Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy

2012-12-17 08:14:09 pm

F*ckin' sanity effects...

Just wanted to put in my tri-monthly encouragement, haha. I'll be so excited to see this hit the verification thread! I never thought anyone would run this game properly. Congratulations on your new personal best and dying to see the final product when the time comes. Good luck!

Cerpin

2013-03-14 10:15:47 am

Suss

Got a 2:34:58 yesterday with very bad boss luck. Sub-2:30 is getting closer... I may take some more extensive notes and make my route a little bit nicer for anyone looking to pick up the game.

Sloth

2013-03-14 07:45:29 pm

You should post that run, i'm very interested in picking this game up.

Cerpin

Edit history:

Cerpin: 2013-04-01 10:23:38 am

Cerpin: 2013-04-01 10:20:54 am

2013-03-14 10:17:50 pm

Suss

http://www.twitch.tv/zlamp/b/377394414
It's not all that great... I miss the jump into the alcove in Luxor Pyramid and get some awful boss luck. My later sections are pretty sloppy too. It should serve as an okay guide nonetheless... I can add you on Skype or something like that if you have questions. Just PM me your username if you want to do that.

Just making some notes on stuff DecidedSloth found:
- You can do a delayed jump instead of the sidle trick to skip burning boxes in the last mummy section.
- It may actually be faster to get crocodile scales. I will retime the sections that benefit from them.
- Interacting with a save statue and selecting "no" will set your spawn point to that statue. You can use this to take the following (much easier) route for Uruk at the end of the game:

Not shown: You need to as far left as possible and be hit once initially after your spawn point is set.

- It may be better to buy 20 scarabs instead of 15 to eliminate the need to get a capture beetle drop in Uruk Canyon. This would require more money, and the best place to get it seems to be Great Wall II. I'll time this as well once I get a moment.

http://www.twitch.tv/zlamp/b/377394414
It's not all that great... I miss the jump into the alcove in Luxor Pyramid and get some awful boss luck. My later sections are pretty sloppy too. It should serve as an okay guide nonetheless... I can add you on Skype or something like that if you have questions. Just PM me your username if you want to do that.

Just making some notes on stuff DecidedSloth found:
- You can do a delayed jump instead of the sidle trick to skip burning boxes in the last mummy section.
- It may actually be faster to get crocodile scales. I will retime the sections that benefit from them.
- Interacting with a save statue and selecting "no" will set your spawn point to that statue. You can use this to take the following (much easier) route for Uruk at the end of the game: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=588zY7--qow
Not shown: You need to as far left as possible and be hit once initially after your spawn point is set.

- It may be better to buy 20 scarabs instead of 15 to eliminate the need to get a capture beetle drop in Uruk Canyon. This would require more money, and the best place to get it seems to be Great Wall II. I'll time this as well once I get a moment.

Uilnslcoap

2013-04-01 10:23:40 am

F*ckin' sanity effects...

I have not stopped being interested in this, so thank you for your continuing work. I've been kinda holding myself back from checking out your progress, but I might take a look at the 2:34:58 just because I'm starved for a good play of this game (even though I know this one is a good distance from your goal).

Metalic

2013-04-07 06:59:09 am

Really impressed with all the progress being made in this game. I checked about 2-3 years and saw nothing on it when I was first interested, and now all this. I figured there'd be some skips, but dang, these are pretty major. Real nice work, I just may have to rebuy a copy and pick this up.

Cerpin

Edit history:

Cerpin: 2013-05-06 04:12:15 pm

Cerpin: 2013-05-06 04:00:30 pm

2013-05-06 03:59:57 pm

Suss

Delete this post please, my apologies

Cerpin

2013-09-27 06:34:36 pm

Not sure if this will be useful yet. It allows you to get a great deal of distance compared to a normal jump.

Add this one to this list of anomalies. I have no idea how I got out past the trigger and I've never managed to do it again.

