VISUALSHOCK! SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK!
NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE!
Alien Soldier, one of the later Treasure games for Genesis, has a similar look and sound to Gunstar Heroes, but with darker characters, limited ammo, shorter levels, and an emphasis on bosses — 33 of them. I recommend everyone to try to play it at least once before watching this run, just to get a feeling how hard it is. Have fun dying on the first boss. :)
  1. Aims for fastest real time (ignores in-game time)
  2. Takes damage to save time
  3. Abuses glitches
  4. Manipulates way too much luck
  5. Plays on hardest difficulty (SUPERHARD) which is default
  • Genre: Action/Platform/Shooter
  • Emulator: Gens11
The Japan version is chosen over Europe (sometimes labeled "(A)") for the higher framerate and speed. There never was a US release. Don't worry about the story. Your choice is between English and Engrish, but it makes no sense either way.
moozooh once described what a speedrun of this this game would be like thusly:
games like Alien Soldier: "start-wheep-wheep-wheep-wheep-wheep-boss!-whoosh-bzzt-bang-start…" and so on.

Mechanics

Of the six available, only the two strongest weapons are chosen:
  • Flame: Short range and high power against meaty targets. No effect against machines.
  • Lancer: Long range, powerful, all-purpose laser.
On the other hand, these weapons consume ammo fast. There are powerups which refill ammo and raise max capacity, but they cost some time to get, so they had to be minimized. Weapons recharge on their own only after they haven't been selected for a while. A depleted weapon fires a pathetic fizzle known as zero force, which is one of the few ways to damage the final boss.
Life saver #1 is the counter force, activated by double tapping attack. This move pushes you backwards a bit, damages nearby targets, and most importantly turns enemy bullets into health! Yum.
Life saver #2 is the "zero teleport", which is more of a dash than a teleport. It is several times as fast as the maximum scroll speed. Epsilon is invulnerable and can pick up items, but has no control of how far it goes or when it stops. If at full health, it does a phoenix attack which does massive damage and destroys bullets. However, it burns off 50 HP so it must be used carefully. Most boss strategies rely on this move, but it's avoided during the stages because it causes slow-motion whenever it hits anything.
Epsilon may also hover, double jump, walk on the ceiling, and switch D-pad control between aiming (white suit) and moving (gold). Even with such an arsenal of moves, it is difficult to maximize damage output and avoid getting hit because the weapons are hard to aim, the character is not very nimble, and has a large hitbox.

Damage

Each boss has one or many vulnerable parts, which take different amounts of damage.
WeaponDMG/shot at 100%Avg. DMG/frame at 100%
Lancer force4160~73
Lancer switch trick4160~99 [1]
Flame force 120120
Zero force4020
Counter force640/part~53/part
Phoenix18200/part280/part
[1]Under ideal conditions.

Tricks

Abusing the phoenix

A phoenix that hits an obstacle terminates immediately. But if directed at the edge of the screen, it continues to burn in place. Therefore, the number one mistake to make as an Alien Soldier boss is to stay at the edge of the screen.
The number two mistake would be to consist of many damageable parts, since every part takes damage from the phoenix or counter force cumulatively.
These two in unison spells instant death for many bosses.

Lancer switch trick

The cooldown between lancer shots is fixed. You can however:
  1. Open and then close the weapon menu. This lets you shoot again immediately. However, any remaining shot on screen is removed when the menu is opened, and you are defenseless while it is opening. For best results, stand very close to the target.
  2. Use counter force two or three times between shots to fill out the time.

Reaiming after shooting

Lancers travel relative to the screen, not the stage. If the camera pans, the projectile follows. You can use this to keep your slow lances directed at a fast target by turning and moving to manipulate the camera.

Double counter force

To perform two counter forces in quick succession, do a counter force in the air and land before the animation is complete. The second one will execute automatically.

Counter force abuse

You can use the counter force to remain airborne, gain elevation, and move around in the air. This is useful because you only get one hover per jump and sometimes you need more air time.

Zipping

One glitch is getting stuck in the floor and being ejected to the right. This doesn't help much because scrolling speed is capped, but is useful when you have a phoenix you need to preserve.

Lag reduction

Except for the obvious way of less sprites on screen, lag can be reduced be mashing against the edge of the screen and ducking. Hovering and opening the menu can increase lag. During the outer space stages, lag is reduced by using zero teleport and counter force. Dammit handled most (all) of the lag reduction.
It's not exactly lag, but getting hit halts the action for awhile (in addition to the "ouch!" pose), similar to the slow-down caused by the phoenix. Thus, taking damage and attacking with the phoenix must be managed carefully.

