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- Created By Desbreko
Beautiful Day
Yes, I'm jumping on the bandwagon for this post. But it's amazing how much anime-related stuff I've done today, yet none of it was simply watching anime.
First up was creating the SRT version of the script from the ASS script for Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei ep2, which is the last thing I do before release. (Since you want the SRT script based off of the latest version of the ASS script and that gets tweaked throughout the quality checking.) Easy enough, since Aegisub has a handy-dandy line selection tool that makes picking the dialogue and lyrics lines out from among the typesetting lines simple. Then it was just a matter of exporting them in SRT format and doing a quick check through the episode to tweak some stuff.
So, finally, the episode has been released! A big thanks to Dagger for translating every little bit of text in it. And I can't believe I actually typeset all of it... On the plus side, ep3 looks like it will be substantially easier to typeset since two of the three chapters in it only have minimal amounts of on-screen text. Well, minimal for Zetsubou Sensei, but it will probably seem like a walk in the park compared to ep2.
After that I played Rock Band 2 with my brother for a while, which is the only thing I've done so far today that was not anime-related. Unless you count eating a delicious hot pepperoni and mozzarella sandwich. But even then, I was muxing together an h.264/AAC encode of GSZS ep3 while I ate... Anyway, RB2.
My brother seems to have gotten fed up with trying to play drums on hard so lately he's been playing expert guitar instead. Which is fine by me, since that means I get to play drums instead – I always thought I'd enjoy drumming, since I have good rhythm, and I was right since I'm enjoying it more than the guitar parts. Guitar is still fun, of course, but drumming just feels awesome when I'm banging away and thumping the bass pedal and nailing every beat. I've been getting noticeably better (especially in getting through more complicated fills without breaking multiplier) and can play nearly every song on hard now, but there's still a long way to go before I master expert difficulty.
Next up was preparing stuff for the Anime Club. In case you missed it, well, you missed it; voting for next two anime we'll be watching, that is. We ended up with a three-way tie between Escaflowne, Ichigo Mashimaro, and Kanon and I rolled a die to determine which two would be picked. And I know they were the two I voted for, but I swear it was chance that Ichigo Mashimaro and Kanon ended up winning the rolls. It still feels a bit wrong, though, since those were the two I most wanted to watch while, on the other hand, I'm not a fan of Escaflowne so I was kind of hoping it wouldn't get picked. Please don't hate me, Miss A.
To go along with Kanon being chosen, I decided to download Exiled-Destiny's DVD rips of it to replace my old a.f.k. TV fansubs. I'm still debating over whether to watch it subbed or dubbed during Anime Club. I've watched it subbed before, obviously, but have not heard the dub at all. The main thing I'm wondering about is whether or not Ayu's "Uguu~" is preserved in the dub... What do you peoples think?
Finally, I retimed the Shugo Chara ep74 script to my re-encoded raw (transport streams where?), which ended up taking both more and less time than usual. More because there were a ton of cross-fades between scenes in this episode while subs were being displayed, so to make it look nice I had to time a bunch of fade effects on the subs to match up with the scene transitions. There was also a bit of typesetting to do – there usually isn't any of importance in Shugo Chara – which was sort of a slap in the face after finishing GSZS ep2. But less time overall because I was doing this late at night/early in the morning and thus was not in chat, thereby increasing my efficiency by, like, 50%.
And guess what! I still have a few episodes to write about for my next week in anime screen shots post. It never ends.
Super Metroid - Phantoon - No damage
Well now, I never thought I'd care enough to make this fight happen with no damage but here it is. Since all the previous strategies I'd come up with required a large amount of luck to pull off no damage with, I never cared to spend the time replaying it over and over again until I got a perfect fight. (Also, I just don't like this battle; I was willing to spend over six hours on Ridley because it was a fun fight and entirely skill-based but this one is rather boring.) Some recent comments on my other two Phantoon videos, though, got me thinking about different strategies for the fight. Thus, after a few hours of pondering, testing, and practice, I ended up with this video.
The main difference between this video and my previous one is how I deal with Phantoon instantly appearing after being invisible. There's no way to predict where Phantoon will appear, which means no way to avoid it if it happens to appear on top of you. This was the big sticking point that kept me from pulling off no damage before.
