This game is a port of the
arcade game, it seem its not on the FBA game list, anyway since i played only the PCE version its not going to be a trouble for me.
The arcade version of the game have superior graphics, musics and sfx, but considering the capacities of the PCEngine, they did a pretty good job with this portage, a gameboy tas can be found
here, the gb port have shorter stages, less ennemies on screen and weaker boss.
There is 2 main reasons to use the arcade mode over pce mode in this movie, first the difficulty, most boss have less hp in pce mode and you can get hit (6 times per life), then secondly the "true" ending only appear after beating arcade mode.
The game is very simple and straightforward, it wasnt a challenge to tas it, beside the ugly lag that is randomly generated from some object spawning on screen, sometime ennemy generate it, sometime your weapons, sometime both, sometime everything is fine even if theres a lot of stuffs on screen... go figures.
The lag is the main ennemy in this game, while i think i did a pretty good job in the 3 first stages (and latter ones), it seem impossible to find a *good* issue to stage4, the problem in there been any weapon will generate lag, and i cant jump from the ceilling, stoping here is necessary, worse, i have to go back for a few frames at the end in order to manipulate 2 ninja on top of screens or they would keep using their swords... and prevent me advancing the few more steps needed.
This part of the movie (stage4, scene2) will look the most sloppy, i tryed different things here but the lag is just ... unfair to say the least. About 1/3 total lag of the movie is generated in this sequence, this is likely the most improvable part of this movie.
The game mechanics are simple, anything that hit you will kill you... you got 4 weapons at disposal, eatch can be upgraded 1 time (note after you receive 4 upgrade all weapons are upgraded regardless what you had equiped), i dont use the graple thing, simply because it seem to be the only weapon always generating lag, its sad because that one look cool but well... its not usable.
The ninja can attack while jumping without loosing time/stop flow, it seem obvious only walking would be faster, not by much tought, but since any hit is lethal, you are forced to jump in order to attack or dodge ennemys, also, a bunch of grounds are made of little holes, and there is a swarm in stage3, those areas need jumping regardless, or you loose time by simply walking into them.
The ninja get upgraded with clones, 2 extra shadow follow you and mimic your movements/attacks, the 2 others upgrade types are flame shield (you can still die) and a bomb that kill everything on screen.
Luck manipulation is very "sensible" in this game, delaying your jump of 1 or 2 frames will yeld vastly different results, doing high jumps instead of small ones will also influct a lot the ennemys spawning outcome, i do jump most generaly to manipulate them.
All boss are killed with grenades, it is definitly the most powerfull weapon available, and doesnt lag on boss. The less laggy weapon is the simple sword, shurikens are also big lag source generaly.
Hope youll enjoy this :D
PCEjin does support Drag&Drop, this will let you easly (re)watch every stages, load the lua script, ram watch, or the movie itself.
Thanks to Aktan for encodes, also many thanks to paul_t for help with the game, ram search, feedback on wips and overall support, not to mention pcejin kick ass :p