Derpy_dungeon

2013-10-20 09:33:11 pm

Try to play with the mechanics of the hover. Could be useful!

aleckermit

Edit history:

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 10:32:39 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:34:56 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:12:15 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:11:07 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:10:53 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:10:27 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-11 09:07:38 am

2015-03-11 09:06:32 am

I've just started playing this game on the 'Cube and the speedrunner in me started looking for shortcuts early so I came here and wow... Cerpin's done a ton of work on this. I might be down with continuing work on this game, I've found some minor timesavers myself. I'll go ahead and beat it first so that I can understand the game's intended route, but if Cerpin's still around maybe we can collab (TAS?).

Did research progress stop after forward hover was found? I can definitely see a few uses for that already.

Also, is there a place where I can view Cerpin's fastest run? His Twitch page seems to have been deleted.

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 08:18:17 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 08:15:58 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 05:28:20 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 03:43:58 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 03:38:35 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 02:56:52 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 02:39:40 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 02:38:11 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 02:34:52 pm

2015-03-14 02:29:36 pm

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

Wow, right when I was thinking about doing run of this someone posts in the thread. Cheesy

Cerpin's run is no where to be found iirc but the only run with a video is by ovendonkey... http://www.twitch.tv/ovendonkey/c/2770801

There is like 20 minutes of the video missing unfortunately but I was planning on messaging Cerpin to see If he still has the any% route. (unless the one on page 2 is most up to date) Below abahbob shows an example of the forward hover in the mysterious location. I also have 3 tricks I found that may be old but here they are for reference. Were you planning on doing a segmented run or single segment? I'll definitely help you out and look for strats and optimizations. It'll be nice to see an optimized run of this game. Cheesy

Btw, do you know how to execute the fast sword strats for fighting used in oven donkey's run? I was never able to figure it out.

EDIT: Just found this earlier with the hover. Very small timesaver.

EDIT2: Found another use of the hover in the first Uruk Castle visit. You skip moving the blocks and rotating the middle pillar of the room. It also skips burning the switch that is used to move the pillar. Should save maybe 20-30 seconds? It should be very possible to skip activating these fire switches entirely by hover around one of the structures on the top right to the side where the chest is. I can't hover fast enough and it might be Tool-assisted only. I'm so positive it is possible.

Wow, right when I was thinking about doing run of this someone posts in the thread. :D Cerpin's run is no where to be found iirc but the only run with a video is by ovendonkey... http://www.twitch.tv/ovendonkey/c/2770801

There is like 20 minutes of the video missing unfortunately but I was planning on messaging Cerpin to see If he still has the any% route. (unless the one on page 2 is most up to date) Below abahbob shows an example of the forward hover in the mysterious location. I also have 3 tricks I found that may be old but here they are for reference. Were you planning on doing a segmented run or single segment? I'll definitely help you out and look for strats and optimizations. It'll be nice to see an optimized run of this game. :D

Btw, do you know how to execute the fast sword strats for fighting used in oven donkey's run? I was never able to figure it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAAakUvV-2o&spfreload=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJKvQHg5n_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2nwoqK1nc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2x_iKj0NIo

EDIT: Just found this earlier with the hover. Very small timesaver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r2RXhIj1sQ&feature=youtu.be

EDIT2: Found another use of the hover in the first Uruk Castle visit. You skip moving the blocks and rotating the middle pillar of the room. It also skips burning the switch that is used to move the pillar. Should save maybe 20-30 seconds? It should be very possible to skip activating these fire switches entirely by hover around one of the structures on the top right to the side where the chest is. I can't hover fast enough and it might be Tool-assisted only. I'm so positive it is possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHgI-RLZHos&feature=youtu.be

aleckermit

Edit history:

aleckermit: 2015-03-14 10:14:40 pm

aleckermit: 2015-03-14 10:13:32 pm

aleckermit: 2015-03-14 10:13:09 pm

2015-03-14 10:11:07 pm

Cool shortcuts Unreal.

I'll be looking for shortcuts for a while myself. My main focus right now is TAS though. With TAS hovering I was able to skip the first Slim Burble/boulder puzzle:

I'll post finds that pertain to console running here, and finds that are TAS-only on TASvideos.org.

Glyph Key Timesaver Improvement: You can hit two hanging lanterns at once if you stand just between them when you swing the sword. Maybe you can jump from the rope to the bird head? I tried a few times with no luck but I was very new to the game at that point.

