My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/ZeldaTwilightPrincess.html
Daniel 'Jiano' Hart's single-segment Gamecube run
Verifier Responses
I told the runner most people are accepting the run because it's such a big improvement.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a 50+ minute improvement.
Daniel 'Jiano' Hart's single-segment Gamecube run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Accept. It's a four-hour long single-segment run with lots of complicated glitches and sequence breaks, few time-consuming mistakes, and fifty minutes of improvement on the previous run.
Not really sure what else needs to be said.
Not really sure what else needs to be said.
Quote:
Well, Twilight Princess. I...really dunno what to say about this game. I'm expecting to see some interesting new shortcuts and sequence breaks, that's for sure, especially if it's got anything on the previous run.
Video and audio quality are excellent.
The initial round of village tasks goes just fine, as does pretty much everything else including the run up to breaking the kid and the monkey free.
One of the goats decides not to cooperate completely in the 2nd round, but it's hardly a loss.
The entire castle section looks good, as do fetching the sword and shield.
Tears collection looks good; skips a few, but looks to be intentional, probably coming back for them later.
First interesting shortcut: Runner charge-attacks through one of the portal guardian things, and ends up in some out of bounds territory. Navigates through it a ways and ends up right at the Sacred Grove entrance.
Lost Woods itself goes great. Grabs the sword, warps back to S. Faron Woods to finish up tear collection, then up to the dungeon.
Next shortcut, we'll remember this one from the previous run; after freeing the two monkeys to get on the left side of the wind room, uses some well-timed jumps and a bit of glitching through the guardrail of one to get over the rotating bridges without needing the boomerang. Mid-boss gets spanked, quite literally, and in record time; runner knocks him down and delivers four quick spin-slashes to dispatch. And oh yes, I remember the other awesome shortcut from the previous run, enabling the runner to get through the last room without needing all eight monkeys rescued: uses the pull from the boomerang returning to long jump (which I'm gonna abbreviate to BRLJ) over to the mushrooms the monkeys normally stand on. He climbs up to the top one, then BRLJ's over to the boss door. Oh, and don't blink, lest you miss the boss fight completely.
'Cross the field, into the darkness we go. On over to Kakariko for some bug hunting, which goes without a hitch, of course.
Okay, now, that was bizarre. There're some crazy video issues during Epona's freak-out scene, likely triggered by Link being in wolf-form at the time. Doesn't appear to affect the game at all, though; luckily the on-screen control prompts are still visible.
Lalala, summon Eopna after getting the boots, back to the field, and skips through the locked gate heading to the west section by parking Epona adjacent and rolling through it. The game gets a tad bit confused, and dumps him onto the bridge upon hitting a black wall. Down to Lake Hylia we go. Up to melt the Zoras, then bug hunting, which goes just fine, including the fight with the really big one.
Mansion looks good, including the sequence of shortcuts in the ice room that we've seen in the previous run; bomb up to the top, BRLJ over to the cannon, then skip through the...Freezard? I think that's what that thing is called, into the ball'n'chain fight, which goes flawlessly. Spin slashes to the rear seem to suit most fights in this game.
Makes his way down to the Water Temple using some weird sort of exploit involving the ball'n'chain, water bombs, and the iron boots being used in a certain combination which restores his air for some odd reason.
Once into the main center room, he double BRLJ's to the lower east door. Another DBRLJ gets him across the rotating hanging platform room. Yet another BRLJ in the room following to jump over the edge to get to the mid-boss room. It dies really fast, of course. This dungeon is so ridiculously breakable, apparently. Next skip at the bottom of the center room, bomb while holding the vines on the wall to a timed release pushes him down through the floor, and the game basically glitches him down to the boss room from there. The boss itself is what I'd call the first major mistake of this run; it's very apparent how difficult this is in conjunction to having to reset the air repeatedly, however. Basically, four misses occur in trying to clawshot to the eye, resulting in about 1:30 of loss. There's also an obvious pause and break in the recording after Midna's done talking, though no inconsistencies are apparent from this.
2nd trip up to visit Zelda goes fine. A minor time loss in some jumping error occurs, ~10 seconds of loss.
Out to the desert we go. Run through is fine, as well as the approach up to the dungeon. Gets a bit messed up trying to light the torches before the main center room, gets poked by a few skeletons. ~10 seconds of loss. 'Nother BRLJ in the big sand room west of center gets him on top of the chandelier, and another on his way back through after the 3rd poe gets him across to the other side. Mid-boss fight for the spinner goes perfectly. Perfect run up to the big key as well. Boss phase 1, yeah, he's annoying and very random. He got a raw deal on getting stuck on one of the claws and having to run up the slope to the edge again, ~20 seconds of loss. I'm not at all disappointed with the first phase, though. 2nd is perfect, flawless approach and a string of spin-slashes to end it.
Back to Kakariko to skip through the owl statue, which only takes 12 attempts, spanning 2:35, so count about 2:30 of loss. Given that it's this late in the run, and how bloody precise this has to be to succeed, it's acceptable (Midna says some amusing things here, like "Things that aren't N", "Yup yup you need me", "We aren't people", and "What are you doing?" after several failed attempts, ironically enough. :P). Up to CitS we go.
I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of BRLJs here, and he starts off with two of them in the first room north of the entrance. Three more in the rooms leading up to the tower down to the mid-boss, and of course the quick-drop down to the lower level of the tower itself. Mid-boss fight goes perfectly. 'Nother BRLJ in the ascending tower, and two more in the big room following. Yet another outside the upper center. And OMG, who figured you could get through the approach to the boss tower without having the blades rotating? The BRLJ involved freaked me out, seriously, and makes for 11 total. Then again, this entire dungeon didn't appeal well to my moderate fear of heights, so yeah...Boss tower climb goes without a hitch. Boss itself is again basically perfect, from what I can tell.
Into Zant's stupid dark castle thing we go. Thefts the first ball without a hitch, and runs it out like nothing. BRLJ over to the east section. This first room botches quite badly; it takes a harrowing 70 second to kill the stupid head thing to trigger the key, probably 45 of which could be considered loss. Steals the second ball easily, and the escape with it looks a lot better than the approach. Everything past that looks great.
Zant fight time. 51 hits later, he's done. All phases look good, the water one especially, considering that he has to reset his air meter several times.
Hyrule castle time. Outside fights go fine, despite the always-evident potential for lupine charge attacks to randomly screw up. Inside, same, wastes the mid-boss armor guy like there's no tomorrow, continues on. Inner castle, all fights again good. On up to Ganon we go.
24 hits to a meager 4 to Link, he goes down hard, just like this entire game.
Overall, this run is fantastic. It beats the pants off the previous one, through new shortcuts and skipping an additional dungeon entirely. Its overall impressiveness more than makes up for the meager few mistakes that can be noticed. I see no reason to not accept this run.
Video and audio quality are excellent.
The initial round of village tasks goes just fine, as does pretty much everything else including the run up to breaking the kid and the monkey free.
One of the goats decides not to cooperate completely in the 2nd round, but it's hardly a loss.
The entire castle section looks good, as do fetching the sword and shield.
Tears collection looks good; skips a few, but looks to be intentional, probably coming back for them later.
First interesting shortcut: Runner charge-attacks through one of the portal guardian things, and ends up in some out of bounds territory. Navigates through it a ways and ends up right at the Sacred Grove entrance.
Lost Woods itself goes great. Grabs the sword, warps back to S. Faron Woods to finish up tear collection, then up to the dungeon.
Next shortcut, we'll remember this one from the previous run; after freeing the two monkeys to get on the left side of the wind room, uses some well-timed jumps and a bit of glitching through the guardrail of one to get over the rotating bridges without needing the boomerang. Mid-boss gets spanked, quite literally, and in record time; runner knocks him down and delivers four quick spin-slashes to dispatch. And oh yes, I remember the other awesome shortcut from the previous run, enabling the runner to get through the last room without needing all eight monkeys rescued: uses the pull from the boomerang returning to long jump (which I'm gonna abbreviate to BRLJ) over to the mushrooms the monkeys normally stand on. He climbs up to the top one, then BRLJ's over to the boss door. Oh, and don't blink, lest you miss the boss fight completely.
'Cross the field, into the darkness we go. On over to Kakariko for some bug hunting, which goes without a hitch, of course.
Okay, now, that was bizarre. There're some crazy video issues during Epona's freak-out scene, likely triggered by Link being in wolf-form at the time. Doesn't appear to affect the game at all, though; luckily the on-screen control prompts are still visible.
