"Gekisou Sentai Car Ranger - Zenkai! Racer Senshi" (激走戦隊カーレンジャー 全開!レーサー戦士) in 6:57, faster than
nitrogenesis's
submission (9:58) by just over 3 minutes.
Just a warning. Please note that just before 7:30 in the Mediafire download and Nicovideo, there is a 30Hz flicker in the Earth scene. The Youtube video at the same point has a 0.1x-strength 15Hz version. The same scene also occurs when watching in emulator, at around frame 26500.
Youtube encode uses various TASBlend-type functions. The first is just [(0.25 0.75) (0.25 0.75)]. The second is the same as the first, except the parity of the original frames is reversed (used to get more favorable flickering in some cases). The third is only for the "30Hz flicker simulation" in the ending; it is rendered with [(0.45 0.55) (0.55 0.45)], so it is a very weak 15Hz flicker.
Emulator used: Snes9x v1.51
This game uses the Sufami Turbo. To play it, you need the Sufami Turbo BIOS (stbios.bin). You must put the BIOS in Snes9x bios folder.
To load it in Snes9x, you must select File -> Open MultiCart.... In Slot A, put the game ROM. The BIOS filepath should show up in the BIOS field automatically. Click OK.
- Aims for fastest time
- Uses Up/Down + Left/Right
- Takes damage to save time
- Bad ending
- Genre: Platform
About the game and the run
Even though this game doesn't really seem that bad, it sits in serious obscurity, like the majority of subpar titles, and pretty much Sufami Turbo itself. Videos of this game are more popular, relatively, on Youtube than it is on Nicovideo, not that it was ever any popular. Just to drive the point home, there are just as many SFC Car Ranger walkthroughs on Dailymotion with Japanese titles and description (1) as there are SFC Car Ranger-related content of any kind on Nicovideo (1, a BGM video). But whatever, it's a game, and who cares if a country completely disowns a game whose distribution was intended for said country.
Despite being a Japanese game with no English release, this game has more English than Japanese. That is horribly weird. Oh well, it's not like the game is so complex that it needs any sort of written language to describe what to do. The only Japanese in this game, ever, is the title screen (naturally, or maybe even not; see Super Mario Bros.), and the bad ending, cheerfully telling you how you failed. That is, if you even get the bad ending. Technically, the good ending does have a bit of Japanese too, but nobody cares.
There are five stages. You get to choose one of the five Rangers for each stage (with repetitions allowed). Each Ranger has something special about them:
- Green Ranger can float in air if you hold jump.
- Pink Ranger can double jump.
- Red Ranger has a bigger punch.
- Yellow Ranger runs faster.
- Blue Ranger can slide (sort of) with down+jump.
For the purposes of this run, I only use Yellow Ranger (for speed) and Red Ranger (for bosses with long recovery cycles). When Red Ranger obtains the weapon powerup, his sword does 2 damage to bosses. As far as I know, this is the only way to do 2 damage in the game; all other attacks and Rangers do 1 damage. Green, Pink, and Blue Rangers have projectile weapons as powerups, but they only do 1 damage.
To get the good ending, you need to end the game with at least 250 gears/parts/bolts/whatever, in order to get all the Car Ranger parts and RV Robo shows up in the ending. Otherwise, you get the bad ending. It is too hard to get 250 gears without wasting much time, because 10-part boxes, which are vital, are scattered everywhere and are well out of the way.
Besides, the bad ending is just so poorly done that it is almost a reward to get this ending. The purpose of a bad ending is supposed to be to shock the player into wanting to redo the game entirely just to get the good ending. Not so here:
- At first, you're wondering what kind of final boss is coming to bring doom, despite having already fought the final boss.
- Then, you get a shot of the Earth magically turning into fireworks. Sorry, I've seen better Earth explosions in parodies.
- Then, a shot of the bad guys, with said fireworks in the background. A great shot if you ask me.
