This is a tool-assisted speedrun of RoboCop for Nintendo NES, released by Data East USA in 1989. It's the first part of RoboCop trilogy for NES and it's a perfect example of many first parts: gameplay is boring, music is boring, but difficulty is for pro-gamers!
It's a typical sidescroller-shoot'em-up where you go from dot A to dot B while killing different enemies from robbers to helicopters on your way. Well, there are different ways to reach the dot B, but not many. At the end of each level you must kill the boss/bosses. As RoboCop is a policeman, he can't use weapons in "public" places (Which places in Detroid you can name public???), so we watch the gun pulling/removing animation each time we reach the "place".
Game objectives
- Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2, Android's calculator for counting frames
- Aims for the fastest time
- Take damage to save time
- Genre: Shoot'em up
I used to play this game when I was 9, no-one of my friends loved this game, reaching the 5th level gives your a medal (but unreal), the game was never completed on the real hardware... Well, enough for memories.
Many TASVideos' members told that it's bad to TAS this game because there was no vault on this site, but this game is pretty easy for TASing: I didn't even reach 500 rerecords! Calculator on my smartphone was used for counting frames of enemies' unvulnerability time after I shoot them.
Stage 1.
You go along the road to a warehouse. Robbers, dogs, motobiker, ninjas and even helicopter are welcoming you and running hard to give you a hand, but there is perfect blocking system: pressing Select button makes you invulnerable for next 32 frames (± 2 frames); if you take any damage, you'll get the same result. As a result, I didn't take any damage on this stage. Boss blocks all your shots, but perfectly takes damage from puncing (he takes 17 hits). As RoboCop always does another punch if you press A/B after he finished the action or 1 frame before he finishes the action, I used a turbo button.
Stage 2.
You go along the street, enter the building at the end of it and enter the 3rd floor to save the VIP. Some new enemies meet you, but our hands protect us from machine-gun fire and fire itself. At the 1st floor I entered a room to take a submachine gun. At the 2nd floor I enter the first door to cut the route (it wasn't discovered by Blublu who posted unoptimesed WIP in 2008). Fighting the boss was thrilling. Unfortunately, VIP managed to protect the boss from our first hit, but our hands were stronger! He died after the 5th hit.
Training room 1.
The usual target shooting. If you shoot more than 30 targets, you'll get an extra life (was unnecessary for me, just to show the perfect shooting).
Stage 3.
Another warehouse where we meet the pre-final boss for the first time. Some robbers trained to shoot from guns, but one of them really enjoyed shooting the wall. Another submachine gun was taken. Lift animations were so stupid and just wasted the time. Going down to the room with a sniper rifle takes much longer time than killing bosses with avaliable weapons. Shooting the boss while he was running away replaces all the taken damage to the middle guy which unfreezes first. All 3 guys jump down after certain time so there was no necessity in manipulating the fastest jumps. Submachine gun was used for faster killing the last guy (damage from his falling was taken for entertainment).
Stage 4.
We walk in the laborathory to destroy the final boss, security tries to stop us. Submachine gun was used again for faster destroying the flamethrowing machine. There was no problems with the boss, but we only destroyed his gun.
Training room 2.
Everything is the same as in 1st training room. Was lazy to shoot with the rythm of music and just copied the input in TAS Editor =)
Stage 5.
More enemies try to stop us. After I reach the end of non-public zone, I did some NPC manipulations to collect enough sniper rifles, but I think it was the most difficult part of my TAS because I have found only 1 address in RAM that really shows the right values of enemy HP (random enemy) - 058D, but it didn't show the value of blue snipers. Also they must fall down in the frame to drope the rifles. Boss was killed in 2 sniper shots.
Stage 6.
We go along the conveyor with explosive barrels, enter the building... In short, go to final boss. Destroyed another flamethrowing machine and a blue sniper on the way. The final boss ate all the 6 sniper shots and I even took damage to save the time. Equiping with a pistol is faster than waiting for an automatic equip. In the end, we killing a typical bad guy after destoying the giant robot with the devastating weapon.
Game mechanics are stupid anyway. You can't pick up a weapon/energy/power and go down the stairs until the camera stops, even robber's knife punches your armour, you take damage from enemies' falling.
Damages and some enemies' HP:
- Punch: 3
- Pistol/Submachine gun: 2
- Sniper rifle: 20 (inflicts double damage if the target is big)
- Robber: 2; 3 (after the 2nd stage)
- Wall (Stage 2): 15
- Blue sniper: 10
- Electo machine (Stage 3): 20
- Granadier: 6
- Flamethrowing machine: 40
- Boss 1: 51
- Boss 2: 15
- Boss 3: 10, each of 3 guys - 30
- Boss 4: 34
- Boss 5: 60
- Boss 6: 128
Possible improves:
I did all possible actions, but I didn't find how to skip sth animations, go through the walls, collect sth weapons twice etc, so any good glitch will improve the run!
Suggested screenshots:
6910, 7843, 11926, 16183, 19013, 26443, 29194, 29900
Noxxa: Replaced submission file with a 8 frame improvement.
Noxxa: The game has little to offer in terms of entertainment, with overall movement quite slow (strolling right for justice) and many enemies easily blocked and bypassed. Accepting for the Vault.
Seeing the 2 fellows:
7703 - Fix (+Desync)
7706 - Original
Probably a few, minor input muckups in terms of optimality but still a very slow TAS to watch, Meh.
