Finally, the ultimate Metal Storm run. It took a bit more work than I thought, but I've managed to improve my previous attempt by seven seconds. Qualitatively, I agreed with the feedback that being a fireball constantly wasn't quite as neat as I thought it would be, so I stay in robot form for most of this run. This, in addition to showing off a bit more should definitely add to the entertainment value.
As before, I put in a password to access expert mode, then shoot my way through this very difficult game as fast as possible. Along the way, I take advantage of quite a few opportunities to showboat. If you've played this game you know that the robot is a little slow and clunky, but I move along quite quickly and even do a little dance in celebration.
Cheez attempted a run of this game as well, but wasn't able to beat my previous time. However, I collaborated with him and incorporated any strategies he found to make different areas faster. In particular, he found a way to enter the password faster and also beat the first boss faster. Thanks to him for these tips.
The big technique improvement over my previous attempt is accurate shooting. Holding down B gives you a constant stream, but looking more closely, you can only have two shots active at a time. Furthermore, all enemies have an invincibility timeout of five frames. Thus, only one of those shots actually hurts the enemy. You can fire a shot every other frame, so in general the best case is to fire every six frames. The last frame can be earned by changing the distance between you and the target, which isn't always easy.
This took a lot of work to optimize, but the results are impressive. The gun becomes a much more effective weapon, allowing me to take out more enemies faster as I work my way through each level. Slowdown can be a major effect in some areas, so I gained some speed by doing this. Other times, I just kill as many enemies as I can for kicks. The second time through all the bosses I need to use the power gun, so this accuracy helps speed up those fights as well.
Some specific speedups: On boss 1 I finish him before his spot comes in all the way. It seems that if you finish an area before touching the ground after a flip, the game doesn't set the flag which allows you to flip gravity again, so my old run had trouble doing this.
A lot of slowdown is avoided in level 2-1 by killing an extra cannon in the beginning. This is only possible because of the accurate shooting.
Boss 2 is faster due to an improved attack pattern and accurate shooting on the approach.
I sped up the forced scroll sections of level 4 by killing more efficiently with the gun. The boss is also killed a little faster.
Near the end of 5-1, I go a little out of the way to kill some of the laser cannons. This reduces the slowdown enough that it's faster than just walking through. Boss 5 also dies a little faster.
In level 6 my killing efficiency is pretty amazing, but it didn't net me any speedup.
Level 7 sees most of the fights go faster than before. Biggest speedups were boss 2 and the final...whatever it is.
See my previous submission for more info on my tricks and strategies.

Bisqwit: I'm unfamiliar with this game, but because the test audience seems to like it, I'm processing it.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #545: TheAxeMan's NES Metal Storm in 12:54.23
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Seemed like a pretty solid movie for a good game. Voted yes. The only question I really have is regarding your second fight with the multiple face boss. The second time you fought it, you used your gun instead of your flip attack. Are you sure that is the fastest method of destruction? It probably is, but I figured I might as well ask, since it was on my mind.
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It's because the second time around, he doesn't have the flip attack. You only get one powerup, and he chose the P-Gun over the Gravity Fireball for the last level, otherwise the 6th boss would take at least a minute longer, so the time saved by taking the P-Gun is greater than the time lost by not having the Gravity Fireball -Cheez
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Looks good, i'm glad you didn't just go for fireballing back and forth.
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Maybe I'm just a fan of seeing robots shoot things, but I like this game.
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Glad to see some interest in this, I have to admit that my run makes this game look much more fun than it is to actually play it. Edited my submission to add a link to the old submission, which explains the weapon choices and some other things which still apply. Now to get back to the reason I changed my avatar...
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YES! You made the robot dance - I was hoping for a Cheez/AxeMan hybrid video and all my wishes come true.
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Excellent movie. And yes, this game is HARD. I don't think I've ever made past the second level on expert difficulty.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [303] NES Metal Storm by TheAxeMan in 12:54.23
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I love the description, great plug for this run.
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Hey man, great vid. I remember playing this back in 1991 or so, and there was a trick I discovered. The boss at the end of level 4 would self destruct if you let him hit you while you had the armor upgrade. Maybe it doesn't work on the harder mode, but I definitely did that everytime on easy. Try it for me, see if its still good.
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The boss at the end of level 4 would self destruct if you let him hit you while you had the armor upgrade.
Yup, I've seen this happen as well, but it doesn't seem to work on expert mode. In general it seems that the armor hit either kills an enemy completely or does nothing, depending on how strong the enemy is. So in expert mode, only a few enemies can be killed this way. For example, the laser cannons in level 5 aren't even phased by an armor hit. Strangely, it seems that sometimes on normal mode using a kamikaze armor hit on boss 4 results in one of the cannons blowing up instead of the main part of the boss. Screwy, huh? Anyway, glad you liked it.
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