So you already knew that special weapons only due damage every 8 frames, well i didn´t know if people on here was that interested in The Guardian Legend since i have not heard anything about anyone trying to do a TAS of it.
Good to know that people have interest in it.
I know some other tricks too, maybe you know them too, but here they are.
You can skip the transformation sequence after opening the seal to a corridor.
You do so by first press the select button (so you end up on the menu screen), then you press both select and start at the same time and hold that for a while (dont remember how many frames).
By doing so, you will save 264 frames, it normally takes 475 frames from that you transform to the next screen where the corridor starts.
Do the same thing when you have finished the boss on each corridor, at the time Miria (the hero) is transforming, do the the exact same thing as i mentioned and you´ll save 149 frames i belive.
I also found a trick which helps a lot on the blue optomon.
If you dont have any health left (the next hit will get you killed), and he´s about to drop another tentacle on you.
Usually, he wont drop it right away, he will follow you cross the screen and then drop it on you.
Most of the time, you wont be able to avoid it without stop firing and move away from him.
But, if you press select twice (first so you end up on the select screen, than again so the game starts) you can force the Optomon to drop the tentacle right away.
Now you can keep on doing damage to him without have to fly away from him.
This saves frames!
Also, some people that i have talked to always says they have a hard time killing the red jumping mini-boss in the organic area, but he´s super easy to kill with the right technique.
You can get him to appear right in the middle of the screen (where the red lander will appear after you beat him), if you stand below him (how many frames i dont remember) and choose the dubble laser weapon which is most likely maxed out at this point, he will jump back and forth above you without even touching you.
All you have to do is stand there and follow his movement while doing damage to him.
When he´s destroyed, you dont have to waste any frames by walking into the middle of the screen to get the item since you´re already there.
It takes some time to get him to appear in that exact spot, but it´s totally possible.
There are other tricks to in this game that will help out.
With the laser weapons, you can stand next to a boss, almost inside him without taking any damage at all.
The final boss is a great example of this, and that makes him very easy.
So there are plans on a 100% and any% here, that sounds cool.
What is a 100% in The Guardian Legend?
I would say a 100% TAS of this game is all items, bosses and corridors.
I dont see you have to use all weapons though to make a 100% TAS, however, collecting them and not using them wouldn´t be right either.
Unfortunately, every time you change weapons, you lose frames, and most of the weapons aint that good.
But if it´s all about doing a 100% TAS using all weapons and not finishing the game as quick as possible, then go for it becouse i think people like to see the entire game and use of the weapons.
However, i also think that people want to see the game finished as fast as possible, so that would to me be a start and then do a 100%.
That is what i was working on before my computer failed, fast as possible, a so called any% TAS.
This is what my run looked like.
Going through corridors 1-10 (and ofcourse corridor 21).
Collecting only the items that was necessary, the two laser weapons (only the double laser maxed out) 6 red landers (total of 1200 powerchips) 5 defens shields, 17 in health bar.
I didn´t stop to fight any of the minibosses that gives you the attack item, i didn´t have the need for them and it would only waste precious time.
I took damage to save time.
Used death as shortcut after most of the corridors, this was a huge time saver compared to Tom´s unassisted speedrun back at speeddemosarchive.
And not to forget, skipping over the transformation sequence also saved a lot of time, something that Tom didn´t use in his run.
A lot of other tricks was used as well.
After finishing the the corridor 21 and killing the last boss, my time was 50:35 (i think?!?).
I was going to submit it here, but unfortunately my computer messed it all up.
I´m going to redo this game when i get a new computer as i mentioned, but until then i´m just going to experiment with the game.
It´s fun to hear that you are a bit interested in doing a TAS with me FatRatKnight, let me know later on when you have time and if you´re still up for it.
Either way, a TAS of this game must be submited here in the future no matter what, it doesn´t matter to me who record the movie, just as long as we all can work on it together in one way or another.