Lalala, summon Eopna after getting the boots, back to the field, and skips through the locked gate heading to the west section by parking Epona adjacent and rolling through it. The game gets a tad bit confused, and dumps him onto the bridge upon hitting a black wall. Down to Lake Hylia we go. Up to melt the Zoras, then bug hunting, which goes just fine, including the fight with the really big one.
Mansion looks good, including the sequence of shortcuts in the ice room that we've seen in the previous run; bomb up to the top, BRLJ over to the cannon, then skip through the...Freezard? I think that's what that thing is called, into the ball'n'chain fight, which goes flawlessly. Spin slashes to the rear seem to suit most fights in this game.
Makes his way down to the Water Temple using some weird sort of exploit involving the ball'n'chain, water bombs, and the iron boots being used in a certain combination which restores his air for some odd reason.
Once into the main center room, he double BRLJ's to the lower east door. Another DBRLJ gets him across the rotating hanging platform room. Yet another BRLJ in the room following to jump over the edge to get to the mid-boss room. It dies really fast, of course. This dungeon is so ridiculously breakable, apparently.
2nd trip up to visit Zelda goes fine. A minor time loss in some jumping error occurs, ~10 seconds of loss.
Out to the desert we go. Run through is fine, as well as the approach up to the dungeon. Gets a bit messed up trying to light the torches before the main center room, gets poked by a few skeletons. ~10 seconds of loss. 'Nother BRLJ in the big sand room west of center gets him on top of the chandelier, and another on his way back through after the 3rd poe gets him across to the other side. Mid-boss fight for the spinner goes perfectly. Perfect run up to the big key as well. Boss phase 1, yeah, he's annoying and very random. He got a raw deal on getting stuck on one of the claws and having to run up the slope to the edge again, ~20 seconds of loss. I'm not at all disappointed with the first phase, though. 2nd is perfect, flawless approach and a string of spin-slashes to end it.
Back to Kakariko to skip through the owl statue, which only takes 12 attempts, spanning 2:35, so count about 2:30 of loss. Given that it's this late in the run, and how bloody precise this has to be to succeed, it's acceptable (Midna says some amusing things here, like "Things that aren't N", "Yup yup you need me", "We aren't people", and "What are you doing?" after several failed attempts, ironically enough. :P). Up to CitS we go.
I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of BRLJs here, and he starts off with two of them in the first room north of the entrance. Three more in the rooms leading up to the tower down to the mid-boss, and of course the quick-drop down to the lower level of the tower itself. Mid-boss fight goes perfectly. 'Nother BRLJ in the ascending tower, and two more in the big room following. Yet another outside the upper center. And OMG, who figured you could get through the approach to the boss tower without having the blades rotating? The BRLJ involved freaked me out, seriously, and makes for 11 total. Then again, this entire dungeon didn't appeal well to my moderate fear of heights, so yeah...Boss tower climb goes without a hitch. Boss itself is again basically perfect, from what I can tell.
Into Zant's stupid dark castle thing we go. Thefts the first ball without a hitch, and runs it out like nothing. BRLJ over to the east section. This first room botches quite badly; it takes a harrowing 70 second to kill the stupid head thing to trigger the key, probably 45 of which could be considered loss. Steals the second ball easily, and the escape with it looks a lot better than the approach. Everything past that looks great.
Zant fight time. 51 hits later, he's done. All phases look good, the water one especially, considering that he has to reset his air meter several times.
Hyrule castle time. Outside fights go fine, despite the always-evident potential for lupine charge attacks to randomly screw up. Inside, same, wastes the mid-boss armor guy like there's no tomorrow, continues on. Inner castle, all fights again good. On up to Ganon we go.
24 hits to a meager 4 to Link, he goes down hard, just like this entire game.
Overall, this run is fantastic. It beats the pants off the previous one, through new shortcuts and skipping an additional dungeon entirely. Its overall impressiveness more than makes up for the meager few mistakes that can be noticed. I see no reason to not accept this run.
Quote:
Audio Quality - Good
Video Quality - Good
Gameplay Quality:
Ordon/Faron Area:
First herding was somewhat sloppy, and probably could have been at least 6 seconds faster; since it's in the beginning of the run I think it deserved a restart, but I can understand the difficulties of working so hard to get a reasonable SS run in the first place.
