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Five hundred first entry - follow the butterflies
2012-07-04 18:36:04
Time - 5:21, Noise - the game I'm playing
Good news for my Fatal Frame II speedrun. I've got the Kusabi's rage attack down to a science. Now I know how to lure it out on his first attack every time. You have to get up in his face.
Okay, so that seems like it would be obvious, right? Not so much. With most ghosts, you can be at any distance when they go to attack you, but as long as you snap the photo at the right moment, you get the Fatal Frame. With the Kusabi, if you don't start right up close to him, he won't even do the attack that gives you the opportunity.
I'm having trouble nailing the second shot in the combo, though. You have to have the camera pointed pretty high for the first shot, and then you have to quickly crank it down for the second, since he's been blasted back some distance from you. I've only practiced it a few times now, though, so I'm not discouraged. I just need to try it a few more times yet.
Also, I decided that two upgrades of Blast with only two Type-Zero film shots left isn't enough to take him down. The only questions left then is if three upgrades would do the trick. I don't think it would, but three upgrades might take out Kurosawa in two hits instead of three, leaving me with three shots of Type Zero and THAT along with the higher damage output might be enough to take out the Kusabi in one round.
I think I'm just going to start my speedrun, and when I get to the save point just before the Dollmaker, which is my last chance to make a decision, I'll branch off to two different files. One will upgrade Blast thrice, and one will not upgrade it at all. Then, I can see which is the better idea without sacrificing the first half of a perfectly good speedrun.
This is exciting. All of my strategies are being proven and it's all coming together. Years of studying and practicing are going to pay off soon.
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Five hundredth entry - The Lightning Strike
2012-06-27 10:00:00
Time - 8:56, Noise - Coldplay - "Paradise"
That moment when you get an idea for a new video.
Beautiful and priceless. Pure childlike happiness.
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Four hundred ninety ninth entry -
2012-06-11 22:08:28
Time - 9:03, Noise - AMVs
Every time I watch a gaggle of videos, and I reload the page, I still have twenty more in my pending stars.
WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Four hundred ninety eighth entry - so sleepy *YAWN*
2012-06-07 23:35:18
Time - 9:47, Noise - air conditioner and fans
My speedrun is proving... frustrating. Let's leave it at that. I have a whole day of attempts tomorrow to correct this. : |
Gonna get back on the train of recording Dark Cloud 2. I have so little left that I need to capture of the footage. It just needs to get done so that I can start percolating ideas through my brain for a video. Also, fuck Spheda. That's all.
I keep looking at my Pending Stars and thinking, "Man, I'm in the mood to watch some AMVs," and then I actually start one, and I remember why I can't commit to a sitting of it. Most of them are terrible. I would really like to get them watched and rated, though, because I have a couple dozen more waiting for me to download. (And no, for all of my cynicism, I'm not a douchebag who will star without watching.)
It seems like my mother is becoming a drug seeker. I say this half-jokingly, but then that means it's also half-serious. She has complained of a headache that has lasted for nearly two years. I chalked most of it up to stress, which should be greatly lessened after recent events. Doctor's visits and head scans have proven little, except to give her one prescription after another. Every time something works, it eventually stops working, or she finds a side effect to complain about (and she always very closely inspects the side effects, likely so she can feign half of them for sympathy later). She works in a pharmacy, and our cupboards are starting to become one. Coincidence? I'm seriously starting to wonder.
You might think it sounds callous, but keep in mind that her medical problems started over ten years ago when she got the gastric bypass surgery (yes, she was better off when she was fat than she is now). For ten years, I have had to hear her whine nonstop about every cut, scrape, bump, bruise, blister, sunburn, cold, coldsore, allergy, headache, sideache, stomachache, toothache, joint pop, muscle pull, and my personal favorite, the consistency and color of her bowel movements, urine, and vomit, no matter how many times I tell her that I do not want to know. Not even kidding. If I give her that phrase, her response every single time is, "Well no, but," and she'll continue right on as if I hadn't interjected.
It's not the fact that she complains ceaselessly about her problems. It's the fact that her problems are always more important and ten times worse than yours. If I mention I had a tough time sleeping last night (which I did), she will immediately launch into how she hasn't been sleeping well for the last month, oh!, and how she gave out sleeping medicine to a customer at work, and how she had to run his insurance, and how to do the insurance, and how to deal with insurance issues, and how some customer three hours later asked where the digestives were, and how she's the only one who knows that section well enough, and how she had to help, and -
Oh, what was that, Jen? Sleeping? What?
I don't get to talk about me. That's why you guys have had to see so many vents from me here. I have ranted and raved to my best friend far too many times, and I feel bad for wasting so much of her time on it, and so I decided to put it here, in a form where others can ignore and skip over it if they don't want to read it. or reply if they do.
...which reminds me. I wanted to say thanks to everybody who has been so nice to me here, especially recently with all of the crap I went through. Even though I'm a perfect stranger to most of you, I've gotten a lot of kind words - the sort that I haven't gotten from my own friends or family at times.
Anyway, I'm not gonna get all mushy on you guys. Despite how I sometimes nail the .org to the wall over stray irritations, this is a pretty darn cool community, and I'm happy that I've been a part of it for so long.
Well, food isn't gonna serve itself. Time for a super-late dinner.