As i mentioned before, i´m still going to experiment on the game and see if i can come up with something new.
Skipping the transformation sequence you talked about saves hell of a lot of time, and most people doesn´t know about this little trick.
Also, death warp is also a good way to save time, but in a 100% run, you should only take enough damage during the boss battle if you´re gonna use death as shortcut later on.
Since several items lies deep inside some areas, you might be forced to take damage during the walk, so be sure to have enough health so you dont have to avoid enemies.
When all items are picked up, use the death warp.
For fastest time, try to have 0 health every time before letting an enemy kill you.
You said in your run that you didn´t pick up any of the attack items?
You know that you will save time during the boss battles if you have a more powerful attack with your regular weapon since the special weapons only let´s you do damage to a boss every 8 frame?
It is faster this way i think!
The trick you use on the Optomon works great if you are doing a low % run (any%), i´m not sure if it´s necessary in a 100% run, you have more powerups then and your attack is a bit more powerful.
And each time you press the select button to choose one of the weapons, you lose frames, correct me if im right...55 or 56 frames from that you press select to the game let´s you continue.
I have done a any%, but i cant submit it here for some reason, i´m afraid the fm2 file have been damaged in some way.
I´m going to continue on trying to get it up here, but if it doesn´t work, i´ll have to do it all over again.....this game needs to be up here.
Tell me when you or anyone else are about to start working on this, i think i can help out too.
Let me know if you need some tips, i´m experienced when it comes to this game, it´s one of my favorite nes games.
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Upload it somewhere and we can submit it for you. I have waited far too long for this moment.
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
Here's my abandoned run, use New PPU. I want to redo some of this stuff in Old PPU, however. Just haven't gotten the will to do so, yet.
StarShooter wrote:
You can skip the transformation sequence after opening the seal to a corridor.
You do so by first press the select button (so you end up on the menu screen), then you press both select and start at the same time and hold that for a while (dont remember how many frames).
By doing so, you will save 264 frames, it normally takes 475 frames from that you transform to the next screen where the corridor starts.
Do the same thing when you have finished the boss on each corridor, at the time Miria (the hero) is transforming, do the the exact same thing as i mentioned and you´ll save 149 frames i belive.
I did not know this. Indeed, there are still things this game hides from me.
One question that pops into mind: Is there anything stopping us from keeping these buttons held while we're running through the game? This would avoid any further menu screen transitions.
StarShooter wrote:
I also found a trick which helps a lot on the blue optomon.
If you dont have any health left (the next hit will get you killed), and he´s about to drop another tentacle on you.
Usually, he wont drop it right away, he will follow you cross the screen and then drop it on you.
Most of the time, you wont be able to avoid it without stop firing and move away from him.
But, if you press select twice (first so you end up on the select screen, than again so the game starts) you can force the Optomon to drop the tentacle right away.
Now you can keep on doing damage to him without have to fly away from him.
This saves frames!
Is it possible to hide "inside" this boss? If there's enough room in there to keep your Saber in him while still avoiding the deadly attack (which is going upwards, now that you're in him), it might be a way to dodge a menu transition.
Another thought would be attempting to kill enemies in just such a way that you're near a certain score threshold and finally reach it by getting hit by one of those bullets when you need health. Nothing like a well-timed restoration.
(One time, when I was fighting the final boss, the battle dragged on, and my shields ran out. All hope was lost, there was no way I would survive long, and no item boxes in sight. Then suddenly, I hear the familiar jingle... One dramatic moment, I think.)
StarShooter wrote:
What is a 100% in The Guardian Legend?
I would say a 100% TAS of this game is all items, bosses and corridors.
My definition would be anything that affects the password, other than score or EE count. So this would include the items whose only purpose is to fully heal you, but are found in a few places scattered about outside of enemy drops. And these are marked off in the password as "collected".
