Posted: 2/13/2012 7:01 PM
(Edited: 3/2/2012 1:47 AM)
Post subject: The Raiden Project
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Schmuck
Joined: 2/13/2012
Posts: 4
I don't know why nobody bothered TASing this yet. I loved it as a kid, I don't know how many of my mom's quarters I wasted playing it on the arcade at pizza hut. It's one of those old bullet-hell style games. It moves at a fixed pace so you can't really speed run it, but there's just so much on the screen I thought it would be funny to play it pacifist style. Because a human simply couldn't do this. I get into places a few times where you need the EXACT input for 25ish frames or you die. Actually I'm pretty bored with running this, but if other people are interested I'll finish the last 2 levels. Here's what I've got so far, done in psxjin, levels 1-6. Let me know if I should finish the last 2. This is just of Raiden II, on General difficulty (The hardest of course.) It really doesn't start to get entertaining until level 4, so skip to 11:20 in the video to start there. I only attack bosses and powerups, but a few times a stray enemy wanders into the splash damage and get killed inadvertently. Oh well, it doesn't really take away from the entertainment so I don't fix it. (levels 1-6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvY3kVTPzXo (start at 15:25 to be entertaining) (level 7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zipGS3LHGmI (mildly entertaining) (Level 8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asQQbX_5iYY (Very entertaining, watch this before anything else) (pjm file of TAS) http://schmuck-raiden-tas.googlecode.com/files/Raiden%20Project%20TAS.zip
Posted: 2/13/2012 7:24 PM
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hegyak
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Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris
Was not expecting this. I like this game myself.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
Posted: 2/13/2012 7:39 PM
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Warepire
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Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
This is really entertaining and high quality dodging of enemies. A couple of questions though. In level 1 you committed suicide at the start, why? In general it seems that you shoot too many salvos (shots at the end that miss), can this be avoided? (assuming 1 button press = 1 salvo)
Posted: 2/13/2012 7:53 PM
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Schmuck
Joined: 2/13/2012
Posts: 4
To Warepire: 1) I kill myself at the beginning because it makes you drop a powerup. I get that powerup and start with the laser weapon. This makes it as to where I have a stronger gun by the time I get to the first boss and thus defeat him quicker. It doesn't really matter though, there are a lot of places where I could have saved time elsewhere. 2)It probably could be avoided, but each button press doesn't always translate to weapon firing. There are two firing buttons; a single shot button and a turbo-like constant fire button. When you press either there is a 4 frame lag before anything happens on the screen, and after you let go your ship continues to fire for another 10ish frames (I didn't count.) I never really cared about being perfect in this because the whole entertainment value is constantly avoiding a plethora of enemy fire. Problems are in this partly because this is my first TAS, and partly because I'm not extremely knowledgeable about the game mechanics and level design. I just thought it would be funny to constantly avoid bullets in a game where that should be impossible in.
Posted: 3/2/2012 1:29 AM
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Schmuck
Joined: 2/13/2012
Posts: 4
Just an update, I finished the last two levels (7 and 8) just for kicks. 7 is sort of boring, but 8 is pretty entertaining just because it is nearly impossible to stay alive, so go watch that if you're interested. There are just so many things to dodge the whole time, it's ridiculous. I have the .pjm file if anyone has a good place to host it. Hosted in original post. Zipped it's only 55KB. Find links to the new levels in the original post. Video quality is a bit better too. I don't think this run really would be a valid submission for TAS videos. There were a lot of things I could do to save time, but even so, I seriously doubt that even a full out speed run could knock more than a minute and a half off this 32m 54s run. For a pacifist run, I probably kill 6-8 enemies accidentally in the video, but there are 1000s of enemies in the game so it's hard to notice. For levels 3-6 I was getting the power-ups needlessly since my ship was maxed out. I think for pure entertainment, if I were to run this again I'd get no power-ups at all, and beat all the bosses with the weakest gun. For a legitimate speed run of the game, you'd have to avoid all medals (it adds time to the score count down screen at the end of each level,) and finish each level with no bombs remaining (for the same reason.) Instead of dying at the beginning like I did, it would have been smarter to wait until you get the fairy in the first level, then die so you drop extra power-ups instead of just one. You might even be able to max your gun on the first level like that, I'm not sure. There is no luck manipulation in this game, power-ups come at you at a predetermined pattern, and it's the same each play-through. Thanks for watching.
Posted: 3/2/2012 8:54 AM
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Mastania
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Joined: 5/30/2009
Posts: 135
Location: Top of the pops
Boy the hitbox sure doesn't feel that forgiving when playing the game normally :( I assume the bosses time out, so it may be possible to do a complete no-shoot run.
Waddle Waggle Wattle
Posted: 3/2/2012 11:17 AM
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Warepire
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Joined: 3/2/2010
Posts: 2178
Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Seen levels 7 and 8 now and I liked them a lot, level 8 got really insane after a while. Submitting a game like this you do not want to go for speed, because it's an autoscroller, it will be rejected if you do. With autoscrollers you need to be creative (see adelikat's Gradius TAS). The pacifist limitation is in my opinion a great goal because a lot of times I get a "neener neener, you can't hit me, na-na-na-na-na" feeling. I think this could be enhanced by also not taking a single power-up, because then you will be completing the task severely underpowered which increases difficulty and requires even more insane dodging of bullets. But already in it's current state I would consider submitting the TAS. Though before doing that it could be a good idea to verify Mastania's idea.
Posted: 3/2/2012 1:05 PM
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Schmuck
Joined: 2/13/2012
Posts: 4
When I played the game for real (not TASing) the bosses eventually reach the end of the level's scrolling, and just sort of pause at the back of it until you kill them. I never left them there for an exceedingly long time though, they may eventually move on, but I doubt it. I'll try today though, if they don't move on I may consider re-running the first six levels with the weakest weapon. The last two (7 and 8) I think I can just copy/paste the controller inputs from the pjm file since I attack nothing those 2 levels. Plus at the end of each level the game moves your ship to the center of the screen so you should be starting at the same pixels each time, allowing for a copy/paste (that way I'll just have to re-TAS the bosses.) The hit box is (I think) a 16x16 pixel square under the center of your ship. The standard bullets are 8x8 pixel squares. I take advantage of this a lot in the game. You can frequently see bullets go under my nose or across my wings. Oh and a piece of YouTube advice. Never upload a video at 60fps (what I did on levels 7 and 8.) You tube decimates frames from 60fps to 30fps in a really stupid way. It takes two back to back frames, and then skips two, instead of just skipping every other frame. This makes those last two videos look really jumpy. I may re-encode them myself at 30fps just to smooth them out. EDIT: I've seen the Gradius run many times. The main difference between this game and that one, is that in that one you can move faster than the enemy's ships and bullets, but in this game you're pretty much slower than everything. So that makes cool acrobatic stunts an impossibility :-/ (well to a degree.)