Little Samson TAS by JXQ

Essentials:
This run satisfies the following criteria:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Uses warps
  • Emulator Used: FCEU 0.98.16, last improved by Luke

Overview

This little known gem of a game has incredible potential for a TAS. You control four unique characters with very differing abilites, and, most importantly, the ability to switch between them at any time.
About the Game:
The first four levels are introductory levels, one for each character. The real fun begins when they all team up and can be interchanged at any time. Here's a rundown of the four characters:
  • Little Samson
The all-around character. Samson walks with an average speed, and can shoot projectiles left or right that pack a small punch. He also has the ability to grab onto, climb, and jump off of walls, as well as hang from ceilings.
  • Kikira the Dragon
Kikira moves at the same speed as Samson, but can jump much higher and hover in mid-air for quite a while. Her projectiles arc down slightly and then back up as they travel forward (somewhat parabolic), making the shots difficult to aim. She can also charge up to three different levels of multi-shots.
  • Gamm the Golem
Gamm attacks by a stretching arm punch (think Dhalsim, but much much cooler) that can be aimed up, down, or forward. This attack is more powerful than the shots of Samson or Kikira. Gamm is a good amount slower than the rest of the bunch, but has a much larger life meter, and can walk on spikes. Your standard "slow but strong" player.
  • KO the Mouse
90% of this run will be played with KO because he has the fastest walking speed. KO attacks by dropping bombs that pack quite a punch if the enemy happens to run into them (or be near them when they explode). Like Samson, KO can climb walls and ceilings. The downside is his life meter is the smallest of the bunch.

Detailed Analysis

I used two of Mazzic's runs to gauge my performance. The practice levels and first three normal levels were compared to a different, more optimized run. The remaining levels were compared to his first run.
Practice 1 (Samson)
  • Samson climbs optimally when jumping for 14 frames for each jump. By quickly grabbing and jumping off the walls, Samson basically jumps constantly up walls.
  • 11 frames gained.
Practice 2 (Kikira)
  • By catching the whirlwinds that travel to the right, time is gained. Otherwise this is a pretty standard level.
  • 7 frames gained.
Practice 3 (Gamm)
  • An extra life container and life potion are grabbed here to be used MUCH later.
  • 4 frames gained.
Practice 4 (KO)
  • The mouse has cool music. This is good because you'll be hearing a lot of it.
  • 14 frames gained.
Boss
  • You apparently beat the nonsense out of Kikira because she is too busy whining to want to help save the world.
Level 1
  • Here you can see the true potential of KO's speed during horizontal sections, and Samson's climbing during vertical sections.
  • Getting KO an extra couple life bars here speeds up strategies in the next couple levels.
  • The boss strategy is quite effective: get invulnerability from damage and spam KO's bombs.
  • By delivering the last hit on this boss as the Mouse, a warp is activated to skip the next four levels.
  • 21 frames gained.
Level 6
  • Bubbles damage for 1/2 of a bar, while their projectiles damage for a full bar. Because of this, it's often better to take damage from the bubble in order to destroy it and stop it from shooting.
  • KO's life meter is maxed out at 6 bars here.
  • 114 frames gained.
Level 7
  • Damage is taken often to destroy the plants before they shoot seeds and cause lag.
  • By not having a life potion for Samson when leaving the level, Level 8 (Ice Palace) is skipped.
  • 4 frames gained.
Level 9
  • The best place to avoid taking a hit to save time is the beginning of the spike pit on the second floor (versus the other spiked pits and the boss).
  • 305 frames gained (mostly from lag reduction).
Level A
  • We now see some scenarios that don't benefit from switching to Samson. With walls closer together, KO can climb walls as fast as Samson, minus the time to switch twice.
  • Three frame delay when entering the boss room to manipulate his position after reappearing.
  • 120 frames gained.
Level B
  • Very careful management of KO's health, combined with some luck manipulation, allowed for quite a bit of damage taken to save time throughout the level.
  • 248 frames gained.
Level C
  • Different music!
  • The "stairs" do not look optimal, but they are. Horizontal movement isn't enough to slide through more than one stair at a time when a ceiling is in the way.
  • After this level, health is no longer refilled between levels.
  • 273 frames gained.
Level D
  • Although I take the heart that is farther away, less lag is created by this route. Surprisingly, this is also faster than taking the heart manipulated from the skeletons above.
  • 380 frames gained.
Level E
  • Note that KO takes a life potion just before the boss, to be used on the next level.
  • 69 frames gained.
Level F (and escape)
  • Finally, Gamm gets to play an important role, by using his life potion to take two hits against the final boss, allowing for a much quicker kill with KO.
  • 290 frames gained.
  • In total, 1874 frames gained.