Crate Skip in Great Wall Improvement: I'm pretty sure you can hover from the floating gold platform right over the fence instead of hitting the two targets, might be TAS-only though.

Keep up the cool finds!

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 11:39:13 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 11:28:47 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-14 11:28:03 pm

2015-03-14 11:26:45 pm

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

Wow, I had a feeling that skip was possible! Looks pretty precise, you think console players have a chance at that? I try tapping my analogue stick fast but make sure i get enough distance. It's hard to get good distance without loosing much height.

I've tried jumping onto the top of the bird head but had no success. Even if we do get up and across, I'm not sure how we would get back without activating the rope.

You gave me an idea for the great wall and I was able to skip the small cutscene with hover where the cat enemy gets smashed by the spikes. It only saves 3 seconds but every second counts... I wasn't able to hover over the wall. In a TAS you will definitely be able to make it.

Cool that you are interesting in a TAS of this game, do you know if it is faster to jump up the ladders compared to climbing them? Also I had an idea to skip a glyph key in Great Wall 2. In the area where you do the fight skip to get the glyph key, it may be possible to grab the rope without activating the switch by hovering to the rope. Then from there you can use the glyph key in the next room to skip the key where you have to kill the 3 bugs. Just an idea...

Here are two known tricks that are made easier with hover... Also I was close to skipping turning into that black smog creature but there seems to be a huge invisible wall

A nice death warp that may be known in Great Wall 2 along with that cutscene skip.

Wow, I had a feeling that skip was possible! Looks pretty precise, you think console players have a chance at that? I try tapping my analogue stick fast but make sure i get enough distance. It's hard to get good distance without loosing much height.

I've tried jumping onto the top of the bird head but had no success. Even if we do get up and across, I'm not sure how we would get back without activating the rope.

You gave me an idea for the great wall and I was able to skip the small cutscene with hover where the cat enemy gets smashed by the spikes. It only saves 3 seconds but every second counts... I wasn't able to hover over the wall. In a TAS you will definitely be able to make it.

Cool that you are interesting in a TAS of this game, do you know if it is faster to jump up the ladders compared to climbing them? Also I had an idea to skip a glyph key in Great Wall 2. In the area where you do the fight skip to get the glyph key, it may be possible to grab the rope without activating the switch by hovering to the rope. Then from there you can use the glyph key in the next room to skip the key where you have to kill the 3 bugs. Just an idea...

Here are two known tricks that are made easier with hover... Also I was close to skipping turning into that black smog creature but there seems to be a huge invisible wall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14cPnMeQQvI&feature=youtu.be

A nice death warp that may be known in Great Wall 2 along with that cutscene skip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF_VzQBIALM&feature=youtu.be

aleckermit

Edit history:

aleckermit: 2015-03-15 11:35:02 am

aleckermit: 2015-03-15 11:21:47 am

2015-03-15 12:36:13 am

Quote from Unreal704:

Wow, I had a feeling that skip was possible! Looks pretty precise, you think console players have a chance at that?

No, I don't think it's doable on console. It was hard even with TAS, although I need to learn how to keep maximum height still. EDIT: It's 3 frames forward and 1 frame still. 9 and 2 is faster but loses more height.

Quote from Unreal704:

do you know if it is faster to jump up the ladders compared to climbing them?

With Sphinx, jumping just before the top of a climbable surface and then using his sword attack/second jump to reach the ledge and avoiding the climb-up animation is faster, yes.

With the Pharaoh, he doesn't need anything other than his first jump to bypass the top of the surface/ladder and land on the ledge.

EDIT: Here's the TASvideos thread http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16523 .

Cerpin

2015-03-15 12:24:43 pm

Suss

I'm glad people are showing interest in this game! I am a rather bad speedrunner and couldn't do the game justice. I'll try to get a current, detailed route written up, record the smaller shortcuts, and time version differences once I'm on spring break next weekend. As to the fast sword swing, repeat this: shield and slash immediately after while holding forward. You should be able to do the first strike in the combo over and over very quickly.