Now, the main tip I've seen for avoiding Phantoon's instant appearances is to keep moving. This advice is worthless, however, because without being able to predict where Phantoon will appear it's just as likely you'll run into Phantoon appearing in front of you as you are to avoid Phantoon appearing where you moved from. I'm not sure why people think this is a good idea because I've tried it and the number of hits and dodges were pretty much the same as standing motionless.
A tip that actually makes sense, on the other hand, is to minimize the area where you can be hit by making yourself smaller – you can do this by rolling into a ball. Assuming Phantoon's appearance location is completely random, taking up one third the space while morphed into a ball would result in getting hit a third as often. I tested this idea and found that it works very well; while morphed into a ball, only very, very rarely did Phantoon appear low enough in the room to hit me.
So, having found a viable strategy, I gained the motivation to sit and practice enough to pull off a no damage fight. There was still some luck involved, since there are still situations where Phantoon can trap you with too many flames to avoid, but little enough to be tolerable.
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Phantoon beaten without taking damage. Played in real time on Snes9x v1.43+.
Phantoon is the hardest boss in the game to avoid damage on due to the amount of luck required to avoid some of its attacks. The strategy shown in this video minimizes your chances of getting trapped by unavoidable hits but it's still not entirely consistent.
Phantoon's normal attack pattern is fairly simple: It will drop flames for a bit while visible, then open its eye -- during which time it's vulnerable to attack -- while sending out a ring of flames around itself. After that, Phantoon will be invisible while dropping flames until it appears with its eye open, along with a line of flames that will drop from the ceiling. Phantoon will continue appearing with lines of flames until it's damaged, at which point its attacks will reset to the start of the pattern.
Now, the first thing you need to know is that the flames Phantoon drops from its closed eye won't hurt you until they've touched the ground or a wall. And the second thing you need to know is that you can use the Charge Beam to pass through all its flames unharmed. Simply charge up a beam shot and spin jump through them. This will save you from vast amounts of damage.
It's also important to know how Phantoon will react to certain attacks. If you hit it with a super missile it will cause Phantoon to appear at the top of the room and send eight waves of flames down at you, but these are easy to avoid by using the Charge Beam. If you hit Phantoon with a charged Ice/Wave/Spazer Beam shot, it will immediately disappear. If you hit Phantoon with a charged beam shot with only one or two of the other beams equipped, or with a missile, Phantoon will fly around the room for a bit, during which time it will be vulnerable to attack but will also damage you if it runs into you. Afterwards, Phantoon will always restart its attacks from the beginning of the pattern.
I've got a fever...
What I feared yesterday has come to pass. I woke up this morning with a sore throat that somehow manages to feel both dry and like there's gunk from my sinuses running down it at the same time. Joy. I'm not sure if I actually have a fever, but if I do it's at least not a bad one. I've been a slight bit dizzy at times but that could just be the sinus congestion throwing my balance off. My sense of taste is also a bit off.
Anyway, rhythm: I has it. I moved up to medium drums in Rock Band 2 yesterday after playing a few songs on easy and figuring out what the heck I was doing. Lots of five stars so far, with the occasional four creeping in. (WTF is with Tangled up in Blue by Bob Dylan? The actual beats in it are simple to play but there's not a steady pattern anywhere to be found in that song.) Sometimes it takes me a bit to pick up the beat, but once I figure it out I can usually stick to it consistently. Like, 600+ note streak on a song without having played it on drums before, consistently. I figure I'll finish out most of the tour on medium to refine the muscle memory and get better at fill transitions—I still accidentally hit the edges of the drums instead of the pads sometimes lol—then move up to hard. I may just end up enjoying drums more than guitar.
If anyone wants to take a look, I made a profile on rockband.com. Not much there yet but it's got a picture of my character. Yes, I made him look like Link. I was browsing through the various clothes and happened to notice this particular combo. I dunno if I'll keep him that way but for now I find it amusing. It's just too bad that there's no pointy hat to go with the rest of the outfit.
Jester is my brother's character. I have serious doubts about his taste in headgear.
