Cocoron is one of my favorite hidden gems for NES. It runs on what appears to be the Mega Man 2 engine, but instead of receiving powers from the bosses you kill you get another character to add to your roster. Each character is built from a sequence of head, body, and weapon parts. Each of these parts is assigned a weight and an HP or damage value. Putting heavy parts together results in a slow bruiser, and putting light parts together results in a frail little speed demon.
Guess which one I chose.
This is where Cocoron gets tricky. Weight affects not only your movement speed and jumping height, but also your momentum. Even when planning jumps frame by frame you have to take into account how much momentum you have built up. This usually means holding the opposite direction of travel for five or six frames to come to a dead stop before jumping. I think I handled this pretty well, especially when climbing the leaves in level two.
My weapon of choice, Parasol, is far from the most damaging in the game. However, there are several points in the game where its unique "unfold and rise" shot path is indispensable. Grabbing powerups doesn't increase the damage done so I ignore eggs and almost every enemy.
My main character isn't the absolute lowest weight you can put together, but when momentum, flight, and weapon utility are taken into account I'm betting it's the fastest to complete the game.
The route here is pretty solid. There are a few preconditions to reach the last level:
Beat all five bosses
Then, and ONLY then, does the princess appear in a mid-point egg
In fact, she's always in the same egg. It's a plot thing. We skip the plot.
This is my second submission, which is very nearly my first submission, since my first used a fan translation of Cocoron. I was suitably chastised in the forum and dedicated today to whupping CocoronJ even worse. I did so in fine style: this movie is 2:35 faster in real-time, 21 seconds faster in game-time, and uses a little over half the re-records. The speedups came mostly in a greatly improved Trump Castle boss fight and not recording the credits.
A couple notes:
The Trump Castle boss' spade attack always fires at the same rate. To bring down the next card only depends on if any spades are left on screen. Theoretically only the last two need to be shot to advance as fast as possible...but I wanted to spice this battle up.
Tapir is a mostly-invincible jerk.
Suggested Description: A winged pumpkin man rights wrongs in the World of Dreams with his tiny twin parasols of doom. No, that's not a euphemism for anything.
CANCELLED due to many many improvements found by the forumites. Monthenor will return in CocoronJ With a Vengeance.
Haven't played this game before, im not sure how to load this game in FCEU, I get error "iNES mapper #161 not supported" or something. Im gonna look in different emu.
Wow, I have no idea whats going on in this movie.
Anyway, a few things stuck out:
1. You fly way too much and there are times when flying could have been used to avoid slowing down.
2. To avoid lag, try to destroy as many enemies as you can.
3. There was one instance where you stop to kill two shell-enemies. Couldn't you have just taken damage to pass them?
4. Though I'm nost sure how, I have a feeling the boss battles can be improved.
5. The menus could be handled better. Use frame advance if you have to.
6. Your 496 rerecords show. You should use as many as you need in order to produce the best possible result and since you seem to know more about this game than anyone else, I'm sure that will be no problem.
This game is strange, but it has lots of potential for a time attack. This movie just needs some work. I hope I haven't discouraged you, but I'm voting 'no' because this can be improved, maybe 2-3 minutes (who knows?). I could be wrong on some things, so let me know what you think.
P.S. I like your avatar too :)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I'm using Cocoron (J).nes and it opens normally on blip's fceu
Wow i had no idea this game existed, i'm impressed by the graphics, very good
About the run, i had no idea of much that was going on either, but i dont think 2 3 minutes improvement is possible.
I saw some errors on jumping, sometimes you could have landed earlier to be able to jump without stopping so much, and sometimes you could have killed enemies and try to avoid some slowdown.
But what bugs me is why do you always choose the same character, in some boss battles you clearly have the choice to pick other characters, you dont need the fastest one, why is that?
I vote yes because it looks good, and for such a low re-record count, gj
There is garbage in the header of this rom, incorrectly labelling it as mapper 161. The correct number is 1. Use an emu with a NES Header editor and set it to 1 and it will work.
As for the game itself, it made me recheck what I had digested lately, as I'm not used to see such violent use of colors, and pink elephants, and blue dancing tapirs with parasols and flying whales and stars that come crashing down and a moon that .. and so on. It was like a weird dream gone bad :P
The run seems nicely done, however I believe a kill here and there could have removed a lot of the slowdowns.
I'm kinda holding my vote yet as I'm not entirely decided yet.
Joined: 5/17/2004
Posts: 106
Location: Göteborg, Sweden
Ventuz,
I had that problem, as well. T'was just a matter of finding a different rom, from a less edgy site.