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 01:07:07 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 01:06:48 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 01:06:36 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 01:03:47 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 12:29:46 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 12:28:52 pm

Unreal704: 2015-03-15 12:27:13 pm

2015-03-15 12:26:04 pm

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

That Shield of Osiris early trick is pretty cool. I want to give it a try on console but I doubt it is possible. I never knew that the trick to the quick slashes was alternating between the shield and sword. Thanks for that!

While playing through Uruk Canyon I found a neat damage boost that could potentially skip a battle. the only problem is the gate stays closed until you defeat the slew of enemies. If we could figure a way to clip through the gate we could have a skip... Also in the middle passage, I tried damage boosting across the gap off of that electric armadillo. The problem with that was I already beat the section and saved so the bridge was extended. I came very close to the ledge but I couldn't get as much distance like I did off those green guys. I feel like it is possible with hover to skip extending the bridge in the middle section...I'll give the boost off the armadillo another try on my next play through.

Another thing I wanted to note was an idea to get into the Geb Queen's lair early. Maybe you could hover from the island you start at the one of the upper ledges on the Geb Queens Island. From there you might be able to access the loading zone from behind...

Also have another idea is to skip the Pass Card. from the bridge closest to the boat, maybe you could hover to the big statue in the water and somehow ascend it and possibly clip oob from there. That's is like the last big skip I can think of. It will skip Great Wall 2 and Uruk Canyon. Smiley

Also looking forward to the route and the shortcuts! Smiley

EDIT: PM me if you guys have Skype. We have a Sphinx group!

That Shield of Osiris early trick is pretty cool. I want to give it a try on console but I doubt it is possible. I never knew that the trick to the quick slashes was alternating between the shield and sword. Thanks for that!

While playing through Uruk Canyon I found a neat damage boost that could potentially skip a battle. the only problem is the gate stays closed until you defeat the slew of enemies. If we could figure a way to clip through the gate we could have a skip... Also in the middle passage, I tried damage boosting across the gap off of that electric armadillo. The problem with that was I already beat the section and saved so the bridge was extended. I came very close to the ledge but I couldn't get as much distance like I did off those green guys. I feel like it is possible with hover to skip extending the bridge in the middle section...I'll give the boost off the armadillo another try on my next play through.

Another thing I wanted to note was an idea to get into the Geb Queen's lair early. Maybe you could hover from the island you start at the one of the upper ledges on the Geb Queens Island. From there you might be able to access the loading zone from behind...

Also have another idea is to skip the Pass Card. from the bridge closest to the boat, maybe you could hover to the big statue in the water and somehow ascend it and possibly clip oob from there. That's is like the last big skip I can think of. It will skip Great Wall 2 and Uruk Canyon. :)

Also looking forward to the route and the shortcuts! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ig8_nzSis&feature=youtu.be

EDIT: PM me if you guys have Skype. We have a Sphinx group!

aleckermit

2015-03-15 01:49:33 pm

Could you not lure a Slim Burble (I can't say that creature's name without smirking) over and boost off of it to skip the boulder puzzle? Would be a good console alternative. Anyway I'll PM you my and Cerpin's Skype names so that you can add us to your group.

Ovendonkey

2015-03-20 08:50:35 pm

I'm really happy to see people playing this game. Back when I ran this I didn't have much time to put into it so I only completed a couple runs. I've been wanting to get back to it so I might join you guys soon. I always felt like there was a lot more skip potential than what's been found so far.

Unreal704

Edit history:

Unreal704: 2015-03-22 11:31:38 am

Unreal704: 2015-03-21 09:23:13 am

2015-03-21 09:22:13 am

Also known as Bottles/Sydynski

I'll update the thread with some skips that have been found.

Aleck found ID skip but it's Tool assisted only so far.

EDIT: Segment 1 redone on gamecube. The load screens are a second faster on my gamecube so I switched over. Smiley

No real mistakes here.

Unreal

2015-07-04 09:37:08 am

I wanted to update the thread with an updated run. We can now do pass card skip on console so that saves around 17 minutes. In my run I got a 2:10:16 but lost 4 minutes on pass card skip, 1:30 on Geb Queen and another 2 minutes else where. I think a 2:02 would be an optimal run of this game. a 2:01 or possible a 2:00 if someone manages to get amulet dupe.

http://www.twitch.tv/unreal704/c/6919243

Remidemmi

2016-11-23 07:02:00 pm

Hi, i picked up this game recently, thanks a lot unreal for filling the speedrun.com page, it was very helpfull.

