in-game timer + manually time the last segment, but the new timing rules mean that every segment now has to be manually timed.
You see if I'm to verify the play quality as well, I'd need to know how the timing goes in order to tell what's significant and what's not. So apparently time spent on selecting the save slot is not but time otherwise spent within the menus is (as per manually timing each segment). That can and does affect my judgment of play quality. And that's why I started inquiring.
It may be safe to assume that the runner expected the run to be timed using in-game timer + manual last segment (given that that was the precedent for the previous run). If that's the case, I didn't realize the in-game clock didn't count menus. That also significantly alters some of my perceptions about the run.
I did a lot of the routing work for this (the runner and I are close personal friends), and yeah, we assumed the in-game timer's rules would be respected throughout. Specifically the "main" menu (from pressing "Y") and the save menu are not timed but everything in-battle as well as shops are timed (the last point was not obvious to us until pretty late in the run, but the only point at which it affected anything was switching Vyse's weapon element to purple in Nasrad for the first time which is something like a 2 second routing mistake). This issue has kinda given us some anxiety to be honest; we just assumed the in-game timer's rules would be respected, and between confusion over SDA's rule change (which wasn't actually added to the rules page when this run began production) and some precedent on the site with in-game timers (Mega Man 9 was a game we looked to as a precedent setter in that it has a very similar in-game timer to skies) it wasn't until the run was far enough along that he "had to" stick to these methods that it became something we thought might be an issue. At that point, all he could really do was complete the run and hope that verification gave us a favorable ruling.
Since the run was started before the rule change surely we must go by the old procedures in this case... Admins?
Edit history:
Onin: 2013-09-25 12:25:22 pm
When the run "was started" is of no concern to SDA. It's also a really arbitrary point of time.

Question is whether that's enough to warrant a reject. I'd say run quality should take precedence, especially in this occasion.
I think it's fine. Even if we time according to the new rules, we can verify the run with the knowledge that some strats were developed specifically for the old rules.
The Speedrunning Teacher
I can vouch for when they had started planning it, since they were working on this at roughly the same time that I was working on it. We even bounced ideas off of each other.

Still, even with the new timings, it shouldn't affect the final time by more than 10-15 minutes I believe.
Edit history:
Vulajin: 2013-09-28 03:02:19 am
If a segment is not included in my notes below, it's because I had nothing interesting to say about it. I hope you'll forgive the length, but I refuse to just type a few lines to summarize a verification that took me over 12 hours. :p

Segment 3: I'm surprised it wasn't possible to make it to Pirate Isle without segmenting, but only a little.

Segment 6: Again, was it definitely not possible to get to Shrine Island without an encounter?

Segment 9: A video glitch occurs around 4:13-4:14.

Segment 12: I was unclear why 11 and 12 were separate segments, as neither of these seemed to involve any challenging movement or menuing, nor any encounter or other RNG. Was this just overly defensive segmenting?

Segment 14: I made a note originally about the use of the in-game menu to switch crystals in the characters' weapons, as opposed to doing so in battle. In terms of real time, switching in battle is obviously much better. In terms of game time, switching in the menu saves time since the menu isn't timed. Given the prior discussion, we know that the runner originally believed the run would be timed by game time until the final segment, then by real time. As such, although this menuing approach does waste real time, it is a legitimate speedrunning tactic for the game time case, and I would not hold it against the runner.

Segment 18: I didn't fully understand the runner's comments about this segment. It sounded like the goal was to learn Increm, but the runner also mentioned something about having a low chance of getting an encounter in the short distance left to Baltor - but he veers around anyway to force an encounter, so what was the problem? In any case, the time investment proves definitely worth it in the next fight; I was just unclear about the comments.

Segment 23: The runner flubs the menu, equipping an item too early and having to unequip it again. Notwithstanding menu timing questions, it's an obvious error, but only costs a few seconds and is completely forgiveable given the RNG lottery the runner won with the two drops.

Segment 47: You have discovered the "Ixa'taka"!

Segment 54: Would it have been possible to avoid losing a turn to the guards by queueing up another party member to attack after Vyse's Rain of Swords?