As for the movie; I'm by no means an expert on this game, but it at least looks like using different characters should save time. There are levels/bosses where the parasols or flight capabilities seemingly don't do much for speed, especially the boss fight with its own character select at the end. Using lighter characters and higher-damage weapons in these situations should help. Even having a slower character with more HP could be beneficial, so you can run through blocking enemies without dying.
Some jumps look like they can be done slightly better, as well, but here I really can't say for sure. I tried playing the game (at normal speed, which turned out to be difficult) with a low-weight character to see how it controlled and I get the impression that jumping around is perhaps not an exact science.
I do like the run & game but I'm voting Meh due to apparent improvability. Chastise me later if I'm jumping to conclusions (:
Okay, I'll address all the questions I know the answers to:
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
So is it never beneficial to use any of the other characters you designed? That's disappointing.
FODA wrote:
But what bugs me is why do you always choose the same character, in some boss battles you clearly have the choice to pick other characters, you dont need the fastest one, why is that?
Xerophyte wrote:
As for the movie; I'm by no means an expert on this game, but it at least looks like using different characters should save time. There are levels/bosses where the parasols or flight capabilities seemingly don't do much for speed, especially the boss fight with its own character select at the end. Using lighter characters and higher-damage weapons in these situations should help. Even having a slower character with more HP could be beneficial, so you can run through blocking enemies without dying.
It may be beneficial to use some of the other characters. And I say maybe. Because jumping and running are the same speed (even on inclines!) it doesn't matter much if I'm flying over everything. That's just an aesthetic thing. Maybe I should have bobbed and weaved through more baddies.
But I don't recall any time where I was allowed to switch characters right before a boss. EDIT: Oh, duh. Right before Tapir 1. Okay, so that one time a ?-Wing-Shuriken would have gone slightly faster. Call it two seconds. This is why I need more eyes watching the movie :)
You only get to pick a guy before entering a level, and have to get that character through the whole level before fighting the boss. It's not like Little Samson where you can switch at will. Wing is so ridiculously useful during the levels that it doesn't make much sense to use anything else. Wing-hovering at the bosses is as important a tactic as firing every other frame, so I don't see much room for improvement here.
It is sad that I can't bust out a variety of characters, but in the interest of speed, variety must suffer. It also leaves the door open for things like "tank-only" time attacks.
Ouzo wrote:
2. To avoid lag, try to destroy as many enemies as you can.
FODA wrote:
and sometimes you could have killed enemies and try to avoid some slowdown.
I knew this would come up. There's quite a few places with lag in Cocoron because of all the sprites coming from every direction. Here's the unfortunate part: Parasol is so weak that it takes anywhere from 2-4 shots to kill even a minor character. The exception are the dive-bombing birds, which take one shot each.
Sadly, that means 2-4 extra parasol sprites aimed at a badguy. Add to that the small explosion when the enemy dies. Then consider that every single enemy leaves behind a powerup egg...you don't see this until I start killing birds in my way, but trust me that eggs are a 100% non-luck thing. Then add 2-4 shots to open these eggs, and then I have to actually collect the powerup that falls out.
All told, shooting enemies would probably add more lag than just trying to scroll them offscreen as fast as possible.
Ouzo wrote:
3. There was one instance where you stop to kill two shell-enemies. Couldn't you have just taken damage to pass them?
Xerophyte wrote:
Even having a slower character with more HP could be beneficial, so you can run through blocking enemies without dying.
I was trying to complete it with zero damage/deaths, which I guess is at odds with the "as fast as possible" goal here.
I didn't like it either, but the reason I stop for those two armadillos in cactus-land is because I couldn't squeeze my sprite over the top of them and still avoid the cacti. It was either run through (and I would have survived that hit), or shoot them away and maintain my no-damage status.
NrgSpoon wrote:
I just need to say that your avatar is ridiculous and awesome.
Ouzo wrote:
P.S. I like your avatar too :)
Thankie. Maybe in a couple days I'll bust out my second Cocoron avatar :)
In summary: I can see saving a few frames in the menu parts if I timed it down to the frame, but I was playing the whole thing at 6% so the savings would result in maybe three seconds alltogether. All the jumps up leaves and around corners were frame-by-frame, so I don't see much wiggle room there. If I could find a way to pass those two armadillos in the cactus corridor, that would save a bunch of momentum and time. And of course, more solid luck manipulation on Silver Dragon and Boss Tapir 1 and 2 to bring them down lower would help.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Any game that let's me play as Astroboy with an alien head that sings its enemies to death is pure, undiluted awesome.
Oh, the run? I haven't watched it yet, but as soon as I beat this game, I will!
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Any game that let's me play as Astroboy with an alien head that sings its enemies to death is pure, undiluted awesome.
Oh, the run? I haven't watched it yet, but as soon as I beat this game, I will!
