Hi, This is my first post
This post is seperated in three paraghraphs: The story part, the interesting part and the technical part. Skip those that do not interest you.
Here's a story: A long time ago, I played a game on N64 called Starshot: Space Circus Fever. For some who remember playing this mess of a camera programming (for those who played it), this may bring about either extremely joyful, or excruciatingly horrible memories.
In short, Starshot is a game where you run, jump, fly, shoot stars, explore six lush *ahem* planets and ride an intergalactic circus ship. Think Super Mario 64 in space, with a wacky aesthetic.
Years later, I want to revisit this joy/pain of a game on a huge nostalgia trip, just remembering its name after having forgotten it for many years...
And find out there was a PC version, with better graphics, soundtrack, framerate, voice acting, etc! Well, Even more reason to try it again!
About a year before that, I had set about watching some of a GDQ stream, and then watched some speedruns on twitch and youtube, and got addicted.
Here's the interesting part: I checked to see if there was a speedrun of Starshot online, and there was only a semi quick playthrough of someone testing the game for another speedrunner on youtube. Pretty much nothing.
It isn't hard to find, either: search for a starshot speedrun and its the only result.
Well, this is untapped lands, in my opinion there is much to ponder in the confines of this space circus. So I boot up my copy of Starshot on PC that I got from some oldware site, and boot it up, the 800 x 600 resolution burning my irises.
The objective of the game is to collect mega-fuel bonuses, which you need 50 of to travel to certain planets, and complete level specific objectives, which will actually progress the planet.
Looking at the in-game map in the first level, now from a speed oriented perspective, I notice how the end objective is right next to the start of the level. With enough perseverance, I may achieve something...
Here's the technical part:
The first planet, Tensuns, is divided into 6 islands, marked as blue. Surrounding those islands is water, and in that water are sharks, marked as red. The sharks will eat you when you stray too far in the water, and send you back to the last checkpoint you hit. You start the level on island 1.
The first and last islands are right next to each other but between them is water. The bridges that connect the islands in the order: 1-2-3-4-5-6 but no bridge between islands 1 and 6.
The objective of the level is to run up a path on Island 1 while evading beach police girls that attack you with a baton to have a good look of the ship that is parked on island 6. After that, you need to go to island 2, 3, then 4 by crossing bridges permeated with jumping sharks that send you flying in the water to get eaten by bigger sharks, pathways with giant rolling magma balls and robots with semi automatic laser guns shooting at you. At Island 4, you defeat a robot guarding a button to be able to press it, resulting in the deactivation of shields surrounding the four legs of the ship. Finally, you need to go to island 5 to fly to island 6 while evading flying robots that try to gun you down and eventually destroy the legs of the ship by shooting them each 10 times or doing precise jumps on tanning ladies on floaters to lure a shark to eat the ship's leg. Make sense, hunh?
Anyways, that sums up the level, in the intended way of passing it. This is represented by the green line in the map.
Well, right off the bat, 15 seconds into the game there is a sequence break, which I pretty much found an hour ago: Turns out that by navigating precisely and "juggling" between the two sharks between island 1 and 6, you can swim through successfully without getting eaten. Then, you activate a checkpoint on island 6(this is important).
After getting the checkpoint, you collect 4 ammo, then run to the other end of the island to collect a yellow pickup, which grants you 2 seconds flying time. Random mechanic in this game: If you move far enough away from where a pickup spawns (except for mega-fuels), the pickup will respawn and you can collect it once more.
So you run back and forth 4 times to collect 8 seconds of flight time, with which you fly to the top of the ship. Why, you ask? There are more a ton of yellow pickups on top of there conveniently placed for us. You collect as much as you need (40 seconds cap).
With this newly acquired flight time, you fly in a straight line to island 4, defeat the robot with the 4 ammo, push the button, collect any mega fuels you need.
Then you die. Either by a laser beam wound inflicted by a space robot or by the mighty bite of a shark that looks more like a slug than a shark. This will warp you to the checkpoint on island 6, and set your ammo to 25.
With the death abuse ammo you can kill two of the ships legs, then jump on the tanning ladies to make the slugsharks eat the other 2 legs. You cant death abuse for another 25 ammo since the 4 legs will reset if you die.
This route is represented by the purple line in the map.
and voila, planet 1, beaten, very fast. In the playthrough on youtube the person passed the first level in around 10 minutes, mistakes included. I passed it with my skip in just under 4 minutes, not picking up mega fuels that were not in my way.
Tomorrow I set off on planet number two: Killer Expo!
TL:DR : Sharks are silly, or rather not so hungry, because they let you get to the end objective of the first level way faster than your supposed to. Lets see what else there is to find in this game.