Planning and tools

Weapon powerups cost 48 frames to pick up. Because we are aiming for realtime, we had to reduce them to as few as possible. For this reason, we made a test run of Seven force which we suspected was the most ammo intensive part of the game. (It was.)
We monitored a number of different RAM values in this game, the most obvious ones are boss health and scroll position. There is an option to show HP numerically, but the shown health is less precise than the true value and doesn't update in real time. Thus, we left the indicators as bars instead of numbers.
Dammit wrote a lua script to draw many of the parameters on screen: Userfiles/Info/21093501888640683

Levels and bosses

Ingame time chart:
Level Scroll Boss
1 00.07 00.01
2 00.05 00.01
3 00.07 00.02
4 00.08 00.04
5 00.05 00.08
6 00.06 00.05
7 00.07 00.03
8 00.17 00.02
9 00.50 00.04
10 00.08 00.01
11 00.08 00.07
12 00.30 00.13
13 00.20 00.03
14 00.05 00.03
15 00.06 00.09
16 00.08 00.03
17 00.14 00.12
18 00.11 00.08
19 00.06 00.03
20 00.02 00.35
21 00.47 00.05
22 00.33 00.03
23 00.04 00.04
24 00.11 00.10
25 00.06 00.13
Total time: 08.13

1 - Jetsripper

Did you try playing the game and dying at the first boss? Good. Then this will surprise you so much more.

2 - Antroid

Boom goes the dynamite.

3 - Rolling / Shellshogun

First miniboss here, but he dies just as he comes on-screen.
Shell Shogun is the first boss who doesn't have the courtesy to stand at the edge of the screen, but there are ways around that. The walk pattern is the least common move and some luck manipulation was needed.

4 - Sniper Honeyviper

Weird boss, weird name. The tentacle takes more damage than the head, in complete contradiction of all video game logic. His weakest point is the back. The strategy with taking damage is an idea we got from a movie by daibakusho_curry. Doing the phoenix early means more hits on his back, but you take damage.

5 - Madam Barbar

This crab does the most damage in the whole game. Not the oversized claws as you might expect, which do a metric byte of damage (255), but bopping your head against her body means 320 points of damage.
The standard tactic is hiding in the left corner and wait for the boss to move towards you, but there are actually better places to stand.

6 - Joker

Not much to say. You have to stand pretty close for the frog to jump right, so it's hard to reproduce in a speedrun.

7 - ST-210-Terobuster

Since we're aiming for real time, we wait a for a bit before activating the alarm. After you have done that, the screen starts to scroll very slowly. The timer could be 1 second lower for this reason, but the boss actually appears faster this way.
We tested a few different methods of lancer attacks (switch-trick or counter force) before arriving at what you see.

8 - Flying-Neo

Since we took lots of damage in the previous stage, we need to manipulate big life refills from the enemies here. The boss was very cooperative.

9 - Xi-Tiger

Points of interest:
  • The flame thrower goes extremely far with the wind in your back.
  • We leave the snake alone, killing it can cause lag. (After killing the snake, the leftmost module of the ship sometimes explodes for no good reason.)
  • The boss battle doesn't start until the whole ship is off-screen. For this reason it is better to stay to the right as the stage ends.
If you have read the intro, you probably thought Xi-Tiger would be the last boss. Nothing much to say about the fight except that he hits you for a whopping 0 damage before transforming. This sadly delays his transformation, so you don't get to see it.

10 - Deep Strider

Previous strategy was to flame the boss, and phoenix him when he jumps backwards to the end of the screen. daibakusho_curry found something much better: you can control where the end of the screen is.

11 - Gusthead

The first boss that puts up a fight for more than 3 seconds. The phoenix does not work well because he is so small.
I like how we managed to steal two life refills from the fish just before the boss appears (and all enemies but the boss are removed).

12 - Sharpsteel

Nooo not the teddybear! >:(
The boss doesn't appear until you kill a set amount of crawfish, the birds are irrelevant. You move the boat by pressing left and right, which, as I'm sure you've figured out, are the same buttons that makes you walk left and right. This makes the battle a little trickier than it should have to be. We try to start/stop walking and changing direction of fire as seldom as possible, because Epsilon stops shooting for a frame or two.

13 - Bugmax

The large snake sub-boss is annoying and creates lag when it dives into the water or explodes. It is best killed out of the water, as far out of the screen as possible.
For the cocoon/butterfly, triple phoenix does the job. We actually have to delay the third phoenix because if you kill it too fast, the game won't advance to the next stage. You can see that its death animation is still glitched (it's supposed to be the wings that fall down slowly).