Segment 63: With all this Tackle spam, it's starting to feel like a Pokémon game.

Segment 74: Gilder! <3

Segment 91: The based White Map shows its muscle here, condensing what would otherwise have been ~3 segments into one.

Segment 95: A video glitch occurs around 1:00-1:01.

Segment 99: You have found the "Yafutoma"!

Segment 101: The Aika death here costs the runner about 50 seconds. Given the indications of how many different ways the boss can troll you, though, this seems to have been pretty acceptable anyway.

Segment 107: You have found the "World is Round"! (You found what?! You must tell me where you found it! I must let the whole world know!)

Segment 110: Rhaknam. Cry

Segment 113: I'm not sure how the runner feels about this dungeon, but I find it quite lively.

Segment 115: A video glitch occurs around 0:12-0:13.

Segment 121: I really wish the runner hadn't felt the need to intentionally give viewers motion sickness at this point. Undecided

Segment 124: A video glitch in the first 30 seconds causes the video to be vertically flipped. (kidding >_>)

Segment 128: A video glitch occurs around 0:56-0:57. Another video glitch occurs around 3:47-3:48.

Segment 134: A video glitch occurs around 10:17-10:18. Another video glitch occurs around 22:41-22:42.

Overall comments:

A/V quality of the run is up to SDA standards, except for the minor exceptions noted above.

As someone who has played Skies of Arcadia casually, I can say that this run is extremely impressive. I have not previously watched a speedrun of this game, but the route appears to be very well-developed, with a lot of different strategies used and discarded throughout the run as needed. I'm particularly impressed by the breadth of esoteric elements (rare drops, rare consumables, etc.) utilized in this run.

Although the runner does flub menuing and movement from time to time, the play quality of the run is very high overall. The run is not excessively segmented, even though it can feel that way at times (because the encounter rate in this game is ridiculous). Based on the RNG inherent in some battles, the runner's choices to allow some time loss in certain segments seem justified.

In summary, this run is extremely strong. In addition, it is over an hour better than the current SDA run. Nothing left to say but accept.

(edited on 9/28, 2:01 AM PDT - removed notes about extraneous encounter counts, because I realized I had forgotten to count the ones in some segments)
So right now I'm "blazing" through segment 40 and it will take me another 3 weeks to watch the rest of it I feel... Plus as a random verifier never having played the game I don't know how much I can add to what the other two verifiers are saying. Here's what I've got so far. No comments on a segment means I didn't spot mistakes.

Tiny little improvements are available with superb cornering and aiming very carefully when flying around in the ship. No real big problems though.

Seg 17-18 could it be possible to get the two encounters for the moonberries earlier (or would it even be possible to get the right kind of encounter in an earlier segment?).

Seg 23 has a mistake with equipping an item and having to re-equip another afterwards. Around 19 secs lost, but there were two 1/100 drops... so unfortunate but acceptable IMO.

Seg 30 has a 5-sec equipment change that could have been done in the previous segment with everything else. Not sure what the brief menu visit near the end is about. Ofc the runner didn't realize this stuff would end up being timed.

In some of the fights you get the notion a "pyri" and two regular attacks might have been faster than two "pyri" but this is a luck-dependent strat because it requires only 1-2 enemies to be left standing after the first pyri both at sufficiently low health. The difference might not be very great.

So far so good is all I can say.
I'm only still watching part 60 now... Here are a few more comments.

Seg 49 Something weird causes the Wings of Gold card to appear twice costing 2 seconds...

Seg 55 Looked like one less crystales box might have sufficed.

However it's looking very smooth so far ignoring the extra menu stuff that the runner didn't realize would be timed. If the evidence for an accept is strong enough based on just Vulajin's comments, then I'm not opposed to that. He says it's an hour faster than the current run and I seriously can't expect to see any serious drop in play quality towards the end of the run being now at around half-way through.

But if it's better to have another full verification text, I'll keep grinding away.
1-Up!
This run will be timed manually, since that's now our policy regarding multi-segment RPGs that DON'T display a time at the end of the run (I'm assuming this one doesn't). I'll give this a bit more time so that LotBlind can finish his commentary. I know it's a long run.