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Posted: 8/31/2005 9:20 PM
Post subject: Alien Soldier
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AnotherGamer
Former player
Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
I'm not sure if I've already brought this up, but why hasn't anyone made a TAS for this kickass game? It's fast as hell, probably faster than any other sidescrolling shooter I recall seeing, is played on a strict time limit and consists almost entirely of boss battles. I bet you could make some great-looking stunts using the hero's ability to teleport across the screen and walk on the ceiling. Why am I not doing it? Unfortunately I don't have any experience with Genesis games to speak of, and the games seem to desynch far more than my limited patience would take.
Posted: 8/31/2005 10:52 PM
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Frenom
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Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 359
Location: Borlänge - Sweden
It havnt been brought up before. This is one of my favorite games to the genesis. It is very rare and if you find it it will be highly expensive.... well nevermind.. :) I'd started a TAS of this game for nearly a year ago but I got sick of all the desync that I always got here and there. And I had to play it over and over again to get it right. So I lost the motivation. This TAS was made before Frame Advance was implemented and it will stop at the miniboss "Destroyer-MK2". (Approximately 15min in the game) It was made with the "Alien Soldier (A) [h1]" rom. Why you may ask.. the question is easy. With the [!] version you couldnt run the game in 60hz. So make sure you switch to NTSC 60 before you run the game. Otherwise it will desync pretty early :) http://frenom.areta.org/smv/aliensoldier.gmv Happy Watching.
Wheeeehaaa.. Yaaayy..
Posted: 8/31/2005 11:17 PM
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IdeaMagnate
Player (81)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
Wow. Just wow. I have no idea how hard that was to make (although it didn't look easy and has more than 1 rerecord/frame), but that's a thing of beauty. I hope you'll consider taking it up again now that Gens has frame advance. If not, thanks for the movie anyway. BTW, Gens dies horribly if I tell it to treat the rom as American, but works fine if I tell it Japanese, in case anyone else actually visits these forums. ;)
ideamagnate| .seen aqfaq <nothing happens> DK64_MASTER| .seen nesvideoagent * DK64_MASTER slaps forehead
Posted: 9/1/2005 12:12 PM
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Frenom
Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 359
Location: Borlänge - Sweden
1 rerecord/frame?? :P 55566 Frames / 4941 rerecords .. 1 rerecord each 11th frame :) I think that you messed thoose to up =)
Wheeeehaaa.. Yaaayy..
Posted: 9/1/2005 6:00 PM
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IdeaMagnate
Player (81)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
I guess I missed one of those 5's when Gens flashed the frame count. It's still a good movie.
ideamagnate| .seen aqfaq <nothing happens> DK64_MASTER| .seen nesvideoagent * DK64_MASTER slaps forehead
Posted: 9/1/2005 6:36 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
What the hell kind of a version is that supposed to be, there's no A versions in this romset or any with the "h" specification.
Posted: 9/1/2005 8:05 PM
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Frenom
Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 359
Location: Borlänge - Sweden
There is. You got A H1 to A H3 out there
Wheeeehaaa.. Yaaayy..
Posted: 9/1/2005 8:07 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
...no, I don't. All I got is a bunch of U and J versions with unintelligble letter specifications.
