Posted: 8/8/2004 11:56 AM
Post subject: Strike Gunner
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Unknown_User
Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716
I have not seen an attempt at this game yet so, I wanted to try. It's a scrolling shooter game, with very fast enemy bullets and it is kinda hard. Posting the first level to see if it is worth doing the rest. Does 4 mistakes. - Shoots an enemy - Dies once - Waiting to kill a Mid-boss ( Wanted to see if you needed to kill it) - The boss dies to slow. All mistakes was because of me saving bad =) Will redo it if people wants to see the rest of the levels http://217.208.109.49/snesvid/Strike_Gunner_(U)_[!].zip
Posted: 8/8/2004 3:22 PM
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nifboy
Former player
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 375
Bad saving shouldn't stop you from perfection, just re-watch the movie and make a savestate at the necessary point.
Posted: 8/28/2005 3:47 PM
Post subject: Strike Gunner: S.T.G.
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Wicked_Souls
Joined: 8/3/2005
Posts: 4
I was thinking about doing a speedrun of this game, but then I decided against it because it would be a lot better with two players and I don't have any friends (I suppose I could theoretically control both players, but give me a break here). Strike Gunner: S.T.G. is a vertically-scrolling shooter released relatively early in the SNES's life in 1992. The thing that separates it from other similar games is the fact that rather than picking up special weapons at the beginning of a stage, you can select any special weapon out of 15 at the beginning of each stage. But you can only use each weapon for one level (per player), so it's important to choose wisely. With two players, this means you can use any given weapon on two stages instead of one. This is extremely helpful, as one weapon (the Megabeam Cannon) can kill any boss in one hit, and another weapon (the Atomic Missile) can kill half the bosses in the game in one hit. I've done some testing, and I believe I've got a good idea of which weapons to use against which bosses. (All health measured in Atomic Missiles for some reason, names have been changed because I don't know them) Level 1 - Giant Plane Dude: This guy technically dies in one Atomic Missile, but you have to destroy all his parts first, which means you'll use a minimum of three Atomic Missiles. I believe the Heavy Vulcan is the best weapon to use against him; it (combined with basic machine gun fire) can kill him in about 15-16 seconds, while the Laser Cannon and Adhesive Bombs take about 20 and 25 seconds respectively. Level 2 - Giant Helicopter Dude: This guy takes six Atomic Missiles to kill, so that's no good. The Laser Cannon and machine gun will take this guy down in about 4 seconds. Level 3 - Giant Tank Dude: This guy falls to one Atomic Missile, but you can only use it on two levels, and this guy's the easiest to kill without it. The Laser Cannon, Adhesive Bombs, and Heavy Vulcan all kill him in about the same time (though I believe the Adhesive Bomb is slightly faster), so the decision really boils down to which one kills minibosses faster. Level 4 - Giant Ship Dude: Normally, to kill this guy, you have to destroy all his little turrets and stuff, then destroy the bridge. But you can get around that by doing enough damage in one shot to destroy the bridge. This can be done with the Megabeam Cannon or the Atomic Missiles. Use the second one. Level 5 - Giant Satellite Dude: One Atomic Missile and he's down. Nothing special, just an annoying boss that'd take around 11-12 seconds to kill with anything else. Level 6 - Giant Alien Spaceship Dude: Takes about ten Atomic Missiles to destroy. Use the Megebeam Cannon against this guy. Level 7 - Slightly Less Giant Alien Spaceship Dude: Despite the decrease in size, this guy is a lot heartier, taking more Atomic Missiles than it's even possible to use. Megabeam Cannon this guy. Level 8 - Heart of the Mothership or something: This thing isn't even really a boss. It doesn't attack and it dies in a few shots of anything. Pick whatever you want, really. I think this is the fastest, but this may not be the case. The list is subject to change as new breakthroughs take place. That only covers the weapons for one player, however. The other player's weapon isn't too terribly important. All enemies (including those missiles that come down at you periodically, if possible) should be killed, but they don't need to be killed as quickly as possible because the game progresses automatically independent of enemies still on the screen (this doesn't apply to minibosses, though). Try to pick something that looks cool, like the Antiair Mines (put these down where enemies will spawn and kill them right as they show up) and Photon Torpedoes (these can be aimed in eight directions). In some levels it may be necessary to use the Sonic Wave or Sonic Shooter to destroy projectiles, as having too many on screen can cause lag (the Atomic Missiles also destroy all projectiles on screen, so keep this in mind). Also, both players can fuse together to enable a few cool attacks. The player who initiated the fuse retains control of the ship and can fire his machine gun and special weapon as normal, but the other player's machine gun is replaced with a special weapon. When the fuse is initiated with the X button, he can fire bullets in four directions in front of and to the sides of the players. If the fuse is initiated with the Y button, he can fire bullets in one of eight directions by aiming with the control pad. Whether or not you want to use these is up to you. So, anybody else care to contribute?
