Even though my WIP of this sunk like a rock in the forums, I did it anyway. one reason was revenge. i got my butt kicked by this game all the time when i played it on game boy and never finished it. another reason i did it is because i think it can make a good TAS, and i want to hear other peoples opinions about it. please let me know if you think this is a good game to TAS too.

Used VBA-rerecording-17.1

Heres how the game works: Youre in a slow-moving tank that has to stop to turn, and have to avoid/kill enemies that hone in on you and are sometimes faster than you. You have two weapons - a laser which you can level up by killing enemies (max level 6), and bombs (can hold max 10). You have to kill the 'life cores' of each of 5 planets and get crappy power-ups along the way, then go to the alien base and kill the bad guy Gregor. There are other mini-bosses in each level, and if you kill them the main boss' life goes down. Sometimes you have to kill a mini-boss to open a gate later in the level. I figured out its quicker to skip them and go straight for the boss. Some screens are on an overworld, some are first-person mazes, and some are scrolling shooters. To make it difficult (fun?) whenever you die your lazer goes back to level 1.

During the last scrolling scene I shoot 2 shots that don't hit anyone. This is to trigger the enemies to appear in a sequence that i want so I can get more bombs. Otherwise I don't think i missed a shot (i might have on the last boss, because I wasn't sure if every hit counted). Item drops are in a sequence, but the enemies appear in a random way. If you shoot a shot where an enemy will appear in a few frames (which i knew from using a savestate), then the enemy won't appear there and get killed right away, but will appear somewhere else instead.

The planets can be done in a different order, which might save time and might not.

The first fight in a maze i didn't end on the leftmost possible frame (loss of a few frames), but the ones after that I did. I used two different strategies against the maze fights with two flying thingies, and I'm not sure which one is faster. In those fights it looks like i pause for a second after i kill one of them, and thats because the game doesn't let you move then. Also, on the 3rd planet I didn't cut one corner that i should have (a few frames). on the last scroller screen i should have used 2 more bombs on the spaceship guy (a few frames).

I killed every enemy on the scrolling screens until my gun was max power. then i choose who i killed.

Playing this game i got good at counting by 17, because thats the fastest your cannon shoots in first-person mode (theres that number again...)

Edit: I could have taken damage to save time, but I thought in this kind of game people prefer a no-damage run. let me know what you think.

Truncated: Not a lot of feedback on this one. Probably people haven't heard of it (I hadn't) and weren't interested enough to check.

This submission will be rejected because:

I don't see how these stages could possibly be made interesting. It's not your fault, it's the game.

adelikat: Accepting for publication to the Vault