In the game the firework maker Kantaro must traverse the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō to return to his fiancee. Along his journey an evil merchant seeks to steal the secrets of fireworks and sends his group of baddies including ninjas, ornithologists, hookers, ghosts, monks and boarder control workers who must be dispelled using your fireworks.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: fceux 2.1.6 with TAS Editor
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes no damage
  • Uses warps
  • Genre: Platformer

Game Description

In Kanshaku tamanage Kantarō no Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi, which roughly translates to Firework Thrower Kantaro's 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō, the main character must travel through 21 of the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō, which was a coastal route that ran from Nihonbashi in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Sanjō Ōhashi in Kyoto. Despite the graphical limitations inherent in a Famicom game the level designers stayed true to the locations that appear in the game including famous landmarks of the stations, geographical characteristics like rivers, hilltops and types of trees, even only including the prostitutes in locations where one could actually find the oldest profession.
There are 21 potential levels of the route with specific locations listed on the game's Wikipedia page. In addition to the 21 levels there are also 2 bonus/warp levels that can be entered by picking up 10 gold coins. The "easy" warp has many objects to pick up, only the generic thug enemies and moves you ahead 3 levels. The "hard" warp has no items, a much more diverse collection of enemies but will skip you ahead 6 levels. The warp that you take is entirely random and is manipulated in this run to be the 6 level skip each time to save time.

Character Details

In this game you play as the firework maker Kantaro who has a few abilities. First off his walking speed is his fastest mode of transportation at exactly 1 pixel per frame. There is a very slightly period of acceleration to get up to max speed and a huge deceleration process to come to a stop so when possible it is avoided. When jumping Kantaro begins his deceleration process making jumping slightly slower than running but just barely. Because of this jumping is avoided when not necessary to gather items or avoid enemies. Finally his only attack is to throw an endless supply of fireworks. These fireworks can be thrown in either direction following an arc and can destroy most enemies and reveal the hidden items. In addition to throwing the fireworks can also be placed on the ground but only when Kantaro has come to a complete stop making it a slightly less favorable option. Also your character only has 1 HP so immediately upon being hit by an enemy your character would die so avoidance is key. For some reason if you get to the edge of a platform your x-velocity immediately halts and you fall straight down so you must jump off of every platform to maintain speed.

Items

All items in the game are at pre-programmed but seemingly random locations around the levels. They are invisible until a firework explodes on them and there is no visual or auditory clues informing you where the items are. As a result the only ways to gather items is to either spam bombs over every inch of the levels or already know where they will be located making the items quite rare under normal play.
Koban Coins: These golden coins are by far the most important item for a speedrun as they can help skip levels. Upon collection of ten coins you are able to skip ahead either 6 or 3 levels through a warp stage. The other use for these coins is that 2 coins can be used to help pass otherwise impassable rivers. Many different warp combinations were attempted and it was found the currently used warp order is by far the fastest route.
O-fuda (Amulet): These items will protect from the ghost character.
Katana: This item will protect from the thief.
Rice Balls: This item will turn the character into a rolling ball until the power dissipates or he falls into a pit. It is slower than normal walking and is thus never used in the run.

Enemies

Generic Thug/Ninja: These characters are by far the most common enemies in the game and can be eliminated with a bomb to any portion of their body. For the most part these enemies can be avoided, but they are ever so slightly faster than your character so if they are behind you they will eventually catch up. Luckily these enemies are programmed to jump whenever a bomb is thrown regardless of if this will cause damage to them. As a result of the throwing animation including a frame of the bomb being behind you before moving forward this behavior leads to an easy way to dispatch enemies which involves having the enemy get to 1 frame away from contacting your character and then throwing the firework causing the enemy to jump directly into said firework while it is on its back swing.
Ronin: This enemy has the ability to deflect fireworks with his sword so the programmers intended the only way to defeat him was to plant a firework on the ground and then have the enemy walk onto it as it explodes. With perfect timing this process can be avoided by thowing a bomb so that it lands, and explodes, underneath the enemies feet, which is used multiple times in the run.
Ornithologist: This enemy has a hawk that he has fly towards you. The angle in which he throws the hawk depends entirely on your y-position so he is manipulated to avoid hitting the character. The ornithologist can be defeated from a single firework, but his hawk can only be defeated if held by the ornithologist so avoidance is the only course of action with that enemy.
Bridge Troll: This enemy is an assassin located underneath bridges who tries to spear up through the bridge to kill you. Luckily this assassin is painfully slow so simply walking along the bridge is enough to avoid him in most cases.
Knife Thrower: This enemy is another assassin located on the roof of buildings who, as the name implies, throws knives at your character. In real time this is the most difficult enemy in the game as he throws quickly leading to near frame perfection to avoid his onslaught. Luckily he has zero randomness so in a TAS avoiding his knives is trivial.
Monk: All monks have the ability to shoot telekinetic waves with psychic powers right? Very precise firework placement is necessary to dispatch this enemy so for the most part he is simply avoided.
Gonzaemon: This is the main enemy in the game who has an arquebus (gun) and takes two fireworks to defeat. As thowing and hitting with two fireworks would require a slowdown he, and his bullets, are simply avoided in this run.
The Hooker, ghost, thief and boarder patrol officer: These "enemies" do not actually harm your character but can either slow you down or steal some of your items. The hooker is the one that looks like a creepy Ronald McDonald.

