Breath of Fire

2009-05-14 12:37:28 pm

D:

Now that it's summer and I actually have free time, I figured I might as well take the opportunity to try to get another run put together. I'm looking at Breath of Fire because:

It doesn't appear that anyone else has tried speedrunning it on SDA, or, well, anywhere.
There aren't any runs on SDA for any of the Breath of Fire games.
It's the only one in the series that I actually have a copy of.
It requires very little dexterity to play, which makes it one of the few games that I'd have a shot at running effectively.
I'm a big, stupid moron.

The downside to running this game, which should be well-known to anyone who's played it, is that it's rather slow-moving and, as a result, painfully long. I'm hoping to get down to a 6-hour run, but that number was chosen completely arbitrarily and may be much too high/low. Also, this game doesn't seem to have received nearly the same level of dissection as some other RPGs, so I'd probably have to construct the run based on trial-and-error rather than math-ing my way through like I did with EarthBound.

At the moment, I'm playing through it in an emulator, trying to see if it's feasible to skip most of the random encounters with Mrbl3s. It actually hasn't been too bad so far, though I also haven't been timing myself and I don't know how much time I've wasted while hunting for equipment. When I'm done with this, I'll probably do a half-assed timed run with the Mrbl3 strategy, and then do another timed run where I skip the Mrbl3s, just to see how much of a difference they make.

If I decided to pursue this further, would there be interest in watching it? My guess is that the final run will be several hours of walking around, punctuated by segment breaks and boss fights. Still, there's nostalgia and all.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to take them.

Thread title:

Now that it's summer and I actually have free time, I figured I might as well take the opportunity to try to get another run put together.  I'm looking at Breath of Fire because:

[list]
[li]It doesn't appear that anyone else has tried speedrunning it on SDA, or, well, anywhere.[/li]
[li]There aren't any runs on SDA for any of the Breath of Fire games.[/li]
[li]It's the only one in the series that I actually have a copy of.[/li]
[li]It requires very little dexterity to play, which makes it one of the few games that I'd have a shot at running effectively.[/li]
[li]I'm a big, stupid moron.[/li]
[/list]

The downside to running this game, which should be well-known to anyone who's played it, is that it's rather slow-moving and, as a result, painfully long.  I'm hoping to get down to a 6-hour run, but that number was chosen completely arbitrarily and may be much too high/low.  Also, this game doesn't seem to have received nearly the same level of dissection as some other RPGs, so I'd probably have to construct the run based on trial-and-error rather than math-ing my way through like I did with EarthBound.

At the moment, I'm playing through it in an emulator, trying to see if it's feasible to skip most of the random encounters with Mrbl3s.  It actually hasn't been too bad so far, though I also haven't been timing myself and I don't know how much time I've wasted while hunting for equipment.  When I'm done with this, I'll probably do a half-assed timed run with the Mrbl3 strategy, and then do another timed run where I skip the Mrbl3s, just to see how much of a difference they make.

If I decided to pursue this further, would there be interest in watching it?  My guess is that the final run will be several hours of walking around, punctuated by segment breaks and boss fights.  Still, there's nostalgia and all.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to take them.

MetaSigma

2009-05-14 12:55:50 pm

Evermore Extrodinare ᕦ(° Д°)ᕤ

Well...I'm sure you're aware but...THE E-KEY IS YOUR FRIEND!!!! Tongue

on a speed run it'll most likely do the most dmg for a period of time I'm guessing. I'd say once you get Bow you won't need to buy herbs or healing items hopefully *You can just kill animals for food and white antlers in case you need more money they sell pretty well.* Those are the foremost little things I can think of. I'd have to run through to remember a few other things that I'm trying to remember.

ForteGS

2009-05-14 01:42:11 pm

Bring me the flaming voodoo canonball!

Quote from MetaSigma:

Well...I'm sure you're aware but...THE E-KEY IS YOUR FRIEND!!!! Tongue

on a speed run it'll most likely do the most dmg for a period of time I'm guessing. I'd say once you get Bow you won't need to buy herbs or healing items hopefully *You can just kill animals for food and white antlers in case you need more money they sell pretty well.* Those are the foremost little things I can think of. I'd have to run through to remember a few other things that I'm trying to remember.

Don't you mean Bo (the Fox), Bow is the dig from BoF2.

Yeah, they are long games. Kinda made me wish that the "run" button from the GBA version was in the SNES version.....

sunburstbasser

2009-05-14 02:20:54 pm

Silver Hawk!

I actually also have been replaying the first game.

To my knowledge, the E Key will be your best friend early game but you can't rely on it to kill bosses. If you can't take the hits, bosses will simply own your ass. Nina can use healing magic, which takes precedence in battle so that she'll heal you before any enemies attack. This should be useful in surviving bosses, especially if you can have Ryu attack and Nina E Key as much as possible, and Bo attack/use magic when you get him.

There are also a few C Stn, B Stn, and F Stn items that are great against bosses early on. And Ryu can uses his different Rang weapons to damage the entire enemy party, like the E Key but better. Tri-Rang is one of the best weapons in the game!

I believe you can find gold slimes outside of Bleak, making it a great place to level up early on. I don't know of any really abusable skills in the game, and I assume some amount of leveling will be required to beat the game. Nina and Bleu get their best magic at higher levels anyway.

I don't know if getting the dragon transformations is worth it, but Karn's Shin transformation at least is quick to get and really makes Bo obsolete.

Good luck! I'll add more if I think of anything.

I actually also have been replaying the first game.

To my knowledge, the E Key will be your best friend early game but you can't rely on it to kill bosses.  If you can't take the hits, bosses will simply own your ass.  Nina can use healing magic, which takes precedence in battle so that she'll heal you before any enemies attack.  This should be useful in surviving bosses, especially if you can have Ryu attack and Nina E Key as much as possible, and Bo attack/use magic when you get him.

There are also a few C Stn, B Stn, and F Stn items that are great against bosses early on.  And Ryu can uses his different Rang weapons to damage the entire enemy party, like the E Key but better.  Tri-Rang is one of the best weapons in the game!

I believe you can find gold slimes outside of Bleak, making it a great place to level up early on.  I don't know of any really abusable skills in the game, and I assume some amount of leveling will be required to beat the game.  Nina and Bleu get their best magic at higher levels anyway.

I don't know if getting the dragon transformations is worth it, but Karn's Shin transformation at least is quick to get and really makes Bo obsolete.

Good luck!  I'll add more if I think of anything.

ZenicReverie

2009-05-14 03:23:00 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

The GBA version had some talk years ago here:

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,3681.0.html

I'm definitely interested in seeing a run done. Good luck. I'd help out more if I could, but it's been so long and my brother has this particular game and lives no where near me.

getter77

2009-05-14 06:54:03 pm

100% runs=great to watch

I recall a TAS for it awhile back...or at least one version of it. Bound to be at least a few salvageable bits to it I reckon.