Posted: 9/1/2005 8:49 PM
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I've had plans of making a run for this for a long long time (see my page), but I was put off by the large amount of boss manipulation you have to do, as well as the tricky weapon selection. Some weapons are a LOT more effective for some bosses than others, plus limited ammo is a problem. Anyway, I'll check this when I get a chance, which doesn't seem to be anytime soon. :/
Posted: 9/5/2005 11:10 AM
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Eh, so I'll double post: For the people who have played this game, what do you think the best selection of starting weapons would be? - Flame force The first given. Extremely effective against any organical enemy, but runs out of ammo in about 2 seconds and is completely useless against mechanical enemies. Either you need to bring 2 or grab a lot of powerups (which takes time). - Lance force The other given. Effective against almost anything, but runs out of ammo quickly too. Kind of difficult to aim, but that's no problem for us, is it? The two other: I'm considering Homing force as one. It's weak, but useful for clearing enemies without aiming, and most importantly it can hit a lot of bosses even though they are blocking. You could rapidswitch to and from this weapon to take potshots while the bosses are blocking, but it messes up the recharge (weapons only recharge after they haven't been used for a few seconds). Ammo takes forever to deplete though, so it might not be a problem. The last one: the ranger force is worthless, I think. So either Buster, Sword, or another Flame. Or another Lance? The sevenforce boss is probably the hardest one weaponwise. It's, what, five bosses in a row without recharge, and none of them can be hurt by flame force. But you can't switch all your flame force to something else before that because it's extremely effective against Melon Bread, the boss just before sevenforce, so you'll be one weapon short and almost guaranteed to run out during battle. Let me know what you think.
Posted: 9/5/2005 2:49 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Well, the setup I always used in my normal games was Buster, Homing, Flame, Lancer, not sure how well that'd work. I don't suppose the max ammo and max health increases speed things up any? There's also the issue of phoenix teleport for boss pwnage vs. regular teleport for evasion and for faster overall movement, but you need to find convinient spots to get the extra health prior to bosses, in addition to filling it back up if you choose to take any hits to save time. A bunch of bosses shoot bullets that Counter Force works on, so maybe they can be manipulated into doing that a lot. Also, I don't know if there's any real difference between Buster and Sword other than bullet size, both seem to be rapid-firing weapons with no immediately apparent differences, so I'd like it if someone told me the difference between them.
Posted: 9/5/2005 4:34 PM
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Heh, that's funny. I always use the same setup as yours. Question is if it's the best for maximum speed... I usually just play to stay alive. I guess you would teleport like a maniac trough the levels and try to get a powerup just before the boss, or during the boss. The phoenix owns most bosses in no time, especially if they are large (have many parts which can be damaged) or if you can trap them in/near the corners of the screen. You can indeed manipulate the bosses to shoot bullets for you counter force+phoenix, which is very convenient. Max health doesn't speed anything up, I think, there are few (no?) places where taking hits speed things up, so you will be operating at near maximum health all the time. You could grab them for life refill of course, if there aren't any other life refills (the powerup freezes the game for 1 second so normal health is better). Max ammo could probably speed up things... I tend to run out of ammo all the time when I play even with powerups. Also you could switch to new weapons to better suit the next boss you'll be facing. There are so many factors to consider, which is why I've been postponing it indefinitely. According to FAQs, but I haven't tested it myself, the Buster force has the same damage independent on distance while the Sword force is stronger close in and weaker far away. Also it could be the case that one weapon is weaker/stronger against some bosses, but I don't really know.
Posted: 9/6/2005 7:42 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
After playing the game again, I remembered that the Counter Force is a lot more versatile than it seems: in addition to turning small bullets into health, it has other interesting effects on enemy projectiles. It reflects those black spiky mines into the enemy for 300+ damage, it does the same to the yellow triple lasers except it reflects them in a spread, and it destroys those light brown blocks Destroyer MK2 shoots at you. Probably knew it but might as well check.
Posted: 9/19/2005 7:18 PM
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I knew about the counter force effects, except I can't remember which the yellow triple laser is. You can block (destroy) a lot of mines and missiles with it too. I toyed briefly with Buster and Sword force. It seems Sword force uses up ammo a lot faster than Buster force, but I haven't tested the difference in damage output yet.
Posted: 9/19/2005 11:44 PM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
I really should have posted this earlier, but I saw a speedrun (not TAS) on mrmonkeyman's site (sorry, the site is down). The run used two slots for flame and two slots for lancer. The flame was mostly used in the beginning where there are a lot of organic bosses, and the lancer was mostly used towards the end when the flame becomes useless. He did take time to collect the max health powerups, but I think they won't be necessary in a TAS with luck manipulation. One interesting trick was that he wasted all of his flame ammo right before the final boss so he could hit him constantly (for some reason when you have zero ammo you can hit the final boss). P.S. If you're hoping to get the run from me, sorry, I don't have it on me anymore. :( EDIT: There is a Japanese site with very detailed strategies for Treasure games, including Alien Soldier. I don't have the url on me, but I might be able to find it later.
