This run is of Terminator 2 which generally follows the plot of the film as well as one would expect from an NES game. As a warning this is yet another LJN game that has been reviewed by AVGN. I keep trying different games but this company keeps pulling me back in.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: fceux-2.1.5-win32 with TAS Edit
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes Damage to save time
- Manipulates luck to save time
- Genre Platform
Terminator 2: Judgment Day for the NES is one of the better LJN games I have played so far but that doesn't say much. In this game there are 4 platformer levels and one where Terminator rides a motorcycle. As stated above the game generally follows the plot of the movie so for a more detailed synopsis go enjoy the film.
In this run I beat the fastest TAS time I could find by roughly 27 seconds (I could only find a Youtube clip and it was playing the European version so I don't know exact frame improvements) and bests the fastest realtime speedrun by 223 seconds or 3 minutes 43 seconds. The improvements over the other TAS came from much better luck manipulation.
The key to completing this game in the fastest time is manipulating when and where enemies and goal items appear. For the enemies this randomness is determined simply by your placement and the frame that the previous enemies die. For the items it becomes more complex and I will go into it later.
Stage 1
This is the level where the most time was saved off of the other TAS. The first level is a standard beat-em-up where you must eliminate a certain number of enemies before you can progress. This is repeated until eventually you get to the boss. In this level your choices for destroying enemies are to punch them, jump on them, or a combination of the two. Excluding one enemy punching is used exclusively because for jumping on them to work you must jump from a higher position than the enemy is and it places you in inopportune locations to manipulate when the other enemies appear. This portion was over 10 seconds faster than the youtube TAS I found due to optimizing when and where enemies would appear.
The boss on this stage, which is the only boss excluding the final one, is simple when you have frame precision. A pattern of punching while standing and then while crouching is all that is needed to eliminate him in ideal time.
Stage 2
Stage 2 is the motorcycle level. In the level you do not have control over acceleration so you can only affect where in the x-plane you are located and decide to fire ahead or behind. This level is surprisingly the most boring in this movie due to the lag and prcecision needed to finish unscathed.
First off the controls are very shoddy and from when you tell the motorcycle to begin moving right to when it begins can be up to a 10 frame difference. Second when the truck is present, even off-screen as it actually just moves out of view, moving in different directions can cause major lag spikes slowing down the movie so for the most part this level consists of driving straight avoiding obstacles. The third issue with placement is that if you are not located within a certain 2 or 3 pixel range no matter how many times you fire back at the truck you will retain damage.
One interesting portion of this level is the bullet management. The number of times and when you fire back at the truck directly controls where the first key on the next level will be located so a few slightly different firing patterns are used to optimize the next level.
Stage 3
Stage 3 is another platformer but this time you have a gun. In this level you must traverse 5 levels of a mental hospital finding security cards to gain access to the next levels. The placement of the security cards are random, controlled by the number of times you fired on the previous level, or previous floor in this stage. For this reason the number of times that the gun is used is limited to gaining the best results as this level could be twice as long with poor planning.
Stage 4
Stage 4 is like Stage 3 except gathering non-random bombs. The most difficult portion of this level is moving so as to avoid taking damage because having enough hp is imperative for a fast run of the last level. For this a balance must be formed between shooting and jumping over enemies. In most cases shooting is slightly slower than jumping but elimanates the enemy entirely so you no longer have to avoid the attack.
After all of the bombs are collected you must place them in the next portion of the level. When this is accomplished the longest unskippable cutscene of the game begins and we continue to the final level.
Stage 5
Stage 5 is another platformer but with no enemies excluding the final boss. The real hazard in the fifth level is the large number of fire, lava and near impossible jumps that must be made. To defeat the boss you must shoot him a certain number of times for the first two encounters and then must push him into the lava flow on the third. Punching him results in a relatively optimized ending but for some reason the boss is the only enemy you are able to land on if you jump from the same level as the character. After he falls in the lava you run over to Sarah and John and congrats, the game is won.
Thanks to feos for the trick on the bomb level which helped shed an extra second
DarkKobold: This run had some pretty bad feedback, despite the quality of the TAS. The game has horrible music, boring and uninspired gameplay, and even the nicest of our members could barely give it a meh. Rejecting for bad game choice.
turska: Unrejecting under the neo-TASVideos publication system.
Noxxa: Accepting for the vault.