Best of luck as I'd really like to see this! 8)

__sdfg

2009-05-14 11:40:04 pm

D:

Looks like there's some interest, so I'll keep working on this. It'll probably be more like the end of summer before I have much to say about a route, though (unless I run into some weird new trick that I think is worth mentioning).

I've already been getting some good use out of the E.Key :). I'm leaving Auria at the moment and I think its usefulness may finally be wearing thin. I'm going to try picking up the dragon transformations for now, on the assumption that they'll be more effective than Ryu's attack if I'm not leveling much. I'll eventually have to test some fights both with and without the dragon forms, since I guess it's possible that the time saved by doing extra damage doesn't make up for the (rather long) shrine battles. I'm prepared to skip the good ending if it turns out to be significantly slower to achieve than the bad ending.

DoubleThink

2009-05-14 11:48:15 pm

There's a word for that

Niiice.

There are some excellent guides on GameFAQs by Novalia Spirit for magic and enemies, if you want to start there. My BoF1 is a bit rusty, and I've only actually played the GBA version, but I'll try and mention what I remember:
-Mrbl3's are indeed civilisation, and you can buy them right from the start too Smiley

I wouldn't even bother testing without them, they are dirt cheap and cost far less time than getting into battles. Mrbl1's could also be useful (but pricey), in particular on Ryu with whatever boomerang he has at the time, hitting all enemies for a critical.
-Even on the GBA version, you basically HAVE to level up in order to beat the first boss. Getting some of the gear in Camlon castle helps a bit, and IIRC there's a water spring in there that will heal you instantly.
-The second boss isn't much better, but there are a couple of offensive items on the way to him that will damage him nicely.
-Agreeing that the E. Key is great for Nina, it does more damage than she will herself for a long time.
-Don't get the WolfHT, it makes Bo weak to magic, which sucks.
-I remember the D.Hrt working far better on Sara than it does on Zog, taking her straight to 1 HP but only doing about 2/3 to Zog.
-There is a bonus to EXP given based on how quickly enemies are defeated. As nicked from the Monster guide:
Round Multiplier
1 150%
2-4 130.078125%
5-6 120.3125%
7+ 100%
So speed truly is of the essence. Not that many of the enemies in this game are very hard anyway...
-EXP is also divvied up between ALL live members, and considering that there are eventually 8 of them, it might be best to decide on a final party and kill off the others when need be. Unfortunately, you can't target your own party members, and you will need to have the right members alive if you want to use Karn's transformations... blah.
-I seem to remember that a boss somewhere (Pog?) can be skipped, but it makes the following fight a bit harder.

That's all I can think of for now. 6 hours? I could see this done in closer to 4.... There is a crapload of hidden stuff in this game in general, like the DragonSD can be gotten as soon as you reach Romero I think, so there is no shortage of ways to speed things up. Also, will you be going for the good ending or not? It's a bit anticlimactic, but it will require some different planning to a 'bad' ending run.

EDIT: If you're at Auria, I assume you've battled Gremlin already, which is like this game's dedicated 'hard boss'... how'd that go?

Niiice.

There are some excellent guides on GameFAQs by Novalia Spirit for magic and enemies, if you want to start there. My BoF1 is a bit rusty, and I've only actually played the GBA version, but I'll try and mention what I remember:
-Mrbl3's are indeed civilisation, and you can buy them right from the start too :) I wouldn't even bother testing without them, they are dirt cheap and cost far less time than getting into battles. Mrbl1's could also be useful (but pricey), in particular on Ryu with whatever boomerang he has at the time, hitting all enemies for a critical.
-Even on the GBA version, you basically HAVE to level up in order to beat the first boss. Getting some of the gear in Camlon castle helps a bit, and IIRC there's a water spring in there that will heal you instantly.
-The second boss isn't much better, but there are a couple of offensive items on the way to him that will damage him nicely.
-Agreeing that the E. Key is great for Nina, it does more damage than she will herself for a long time.
-Don't get the WolfHT, it makes Bo weak to magic, which sucks.
-I remember the D.Hrt working far better on Sara than it does on Zog, taking her straight to 1 HP but only doing about 2/3 to Zog.
-There is a bonus to EXP given based on how quickly enemies are defeated. As nicked from the Monster guide:
Round  Multiplier
1       150%
2-4    130.078125%
5-6    120.3125%
7+     100%
So speed truly is of the essence. Not that many of the enemies in this game are very hard anyway...
-EXP is also divvied up between ALL live members, and considering that there are eventually 8 of them, it might be best to decide on a final party and kill off the others when need be. Unfortunately, you can't target your own party members, and you will need to have the right members alive if you want to use Karn's transformations... blah.
-I seem to remember that a boss somewhere (Pog?) can be skipped, but it makes the following fight a bit harder.

That's all I can think of for now. 6 hours? I could see this done in closer to 4.... There is a crapload of hidden stuff in this game in general, like the DragonSD can be gotten as soon as you reach Romero I think, so there is no shortage of ways to speed things up. Also, will you be going for the good ending or not? It's a bit anticlimactic, but it will require some different planning to a 'bad' ending run.

EDIT: If you're at Auria, I assume you've battled Gremlin already, which is like this game's dedicated 'hard boss'... how'd that go?

Axel Ryman

2009-05-15 12:57:49 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

I love you.....but only cause you're doing a speed run of one of my favorite SNES games that I wish to own.

Pog can be skipped but as mentioned will make the following boss fight harder. Worth it really.

Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.

In terms of the end game boss battles, Agni may be the best idea as you don't have to choose 4 party member commands, wait for them and the boss to attack, and wait for all 4 of your characters to be hit/healed.

Once you have Karn, get the FlameRP from Winlan near the bridge exit. It can be used in battle to cast F. Ball which deals 90 damage, meaning you can deal 90(FlameRP) + 30(E. Key) + 130(ThrDr) + 80(Fry) = 330 damage per turn. Once you have Bolt Dragon you can deal 225 damage to every enemy on the field, meaning 425 damage. Then add in Bleu and its even better.

Yeah, save the D.Hrt for Sara to make the battle much easier.

I'm sure you're already using them but here are some Gamefaqs guides that can help you out.

Equipment guide:Use this to find equipment that can cast spells in battle, as well as find their locations.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/39907

Magic Guide: To find out what level character's learn what spells as well as damage
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/51630

Monster list: You'll need to get some GP early on for that Goldbar, as well as other stuff. Hopefully you'll find something good here.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/25772

I've played this game to death so let me know if you need anything. There is somewhat of a nice training spot that let's you fight enemies near Gust to the west of Agua(Its where the DragonSD is, I think) and only requires Bo. I have some strategies for the enemies there if needed.

I love you.....but only cause you're doing a speed run of one of my favorite SNES games that I wish to own.

Pog can be skipped but as mentioned will make the following boss fight harder. Worth it really.

Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.

In terms of the end game boss battles, Agni may be the best idea as you don't have to choose 4 party member commands, wait for them and the boss to attack, and wait for all 4 of your characters to be hit/healed.

Once you have Karn, get the FlameRP from Winlan near the bridge exit. It can be used in battle to cast F. Ball which deals 90 damage, meaning you can deal 90(FlameRP) + 30(E. Key) + 130(ThrDr) + 80(Fry) = 330 damage per turn. Once you have Bolt Dragon you can deal 225 damage to every enemy on the field, meaning 425 damage. Then add in Bleu and its even better.

Yeah, save the D.Hrt for Sara to make the battle much easier.

I'm sure you're already using them but here are some Gamefaqs guides that can help you out.

Equipment guide:Use this to find equipment that can cast spells in battle, as well as find their locations.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/39907

Magic Guide: To find out what level character's learn what spells as well as damage
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/51630

Monster list: You'll need to get some GP early on for that Goldbar, as well as other stuff. Hopefully you'll find something good here.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/563529/25772

I've played this game to death so let me know if you need anything. There is somewhat of a nice training spot that let's you fight enemies near Gust to the west of Agua(Its where the DragonSD is, I think) and only requires Bo. I have some strategies for the enemies there if needed.

Enhasa

2009-05-15 01:41:07 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I thought there was some talk about this game before and I'm too lazy to search, but it might have just been 2.

I can tell you now for CERTAIN that you will want to whore Mrbl3's. Also I think there are some good spots to death abuse to avoid backtracking. I haven't played this game is so long that I don't remember many details, but Nitrodon has somewhat recently, so for the love of god, mine his brain.

Good ending is really dumb in this game anyway, because you're forced to get that final dragon that makes you just yawn through everything.

DT: This game is way way harder on SNES IIRC.

DoubleThink

2009-05-15 03:38:39 am

There's a word for that

Quote from Enhasa:

DT: This game is way way harder on SNES IIRC.

Yeah I'm aware of the changes. Or I thought I was, but the info in the guides there matches up with the GBA version... I know that the BoF II port doubled exp and tripled money, and I thought BoF1 GBA made some enemies weaker, but eh. The overpowered hidden items haven't gone anywhere >_>

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.

In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.

[quote="Enhasa"]
DT: This game is way way harder on SNES IIRC.
[/quote]Yeah I'm aware of the changes. Or I [i]thought[/i] I was, but the info in the guides there matches up with the GBA version... I know that the BoF II port doubled exp and tripled money, and I thought BoF1 GBA made some enemies weaker, but eh. The overpowered hidden items haven't gone anywhere >_>

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.[/quote]In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.

__sdfg

2009-05-15 09:12:30 am

D:

Wow, that's actually more interest that I was expecting. I'm also somewhat rusty, and it doesn't help that I usually take FOREVER to get through this particular game (funny story... the first time I played through it, I couldn't find the frog cave, so I stopped playing for a year, and then came back and found it... but later got stuck looking for the ingredients needed to heal Nina near the end, and took another year off before finally looking the damn thing up on GameFAQS. My excuse is that at the time, I was about ten/eleven years old. Anyhoooo...).

So, responding to stuff that I feel I might have something to add to:

Leveling up for Frog is indeed a requirement. After looting all of the equipment from the Camlon castle, I was able to get up to level 3 in only three or four fights, which was enough to make the battle possible. I haven't decided if it's worth it to go for level 4 or not, but I suspect it isn't. I also had to level a little bit for the Knight fight in Nanai, because it was excruciatingly long otherwise.
I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff. I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.
The WolfHT really is worthless for the boss fights that succeed it. It's sad how few of the walkthroughs on GameFAQs note this.
Does skipping Pog really make the General fight harder? Huh. It's definitely worth it, though, since Fry+E.Key+Ryu can knock off the "hard" General in three turns.
You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it. I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.
I also didn't realize that there were so many weapons that could be used as items in battle. I knew about the E.Key and the StarHR, but that was it. Interesting.
My main motivation for wanting Agni is that it would let me auto-battle through most of the boss fights at the end (except Sara ). It's a snoozefest to watch, and I don't think it does as much damage per turn as would be possible with four party members, but it might still save time. Again, that's something that I'll need to test when I decide to stop being a pansy and actually time various strategies.

Finally, the Gremlin fight really sucked, until I remembered that the WolfHT was trash, after which it only sucked. Given the levels that I was at, I ended up having to equip a lot of the stuff that I'd picked up along the way to make the second half possible, which is sad because some of that stuff took a non-trivial amount of walking to pick up. At some point, I may go back and retry that at a higher level, just so Nina will have more HP to work with. My recollection is that it takes fairly long time to level off of random encounters, but I'll have to look for the spot that Axel Ryman mentioned to see if it helps things go more quickly.

Wow, that's actually more interest that I was expecting.  I'm also somewhat rusty, and it doesn't help that I usually take FOREVER to get through this particular game (funny story... the first time I played through it, I couldn't find the frog cave, so I stopped playing for a [b]year[/b], and then came back and found it...  but later got stuck looking for the ingredients needed to heal Nina near the end, and took another year off before finally looking the damn thing up on GameFAQS.  My excuse is that at the time, I was about ten/eleven years old.  Anyhoooo...).

So, responding to stuff that I feel I might have something to add to:
[list]
[li]Leveling up for Frog is indeed a requirement.  After looting all of the equipment from the Camlon castle, I was able to get up to level 3 in only three or four fights, which was enough to make the battle possible.  I haven't decided if it's worth it to go for level 4 or not, but I suspect it isn't.  I also had to level a little bit for the Knight fight in Nanai, because it was excruciatingly long otherwise.[/li]
[li]I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff.  I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.[/li]
[li]The WolfHT really is worthless for the boss fights that succeed it.  It's sad how few of the walkthroughs on GameFAQs note this. :([/li]
[li]Does skipping Pog really make the General fight harder?  Huh.  It's definitely worth it, though, since Fry+E.Key+Ryu can knock off the "hard" General in three turns.[/li]
[li]You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it.  I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.[/li]
[li]I also didn't realize that there were so many weapons that could be used as items in battle.  I knew about the E.Key and the StarHR, but that was it.  Interesting.[/li]
[li]My main motivation for wanting Agni is that it would let me auto-battle through most of the boss fights at the end (except Sara ;) ).  It's a snoozefest to watch, and I don't think it does as much damage per turn as would be possible with four party members, but it might still save time.  Again, that's something that I'll need to test when I decide to stop being a pansy and actually time various strategies.[/li]
[/list]

Finally, the Gremlin fight really sucked, until I remembered that the WolfHT was trash, after which it only sucked.  Given the levels that I was at, I ended up having to equip a lot of the stuff that I'd picked up along the way to make the second half possible, which is sad because some of that stuff took a non-trivial amount of walking to pick up.  At some point, I may go back and retry that at a higher level, just so Nina will have more HP to work with.  My recollection is that it takes fairly long time to level off of random encounters, but I'll have to look for the spot that Axel Ryman mentioned to see if it helps things go more quickly.

