My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Christopher 'SHADOW JACKY' Chism's Team Sonic single-segment run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: The runner defied game-crippling randomness and glitchiness to produce this run.
About the timing, is it only team dark's team blast that freezes the timer? Either way, it doesn't make much sense to measure one team by real-time and measure all of the others by in-game time.
Christopher 'SHADOW JACKY' Chism's Team Sonic single-segment run
Verifier Responses
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No cheating was found and the quality of the video was great.
Gameplay-wise: If the game weren't so glitch-ridden and random to begin with, I'd say the run is too poor of quality. However, I personally have experienced a lot of the problems mentioned in the runner's comments, and as far as I know, it's not possible to completely avoid every problem in the game (team battles, pinball table controls, teammates randomly disappearing [what was up with Knuckles not returning on Casino Park until the 2nd table after he had died?]). For all the problems the game has that can occur without any warning, this is a very impressive run.
Final verdict: As stated in the previous sentence, this run is a great run when you take into account the extreme luck factor when speedrunning this game, either a full story or an IL. The run appears to be the best anyone can manage at the moment, so I believe that it is worthy of being added to SDA, in addition to the fact that beating this time will not only require luck, but also probably a lot of patience.
Gameplay-wise: If the game weren't so glitch-ridden and random to begin with, I'd say the run is too poor of quality. However, I personally have experienced a lot of the problems mentioned in the runner's comments, and as far as I know, it's not possible to completely avoid every problem in the game (team battles, pinball table controls, teammates randomly disappearing [what was up with Knuckles not returning on Casino Park until the 2nd table after he had died?]). For all the problems the game has that can occur without any warning, this is a very impressive run.
Final verdict: As stated in the previous sentence, this run is a great run when you take into account the extreme luck factor when speedrunning this game, either a full story or an IL. The run appears to be the best anyone can manage at the moment, so I believe that it is worthy of being added to SDA, in addition to the fact that beating this time will not only require luck, but also probably a lot of patience.
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I had a really tough time deciding whether to accept this or not. There are a LOT of problems, which I cover in the individual level comments, but this game is incredibly glitchy, and these problems are SOMETIMES unavoidable.
(Glitch) before a sentence signifies that the problem was due to a glitch.
Seaside Hill - Nice use of Rocket Accel. Impressive time. However, There was an issue during the part in the building right before the second car area. (Glitch) The runner stumbled on the accelerator rings, which lost some time, looked pretty bad, and it was early enough in the run to not be a huge chore to redo. Also, the minor fumble towards the end isn't too bad, because it still saved more time than going through the normal way.
Ocean Palace - Lots of impressive jumps and skips. Definitely a highlight of the run. Killer time to boot.
Egg Hawk - Flawlessly executed. Nice job!
Grand Metropolis - Nice time with some daring jumps before the path shows up. (Glitch)There's a pretty ugly light dash screw up about a minute in, though these are sometimes unavoidable.
Power Plant - Very nicely done. There was a hit during one of the rising platform parts, but it didn't affect the time, since the platform has a set speed.
Team Rose - Ew. The fastest strategy for Team Battle is not executed here. This boss can be beaten in 5 seconds using the blue tornado (which wasn't used at all) only once.
Casino Park - Excellent. (Glitch)Some minor time wasting waiting for Knuckles to stop attacking, and a few screw ups with the laser glitch, but again, saved more time than going it normally.
BINGO Highway - Plenty of risky time-saving tricks employed here. Well done.
Robot Carnival - Whoa. This was INSANE. Very impressive.
Rail Canyon - Nice rail jumping. You need some serious skill and luck to do this without dying.
Bullet Station - Impressive run. Nothing to complain about.
Egg Albatross - Pretty sad battle, but it's passable.
Frog Forest - Good run through. No complaints.
Lost Jungle - Minor problem with one of the flowers. Minimal time wasted though.
Team Dark - This was a damn fine Team Battle. I just wonder why the Team Rose battle didn’t go so well.
Hang Castle - (Glitch)Some time wasting employing the glitch through the door, but it did still save more time than the normal way.
Mystic Mansion - Good use of Team Blast to get rid of the helmeted enemies. Good time too.
Robot Storm - Very nicely done. Albeit there was a slight waste of time with the wall of robots. They can be easily downed with Thunder Shoot.
Egg Fleet - Nothing to complain about here.
Final Fortress - Very good time. I know how much of a pain this level can be.
Egg Emperor - Eh, a little bit shaky. Nerves must have been kicking in.
Overall: This is a good run, but it's questionable whether it's up to SDA standards. Being that it is the first run for the game, I accept it, but encourage someone to beat it.
(Glitch) before a sentence signifies that the problem was due to a glitch.
Seaside Hill - Nice use of Rocket Accel. Impressive time. However, There was an issue during the part in the building right before the second car area. (Glitch) The runner stumbled on the accelerator rings, which lost some time, looked pretty bad, and it was early enough in the run to not be a huge chore to redo. Also, the minor fumble towards the end isn't too bad, because it still saved more time than going through the normal way.
Ocean Palace - Lots of impressive jumps and skips. Definitely a highlight of the run. Killer time to boot.
Egg Hawk - Flawlessly executed. Nice job!
Grand Metropolis - Nice time with some daring jumps before the path shows up. (Glitch)There's a pretty ugly light dash screw up about a minute in, though these are sometimes unavoidable.
Power Plant - Very nicely done. There was a hit during one of the rising platform parts, but it didn't affect the time, since the platform has a set speed.
Team Rose - Ew. The fastest strategy for Team Battle is not executed here. This boss can be beaten in 5 seconds using the blue tornado (which wasn't used at all) only once.
Casino Park - Excellent. (Glitch)Some minor time wasting waiting for Knuckles to stop attacking, and a few screw ups with the laser glitch, but again, saved more time than going it normally.
BINGO Highway - Plenty of risky time-saving tricks employed here. Well done.
Robot Carnival - Whoa. This was INSANE. Very impressive.
Rail Canyon - Nice rail jumping. You need some serious skill and luck to do this without dying.
Bullet Station - Impressive run. Nothing to complain about.
Egg Albatross - Pretty sad battle, but it's passable.
Frog Forest - Good run through. No complaints.
Lost Jungle - Minor problem with one of the flowers. Minimal time wasted though.
Team Dark - This was a damn fine Team Battle. I just wonder why the Team Rose battle didn’t go so well.
Hang Castle - (Glitch)Some time wasting employing the glitch through the door, but it did still save more time than the normal way.
Mystic Mansion - Good use of Team Blast to get rid of the helmeted enemies. Good time too.
Robot Storm - Very nicely done. Albeit there was a slight waste of time with the wall of robots. They can be easily downed with Thunder Shoot.
Egg Fleet - Nothing to complain about here.
Final Fortress - Very good time. I know how much of a pain this level can be.
Egg Emperor - Eh, a little bit shaky. Nerves must have been kicking in.
Overall: This is a good run, but it's questionable whether it's up to SDA standards. Being that it is the first run for the game, I accept it, but encourage someone to beat it.
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Video/audio quality: No issues here. I thought I saw the video acting a bit jumpy on the Casino Park results screen, but maybe I was just tired when I was watching, because I went back to check and it seemed fine.
Cheating: Despite what it may seem to the average viewer (a truly giant leap at the end of Frog Forest and some bizarre tornado targeting in Egg Fleet strike me as things which most people might think would raise a red flag), everything in this run is using game mechanics. No cheats here.
Play quality: Exceptionally well planned and executed. Since Sonic Heroes is such a linear game, it may look as though it doesn't need a great deal of planning, but there are some levels in which the checkpoints are chosen very carefully - for instance, in Power Plant, Tails needs to be level 2 to clear out flying enemies effectively.
In terms of execution, there are two bosses I could say were done badly, those being Egg Albatross and Egg Emperor. It's any wonder he survived at all - had the second phase of the Egg Albatross gone on half a second longer, Knuckles would've been pushed off the side of the platform for a death.
All levels were executed without serious error, and indeed there were plenty of small timesavers attempted (and pulled off) that would've resulted in death had he failed. Jumps like the jump down the spiral rail in Bullet Station, or skipping one of the frogs in Frog Forest... those type of skips take serious guts, at the pointy end of a speedrun, in a game notorious for stalling or killing you for seemingly no reason.