Hero1 + Cyborg1 + weapon = Cyborg 009.
This game is bursting with creative possibilities that are nonetheless distracting for a timeattack. Also, each head has its own taunt when you hold Up. That's how I got the flashing pumpkin face when I absolutely had to wait for something to appear. The alien-slug-head thing has a pretty silly taunt, too.
Here's the unfortunate part: Parasol is so weak that it takes anywhere from 2-4 shots to kill even a minor character. The exception are the dive-bombing birds, which take one shot each.
Okay, but could you get a similar character with a more powerful weapon for that level?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
I'm testing out a Shuriken user right now. The extra 70 weight is noticeable in terms of jumping height, but I'm beginning to think any losses during the level can be offset by the increased boss-whupping power.
I'm still not sure about the lag. It's not just the power of my weapon that's a problem. I'd have to shoot 2 Shuriken to kill, 2 more to open the egg, and then be right there to catch the item. I'm not sure it's practical in the area where it would matter most -- outside the house -- because of the sheer number of enemies coming at different elevations.
But if it IS possible, frame advance will solve everything.
As for the game itself, it made me recheck what I had digested lately, as I'm not used to see such violent use of colors, and pink elephants, and blue dancing tapirs with parasols and flying whales and stars that come crashing down and a moon that .. and so on. It was like a weird dream gone bad :P
Isn't that what the game's supposed to be about, though?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
It would seem Takeru or K2 or whoever it was drew from the same well as the Beattles did when they made the Yellow Sumarine movie when they made this game. In fact, Tapir looks like a Yellow Submarine character art reject. Gotta love the abstract.
Now, onto the movie. Not bad! There are some problems, though. For example, you can get to the title screen from the "1992 TAKERU" text. You also decide to give most of your characters a one-letter name, even though you don't need any so you wasted time on meaningless names.
You seem to be aware of the jump-down--pits trick, but don't exploit it whever possible. An example is in the beginning of the second to last level when you just walk down the tiers.
Plus, in the last two levels, you do some backtracking when a jump or two could have prevented them.
monthenor wrote:
I didn't like it either, but the reason I stop for those two armadillos in cactus-land is because I couldn't squeeze my sprite over the top of them and still avoid the cacti. It was either run through (and I would have survived that hit), or shoot them away and maintain my no-damage status.
I've jumped over them. Requires some frame precise moves, but it's quite easy.
Consider starting with the Milk Sea (love the appropriation of Hindu iconography) and go clock wise. The path from the house to the boss is shorter, although from castle to egg may make it longer.
So, I'm going to have to vote "No" on this. Some mistakes are just too obvious. Good work though, and great game choice! :P
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
It would seem Takeru or K2 or whoever it was drew from the same well as the Beattles did when they made the Yellow Sumarine movie when they made this game. In fact, Tapir looks like a Yellow Submarine character art reject. Gotta love the abstract.
I've heard they also literally drew from Mega Man 2. As in, it's the same (or very nearly same) game engine.
If anybody can figure out how to get a character into the ceiling, I'd be much obliged ;)
Ferret Warlord wrote:
I've jumped over them. Requires some frame precise moves, but it's quite easy.
I tried frame-by-frame for quite a while...I don't understand why I couldn't do it. The gap certainly looked big enough. I'll give it another thirty attempts on my next run-through.
I'm taking all your comments to heart and it's pretty awesome that you can just instantly help on a game like this. For instance, I was so caught up in naming my characters (from the English version) that it never occurred to me that I could leave it totally blank. Stupid, stupid mistakes...but I'm proud of my run nonetheless.
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Personally, I'm not so sure about using the shuriken. From my experiments, I'd guesstimate about 2-5 seconds lost per level, and the bosses go so quickly already I doubt it'd make up for it. If anything I'd sing your way through. Music is 60 units lighter than the umbrella and is just as powerful. It didn't look like you were using the parasol's upward motion to it's fullest extent, so the Lullaby of Doom would work as well thanks to the curve. It would also let you fight some bosses much faster. For example, the ghost ship. Just hover right underneath it and let the sine wave do the rest.
The shuriken may be useful for short levels/long bosses, though. Look into that.
Certainly not all levels require that much hovering. Some levels, like getting the princess and outside the house, may benefit from using a ?-?-Music configuration.
If you want to know how to get above those two armidillos: press A for two frames, let go for one, and hover. Voila, you are above the armidillos and below the cactus. :)
Nice comic(s), by the way. I AM A PRETTY LADY!
Edit: Oh yeah, faster menus would be a major plus if just for the aesthetics.
Edit Zwie: I also suggest starting a topic for this game and posting WIPs every so often so we can critique your progress.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
