Submission #7912: ShesChardcore's NES Defenders of Dynatron City in 10:26.34

This submission is for Defenders of Dynatron City, an NES game that has a pseudo-open world feel to it. There was even a pilot for a cartoon of this franchise but everything about it ultimately fell flat. It's not a terrible game, but it has plenty of janky charm.

First up, shout outs to Bokonon_Lives and Avodroc42 for tearing into this game with me. We learned quite a bit about the game and it's always fun to dive into obscure/lesser known games as there is much to discover in them.

This game has a decent character roster of 6 heroes with their own special abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately a few of them are just not good enough to be used. Our squad of choice is:

Ms Megawatt - Fastest runner in the game, even faster when you upgrade her. Shoots lightning bolts at enemies potentially at diagonals which is very useful in the sewer levels. Her shots have a 1s cooldown before being able to shoot again, so her shot speed isn't the best.

Buzzsaw Girl - Potentially highest DPS in the game in the right situations. Fastest shot speed. Her upgrade allows her to do a flip move that can hit multiple times in certain scenarios.

Toolbox - A walking Hammer. Very slow, terrible melee attack but an incredibly useful special upgrade which lets him jump up and down and can potentally hit some enemies numerous times per jump. He destroys big targets like the Robosaurs very quickly.

Radium Dog - He can fly with his upgrade (but we don't bother to do that) but he also is far and away the best character for the final boss.

Monkey Kid and Jet Headstrong aren't worth using over the 4 we choose.

Health and special ability power are shown as "fuel gauge" type things; you don't get to see numbers unless you're watching RAM values.

Basically we're tasked with going through 4 levels to gather superchargers to counter the final boss' shields. Each section plays a little differently.

The objective here is to clear 10 waves of robots across the various streets, and you're not beholden to a certain path. The route we take lets us grab all the powerups we need very efficiently. We need to fully deck out our squad with powerups before we get to the sewers (tehcnically there's a way around this but it's slow.)

We use Ms Megawatt here for her speed and her shot power. The final wave of robots normally take two hits to kill but her projectiles can do it in one hit. Regardless of the order, each consecutive street that you haven't cleared gets "harder" to the tune of more/more powerful enemies.

You'll also see me fire off-screen a lot. In a lot of instances you can kill an enemy that's slightly off screen which is pretty good due to how the enemies spawn. Also this game has some of the worst hitboxes you'll ever see. Give it a try RTA.

When you kill an enemy, another one spawns, usually in the same direction as the enemy you just killed. Moving horizontally can mess with the spawn speed and push the enemies further back. There are instances where I stand still to let an enemy spawn before running at it, else I run the risk of it not spawning fast enough.

After you clear the final wave, you get a message that the boss spawned. The boss is a blimp, and it's where we get our first use out of Toolbox. His jump ability can destroy it in 3 hits, which we can do in just two jumps. We grab the first supercharger and it's off to the mall.

This is a series of miniboss fights before an actual boss fight. Plus, all throughout the mall are shops where you can spend money to buy health or special power juice. We don't need to do this, so we just go do the objectives.

There are 3 floors. Floor 1 has a Robosaur, Floor 2 has 2, and Floor 3 has 3 and the boss. This is very straightforward.

Robosaurs are very strong. If you leave them alone they start spawning little exploding mini dinos which do a ton of damage. The Robosaur is also very strong in melee range. however, Toolbox makes very short work of these Robosaurs since he can hit 5-7 times per jump and they only take 20-24 hits based on what floor you're on.

Once the Robos are dealt with, the boss spawns which is basically just a head with a gun. This is where Buzzsaw shines. Her flip can hit multiple times like Toolbox's jump but she flips faster and is better at hitting lower targets. She makes quick work of the boss and it's off to the sewers.

This is a level like the Streets but with an interesting route. There are two types of encounters here. Lizards and birds. Megawatt is better for the birds, Buzzsaw is better/faster for the lizards and we route this accordingly. Switching characters takes 2 seconds, so back and forth switching would be 4 and we want to avoid this.

The lizards take two hits, which buzzsaw can pump out quickly, plus she can ascend or descend without a ladder by using her power. Even though Megawwatt is faster on paper, the slower shots make her just too inefficient for those levels.

Since Buzzsaw can't shoot diagonally and has to flip into birds twice to kill them, we opt for Megawatt's diagonals to save the day.

Once all the sewers are clear, the boss spawns, and it's another "switch to toolbox and jump" boss. Easy.

This is the final main area before the boss fight. There are 3 "clone" fights against suped up versions of 3 of the heroes. It doesn't matter who you use, the fights are the same regardless.

2 Monkey Kids that take 25 hits each

2 Toolboxes that take 30 hits each

2 Buzzsaws that take 35 hits each

Also annoyingly there are bubbles everywhere that do 4 damage which seems low until you get hit by a bunch of them and suddenly have little to no health.

Buzzsaw wins the day here, her shot speed lets her out-DPS the rest of the squad in general, plus precise shooting to avoid i-frames is nice.

The monkeys are annoying and move very erratically making it tough to pump in consistent DPS, but we burn them down pretty fast as they pose little to no threat.

The toolboxes pose even less threat, and buzzsaw's shot cadence stunlocks them for easy kills amidst the dangerous bubble bath.

The buzzsaws move around a bit and their projectile does a whopping 1 damage so we push right and avoid the bubbles as best we can while laying shots into the buzzsaws as we go. We finish them off on the right side, directly into the final cutscene.

This is a joke of a fight. The superchargers we've been collecting both make us invincible and we do 10x damage to the boss. There are 4 shields you have to bring down, which equates to "do 256 damage 4 times" and oddly enough he starts with 25 damage. I shoot on the way in to make that 26 which saves one attack cycle for the MVP of the fight: Radium dog.

We get into position and Mayhem has no idea what to do against melee characters so he just jogs in place while we kill him. After each shield, we pop another supercharger and go to town until he's down. After the first shield he starts at 150 damage so we only need to hit him 11 times per. A very anticlimactic boss fight (unless that was the point like "you're OP, wreck this fool.")

If you enjoyed this TAS for some reason, definitely check out the cartoon for even more janky goodness.

ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.

ThunderAxe31: There seems to be there various route options. Also, there is an interesting background behind the origin of this game. Anyway, the movie is good, so I'm accepting it.

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