My 21st birthday went well, better than I thought it would. I kind of expected to have to crash at my friend's place for a day or something to avoid my brothers trying to get me drunk. The two oldest returned home to the Bay Area before that, though, so nothing ended up happening. In fact, the whole thing was rather uneventful other than having some friends over Friday night to play RB2. But that's fine by me since I don't like making a huge deal out of my birthday.
Work on Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei ep2 is slow but continuing. I'm currently waiting for more sign translations from Dagger so go poke her if you're impatient. :p
And speaking of anime, the new winter season shows have started. Shin put up another thread on OB for talking about them and I listed the ones I'm interested in. I haven't seen much of them yet but once I do I'll probably post more thoughts in there.
Jingle Bell Rock Band
Well, Christmas has come and gone once more. I had a lot of fun yesterday and none of it involved my PC or the internet—OMG, like, I know, right? My two oldest brothers are up from the Bay Area for Christmas so all four of us have been hanging out.
Anyway, I'm guessing people will skim the post looking for the list of loot before reading the rest of it (or is that just me? >_>;) so, without farther ado, here it is:
• Rock Band 2 Special Edition bundle for the Wii
• Component video cable for the Wii (for hooking it up to the huge HDTV out in the living room)
• Digital converter box (for the crappy old analog TV in my room)
• $50
• A bunch of candy
Not a huge list but I'm happy with it. RB2 was my one big present that most of my family went together to buy me since it cost a little over $200 after tax. But, considering how I got Guitar Hero II shortly after Christmas last year and was playing it off and on until a few days ago, I think RB2 will last me a long time to come.
Speaking of RB2, we had to go on a small adventure to find one of the bundles. See, Harmonix put out a press release saying that the bundle would ship out to retailers on Dec. 18 and that it wouldn't arrive for 5-7 days. That is, retailers wouldn't get it until a couple days before Christmas. So, me and my mom happening to be up bright and early on Dec. 23, we decided to go look for one. (Yes, I went with her to buy my own Christmas present. She knows by now to bring someone along who knows what they're talking about so that she doesn't accidentally buy the 360 version or RB1 for the Wii or something by mistake.) It turned out they had actually shipped earlier than announced and retailers had gotten them the previous week, with the result being that everywhere in town was already sold out. ... Thanks, Harmonix, you guys did a great job on not saying anything about that.
When we checked at one of the GameStop stores in town they said there was, however, a bundle available at a GameStop in a city about 40 miles away. After checking one more place in town and coming up empty, I was surprised when my mom said she'd drive all the way out there to get it. I hadn't said anything about it and had just resigned myself to waiting until a bit after Christmas to find a copy, but she said it was fine when I asked if she was sure she wanted to bother. So we had the girl at GameStop call the other store and hold the bundle for us and off we went. A couple hours later we were back home with a shiney new Rock Band 2 bundle in hand—which then promptly disappeared for two days until I unwrapped it yesterday. :p
I seriously was not expecting her to go through that much trouble, though, so it gave me that warm fuzzy feeling inside when she did. My parents can be pretty cool at times. ^_^
So, anyway, I haven't played it much yet but I'm already loving the drums in RB2. I have pretty good rhythm so I jumped in and immediately did excellent on easy. Medium was a bit more tricky 'cause I haven't developed any muscle memory whatsoever for drumming yet, but I can definitely see myself rocking out on expert eventually. Also, having the green notes swapped from the left to the right side of the note chart was screwing me up because I'd be wanting to hit the yellow pad for blue notes since I'm used to blue being farther to the right on the chart; I cannot see any reason for swapping green's position other than to screw people over and it annoys me.
The new guitar is going to take a bit of getting used to as well. I like that the fret buttons don't stick up and that they're a little closer together than on the GHII guitar so that I don't have to move my hand as far when sliding to reach green and orange notes. But I don't like that they feel squishy, without any click to them whatsoever; it's harder to tell when exactly the button gets pressed and it was screwing with my timing for hammer-ons/pull-offs. That will take some adjustment.
The strum bar is also a lot looser and kind of squishy feeling. So far I like it more for double strumming since it takes less strength to move it (and its shape is just easier to grip between the thumb and index finger), which translates to more accurate timing for longer periods of fast double strumming. But it seems a little harder to do fast single strumming with it since it doesn't spring back to center as fast after a strum as the GHII guitar. I think it should still be possible, it will just require some adjustment to the strumming motion to take into account the lack of springiness.