This post is seperated in three paraghraphs: The story part, the interesting part and the technical part. Skip those that do not interest you.
Here's a story: A long time ago, I played a game on N64 called Starshot: Space Circus Fever. For some who remember playing this mess of a camera programming (for those who played it), this may bring about either extremely joyful, or excruciatingly horrible memories.
In short, Starshot is a game where you run, jump, fly, shoot stars, explore six lush *ahem* planets and ride an intergalactic circus ship. Think Super Mario 64 in space, with a wacky aesthetic.
Years later, I want to revisit this joy/pain of a game on a huge nostalgia trip, just remembering its name after having forgotten it for many years...
And find out there was a PC version, with better graphics, soundtrack, framerate, voice acting, etc! Well, Even more reason to try it again!
About a year before that, I had set about watching some of a GDQ stream, and then watched some speedruns on twitch and youtube, and got addicted.
Here's the interesting part: I checked to see if there was a speedrun of Starshot online, and there was only a semi quick playthrough of someone testing the game for another speedrunner on youtube. Pretty much nothing.
It isn't hard to find, either: search for a starshot speedrun and its the only result.
Well, this is untapped lands, in my opinion there is much to ponder in the confines of this space circus. So I boot up my copy of Starshot on PC that I got from some oldware site, and boot it up, the 800 x 600 resolution burning my irises.
The objective of the game is to collect mega-fuel bonuses, which you need 50 of to travel to certain planets, and complete level specific objectives, which will actually progress the planet.
Looking at the in-game map in the first level, now from a speed oriented perspective, I notice how the end objective is right next to the start of the level. With enough perseverance, I may achieve something...
Here's the technical part:
The first planet, Tensuns, is divided into 6 islands, marked as blue. Surrounding those islands is water, and in that water are sharks, marked as red. The sharks will eat you when you stray too far in the water, and send you back to the last checkpoint you hit. You start the level on island 1.
The first and last islands are right next to each other but between them is water. The bridges that connect the islands in the order: 1-2-3-4-5-6 but no bridge between islands 1 and 6.
The objective of the level is to run up a path on Island 1 while evading beach police girls that attack you with a baton to have a good look of the ship that is parked on island 6. After that, you need to go to island 2, 3, then 4 by crossing bridges permeated with jumping sharks that send you flying in the water to get eaten by bigger sharks, pathways with giant rolling magma balls and robots with semi automatic laser guns shooting at you. At Island 4, you defeat a robot guarding a button to be able to press it, resulting in the deactivation of shields surrounding the four legs of the ship. Finally, you need to go to island 5 to fly to island 6 while evading flying robots that try to gun you down and eventually destroy the legs of the ship by shooting them each 10 times or doing precise jumps on tanning ladies on floaters to lure a shark to eat the ship's leg. Make sense, hunh?
Anyways, that sums up the level, in the intended way of passing it. This is represented by the green line in the map.
Well, right off the bat, 15 seconds into the game there is a sequence break, which I pretty much found an hour ago: Turns out that by navigating precisely and "juggling" between the two sharks between island 1 and 6, you can swim through successfully without getting eaten. Then, you activate a checkpoint on island 6(this is important).
After getting the checkpoint, you collect 4 ammo, then run to the other end of the island to collect a yellow pickup, which grants you 2 seconds flying time. Random mechanic in this game: If you move far enough away from where a pickup spawns (except for mega-fuels), the pickup will respawn and you can collect it once more.
So you run back and forth 4 times to collect 8 seconds of flight time, with which you fly to the top of the ship. Why, you ask? There are more a ton of yellow pickups on top of there conveniently placed for us. You collect as much as you need (40 seconds cap).
With this newly acquired flight time, you fly in a straight line to island 4, defeat the robot with the 4 ammo, push the button, collect any mega fuels you need.
Then you die. Either by a laser beam wound inflicted by a space robot or by the mighty bite of a shark that looks more like a slug than a shark. This will warp you to the checkpoint on island 6, and set your ammo to 25.
With the death abuse ammo you can kill two of the ships legs, then jump on the tanning ladies to make the slugsharks eat the other 2 legs. You cant death abuse for another 25 ammo since the 4 legs will reset if you die.
This route is represented by the purple line in the map.
and voila, planet 1, beaten, very fast. In the playthrough on youtube the person passed the first level in around 10 minutes, mistakes included. I passed it with my skip in just under 4 minutes, not picking up mega fuels that were not in my way.
Tomorrow I set off on planet number two: Killer Expo!
TL:DR : Sharks are silly, or rather not so hungry, because they let you get to the end objective of the first level way faster than your supposed to. Lets see what else there is to find in this game.
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