Hey! I've been thinking about running this game for a while, and I'm starting to get serious about it. I plan to do my first attempt soon, and I just tried facing West Germany via password to practice.

When I did this, the West Germany players were able to knock me down with their tackles, instead of knocking themselves down. There's a mechanic I'm missing, right? Or does this strategy not work when the matchup is accessed via password? Also, is Arturo the only Argentine player who can do this strategy?

Thanks; very excited about seeing how well I can do! I grew up with this game and have the cartridge right here, but do not currently have a working NES or split capture card, so I may start on emulator.

Hey all,

I'm interested to see what people think about adding some more categories for Balloon Trip mode. Last night I completed a couple of 100,000 Points runs, and I plan to do more, because I find the category very engaging and surprisingly dynamic.

This category does benefit greatly from a very fast Rank 1 start, because the earlier you get the 10K "got all balloons" bonuses, the more giant chunks of time you can save by reaching points milestones before balloon-free survival segments. It's a friendly category for anyone who just wants to finish as safely as possible while enjoying some extended Balloon Trip. To get the best times possible, there's the additional challenge of getting -every single balloon- for an extended period of time, along with seeing good spawning luck. All the while, you have to be very nimble in avoiding the death sparks. I found it to be a very cool midpoint category for potential runners.

The higher extreme would be 999,999/1 Mil Points - which, I assume, is a maxout. Points accumulate quickly enough that this would likely occur in less than 30 minutes, but that's quite a challenge for maintaining focus and ability, and I'm curious about the speedrunning aspect of it! I haven't given this a serious attempt yet, but I hope to soon.

I'm curious what you all make of this, or if you have other ideas for intuitive Balloon Trip speedrun categories that haven't occurred to me.

Hi all - sorry if this is documented somewhere already; I did a quick bit of looking and didn't come up with anything, so I'll ask here:

How exactly (as far as we know) do the frame rules work? (I know what a frame rule is, so my meaning is specific for this game.) Can we do anything proactive in order to get better ones? All I know is that they -exist-, they have to do with the bonus phases, and they can just come through and cost you 5 seconds (or save you some). But what I don't know is:

Are they only affected via what happens in the waves prior? Or can you affect the time based on the behavior you do in the bonus phases? I've just sorta collected the final 5 balloons in the bonus phases because I see other runners doing it.

At the very least, I think I saw spyriel reset immediately upon seeing the balloon pattern in a bonus phase - does that mean we know which patterns signify specific, known frame rules? Or is that just something you have to get a feel for via playing?

Thanks!