About the Game(s)
Action 52 is an unlicensed game made for the NES and Sega Genesis, featuring - you guessed it - 52 different video games. The NES version was published in 1991, whereas the Genesis version was published in 1993. Both versions were published by Active Enterprises.
Critical Bypass (aka Critical BP on the select screen) is game 7/52 in the NES version of Action 52. As a UFO, your mission is to make it back to your headquarters while avoiding meteorites and orange and blue bricks.
About the TAS
This TAS aims for fastest completion, which means beating all 3 levels as fast as possible.
Emulator Choice
I initially tried to TAS this game on FCEUX, but it kept crashing at a certain place in Level 2, so I had to use BizHawk instead. I might switch to BizHawk for laggier games like Action 52 as FCEUX doesn't handle it all too well.
Strategy
The strategy involved for all 3 levels is to hold off the meteorites for as long as possible. This is done by weaving up and down - holding up for 48 frames and then down for the same amount of time (or 49 if the game decides to lag a bit). However, there are 3 caveats to this strategy.
- If there's a brick in our way, we have to wait until it's possible to go past it without taking damage.
- In Level 1, we can stop weaving at the top of the screen halfway through the level and slowly make down inputs over time to reach the goal.
- A few times in Level 3, we can't go all the way up to the top of the screen because the meteorites would hit us and our UFO would explode. So instead, we only hold up for 18 frames and then down for the same amount of time.
- To end input earlier, we have to find the exact amount of time to weave up and down for so we can hold off the last meteorite for longer. Input ends on frame 12492.
That's all from me. Thanks for reading.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: At first, I didn't know what I was looking at...but I finally figured it out. This is another game that repeats the same style of game play, represented in the other Action 52 games, where you survive to win. Aside from surviving...the only real advantage here, is the ending of the input as early as possible.
Accepting.