Axel Ryman

2009-05-15 12:14:57 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from DoubleThink:

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.

In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.

Quote from DoubleThink:

In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.

For me, even with the strongest available weapon on most boss fights, Ryu couldn't do as much damage as his dragon forms. He always did around 30 or so, not good enough and worth using the Dragon Forms. Again that was for me, and only during boss fights really.

Level 4...*Checks a FAQ* You must mean the Ice/Char/Gale spells. Yeah Char is the best here for this one, but Lightning elemental ones tend to be the better versions in all the other levels. Once you have Bolt X you don't need anymore.

I only know one of the Knight bosses that transform during the ship scenario around Prima(Before you receive Gobi) is weak to Lightning. Also the boss before Gobi gets the Sphere and ability to transform is weak to Lightning as well, so that boss is simple enough.

Karn seems to suffer in terms of dealing damage until he gets Shin, which won't be till Guntz...or is it Gant? I forgot which one was in which BoF. I know some of the bosses may have too much defense so he won't deal more than 30, and if he does its maybe about 1-5 points. Early on though, I think the IcyDR will help and do some nice damage, hopefully.

Quote from __sdfg:

Leveling up for Frog is indeed a requirement. After looting all of the equipment from the Camlon castle, I was able to get up to level 3 in only three or four fights, which was enough to make the battle possible. I haven't decided if it's worth it to go for level 4 or not, but I suspect it isn't. I also had to level a little bit for the Knight fight in Nanai, because it was excruciatingly long otherwise.

Yeah that boss can be a bitch sometimes, considering he will randomly cast spells.

Quote:

I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff. I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.

If the battles are in your favor when training, I would suggest grinding in the castle(Either Nanai or Camlon, whichever you prefer) to get as much GP as you can without having to backtrack. The sword will help a little bit...then again at times E. Key will do more than normal attacks sometimes, but it helps against the General battle in the prison where you get Bo.

Quote:

The WolfHT really is worthless for the boss fights that succeed it. It's sad how few of the walkthroughs on GameFAQs note this.

I always wondered why Bo suffered so much and realize why after I found out about the WolfHT. Only use for it is if you were to add in some Death Abuse, as BoF doesn't give you the normal Game Over that other RPGs do.

Quote:

Does skipping Pog really make the General fight harder? Huh. It's definitely worth it, though, since Fry+E.Key+Ryu can knock off the "hard" General in three turns.

Yes but its still pretty easy since Bo has Fry. Just feed him some Acorns when he's running low on AP and he'll be gone fast.

Quote:

You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it. I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.

Err you mean getting the DragonSD after Tunlan and not before right? I only mentioned the area in case you need some nice exp(I found it pretty useful since the enemies there do give plenty of exp before Bleak).

Quote:

I also didn't realize that there were so many weapons that could be used as items in battle. I knew about the E.Key and the StarHR, but that was it. Interesting.

Just make sure you use the right ones x.x I hated using something that did low damage when I could of just did a normal attack.

Quote:

My main motivation for wanting Agni is that it would let me auto-battle through most of the boss fights at the end (except Sara ). It's a snoozefest to watch, and I don't think it does as much damage per turn as would be possible with four party members, but it might still save time. Again, that's something that I'll need to test when I decide to stop being a pansy and actually time various strategies.

Based on the fight against Tyr with a party of Hero, Nina, Karn, and Bleu, the damage should be as followed for each per turn after the Hero and Karn transform.

Hero: 320(Rudra's Comet)
Nina: 400(Comet from StarHR)
Karn: 300-750(Estimate, as I'm not sure how much damage he can really do here)
Bleu: 400(Bolt X/Nova X/Comet)
Total: 1420-1870

In the amount of time with choosing the moves and the entire turn itself however, you can get off about 2-4 Agni attacks. Better off just using Agni for the other boss fights as well, even though Nina won't be able to do as much.

Quote:

Finally, the Gremlin fight really sucked, until I remembered that the WolfHT was trash, after which it only sucked. Given the levels that I was at, I ended up having to equip a lot of the stuff that I'd picked up along the way to make the second half possible, which is sad because some of that stuff took a non-trivial amount of walking to pick up. At some point, I may go back and retry that at a higher level, just so Nina will have more HP to work with. My recollection is that it takes fairly long time to level off of random encounters, but I'll have to look for the spot that Axel Ryman mentioned to see if it helps things go more quickly.

I went to check the enemies around it, they don't give that much exp it seems, so Gold Slimes are your best bet after you reach the Bleak area. If you want to use it when you're around Agua, then here are some strategies.

Warlock: 2 possible things you can do, the latter being safer. First one is to have Bo use Fry, Hero use E.Key, and Nina use Zom1(If she knows it, otherwise E.Key for her and normal attack from Hero). Warlock gives 1020 exp, more than Gold Slimes but since you encounter multiples of those, better to use Gold Slimes, again. The other strategy is to have Nina use Hold so it doesn't attack.

2 Warlocks: Don't bother, run. They have L.Storm, which does 95 damage to everyone in your party.

Buzzers: They come in pairs of 3-5 and drop a little exp(130 each to be exact). They only have 130 HP though.

Crab: Bo uses Fry, Ryu uses E. Key/Acorns on Bo, and Nina casts Hold when needed, or Acorns/E.Key if Crab is delayed another turn. Gives 1020 exp but has 300 HP and a lot of defense.

Lancer X: Usually comes in by itself or with up to 2 more. Hold works here as well. They drop 500 EXP each but have 300 HP.

Hopefully that may prove somewhat useful. Are you planning on using Death Abuse though in this? It seems like it will help with getting to some places(Specifically Prima since you can't warp there) when Warp isn't available. I need some thinking food so I haven't thought too much about it or places it may be useful where Warp and Exit are better off.

[quote="DoubleThink"]
[quote="Axel Ryman"]
Spells do a constant amount of damage except in cases where weakness is applied, which means more damage. This makes some spells like Fry very useful

Lightning element spells tend to do the most damage out of all of them, meaning Fry. L. Storm, and Bolt X are some of the best. I forget what the others were.

