gonna get to a certain arcade meme before anyone else beats me to the punch
Introduction
Shackled is a 1986 arcade game from Data East. It's basically their attempt at making a Gauntlet clone. The main mechanic that sets it apart is that saving other prisoners lets the player swap between different shot types outside of the basic dagger.
As an extra note, Shackled is a bad dump according to MAME. From my casual play the music sometimes just stops for no real reason. This doesn't seem to happen with the Japanese version, Breywood. There are also gameplay differences but that seems more of an intentional change between regions rather than a dumping issue.
Run notes
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9 release candidate 2, not a full release
- MAMEHawk core
- Takes what is essentially one of those Super Mario Maker dev door exits
Additional info
Picking up the necklace increases speed for whatever shot type you picked it up with. This means if you pick one up with the basic dagger shot and then switch to another one, then the movement speed for the other shot will not increase without picking up another necklace.
In the world version, Shackled, there's a kinda hidden exit on the first floor that jumps straight to the credits when used. This is more likely an accidental dev door left in to test that the ending works. This door isn't present in the Japanese version, Breywood, so it's generally not considered a real 1 credit clear taking that exit. The full game instead has 100 floors to complete before reaching the proper ending door.
I would not consider this route to the end as a proper completion as it's the equivalent to the joke TASes that simply go to the options and rolls credits, at least for normal publications. The Playground section of TASVideos is where this run is best placed. I've considered wanting to do a full 100 floor clear on either/both versions of this game since there haven't been any reported 1 credit clears of this game as far as I know. Both regional versions would likely be separate publications due to their changes but I haven't taken the full work and research to be sure.
feos: Claiming for judging.
MAME's complaint is One or more ROMs/disk images for this system have not been correctly dumped. but there's nothing we can do to help it.
Accepting.