And I agree entirely that 100% should also be a playaround -- As you say, what's the point of all that neat stuff we pick up if we never use them? A Saber-only run would get quite tiring, especially at a lengthy run such as 100%.
May as well visit a password room and show everyone what the password system is like. And how crazy-fast we can type stuff in there.
StarShooter wrote:
This is what my run looked like.
Going through corridors 1-10 (and ofcourse corridor 21).
Collecting only the items that was necessary, the two laser weapons (only the double laser maxed out) 6 red landers (total of 1200 powerchips) 5 defens shields, 17 in health bar.
I didn´t stop to fight any of the minibosses that gives you the attack item, i didn´t have the need for them and it would only waste precious time.
Damage chart is in this post. The Lv1 Saber deals 2 damage per hit with 1 ATTACK, and 4 damage with 2 ATTACK. The Lv2 Saber deals 4 with 1 ATTACK and 8 damage (only 5 versus bosses) with 2 ATTACK. In addition, we're also dealing 2 damage with our basic shots after the first ATTACK upgrade.
If you can remember anything about how long battles took, would having 2-damage or even 3-damage basic shots alongside 5-damage Saber hits be fast enough to make up for the time it takes to get it over just sticking with 1-damage basic shots and 4-damage Saber?
(Also, Lv3 Saber is no better than Lv2 Saber against bosses with 2 ATTACK, other than the ability to kill projectiles. For that matter, Lv1 Saber with 3 ATTACK is just as good as any higher level against bosses.)
StarShooter wrote:
It´s fun to hear that you are a bit interested in doing a TAS with me FatRatKnight, let me know later on when you have time and if you´re still up for it.
Either way, a TAS of this game must be submited here in the future no matter what, it doesn´t matter to me who record the movie, just as long as we all can work on it together in one way or another.
As i mentioned before, i´m still going to experiment on the game and see if i can come up with something new.
We'll see what comes when the contest is over, in around two weeks.
I'll try to think of something in my spare time.
Edit: Upload your run anyway, perhaps here if it works out. We'll let you know whether we can play it.
To "RedLander": Yes the death warp sure saves time in backtracking, not only in a any% run but also in a 100%.
Yepp, you should always have 0 health each time before killing yourself, atleast when you can.
One place where i couldn´t do so was after fighting a miniboss which gave me a red lander after killing it.
Yeah i know the special weapons do damage every 8 frame and the basic weapon every frame.
The reason i didn´t collect the attack items at the time i was doing my run was becouse i thought it would save time in the end.
But like you said, with more fire power, shorter boss fights.
If it can compensate the time you lose when you fight the minibosses or not, that i honestly dont know yet, i have not been testing that out.
But it´s definitely worth trying out.
The trick i use on the optomon is a great trick to use if you are doing a any% run, if it´s necessary to do with more health and firepower, that i have not tried out yet.
But no, i dont think it´s necessary, but if you happen to run out of life, this little trick will help and save time.
To FatRatKnight:
There is always new things to figure out, and who knows what more cool things there are in this game that might save a lot of time.
The hard thing is to figure them out, but hey, just check out the Rockman 2 TAS videos, shinryuu along with the other guys have come up with some mindblowing stuff over the years.
So it´s always possible to figure out new things to improve a run, it just takes a lot of time to do so.
FatRatKnight wrote:One question that pops into mind: Is there anything stopping us from keeping these buttons held while we're running through the game? This would avoid any further menu screen transitions.
I have not thought of that before, i wonder if it´s actually possible to do so, it´s something to try out.
FatRatKnight wrote: Is it possible to hide "inside" this boss (blue optomon)? If there's enough room in there to keep your Saber in him while still avoiding the deadly attack (which is going upwards, now that you're in him), it might be a way to dodge a menu transition.
I´m afraid you cant hide inside the blue optomon without taking damage, i´ve tried this on my any% run but it didn´t work.
It has something to do with the power of the special weapon.
It must be lv3 or it may not work on him.