Get the Dragon Spells for Hero and always use his Lightning based one. This will make battles much easier.[/quote]In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.
[/quote][quote="DoubleThink"]
In all honesty, I've never found the dragon forms to be that powerful once Ryu gets a good weapon. The damage spells do (and their cost) in this game is all over the place; the Lv4 Lightning spell is actually the weakest Lv4 spell. A weakness means 1.5x more damage, so that will probably be the defining factor for Bleu until she gets some of her higher-level stuff at Lv30+, which will take a while. As for Ryu, he should always use whatever dragon the enemy is weak to (if they have a weakness obviously), since it will always do the most damage, even the SnoDr. Also, I do like the FlameRP idea, but I would have thought that Karn could do at least 30 damage on his own by that stage.
[/quote]

For me, even with the strongest available weapon on most boss fights, Ryu couldn't do as much damage as his dragon forms. He always did around 30 or so, not good enough and worth using the Dragon Forms. Again that was for me, and only during boss fights really.

Level 4...*Checks a FAQ* You must mean the Ice/Char/Gale spells. Yeah Char is the best here for this one, but Lightning elemental ones tend to be the better versions in all the other levels. Once you have Bolt X you don't need anymore.

I only know one of the Knight bosses that transform during the ship scenario around Prima(Before you receive Gobi) is weak to Lightning. Also the boss before Gobi gets the Sphere and ability to transform is weak to Lightning as well, so that boss is simple enough.

Karn seems to suffer in terms of dealing damage until he gets Shin, which won't be till Guntz...or is it Gant? I forgot which one was in which BoF. I know some of the bosses may have too much defense so he won't deal more than 30, and if he does its maybe about 1-5 points. Early on though, I think the IcyDR will help and do some nice damage, hopefully.

[quote="__sdfg"]
[list]
[li]Leveling up for Frog is indeed a requirement.  After looting all of the equipment from the Camlon castle, I was able to get up to level 3 in only three or four fights, which was enough to make the battle possible.  I haven't decided if it's worth it to go for level 4 or not, but I suspect it isn't.  I also had to level a little bit for the Knight fight in Nanai, because it was excruciatingly long otherwise.[/li][/list][/quote]

Yeah that boss can be a bitch sometimes, considering he will randomly cast spells.

[quote][list][li]I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff.  I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.[/li][/list][/quote]

If the battles are in your favor when training, I would suggest grinding in the castle(Either Nanai or Camlon, whichever you prefer) to get as much GP as you can without having to backtrack. The sword will help a little bit...then again at times E. Key will do more than normal attacks sometimes, but it helps against the General battle in the prison where you get Bo.

[quote][list][li]The WolfHT really is worthless for the boss fights that succeed it.  It's sad how few of the walkthroughs on GameFAQs note this. :([/li][/list][/quote]

I always wondered why Bo suffered so much and realize why after I found out about the WolfHT. Only use for it is if you were to add in some Death Abuse, as BoF doesn't give you the normal Game Over that other RPGs do.

[quote][list][li]Does skipping Pog really make the General fight harder?  Huh.  It's definitely worth it, though, since Fry+E.Key+Ryu can knock off the "hard" General in three turns.[/li][/list][/quote]

Yes but its still pretty easy since Bo has Fry. Just feed him some Acorns when he's running low on AP and he'll be gone fast.

[quote][list][li]You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it.  I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.[/li][/list][/quote]

Err you mean getting the DragonSD after Tunlan and not before right? I only mentioned the area in case you need some nice exp(I found it pretty useful since the enemies there do give plenty of exp before Bleak).

[quote][list][li]I also didn't realize that there were so many weapons that could be used as items in battle.  I knew about the E.Key and the StarHR, but that was it.  Interesting.[/li][/list][/quote]

Just make sure you use the right ones x.x I hated using something that did low damage when I could of just did a normal attack.

[quote][list][li]My main motivation for wanting Agni is that it would let me auto-battle through most of the boss fights at the end (except Sara ;) ).  It's a snoozefest to watch, and I don't think it does as much damage per turn as would be possible with four party members, but it might still save time.  Again, that's something that I'll need to test when I decide to stop being a pansy and actually time various strategies.[/li]
[/list][/quote]

Based on the fight against Tyr with a party of Hero, Nina, Karn, and Bleu, the damage should be as followed for each per turn after the Hero and Karn transform.

Hero: 320(Rudra's Comet)
Nina: 400(Comet from StarHR)
Karn: 300-750(Estimate, as I'm not sure how much damage he can really do here)
Bleu: 400(Bolt X/Nova X/Comet)
Total: 1420-1870

In the amount of time with choosing the moves and the entire turn itself however, you can get off about 2-4 Agni attacks. Better off just using Agni for the other boss fights as well, even though Nina won't be able to do as much.

[quote]Finally, the Gremlin fight really sucked, until I remembered that the WolfHT was trash, after which it only sucked.  Given the levels that I was at, I ended up having to equip a lot of the stuff that I'd picked up along the way to make the second half possible, which is sad because some of that stuff took a non-trivial amount of walking to pick up.  At some point, I may go back and retry that at a higher level, just so Nina will have more HP to work with.  My recollection is that it takes fairly long time to level off of random encounters, but I'll have to look for the spot that Axel Ryman mentioned to see if it helps things go more quickly.
[/quote]

I went to check the enemies around it, they don't give that much exp it seems, so Gold Slimes are your best bet after you reach the Bleak area. If you want to use it when you're around Agua, then here are some strategies.

Warlock: 2 possible things you can do, the latter being safer. First one is to have Bo use Fry, Hero use E.Key, and Nina use Zom1(If she knows it, otherwise E.Key for her and normal attack from Hero). Warlock gives 1020 exp, more than Gold Slimes but since you encounter multiples of those, better to use Gold Slimes, again. The other strategy is to have Nina use Hold so it doesn't attack.

2 Warlocks: Don't bother, run. They have L.Storm, which does 95 damage to everyone in your party.

Buzzers: They come in pairs of 3-5 and drop a little exp(130 each to be exact). They only have 130 HP though.

Crab: Bo uses Fry, Ryu uses E. Key/Acorns on Bo, and Nina casts Hold when needed, or Acorns/E.Key if Crab is delayed another turn. Gives 1020 exp but has 300 HP and a lot of defense.

Lancer X: Usually comes in by itself or with up to 2 more. Hold works here as well. They drop 500 EXP each but have 300 HP.

Hopefully that may prove somewhat useful. Are you planning on using Death Abuse though in this? It seems like it will help with getting to some places(Specifically Prima since you can't warp there) when Warp isn't available. I need some thinking food so I haven't thought too much about it or places it may be useful where Warp and Exit are better off.

