In this game one of the title characters must use his jumping and spinning ability to traverse levels blatantly stolen from Mario, Sonic and Tiny Toons to gather keys and fight bosses to win.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: fceux 2.1.6 with TAS Editor
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes no damage
- Genre: Platformer
Game Description
Buzz and Waldog is a surprisingly good looking prototype of a game created by Korean game makers Daou Infosys. It was originally released in Korea under the name of Koko Adventure with a planned US release but due to issues never hit the states. Luckily a, by all appearances, complete version was leaked and is now available to play. As I said before a lot of graphics from the game are stolen from Super Mario World with a few other games and original content thrown in, but were combined to create a visually pleasing game.
In the game the goal is to collect a certain number of keys dispersed throughout each level to progress to the next stage. In total there are 5 worlds that must be completed with each world made up of 3 levels and one unique boss battle. After completing the 5 worlds you must again beat each of the previous bosses and then a new final boss.
The gameplay is relatively simple but can be quite fast paced. The traditional movement is to simply run left or right. Another version of moving is to jump which maintains the maximum velocity but has slower acceleration. There are two jumps available the traditional jump and a jump attack. Finally, upon reaching a certain velocity or when traveling down slopes there is an option to slide.
While running your speed varies from 0 to 3 pixels per second. Your character has both an acceleration and momentum property so conserving velocity is key to traverse levels as quickly as possible. This momentum also has the negative result that to completely change direction as is necessary to gather certain keys can take a while.
The traditional jump allows for higher and longer jumps than the attack but the spinning attack jump is the only normal way to attack and defeat enemies. The spin attack can be used to destroy enemies, who usually take 1 or 2 attacks to die, and to destroy blocks that are in the path. When your spin attack hits an enemy or block you are bounced off that can range from almost falling off to being launched as high as a second jump. In addition to the height variance of the jump the spin attack also results in a change of velocity so that you are thrown off at a slightly random velocity dependent on the speed upon collision, angle of collision and position on the item hit. Finally upon collecting power ups your normal jump can be enhanced. The first enhancement is winged shoes that allow for you to do a second jump in midair. Perfect double jumps allow for a few shortcuts to be taken throughout the run and reach areas previously unattainable. Gathering this power-up is the first thing accomplished in the run as it both improve the speed of the level and is necessary to complete later levels. The second power-up is the feather which allows for the falling speed to be decreased which allows for much further jumps. This power-up can improve certain levels but is neither convenient or make an appreciable difference so it is not gathered until quite a distance into the run.
Sliding is the final way to travel in the levels. When sliding down the hill your velocity begins at your current running speed and then can increase to 4 pixels per frame allowing for faster traveling. In addition to faster travel sliding is also the preferred means of transportation because it can cause damage to enemies. Upon colliding with the enemies the same bounce off occurs as what happens with the spin attack but allows you to maintain your 4 pixel per frame velocity so this can be used to maintain high velocities for longer. In certain situations the slide is not used when enemy collisions or increased velocities would result in improper placement or cause damage to the character.
Bosses
All of the bosses are technically different but are handled identically in this run. Each of the bosses have different attacks and modes of moving but they all take damage in the same way. To damage a boss you must simply spin into certain damage zones on their body 6 times which will cause them to explode and allow you to move on. As said they each have different attacks and movement styles but as they are defeated so quickly many of the individual quirks are not seen in this run.
Level Completed Screen
For the most part this game has a pretty solid pacing excluding the level completed screen. It counts down both time and level complete bonuses and can be boring to sit through. I have been told that isn't as miserable to casual viewers but for how many times I have watched this run now it can be annoying and I apologize for that as it cannot be skipped.
Input could potentially end 41 frames earlier and result in the exact same game completion time but would result in damage being taken. I decided that preserving the damage free run without extending the time to reach the end screen is worth the extra less than second of input.
As it is a prototype never released in the US there is a chance many of you will not have a version in your collection so
here is a link to a rom. It has been listed on the game page for a few months so I thought it was OK but if not feel free to remove this paragraph.
In the end this is a fast paced platformer TAS and I hope you enjoy.
turska: Good audience response, solid run. Accepting for publication.
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