The red optomon was a lot easier to do this on, while using the double laser lv3 (side laser) i could stay inside him without taking any damage.
But if you stop fire, you will instantly take damage.
FatRatKnight wrote: Another thought would be attempting to kill enemies in just such a way that you're near a certain score threshold and finally reach it by getting hit by one of those bullets when you need health. Nothing like a well-timed restoration.
That is an very interesting idea, and it´s possible with the right timing.
Good thinking!
Yeah a 100% should be a playaround and at the same time as fast as possible.
I have a lot more to say about all this, but gotta go for the moment.
But a 100% run sounds really interesting indeed, we can talk more about that when the contest is over, just take your time.
Talk to ya more later.[/i]
Are you going to continue on that run next or are you gonna start over on a new?
New run. Something about Old/New PPU stuff. I want to use the Old PPU instead, which the abandoned run isn't in.
Going to be hard to remain entertaining throughout, however. Think you can dance like I did in the opening corridor?
I´ve never seen someone move around like that before, never thought of it myself, but it looked cool.
I do some wierd glitchy movements while waiting for enemies to appear, i also like to circle around those deadly discs, and shoot to the music every once and a while.
I also do some cool stuff with the special weapons, like the lasers.
With the double side laser, i use to fire in every direction one frame at a time, so it looks like i can fire the laser like in an x position.
Doing stuff like that makes the gameplay look a bit more entertaining i think.
Never tried the new ppu on the guardian legend, is it a big difference?
I just came up with something that might help me continue on recording without the computer crashing, so i´m gonna try that out and if it works, i´ll show some of the tricks i was talking about before.
Perhaps i can start my any% run too.
Never tried the new ppu on the guardian legend, is it a big difference?
Old PPU is required/preferred for creating runs.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Update!
The bosses on corridor 9 and 10 (the gargoyle look a likes) both have a safety zone inside them, so if you have 0 health, there´s no need to lose any frames by first stop firing at the boss and then move slightly away from him to avoid the enemies that appear to kill you ( the skelleton heads and the spikes).
Instead, wait for the right moment and then fly as close to the bosses eye you can get without taking any damage.
This have only been tested with the double side laser lv3, and i think it is the weapon to prefer on these bosses becouse if you´re gonna use the safety zone inside them, you want to protect both sides of the ship.
This is very helpful on a low% run (any%).
Also, the same thing works for the boss on corridor 2 (crawdaddy), safety zone between the claws and his head, but you can also position yourself right on his head.
Use the laser here (light saber), or perhaps even the fireball.
More tricks to come.
Update!
I have now fixed the problem with my computer, so now i can record without fceux crashing :)
I have some things going on at this point though, so this run might take a while to do since i dont have time to spend several hours a day playing.
But i will try to spend atleast some time every day to work on this run, and i will let you guys watch the progress i´m making.
Let me know what you think, all feedback is welcome.
And if you happen to know something i dont about the game, let me know.
Now that I have a bit more time, I will ask about a few things. Primarily about any%.
Any items that are "out of the way" that are worth picking up?
I'm thinking a saber from AREA 0, at X 9 Y14. 2 damage per hit from the start with a subweapon is certainly good.
The ATTACK up found off a miniboss from AREA 2, at X 5 Y17. This enhances our basic shots forever, and will be of help for corridors 2 and on. Not to mention, even with level 2 saber after completing Corridor 2, that's 5 damage per saber hit (versus bosses) instead of 4.
There's another ATTACK up in AREA 4, at X18 Y 1. And just like the other ATTACK up, it's just a single screen away off our path and another mini-boss to kill. However, the boost this one gives is relatively much smaller. Your basic shots would deal 3 damage with 3 ATTACK, and the level 2 saber is no more effective compared to 2 ATTACK versus bosses. Regardless, it's still found with 7 primary corridors left to go.