__sdfg

2009-05-15 01:18:07 pm

D:

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Quote:

I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff. I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.

If the battles are in your favor when training, I would suggest grinding in the castle(Either Nanai or Camlon, whichever you prefer) to get as much GP as you can without having to backtrack. The sword will help a little bit...then again at times E. Key will do more than normal attacks sometimes, but it helps against the General battle in the prison where you get Bo.

From what I've seen, the Knight battle would be the only one where the sword makes a difference. In the battles that follow this, I was able to do more damage with the E.Key. In the cases where I had Nina using the E.Key, I either wanted Ryu to use the Rang so that he could hit multiple targets at once, or I didn't care about the few more ATK points that I got from the LongSD and just left the Rang on him.

I don't think I'd be able to GP grind for the sword effectively, since I get ~10 GP per enemy around there, and I'm usually 500-600 GP short if I don't get the money out of that chest. The question is whether the time/money required to get the sword is justified by the time saved battling the Knight. I only get a B.Stn and an F.Stn for help, so I need to do about 270 HP with regular attacks. Testing at level 7 without the LongSD, I do ~10 HP per attack; with the sword, I do ~15 HP.

Quote:

You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it. I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.

Err you mean getting the DragonSD after Tunlan and not before right? I only mentioned the area in case you need some nice exp(I found it pretty useful since the enemies there do give plenty of exp before Bleak).

Yes. I was actually responding to DoubleThink's comment about possibly getting it as early as Romero, which is almost the case, but sadly not quite.

Quote:

I went to check the enemies around it, they don't give that much exp it seems, so Gold Slimes are your best bet after you reach the Bleak area. If you want to use it when you're around Agua, then here are some strategies.

Warlock: 2 possible things you can do, the latter being safer. First one is to have Bo use Fry, Hero use E.Key, and Nina use Zom1(If she knows it, otherwise E.Key for her and normal attack from Hero). Warlock gives 1020 exp, more than Gold Slimes but since you encounter multiples of those, better to use Gold Slimes, again. The other strategy is to have Nina use Hold so it doesn't attack.

2 Warlocks: Don't bother, run. They have L.Storm, which does 95 damage to everyone in your party.

Buzzers: They come in pairs of 3-5 and drop a little exp(130 each to be exact). They only have 130 HP though.

Crab: Bo uses Fry, Ryu uses E. Key/Acorns on Bo, and Nina casts Hold when needed, or Acorns/E.Key if Crab is delayed another turn. Gives 1020 exp but has 300 HP and a lot of defense.

Lancer X: Usually comes in by itself or with up to 2 more. Hold works here as well. They drop 500 EXP each but have 300 HP.

Thanks for the tips. I would like to pick up some more HP before the Gremlin fight, so I'll see about going over there. I'm guessing that I'll get my ass handed to me, but it's worth a shot.

Quote:

Hopefully that may prove somewhat useful. Are you planning on using Death Abuse though in this? It seems like it will help with getting to some places(Specifically Prima since you can't warp there) when Warp isn't available. I need some thinking food so I haven't thought too much about it or places it may be useful where Warp and Exit are better off.

I was planning on looking for places where death abuse would be useful. Prima is probably the best example, since getting there without dying is obnoxious anyway. I don't know how many other instances there are after you get Warp/Exit, though.

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
[quote][list][li]I discovered that you can get the LongSD in advance of the Knight fight if you grab the 650 GP from the chest in the palace basement, and then go back to the weapons shop and sell most of your stuff.  I am somewhat afraid to see if this actually saves time.[/li][/list][/quote]

If the battles are in your favor when training, I would suggest grinding in the castle(Either Nanai or Camlon, whichever you prefer) to get as much GP as you can without having to backtrack. The sword will help a little bit...then again at times E. Key will do more than normal attacks sometimes, but it helps against the General battle in the prison where you get Bo.
[/quote]

From what I've seen, the Knight battle would be the only one where the sword makes a difference.  In the battles that follow this, I was able to do more damage with the E.Key.  In the cases where I had Nina using the E.Key, I either wanted Ryu to use the Rang so that he could hit multiple targets at once, or I didn't care about the few more ATK points that I got from the LongSD and just left the Rang on him.

I don't think I'd be able to GP grind for the sword effectively, since I get ~10 GP per enemy around there, and I'm usually 500-600 GP short if I don't get the money out of that chest.  The question is whether the time/money required to get the sword is justified by the time saved battling the Knight.  I only get a B.Stn and an F.Stn for help, so I need to do about 270 HP with regular attacks.  Testing at level 7 without the LongSD, I do ~10 HP per attack; with the sword, I do ~15 HP.

[quote][quote][list][li]You need the Rod5 to get the DragonSD, so you have to wait until after Tunlan to get it.  I hadn't realized that you could get it even that early, though, so thanks for pointing it out.[/li][/list][/quote]

Err you mean getting the DragonSD after Tunlan and not before right? I only mentioned the area in case you need some nice exp(I found it pretty useful since the enemies there do give plenty of exp before Bleak).
[/quote]

Yes.  I was actually responding to DoubleThink's comment about possibly getting it as early as Romero, which is [i]almost[/i] the case, but sadly not quite.

[quote]I went to check the enemies around it, they don't give that much exp it seems, so Gold Slimes are your best bet after you reach the Bleak area. If you want to use it when you're around Agua, then here are some strategies.

Warlock: 2 possible things you can do, the latter being safer. First one is to have Bo use Fry, Hero use E.Key, and Nina use Zom1(If she knows it, otherwise E.Key for her and normal attack from Hero). Warlock gives 1020 exp, more than Gold Slimes but since you encounter multiples of those, better to use Gold Slimes, again. The other strategy is to have Nina use Hold so it doesn't attack.

2 Warlocks: Don't bother, run. They have L.Storm, which does 95 damage to everyone in your party.

Buzzers: They come in pairs of 3-5 and drop a little exp(130 each to be exact). They only have 130 HP though.

Crab: Bo uses Fry, Ryu uses E. Key/Acorns on Bo, and Nina casts Hold when needed, or Acorns/E.Key if Crab is delayed another turn. Gives 1020 exp but has 300 HP and a lot of defense.

Lancer X: Usually comes in by itself or with up to 2 more. Hold works here as well. They drop 500 EXP each but have 300 HP.
[/quote]

Thanks for the tips.  I would like to pick up some more HP before the Gremlin fight, so I'll see about going over there.  I'm guessing that I'll get my ass handed to me, but it's worth a shot.

