Post subject: Mystical Ninja - Starring Goemon
Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
I made a quick test run of this game, as it's probably one of my favorite N64 games. It's by no means perfect, but it's a good first shot. It goes up to getting the Chain Pipe at Mt. Fuji and returning to Oedo in about 8000 frames. Test Run. I have an analog gamepad, so it made recording the movie relatively easy to do, but it's hard to get pixel perfect with it. You'll probably spot a few places where I have to adjust the angle of my running a bit to compensate for my direction. Though I am pretty happy with how the inside Mt Fuji turned out, that room took quite a bit to get right. I may continue this test run up until the end of the first dungeon, and perhaps including the first Impact sequence, just to see how well the emulator handles the game up to that point. A note, I use Rice's Video Plugin v5.6.0, to my experience that plugin handles the game better than the others. Though no emulator nor plugin can emulate the game perfectly, unfortunately, it's not as well emulated as Mario 64, or even Banjo Kazooie.
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 325
im bumping this cause i hope someone will see the thread and start a run of it.. it would make for an awesome run i think
Former player
Joined: 9/5/2004
Posts: 19
It's pretty good, but I'd rather see Goemon's Great Adventure, which is a better game in my opinion. However, I'm not sure it's feasible since the game screws up on underwater sequences no matter what emulator or plugin you use.
Joined: 4/5/2007
Posts: 72
Mega Bump. Started screwing around with this, finished up to the first castle. If anyone likes it, ill continue. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/209770135/MYSTICAL%20NINJA%20%28USA%29.m64
Joined: 10/31/2005
Posts: 329
Location: The Netherlands
I would totally watch the end result
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
I've played up through festival temple and it has some minor glitches in the cutscene after there. For some reason it's only using the top half of the screen for the entire frame. Could be video plugin related. During TASing you can probably skip the Cold Kunai and take damage to get past the fire floors. It's a nice sequence break since you grab the gold key and then head to the boss rather than a long temple of silver key and ice kunai. I don't think it's used later, but I'll keep playing for fun. I may take this run eventually, or help with route planning if Spoony_Bard wants to continue his test run. There's a lot of variety but it can drag on in some points. If we add a commentary explaining some of the Japanese locales, it could be a nice movie because the game has fairly nice sound and scenery. Most of the places are real Japanese areas.
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
JuanValdez wrote:
It's pretty good, but I'd rather see Goemon's Great Adventure, which is a better game in my opinion. However, I'm not sure it's feasible since the game screws up on underwater sequences no matter what emulator or plugin you use.
I got the underwater parts to work using the Glide64 plugin and disabling hardware frame buffer emulation. It appears to be a FB issue, probably the wavy effect it does on the whole screen. Now if we can just get rid of mupen's terrible lag...
Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
I would definately watch a TAS of this game. But what are you going for? Any% or 100%? I feel either one would be entertaining. :3
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
100% would just add a TON of backtracking for extra hearts, it wouldn't be very interesting. There are a few places where taking damage leads to faster times, so getting a gold fortune doll or two isn't out of the question.
Joined: 4/5/2007
Posts: 72
or you know, taking damage and manipulating health from enemies works just as well too... especially considering the length of the animation when you get the fortune dolls.
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
karterfreak wrote:
or you know, taking damage and manipulating health from enemies works just as well too... especially considering the length of the animation when you get the fortune dolls.
There is a section of the festival temple with a large amount of fire platforms and no enemies. Normally this requires the Kunai of Severe Cold (TM) to cool them down so you can pass, but if you do it carefully, you can land on the hot platform, take damage and not bounce off the platform. There are quite a few of these platforms so you may need 1 or 2 gold dolls to get enough health to climb the whole way. The goal would be to skip the Cold Kunai and a large section of Festival Temple with it, Which would certainly save more time than the animations for the two dolls. There aren't any enemies IIRC so more containers are required. Luckily there are 2 such gold dolls available before Festival Temple. One is in Ghost Toys Castle across a thin tightrope, which can be tricky in real play, but trivial in a TAS. Another one is behind a cracked wall that you can bomb open once you get Sasuke. It may or may not be on the way, but if a second additional heart is needed, this will probably be it. Lemme go look at the room and try to climb with savestates w/o cooling the platforms and make sure the sequence break is possible. EDIT: Nevermind, it is possible to get through only taking 2 hearts of damage. If in the future more is needed, the Ghost Toys doll is definitely the fastest.
Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
I don't know about that. That 100% SDA run is rather entertaining. Besides, in a TAS you can pretty much get anything at any time, except in some cases. ;3
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
Kitsune wrote:
I don't know about that. That 100% SDA run is rather entertaining. Besides, in a TAS you can pretty much get anything at any time, except in some cases. ;3
There are a lot of ones that require you to go back to previous dungeons after you have extra powers. Unless you can find a way to get a good deal of these early, then it won't be that entertaining. Not to mention that most of these are accompanied by the lengthy dragon warp sequence. I haven't been able to find any productive glitches for the game. Most of them just involve the player falling out of the screen. Many require Sasuke's flying magic, which is so late in the game that you would have to do the regular way before doing the glitched way. The main reason that I don't care about 100% is that any% is good enough. The only thing 100% will add to the movie is backtracking and dragon warps. (and the dances when they get cats) The any% will show pretty much the whole game, so why add 20 minutes of bland and repetitive content just for the boss fighting mode. I had also realized that the Impact song will be in the finished movie 3 times... Do you guys think this should be edited out of the AVI or kept in?
Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
By all means, edit the song out. It takes way too long, and by the time it's finished, half of us will be asleep anyway. Rather boring song.
Joined: 7/26/2006
Posts: 1215
I don't think people would be cool with an avi that isn't exactly like what you'd see in the emulator. Whether a song is in it 3 times or not.
Joined: 10/31/2005
Posts: 329
Location: The Netherlands
I think both any% and 100% would be good here too. the dolls are also part of the game and they do give a special treat for collecting them all so I think it is worthy to do. surely it will also show more parts of the game, it's been a while for me but I bet some areas you'd never go to if not for the dolls. I think any% would be better to start out with, but for me, either is just as good.
Former player
Joined: 8/17/2004
Posts: 377
Hey, I'm glad to see there's an interest in this game again. I don't have the time anymore (or even the skill, really) to TAS, but it's great to see someone else take Goemon up. And my vote is to leave the Impact songs in the AVI. Boring? They're awesome! But I'm a fan, so I'm biased. :D Heck, I even wish it were possible to put the opening song in the movie as well, but since that can be skipped to save time it wouldn't make practical sense, oh well. And yeah, any% would be better to start off with, since it would be far more likely anyone not familiar with the game would watch a shorter movie, than a much longer one.
Joined: 10/31/2005
Posts: 329
Location: The Netherlands
you can have the intro song at the end of the movie, it should be allowed since at least 2 of the solstice published tases have it
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
Editing a part out of a movie is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, especially when the viewer can manually skip it themselves.
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
Fair enough AKA. I think I'm going to take a crack at it. I would like to see karterfreak's initial test, but microstorage seems to be acting up. Already started route planning. The SDA run makes a mistake getting the map from the first teahouse. The dragon will give it to you later automatically if you don't have it. You still need to pop in for sec so that you can warp back to it later when you upgrade the weapons. There is another issue that's bugging me: Ryo. You need at least 1130 Ryo to beat the game. You start with 100, so somewhere along the way you need to collect over 200 5ryo coins. There's a room in Oedo castle that has 120 ryo (24 coins) that can be redone continuously for profit. I have been able to somewhat manipulate enemy ryo drops too. It may be better in the long run to collect them as I pass by enemies. This is probably more entertaining even if the time is the same. It makes this whole mess a much riskier venture though. Gonna figure out the Ryo/sec for that first Oedo Castle room and see how much time is acceptable for a 5-ryo drop.
Joined: 4/5/2007
Posts: 72
Zdude, im planning on completely finishing this run, so unless you can do it faster than me, dont bother :-D
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
Fair enough, but I'm gonna do it if I don't see a test run that completes Oedo Castle soon.
Joined: 4/5/2007
Posts: 72
Well, i could put my old shitty run that has oedo castle finished up, but it isnt worth anything because it has alot of mistakes in it before getting to oedo castle, so i dont see the reason to. Either way, im at the front of oedo castle in my improved version, so wait a few days and i should have oedo castle done, and maybe the first impact fight too.
Joined: 10/31/2005
Posts: 329
Location: The Netherlands
2 are better than one, so you could both have your go at it, compete and compare, and make a final result together that might just benefit from 2 people doing it.
Joined: 6/26/2007
Posts: 147
karterfreak wrote:
Well, i could put my old shitty run that has oedo castle finished up, but it isnt worth anything because it has alot of mistakes in it before getting to oedo castle, so i dont see the reason to. Either way, im at the front of oedo castle in my improved version, so wait a few days and i should have oedo castle done, and maybe the first impact fight too.
I have a feeling glitching into Oedo w/o the Chain Pipe is faster than regular walking. It's definitely entertaining too. You still gotta go get the Pipe first cause it's required for the castle though.