The cage opening took a lot longer than I think it should have for only being 10 minutes into the run. I noticed you tried to do the trick where you hit them both at the same time with the slingshot, but it didn't turn out well and as a result it looked very noticeable that you were having problems.
Second herding deserved a restart, no question. How someone who's done TP runs before can accept a herding like that is beyond me.
Twilight Castle:
Midna text skip didn't work, but it didn't lose that much time. Worth a try. The rest of this area is flawless, though.
Eldin Province Twilight:
A few mistakes here and there, and overall it was easy to tell that at this point you were being more careful about doing certain maneuvers. It's a good idea for a SS run, but it's very noticeable here and it makes watching a speed run feel more like watching a walkthrough or something else.
Hyrule Field:
I just wanted to point out how perfect the Early Lanayru Twilight skip went. That deserves mention for being an hour into the run and being executed so professionally.
Snowpeak Ruins:
Bomb boost skip didn't turn out too well, but for 1:40 into the run a 15 second mistake isn't worth as much. On the bright side, the Freezard skip and Ball and Chain battle go perfectly.
Outside Snowpeak Mansion:
What was so necessary about getting that last heart? Even after going to the map, you closed out the map to try to get it again. Just a bit of a nit-pick, but that was kinda tacky.
Lakebed Temple:
Morpheel seemed to give you a lot of problems, and at one point I thought you'd run out of water bombs. I suppose most of the battle is luck, though, and I can imagine how annoying it must be to keep having to do the air glitch. Also, what was with the "pause" after getting the heart? Somewhat tacky similarly to getting the heart outside the Snowpeak Mansion.
Arbiter's Grounds:
Very messy run of the temple. There were mistakes in nearly every other room, and they add up quite a bit. Regardless of being SS, this went pretty bad and ruins the run a bit. Stallord was just awful.
CitS Early:
I got it on my first try faster than this when the glitch was first discovered... I think at this point, having had such a rough start and having just gone through a terrible Arbiter's Grounds run, that I would have restarted the run and called it a day. All these attempts make it look like a big joke, although I'm pretty sure you took the run seriously.
Palace of Twilight:
The Zant head in the east wing should have been a sign that you should have restarted at the CitS Early issue. That whole thing ended up wasting about a minute, which is ridiculous. If that couldn't have said "Restart" any clearer, then the clawshot issue immediately following should have. However, I guess that considering you were at the closing of the run you decided that you may as well finish and see the results. Zant went well, so that's a plus.
Overall Decision: Decline
It was a good run and it's a great improvement, but some of the mistakes in the run are just too time depriving and make the run look bad. In addition, having had such a rough start in the first 10 minutes makes one question why you didn't restart then instead of having to go through the trouble of making future mistakes knowing that the start was bad too. Considering the mistakes throughout this run, I'm guessing you could easily get 3:53 (maybe even 3:52) if you did the beginning clean and didn't run into any issues during Arbiter's Grounds, CitS early, or the Palace of Twilight. Aside from the first 10 minutes and those three areas, the run went very well for a SS run; however, again, the mistakes within these areas were bad enough to make the run look bad and lose significant time.
Video Quality - Good
Gameplay Quality:
Ordon/Faron Area:
First herding was somewhat sloppy, and probably could have been at least 6 seconds faster; since it's in the beginning of the run I think it deserved a restart, but I can understand the difficulties of working so hard to get a reasonable SS run in the first place.
The cage opening took a lot longer than I think it should have for only being 10 minutes into the run. I noticed you tried to do the trick where you hit them both at the same time with the slingshot, but it didn't turn out well and as a result it looked very noticeable that you were having problems.
Second herding deserved a restart, no question. How someone who's done TP runs before can accept a herding like that is beyond me.
Twilight Castle:
Midna text skip didn't work, but it didn't lose that much time. Worth a try. The rest of this area is flawless, though.
Eldin Province Twilight:
A few mistakes here and there, and overall it was easy to tell that at this point you were being more careful about doing certain maneuvers. It's a good idea for a SS run, but it's very noticeable here and it makes watching a speed run feel more like watching a walkthrough or something else.
Hyrule Field:
I just wanted to point out how perfect the Early Lanayru Twilight skip went. That deserves mention for being an hour into the run and being executed so professionally.
