Submission #8391: Randomno's SVI3x8 SASA in 03:54.24

Do you ever wonder why a system has no submissions for it? The answer tends to become quickly apparent.

The SV-318 and SV-328 are home computers released by Spectravideo in 1983. The same year, the MSX standard for home computers was announced, which was based on the SV-328. As such, MSX and SV-3x8 are quite similar and openMSX supports both. Experimental support was added in 2016, movies have been accepted since 2017 and the parser was implemented in 2019. However, much of the system's library has either been ported to or from MSX, particularly any good games, and MSXHawk doesn't support the system. This leaves little desire to make a TAS for it.

Choosing a game was difficult. I at least wanted something that was released by Spectravideo. Other considerations were Candoo Ninja, Cryptic Cube (Rubik's Cube simulator), Frantic Freddy (not to be confused with C64's Frantic Freddie), and New York Bomb Blitz (yup). The game I chose was released on MSX too, but it was the most fun and responsive one I tried. As far as I've seen the game plays identically between systems, the only difference being the colour pallete.

openMSX was an interesting experience. I like trying out other emulators in an era dominated by BizHawk. It records your inputs by default and has rewinding, which is cool. If you want to make your movie by other means though you may have difficulty. Savestates are awkward, and due to the movie format I didn't want to attempt modifying earlier inputs in a text editor (let alone in a TAStudio style). There seem to be a few issues for SV-3x8 as well. The input display doesn't map correctly, and I had an issue every time I saved that parsed the character references wrong and added garbage input near the start of the movie. This is fixed in the latest development version, which will be released as 19.0 fairly soon. Probably the most awkward issue is this. Overall, it doesn't need much changed, but development time would be better spent on MSXHawk.

After trying to submit this I found out the .omr format changed a bit in 18.0, so spliced together the inputs with a 17.0 movie file. This increases the chance something goes wrong, but it seems to work for me.

I'm still not sure if the name is SASA or Sasa. It was developed by a Hong Kong company that tended to write all their game names in capitals. Here's a few sources from the time: 1, 2, 3. It was followed by Astro Robo Sasa/SASA for the Famicom. It controls by being propelled backwards from your shots, as well as moving left and right regularly when on the ground. This design can variously be described as "unique and creative", or "unintuitive and stupid", depending on your mood. The menu has three difficulty options and increases the difficulty level after each loop; the manual claims you can start on difficulty 4 but I don't see how. I played through the game for a while and don't know if it ends. The higher difficulties don't add much, and multiplayer just takes it in turns, so I decided to do one loop of the game on difficulty 1.

...Then I realised difficulty 3 is faster and redid the whole thing.

Shoot a hole in the wall while avoiding helicopters. I learned from the manual that it's fastest to shoot at the same spot, which saved me bashing my head against a, uh, wall figuring out how it works. I let myself fall a bit before boosting myself upwards, so I have the right height immediately instead of having to wait longer to drop back down after a jump. This stage is slightly slower in difficulty 3 (maybe half a second).

You have to shoot the four power generators, while avoiding the flying saucers... apparently. As I shoot the generators this fast the saucers aren't an issue. This time I wait to get a bit of extra height before jumping again, in order to shoot two power generators in one go.

Destroying the power generators dropped all the energy bottles into the sea. As if the pollution wasn't bad enough, SASA now kills all the marine life to get the energy bottles back. The octopodes (not "octopi", manual) spawn a lot faster in this difficulty. My execution likely isn't perfect but it's quite an awkward stage. I get a group of 3 lined up nicely at the end. Collect five bottles and the stage ends.

This is what it's all been building up to. SASA has to shoot monsters for some reason. Also, "Astro-Beatles". Yeah, that's what it says. The speed at which you kill the monsters (the diamond shapes) doesn't seem to matter. The last Beatle of each pack should be killed as soon as possible to spawn the next monster phase. I tried to optimise for last input, which means shooting the very last Beatle from as far away as possible.

Turned out pretty nice in the end. I just hope I've got the emulator settings right and it's all valid. Huge thanks to Vampier and Quibus for help throughout.

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: Well, after a days of trying to figure this emulator out...I was able to get your TAS to play all the way through. Thanks for the initial help, and also to Samsara for the final help.

Well, I thought this was a really good game. After comparing it to a couple of human runs...this movie totally destroys their effort. Great job!

Accepting to "Standard" for publication.

despoa: Processing...