14 - Victor

Zip zip zip boom.

15 - Sunset sting

We considered picking up our first health upgrade here, which costs 59 frames but is extremely useful on the spider boss. But then Dammit found a way to refill on the previous boss instead, and we didn't need the upgrade.
The flower boss is smart and avoids the two common pitfalls for Alien Soldier bosses. Phoenix does very little damage, so we have to fry him to death. Lag is pretty heavy with the bouncing petals, and somewhat alleviated by delaying the hovering.

16 - Viblack / Back stringer

Viblack (a moth?) could perhaps be done 3 frames faster if the smaller flies were manipulated into missing the player altogether. It is however more important to get the boss to stay in the middle, otherwise he dies up to 19 frames slower.
Mr. Spider doesn't get to do a lot. This method is 230 frames faster than just torching him down.

17 - Epsilon1

Epsilon's evil twin, or nemesis, or whatever-something. He is invulnerable while moving upwards in preparation of a swoop down. His body cannot hurt you, but the feet block lancers. There are no refills during this battle, so if you used your phoenix on the spider, you cannot use it here.
The number of lasers he shoots before deciding to go up and swoop down is not constant. He somewhat chases you and when he gets close enough, he starts a new round. Even though this means the boss cannot be hurt for a good while, we still found it better to do once because after a swoop he can be pounded hard the lancers for a good while.

18 - Destroyer MK2

This boss has rotating shields. It is difficult to hit the boss while these shields are up. The best way to remove them is the phoenix. But before that, we get as much of a lancer in as possible. The boss cannot be hit during its teleporting animation.
By using the same screen-scrolling trick as for the fish boss earlier, and timing it with the boss pulling backwards before he steps forward, the damage for one phoenix is increased about threefold.
The stars he shoots are a special attack which is pretty rare. It only happens if you get behind him unexpectedly. Unfortunately, he does not die before the attack is finished. It is still faster than any other strategy we found. Another noteworthy thing is that there seems to be some glitchy platforms below the screen.

19 - Jampan

During the stage you get to see us embedded in the floor, which works like a fast conveyor belt. Otherwise we would have to walk to save our phoenix.
The boss, which you probably recognize from Gunstar Heroes, is very easy. Just flame and finish with a phoenix.

20 - Seven Force

This boss is a lot harder than the final boss. All five forms have as much health as a normal boss, each. Flame force doesn't work.

Valkyrie Force

Has four moves:
  • Walk
  • Kick
  • Boomerang
  • Rocket fist
We want to keep the number of teleports (no damage) down. For this reason, boomerang/rocket fists are good. They keep the boss occupied for a long while so we can pepper her with lances. Since the boomerang, knees, shoulder guards and some other junk block lances turning around is used to adjust the trajectory of the lances.

Medusa Force

Has no weak point, and everything does 30% damage. To make up for is you are given plenty of refills for phoenix. There is also an ammo upgrade which is very helpful. You can kill the boss slightly faster by not ending with full life, but that slows down the next form.
There are some weird rules for when this boss starts to be vulnerable. From the start, it does slow backwards turns until it reaches the right end of the screen, when the fight starts.

Sylpheed Force

This boss usually blocks all your shots with her arms, unless she is in the middle of an attack. Fortunately she has pretty long arms.

Artemis Force

Unlike all the other forces, the weak point is not the center ball, but the tail.

Sirene Force

This boss is also known as Washing machine force. The current of the water moves you in a circle. It is possible to get refills from the bombs, but since we're underwater the phoenix cannot be used... so it's just lancer all the way.
We end this battle with 2 (two) lancer ammo. How is that for planning?

21 - Destroyer Prototype

We had some pretty crappy luck with the asteroids, but finally one of them gave a big health for the boss.
The boss moves around erratically and twirls its arms, which block lancer shots. The attack where the boss goes crazy and starts spewing debris in all directions is the only one which you can refill health on, so it is naturally the one we choose.

22 - Shield Viper

Strategy courtesy of Mysterious Japanese Player. The stage does not end until all the parts have exited the screen.

23 - Wolfgunblood Garopa

This is a strategy taken from Mr Monkey Man, except that he uses the lancer instead of the flame in the start of the battle. The flame is only marginally faster. As you can see, the hit detection is very interesting.

24 - Missiray

There is a safe spot where the lasers and missiles cannot hit you, but it is better to go as close to the boss as possible, even if it means some extra trouble.

