NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU USE VBA-NEXT WITH THIS MOVIE! mGBA has an unresolved issue emulating this game which will prevent you from advancing past the title screen!
Roboteers, ready! Robot Wars - Extreme Destruction is the final game published under the Robot Wars license, and this GBA port is arguably the best game in the series. Robot combat on the go, this game is a must-play for any roboteer or fan of metal mayhem.
In this run, Firestorm 3 blatantly bullies the other contestants, finishing every one of it's fights in under 10 seconds to clock in a total run time of 5:20.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: VBA-Next
- BIOS: Game Boy Advance (W).gba
- Complete all tournaments
- Abuses programming errors
- Genre: Action
- Intended for Vault
Comments
This one was much easier to complete than the Harry Potter TAS I did, lemme say that for nothing! I always liked this game growing up as a kid, and what with it being a game that isn't too RNG-heavy, it was also quite a fun run to do. Wish there was more to the strategy than what appeared in the end product, but ah well.
Generalities
In Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction, you get to play as or build your own robot, and go through several competitions in a variety of arenas in order to come out on top as the true master of mayhem. Featuring famous robots from the TV Show, like Hypno-Disc, Chaos 2 and Razer, claiming the crown as the champion of Robot Wars will be no easy feat - especially with the big bad House Robots on your tail!
Stage by stage comments
Bronze Tournament
Relatively easy, but should give you an idea of the overall strat used throughout the majority of this run.
(1) Vs. 101
So, the strategy immediately as the fight begins is to go for the pit release button. Seeing as you can't achieve OOTA (Out of The Arena) flips in this game, the quickest way to win a fight is to dump your opponent in the pit. In the time it takes for us to go for the pit button, 101 will have darted across the arena towards us, at which point we ram into them with our rear end, in an attempt to bounce them off of our rear and immediately into the pit. It took a few tries because 101's spike on the front instantaneously pushes you away, but it also pushes them back a bit, so after 3 attempts we were able to get them in.
(2) Vs. Bigger Brother
This time around, we started with a good power-up - Aerodynamics. It's the only powerup in the game worth using, and it basically gives your bot a 2X speed boost. Same strat as before, but with the 2X speed boost ending this fight in only 5 seconds!
(3) Vs. Thermidor II
Same as 2.
(4) Vs. Wheely Big Cheese
Same as 2.
Silver Tournament
Here the difficulty of the robots you're fighting steps up a little, but we didn't need to change our strategy.
(5) Vs. Thermidor II
Here you can see how much of a difference not having Aerodynamics makes! With the previous Thermidor fight it was over in seconds, this one required a bit more of a pushing match. Still the same overall strategy, though.
(6) Vs. Wheely Big Cheese
Same as 5.
(7) Vs. Hypno-Disc
Same as 5.
(8) Vs. Pussy-Cat
Same as 5.
Gold Tournament
Toughest tournament before you get to the house robots. Even with that in mind, for the majority of fights we didn't need to change our strategy.
(9) Vs. Pussycat
Same as 5.
(10) Vs. Chaos 2
Same as 2, although executed differently - we were able to get them flung into the pit off of our first bounce! With the time spare waiting for them to fall in the pit, we decided to have a pop at Dead Metal, flip him over too. ;)
(11) Vs. Panzer Mk4
Same as 2.
(12) Vs. Destructive Criticism
Same as 2.
House Robot Tournament
And here it is, the toughest tournament. The strategy is roughly the same, although it's a lot harder to push the house robots because of their increased weight, and so the strategy changes accordingly.
(13) Vs. Dead Metal
Same as 2, except here we used the flipper to get out of Dead Metal's jaws and give ourselves more leverage on the push. This game's physics calculations are... approximate, at best, and it generally calculates who's on top of who based on visible pixels, so popping the flipper as we went into his jaws made the game think we were above him.
(14) Vs. Matilda
Matilda was a very interesting fight because while she is the fastest House Robot in the game, she can't steer very well, and has a tendency to just charge into stuff! She'll try to turn, but her turns are generally very wide, and we abused this to make her drive herself into the pit.
(15) Vs. Sgt. Bash
Same as 5, except we didn't have the pushing power to push Sgt. Bash's weight into the pit, so we let the poorly designed AI handle that for us. ;)
(16) Vs. Sir Killalot
This and Dead Metal were the toughest fights. Sir K is by far the heaviest house robot, and the hardest to push - not to mention he has one of the most damaging killplanes on a bot right out in front of him, so getting around to his sides was quite important for winning this one. Again, like the Dead Metal fight, using the flipper to gain leverage, and just gradually, slowly pushing him back until he collapses into the pit.
And that's it! Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction in 5:20.
Other comments
This TAS could probably be improved by finding out what determines the power-ups you receive at the start of a match, and then abusing that so you get Aerodynamics at the start of every match. However, even if you get that, I don't think this TAS will come out of Vault, so it'll remain unoptimized unless someone wants to pick up the slack.
Screenshot Suggestions
- 11916 - Chaos 2 Butt Bounce
- 17613 - Sgt. Bash drives itself into the pit
Thanks for watching!
Memory: Judging
Memory: Updating with light spike
Memory: Updating with file that reaches the gold part screen which is one input away from returning to the menu.
Changing branch label to "Tournament mode" per Branch Name guidelines.
The optimization of this movie seems good.
The movie is fairly boring and repetitive and the audience agreed.
Accepting to Vault.
feos: Pub.