MiSTer FPGA - Cobra Command [1cc] (コブラコマンド) / NES (Famicom)
8I'd never heard of this one before seeing Jeremy Parish's recent overview of it ( • Cobra Command & Anticipation retrospe... ) and was intrigued by the Choplifter-style gameplay and high difficulty level. After playing it, I realized much of the game can be rushed through by exploiting the rather bad programming and decided to go for a 1cc.
My strategy here is basic manipulation of how the screen scrolls by choosing the direction of the helicopter. You can use this to get through the above-ground areas very easily with only minor memorization required, by flying backwards most of the time. This nullifies the threat of pretty much all ground-based enemies. When in the underground sections, you can use the screen scrolling/positioning to your advantage by making enemies not spawn at all, getting through trap sections with no risk, and also allowing you to line up your helicopter before going into tricky sections and destroy ground forces easily. This essentially makes it a game of memorization.
Most of the upgrades are useless and the best loadout much of the time is the dual cannon with twin missiles, sometimes switching to the homing 1/2 weapon in later stages. The standard "homing" weapon is completely useless and will most likely get you killed if you rely on it. Besides that, just set the speed of your helicopter accordingly to the sections you go through, and it's a relatively easy playthrough in the five levels here. I discovered places where you can sit and essentially take no damage if you position yourself right, in a couple of the later/harder boss rooms/battles, including the final boss. This made getting through with only a couple deaths a relatively easy task.
Overall this is an enjoyable playthrough that I recommend for fans of shooters, just be prepared to cheese your way with screen/scrolling manipulation through some sections, as the game is made unnecessarily difficult by the way the screen scrolls forward slowly and brings your helicopter essentially to a standstill when you're trying to dodge incoming fire. I have a hunch they discovered the scrolling manipulation during final testing and made the normal approach to the challenge more difficult to compensate for this.
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NES core 2022-07-12 build - Cobra Command (コブラコマンド)
Filter Hori: Gaussian Sharp 85 // Filter Vert: Same As Hori
Gamma: Off // Shadow Mask: Off
Palette: Magnum (FBX) // Hide Overscan: On // Mask Edges: Off // Extra Sprites: On
Played using an OEM NES controller via SNAC.
Settings: 5x Integer scaled (0 offset) to 1080p // HDMI to Datapath e1s capture card
For scanlines, try Gaussian Sharp 50 and Adaptive 50_70 with Aperture Grille shadow mask- along with the rest of the above settings. I test-recorded some footage of the game with these settings and YouTube's re-compression had too many artifacts for me to post a video like that. This is because of the many darker colors used in background elements.
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|:=-Timestamps-=:|
00:00 - Settings
00:44 - Title
01:25 - Stage 1 (Sumatra)
07:17 - Stage 2 (Java)
12:56 - Stage 3 (Borneo)
19:32 - Stage 4 (South China Sea)
28:04 - Stage 5 (Siam)
33:08 - Enemy H.Q. / Final Boss
35:55 - Ending / Credits
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None of this would be possible without the constant hard work of Sorgelig. It cannot be overstated how much he has done and continues to do for this project, since its beginning. You can support him either at his Patreon in the link below, or on Paypal, depending on your preference. MiSTer is a paradigm shift in how we can experience these classic games. This is a long-term preservation project that will continue to grow so that gamers today and in the future can experience these excellent systems as accurately and lag-free as possible. Donating what you can will help keep the updates coming. Thank you.
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NOTE: I am not affiliated with Sorgelig and am only sharing these links as a fan of the project who wishes to see it continue to grow rapidly.
=-----------------INFORM-----------------=
Github link for this core: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NES_M...
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