25 - Z-Leo

The final boss cannot be hurt by your standard weapons, you have to volley his own projectiles back at him. Phoenix also works, and curiously Counter Force and Zero Force.

Thanks to

  • The mysterious Japanese player, who runs the very helpful Alien Soldier guide page: [dead link removed]
  • MrMonkeyMan, for making an awesome speedrun which we learned a few techniques from.
  • AnotherGamer and ComicalFlop, for constantly nagging me (Truncated) for about 3 years to finish this.
  • daibakusho_curry for his movie of non-TAS strategies.
  • Upthorn for immediately fixing Gens 11 when we ran into problems.

Personal comments

Truncated:

I started this project in *gulp* end of 2005. It has been on hold several times, and restarted once when Dammit joined and found the lancer switch trick. It feels very nice that it is finally done.
Dammit recorded most of the movie. Most of the playing around is his. Also he is very good at reducing lag. He is more or less the reason that this finally got done. My part in this has mostly been supplying strategies, and chop off a few frames here and there when I could.

Dammit:

I forget why I decided to TAS this, but I didn't hesitate to consult Truncated, who served as my eagle eye. He knew about all the existing work and strategies, which freed me to concentrate on the task of recording. He also found numerous corrections and improvements. Thanks to the 9 hour time difference and the fact that we think rather too alike, two heads were somewhat slower than one. However, the quality is worth it.

mmbossman: Well this is just packed full of awesome. Accepting due to previously mentioned awesomeness.

Raiscan: Processing. All of the suggested screenshots have lua displays plastered on them... *sigh*

