Intro
The Legend of Dark Witch was a 2014 game first released on the 3DS and later released on the PS Vita, PC, another PC Renovation version, and the Nintendo Switch. The main gameplay concept can be summarized as a Mega Man-like game with a Gradius style power system for additional gameplay options in stages. Syega Crystals have been stolen, and Zizou Olympia has come to investigate what has happened to the crystals.
With the release of BizHawk 2.10 giving the ability of making 3DS TASes with a piano roll, I felt it was a good time to go through my 3DS backlog that I built from the eShop closing sale. I originally got the trilogy of games for sale since they looked like my style of game and that the 3rd game is (as of 2 February 2025) still 3DS exclusive. The first game has some rough parts but overall I really enjoyed my time with the game and got interested in seeing how fast the game can be completed. After seeing the SRC page for the game I decided to see how far this game could be pushed, though this TAS is slower due to using a harder difficulty.
Run notes
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.10
- Encore core
- Takes damage to save time in one stage
- Plays on Normal, the hardest difficulty available on a fresh save
- Uses Zizou, the only playable character available on a fresh save
- Uses the 3DS US version for a specific glitch
- Final in-game time: 16:51
Mechanics and techniques
Difficulty
Difficulty affects a few different factors:
- How fast enemies and bosses move
- How many projectiles some enemies and bosses shoot
- The amount of tres dropped from enemies and bosses
- The defense of some enemies and all bosses
- The amount of meter lost upon taking damage
As this TAS was done on Normal, the final time ends up slower than RTA times simply by playing on a higher difficulty where bosses simply have more defense and thus take more hits. Lunatic requires beating the game on any difficulty first and isn't available on a fresh save.
Ability meter
The ability meter increases when tres is collected. Tres comes from defeating enemies, damaging bosses, and successfully executing blocks. Once enough tres has been gathered, the meter bar can be spent to obtain an upgrade that persists until either the stage is completed or the player dies. Technical skills obtained from bosses also consume a bit of meter when they are used. Taking damage causes meter loss depending on difficulty, with Lunatic removing all meter upon getting hit.
- Speed
- This is the most important upgrade for Zizou as this affects horizontal movement speed. This is always upgraded first to speed up all stages.
- Wing
- This grants Zizou a Wing meter that allows for a slow fall for a short while. The Wing meter recovers shortly after landing. This is useful for getting across large gaps without slowing down and reaching some areas a little quicker.
- Liner
- This gives Zizou the Liner shot if she has Comet equipped. If Zizou has Liner equipped then this gives an extra shot at a different angle. This is a good shot for angle coverage as well as taking out the tougher enemies in stages quickly. Without Pure Syega, Liner can be upgraded twice to get a spread of 3 shots per press.
- Comet
- This gives Zizou the Comet shot if she has Liner equipped. If Zizou has Comet equipped then this gives an extra shot that moves up and down. This doesn't cover as wide of an area and the intersection of shots is niche compared to the wideness of an upgraded Liner shot. Without Pure Syega, Comet can be upgraded twice for 2 additional shots that move up and down.
- Power
- This powers up Zizou's Liner/Comet shot's power by a small amount. This is important for Klinsy's stage where there's no weakness to exploit in the boss fight and is otherwise optional for the rest of the TAS. Without Pure Syega, Power can be upgraded twice.
- Guard
- This unlockable ability is only available after obtaining all 13 Pure Syega in the game. This grants Zizou a shield that protects from 1 hit but disables the ability to block. As this TAS only gets the Pure Syega that upgrade speed, Guard is never seen.
Pure Syega
Most stages have Pure Syega hidden in certain locations. These increase the amount of times an ability on the meter can be upgraded. Pure Syega can be revealed either by touching the spot they're located physically or shooting them enough times. It's faster to shoot them as touching their spot causes the Pure Syega to fly upwards quite a bit. Normally there's an animation that pauses the game upon grabbing a Pure Syega but it can be skipped by entering and leaving the weapon select wheel to keep moving. The only Pure Syega obtained in this TAS are the two Speed Up Syega for faster movement with Zizou.
Dia meter glitch
From my understanding, this is a 3DS US version exclusive glitch as the RTA record doesn't use it and there's a GameFAQs thread that seems to point that this glitch was patched out of the European version of the game.
