Introduction
This is my submission for the TASVideos Simple Series TAS Jam.
Shooter: Space Shot (also known as The Shooting in japanese) is a Playstation game released as a part of the Simple series in the year 2000.
If you want to se the cutscenes I skipped, you can watch this playthrough right here:
This movie's goal is to complete the game as fast possible. It achieves that goal in roughly 13 minutes and 17 seconds.
Levels
This game's sections are divided into two parts. There are the main parts and the boss sections. The main parts of the levels are essentially autoscrollers, and when I mean autoscrollers, I truly mean autoscrollers, this is one of the autoscrolliest games I've ever played. I started every stage by checking the frame the boss sections started, and never did that frame change after I finished TASing the level, even if it had more or less lag frames. Now for the boss sections. These parts are also kind of like autoscrollers (though the more correct term would be framerules). The problem is that said framerules are tied to the boss' attacks, which often last hundreds of frames. The only exception is the final boss, seeing as I end my inputs there.
Mechanics
- Vulcan
- This weapon is the main mechanic of this game. Done by pressing square, it allows me to fire projectiles whose trajectories depend on the orientation of the little thingies on the sides of the ship. They aren't very useful overall, but they allow me to hit the bosses and decrease their health just a little bit.
- Boost
- This is, quite possibly, the most useful mechanic in the game, which is activated by pressing R1. Not only is it a good movement option, not only is it a fast attack, not only do I increase the combo meter every time I perform one close to a projectile, but they are crazy strong (they deal 10 damage per 2 frames, which is double the damage that the super laser deals). It's only flaw is that it's consumes the pink meter at the top, but that's relatively minor.
- O.V.D
- This is a super laser that deals a good amount of damage (not as much as the boosts, but it's still decent). It is activated by shooting and holding R2 at the same time. One annoying thing is that, every time I tried using it on a boss in tandem with the boosts, it would deal less damage than if I were to just boost, which was really weird. Also, just like the boost, using this consumes energy from the pink bar, a lot more than when boosting, in fact.
- Missile
- When holding X, you can create a red area which will target enemies and start launching homing missiles. One curiosity is that you can't perform them while using the super laser. Anyways, these missiles are only really used for bosses, but they're relatively useful there.
Final boss
I'm only gonna talk about the final boss, seeing as it is the only section of the run I could really optimize. I believe it can be improved, but I don't know by how much. I tried doing a lot of things, but I could not find a way to end inputs earlier. A thing I forgot to mention is that colliding with enemies damages them (alongside you), which also applies to bosses. I use that in this boss to save a couple frames. Special thanks to
Dacicus for finding me the RAM values for the boss' health, which was a very important part of the whole run.
Suggested screenshot
Frame 47174
eien86: True to its name: this game is indeed a space shooter from the
Simple Series. This one has coolr 3D navigation effects and the most unhinged scoring system I've seen in my life.
The author showcases some cool tricks throughout the run to keep it fresh and interesting. Execution seems flawless and the early input ending also seems polished.
Accepting to Standard
