I have been toying around with the game, and have completed a test run of the first level. I this feel should be about the same quality/action as the rest of the run should be. One can find it
here.
Now for some quick explantion of what is going on.
The reason I head left instead of right off the start is to pick up three Pow powerups hidden behind the pillars. These powerups can be used to make your weapons stronger. In the first level there are just enough to give you level 3 of your fists or the base machinegun. The power levels of those two weapon are as follows:
Fist:
Level 1: Normal punches
Level 2: Can uppercut after a series of punches
Level 3: Can jumpkick, and kick. You can jump while kicking also
Level 4: ??? Don't need it anyways
Machine gun:
Level 1: One shot
Level 2: An additional shot with an angle of elevation of about 30 degrees
Level 3: An additional shot to level 2, but at about 45% aoe
Level 4: An additional shot to level 3, but at about 60% aoe
I choose to level up the punch for two reasons: speed and damage.
In this game jumping is faster than walking, and jumpkicking is faster than jumping. Thus, if I wanted to get through the level as fast as possible I would need jumpkick. The fact that you only get it at level 3 power is why I don't use it from the very beginning.
As for damage: A normal punch does the same amount of damage as normal machine gun shot, or 1. Adding additional machine gun shots adds additional hits, proving your close enough to the enemy for all shots to hit, can do a maximum of 4 damage. The kick moves (level 3 fist) do more than the normal punch, either 3 or 4 damage I haven't calculated it specifically yet. With both attacks there are delays between each attack to attack again. With the machine gun it's based on time, while with the punching it's based on the sprite's animation. This canceling ability is where the majority of my decision comes from: It is possible to cancel the punch animation by moving. In the air it's as simple as tapping forward for a frame, on the ground you must duck because the attack freezes your horizontal movement on the ground. This lets me attack extremely fast, similar to Ninja Gaiden. This is how I managed to kill the mini boss so quickly.
Other tricks:
-Changing from the machine gun to the fist mid air causes you to punch. This unfortunately also makes the projectile, if you fired one, dissappear. However if you can time it right, and are close enough to your enemy, you can switch from the machine gun to the fist and score two hits instead of one.
I use this in a few places, such as against the first floating eye thing, and against the mini boss. At the miniboss the main use for it is when I get hit. Each time I get hit I acually deal 4 points of damage: One from a punching pain animation, one from switching to a gun and shooting him point back, another switching back to fist instantly and hitting him again, and finally again when I shoot him running back up to him. Watch it frame by frame to see them all :)
-I avoid the items in the beginning and collect them all in a group to save time. This DOES cause a little bit of lag, but because you would normally need to wait around for almost a second to pick up the item right away it saves time. Plus there isn't much lag, and it's kinda funny to watch me tearring through stuff with a wave of items behind me.
Other Information:
- You can't seem to skip the first two screens
- Those two blue guys, one of which I take a hit to get past, are more or less invinicble to me. To kill them you must knock them over 3 times, which takes 3 hits while they are standing normally. Of course you can see me wail on the second one as I pass him (probably about 10 times before he hits the ground) and watch him get back up.
Now i'm at the planning stage of this run where I must choose which route to take. I'm not sure which items to get, or if I acually need to save anywhere, but for now i'm planning on taking the lower route to get the lazer gun and then head up to cobra headquarters. This might take a while, as I was never any good at this game when I was young and didn't get very far, so I will need to play through it a few times.