Suggested Description & Screenshot:

Little Samson and his team are out to deliver tool-assisted fun!
This game consists of four heroes with very different strengths and weaknesses. The object (and fun) of the game is to use these traits to your advantage depending on the situation.
In this run, however, one hero ends up being used the vast majority of the time, with the others usually standing in as little more than extra life meters.
Good screenshot: Frame 26185.
Thanks to...
  • Mazzic for his previous runs to compare to, and for ideas and strategies.
  • Truncated for critically watching my progress.
  • Bag of Magic Food for helpful game information.
  • Guybrush, Bablo, Baxter, Adelikat, Tailz, and others for support and so forth.

adelikat: Excellent game choice for TASing; especially with wall & ceiling climbing and multiple characters. This run is typical JX-quality. Accepting.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15582
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1134: JXQ's NES Little Samson in 14:13.08
Player (81)
Joined: 3/11/2005
Posts: 352
Location: Oregon
This and Gimmick are probably my two favorite NES games. I enjoyed watching the WIPs posted, and I enjoyed your version even more. I'm glad to be the first one to give this a 'yes'.
ideamagnate| .seen aqfaq <nothing happens> DK64_MASTER| .seen nesvideoagent * DK64_MASTER slaps forehead
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
This is an interesting looking game. 14 minutes is pushing it, and that mouse music got really annoying after a while, but walking on ceilings partly made up for that. The boss battles were great, I had no idea what was going on. I loved some of the monsters in this game, especially that guy that vomits up a giant green ball and it turns out he's as small as a fly without the ball inside him. I'd like to meet the man that came up with that monster. Easy yes vote, the game looks cool, the run looks quality.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (979)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
Will watch as soon as I get home. But first things first, is is Kikara or Kakira?
Former player
Joined: 11/13/2005
Posts: 1587
Well damn, JXQ is going to be really drunk after he recieves a package from me. :P But about the run, amazing! Boss fights were blazing fast and lag reduction was great. And this game is fun to watch. Yesing.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I'm yesing this as well. Good job.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
So... someone picked up this game and made one hell of a run out off it. I've very glad to see the outcome of this. It's a bit depressing to know that I wasn't able to complete my runs but now, when I watch the result of JXQ's work, I'm satisfied. My compliments to you, JXQ. You given Little Samson the honor it deserves. PS. Do I have to mention I'm giving you an YES vote? DS.
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Hooray, so you didn't vanish forever, Mister Cutman Avatar!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 8/20/2005
Posts: 643
Location: Mikkeli,Finland
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Hooray, so you didn't vanish forever, Mister Cutman Avatar!
Haha :D
Current Projects: ???
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Bag of Magic Food wrote:
Hooray, so you didn't vanish forever, Mister Cutman Avatar!
(Know I'm not suposed to talk OT here bur I just have to respond) No, I haven't vanished. It's just that I have such a bad memory that I forget which pages to visit on the net and for quite a while now, I've forgotten this place existed. (No offence). Hope I can remember it's existence a little longer this time ;) Nice to know that you don't get forgotten by others though :)
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
You should try a Bookmark once in a while!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Former player
Joined: 8/20/2005
Posts: 643
Location: Mikkeli,Finland
I never played this game before but it look so funny and entertainig :) Voting Yes
Current Projects: ???
Joined: 1/10/2005
Posts: 63
Looked great, the lag reduction on the 3 projectile flowers was excellent and the boss strategies were very good too. Voting yes.
Former player
Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Truncated wrote:
Will watch as soon as I get home. But first things first, is is Kikara or Kakira?
It's neither, it's Kikira.
Former player
Joined: 8/15/2004
Posts: 422
Location: Minnesota
Glad to finally see a full playthrough of this game. Excellent as always!
Twisted_Eye
He/Him
Active player (398)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 632
Location: Seattle, WA
I love this game and remembered greatly enjoying a wip somewhere so this new submission was a great thing to discover. Excellent work at that! Definite yes
Player (224)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 399
I remember playing this game first time 10 years ago. Since then I've always loved it. JXQ: Now I love you. Will you divorce now and marry me? Voted yes.
<adelikat> I've been quoted with worse
Joined: 9/17/2005
Posts: 47
You can skip the ice palace??!?! I really need to track down the code for these warps and check for other ones, unless someone's done that already.
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
There may be more warps; the two I know of are activated in very different ways. Levels 2-5 are skipped by landing the last hit on Level 1's boss with the mouse. Level 8 (Ice Palace) is only visited if Samson has a life potion in reserve at the end of Level 7. Edit: and Bablo, I love you too, but I can't get married again.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Joined: 9/17/2005
Posts: 47
According to German Dragon's FAQ the mushroom cave [stage 4a] leads to the forest [5] or swamp [6] depending on which path you take at the exit, but that whole thing is skipped by the first warp anyway.
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Hmm, interesting. Have I even played that Crab Walk stage before? Someone should tell German Dragon about the other warps, too.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 9/17/2005
Posts: 47
He's got the other two known warps. I think most people miss the Crab Walk stage, if you can make it to the waterfall stage you're probably not clumsy enough to fall there.
Former player
Joined: 6/4/2006
Posts: 267
Location: CO
I just downloaded FCEU since JXQ has been churning out the NES runs lately and I figured I had better see them. Great game, well played, yes vote. The enemies in this game kept reminding me of other video game characters. Anyone else?
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Voting yes. The music was a bit annoying and too bad you could not shoot forward when switching that mouse.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
AnS
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (728)
Joined: 2/23/2006
Posts: 682
Kapow wrote:
You can skip the ice palace??!?! I really need to track down the code for these warps and check for other ones, unless someone's done that already.
Hm. I found it interesting enough to make a try. Well, after hour of debugging I'm almost sure there are no more warps, at least useful for improving this run. Should I provide details if someone wants to search more carefully?