Emulator:
Bizhawk 2.8.0 + TAStudio, using Gambatte-Speedrun r717+
Emulator Setting:
- Use official Nintendo BootROM: TRUE
- All other settings: DEFAULT
ROM CRC32:
BIOS:
BIOS SHA1:
BIOS Region:
BIOS Revision:
Brief Game Introduction:
The game revolves around Kunio and Todo (Crash and Titus) both competing for which team is the strongest at dodgeball. Unfortunate for Todo (Titus), the Dodgeball gods decided to stan the Nekketsu High School dodgeball team.
Aims for:
- No Damages
- Fastest Time
- Playing on highest difficulty possible (Hard mode).
No Damages:
The whole team consists of 3 people, which has their own stamina, called "POWER" in the game. The goal in dodgeball is to knock out all of the opposing team members completely. Thus, this run aims to not get hit by the opposing team's dodgeball attacks despite the other 2 team members on the player's team are controlled by CPU.
Fastest Time:
Aims to reach the end of credits as fast as possible.
Hard Mode:
Aims to beat the game on the hardest difficulty possible. There are only 3 difficulties, Easy, Normal, and Hard.
- Tried to make a "Zero re-recording count run.", but got ruined at the very last frame where I just ended my input. While saving the TASPROJ, it crashed, leaving me with a backup with 2 re-recording count. How that happen, I don't know. I guess I'll stick to having 1 or 2 re-recording counts. :(
Controls:
Up/Down/Left/Right - Move character.
A - Pass the ball / Avoid ball.
B - Throw the ball / Catch the ball.
Passing ball to specific team member - Watch the team member opening/closing their hands. Also, watch your player-controlled character's position. The position will tell the game which team member to pass the ball to.
Curving the thrown ball - Hit B, then use Up/Down to swerve the ball.
Catch the ball - You have to time your catch correctly to be able to catch the incoming ball. Timing gets tricky when dealing with special attacks.
On Hard difficulty, this game's CPU players on the opposing team all have high dodgeball catching rates, to the point any dodgeball throws will be caught guaranteed, including special attacks at point-blank ranges. The only way to effectively damage the CPU players is by using special homing attacks, or delayed attacks.
As the Nekketsu High School dodgeball team, you have 6 team members: Kunio (くにお), Yoshihiro (よしひろ), Akira (あきら), Toujirou (とうじろう), Akihito (あきひと), Tetsuya (てつや). I have no idea what their skills are called.
But, what I can tell you, is the team position I have chosen for this run:
- Kunio - 5th position (Opposing team's bottom side)
- Yoshihiro - 6th - (Opposing team's center side)
- Akira - 1st - (Striker)
- Tetsuya - 2nd - (Forward)
- Akihito - 3rd - (Midfielder)
- Toujirou - 4th - (Opposing team's top side)
Akira has the special homing attack that allows the ball to fly up in the sky, before striking the opponent after a delay.
Tetsuya has the special attack where the ball shrinks and flies around in an arc-shaped curved path. It's useless against CPUs.
Ahkihito has the special attack where the ball would pop in and out in 3 places, before attacking the opponent from the front. This is only useful if the CPUs tend to gather in the center of the opposing team's field.
I mainly use Akira because of its homing abilities and because of the "delay". Why is this delay so important? All CPUs will react instantly and do a "catch" when a ball is about to hit them. However, if the attack has a delay, the CPU will "miss" their "catch" timing, and the attack will always succeed.
The only times I have to wait before I execute the special homing attack, is when the CPUs are "dazed", meaning the attack will fail to pinpoint the CPU's location. You will see me wait for their dazing to end in this run a handful of times.
To trigger these special attacks, there are 2 ways to do this: Ground and Air attacks.
- Ground Attack - From the position where the player-controlled team member starts to run, exactly on the 4th step, throw the ball.
- Air Attack - The team member must start with a run, then jump into the air. Exactly when the player is at the highest arc of the jump, throw the ball.
When you watch the gameplay footage, you will notice the player and the opposing team are blinking. This is how the game shows "highlighted team members". The blinking player team member is the one being controlled by the player. The blinking opposing team member is the player's target.
So far, the best strategy is to use attacks with a delay, to intentionally let the CPU miss their "catch ball" timings, in order to win Hard difficulty matches.
There are 6 rounds, and 6 boss deathmatches. Each round will have 6 opposing team members (1 leader + 5 members), while deathmatches will have you fight against 1 leader from each of the 6 teams.
Samsara: Cancelling with permission from the author. Some improvement notes are available
here.
Given how long it takes for the delayed shots to connect, this by itself should save a significant amount of time over the course of the run, assuming that every single shot could be made to hit, which I believe is possible. Different amounts of delaying and changed positioning should help with this.
What bothers me more is that the current strategy could also be heavily improved just from playing a little more aggressively. At around 0:26 in the encode, the CPU launches a delayed shot of its own, which you let hang in the air before coming down. It's easily possible to catch the shot as it hangs in the air and counterattack immediately:
In fact, across this entire first match, it doesn't seem like you move at all while the CPU is attacking, even though several seconds could be saved by doing so in order to catch their shots closer to the center.
I feel this needs a lot more work. I'll put together a file of a more optimized first match that should hopefully show what I'm talking about.
