Game Boy Weekly Contest Round 3: Battle Unit Zeoth

[Red 343]

Hello and welcome to the third round of the Game Boy Weekly Contest!  This week's game is Battle Unit Zeoth.

Rules:

- Play until you beat the game or Game Over

-Highest score wins

-If you beat the game, you will be able to see your score again after the ending

-You have until 11:00 PM EST on Sunday, December 22, 2019 to submit your score.

For general contest rules, click here:

 

https://www.videogamesage.com/topic/1468-game-boy-weekly-contest-leaderboard-rules-20192020/

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

SCOREBOARD:

1. 2,623,900 (0xDEAFC0DE)

2. 2,620,800 (bertsampson)

3. 2,618,200 (koifish)

4. 2,617,200 (arnpoly)

5. 2,616,200 (acromite53)

6. 718,900 (ecmyers)

7. 716,100 (Splain)

8. 404,000 (Ausden)

Edited December 23, 2019 by Red

[Ausden 322]

Never heard of this game. Looks interesting.

[koifish 386]

This is a very short game, so I don't imagine it will be tough to score attack, once you memorize the level layouts of course. The only problem I had with it is that it's easy to clear, but tough to finish without dying.

 

Also, I haven't booted it up recently but IIRC, it has difficulty settings. Do we need to play on a specific difficulty setting? If I'm misremembering then I apologize. @Red

[Splain 1,981]

I don't see difficulty settings anywhere in-game, and the manual doesn't mention them in between all the advertisements for Jaleco clubs and services.

[Red 343]

I don't recall a difficulty setting either.  If there is one hidden somewhere, just play on the default setting.

[bertsampson 345]

2,620,800

This is my third and final attempt.  Not much else to do to improve the score from what I can see.  Nice job Deafcode!

2,599,200

FYI to get your score after beating the game, press select to restart at the Jaleco screen.  Cool game, very short.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by bertsampson
Update Score

[arnpoly 178]

2,617,200

I'll echo Bert, fun game, didn't take very long to figure out.

[koifish 386]

My bad then, sorry for sending everybody on a wild goose chase.

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

2,622,700

[Old picture] 

This is my first time beating the game. Although I have done some basic work to optimize things and didn't bother to beat it until now. 

Edited December 20, 2019 by 0xDEAFC0DE

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

2,623,900

After several more runs I was only able to add another 1200. I could probably squeeze out another couple hundred or maybe more if I test things out with a TAS, but I'll be busy this weekend so I don't know if I'll have time. 

[Splain 1,981]

Welp, I'm swamped and traveling like everyone else, but I still want to post a participation score. Only managed a couple attempts, never reached the end.

716,100

[Ausden 322]

404,000

I did finally beat the game but that run doesn’t count for the competition. This is a fun but short game.

 

 

[acromite53 335]

2,616,200

I got this exact score my last 2 attempts. So I guess this is my peak.

[koifish 386]

Here's my score, 2618200. Just didn't love this game all that much, fortunately it was short!

Also, I'm sorry, but I just realized it wasn't with my score in the image. Hopefully you'll believe that a game that's more obscure like this one will not have very many score photos like this one, particularly ones on a DMG.

Edited December 23, 2019 by koifish
added score to text field

[ecmyers 93]

718,900

Running out of time yet again, but I'm really glad I was introduced to this title. I like it quite a bit! I'm having a little trouble with the Stage 4 boss, but I'm sure I'll complete it soon. Just not in time for this contest.

 

[Red 343]

4 hours ago, koifish said:

Also, I'm sorry, but I just realized it wasn't with my score in the image. Hopefully you'll believe that a game that's more obscure like this one will not have very many score photos like this one, particularly ones on a DMG.

 

It's okay.  Just try to remember to include it next time.

I'm actually glad to see that someone is sticking with original hardware for these contests!  If it wouldn't have killed participation, I would have made that a requirement.

[koifish 386]

I became intrigued by it this year, actually. Playing GB games on the hardware they would have been designed around is very insightful to me. You can't really understand reviewers complaining about Super RC Pro-Am being too blurry when you've only ever played it on an AGS-101 or CGB or similar screen.

[0xDEAFC0DE 1,270]

I didn't have time to make a whole run TAS. I just worked through some sections (particularly stage 2 and 4). But, I figured I would still write up some strategies I found. It's been a couple days since I've played the game, so I'll probably miss a couple things.