Posted: 8/28/2005 8:45 PM
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Randil
Skilled player (1826)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Well, I haven't played this game a lot but I have som tips anyway: 1. Be accurate with your shooting. Since there is A LOT of shooting going on in this game you'd normally miss a lot of shots. However, in a TAS, make sure you hit with EVERY shot, unless it's, for some reason, really entertaining to do otherwise. 2. I don't know if this is possible, but it would be cool if you had 100% kills. As long as this doesn't waste to much time that is. And here are some general tips when making a Tool-assisteed speedrun: * Make sure you have read the rules. * Reading the guidelines helps out a lot too. * Try out what happens when you press left+right at the same time. You got to have nitsuja's improved SNES9X emulator to do this. And a general tips that I've found out is this: Use frame advance, with the frame counter on, rather than using regular slowdown. This way you can have 100% accuracy as to when you should fire and so on. Oh, and use savestates a lot too :) Other than that I wish you good luck with this game, it could be really entertaining to watch a run if it's well done.
My own page on this site.
Posted: 8/31/2005 2:12 AM
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FractalFusion
Editor, Expert player (2072)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282
Glitchy TAS of 2013 Gameboy TAS of 2013 PSX TASer of 2010
Being one of the few people who has played this game, I had considered doing a TA-run on this game. I considered running the game on hardest difficulty, destroying no enemy except those needed to progress the game. I stopped, however, because: -Such a run would look cool for 5 minutes, then get boring for 35 minutes. -Lag. Even though this wasn't a TAS, lag just made the game look as if I'd run memory-hogging applications in conjunction with Snes9x. In other words, half as fast, if not slower. -Probably due to the most extreme form of lag, the space levels become glitchy. (Imagine herding a bunch of enemies that home in on your location constantly.) With the game already running 5 times slower, sprite graphics start to vanish. I even managed to glitch out the level 7 boss, rendering the game unbeatable. I considered the alternative of running a two-player TAS (like you suggested.) That would be much better. Note that since 99% of the game is side-scrolling, you have the liberty to play with superhuman reaction, and you definitely should.
Posted: 11/4/2005 2:32 AM
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Yumiko
Joined: 10/29/2005
Posts: 31
With two players, you'd definitely be much more powerful. You'd have twice the firepower, and you get to use each special weapon on not one, but two stages! The Megabeam, which kills *any* boss in a single hit, would be able to be used on two stages (once by player 1, once by player 2). That would eliminate the two toughest bosses almost immediately. I used to think that this game was impossible because of how one hit from anything kills you immediately. But then I played it a lot with my friend, and we ended up beating the game on Otaku (hardest) difficulty. Learning how to make our shots hit (so that enemies died soon before they fired too many shots) and dodge enemy shots helped, although our special weapon selection was pretty important too. For example, with the dual guided missile launchers, I could fly around in random evasive patterns while still killing enemies from any angle. We also made use of the invincibility shield. This weapon makes you invincible for a period of time, and you can almost use it throughout the whole level. On the 2nd last and 3rd last levels, we alternated between one of us having the shield and the other having the megabeam, and we'd combine ships so we'd drift through the level being invincible and then take out the boss using the megabeam.
Posted: 11/6/2005 10:59 PM
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Wicked_Souls
Joined: 8/3/2005
Posts: 4
Yes, using two players was the plan. Getting to use each of the weapons twice really speeds the game up, and of course two guns kill enemies faster than one, and require less maneuvering. I was playing around and I discovered an interesting glitch. It seems as though the blimp minibosses in the first two levels can be killed before they appear on screen. This can be done with either one Atomic Missile or I believe seven Sonic Waves. I don't think any other weapons are capable of doing this. This means that several seconds could be saved by picking the Atomic Missile to use in the first stage (it would also speed up the fight against the boss somewhat). Of course, this means not using the Atomic Missile in another stage. I think the Megabeam Cannon would work better than the Atomic Missile in the fourth stage (you have to wait for the ship's bridge to get ahead of you with the Atomic Missiles, but with the Megabeam Cannon you can just touch it while firing, saving a few xeconds). So then you'd have to not use the Megabeam Cannon in either the sixth or seventh stage. Well, from my testing, it seems like the boss of the sixth stage is kind of a pushover, as he can be dispatched with the Laser Cannon and regular fire in about six seconds. This is slower, but the combination of the time gained from the first and fourth stages will probably result in a net gain. In the second stage, you could probably get away with using the Sonic Wave. Also, I found an interesting quirk in the game, though it can't really be used to save time. It seems like the points you get don't depend on how many enemies you kill, but rather how many times you hit them. So if the second player is using something like the Sonic Shooter or the Anti-Air Mines, they might consider using it against a boss or miniboss while the first player is pounding on it with their boss-killing weapon for some extra points. However, there's an unusual glitch involving this. It seems as though if you hit a boss during its death animation, you'll stall it. If you use a really fast weapon (strategically placed Anti-Air Mines are the only way to legitimately do this), you can stall it as long as you want, getting tons of points and several extra lives. Of course, this has no use in a speedrun, but it's fun nonetheless. Also, the Plasma Shield is a good weapon, but it's probably more effective in the second half of the game, when you start getting speed powerups. But this is just hypothetical, and using it earlier could work. Man, I really want to do a TAS of this game, but I just don't think I have the skill. Doing it with one player is daunting enough, but two players is just crazy. Not to mention ZSNES is my emulator of choice, so adapting to SNES9x's lack of a rewind key or key combos (which would prevent me from having to frame advance every time I want to fire just one round of the regular gun) would be really difficult for me.