Is level 3 double-saber worth it at all? Sure, we get one level free at Corridor 7, and there's another one almost in the way at AREA 4, but the one in AREA 1 is almost certainly far off the path. The only real advantage of level 3 over level 2 is the fact it destroys a wider range of projectiles (which bosses like to spew out) and deals twice the damage against non-bosses.
What about SHIELD? Sure, four pick-ups, and we have increased walking speed. And the other perks with taking less damage is nice. But which four do we take for this walking speed? The earliest AREA we can get this many is 6, and if we skip Corridor 13, it's AREA 7. We've already gone through more than half the game's worth of walking by then.
Any thoughts on any% item collection? The saber is certainly a nice weapon, and it's not like you can ever deal more than 5 damage per hit with any subweapon versus bosses.
Sorry i didn´t reply earlier, been busy with some stuff.
The items i find necessary to pick up that are off the path as to speak (more than 2 screens away) is the saber you mentioned at X 9 Y14 .
Red Lander in Area 2 at X1 Y14, and the Blue Lander at X3 Y14.
Then we have a shield power-up in Area 3 X6 Y23 (optional), get it by defeating the green leach.
X6 Y22 Red Lander.
X23 Y8 (Area 5) there´s a Blue Lander, i´m not 100% sure if it´s necessary to take this one, i did it in my old run just to be sure to have enough health later on.
The item is 2 screens away, so we lose some time there if we decide to take it.
X17 Y16 (Area 6) we get a Red Lander when defeating the red crab boss.
It´s totally necessary to pick this one up.
In Area 7, there are two shield power-ups, we get one by defeating a red crab boss at X22 Y20 and the other at X22 Y23.
Area 8, there´s only one item necessary to pick up here, and that is the Red Lander at X12 Y18.
Kill the red leach here.
I tried to avoid fighting this miniboss at first, but with only 400 powerchips, i ran out of them pretty quick while fighting the red Grimgrin.
So i would say picking up the Red Lander here is necessary.
Area 9 X2 Y0, Blue Lander after we defeat the miniboss.
I´m not sure if this one if necessary to pick up, it depends on how much health we have at this point.
From here on, i didn´t pick up any more items in my old run, i finished corridor 9, than death warped and went straight to corridor 10 without losing any frames.
Special weapons.
There are only two weapons that i found necessary to pick up, the saber and the double saber.
Like you said, it may not be necessary to max out any of them.
You can pretty much run through all bosses with a lv2 saber or double saber.
However, i think you must have a lv3 weapon to take use of the safety zone inside the bosses.
I could be wrong though, i just haven´t found a way to do it with a lv2 weapon yet.
But let´s say that we decide to max out the sabers, we are going to lose a lot of time by picking them up.
So i say, the lv2 sabers should be enough with 2 attack with our basic gun.
Shield power-ups.
Yeah which 4 do we take? there are 3 bosses we can choose to fight, the green leach in Area 3, the blue floating crystal boss in Area 5 or the blob in Area 6.
All of these bosses leaves a shield power-up after defeated.
It´s only necessary to fight 2 of the bosses, the one that is the fastest to beat.
From there on as i mentioned, there are two more in Area 7.
If we pick them up we now have 4 (5 totally)
We can also choose not to fight two of the minibosses (either the one at Area 3, Area 5, Area 6 or Area 7).
If we decide to avoid fighting two of these bosses, there´s another shield power-up in Area 9 X6 Y3, we dont need to fight any boss to get this one.
However, taking this one means we must avoid picking up the Blue Lander in this Area (X3 Y6) since it will cost us time to pick that one up.
My personal opinion here is to have 5 shields totally before corridor 7, the speed boost will take us faster to Area 9 than normal speed would with 4 shields.
Attack power-ups.
I would only take the one in Area 2.
These are my thought´s on which items to pick up on our way, what do you think?
List of all necessary items to collect for a any% run.
We get more items through the game, but they are not necessary, so they are excluded from this list.
