Submission #2924: DarkKobold's PCE Shockman "Warpless" in 21:50.11

Shockman (known in Japan as Kaizou Choujin Schbibinman 2: Arata Naru Teki) is the only Schbibinman run to reach American shores, however, this is the second Schibibinman submitted to the site. Like other PCE titles, it suffers from bad translation. This game is often unfairly compared to Mega Man, as it shares very little in the form of game play, other than a weapon that shoots small and charged shots.

About the run

I should note that the creation of this run crashed PCE a documented 142 times (noted by the number of .bak movies created), but in reality the number is probably closer to 200. After the first few crashes, I set up a batch file to quickly reload the rom, movie, and lua script. Additionally, some time during the last level, I had to completely restore the movie from a savestate (due to a crash, of course), so the rerecord count was reset. It should be somewhere near 5000, and not the low number it is.

Techniques used:

This is built into the game, for 2 players. If a player shoots another player while that player is charging, the player has about 30 frames to release the shot, causing a tidal wave for Arnold or a bubble shot for Sonya. The Tidal Wave causes more damage, at the expense of a longer time on screen. The Bubbles do less damage, but disappear faster. However, if a charged burst is shot at a non-charging player, that player goes ricocheting across the screen in a burned animation, which leads to...

If both players release the charge at the same time, while walking together, they will both bounce about the screen in a crazy fashion. However, seeing as this a TAS, it can be directed. This bouncing is a very fast method of movement (especially vertically), so the non-autoscrolling levels are dominated by executing this move. Note that the charged shot always releases right, so they players must bounce off of a wall to go left. Additionally, later levels have ceilings which cancel the bounce motion, which means repeated bounces are triggered.

Also, if the burnshot hits a moving platform, the movement will go in the perpendicular direction of the movement. I use this to speed through the prison level.

It is possible to 'exit' the ships in the 3 autoscrolling shooter levels. This is an execution of the L+R glitch. Simply hitting L+R will cause the player to turn from a ship into the normal player, and walk around the 'ground.' The majority of this glitch is used to increase the entertainment value of the run. Also note, that the ship will be facing the opposite direction of the player's direction when the game forces the character back into ship mode.

The game instantly corrupts when hitting L+R+D. It can cause the game to reset, game over, change resolution, print garbage to the screen, etc. Aqfaq has demonstrated that this technique can very very rarely lead to warping. It may be possible to warp from the beginning to the end of the game, using this glitch. However, that wasn't my goal with this movie, hence the 'warpless' branch name.

I can't use the Burnshot movement until I turn into Shockman, so I'm forced to walk the first part of the level. The first boss fight is uneventful, I can deal a max of 16 damage with the Tidal wave, so I start by taking off 2 of the 18 boss health. (All bosses have 18 health, and vary the amount of damage they from a weapon.) Inside the first building, I use the burnshot to get high, but I'm forced to bounce about while it depletes. This was the best movement I could get, and I tried a ton of different starting spots. The boss goes down quickly, and I speed up the transition by being at the far right of the screen.

There isn't much to do inside the submarine to entertain, until the later part of the level. I waited until I couldn't get any further without dying to exit the submarines. It is impossible to avoid some floors while outside of the submarine, and thus I get to the lowest health in the level. Also, the boss of this level is much faster outside the submarine, as you can totally avoid its attacks.

Another autoscrolling level. I try to alternate burnshots to entertain, while still killing everything in the level.

There are a ton of moving platforms in the prison level, which allows me to force my characters to move extremely fast. I think this is my favorite level for burnshot coordination.

I aim and achieve 100% kills in this level. Uh, not much else to say, another autoscroller. Sorry. Also, I can't kill the boss outside the plane, so I wait and exit afterwards, for no other reason than it looks cool.

I fight Jetta to half health, which requires only a single attack. Next, I fight some kind of weird Inca monster, and then a ninja. Also, some fun bypassing the climbing levels with burnshot.

Quick! After the emperor, he is in the universe. Great directions doc. I exit the spaceships in the first part of the level, which activates a great glitch, and my spaceships fly backwards for the entire second half. Also, I take damage to get the bird ships to crash as fast as possible.

Another level where the ceiling causes burnshot cancel. Also, for the strange blue statues in lava, I can't use burnshot, as there is nothing to reflect off of. I take damage in the fight against the flying heads, so I can hit all of them with the tidal wave from standing in the lava.

I use Sonya in the battle against Jetta, so he positions himself to take the most damage from the tidal wave. Also,once Jetta joins me, I leave him in the dust.

The final boss was irritating, as it took me forever to get the burnshot to end where I could reach the second turret gun, without having to wait for the boss to move across the screen.

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/9459/6bafc8d7ac08dc27e0dc930.jpg

adelikat: Claimed.

DarkKobold Replaced submission file.

Flygon: Replaced the YouTube module.

adelikat: Good enough viewer response, accepting for publication.

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