Submission Text Full Submission Page
This is a speed run of Battle Squadron for the Mega Drive.
Looking though the movie, I could probably shave a few seconds off. This movie was NOT done frame by frame mainly because the main levels would have been incredibly boring to do so (Plus I can do just as well in slow motion).
In the "second level", the sub-boss was rather easy because it just rarely fired, it in essence was a sitting duck. The main bosses in the end of that level were just as easy, except that I threw a Nova Bomb when they finally split so I could destroy the current bullets on screen and make them much weaker, just some five or 6 shots later and they are dead. I could have actually saved a Nova Bomb though, mainly because I killed the bosses so fast the game just simply continued the level THAN went to the next level.
In the "fourth level" the boss was not a co-operative and as far as I'm aware, you can't manipulate the luck of it's shields (It's preset), I do however abused the fact that just as soon as you see it the shields are open (But on for literally like, one second). This level overall was actually very difficult to TAS, believe it or not.
The "sixth level" is probably the most painful, around half the rerecords come from here, I do however, kill the boss in record time, I used around 5 Nova Bombs on the last part alone, the enemys were that annoying (They just spew out bullets, so many that you can't easily avoid them).
The final boss is completely humiliated, if anything, he is actually easier than the bosses from the previous level, the Nova Bomb as the final attack was actually an accident, I never expected him to die so soon =P
Anyway, my main goals here was to never die and get as many points as possible. But I can tell you now, I dies heaps in the making of the run =P
The emulator used is Gens 9.5b without any special settings.

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. I'm not sure I got the right ROM though. (I tried Battle Squadron (UE) [!].gen, which was the closest match to what you wrote.) Well, here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.

Truncated: This is not very impressive for several reasons. You do not set the game to hard (highest enemy bullet speed), you miss several buildings/enemies you could easily have killed, don't pick up the powerups, you shoot a lot when not hitting anything, you don't use both players, you don't kill bosses and exit stages as fast as possible. Autoscrollers are hard to make interesting even when they are well played, and this isn't, quickly bringing it into the area of very rejected.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14884
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1782: Flygon's Genesis Battle Squadron in 18:10.65
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away
Just a quick reminder: sloppiness is not appreciated here. If you don't want to spend hours optimizing stages, it's fine — but don't submit sloppy movies. I won't vote no because I haven't seen the movie, but with such initial attitude towards optimization it's likely I never will.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Skilled player (1885)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
I haven't watched this movie but I was wondering about this statement: "Looking though the movie, I could probably shave a few seconds off." If you know ways to improve a "fast as possible" run by a few seconds, you are encouraged todo so before submitting it. Also, although movies shouldn't be judged on their rerecord count, 56 rerecords for a 18 minute movie seems very low, unless they aren't accurate... Oh, sorry for all the nitpicking, I'm just curious about these things... :P I'll try to take a look at this run tomorrow.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
What I mean by I could shave a few seconds off if when you beat a boss or go into one of those flashing "Enter Heres", text comes up, and until recently, I have not been able to skip the text completely. The main issue arising here is that I don't know how to edit a movie in the middle of a movie, so, I could probably use some assistance here =P
Experienced player (822)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Autoscrollers as a rule do not make good TASes. And those that are good for TASes usually have incredibly hard goals to accomplish, such as 100% kills (which might have made this more enjoyable). Also, 56 rerecords is usually a number reserved for 1-5 seconds of gameplay these days. If you find the game too dull to use frame advance, pick a different game that is more enjoyable. If you find that you can't use frame advance, you will have a hard time making a high quality TAS that is up to the standards of this site.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User, Experienced player (532)
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
So for every re-record there is about 20 seconds of gameplay.
Joined: 9/23/2007
Posts: 22
AKA wrote:
So for every re-record there is about 20 seconds of gameplay.
I don't really think its a 'real' TAS... I think its this guy having fun with an emulator and submitting the result. No offense.
I think i've watched about 70% of the TAS's on this site... It's become one of the first sites I check daily for updates. I'm going to start posting more.
sgrunt
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Former player
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
The lack of tool assistance shows in this run - it could easily be duplicated on console by a player with some skill and practice in the game. I must say that I feel the game is unsuitable for full calibre TASing, as it is an autoscroller and the total time spent in the game is not going to be significantly different between real-time play and tool-assisted play. That having been said, runs of autoscrollers can work if they are sufficiently entertaining, generally by demonstrating superhuman playing (destroying enemies as soon as possible, i.e. within frames of their appearance and limited only by the speed damage can be inflicted; destroying 100% of enemies, etc.), but I think a run of this game that demonstrated that level of playing would still fail to be entertaining. No vote, but I hope you make the effort to learn more about TASing and that you will submit runs in the future.
Player (64)
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 100
Location: Toronto, Canada
Have to agree with the comments here so far. The run looks like it's being done by a very good player in real-time; an expert player could probably make a slightly better run in real-time, and a TAS should be well above that. I don't want to be discouraging and I hope you try again. But I don't feel this is at all a publishable movie. Part of that is the game. It would be very, very difficult to take this game and make an enjoyable TAS with it. If you really, really, really, want to try this game again, you'll need to make things as difficult as possible and provide entertainment beyond "playing the game well" through the whole thing. For example:
  • Don't miss any enemies, ever. Or, don't kill any enemies besides bosses (and maybe some that drop power-ups).
  • Use as few shots as possible.
  • Kill enemies as late as possible.
  • Don't use bombs ever, except if they kill bosses faster.
  • Follow enemy bullets as close as possible.
And so on. Even then, I doubt it would be possible to make a really good run from this game. There's very few boss fights and not much change in the action. And the music never changes, which doesn't help any. In conclusion: No vote, but take a different game and please give it another shot.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Phfor wrote:
AKA wrote:
So for every re-record there is about 20 seconds of gameplay.
I don't really think its a 'real' TAS... I think its this guy having fun with an emulator and submitting the result. No offense.
That statement is largely true =P I had actually made a run of the first level being done on the hardest setting possible. Though I only did the first level =P
Experienced player (822)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
So this isn't even completed on the hardest mode? Any reason why not?
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
mmbossman wrote:
So this isn't even completed on the hardest mode? Any reason why not?
I was probably too lazy, I admit. But if I (Or all you guys hope, someone else) do make a Hard Mode run, you will all be sure to see it. It would be very hard to make though and if I or someone else was to try this without killing anything either, It'd be pretty epic I presume.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
I think that the game is super hard on the hardest difficulty, it could make a good TAS on the hardest difficulty, I wonder how someone would be able to achieve this run without being killed. Maybe someone could make a WIP of the first level on the hardest difficulty, and show Flygon how you do it so he could learn how to TAS. That could be a good idea ;)
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
ZeXr0 wrote:
Maybe someone could make a WIP of the first level on the hardest difficulty, and show Flygon how you do it so he could learn how to TAS. That could be a good idea ;)
I already did that, and it was quiet easy, for the first level. I dread the later levels so on, because for example, if I was to do a No Nova Bomb game it would be VERY hard to even do. Of course that is not applicable with todays frame advance but you see my point =P
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
So this isn't even completed on the hardest mode? Any reason why not? I was probably too lazy, I admit
:( Only reasons why you don't do this on the hardest difficulty is lag, not accessible except on NG+, or the only difference is boss HP levels. Not voting (or watching), mainly because Gens hates me.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
TASVideosGrue
They/Them
Joined: 10/1/2008
Posts: 2738
Location: The dark corners of the TASVideos server
om, nom, nom... blech, stale!