Area 0 at X 9 Y14 Saber.
Area 2 at X5 Y17 Attack power-up after defeating the miniboss.
X 1 Y14 Red Lander after defeating the miniboss.
X 3 Y14 Blue Lander.
Area 0 at X 2 Y16 Saber after defeating the boss in corridor 2 (Lvl 2 at this point)
Area 3 at X 6 Y22 Red lander.
X 6 Y23 Shield power-up after defeating the miniboss.
Area 4 at X19 Y 6 Blue Lander.
X17 Y 2 Double Saber.
Area 5 at X23 Y8 Blue Lander (could be necessary later on).
X21 Y4 Shield power-up after defeating the miniboss.
Area 0 at X14 Y 9 Blue Lander after defeating the miniboss.
Area 6 at X17 Y16 Red Lander after defeating the miniboss.
Area 7 X22 Y20 Shield power-up after defeating the miniboss.
X22 Y23 Shield power-up (Last one we need)
Area 0 at X19 Y23 Double Saber (LVl 2) after defeating the boss in corridor 7.
Area 8 at X12 Y18 Red Lander after defeating the miniboss.
Area 9 at X 3 Y 6 Blue Lander.
X 3 Y 3 Red Lander.
X 2 Y 0 Blue Lander after defeating the miniboss (may not be necessary).
Some health power-ups (Blue Lander) may be unnecessary to pick up, we can still get level ups by killing enemies on our way.
Lvl 1.. First level
Lvl 2.. 30,000 pts.
Lvl 3.. 100,000 pts.
Lvl 4.. 500,000 pts.
Lvl 5.. 1,000,000 pts.
Lvl 6.. 2,000,000 pts.
Any particular reason for the Red Landers that I don't foresee? Sure, faster and wider shots at specific CHIP levels, and more for use of our sabers, but I don't intuitively see how these can help greatly. Let me know of any trouble spots you did come across in an earlier run.
As for fighting normal enemies, 2 ATTACK and level 2 sabers means 8 damage per frame. Picking up another ATTACK lets us deal 12 against normal enemies and hittable projectiles. Lv3 (double) saber with 2 ATTACK deals 16 damage per frame against normal enemies and all projectiles, where 3 ATTACK with Lv3 (double) saber gives 24 per frame against the same wider set of targets.
So, besides the bosses, anything in the corridors that can give trouble to someone with pitiful damage? Enemies' HP maxes out at 255, so against these, lv2 saber with 2 ATTACK would take around 32 frames to kill, where Lv3 double saber with 3 ATTACK takes 11 frames.
Part of the reason the safety zone even works is probably due to enough damage or the ability to destroy more projectiles with Lv3 saber or double saber, against what the boss keeps shooting at you even in there. It does hit twice as hard as Lv2 saber, so even against regular hittable projectiles, the more durable ones are destroyed twice as fast.
As for health, I think having the SHIELDs will be enough, no need to specifically spend time finding out of the way Blue Landers. With 1 SHIELD, we take full damage; With 2 SHIELD, we take half damage; With 3, one third; And so forth. 1 SHIELD would be a disaster to have, as a maximum 32 life can be completely eradicated from a single attack from a few different late-game enemies.
Although, while our health is still scrolling from the last attack we took or from a recently picked up item, we are invincible. ... As I recall, anyway. If you can get an item box to drop, try timing the moment you pick up its contents so we can just ignore an attack. Should help with any lacking defense. In theory, even a blue round pickup, as little health as it gives, can let you ignore an immediate dangerous attack.
Let me know if these affect any plans. Also let me know a few reasons you can think of why we need some things.
I had to think back on my old run for a while.
You´re right, we may not need to collect all the chip/health power-ups.
In my old run, the reason why i choosed to collect those Red and Blue Landers was only becouse i ran out of chips and health to quick (taking damage was unnecessary in some cases).
