Submission #1009: Xkeeper's NES Pinball Quest in 05:23.90

With that out of the way, I'll copy and paste a quick, rather humourous review of the game:

OK, so this isn't exactly a true-to-life, exciting in any way game as far as pure pinball goes. And maybe this isn't really much of an RPG. But I hate the majority of RPG's. Turn-based, random battles are simply not the way video games were meant to be played. But take that out, and throw in a pinball, some flippers, a boat, and all kinds of great random nonsense, and then you're getting somewhere. Let's just say that Jaleco put forth a completely one-of-a-kind game with this baby. Now, for sanity's sake, let us hope it is never attempted again.

Righto. Now here's some interesting bits about the levels themselves:

It may look like I hit the ghost later than I could, but that's near the first frame (if not the first) you can. Hitting him does nothing before this, so I had some fun and bopped random things while waiting.

The enemies themselves were nothing amusing, I just tried to have some fun with them instead of holding onto the ball and bopping them over and over -- at one point I hit two at once, and another time I get the ball to go through a tree... The boss wasn't much different, although I did have to shake the table to get the ball where I wanted it...

Like the rest of the levels, the closer you are to the level exit when you lose control, the faster the level ends, so I try to get as close as possible when it's over.

This was very frustrating to do, but came out pretty well. I manage to hit the Witch twice in a row, twice, and then stop her from healing... you're supposed to destroy that weird thing in the top right (so she can't heal), but I ignore it and just keep smacking her with the ball. There really is nothing special about this level...

This was slightly better; the goblin was suprisingly cooperative (I didn't kill him and he didn't lob it back at me, basically)... leading to a very fast climb to the second area.

The boss doesn't move until you've killed 7 of the little knights in front of him, and those knights take 2 hits (yellow) or 3 hits (red). I try and hit as many as possible at once, or just get the ball back to me as fast as possible.

I couldn't get a good shot on the boss after a while of trying (I kept missing or it'd take too long to get back to me), so I just hit him once over and over.

First time I don't ignore the shopkeeper! I put on my beanie and go steal some strong flippers, that do double damage... too bad it was so dark I couldn't get the devil ones, for quadruple damage.

(okay, really... the randomness seems to be generated before even going in there, so I couldn't do much about it. Hence why I had to get the flippers here, and not earlier)

The timing in this level was unbelievably perfect -- normally, you have to kill the turtle on the small ramp to the roulette, but if your timing is good you'll just go onto it and not have to worry about it (like I did). On the boss fight, the second-to-last knight is extremely boring compared to the rest, but it's followed up with a nice triple hit afterwards, so I'm not too unhappy. Other than that, nothing else really stands out.

I tried over and over to get it in the hole right away, nothing worked, so I just did the Next Best Thing. I get the potion for no reason (it wasn't out of the way) and then proceed to whap the fake princess/bat over and over.

I manage to get the ball inside the 'throne', and then hit it twice (with a lot of tilting) shortly after.

This boss seemed pathetically easy, especially given how he never attacked or anything -- usually he'll attack you and (suprise!) throw you back down a level... but here he just sit back, relaxed, and died. I wish all bosses were this easy.

This movie might end a few frames too late, but I couldn't seem to shave them off; it's only maybe 10 frames at the most, so I didn't worry about it.

Other than that, this is my first TAS, and hopefully it doesn't suck all that much. The random, seemingly out-of-nowhere flipper movements probably helped the timing or were just me messing around out of boredom -- and some kept me from falling off the table.

In closing, I got rediculously lucky with some of my hits, and usually even misses helped me line up an even better shot right after. This game is hard to do as a small mistake can take a long time to notice, which probably took most of my time. Blah.

Aparrently this game is cursed to only work in 75% of emulation attempts. Various methods have been tried, but those that seem to work, in order:

Results may vary.

Edit: added Desync section May09: canceled in favor of newer submission.