* Aims for fastest time. * Takes damage to save time * Uses deaths as a shortcut * Take only the needed chests (for shops) * Kills Guardians with the fastest weapon * Uses no passwords * Genre : platform-action-puzzle
I used ZSNES 1.51 for this run, with no particular options that would change the sync. There's also an AVI file I made here. (http://hosted.filefront.com/VolcanStormWind )
"Gods" is a pretty unknown and pretty hard game made by Mindscape, and is really unique in how it merge simple yet interesting puzzles within the platform-action gameplay it has. The goal of our char is to pass the puzzles and monsters of the three levels of each world (which "god knows why" the game calls the exact reverse) and to beat the four end Guardians to attain the rank of "God" (like Zeus and such, which are in the highscores at first play) and reach immortality (as well as resolving some puzzles and finding keys to get the treasures in a level).
In this game, monsters aren't already in place but instead most of them appear as you walk along the ground and in an activator. This gameplay makes you need to be quick and on your guards pretty much all the time, but at the same time when you are at a puzzle-phase and cleared the room, you can take the time to try the levers and understand what you have to do to advance in the game. Some items I use in the game are, the starbust (the blue skull head) which sends stars flying all around and clears up the room of monsters, the invulnerability (the little red-cross in a blue circle) which gives me 8 seconds of invincibility, the big/little health regain (a big or little dark orange heart), and the weapons I buy or which are given to me in a level.
In this TAS, I use all the features I have or get (like weapons in shops) to make it the fastest possible and beat it like the best player would. And it really goes well with this game. If it's faster and doesn't take away too much health, I try to take the missiles the monsters often throw at me instead of ducking under them, or even to collide with a monster because it will kill him no matter what, at the price of rather much health. I can also intentionally lose a live by monster-colliding, and use that to reappear nearly at the same exact place but with all my health and a very practical short temporary invulnerability. With ladders I found a nice glitch which makes me able to grab them when I'm just at the side of it, saving some time. And at the score screen, putting the attack button on autofire makes the score-adding really fast. There are also many treasures to find in the game, and I take the ones which are indispensable for me to buy some new and more powerful weapons, this way I can beat the monsters faster (especially bosses).
I think you will understand what I'm doing better if you have already played the game (even not far), and I hope seeing this "not enough known" game TASed will make people appreciate it because it deserves it, even if it's a hard game, and will entertain you as much as I liked succeeding to make it really quick. I'm also thinking about making a "100% treasures" TAS if this one gets accepted and if there is a possibility that this game have two categories.