And now I am going to go pwn the game's solo guitar career on hard to unlock more tracks.
Zelda A Link to the Past - Lv8 Ganon's Tower - Part 2 of 2
This is it! The last one! It wasn't quite one video per day (did anyone seriously expect me to keep that up?) but I am happy that I managed to finish this project in a timely manner. Now, if only I could get paid for doing this...
The climb up Ganon's Tower from 2F is definitely the hardest part of the game other than Ganon himself. Even when you know the best strategies for getting through each room, actually pulling everything off correctly is extremely difficult.
I had a couple close calls with the red Goriyas at the start where I was surprised I didn't get hit by their fireballs. And then the Beamos rooms... Those are just evil. I practiced those a lot and I still had to resort to using Bombos in the last one. It's just ridiculous.
The Lanmolas are actually a lot harder with that fireball turret thrown in. The timing on the fireballs match up way too well with the dirt clods from the Lanmolas and makes it really hard to find openings where you can hit them without a fireball nailing you right afterwards.
Wizrobes continue to be a joke.
The spike room with the two masked beetles and two fireball turrets is annoying. Again, the fireballs always seem to come at the worst possible times in there. I stepped on the spikes to get the key because I just didn't care.
Moldorm is really easy the second time because you can kill it without letting it speed up. The platform is also bigger, making it easier to dodge. I'm not sure how this one was supposed to be harder than the original fight in the Mountain Tower.
Agahnim also continues to be a joke, especially after having beaten Trinexx earlier. The two clones do make it significantly harder to beat him without getting hit but, unless you're already on the verge of death, he does so little damage that you're unlikely to die.
The majority of the run's re-records were spent on part 2 here, mainly in the Beamos rooms. In fact, five or so of the twenty-one total were spent just attemping to find a good way to clear the last Beamos room until I got fed up and decided to use Bombos. The Lanmolas also gave me some trouble but not too much.
And thus Desbreko did pwn A Link to the Past once more.
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Zelda A Link to the Past - Lv8 Ganon's Tower - Part 2 of 2
Part 2 of 2 of my Level 8: Ganon's Tower walkthrough for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Played in real time on Snes9x v1.43+ with re-records used to optimize video length.
Equipment checklist: 20 Hearts, Golden Sword, Silver Arrows, 1/2 Magic
- The Golden Sword and Silver Arrows can be obtained by buying a super bomb at the bomb shop north of the Swamp Palace and using it to blow open the cracked wall in the Pyramid. Inside is a fairy pond where you can upgrade your sword and bow.
- The 1/2 Magic upgrade can be obtained by jumping down the well next to the smithy's shop in Kakariko Village and sprinkling some magic powder on the statue within.
[00:13] Goriyas
The Mirror Shield can block the red Goriyas' fireballs, which makes killing them in narrow spaces much easier.
[01:46] Beamos
The Mirror Shield cannot, however, block Beamos' lasers so be careful around them.
[02:12] Ice and conveyor belts
Go through the center of this room, don't try to run around the outside on the conveyor belts.
[02:35] Miniboss: Lanmolas
The good news is that the Lanmolas only take two slashes from the Golden Sword to kill. The bad news is, there's now a fireball turret in the room, which makes things a lot harder than you might think. Remember that the dirt clods fly out diagonally until there's only one Lanmola left, at which point they fly out in all eight directions.
[04:57] Miniboss: Moldorm
There's no difference to this fight the second time around except that the platform is a different shape. Two spin attacks from the Golden Sword will kill the Moldorm without ever letting it speed up.
[05:38] Boss: Agahnim
Agahnim is back and this time he has two clones with him. You can tell them apart by their faded color so position yourself to hit the fireballs back at the real Agahnim. You won't have to worry about lightning attacks this time but the real Agahnim will still occasionally throw a blue fireball ring. Hit it with your sword as usual to split it and then hope your shield blocks it. Spin attacks can be useful for reflecting fireballs from multiple angles.
I also have another no damage video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llk3M2asSjE
