This is going to be a long submission text. However, I don't think it's necessary to read the text in order to enjoy the movie.
Gunstar Heroes is considered by many to be the best game on Sega Genesis. The game is basically a run-n-gun with various weapons and playing styles. It also features a lot of humor.
I started this run because I felt that
Jackic's run really needed to be updated. It was done in the days before frame advance, spends most of the run doing one move over and over, pauses during waiting periods, only uses one player, and goes through the game on normal difficulty. My run uses two players and goes through expert difficulty.
Set up:
- Uses Gens 9z. It works on 9.5, but I recommend watching on 9z since 9.5 does some frame skips which make certain things hard to see, such as the flame chaser.
- Two Players, three buttons.
This run:
- Aims for entertainment
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- Manipulates luck
While Jackic's run is around 32 minutes, this run is 35 1/2 minutes long. The run is longer for a few reasons:
1. This run is on expert Jackic's is on Normal.
There are many differences between expert and normal difficulty. There are more enemies in expert mode. Bosses move faster, fire more projectiles, and in some cases have different strategies than they do on normal. If enemies ever start blinking and become invulnerable, they do so more often. Also, all attacks are weaker. Gun attacks do about 2/3's as much damage in normal as they do in expert. Body attacks in normal do 50 damage a frame in normal while they do 20 damage a frame in expert. Also, in expert you have to fight all seven forms of seven force. In normal, it's only three.
2. It's a two player run.
The game makes some weird choices for how to deal with two players. For one, whenever they attack the damage happens every other frame, then switches back and forth. Also, two players cause a lot more lag than one player, especially when they're both firing weapons at once. I tried to minimize lag at these points but it's hard to avoid.
3. Speed/entertainment tradeoffs.
I wanted to make a run that was entertaining to watch as possible. One of the most obvious tradeoffs is I use all fourteen guns in the game to kill at least one enemy. There are other points where I chose style over speed. I tried the best I could to make the levels feel different from each other.
There are four guns which cause four damage a frame:
- force-force
- chaser
- flame-chaser
- lightning-flame
So chasers are as strong as lightning saber and flame chaser which is why I decided to use them on some of the bosses.
Bosses don't become vulnerable until the words 'boss vitality' appears on the screen. Some bosses take even longer to start taking damage. Anything I do before those words appear is just for show.
Every once in a while there are phantoms, robots with helmets that cover their faces, which you have to kill in order to advance. My goal for these fights were to make sure the phantoms blink as few times as possible, which sometimes required doing different things to manipulate them.
I use jump attacks because when you factor everything in, they're slightly faster than slides.
Level Summaries
Pink
Mostly going across for the first bit. Throwing your partner is in many cases the fastest way to kill most bosses. On the slope, I try to goof around a bit on the way down. I use player 1 during the Pink fight because at the speed I'm throwing player 2, it's impossible to block shots with the flame chaser most of the time, and it's faster to dodge.
Green
Heavy use of the flame chaser as well as hovering between the tracks. I also use all four single guns during this level. Can you catch them all?
During the seven force fight I chose my weapons for player two based on what I had to do with him. Since the only way he can move while shooting is to jump, sometimes it's better to use a flame chaser during fights so player two can concintrate on dodging. During Blaster Force, I have to turn around everytime he fires to make sure I'm still hitting him.
Orange
The first bit is autoscrolling, so I play around while jumping, and play with the ship, which has a few interesting bugs. I pause after the Swapping Reg in order to prevent tbe end of the level from becoming garbled. Smash Daisuke, the flying guy blinks everytime you body attack him, so my strategy was to attack him until he almost starts blinking and body attack right before he becomes invulnerable. Orange is the same deal, except he has a few animations which can't be interrupted and allow you to body attack.
Black
Some more zooming across the stage. The cannon is a boss. If you look hard enough, you can see the numbers blinking. I actually beat the phantom without him blinking once. I'm so glad I could do that. The glitch I use during the dice palace involves throwing your partner right before you warp out. The route I use is faster because the boss fights are faster. Taking damage from Curry and Rice's head saves a lot of time.
Save Yellow
I think it's planned by the programmers,but getting the first phantom to commit suicide is a lot faster than any other method. Smash Daisuke has about the same deal as before, but this time, he can be attacked when he starts spinning.
Space
Since this was an autoscroller, my plan for this level was to do everything I could think of except play the level the way it's supposed to be played. I take lag at times when I feel the entertainment is worth it.
Final Stage
It's a boss rush. Golden Silver was really annoying because the hit boxes are so small. Enjoy the ending.
adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvement to the published movie.
adelikat: Attempting to encode this. Given how problematic this movie is for encoding, the publication underway status is somewhat tentative.