Despite the fact that there is clearly a minute of improvement in Egg Emperor, 20-30 seconds in Egg Albatross, and various small savers elsewhere such as not missing that first enemy in Bullet Station, I think to do the run again for the sake of those two bosses whilst maintaining the incredible level of both skill and luck prevalent in this run is asking for too much. I feel confident in saying this run meets SDA standards.
Cheating: Despite what it may seem to the average viewer (a truly giant leap at the end of Frog Forest and some bizarre tornado targeting in Egg Fleet strike me as things which most people might think would raise a red flag), everything in this run is using game mechanics. No cheats here.
Play quality: Exceptionally well planned and executed. Since Sonic Heroes is such a linear game, it may look as though it doesn't need a great deal of planning, but there are some levels in which the checkpoints are chosen very carefully - for instance, in Power Plant, Tails needs to be level 2 to clear out flying enemies effectively.
In terms of execution, there are two bosses I could say were done badly, those being Egg Albatross and Egg Emperor. It's any wonder he survived at all - had the second phase of the Egg Albatross gone on half a second longer, Knuckles would've been pushed off the side of the platform for a death.
All levels were executed without serious error, and indeed there were plenty of small timesavers attempted (and pulled off) that would've resulted in death had he failed. Jumps like the jump down the spiral rail in Bullet Station, or skipping one of the frogs in Frog Forest... those type of skips take serious guts, at the pointy end of a speedrun, in a game notorious for stalling or killing you for seemingly no reason.
Despite the fact that there is clearly a minute of improvement in Egg Emperor, 20-30 seconds in Egg Albatross, and various small savers elsewhere such as not missing that first enemy in Bullet Station, I think to do the run again for the sake of those two bosses whilst maintaining the incredible level of both skill and luck prevalent in this run is asking for too much. I feel confident in saying this run meets SDA standards.
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Run is free of cheating as far as I can tell. Also, since he apparently wants the run to use real time (more on that later), timing should begin on frame 3005 (immediately before the first level begins) and end on frame 259213 (when the Egg Emperor's defeat cutscene begins), making the run 256208 frames long, or 1:11:14.4.
As for the quality of the run, it seemed very good overall. There were a few parts that looked bad (Egg Emperor and the clipping glitch in Hang Castle stand out), but considering how this game is, I think that's forgivable in a run as long as this. Even the Egg Emperor thing would have only cost about :01 out of the over 1:10 run.
However, I'm not sure I agree with the idea of using real time. With the exception of Team Dark, the in-game timer seems perfectly reliable, and saying that using real time makes the run more entertaining seems like a cop-out. I'd probably still accept it if it were timed under the in-game timer, as in this particular case it doesn't make a huge difference, but whether we use real time or the in-game timer will set a precedent for future runs. Well, except for Team Dark again, which will need real time regardless.
Anyways, if we total up the in-game timer, we get 55:34.44. You might want to check my math on that one, though. Adding up all those numbers can very easily introduce an error.
Lastly, I enjoyed the author's comments, especially the level of hate directed at the game. Very entertaining.
As for the quality of the run, it seemed very good overall. There were a few parts that looked bad (Egg Emperor and the clipping glitch in Hang Castle stand out), but considering how this game is, I think that's forgivable in a run as long as this. Even the Egg Emperor thing would have only cost about :01 out of the over 1:10 run.
However, I'm not sure I agree with the idea of using real time. With the exception of Team Dark, the in-game timer seems perfectly reliable, and saying that using real time makes the run more entertaining seems like a cop-out. I'd probably still accept it if it were timed under the in-game timer, as in this particular case it doesn't make a huge difference, but whether we use real time or the in-game timer will set a precedent for future runs. Well, except for Team Dark again, which will need real time regardless.
Anyways, if we total up the in-game timer, we get 55:34.44. You might want to check my math on that one, though. Adding up all those numbers can very easily introduce an error.
Lastly, I enjoyed the author's comments, especially the level of hate directed at the game. Very entertaining.
Decision: Accept
Reason: The runner defied game-crippling randomness and glitchiness to produce this run.
About the timing, is it only team dark's team blast that freezes the timer? Either way, it doesn't make much sense to measure one team by real-time and measure all of the others by in-game time.
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