General:

• Obviously, you get points by killing enemies, so kill all that you can (this includes mines)
• The game can only hold 6 small enemies in sprite memory at a time, so you need to kill enemies as fast as possible in the autoscrollers (1, 3, and 5) and don't spawn too many at a time for 2 & 4
• Always finish each level with the full 8 health points to get maximum bonus points. The nice thing is the game does keep track of extra health above 8, it just doesn't display it or count it for points
• Don't fire across more than half the screen as it will half your rate of fire
• Memorizing enemies patterns helps

Stage 1:

• Right before the first mine wall, drop low to get an enemy
• After collecting the Beam powerup, you can now destroy mines. Try to keep to the bottom since there are some there
• For the boss, hovering in the upper right corner is completely safe. I usually come down to shoot it when it goes left to speed up the fight

Stage 2:

• You don't want to go too fast so that you despawn enemies, but going too slow will cause enemies to fly off screen before you can kill them
• There are two places where you need to shoot up to kill and enemy that spawns off screen or near off screen above you. The first is the first time you drop to the right, and the second is half way through the level on the left
• There is a split halfway through the level where an enemy and health comes on one side and an enemy comes up on another. It's possible to get all three as they spawn at slightly different elevations. The pattern is right, left, right.
• For the boss, stand on the floor right of center and shoot up. All four of your bullets should hit the boss when its on the right and in the center. Also when the boss shoots two projectiles at you, you should already be lined up to destroy them

Stage 3:

• Don't really remember much, so I don't think it was that hard
• The number one thing is don't pickup the Laser (L) powerup, it sucks. There are two that come after the two moving mine walls
• For the boss, hover in the middle of the section above the eye. It will shoot out of its eye and then three more shots above and below you. Next, duck down for a shot in the middle, and then return for another shot above and below you. To finish it off either duck low to kill the boss before the things from above fall on you, or destroy them first

Stage 4:

• Most of what I remember was memorizing which way to shoot when going up a level
• Until I found an easier method, the boss was a bit hard for me to kill without out getting hit. But, afterwards it was a piece of cake. As soon as you can move hover straight to the top middle and fire down. The boss will move under you and fire three shots. The first you'll be lined up to dodge, the second you need to move a bit to either side, and for the third return the the middle

Stage 5:

• I don't think health matters for this stage as there's no bonus, but I still tried to keep max health. However, I did play a little riskier to make sure I didn't miss enemies
• The only thing I remember having difficulty with was a fast pair of enemies that spawns to the left. But, I realized that both sets spawn right after the huge cannonballs. So, I would line up in the upper left corner and shoot down to get them.
• For the boss, the safe spot from its three bullet attack is just left of where you start (but not against the wall). Stay there when it uses that attack (which happens every other attack) and in between hover a bit higher to get all four bullets hitting the boss. The rest should be easy to dodge

[arnpoly 178]

Haha I tied @koifish but was too lazy to post my update cause it was only 1000 points higher. 

The only way I found to boost my score was to grind enemies during boss battles.  It didn't seem interesting enough to bother though.  The game itself was fun!

[ecmyers 93]

On 12/22/2019 at 11:35 PM, Red said:

I'm actually glad to see that someone is sticking with original hardware for these contests!  If it wouldn't have killed participation, I would have made that a requirement.

Oh, well if you want original original hardware...

I've been kind of curious about biverting an original DMG at some point, but I do find the GBA to be my favorite form factor, which is why I did the 101-screen mod on that. Though playing on the Game Boy Player is also a really nice option.

[Red 343]

On 12/23/2019 at 2:36 PM, arnpoly said:

Haha I tied @koifish but was too lazy to post my update cause it was only 1000 points higher. 

The only way I found to boost my score was to grind enemies during boss battles.  It didn't seem interesting enough to bother though.  The game itself was fun!

Which enemies?  I didn't notice any of the enemies giving points during the boss battles.  It seemed like you only got points for hitting the bosses.

[arnpoly 178]

On 12/29/2019 at 7:22 PM, Red said:

Which enemies?  I didn't notice any of the enemies giving points during the boss battles.  It seemed like you only got points for hitting the bosses.

I thought it was during the final boss. I never checked to be sure so maybe I was mistaken.