As i remember, i overused the special weapons, and that cost me pretty much all chips during some boss fights.
I will explain later on why i did this.
No there should not be any trouble in the corridors, except with some annoying lag on a cople.
I never took damage in the corridors (except on the bosses).
However, i had the lv3 double saber after corridor 7, so killing enemies and projectiles was easy.
What do you think, is lv2 saber and 2 attack enough? we could max out on the double saber if we decide to pick it up in Area 1, but it´s off the path so we´ll lose some time there.
To max out the saber, we must go through corridor 17 right? so that is not an option.
What is the best? lv3 double saber with 2 or 3 Attack?
Is it going to save time in the end to pick up an extra attack and having the lv3 double saber with 3 attack?
Fighting minibosses forces us to lose over 500 frames every time from that we enter the screen with the boss until it appears, then we lose frames during the battle.
So is it worth picking up an extra attack?
Safety Zone works with lv1 and lv2 weapons too, but on bosses that are not that powerful.
The more powerful they get, more powerful your weapon must be to take advantage of this trick.
There are two reasons why this trick works.
As you said, the special weapons kills enemies that comes from the boss.
Second, the weapon itself protects the ship from taking damage from the boss if it´s used constantly.
When the special weapon is used constantly, you´ll lose an amount of chips depending on which level the weapon has (as you already know)
The double saber lv1 (5 chips)
lv2 (10 chips)
lv3 (35 chips)
By taking advantage of the trick, we´ll lose most of the chips with a high level weapon.
That is why i collected all those Red Landers in my old run.
Sure, you can always wait for a red or blue chip to appear, or like we talked about earlier, level up at the right time to reach full health and chips.
It does not spoil any of my plans, not at all.
The quicker we finish the game, the better.
But the question is, should we max out any weapon so we can take advantage of the trick? Or should we stay with lv2?
Whatever we decide to do, we should be able to beat the game under 50 minutes.
Btw, have you ever heard of someone who found a way to open corridor 21 without going through 1-10 first?
Someone told me once that it´s possible.
I´ve never stumbled upon anything that could open the corridor without going through 1-10.
So it may have been a lie or something there.
The thought is interesting though.
The only way I can see us reach the ending without first completing Corridors 1 through 10 is by passwords. Either by having them completed as per password stats or by exploring some off-map area to find Corridor 22 or some such off-map glitching, again reachable by password.
But passwords are out of the question. If we allow them, we may as well pick one that starts us in the Corridor 21 room with optimal stats. Kind of like this April Fools' submission. Probably would be viewed as cheating in some form.
I can't think of any way to enter Corridor 21 early from a usual start.
Hard to say what's the best way to go about things. At a minimum, we will have 2 ATTACK and Lv2 saber. Lv2 double saber is easy to have with one free pick-up a few steps out of our way. Lv3 double saber is very much out of the way, Lv3 saber requires an optional corridor, and 3 ATTACK needs another mini-boss for low gains.
Is there anywhere we would want a Lv1 double saber before AREA 4?
This makes me want to have some sort of testing going on. I can produce passwords that skip ahead so we can check a specific part. For one thing, I want to see how much walking there is from the point where we get the 5th SHIELD. For another, having a specific combination of power-ups means a different password instead of hunting it ourselves. These passwords will be for testing purposes, of course.
Yeah you can get off map and skipping all corridors with passwords, but like you said, it would be cheating.
No there´s no need for the double saber before Area 4.
I didn´t use it until corrifor 7, so it was late in the game.
We should do some testing with speed, see how much faster we can get from one point to another with 5 shields.
I found an old note, i´m not sure if it´s 100% correct, but walking through 3 screens without the extra speed boost we get from 5 shields takes 767 frames.
It takes 648 screens with the speed boost.
This is probably an old note, but it atleast gives us a hint on how much faster it can be.
We should not forget that we also get an extra speed boost every time we level up.