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2386: Dammit & Truncated's Genesis Alien Soldier in 18:32.27
Post subject: Re: #2386: Dammit & Truncated's Genesis Alien Soldier in 18:32.27
Skilled player (1304)
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Posts: 1354
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NesVideoAgent wrote:
Total time: 08.13
Wow... The entire game was beaten in 8 seconds. Yes!
ventuz
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It look like carefully planned, no flaw that I can see. Yes vote.
Joined: 3/7/2006
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Location: UK
Yeah.
Voted NO for NO reason
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 150
Sounds interesting. Can't wait for the encode so I can watch it.
Joined: 3/30/2004
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Location: Borlänge - Sweden
Finally, thanks alot. Loved it
Wheeeehaaa.. Yaaayy..
BigBoct
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Per recommendation, I played this game for a bit before watching the movie. This game is one of the most Nintendo Hard games I've ever played. The movie looked awesome. Yes vote, but a 100% kills movie would have been even cooler.
Previous Name: boct1584
Joined: 2/11/2007
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TAS precision seems to sap all the fun and entertainment out of this game, moreso than any other game on the site. Not that this isn't an obvious Yes vote or anything... Good job! EDIT: I can't think of a way to phrase that without sounding like a jerk. I appreciate the work put into it, enjoyed it, and think it should be published.
Player (70)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
A couple of things that cheered me up with this game (I never played it before): - The prolapse tentacle boss stage 4 (Sniper honeywiper). What an outrageous boss. - Care bear, driving a motor boat, screaming for help in stage 12 - Priceless. - The boss of stage 19.... What to say.... Ha ha! Great run, thanks.
mklip2001
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Eh, I sort of feel the game as Judge Ito. I think the game definitely deserves a TAS, though the run is almost too fast-paced for me to have any good idea of what's going on. To me, all of a sudden "+30" and "-50" are appearing randomly in the health area. The game sort of became a blur, where I couldn't really remember enough distinct details about each boss. However, I still had fun with this, so this gets a Yes vote. By the way, I found an (A) ROM that didn't sync with this movie, but there was a (U) ROM that did. I'm surprised something was labeled as (U) in the first place, given there isn't supposed to be a US release, and the (U) ROM also had plenty of Engrish. Further, it had really corrupted graphics in the ending, although the game itself was fine. Any idea what's going on here?
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
Good thing I've already played through this game so I don't need to relive dying at the first boss 10 times over. Awesome run, I loved the whoosh whoosh whoosh sound of you guys passing through everything. Some the bosses were absolutely insane, like the Sylpheed Force fight. I never would have guessed you could do that in a million years. Solon: Nintendo hard is an insult to this game.
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Solon wrote:
The movie looked awesome. Yes vote, but a 100% kills movie would have been even cooler.
If I remember correctly, most ordinary enemies spawn endlessly, rendering the goal infeasible.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/7/2006
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mklip2001 wrote:
Further, it had really corrupted graphics in the ending,
Yeah there's a ROM going around with problems, it should be tagged [b1] or something but people have since forgotten. Search a little more for a (J) one with no problems!
Voted NO for NO reason
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Okay, after watching it, I can say I was impressed by some of the strategies. As for the rest… Call me spoiled, but for a TAS with so much action, there is paradoxically little action (referring to the line quoted after me in the submission message). However, all things considered, this is a very optimized and entertaining TAS, so yes vote is heading your way. You guys did really well. On another note, this TAS is going to be a codec poison. I hope the publishers will take this into consideration.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Posts: 103
OK, here is an encode, 143 MB, with deldup and chapters. The optimal bitrate turned out to be about the same as the Gunstar Heroes movie. http://www.sendspace.com/file/pwun6q edit: The quotas and limits seem to be temporary. Keep trying if you can't get it. Of course, it will eventually expire in a month or so.
Joined: 6/4/2009
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it's going so fast that you can't blink without missing a whole stage... awesome run and easy yes vote. we should seriously add a epilepsy warning on this one...
Joined: 6/23/2009
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Dammit wrote:
OK, here is an encode, 143 MB, with deldup and chapters. The optimal bitrate turned out to be about the same as the Gunstar Heroes movie. http://www.sendspace.com/file/pwun6q
Cool thanks. I'll have to check it out when I get home.
Joined: 7/2/2007
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Thanks for the encode, Dammit! Run looked quite nice. Treasure's very inventive when it comes to boss designs. It's a shame the bosses couldn't show themselves off a bit more before dying, but that's TASing for you. Well done!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Damn, the quota's exceded. Could someone upload the run to a limitless service please ? I'd be very thankful.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Joined: 8/9/2004
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I love this game and I play it at least twice a year. I've never thought of it as Nintendo-hard though... I save that for something obscene like Ikari Warriors. I mean in this game you can literally teleport through enemies and attacks and everything to avoid damage AND convert enemy attacks into health AND can often OHKO *bosses*. There's also no way to die instantly that I can think of. I'll admit the game is overall pretty hard until you have a decent strategy against each boss though. I've been waiting eagerly to watch a finished run of this, for a year or two now I think. I'm lazy and don't have the setup to watch the submission, so I downloaded the encoding right now. 5) I never knew you could stand in that position :O How much extra space was there? 7) I always liked running in place on the corner too 9) Nice display of the lancer re-aiming... I've noticed that when playing but it was more a nuisance than useful to me. 13) Pfffft I more often lose by running out of time against this stupid boss than anything else. I never knew you could lose by winning too fast. 15) Hahaha avalanche at the top. Why did you not get hit there? 20) There's a fun fact you don't mention here. I'm not sure if it's different on Japanese version, but on the European one you start out facing left but shooting right - through yourself. Not at all important but still pretty amusing. Overall it was a very impressive and satisfying TAS, my only complaint is the same as Derokan's:
It's a shame the bosses couldn't show themselves off a bit more before dying, but that's TASing for you.
Yes
kwinse wrote:
Kejardon wrote:
Kriole wrote:
Samus is damaged by a Rinka in the opening.
That's a script action; no damage. ... it just dawned on me I know way too much about SM.
It took THAT to make you realize?
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I am now 100% certain that every time I go away on vacation, an awesome run is submitted without my knowledge. Good run, you kept the antics going constantly, used new tricks/glitches, and put those bosses down in the dust. What I expected of this game, yes vote.
moozooh wrote:
but for a TAS with so much action, there is paradoxically little action
Nonsense.
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:rolleyes:
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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This is one of those runs that has a lot of high quality action and way too many breaks from the action to keep it fluid. I guess that's the price we pay for having ridiculously fast motion and fighting. Yes vote. I would like to see this without the fire dash thing, as it got repetitive, but it's obvious that a run without it goes against the objective of submissions.
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Thanks to everyone who voted Yes so far. :) Kejardon: There is about 8 pixels of space between the claw and the body. It could probably be done in a speedrun, since you have plenty of time to get into position before the boss walks in. Similar to Missiray, which has a safe spot which is about the same size. About the avalanche at the top, we don't get hit because we don't touch the boulders. :) If you run the movie in Gens, you can use Graphics -> Lock Palette before things go dark to see what happens. I tried out the thing you said about shooting backwards on Seven Force in the Japanese version, but it appears to work as it should there.
Joined: 8/9/2004
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Dunno if it depends on weapon type or aim type or anything... but just to show it happening:
kwinse wrote:
Kejardon wrote:
Kriole wrote:
Samus is damaged by a Rinka in the opening.
That's a script action; no damage. ... it just dawned on me I know way too much about SM.
It took THAT to make you realize?