Hi everyone. I recently decided to try my hand at TASing. My first real attempt (after the traditional messing around with SMB1) was Adventures of Dino Riki, which TMR put back in my head during NESMania, and which didn't have a run published at all. I submitted my first run, but the reception was lukewarm. I can definitely make a run which is more entertaining, and more optimized, so I want to spend some time doing that. Here's what I have right now:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/37594403826893708
So, some questions for the general public:
1. This is an autoscrolling shmup, so the TAS needs to rate highly on the entertainment factor. In this run, I aim for doing lots of crazy dodging at high speeds to create interest. How does it look so far?
2. In this run, I don't pick up any upgrades besides speed. The HP upgrades/restores and diamonds (points that also earn extra lives eventually) are almost certainly irrelevant for speed purposes, although it can be pretty entertaining to fill up the screen with your HP bar and rollover the extra life counter. Do those make any difference on how a TAS would be perceived?
3. Weapon upgrades. The early weapon is pretty bad, but I don't believe it slows you down particularly - I believe it does as much damage as the other weapons - the upgrades improve projectile speed and number you can have on screen at once. It will slow you down a bit in boss fights, but not by a lot. But there's one type of enemy later in the game where I really want to show off the crap weapon - they're these black spheres that form a circle around you and move steadily closer until they hit you. It IS possible to kill them with the basic weapon and take no damage, but it takes a lot of careful frame-by-frame movement to make them collide with your shots. Showing off killing those with a crap weapon is the only reason I avoid weapon upgrades all game. Should I just let that go and pick up a better weapon? That would probably improve the time in boss fights by a few seconds, but wouldn't affect the entertainment value of the run, since I only kill a few enemies anyway. Those damn black spheres are one of the things I remember most about this game from when I was a kid (that and the badly-drawn platforming), but I feel like I might be the only one who cares at all about murdering them in the most humiliating way possible. I could also get good weapons for boss fights and then go back to the crap weapon for the black spheres, but you lose speed when you get hit. So I could plan around and only get hit when there is a boot upgrade on screen, so I could immediately get the speed back and not lose any time. Thoughts?
I appreciate any input folks have on the video. Thanks!