Breath of Fire

2009-09-30 11:24:59 pm

There's a word for that

Quote from Abazaba:

I'm still looking for a GOOD walkthrough, if anyone wants to recommend one.

The best one I've seen is PeaceNLove's FAQ, it covers most hidden item locations and when to get them earliest, aside from a couple like the Tri-Rang.

Quote from __sdfg:

The runner lets Nina and Sr-1 die against Morte and Mortea, so that the second part of the Wizard fight ends immediately. I don't think that the runner's overall strategy is necessarily the fastest (more on that in a second), but I can see it being helpful to have at least one of them die in advance. Waiting for the Wizard to Petrify you to death kinda sucks.

Yeah, I think it would be best to give Nina living priority here to get her some exp, but I'll leave that up to you.

Quote from __sdfg:

Apart from that, there are a couple sub-optimal path choices, and I don't think the runner collects nearly enough items to get through Auria without doing the fairy sidequest. Maybe the runner knows something that I don't. :|

The BoF TAS is kind of in its early stages. The BoF II TAS is looking pretty excellent though imo, he's gone back and re-done it about 10 or 15 times now from an early-ish point after finding better strategies.

Quote from __sdfg:

Also, one other thing I noticed: on the way into Karma, you can pick up a B.Stn and a C.Stn conveniently. The TAS runner used them on Talon. IMO you're better off using them on Mortea. I did a couple rough timings in an emulator, and using them on Mortea saved me around 40 seconds vs. having Nina E.Key and the soldiers attack, whereas using them on Talon or Wisp saved more like 20. Not a big difference, but since I find Mortea to be the more dangerous foe anyway, I thought I'd point it out.

Huh, didn't think of that, seeing as Talon has much higher HP/Def... but then in that fight three attacking items can be used on the same turn, instead of just one vs Talon. That's what, 170 damage at once? Yeouch.
*checks*
Actually, it could work out well if someone dies again Morte. Mortea's first form has 202 HP, and with only two characters that's (80 + 60 + 30x2) = 200 damage over two turns. Provided Nina is faster she can just poke her to finish her off, then finish the remaining 28 HP with the E.Key when the other soldier is dead.

Quick fix:

Quote from DoubleThink:

-The Dress that Nina starts with sucks, HARD. It has 25 weight, which really mucks up Nina's ability to outspeed things. It can be traded right away in Windia for a SuedeGN at no loss of cash; this will make her faster than the reapers, as well as Bowmen and Lancers. If that doesn't matter much, she can get a Gown in Romero if she can wait that long, giving her another 8 Def and 5 Act.

I forgot she and the soldiers head through Romero right after leaving Windia. Guess it'll depend on your funds then.

General note on Agni too, while I think of it: some later bosses (e.g. Zog) have HP ending in 000, or at least HP that can be finished with an attack from some source other than Agni (e.g. Jade @ 21876). In such cases it's better to have someone(s) attack before Ryu uses Agni to make up the damage with a faster animation. Should be pretty obvious, but such are the downsides of 999 damage Sad

[quote="Abazaba"]
I'm still looking for a GOOD walkthrough, if anyone wants to recommend one.[/quote]The best one I've seen is PeaceNLove's FAQ, it covers most hidden item locations and when to get them earliest, aside from a couple like the Tri-Rang.

[quote="__sdfg"]The runner lets Nina and Sr-1 die against Morte and Mortea, so that the second part of the Wizard fight ends immediately.  I don't think that the runner's overall strategy is necessarily the fastest (more on that in a second), but I can see it being helpful to have at least one of them die in advance.  Waiting for the Wizard to Petrify you to death kinda sucks.[/quote]Yeah, I think it would be best to give Nina living priority here to get her some exp, but I'll leave that up to you.

[quote="__sdfg"]
Apart from that, there are a couple sub-optimal path choices, and I don't think the runner collects nearly enough items to get through Auria without doing the fairy sidequest.  Maybe the runner knows something that I don't. :|[/quote]The BoF TAS is kind of in its early stages. The BoF II TAS is looking pretty excellent though imo, he's gone back and re-done it about 10 or 15 times now from an early-ish point after finding better strategies.

