So, Futari Black Label.
No need to reiterate how
amazing
this one is.
There's a lot to be said about this game and how the emulation handles it, but i'll keep it short.
On pcb, contrary to the norm, sometimes Reco produces more slowdown, sometimes Palm does that (ex. as opposed to Daifukkatsu where the rule is that blue always slows down the game more, and red less ). So the logic is not clear cut, and this made analysing and tweaking much more time consuming.
Reco maniac:
Cpu 45.26 Mhz, Blitter Delay 54%
Palm maniac:
Cpu 46.08 Mhz, Blitter Delay 56%
Reco god:
44.54 Mhz, Blitter Delay 56%
Palm god:
44.33 Mhz, Blitter Delay 56%
Overall level 2 boss and certain Larsa patterns are great for the CPU values, while level 3 and 4 bosses and again Larsa, for blitter.
In-levels and mid bosses, line up very well with these boss values.
Also, the more agressive/point blank the game is played, the more slowdowns happen. Superplayers tend to always play like this, for those red aura gems
Observations:
There are a couple of instances (boss 3 and 4) where, depending on how homing (mostly Reco's little bugs) connect to the boss body, an extra 1 or 2 seconds of slowdown occurs. I've seen it in pcb vids and it seems to also be dependable on how much of the boss's body is on screen, so it's somewhat random.
In maniac, 2nd level Boss, first salvo of last segment, is a bit slower with Palm laser, if it connects the center of the boss. Shot has no issues.
In maniac (to lesser extent God) level 3 boss first salvo is slower with Reco if laser hits frontal compared to pcb. Last pattern also depends on positioning, but it is slightly slower as well.
[In these bosses, it depends a lot on how soon/late you create that ~ 3 seconds continuous white flash, with laser/shot, on the boss's body. It seems superplayers actually use this to their advantage, creating a bit more or a bit less slowdown in those quick moments]
Larsa's first salvo in maniac is just a little slower with Reco's laser compared to pcb, though i've seen it go slower in some pcb vids while a bit faster in others.
Larsa in god is very good with both ships
Maniac:
https://vimeo.com/471737529/ (Reco maniac lvl1,2,3)
https://vimeo.com/471731416/ (Reco maniac lvl1)
https://vimeo.com/479581629 (Palm maniac lvl1,2)
https://vimeo.com/479582830 (Palm maniac lvl3 boss)
https://vimeo.com/475076907/ (Palm maniac lvl4 boss)
God:
https://vimeo.com/476652165 (Reco god lvl1,2)
https://vimeo.com/477588588 (Reco god lvl2)
https://vimeo.com/user107095125 (Reco god lvl3 boss)
https://vimeo.com/476787078 (Reco god lvl4)
https://vimeo.com/476856294 (Reco god lvl4 mid boss to boss)
https://vimeo.com/479470121 (Palm god lvl4 boss to lvl5 mid boss)
- as always, there are some stutters from vimeo conversion.
Note: There is a behaviour on pcb that can not be replicated (without completely breaking everything else):
Palm (and to a lesser extent Reco's) laser effect seems to have a greater impact on slowdown in less busy scenes in certain levels. Easily observed in superplays at the begining of level 4, where Palm's laser visibly slows down the speed. Other similar moments don't seem to behave the same, with Palm not slowing down the game this dramatically.
This somewhat supports Trap15's old idea that different bleding methods need different blitter values. Thankfuly it happends only in a couple of small instances, the overall blitter and cpu values taking over quite quickly.
Cheers to all.