This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7511: BlueMania_X's Saturn Astra Superstars "playaround" in 08:33.73

Doing a bit of research the options available in the Saturn version seems to allow adjustments to Game level (default 3, can be raised up to 8), Damage (default 2, ca be adjusted from 1 to 4), and Round (default best of 3, can be adjusted to 1 or 5 rounds). Wouldn't you at least play on Game level 8, set damage to maximum, or at least set the number of rounds to 1?

Gonna immediately step in and tackle Darkman425's points and to start with by saying that default damage is honestly better than increasing/decreasing the output as it's a better showing of skill and damage output... bar the one fighting TAS that does otherwise. I'll heavily agree that either the maximum difficulty or the lowest difficulty should've been considered to be more in line with other fighting TASes that min/max it. Personally would've liked to see Hardest. And lastly, as this is a speed fighting TAS I personally think it should've done what other speed fighting TASes that are able to do when given the option which is to change the Stage counts down to 1. BlueMania X, welcome to TASVideos. As mentioned by myself and Darkman425 there is a questionable decision by not going into the Option Mode... I also found out that 2.3.0 has an emulation advantage over 2.8, so on your next attempt please update your emulator. The concept is good, but it leaves me with questions about this for you to decide, and homebrew solutions from it: Is Maron the fastest? It's a roster with those 8 characters, generally yeah favorites can be fastest, but personally I want to know if they are the fastest in terms of best damage outputs. Tekken 3 for example had a debate on whether Paul or Yoshimitsu was the fastest, to keep long story short. Yoshimitsu per round was faster by 15 frames adding up to 165 total. What is the best combo? Using strictly the In-Game timer Stage 1's fights were 12 and 7 seconds respectfully, which can be tossed up to the gauge system being built... However, in Stage 2's your play up was different 11 and 10 seconds. Argumentatively that arrow shot you did looked unnecessary compared to just hitting Sakamoto in the first Round which may have saved a second, but also your second round was slower in comparison's to Stage 1's... And that question continues further into it you go, as you mixup your input. It's almost like you're going for a Playaround, but only showcasing a single character is harder to go for in fighting games where you can be challenged mid fight. Which this game does flash "Press Start" over Player 2's character. This is a good start for a newcomer, but for a fighting game, you need to have data and information to show what you're doing, and have a good enough argument for a character (at least in speed). This TAS needs a decision from the author whether it's being done for entertainment, or speed, and going by how quickly these fights are handed out, you're targeting speed. I'm interested where you can take this game in the future. But I'm more interested to know if Maron is actually the best suited character for speed/damage output.

This looks more like one for playground because there is so much variation. If that is what you are going for then it might be good to lean into that aspect. Almost every tas fighting game that goes for speed has narrowed things down to very specific techniques or combos that are reused over and over again with few exceptions. Fun looking fighting game too so good choice for a game though. Liked how this was done.

which playaround or speedrun?

which playaround or speedrun?

Your Astra Superstars TAS looks like it could be a playaround. Did you mean to complete the game as fast as possible? Edit: What is your native language? Indonesian?

If the author is having issues on what's being stated, please tell us what your native language is. The author changed the branch without any consideration to what was stated prior, so to explain this issues of this being now classified as a "playaround". So to expand on this:

It's almost like you're going for a Playaround, but only showcasing a single character is harder to go for in fighting games where you can be challenged mid fight. Which this game does flash "Press Start" over Player 2's character.

A playaround in this game would work on showcasing more than one character (Maron) being played by "human", either by having mid-break fights with a second TAS controlled character (see Marvel v Capcom) or by having a character that is able to become other ones (See Mortal Kombat and Tekken 3). The lack of variety in my opinion weakens the overall "playaround" aspect out of it.

This TAS needs a decision from the author whether it's being done for entertainment, or speed, and going by how quickly these fights are handed out, you're targeting speed.

The author's submission description is now a contradiction of itself by listing out the time In-Game Time taken; 04'04"52 The TAS was made for speed first, and fanciness second. In which I already pointed out the issues behind that as well. Every fight, bar the bonus ones is done in average of 10.8 seconds (Round 1's - 10.875 // Round 2's - 10.75), the longest round goes to 8-2 where you should've had your special gauge built in order to deal with the Devil (a clone character). The Exhibition Round is where everything goes wrong for this TAS in my opinion, if you were going to showcase your skill, the character Testrun should not be given a chance to breathe. The site states "Did you like watching this movie?" When it was listed out as a non-playaround branch my opinion would've been "Meh". But now that it's has the branch my opinion is currently a "No". There needs to be much more variety in what's being done than what's actually showcased here to be a playaround, and that variety should be done on the hardest difficulty and that goes for either category.

CoolHandMike yes

I came across this unassisted 1 credit clear video with Stella by someone known for legit 1CC videos. There were two notable fights that seemed to have a possibly faster strat with at least the default AI level. Going by the in-game fight timer, first fight in the run against Maron had an 8 second 1st round and an 11 second 2nd round. This ends up with a faster 1st round and a total fight time equal to the TAS for the first fight. The other notable fight is the fifth fight of the run against Fooly where the 1st round is over in 9 seconds. I bring this up since this is a later fight that also beats the TAS for 1st round times using a real time loop strat. This possibly implies that at a TAS level the loop can work across all fights except against Satan Volte. Now it's possible that the loop used might not work on higher difficulties, or even certain opponents. However, this is proof that some characters might have faster strats even without having meter at the start. If you do try for a speed goal again it's definitely worth looking out for strats on non-assisted runs to see what can work.