Not much to say about this one. It's a pretty dull game, but I owned it, and it has nostalgia value for me. But the end result is just...dull.
This game loops forever. This TAS plays 1 loop, which is defined at landing on the 4th heli-pad. This matches the any% definition for
Speedrun.com
Note that the precise definition on that site includes the word "glitchless" which implies maybe there is a time saving glitch, but I could find no information on this and as far as I can tell, there are no time-saving glitches.
For time savers there wasn't much. It takes a lot for this game to lag in a way that stops screen scroll. This TAS has no lag frames by that definition. I wrote a small lua script that checks and confirmed it.
There are no bosses to optimize. The only strategy is to not have bombs or helpers when landing on the heli-pad to avoid bonus tallies.
In an attempt to be entertaining, I do shoot everything that can be shot. Also, I intentionally am as far away from the heli-pads. It doesn't cost any time, so I thought that was more interesting. This isn't much, but it's all I could manage in terms of entertainment :D
The only interesting thing to optimize is the early input at the end. I managed to find an impressively early input solution.
ThunderAxe31: Replacing with a 372 frames improvement by me thanks to better strategy for the ending inputs, and un-claiming the judgement.
Samsara: Final file replacement is with a bugfixed version.
Indeed, this game doesn't really give much to talk about. It sure is a helicopter! I've never seen something helicopt so well in my life, honestly.
While this is effectively just a long autoscroller, the non-trivial lag management and creative solutions for early input end make it feel good enough to accept right now, despite the
triviality discussion not being officially concluded yet.