Posted: 9/19/2005 11:56 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Truncated wrote:
I knew about the counter force effects, except I can't remember which the yellow triple laser is. You can block (destroy) a lot of mines and missiles with it too.
The yellow triple lasers are shot by flowers(?) that spring up from the water in the water area, and the water area boss that acts like a fan/windmill and throws marine life at you.
Posted: 9/20/2005 7:25 AM
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mikwuyma: Ooh, gimme! Both the address for mrmonkeyman's site and the strategy site. I knew about the no-ammo thing (it works for all the bosses, I think). Did he use health refills+phoenix for the last boss too? It's possible, but very difficult. AnotherGamer: Aha, got it. I remember those, they are very annoying. :/
Posted: 9/20/2005 10:43 AM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Alien Soldier strategy site: http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/7069/alisol.html Mrmonkeyman's site (it's down right now): http://www.mrmonkeyman.com/ Like I said earlier, I don't have the run on me. I think even when mrmonkeyman's site is up, he doesn't have the Alien Soldier run up anymore, sorry.
Posted: 9/20/2005 11:09 AM
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Wow. That Alien Soldier guide seems awsome. It has all the tricks I ever used and then some. Granted I just looked at the pictures and skimmed trough the text, I will make an attempt at understanding more of it later. What's interesting is that the first list seems to be for Tool-assisted play (it says "Timeattack" in the heading) and the second list says "Factual play" or something along those lines. If so it's a very good standard for comparing if you're doing things right. So... if it's not on the site which is down and you don't have it, what then?
Posted: 9/20/2005 11:14 AM
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mikwuyma
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Oops, one note I should have made. Those times listed are in-game time, not real-time. Truncated: You could always ask mrmonkeyman for the run. He probably still has it. His aim name is the name I just mentioned two sentences ago, though I have only seen him on aim once. I could pm his email to you, but I'm not sure he will respond.
Posted: 9/20/2005 5:52 PM
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Kapow
Joined: 9/17/2005
Posts: 47
Frenom wrote:
It was made with the "Alien Soldier (A) [h1]" rom.
For those of you having trouble finding this, the latest goodtools set has renamed it to "Alien Soldier (E) [f1]".
Posted: 9/21/2005 3:06 AM
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AnotherGamer
Former player
Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Gets a bit farther before losing progress. Oh how I love the bitchy world of Genesis rerecording.
Posted: 9/28/2005 7:22 AM
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Wohoo. After trying five different ROMs, messing with the controllers and sound settings, I found out what the problem was. When you said NTSC you didn't mean Japan NTSC (which the game auto-detected to in my case), but USA NTSC. The explosions are glitchy in this ROM, so I suggest the next version to be done on one that works better. And that includes checking the end sequence, which has been glitched in every ROM of this game I've seen so far. As for the movie: it was good in some places and less good in others. Comparing your level times to http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/7069/alisol.html , you bested some of the times but lost to many of them. Seeing this, I'm convinced flame-flame-lancer-lancer is the way to go. There were few or no places where you benefited from having homing and buster, but some where you could have used extra flame and lancer ammo.
Posted: 9/28/2005 1:48 PM
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AnotherGamer
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Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Well how about that, the PAL intro almost makes sense. Although I've no clue who the bloody hell that "second" birdman is supposed to be, the game doesn't even have a 2 player mode...oh well, that's action game story for ya.
Posted: 9/28/2005 2:06 PM
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The second birdman is one of the later bosses. It's Epsilons old body, or dark side after he fused with the boy, or something. Moral of the story: WHO CARES, LET'S MAKE THINGS EXPLODE
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