Snowpeak Ruins:
Bomb boost skip didn't turn out too well, but for 1:40 into the run a 15 second mistake isn't worth as much. On the bright side, the Freezard skip and Ball and Chain battle go perfectly.
Outside Snowpeak Mansion:
What was so necessary about getting that last heart? Even after going to the map, you closed out the map to try to get it again. Just a bit of a nit-pick, but that was kinda tacky.
Lakebed Temple:
Morpheel seemed to give you a lot of problems, and at one point I thought you'd run out of water bombs. I suppose most of the battle is luck, though, and I can imagine how annoying it must be to keep having to do the air glitch. Also, what was with the "pause" after getting the heart? Somewhat tacky similarly to getting the heart outside the Snowpeak Mansion.
Arbiter's Grounds:
Very messy run of the temple. There were mistakes in nearly every other room, and they add up quite a bit. Regardless of being SS, this went pretty bad and ruins the run a bit. Stallord was just awful.
CitS Early:
I got it on my first try faster than this when the glitch was first discovered... I think at this point, having had such a rough start and having just gone through a terrible Arbiter's Grounds run, that I would have restarted the run and called it a day. All these attempts make it look like a big joke, although I'm pretty sure you took the run seriously.
Palace of Twilight:
The Zant head in the east wing should have been a sign that you should have restarted at the CitS Early issue. That whole thing ended up wasting about a minute, which is ridiculous. If that couldn't have said "Restart" any clearer, then the clawshot issue immediately following should have. However, I guess that considering you were at the closing of the run you decided that you may as well finish and see the results. Zant went well, so that's a plus.
Overall Decision: Decline
It was a good run and it's a great improvement, but some of the mistakes in the run are just too time depriving and make the run look bad. In addition, having had such a rough start in the first 10 minutes makes one question why you didn't restart then instead of having to go through the trouble of making future mistakes knowing that the start was bad too. Considering the mistakes throughout this run, I'm guessing you could easily get 3:53 (maybe even 3:52) if you did the beginning clean and didn't run into any issues during Arbiter's Grounds, CitS early, or the Palace of Twilight. Aside from the first 10 minutes and those three areas, the run went very well for a SS run; however, again, the mistakes within these areas were bad enough to make the run look bad and lose significant time.
I told the runner most people are accepting the run because it's such a big improvement.
Quote:
So I'm the odd one out of the pack, eh? x_x I realized it was a great improvement but that was mostly thanks to the time savers that were found. Based on the run alone, not comparing it to the old run, it's got some major mistakes in it, SS or not. Not that is matters though, majority vote.
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Audio and video are fine.
The 4 major mistakes, morpheel, stallord, CitS early and the first room in the east wing of palace of twilight look pretty bad and cost about 5 minutes total, but outside of those there are few mistakes that cost more than 5-10 seconds. The tears are all done well and the dungeons are all great, exept for arbiters grounds which was just ok. Morpheel and stallord sucked but they're heavily luck based. He got really lucky in other places though like sumoing and getting rupees, and the hard tricks like EMS and the lake hylia gate clip are pulled off first try. Overall the run is great. Accept.
The 4 major mistakes, morpheel, stallord, CitS early and the first room in the east wing of palace of twilight look pretty bad and cost about 5 minutes total, but outside of those there are few mistakes that cost more than 5-10 seconds. The tears are all done well and the dungeons are all great, exept for arbiters grounds which was just ok. Morpheel and stallord sucked but they're heavily luck based. He got really lucky in other places though like sumoing and getting rupees, and the hard tricks like EMS and the lake hylia gate clip are pulled off first try. Overall the run is great. Accept.
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My comments towards the run:
Audio and Video quality were excellent
No signs of cheating whatsoever
Now the run quality is quite good itself. I was laughing a lot when Morpheel just kept on going upwards and denying Jiano from attacking him, it was just all bad luck for that part.
Worst part of the run was obviously city in the sky early trick, but that is hardly anything compared to the 51 minute improvement of the previous run. Overall the first half of the game was great, and the temples overall were pretty solid. I could not reject this run simply because the pros heavily outweigh the cons.
Accept
Audio and Video quality were excellent
No signs of cheating whatsoever
Now the run quality is quite good itself. I was laughing a lot when Morpheel just kept on going upwards and denying Jiano from attacking him, it was just all bad luck for that part.
Accept
Decision: Accept
Reason: It's a 50+ minute improvement.
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