Using Dia Missile when nothing's in range causes the ability meter to build up every time shot is used. This allows for immediately maxing out Speed upgrades at the start of every stage after Klinsy's and keeps meter available for Riva's stage for all of the boss fights.
Adjusted options
The Camera Distance is set to 1 as enemy and object spawning is affected by the camera. Setting it to 1 gives the best tornado cycles for Klinsy's and Verri's stages. The jump setting is set to be variable depending on how long the jump button is pressed which allows for faster ascents.
On-Off block glitch
Hitting the toggle for the On-off blocks while moving upwards on a block that would appear causes an up zip. This saves a bit of time in Papeline's stage to avoid some extra jumping.
Blocking
Blocking is performed by pressing left or right in the just frames before a projectile is about to hit Zizou. This removes the projectile, grants Zizou a small amount of invulnerability frames, and provides a small amount of extra tres. This also briefly pauses everything on screen so generally this is avoided outside of meter building against Klinsy and avoiding damage that would slow down movement.
Horizontal movement delay
For some reason left and right inputs need to be held for a short time before being able to move horizontally. I assume this is a consequence to how the other character's dash inputs (double tap left/right) are registered. While turning around is instant on the ground, this delay makes turning around in the air slower than it should be.
Tres shop upgrades
Tres gathered from stages can be exchanged for upgrades between stages. I'll leave it at the most relevant ones for the TAS in this section. Each technical skill can be upgraded three times, at increasing prices per level, with about a +25% damage boost per upgrade. Tres drops from enemies can also be upgraded. This TAS elects to get the tres drop boost after Klinsy's stage to get enough tres for 2 Dia Missile upgrades from the shop. As Normal doesn't give as much tres compared to the easiest difficulty, it's not quite possible to max out Dia Missile's power before the final stage. While any technical skill could work for a boost, Dia Missile is the first on the menu and is the fastest to select.
Weapon swap glitch
Shooting out one type of shot and switching to another causes the damage properties of the currently equipped weapon to apply to the shots currently on screen. This means that only one weapon needs to be upgraded for all other weapons to technically get a boost. This also applies to switching to the Liner/Comet shot where, although causes shots to be weaker, enemies killed will have their tres magnetized to Zizou rather than floating away upwards. This glitch is used to take out bosses quickly and to gather more tres with technical shots that hit enemies where Liner can't reach.
Boss patterns
Most bosses start the fight alternating between 2 attacks. Upon reaching 50% health they add a third attack into their cycle. Once down to 25% health they add their fourth and final attack into their pattern. Bosses normally have about 50 i-frames between hits but increases to 90 i-frames once they reach 25% health.
Stage by stage notes
The main stage order starts with Klinsy for the first Speed Up Syega, followed by going through the weakness chain. Luckily Blad's stage has the second Speed Up Syega and is second on the weakness chain.
Klinsy
Speed is the primary upgrade to focus on at the start of the stage. A few enemies are skipped before getting the Pure Syega to get the third Speed upgrade as soon as it's available. A brief pause is done in the final section to avoid the tornadoes at the end. As Power isn't fully upgraded going into the Klinsy fight, a lot of blocking is done to get extra tres for the second Power upgrade for the rest of the fight. After the stage, the tres boost upgrade is bought from the shop.
Blad
The first thing done at the start of the stage is to immediately abuse the Dia meter glitch to max out speed as well as get Wing to jump over the spike balls. The second Speed Up Syega is obtained and immediately upgraded to max out speed for the rest of the stage. Blocking is done to avoid one quill shot and a brief slowdown near the end of the stage is used to avoid the last quill shot to the boss. A Liner shot with the base damage of Dia Missile at the start of the fight against Blad is used for the first shot as the first possible chance to use Dia Missile for damage is longer than the i-frames of the first hit. After the stage thie first Dia Missile upgrade is purchased.
TODO: the rest of this section
Possible improvements
- Better movement optimization
- Foregoing the increased Tres drops to instead go all in on investing in Dia Missile upgrading
Publisher's note if this gets accepted
This is the input file I used for my personal encode that goes through the ending sequence rather than skipping it. It also has post credits inputs to show off the final in-game time and unlocks. Feel free to use or adjust it though that's your call, not mine.
Suggested screenshot
Frame 27399-ish - Zizou up zips with the on-off blocks.