It means that we have to kill a lot of enemies though.
The toughest part the way i see it, is to decide how many chips we´ll need.
We dont wanna run out of them in the middle of a boss fight.
Sure, we can still get power-ups from enemies, but who knows when they will appear?
I think we can atleast decide that 2 Attack and lv2 saber and double saber is enough for our run.
The double saber in area 1 is off path, i dont think we can make up for the time we lose by taking it later on.
And collecting the 5th shield in Area 7 is to prefer, dont you think?
I made a somewhat sloppy real-time test between 4 SHIELD and 5 SHIELD. Just walking from the SHIELD power-up in the lower-right corner of the map and then walking to each of the endgame corridor rooms, with a death-warp from Corridors 9 and 10. The difference is around 2000 frames, but given the sloppiness, I might be off by around 500 frames. As this is simply a walking test from the same starting point, this doesn't take into account collection times.
Even if the walking alone isn't enough, the defensive advantage might just be enough to handle boss attacks more boldly. Still difficult to say if it's worth it, but looking at what having 1 SHIELD means for defense, I would lean towards getting some SHIELD pick-ups, unless we can avoid everything without slowing down our attacks against the boss.
I took a look at the CHIP power-ups. There are 3 free pick-ups. Obviously, we want the one in AREA 0. If we're grabbing the SHIELD off the mini-boss in AREA 3, the next one is just one screen out of the way. The last one is in area 9, only a few steps out of the way. So we have 200 CHIPs to use by the end if we avoid mini-bosses. 150 CHIPs for a long part of the game.
If we do go out of our way for a mini-boss, we'll have 400 by the end. Two mini-bosses, and we should have 800 by the end. So two extra pick-ups gives a generous amount of extra CHIPs for us to use, with more use from the occasional red round pick-ups. Will we need that many?
I think the item boxes drop depending on how many kills you make. I took a look into the game's memory a bit. Not much, but to start with, this is what I have:
003F subweapon frame counter for CHIP consumption
0043 Related to enemy kills. Used for item drops?
0044 Related to enemy kills. Increments when 0043 overflows
004C Current CHIP count
It´s risky to stay with only 1 shield, or 2 if we decide to fight the miniboss in Area 3 since we´re going there to pick up the chip power-up.
It´s possible though with the right technique.
On most bosses, losing time by avoiding getting killed is not an issue, not until we fight the boss in corridor 8.
However, with the right technique, we might be able to kill it without losing any time.
From there on, both the bosses on corridor 9 and 10 are not a problem.
And i realized that it´s possible to use the safety zone inside tougher bosses without having a lv3 weapon.
Only the projectiles do damage to you, or other enemies if you come too close.
200 chips at most, well i dont know if it´s enough, could be if we can get item boxes with red and blue chips to appear when we´re running low.
Let´s check more into this later.
If we decide to stick with this, our run would look something like this.
Area 0, lv1 saber and red lander.
Corridor 1.
Area 2, attack upgrade.
Corridor 2 (lv2 saber).
If we decide to, we can pick up the red lander and the shield power-up in Area 3.
Corridor 3.
Area 4, lv1 double saber.
Corridor 4.
Corridor 5.
Area 6 (If necessary, red lander)
Corridor 6.
Corridor 7 (lv2 double saber).
Corridor 8.
Area 9, red lander and if necessary a 3rd shield power-up that we can choose to collect since it´s on the same screen we´re walking through.
Corridor 9.
Corridor 10.
Corridor 21.........END.
To FatRatKnight!
On the first boss, how do you get the enemy on the left side to open up at frame 4926 in your abandoned run? I can only get it to open up at frame 4930.
Has it something to do with that you use the new ppu? i use the old.
Can it be the rom version? i use the (U) version, but i dont know what dump it is, it doesn´t say.
I see you use (!), which is a good dump right? i´ve been looking for a good dump every where but cant find it. do you know where i can find it?