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Four hundred ninety seventh entry - Crimson, Taboo, Twin, Disaster, Ritual
2012-06-01 00:45:05
Time - 10:22, Noise - traffic outside
Warning: exhaustive speedrunning mumbo-jumbo ahead.
So I realized that during weeks when I'm practicing Fatal Frame 2, I divide my free time into "speedrunner's time." Instead of saying, "I have to cook dinner in an hour," I think, "Hey, I could practice segment one four times or get all the way to Chapter Seven once - luck providing - before I have to cook dinner."
Not hypothetical. This actually happened. >_>
I haven't touched the game in a while, and so I'm a bit rusty, but I'm excited to say that I may have developed two more time-saving strategies.
For one, I think I have the Miyako fight down to a science. Even with the Fatal Frame indicator (I was using Clear Data to practice), I couldn't nail her shutter chance when she attacked. It was literally only a few frames long. However, if I let her attack Mayu, it's guaranteed, and I don't need to even think about timing. I always got jumpy before and snapped the photo just as Mayu got grabbed, but the trick is to wait until she screams. As soon as you hear that, you can take the Fatal Frame at your leisure. It'll never go away.
It seems that Mayu can't die on Easy, or it at least is very, very difficult to kill her. I let Miyako throttle the poor girl for at least a minute while examining the situation. I walked up to them, and then through them, and then just focused on Miyako and took a good look at her attack animation. It was fun. Anyway, for the speedrun, now I just have to manipulate luck a bit to make sure that she doesn't appear inside of any walls and her first attack targets Mayu.
The second improvement that excites me also relates to Mayu's seeming invincibility on Easy. When doing the book puzzle in the Kurosawa house (for the Light Key, I believe), a Man in Dark will attack when you leave through the next room. The strategy is simple: ditch Mayu and run for it. Even if attacked, she'll be fine. (My old strategy was to make the ghost disappear by re-entering and exiting the puzzle room.) Another Man in Dark is at the end of the hall before the room with the Light/Shadow Key cell in it, but I've found that in about one out of every ten attempts, he simply doesn't register you, and therefore won't attack. If I can combine those two tricks, I will save at least twenty seconds, maybe more.
There's one more strategy for which I'm really on the fence. I'll have to test it out. The issue is that it would require me to enter my menu an extra time, likely negating its usefulness. I'm considering upgrading Blast just before the final boss. I don't upgrade it normally because... well, two reasons. One, I don't have enough Spirit Orbs or Points until the end of the game. Two, it has a very annoying effect that screws up my timing for Fatal Frames. The enemies' reeling animations (after they've been hit with Blast) will last longer, making the lag between combo shots last longer. It just throws off my rhythm. Since most battles are done within one swift combo attack, any lag between shots is just adding wasteful time, since the possible increase in damage has no bearing.
However, the final boss is a little different. Even if I get a two-hit combo on him (only two because that's all I have left of Type Zero after the Kurosawa fight), he won't go down in one turn. Two turns is the best possible outcome, but I'm wondering if upgrading Blast could change that. Would my measly two hits be enough? I would still have to enter my menu either way (either switching to Type 90 for my second turn or entering it to upgrade Blast if I can do it in one turn).
Like I said, I'm on the fence. It mostly hinges on whether or not the battle can be finished in one turn with the new strategy. If yes, it could save a fair bit of time. If no, then there's no point.
What's doubly frustrating is that I can't seem to goad the final boss into attacking me aggressively (only his aggressive attack - which looks exactly like the normal attack, but faster and with a louder growl - produces a Fatal Frame opportunity). I try moving around a lot, both towards and away from him, but his rage attacks seem random. I have to get this attack in my final recording... which means getting a perfect Kurosawa over... and over... and over... and that takes several tries in itself. For practicing, I'm going to save after Kurosawa, but in the real thing, that battle on through the end of the game will all be in one segment.
The final hallway can troll me from time to time, too, but I have a pretty good strategy to avoid double hits. You hug the left wall before taking the hit, and then immediately aim for the other wall after you get out of the grab. This forces the Mourners to turn to get the next grab in, which takes more time and lets you escape more frequently. Combine that with the fact that I pick up a Stone Mirror, which uses itself automatically when you die, and I've cut out accessing my menu completely in that section.
That's part of the problem, though. If I can nail the final boss in one combo by upgrading Blast, then I might have to do the upgrade before Kurosawa. The menu is slow as hell, and I would rather get all of that stuff done in one trip. I don't know how an upgraded Blast might affect Kurosawa. Again, gotta test it.
The final trouble, and this is more of an annoyance, is the fact that the Spirit Orb may not be worth grabbing. I know I can't use save points while the chapter headings are onscreen, but I'm not sure about picking up items. The most convenient one is at the start of Chapter Seven... but the heading is onscreen for several seconds. I might have to search out another one along my path. I'm sure it won't be hard if it poses an issue. (The one in the cemetery comes to mind.)
Anyway, that's a lot of obsessing over what will amount to maybe a minute of improvement, but hey, fifteen-second increments are what I've been improving by for the last year or two, so a full minute gets me really excited.
Finally, if you're curious, my best time so far is 1:34:07. I'm positive that I can get 1:33:00 or even less. I don't think that sub-1:30 is possible, to be honest, barring some crazy glitch, but we shall see. I've never gotten what I consider to be a perfect run, even with old strategies, so I may surprise myself yet.
I'm overdue for bedtime.
G'night, folks.
- Jen
JOURNAL: dj_ultima_the_great (Jen )
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