[quote]
Hopefully that may prove somewhat useful. Are you planning on using Death Abuse though in this? It seems like it will help with getting to some places(Specifically Prima since you can't warp there) when Warp isn't available. I need some thinking food so I haven't thought too much about it or places it may be useful where Warp and Exit are better off.
[/quote]

I was planning on looking for places where death abuse would be useful.  Prima is probably the best example, since getting there without dying is obnoxious anyway.  I don't know how many other instances there are after you get Warp/Exit, though.

DoubleThink

2009-05-15 10:00:52 pm

There's a word for that

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Level 4...*Checks a FAQ* You must mean the Ice/Char/Gale spells. Yeah Char is the best here for this one, but Lightning elemental ones tend to be the better versions in all the other levels. Once you have Bolt X you don't need anymore.

BoltX is the best general offensive spell once it's gotten, but FireX does nearly as much (350 vs 400), is gotten 3 levels earlier, and is still stronger if hitting a weakness. IceX does kinda suck though.

Quote from Axel Ryman:

Based on the fight against Tyr with a party of Hero, Nina, Karn, and Bleu, the damage should be as followed for each per turn after the Hero and Karn transform.

Hero: 320(Rudra's Comet)
Nina: 400(Comet from StarHR)
Karn: 300-750(Estimate, as I'm not sure how much damage he can really do here)
Bleu: 400(Bolt X/Nova X/Comet)
Total: 1420-1870

In the amount of time with choosing the moves and the entire turn itself however, you can get off about 2-4 Agni attacks. Better off just using Agni for the other boss fights as well, even though Nina won't be able to do as much.

I did a test, and Ryu can pull out slightly more damage than Rudra using Mrbl1's with the EmporSD. Not very consequential, but I honestly though he could do more than that. Turns out the goddess has kinda high defence, even Puka wasn't doing that much (about 400 on a slam or rolling attack). She also has a load of HP... Agreeing that taking out the later bosses with Agni is definitely faster. All the stuff required to get Agni takes a while, but whatever, good ending.

Sorry about the DragonSD thing, I thought I remembered getting it earlier, making him more powerful than his early dragon forms.

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
Level 4...*Checks a FAQ* You must mean the Ice/Char/Gale spells. Yeah Char is the best here for this one, but Lightning elemental ones tend to be the better versions in all the other levels. Once you have Bolt X you don't need anymore.[/quote]
BoltX is the best general offensive spell once it's gotten, but FireX does nearly as much (350 vs 400), is gotten 3 levels earlier, and is still stronger if hitting a weakness. IceX does kinda suck though.

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
Based on the fight against Tyr with a party of Hero, Nina, Karn, and Bleu, the damage should be as followed for each per turn after the Hero and Karn transform.

Hero: 320(Rudra's Comet)
Nina: 400(Comet from StarHR)
Karn: 300-750(Estimate, as I'm not sure how much damage he can really do here)
Bleu: 400(Bolt X/Nova X/Comet)
Total: 1420-1870

In the amount of time with choosing the moves and the entire turn itself however, you can get off about 2-4 Agni attacks. Better off just using Agni for the other boss fights as well, even though Nina won't be able to do as much.[/quote]
I did a test, and Ryu can pull out slightly more damage than Rudra using Mrbl1's with the EmporSD. Not very consequential, but I honestly though he could do more than that. Turns out the goddess has kinda high defence, even Puka wasn't doing that much (about 400 on a slam or rolling attack). She also has a load of HP... Agreeing that taking out the later bosses with Agni is definitely faster. All the stuff required to get Agni takes a while, but whatever, good ending.

Sorry about the DragonSD thing, I thought I remembered getting it earlier, making him more powerful than his early dragon forms.

Mickey_Mage

2009-05-15 10:12:44 pm

Glitching EB 1 flying man at a time

Wow, a speedrun of this game. Gotta see this! Shocked

This will be a hard one compared to Earthbound, especially with as many randoms you can get when you run out of mrble's (depending on your strategy with them, I guess, right?). I can't help any with this run like Earthbound, though, since I've only beaten it once, and with an online guide at that, but there seems to be plenty more ppl knowledgeable on this one :p. What are the differences, if any, from the SNES and GBA versions? I only have the SNES. Anyway, good luck on this.

Axel Ryman

2009-05-17 12:53:09 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from Mickey_Mage:

Wow, a speedrun of this game. Gotta see this! Shocked

This will be a hard one compared to Earthbound, especially with as many randoms you can get when you run out of mrble's (depending on your strategy with them, I guess, right?). I can't help any with this run like Earthbound, though, since I've only beaten it once, and with an online guide at that, but there seems to be plenty more ppl knowledgeable on this one :p. What are the differences, if any, from the SNES and GBA versions? I only have the SNES. Anyway, good luck on this.

All it includes is illustrated cutscenes, different character portraits, and an adjustment to the difficulty. I'm unsure on whether its harder or easier than the SNES one. Oh and dash too.

I found something. When going for Rudra, change into the Fire Dragon as the Avian's weakness is Fire, and Fire Dragon's attack will deal more damage than Bolt Dragon.

DoubleThink

2009-05-17 04:28:12 am

There's a word for that

Quote from __sdfg:

From what I've seen, the Knight battle would be the only one where the sword makes a difference. In the battles that follow this, I was able to do more damage with the E.Key. In the cases where I had Nina using the E.Key, I either wanted Ryu to use the Rang so that he could hit multiple targets at once, or I didn't care about the few more ATK points that I got from the LongSD and just left the Rang on him.

I don't think I'd be able to GP grind for the sword effectively, since I get ~10 GP per enemy around there, and I'm usually 500-600 GP short if I don't get the money out of that chest. The question is whether the time/money required to get the sword is justified by the time saved battling the Knight. I only get a B.Stn and an F.Stn for help, so I need to do about 270 HP with regular attacks. Testing at level 7 without the LongSD, I do ~10 HP per attack; with the sword, I do ~15 HP.

I was looking back through the thread and I actually decided to pay attention to this this time >_> Frog has about a 1 in 7.5 chance to drop an F.Stn, which would make a further big difference in the Knight fight, if you wanna try for that.

Also, version info from the Monster guide:
For example, Frog has 180 HP and 20 DEF in this version; in the GBA
game, it only has 138 HP and 15 DEF. Another example would be that the P.Bug
critter no longer has a perfect chance to use a special attack.

The amount of exp and money is the same in both versions (unless youtube is lying to me), and the GBA version also has an updated menu layout to reflect the later games. Magic is also unchanged.

[quote="__sdfg"]
From what I've seen, the Knight battle would be the only one where the sword makes a difference.  In the battles that follow this, I was able to do more damage with the E.Key.  In the cases where I had Nina using the E.Key, I either wanted Ryu to use the Rang so that he could hit multiple targets at once, or I didn't care about the few more ATK points that I got from the LongSD and just left the Rang on him.