Other comments

This is clearly not the best game on earth but I feel I beat it thoroughly enough to potentially warrant a publication.
I found this game by looking through a list of Famicom exclusives, choosing one at random so I do not have a strong emotional attachment to this game at all but I did put effort into it.
Also I cannot read nor speak a single word of Japanese so all information present in this description is taken from Wikipedia as I did not know what a single level transition or ending page stated. I hope you enjoy.

feos: fast encode.

turska: Judging.

turska: You made this game look way too easy. The game has its flaws, but the run manages to be sufficiently entertaining. Accepting for publication.

natt: processing


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15527
Location: 127.0.0.1
Editor, Experienced player (569)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4034
If it's a Famicom-exclusive title, shouldn't the system be FDS instead of NES?
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Famicom =/= Famicom Disk System
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Synahel
She/Her
Former player
Joined: 1/19/2011
Posts: 260
Location: France
There's a song on the game's music ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QFtYRKy8T8 Another GCCX featured game gets killed, can't wait to watch an encode!
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
Rayas wrote:
There's a song on the game's music ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QFtYRKy8T8 Another GCCX featured game gets killed, can't wait to watch an encode!
I didn't really know anything about this game when I started playing and I had never heard of GCCX, but I just watched the episode this game was featured in and thank you for bringing it to my attention. That is a funny show. Also, this game is apparently way harder than I had guessed. That episode shows that it is one of the hardest games they had played. I wish I knew more about Famicom games so I could find others like this that are hard or well known in Japan but not really in the states.
Experienced player (674)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1772
Location: Brasil
im a noob waiting for encode the game is pretty good,i'm hoping to see lots of warps
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Synahel
She/Her
Former player
Joined: 1/19/2011
Posts: 260
Location: France
Yeah, with Adventure Island and Quest of Ki, it's among the hardest Famicom games Arino has been playing. "Ain't that an octave too high?"
Site Admin, Skilled player (1250)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11468
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Fast encode is processing.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
feos wrote:
Fast encode is processing.
Thanks for yet another encode for one of my submissions.
Joined: 5/25/2011
Posts: 6
Location: Upstate New York
I vote yes. Having played the game, you make it look incredibly easy, as well as a big boring, since you don't ride any high-point clouds for a ton of 1-ups. Granted, that's completely pointless since you don't need them, but still.
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Not a whole lot of variety, but the pace was decent and it was short enough. It was also funny to see the guy casually strolling along without caring about the enemies. Yes vote. Also, when you say "takes no damage", do you mean it would have been faster to take damage but you decided not to?
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
NitroGenesis wrote:
Also, when you say "takes no damage", do you mean it would have been faster to take damage but you decided not to?
It wouldn't have been faster. I am used to just putting descriptors there, like if someone wants to watch a group of runs that take no damage they could search for it. Taking damage in the run means death and starting over the stage which is very much slower. I can remove it if it isn't proper protocol as I have looked and seen that there is a category for "Forgoes time saving damage" which could be confused with what I entered
Hopper262
He/They
Joined: 3/22/2011
Posts: 55
It's hard for such a linear game to look really interesting, and having to pause occasionally for coins killed the momentum (literally and figuratively). But there were a nice variety of enemies, many of which kept trailing after you, so that added interest for the short duration. I'd never heard of the game before, but it's easy to see how the game would be really difficult unassisted. I wouldn't want to watch a non-warp version, but this landed just on the "yes" side of "meh" for me.
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
This does not look anything like a tas. Voting no, sorry.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Experienced player (674)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1772
Location: Brasil
AngerFist wrote:
This does not look anything like a tas. Voting no, sorry.
you do know he stops to collect the coins and stuff to warp,right?
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
ALAKTORN
He/Him
Former player
Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy
PRESS RIGHT FOR GREAT JUSTICE
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
grassini wrote:
AngerFist wrote:
This does not look anything like a tas. Voting no, sorry.
you do know he stops to collect the coins and stuff to warp,right?