- Then some Japanese text telling you that you failed miserably. But because no one can read Japanese, and their minds are blown from the sequence that just happened, the meaning of this text is lost on them.
- Then, a short credit roll, which is just as long as in the good ending.
- Finally, the best part. Just to insult your intelligence, the game plasters the phrase "BAD END" on the screen. Because no one figured that out already. Interestingly, the good ending just gets "END".
Compare the good ending, which is not very interesting. It's just RV Robo coming to save you, credit roll, some Japanese text telling you how many parts you got and that you're a hero, and a guy carrying the final boss out. And then "END".
So you see why I didn't feel bad at all about getting the bad ending.
Progress Log
Dec. 2, 2011: Did some testing, for about 3 hours. Also made a test run that came in at 7:23, using new tricks.
Dec. 3, 2011: TASed Stage 1-3, for about 7 hours.
Dec. 4, 2011: Finished the TAS (Stage 4-5), using about 5 hours.
Yes, this was a short project. Obviously, once I found the new tricks, I was set on doing this run. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
Run Info
Beginning
Here's where Up+Down comes in play: pressing Up+Down skips the company logo screen! I might not have figured it out if I didn't bother mashing buttons at the beginning. Note that Up+Down is the only one which works; Left+Right certainly does not work, and no other button combination skips it either.
Too bad Up+Down/Left+Right serves no other purpose as far as I know, but I don't look for Up+Down/Left+Right glitches any more than casually.
Stage 1
I select Yellow Ranger here. In short: kicking is good.
It is faster to kick the midboss dead rather than use the laser on it. The laser destroys it faster, but the delay makes it slower overall. For enemies like the midboss, I use a kick-jump cycle in a way such that landing cancels kick delay as soon as a kick hits. It can be used to cancel delay on every third kick.
The boss dies to a flurry of kicks. The kick-jump cycle works here too. Note that the boss is stunned when hit at a specific timing.
Stage 2
Yellow Ranger again.
Throughout the game, there are pits that look like bottomless pits, but are just different routes. Most of the time, the different routes are slower. This time however, taking the first pit is much faster than the over route! Enjoy your sudden music change.
The boss is... I don't know. But he still dies to a kick-jump cycle. Normally, he is hit with a couple kicks every time he jumps. This is good, because he alternates between charging and jumping, depending on whether his HP is even or odd. If he does a charging action, he cannot be hit.
Stage 3
Now I take Red Ranger.
I take damage at the first miner. Fortunately, the recoil throws me forward, not wasting too much time. In the next part, some dodging is required to avoid the rocks from the miner. Then the next part... you're supposed to go down in a vase? At least, that's what it looks like. But this isn't supposed to be Super Mario Bros. 2 (U).
Anyway, in the next long part, I get the sword here.
The boss takes 8 hits from the sword; 16 with any other attack. His recovery cycles are long. So you see why I used Red Ranger here. Yellow Ranger is maybe 5 seconds or so faster running through the stage, but 15 seconds slower at the boss.
Stage 4
I take Red Ranger again.
I had initially planned to get the sword in the under part before I found a sword here. So that saves some time. The midboss is very annoying normally, since he takes 16 hits normally and alternates a short recovery cycle with a long one. But with sword, he only takes 8, and only uses his short recovery cycle. This makes it a breeze.
The next part has some falling missiles. But they can easily be jumped over without slowing down.
The boss takes 12 hits from the sword; 24 with any other attack. His recovery cycles are long like the Stage 3 boss. Normally, he uses the bubble and tornado attacks unpredictably, but when using the sword here, he just alternates them.
Stage 5
I take Yellow Ranger.
The final stage is as easy as ever. The final boss is almost as easy as the Stage 1 midboss. Just a kick-jump cycle to finish him off.
I manage to end the game with exactly 49 parts, 1 less than the number of parts which triggers an orb delay. Enjoy the BAD END!
Mukki: Viewer response is good. Accepting for publication.
Regarding the ending message:
Translation:
