Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

hugues wrote:Is anyone over there working on a Phantasy Star II TAS?

Well, sort of. As someone hinted at earlier there was a good effort to TAS Phantasy Star II and it was possible to avoid all random encounters. Because of the nature of the design of Phantasy Star II it was considered too boring to do this way and never submitted to be published.

You can see some more details about the Phantasy Star II run at http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 9&start=17


EDIT: Oh, and for the published Phantasy Star IV TAS at http://tasvideos.org/1488M.html , if you want to listen to my somewhat imperfect audio commentary track it's at http://www.wrftpb.com/psiv/janus-phantasystariv-v2.mp3

Cool. I couldn't tell from that discussion but how did they get past the boss battles? It sounds like there's a glitch where you can run from them but I didn't see where it said how that works.

There was a weird glitch at the end. Talking to Lutz the last time crashed the sound or something. So no music or sound from Noah's ship on.

This happened to me once on an actual cartridge. I have no idea what triggers that bug.

hugues wrote:This happened to me once on an actual cartridge. I have no idea what triggers that bug.

That happens on my original cartridge, too. It happens when I talk to Lutz after gathering all the Nei weapons. Going to Noah during the glitch will cause the game to crash if you try to leave Noah (I think; it's been a while). I figured out the hard way not to visit Noah while the music was screwed up. I had to do Naval all over again because I was terrible about saving the game often.

I seem to remember something about being able to run from boss battles, too, but it was so long ago and I can't remember what magazine contained that hint. Maybe I'm remembering the wrong game.

I don't think I can really field questions about how the bosses were beaten because I don't know Phantasy Star II anywhere near as well as Phantasy Star IV and, much more significantly, I haven't actually watched that unpublished run.

I'll try to remember to watch it sometime soon and see if I can figure out how it works.

If its emulated its by default an invalid speed run, if its done the right way then i'd be impressed, whoever did it in 1hr 30min has nothing to be proud of.

Edit: Should of put a sarcastic eye roll before posting but forgot.

Very positive attitude. It never claimed to not be tool-assisted and it never claimed to be skill-based. And as I said, it's more like an exercise in programming than in gaming. It's very interesting to watch, so try to appreciate it for what it is.

I can't really demand that you respect the work that has been put into it but perhaps you could try to understand it before you start slamming it.

I do understand and I would hardly call that a slam, lets just move on.

I know there are mixed opinions on emulation and tool-assisted speed runs. I personally enjoy both tool-assisted and human speed runs but for different reasons.

The tool-assisted runs are a great way to understand what the best possible time to complete a game is. *In theory* every one of them could be done by a human being but often it would be nearly impossible. They're an exercise in theory and technical skills which is very appealing to someone like me who went through graduate school for computer science.

Human speed runs are of course more of an exercise in hand-eye coordination. They're very impressive to me because they require 100% error-free play to achieve.

Quite often the things they find in the tool-assisted speed runs are used to help human players improve their time. It's interesting to see how close humans are getting to some of the tool-assisted runs in some cases. Here's one example:

Super Mario Bros - Human: 5m 8sec
Super Mario Bros - emulated: 4m 57sec

Wow, just an 11 second difference - I don't think it's completely out of the realm of reality that someone will break the 5:00 mark using some of the techniques uncovered in the emulated run.

I'm not sure I'd really enjoy a human speed run for some of these early RPGs, anyway. I can select inventory items and battle strategies really quickly (almost without thinking about it), but that's because I've played the PS games several times over. Other than selecting items and battle strategies, though, you're at the mercy of the game. A human speed run for an RPG would be mostly useful for showing the lowest possible level for winning the game. That's an interesting challenge. When I first beat PSII I hadn't even learned Megid yet. This isn't a brag; I didn't really understand the concept of "grinding." I died numerous times getting through the game! The only grinding I did was to take Shir on a major stealingshopping spree. I was loaded with star mist and moon dew when I went to Noah, and I'm sure that contributed heavily as to why I beat the game. (For the record, Shir grinding (wow, that sounds dirty) is about the most boring activity ever, and I've never used this strategy again. I have no idea what was going through my prepubescent mind back in 1990!)

Anyway, my point is that I can appreciate an emulated speed run for an RPG, because it's more interesting to watch, sort of like a movie.

FreshFeeling wrote:I don't think I can really field questions about how the bosses were beaten because I don't know Phantasy Star II anywhere near as well as Phantasy Star IV and, much more significantly, I haven't actually watched that unpublished run.

I'll try to remember to watch it sometime soon and see if I can figure out how it works.

It's been uploaded to youtube. He's speeds up a lot of the walking parts, and changes the music to make it more a little more interesting. The entire run is less than 30 minutes in real time way. I don't know if there is more to it, but it looks like he just runs from boss battles, so there might just be a really low chance of running from them. I haven't been able to find an actual explanation though. Here is a link if anyone wants to watch it.

Edit: I guess I'm not allowed to post links yet, so just search it on youtube