I got a 2:11 recently, but i am playing on USB Loader because I only own the PAL version of the game, which turns out to be heavly patched.

Anyways, 2 things i found out while messing with this game:

First: If you run off the edge with full speed for foward hovers, you can gain some extra distance which makes a lot of the hovers easier for RTA (especially the boulder skip), sadly it doesnt help much with passcard skip as you have close to no space to build up speed on that dumb statue.

Second: As you may or may not know, the last slash of sphinx' tripple slash attack does double dmg. Turns out that also applys to Bosses, which allows you to defeat them in less Cycles. For example, this allows you to 3 Cycle Set instead of the normal 6:

This also works on Geb Queen (thank god) and the Spider boss, altho on the spider boss it causes him to become invincible for a pretty long time, so you would only want to do it on the last attack for each cycle. It's probably not worth going for on that boss, because at most you'd cut the 3. round, but you risk messing up the manipulation strat.

This can actually be pretty hard to pull off because you need to avoid hitting your first 2 attacks but need your third one to hit right after, which is even worse on Set because he likes to push you arround with his hands. You often end up either hitting him early or missing him completly.
It's a lot easier on Geb queen because she pretty much stands still once the bugs latch onto her.

Hi, i picked up this game recently, thanks a lot unreal for filling the speedrun.com page, it was very helpfull.

I got a 2:11 recently, but i am playing on USB Loader because I only own the PAL version of the game, which turns out to be heavly patched.

Anyways, 2 things i found out while messing with this game:

First: If you run off the edge with full speed for foward hovers, you can gain some extra distance which makes a lot of the hovers easier for RTA (especially the boulder skip), sadly it doesnt help much with passcard skip as you have close to no space to build up speed on that dumb statue.

Second: As you may or may not know, the last slash of sphinx' tripple slash attack does double dmg. Turns out that also applys to Bosses, which allows you to defeat them in less Cycles. For example, this allows you to 3 Cycle Set instead of the normal 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIFm5Zgc848

This also works on Geb Queen (thank god) and the Spider boss, altho on the spider boss it causes him to become invincible for a pretty long time, so you would only want to do it on the last attack for each cycle. It's probably not worth going for on that boss, because at most you'd cut the 3. round, but you risk messing up the manipulation strat.

This can actually be pretty hard to pull off because you need to avoid hitting your first 2 attacks but need your third one to hit right after, which is even worse on Set because he likes to push you arround with his hands. You often end up either hitting him early or missing him completly. 
It's a lot easier on Geb queen because she pretty much stands still once the bugs latch onto her.

Remidemmi

2016-11-25 09:38:25 am

Well I got a 2:02:29 (still on USB Loader so I wont submit it), pretty good run overall, I got 2 of the 3 possible Luxor Amulett Dupes and saved 2 minutes, got passcard skip within 50 seconds (first actuall attempt at the hover but I failed getting on the Statue a lot) and really solid boss fights, altho I missed 1 of the 3 possible double hits on each Set and Geb Queen.

I also lost arround a minute in Lost Temple and some minor stuff here and there, but nothing major. I might buy a disc and try to improve this, for now I want to look into finding possible time savers or route changes.

Im thinking about doing the Dragon Boss right after Mummy 1, the only difference would be no Accid Darts for the fight, but it would put Passcard skip 50 minutes earlier into the run.

zeldafan001992

2016-12-28 04:33:36 pm

Has anything else been found for this game? I found a skip that has potential timesave, but would like to show it in a run

Remidemmi

2016-12-28 07:20:07 pm

not really, i've come up with some minor optimizations since i did my run, but nothing really worth mentioning since that cycle skip on bosses i posted

zeldafan001992

2016-12-28 08:04:52 pm

Well, I found a way to get into the lost temple of Heliopolis much faster. It would make the routing for the game change
I can PM you a link of the trick, but I am not certain if it would be faster