Welp, it turns out I wasn't done with Action 52 on the Sega Genesis yet. There's one more game I chose from there that I forgot to TAS.
About the Game
Action 52 is an unlicensed game made for the NES and Sega Genesis, featuring - you guessed it - 52 different video games. The NES version was published in 1991, whereas the Genesis version was published in 1993. Both versions were published by Active Enterprises.
Star Duel is game 10/52 in the Sega Genesis version of Action 52. This is a 2 player game with a yellow spaceship and a red spaceship shooting at each other. Player 1 is the yellow spaceship.
About the TAS
This TAS aims for fastest completion, which means ending all 9 levels as Player 1 as quickly as possible.
Movement Physics
Each of the 9 levels have different movement physics, for example - some levels drift the spaceships in a certain direction automatically, and some levels let you shoot 3 bullets at once instead of 1.
You can shoot up to ~29.96 times a second by mashing C as fast as technically possible.
TAS Strategy
The main strategy for optimisation is as follows:
- 1. Immediately start holding B for both Player 1 and Player 2 when the level begins.
- 2. Move Player 1's spaceship by holding R until it's at a perfectly horizontal angle.
- 3. Make Player 1 shoot at Player 2 at every chance Player 1 gets.
- 4. Move Player 2's spaceship by holding L at very specific times so that it gets hit by every bullet.
There are a couple of caveats to this strategy, however:
- In Level 5, we have to stop holding B at the very end to make sure Player 2 gets hit by all the bullets.
- In Level 9, we have to move Player 1's spaceship right for 1 additional frame so that it can shoot the last bullet at Player 2.
Input ends on frame 4450 when Player 2 has enough speed to hit all of the last bullets.
The End of a Saga
And that marks the end of my Sega Genesis Action 52 TASing journey! (for real this time)
Thanks for reading.
