- The arcade vertical shooter game Gun.Smoke was made by Capcom in 1985. Gun.Smoke is well known for being very difficult with an extremely uneven difficulty progression for its levels. The Japanese version of the game has the second hardest stage with Chief Wolf as the third stage, and the World version has that stage as the sixth.
- This TAS uses the Very Difficult Dipswitch setting. This can be set from the top menu in the Arcade -> Settings. All other dipswitch settings were left on the default.
- Ends input at earliest frame to beat boss.
- There is a two player mode, but it is only a single player that switches off with the first one, not two players simultaneously.
Gameplay
- The game is a vertical shooter and the player can acquire various items from pots. The most important being the three powerups with the boot increasing speed, the rifle increasing shooting distance, and the bullet increasing the speed the bullets travel. Each powerup keep increasing in number as you pick them up, but the game only checks whether you have at least one for the powerup to take effect. The other item that matters for time is the horse, which is not gotten since the horse takes longer than any benefit it would give. The horse is kind of like a big bulky suit of armor, that also can do damage if you run into bosses, but it in turn will leave. The damage dealt with the horse can be done faster with bullets. There is a 1-up pinwheel, and various bottles, a star, a butterfly and a cow that gives points. Another item is a cow skull that decreases all powerups acquired by one. There is also a POW which kills or deals high damage to all enemies on screen, but after the first level I do not get them since it is more entertaining when there are more enemies on screen.
- The player is restricted from moving above the top fifth or so of the screen. If the player gets stuck in an area at the bottom of the screen the game will move the player to an available spot nearby.
- The player has an unusual shooting mechanic where there are three buttons that shoot left, straight, or right. If you combine any two of the three directional shooting the bullets will travel slightly differently. There can only be 8 shots on screen at once which is four button presses. Typically the fastest rate of fire is every other frame, but by switching the fire button combination it is possible to fire every frame.
- There are not that many normal enemy types. There is the gray that wanders around randomly and tries to encircle you. The gunner/archer/Axe Thrower that runs on screen and will shoot if you are in front of it. The Archer and Axe Thrower can have their projectiles shot down even if it can be tricky. A dynamite throwing guy which is quite dangerous since once the dynamite is on the ground it can be hard to notice. Dynamite can be walked over and picked up. The Knifer jumps down from offscreen and will stab as it lands then moves across the screen with another jump. The Sharpshooter shoots from a stationary location. The Bull charges forward once shot. The Bull can be killed, but it takes a lot of shots.
- One bug that a lot of enemies have is that if they have a lot of health, they usually flinch when taking enough damage. Most enemies do not have a hitbox around them while flinching. But the actual bug is that sometimes mini-bosses or bosses permanently lose their hitbox after flinching. This is really obvious on the Ninja boss and on the mini-boss on the final round.
- Bosses have multiple health bars and the health bars each have three health. A single health is removed when a single bullet hits the boss. Once a health bar is removed the boss flinches. When all the visual health bars are gone the boss dies.
- Boss OOB Bug - When bosses flinch they tend to move backward. This is extremely useful if the player can hit the boss when it is near the top of the screen. Some bosses can be hit multiple times to knock them OOB. This forces the stage to end. Note that this cannot be done on the final stage. On the final stage the game resets if a mini-boss is knocked OOB, and the main boss does not flinch when losing a health bar. When knocking a boss OOB it is possible to take a fatal shot and be in the dying animation, but as long as the round ends before the animation finishes no life is lost.
- Bosses are usually only vulnerable when attacking. Some bosses are also vulnerable when walking instead of whatever dodges they try to do. Bosses also tend to want to shoot if you align the character vertically with the boss.
- Very Difficult has increased fire rate and enemies just seem more aggressive.
Round 1
The boss Master is vulnerable when he stands. It is not too noticeable since I overlap the bullets so he gets hit with three bullets which removes a health bar causing a flinch as soon as he stands.
Round 2
Boss Roy can be hit out OOB which forces the stage to end. Oddly enough this is the only stage with a boss introduction at the start in level.
Round 3
The boss Ninja is vulnerable after jumping forward after a teleport.
Round 4
Boss Cutter can be hit after it jumps forward.
Round 5
Boss Pig Joe is normally a difficult boss if played normally. There is a sprite limit abuse trick where if you keep most of the sharpshooters from the windows alive the player can play much more aggressively since most enemies will not spawn in from the sides anymore. However here with careful shots this boss is knocked OOB ending the stage.
Round 6
Very difficult round that is about three times as long as any other round with tons of enemies that swarm. This should have been the penultimate or final round imo. This level has a unique mechanic where the Wolf Chief will come out on his horse taking up space while an ambush occurs which is really just a timed event where the stage does not scroll. It cannot be sped up. On the second ambush I was able to have the Wolf Chief not appear, most likely due to the sprite limit preventing it.
The Boss Wolf Chief is also the second hardest boss fight as well. The shotgun with the swarming enemies is very difficult to deal with normally. The guide linked above does not there is a break in the swarming enemies that the player can use to hit the boss. Here in the tas I abuse how the boss becomes aggressive tends to fire if the player is aligned vertically with him. Like most bosses this boss is vulnerable when it attacks. There is also RNG manip done here so the boss also does short jumps. One annoyance is that the boss fires the shotgun even while in the flinching animation.
Round 7
Boss Goldsmith is a boss that needs a couple hits to knock OOB.
Round 8
This stage normally has quite a few Bulls, but due to the sprite limit and me not killing enemies most do not appear. There is a buggy part where one of the dynamite throwing enemies goes slightly off screen and you can see the enemy moving up across the water. The boss Los Pubro gets knocked OOB immediately. The easiest boss to OOB in the entire game where no rng manip or even careful placement is needed. Just park the player center and keep firing so you hit him with three bullets when he is near the top of the screen.
Round 9
The boss Fat Man has a really brief flinch animation, but that means he takes damage really fast too. Just stay in front of the boss so he keeps firing and this boss goes down quick.
Round 10
Tough stage normally with very limited movement and a lot of aggressive enemies.
The boss fight starts with two minibosses on either side of the area on bridges. A miniboss will lose their hitbox if you cause him to flinch. Forcing an OOB here will crash the game to the title screen which is not done. The main boss is vulnerable as he walks into the area. I cause a health bar to be removed asap here, but this causes the boss to start moving side to side and shooting while almost at the topmost area of the screen. Normally the boss walks more forward and will be nearer the center of the screen. This is good and bad since it will make the boss fight faster, but the boss is also nearing the end of the range for the bullets. I leave the minibosses alive for entertainment and clown on the boss. Killing the minibosses is not necessary. At the end I do cause the left miniboss to flinch since he kept firing in the area I needed to be to defeat the boss asap. Inputs end on the final shot. The final right miniboss does land a fatal shot on me as round ends, but it does not matter since the Round ends once the boss is dead.
Potential Time Saves
- Maybe there are faster RNG manips for a couple bosses?
