|
|
|
Racing Hippaul
Background:
At the beginning of Disc 1, and/or at the beginning of Disc 3 you can race a young hippo named Hippaul. In alexandria, talk to Hippolady on the street just left
of the main gate leading outside. As you race Hippaul, you'll get rewards as he levels up. As far as I can tell, he only levels up if YOU win. I guess he's
really big on negative reinforcement. Weird. Anyway, if you are doing this, though, be sure you have card space available (you get cards as rewards and you can
only carry 99 of them). You can check his level by talking to him. As you race him, sometimes his levels go up by 5, and sometimes less. Here are his levels
after each time I raced him (he starts at 1): 5, 10, 15, 16, 20, 25, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 (about 15 minutes), 51, 52,
53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 (8 more minutes), 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 (another 8 minutes), 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 (another 8
minutes). Overall time: approximately 45 minutes.
Advice:
Here are some pointers to help you out on this mini-game.
- Try to do this in one sitting but take breaks to rest your hands if they get numb. The higher his level, the faster you have to do it.
- Put the controler on a level surface, such as the ground, and use both hands. It's much easier than one-handed.
- Use different fingers on each hand. I use the pointer of my right hand and the middle finger of my left. When I try to use the same finger on each hand,
they start mashing at the same time. Some kinda weird wiring in the brain, I guess.
- Don't watch the screen. I don't know why, but watching the screen messes up my rhythm
- Turn off the sound, or play other faster-paced music.
- When it gets REALLY tough (after level 70) turn off your analog controler and use the right stick. Put it between to fingers and flick your hand (not
Wrist ) back and forth
Rewards:
Here are the rewards you'll get and the required level:
| Hippaul's Level |
Number of races |
Reward |
| 10 |
2 |
Wyerd Card |
| 20 |
5 |
Carrion Worm Card |
| 30 |
7 |
Tantarian Card |
| 40 |
12 |
Armstrong Card |
| 50 |
22 |
Ribbon Card |
| 60 |
32 |
Nova Dragon Card |
| 70 |
42 |
Genji Card |
| 80 |
52 |
Athlete Queen |
Technically you can continue to race him after level 80 and he continues to get faster unti level 100. But you won't get anything for future races (other than
maybe a Wrist injury. To be clear, I kind of cheated to get Vivi to run that fast. I used a RaspberPi Zero to build a rediculously fast keyboard that pressed a and
z over and over again. Since I'm playing the game on OpenEmu, those keys are mapped to square and circle. If you can get him to level 100 without any extra help,
you have my admiration. But since I've been dealing with bad carpal tunnel for the last 20 years, I opted to cheat just a bit.
Here's the code, if you're curious:
#!/usr/bin/python3
# NOTE: THIS PROGRAM MAKES EXTENSIVE USE OF THE USB HID KEYBOARD PAGE DATA FOUND AT:
# https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/documents/hut1_12v2.pdf
# START LOOKING IN CHAPTER 10 (PAGE 53)
# THIS SCRIPT WILL TYPE THE LETTER A FOLLOWED BY THE LETTER X
# IT WAS CREATED FOR THE RETROARCH VERSION OF FF9 SO THAT I CAN
# "TYPE" QUICK ENOUGH TO RACE HIPPAUL AFTER I GOT CARPAL TUNNEL.
# TO USE, GET TO THE STARTING LINE, AND BEGIN RUNNING THE SCRIPT WHEN HIPPOLADY
# SAYS, "GET SET". WHEN VIVI MAKES IT TO THE FINISH LINE, PRESS CONTROL-C TO STOP.
# FIRST, LET'S MAKE SURE WE CAN SLEEP
import time
# HOW LONG TO PAUSE BETWEEN KEYPRESSES?
# NOTE: PRESSING THE KEYS *TOO FAST* WILL CAUSE THE EMULATOR TO MISS THEM, MAKING VIVI
# STUMBLE. FOR RETROARCH, I FOUND .03 TO BE A GOOD COMPROMISE.
sleep_time=.03
# DEFINE THE BUTTONS
# RETROARCH FOR PC USES: A and X
# OPENEMU FOR MAC USES: A AND Z
NULL_CHAR = chr(0)
letter_a=NULL_CHAR*2+chr(4)+NULL_CHAR*5
letter_x=NULL_CHAR*2+chr(27)+NULL_CHAR*5
letter_z=NULL_CHAR*2+chr(29)+NULL_CHAR*5
# BUILD THE FUNCTION TO ALLOW FOR USB HID WRITE ACCESS
def write_report(report):
with open('/dev/hidg0', 'rb+') as fd:
fd.write(report.encode())
# LOOP UNTIL THE USER PRESSES ^C
try:
while True:
write_report(letter_a)
time.sleep(sleep_time)
write_report(letter_x)
time.sleep(sleep_time)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
pass
# Release all keys
write_report(NULL_CHAR*8)
|