Star Fox speedrunning and interest check for Star Fox Series Relay Race
7 years ago
Växjö, Sweden

• Hello fellow speedrunners - Ignore this section if it is TL/DR

My name is Pottoww, and people who watch different Star Fox games has probably seen me before. The Star Fox community is a growing community in the matter of speedrunning and has grown far bigger today than it was back in 2012 when I pushed the community together. Today we have competitors in every Star Fox game, from the NES Star Fox 1 and unreleased Star Fox 2 to the latest entry i the series Star Fox Zero. People are regularly improving world records and personal bests and the viewer base has grown a bit stronger the past couple of years.

But, we want more. One of the major obstacles in the Star Fox speedrunning community and an often recurring "criticism" for our runs even to these days is that Star Fox is, in many cases, not a speedrun-friendly gaming series. It is "casual", "only based on RNG" and "too autoscroller" to be taken seriously. Even though events like AGDQ and ESA has helped out proving the worthy of the runs, many are still not convinced. And even these major marathons have their doubts about the interest value between the games.

• We are planning to showcase our community and the games within with the use of a relay race - Important section At the moment, the planning for this event is at a very early state. But, we hereby seek out to you for the interest in a relay race to show the series full potential. This means, the interest to participate.

We know that there are a lot of people in the speedrunning community who is not very familiar with our community. And we know that there are a lot of people who wants to, or already are, speedrunning games in the series but is not involved in the community so far. That is one reason why we put this thread in the main forums.

You do not have to be a speedrunner of any game in the series right now. You only need to show us interest in participating in a relay race. This race is going to happen at earliest during the fall 2016.

"But, Star Fox is 90% autoscroller!"

  • No it isn't. It is on rails. It is far from autoscrolling.

If you have any interest in this event, please submit your interest to this form. This is not binding by any means, it is just helpful to create a first look at what we can create. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Tnn8dL6l8GE1n8KiLMB58dHIcKE_j5CLh9qUjDKFNks/viewform?c=0&w=1

Star Fox Discord Server: https://discord.gg/0ZumT4PFmqz6AXtS Star Fox on Speedrun.com: http://www.speedrun.com/star_fox

Edited by the author 7 years ago
StarFalco64, jan_susi and 5 others like this
England

"But, Star Fox is 90% autoscroller!"

  • No it isn't. It is on rails. It is far from autoscrolling.

If your intention is to bring in new players, you may want to clarify this and explain the difference since people who are unfamiliar with rail shooter speedruns probably aren't going to make the distinction.

Regardless I'll be keeping an eye on this, Kevin you'd better get another Blue Line WR

xDrHellx likes this
Växjö, Sweden

Was more ment as a joke, but sure.

Why is an "on rail shooter" speedrun-friendly and not an "autoscroller"? What is the difference? Most Star Fox games, excluding Adventures and Command, is built a lot around the rail shooter concept. A rail shooter is a (section of a) game that automatically proceeds forwards throughout a fixed path or a fixed set of paths. The concept is that you can not stop and explore or backtrack your adventure but instead have to constantly move forwards towards the end of the rail.

A game being on rails does not necessary mean that you can not affect the speed of which you are processing through the level. It only means that you have no possibilities to diverge the route in the game.

An autoscroller on the other hand is a (section of a) game where you can not affect the speed or the time of that section by any means. The part of the game which is built around an autoscroller always takes the same amount of time each time you play it.

In theory, an autoscrolling game with boss fight sections and/or different paths would be possible to speedrun if the bosses and/or paths can be done in a different amount of time, although the speedrunning values of such a run would be questionable depending on a lot of factors like difficulty and time cutting boss strategies.

Games like Star Fox 1, Star Fox 64, Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Zero on the other hand, which all have a lot of on rail sections, can all be speed up by different strategies and techniques, including different precise boost patterns, lag reduction, enemy spawns, routes, powerups, flying patterns, kills etc. In fact, for the Star Fox series specifically, different techniques throughout the levels can save or waste tens of seconds during each mission and minutes throughout the run.

EDIT: Besides, the on rail sections for the Star Fox series is still just a part of the games, not the entire games' play style.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
British Columbia, Canada

To add on to what Pottoww said: You can speed yourself up in Star Fox games but only by a certain amount. They may as well be autoscroller games, but there's a lot of technical movement, many difficult strats, and all of the top runners are very talented and consistent. The goal of the speedrun is to be maintaining that maximum speed for as much of the run as possible and to kill bosses as quickly as possible to advance to the next stage. It's basically like any other speedrun but you don't have to hold forward.

Of course though, this doesn't apply to Star Fox Adventures, 2, or Command, as those aren't autoscroller/rail shooter games.

I'd also like to note that, if you want to prove people wrong and say these games are easy to run, run them. I think you'll find them surprisingly challenging. And maybe a lot of fun. And maybe you can race. And win. And get to rub it in our faces.

Any level of gameplay is welcome to sign up but I don't think acceptance into the race is guaranteed (if I'm wrong please correct me). Command will probably be run on Wii U VC so that makes it a little more accessable in terms of capturing game footage. Star Fox 64 3D on the other hand, you'll need a 3DS capture or emulator. If you're interested, sign up sooner rather than later, there was discussion on making a signup deadline but I don't think that was concrete as of yet. You can use the link in the first thread.

@Drakodan I just got a new copy of the game today so I can run it again but the fact that I can only do 1-2 runs at a time once a week is quite disheartening, especially when PB depends on RNG at this point. Once I get into a situation where I can sit down for hours and play I'll grind out for a 25:0X or 24:5X.

Edited by the author 7 years ago
Minnesota, USA

I think what Lylat meant to say was that they may seem like autoscrollers, as the screen does scroll automatically. But the difference between rail shooters and autoscrollers is that you have the ability to manipulate the speed and the way you advance through a rail shooter, opposed to having 1 strict speed and path through an autoscroller.