This topic is for the purpose of discussing #347: Valagard's SNES Sparkster in 24:42.98

Wow.... how I love those running birds. Never seen so funny and well-animated sprites in any other game. Those birds alone make the movie worth to be published ;-) But back to reality: This movie is much better than your previous submissions, though I have one big point, various small ones and one question/suggestion. First the big problem: You know... it's the boxing boss. Has it to do with the maximum difficutly that Belchy's example here could not be done? Maybe he can post how he did it? Then to the smaller points:

• In the running-bird stage, right before the boss, I think there are some superflous shots.
• In the level just after the bird, before the boss, where you leave the complex, you lose some frames positioning yourself under the shafts leading upwards. Using a slower speed setting in the emulator could have prevented you from going too far in the first place. You could even have gotten the crystals in the shafts.
• Desert-Boss: Wouldn't it be faster to just stay on the ground and wait for the boss to reappear instead of waiting on this elevated platform? It seems to me that staying on the ground would allow you to hit the boss much sooner and thus kill him faster.
• In the vertical scrolling stage, you miss some shots.

My suggestion is about the vertical scrolling page: As there is not that much action on screen, I think the not-shooting-but-evading-everything mode is not so exciting here. What about trying to kill everything on screen (with just well-aimed shots, of course)? However, it may be impossible to hit all those cannons just before the front part of the ship decouples. I think the game scrolls to fast here to hit all targets. Sorry for being picky, but this game is really great and I'd love to see a perfect run ;-) Thanks for your continous efforts! Philip PS: I voted yes despite the problems, though, please "fix" the boxing boss in a later run

Blechy... Haven't watched the video yet, but I'm glad you did another version. I just experimented and I executed the boxing boss like that by heading towards that corner. He follows you into the corner, but you have to use your left punch at just the right time so that he bounces a little bit off of it, then keeps heading into it until he's really pinned in the corner. If you do the first punch too early or too late he will punch you back. I doubt the harder difficulty actually changes the boss' AI, though it probably makes him last longer and do more damage(the latter of which isn't a concern). edit: and I just happened to forget to use the cannon in my video also. When I made it I was just experimenting, and it happened to end the match really quickly, heh. I don't think the cannons would change the boss' behavior so you might want to try it out.(edit2: at the same time as punching) Concerning the vertical scrolling stage, I originally suggested not killing everything because all those explosions really created immense lag if I remember correctly. So it may not be apparent when not comparing this run to the original, but I'm sure this one is much more fast paced due to the lack of lag, just as long as it's executed in an entertaining fashion. It's valagard's call really.

The reason I rarely shot in the shooting stage is the explosions slow everything WAYYYYYYYYYYY down, and the only time I am killing things is to keep the framerate up to save time. As for the boxing boss, NIGHTMARE, a freaking huge supernova sized nightmare. On Crazy hard he hits YOU before you can hit him, and thats you with your fist out!. I just kept doing a few punchs, if they hit and I got away with it I saved and kept going. He just has too much life and he does WAY too much damage to go at him commando style like Bel did. I tried that thirty or so times, I could never get him to stand with gloves apart and NOT punch me when I punched him, so I had to wear him down and break one of his arms, which he almost instantly goes bezerk over. The desert boss pops out of the ground and can only be hit when his head "phases in" from the background. Thats why I jump up to that first ledge to wait for him.

This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [219] SNES Sparkster by Valagard in 24:42.98