Point me to where he warped. Warping does not automatically mean it's tas exclusive. He pressed 90-95% right during the whole movie. There is nothing impressive in that. As a viewer, I did not feel a bit the author faced troublesome challenges to use superhuman skills to overcome them. The game also looks awful and the run was unfortunately not entertaining at all. I am doing my best to be objective as possible but I truly do not understand how 5 people have given this run yes vote.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
NitroGenesis
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (556)
Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873
Angerfist: I votes yes because I thought it was funny to see this guy casually stroll along without caring about the enemies. Also, this game is pretty hard.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Experienced player (520)
Joined: 11/2/2010
Posts: 359
AngerFist wrote:
Point me to where he warped. Warping does not automatically mean it's tas exclusive. He pressed 90-95% right during the whole movie. There is nothing impressive in that. As a viewer, I did not feel a bit the author faced troublesome challenges to use superhuman skills to overcome them. The game also looks awful and the run was unfortunately not entertaining at all. I am doing my best to be objective as possible but I truly do not understand how 5 people have given this run yes vote.
The warps are each time I hop through the door. I get teleported to a warp stage that then skips me ahead levels based on a RNG that had to be manipulated to both give me the proper 6 level warp and so that it would optimize the gold coin gathering. In total it skips 10/21 levels (since you have to do a warp stage to get through them) and is the most that can be skipped in the game as it collects all possible gold coins up to that point. Also I was not expecting the extent of the positive feedback that the run got and I am completely OK with you voting as you please, but since I enjoy the discourse of defending my run I have to say it was superhuman. If you watch even a few minutes of the video Rayas posted you will see that this is an extremely difficult game requiring very precise movements to go through. I will agree with you that it is not very entertaining on its own but I feel it is incorrect to say that it was not the use of superhuman skills.
Joined: 2/6/2011
Posts: 130
Well I'm between voting meh or yes, mostly because of the "run right for justice (and ocasionally bomb for rightness)" the game is kind of boring itself... yet the video is short enough to make it more tolerable even though I wouldn't choose to watch it again... the technical merit is what's pushing me more on the "yes" vote. I'll vote later, right after clearing up my mind (eating something that is).
Editor, Experienced player (569)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4034
A little repetitive, but entertaining nonetheless. I could tell you were warping because your character disappeared from the map at the level introduction screen and the music and background were different for only those two levels. Yes vote.
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
I can appreciate that this is a tough game. It would certainly be really monotonous if you didn't have warps. The game has some nice design elements, like the enemies that would swipe at bombs with their swords. However, it doesn't end up being particularly entertaining to me. The character is really slow. There isn't really a notable difficulty progression at the later stages. The music got old pretty fast. Like Angerfist mentioned, there really doesn't seem to be much depth to how any level is played. I'm going with a weak Meh.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 7/22/2010
Posts: 53
I... I actually quite like this! I'm a little surprised with how much I enjoyed it, after having read the other comments about how boring it was. I didn't really feel it was boring. It didn't seem a simple "run right" affair to me, it seemed more like an exciting chase, and every enemy was gaining fast. Especially the ghost, which was of my favorite variety--the type that looks like she's wearing underwear on her head. Perhaps it's a testament to my inexplicably poor taste, but it's a definite "yes" from me. For anyone wondering, you're not missing terribly much from the text. The first text screen explains that Kantarou is going to the Sumida River to meet with his darling Momoko. The second text screen explains that Gozaemon's minions are after Kantarou. Every other text screen just says "Player 1 start", a "keyword" and what leg of the journey Kantarou is on.
Experienced player (674)
Joined: 2/5/2012
Posts: 1772
Location: Brasil
AngerFist wrote:
grassini wrote:
AngerFist wrote:
This does not look anything like a tas. Voting no, sorry.
you do know he stops to collect the coins and stuff to warp,right?
Point me to where he warped. Warping does not automatically mean it's tas exclusive. He pressed 90-95% right during the whole movie. There is nothing impressive in that. As a viewer, I did not feel a bit the author faced troublesome challenges to use superhuman skills to overcome them. The game also looks awful and the run was unfortunately not entertaining at all. I am doing my best to be objective as possible but I truly do not understand how 5 people have given this run yes vote.
so you didn't play this game at all... pretty pretty nice.Yeah,it's a run right fest,but with absolute precision to back it up,most of the jumps and bomb attacks are absurd without having to go back.The warps have been explained by goofydylan, and i don't find the music repetitive somehow.
TAS i'm interested: Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS? i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
You can keep your ellipses to yourself and you don't need to play a game before voting.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P