More SH4 news

I’m trying to find more glitches of this game, to help with speedruns and other mess-abouts. The biggest thing I’ve found thus far is the weapon charge trick, with is basically the realization that accumulated charge can be used from any weapon to any weapon. You can speed up high-level charges many seconds with this, by first gathering charge with (f.e.) paper-cutting knife, then switching over to a heavy weapon, keeping the full charge. Most useful on higher difficulties…

I’ve devised some strats for a speedrun, and I’m showcasing them with a test speedrun (easy-mode, new game). I’ve recorded the first half, up to the end of apartment world, and the save time is 00:22. The second half will undoubtetly be more interesting than the first, both because of the more complex item management and the reckless Eileen strategies that are possible on easy-mode. I’ll record that half when I got the energy, maybe in a week or so.

By the way, I earlier mentioned about 3 new kills I am able to reduce from the kill count (for worst possible stars). The method is: you can run through a Toadstool whilst recovering from a hit, meaning that 1 innocent life can be spared at each mandatory Toadstool spot where Eileen is not with you. Unfortunately, if Conquerer’s FAQ is correct, I would have to find 2 kills to prevent in order to ever get a score of 0.8…

Silent Hill 4 “worst possible stars” results

So, during my 17 kills run with every other stat at its potential worst (according to Conquerer), I got 1 whole star. This was a lot more than I expected, since according to the calculations, I should’ve gotten only 0.4. In any case, I was not discouraged, and soon found a way to reduce my score even further.

In my earlier post I speculated whether other characters’ kills add to the total Enemies Defeated-count, but I know now they don’t. I was able to kill all the Toadstools at Water Prison II’s sub-levels by pushing Eileen into them, reducing kill count by 7. Now I was the proud owner of a 0.9 star ranking! However, it seems at least one more worst star run is in order, since I found a way to reduce the kill count by 3 more…

On another note, I did a practise speedrun on easy for this game, with the final time of 1:03:05. Not too shabby!

Silent Hill 4 “worst possible stars” run.

I’ve seen a lot of requesting for 10-stars runs for any of the Silent Hills, but hey, why not for the “worst possible” star runs? According to Conquerer’s Silent Hill 4 FAQ, the star requirement for 0.2 stars would be…

Difficulty: Easy
Play time: Over 11 hours 30 minutes
Saves: 10
Continues: 10
Enemies Defeated: 1 star per 6 enemies
Memos found: 32/52 or less
Ending: doesn’t matter
Freebies: 0.2 stars

*some spoilers follow*

Silent Hill 4 ponderings

Out of the first four undoubtetly the worst. The designing has so many loose ends and rough edges it can’t be anything else but a result of a rushed schedule. They could’ve done more with the concept of a “room”, and from gameplay standpoint, the lack of a 3D-control is very noticeable…

Why am I bringing up something like this right now? I began re-playing the game, assessing challenge run possibilities. I think a no-running, pacifist HARD-mode run would work really fine with this game too, have to keep it in mind for the future. More info on that time.

(I’m reluctant to begin new gaming projects right now thanks to my SH3 run still being in the middle of completion. And there’s no telling when I’ll get back to doing it…)

Diablo II frustration

Diablo II, a game I’ve been playing on and off for SUCH a long time. Recently I picked it up again to finish up some business which still bugged me, such as certain experimental character builds.

My style of playing for this period is quick, fair and detached from material possessions: it is done on Europe HC ladder, magic finding and leveling is kept to a minimum and character deaths (which I actively try to avoid, but you know those wacky PKs) are considered mostly inconsequential, with no useless moping between the characters which are still in assembly line. An efficient approach – and as such I hopefully get this game out of my system again less than a month from now.

In the past I did my share of grinding and trading just to get the right balance of equipment…

Worst challenge idea yet…

It suddenly dawned upon me that a no-running run of Siren would be so horrible it would drive anyone attempting it into madness.

Sure, there’s no traditional button for controlling running and walking in this game. The closest thing to it is the R2-button, which controls first-person view, during which you can only walk. Manageable, yes, even though a bit cumbersome. The FPV would be an interesting atmospheric trait, though.

The real nightmare begins when you step off the drawing board into the actual game itself. Can’t outrun anything. Absolute stealth would be necessary… and regardless you’d die at a couple of spots during the game, like at Risa’s Day 1 – 22:00 start and possibly during the transition between final bosses, when you are chased with a sword.

Ah, I’ve been caught with walk-run-itis. Maybe I need to process this, see what can be resolved and what not.

EDIT: interestingly, Risa’s D1 22:00 is doable! The door to storage is close enough for you to walk there, and after you get in, you can hide behind the door and ward off Mina this way. Haven’t found a solution for Kyoya’s D3 23:00, though.

SH3 HARD, pacifist, no running-run playlist

Here’s the playlist which contains current progress. As of writing I’ve reached nightmare Hilltop Center in 11 segments.

Thoughts on Siren 2 deathruns

So, another patch is finished. Let’s look into statistics and other odds & ends and revel in the filthy, victorious feeling a bit longer.

Longest run: the very first level of the game in which you can die, Mission 2 of it that is, taking over 47 seconds.

Shortest run: Yorito’s third-to-last level, “Joint Struggle”. About 2 seconds as a whole.

Character dying the most amount of times: Mamoru, 8 times. Not only he dies in each of his own levels, he gets to be guest killed at one of Yorito’s and Ikuko’s levels! Oh, and if you want to count it, he dies one additional time at pt. 3 because of a run attempt I re-did at pt. 4, and also because there’s two versions of his death in the hands of Yorito in the same vid.

Character dying the least amount of times: a tie between Kanae and Ikuko, both dying only once. Oh, and Ichifuji.

My favorite run: may be Yorito’s first level. It was one of the first ones I did, and I was so pleasantly surprised at the solution I wanted to try out the rest of the levels afterwards. Yorito’s second level is also fun thanks to the “nipple torture” and slight OOB moment!

Least favorite run: probably Mamoru’s second level (I dislike the ambience in general there), or pretty much any level in which I had to manipulate strangling and nothing too interesting could be achieved. (if only this game didn’t have such durable sidekicks…!)

Cheers.

Silent Hill 3 HARD-mode, pacifist, no running-run

This is a run type that’s been intriguing me for a long time already, and yesterday I started doing it. Basically… Heather is not allowed to harm any enemy who isn’t mandatory to defeat during the game (e.g. anyone except the bosses). Quite the opposite, since she will periodically stop to feed the monsters with her hard-earned beef jerky.

Another thing is that she can’t run in rooms where there are monsters. If she did that, it would hurt the monsters’ self-esteem a bit, wouldn’t it? Would give the impression that she doesn’t want to hang out with them. It’s truly challenging to live up to your reputation as a saint.

Note: running is allowed in areas where there are no monsters. ‘Tis to avoid redundancy, and because it’s unlikely you could survive Borley’s mansion without running (the red fog is technically not an enemy, so…)

I’ve recorded halfway past nightmare mall, but I’m not sure whether I should publish it or not. I’ve never done this type of run before, and as such I’ve saved pretty much whenever a new save point was readily available (a total of 4 times as of now). Maybe when the things heat up a bit at later levels I’ll start dropping videos at ye.

The best TAS I ever saw

It is Shinryuu’s (& co.’s) brand new Mega Man 2 TAS. Absolute care for detail, some very artistic/scientific glitch trickery. A roller coaster of unexpected twists and turns!

http://tasvideos.org/1242M.html

A close contender for the best is Deign’s Mega Man 1 TAS, because it’s even more glitched. So gracefully mind bending…