I don't think I'd be able to GP grind for the sword effectively, since I get ~10 GP per enemy around there, and I'm usually 500-600 GP short if I don't get the money out of that chest.  The question is whether the time/money required to get the sword is justified by the time saved battling the Knight.  I only get a B.Stn and an F.Stn for help, so I need to do about 270 HP with regular attacks.  Testing at level 7 without the LongSD, I do ~10 HP per attack; with the sword, I do ~15 HP.[/quote]I was looking back through the thread and I actually decided to pay attention to this this time >_> Frog has about a 1 in 7.5 chance to drop an F.Stn, which would make a further big difference in the Knight fight, if you wanna try for that.

Also, version info from the Monster guide:
For example, Frog has 180 HP and 20 DEF in this version; in the GBA
game, it only has 138 HP and 15 DEF. Another example would be that the P.Bug
critter no longer has a perfect chance to use a special attack.

The amount of exp and money is the same in both versions (unless youtube is lying to me), and the GBA version also has an updated menu layout to reflect the later games. Magic is also unchanged.

Abazaba

2009-05-18 10:47:47 am

Are you planning on doing SS or segmented? I started playing this recently and also have an interest to speedrun this game, and I'm aiming at an SS with death abuse.

I have done some beginning game time tests, if you are interested. This is total time elapsed.

Intro Save ~ 5:30
After Frog Save ~ 14:00
After Knight Save ~ 25:00
After Wizard save ~ 50:00

The wizard save isn't the best estimate, as I had some trouble with the path in the forest. I'm hoping to be sub 45:00 at that point.

Also, to note on the levels, I was 3 for Frog and 7 for Knight. Doing Knight before 7 means he'll attack first, which sucks. Also, these times include getting the chests for s ptn, v ptn, c stn, f stn, b stn, i ore, the cash, and equipment. While I did get the long sword for the knight, I do not expect it to be the fastest strategy. Getting an fstn from frog is optimal. I'll test again tonight.

Also, pbug leveling is your friend. Smiley

__sdfg

2009-05-18 04:46:33 pm

D:

I was planning on doing a segmented run, simply because I don't trust myself to remember what I'm supposed to be doing for more than 5 to 10 minutes. You might as well proceed with what you're doing. If it's better than what I'm doing, I'd be happy just to feel like I motivated someone. It'll probably be a while before I have anything concrete to report anyway (started my summer job today; dunno how busy I'll be).

What you have as far as levels go agrees with what I had. I also noticed that at level 6, you spend almost as much time healing yourself as you do attacking, which makes an already long fight take even longer. I unfortunately haven't yet gotten around to building a copy of Snes9x that prints frame counts, so I don't have any times to report (and may not for a while). When I do get around to putting that together, I'll go back and redo the beginning, and see if my run is any faster/slower.

I.S.T.

2009-05-18 11:52:01 pm

Have you tried one of the TASing varients of SNES9x?

__sdfg

Edit history:

__sdfg: 2009-05-19 06:39:46 am

2009-05-19 06:17:13 am

D:

I tried building the improved version of Snes9x 1.43 on my 64-bit Linux machine last night, and it didn't go so well for me :). I'll probably try 1.51 after work today, and/or see if there's any mention of ways to get it to build on the TASVideos forum (the site wouldn't load for me yesterday, for whatever reason).

EDIT: 1.51 worked. Looks like I'll have something to do tonight.

Abazaba

2009-05-19 10:38:41 am

I hate to admit this, but I'm actually doing my timing on the SNES. I'm just playing through like a madman on one save, and then using the other two saves for timing the segments. I'm treating it like individual segments, but I'm hoping to just go through it all in one shot when I'm done. But the more I play, the less likely that appears. I feel that an SS run will be SIGNIFICANTLY slower than segmented, due to unpredictability of boss fights, therefore requiring additional leveling in the first half of the game or CRAZY amounts of luck.

In testing last night, I tried the Knight without the fstn dropping from Frog and without the long sword. Wow, what a terrible, terrible fight. I eventually did it... after 5 minutes of fighting. Basically, a consistent strategy needs to include either the long sword or the extra f stn.

Obviously, getting the f stn is just a matter of restarting the game until it drops. Getting the long sword will always require back tracking. Adding all the gold before the shop: 300 + 290 + 350 + 300 + ~50 + ~300 = 1590. The approximates are what you get from enemies and selling your equipment, don't have the exact numbers on me. F stn it is.

Also, I'd like to go ahead and vent about all the terrible things in this game.
1) No internal game timer.
2) Horrible item menu system.
3) You can't unequip items, only replace them.
4) Leveling stats are inconsistent.
5) Although rare, bosses can slam you.
6) The success rate of running is lousy.

Playing this game is a lot of fun, but speedrunning it brings out the beast inside of me.

I hate to admit this, but I'm actually doing my timing on the SNES.  I'm just playing through like a madman on one save, and then using the other two saves for timing the segments.  I'm treating it like individual segments, but I'm hoping to just go through it all in one shot when I'm done.  But the more I play, the less likely that appears.  I feel that an SS run will be SIGNIFICANTLY slower than segmented, due to unpredictability of boss fights, therefore requiring additional leveling in the first half of the game or CRAZY amounts of luck.

In testing last night, I tried the Knight without the fstn dropping from Frog and without the long sword.  Wow, what a terrible, terrible fight.  I eventually did it... after 5 minutes of fighting.  Basically, a consistent strategy needs to include either the long sword or the extra f stn.

Obviously, getting the f stn is just a matter of restarting the game until it drops.  Getting the long sword will always require back tracking.  Adding all the gold before the shop:  300 + 290 + 350 + 300 + ~50 + ~300 = 1590.  The approximates are what you get from enemies and selling your equipment, don't have the exact numbers on me.  F stn it is.

Also, I'd like to go ahead and vent about all the terrible things in this game.
1)  No internal game timer.
2)  Horrible item menu system.
3)  You can't unequip items, only replace them.
4)  Leveling stats are inconsistent.
5)  Although rare, bosses can slam you.
6)  The success rate of running is lousy.

Playing this game is a lot of fun, but speedrunning it brings out the beast inside of me.

Enhasa

2009-05-19 01:32:53 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

lol, every single one of these are all true of all RPGs from that age though. Most of them are still true even today, besides #1 for most games, #3 for some games (although I don't care about this at all), #5 (most games these days are really easy), and #6 (ditto).

Still empathize with you though. Keep it up.

ZenicReverie

2009-05-19 01:41:20 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

#4 is actually causing some good attempts to be worthless in Vandal Hearts. I remember #6 being the case for most games of that age like Enhasa said that I never bothered running and just fought everything; obviously not ideal for a speedrun. Good luck.