[quote="__sdfg"]
Also, one other thing I noticed:  on the way into Karma, you can pick up a B.Stn and a C.Stn conveniently.  The TAS runner used them on Talon.  IMO you're better off using them on Mortea.  I did a couple rough timings in an emulator, and using them on Mortea saved me around 40 seconds vs. having Nina E.Key and the soldiers attack, whereas using them on Talon or Wisp saved more like 20.  Not a big difference, but since I find Mortea to be the more dangerous foe anyway, I thought I'd point it out.
[/quote]Huh, didn't think of that, seeing as Talon has much higher HP/Def... but then in that fight three attacking items can be used on the same turn, instead of just one vs Talon. That's what, 170 damage at once? Yeouch.
*checks*
Actually, it could work out well if someone dies again Morte. Mortea's first form has 202 HP, and with only two characters that's (80 + 60 + 30x2) = 200 damage over two turns. Provided Nina is faster she can just poke her to finish her off, then finish the remaining 28 HP with the E.Key when the other soldier is dead.

Quick fix:
[quote="DoubleThink"]
-The Dress that Nina starts with sucks, HARD. It has 25 weight, which really mucks up Nina's ability to outspeed things. It can be traded right away in Windia for a SuedeGN at no loss of cash; this will make her faster than the reapers, as well as Bowmen and Lancers. If that doesn't matter much, she can get a Gown in Romero if she can wait that long, giving her another 8 Def and 5 Act.[/quote]I forgot she and the soldiers head through Romero right after leaving Windia. Guess it'll depend on your funds then.

General note on Agni too, while I think of it: some later bosses (e.g. Zog) have HP ending in 000, or at least HP that can be finished with an attack from some source other than Agni (e.g. Jade @ 21876). In such cases it's better to have someone(s) attack before Ryu uses Agni to make up the damage with a faster animation. Should be pretty obvious, but such are the downsides of 999 damage :(

Abazaba

2009-10-01 10:21:40 am

I'm pretty unqualified to judge anyone else's speedrun, let alone a TAS version. However, I have to agree with ___sdfg on this one. I don't see how he's going to manage the gold in Auria with so few items. Also, I really think he's making a mistake letting Nina die so much, especially since as soon as you get Karn, you will want to know warp. I guess he's planning on leveling on slimes later, but I don't see a real benefit to letting her die unnecessarily. I know why he does it against the wizard, but really, if you can save another overworld battle later on, that's going to save more overall than a few seconds on a boss that kills you instantly anyways.

I'm also partial to using the stn's on Mortea over Talon. And did he equip the ring? I don't recall seeing that.

Overall though, those were my basic strategies too thus far in the game. Except I collect more armor, buy more items, and use mrbl3's like I'm getting paid to use them. And I try not to let people die. What do you mean by sub-optimal path choices? I actually noticed a few things that were faster than what I had been doing, but nothing that I would classify as 'sub-optimal'. I was mainly focused on the boss battles though.

I'm pretty unqualified to judge anyone else's speedrun, let alone a TAS version.  However, I have to agree with ___sdfg on this one.   I don't see how he's going to manage the gold in Auria with so few items.  Also, I really think he's making a mistake letting Nina die so much, especially since as soon as you get Karn, you will want to know warp.  I guess he's planning on leveling on slimes later, but I don't see a real benefit to letting her die unnecessarily.  I know why he does it against the wizard, but really, if you can save another overworld battle later on, that's going to save more overall than a few seconds on a boss that kills you instantly anyways.

I'm also partial to using the stn's on Mortea over Talon.  And did he equip the ring?  I don't recall seeing that.

Overall though, those were my basic strategies too thus far in the game.  Except I collect more armor, buy more items, and use mrbl3's like I'm getting paid to use them.  And I try not to let people die.  What do you mean by sub-optimal path choices?  I actually noticed a few things that were faster than what I had been doing, but nothing that I would classify as 'sub-optimal'.  I was mainly focused on the boss battles though.

Axel Ryman

2009-10-01 10:49:38 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

For the Warp issue, he plans on using Death Abuse instead of leveling her up. Since his characters come close to death/already dead by the time he needs to warp, he just gets himself killed easily so I can see why Warp would be a bit too much, though later on he probably will need it.

The gold issue is definitely big though. My only guess is he'll manipulate the item drops from the enemies near Bleak(They drop M.Drops and the G.Slimes drop Life2) for easier gold.

__sdfg

Edit history:

__sdfg: 2009-10-01 11:50:05 am

2009-10-01 11:41:42 am

D:

Quote from Abazaba:

What do you mean by sub-optimal path choices? I actually noticed a few things that were faster than what I had been doing, but nothing that I would classify as 'sub-optimal'. I was mainly focused on the boss battles though.

Stupid walking-around stuff. I'm nitpicking.

The runner goes all the way around to the north end of Nabal to dodge guards. IIRC, there's a path that goes just north of the dragon shrine that works. Also, after Tuntar gets destroyed, the runner goes around the Stone Robot and enters the foot from the front rather than just walking in the back.

It makes almost no difference, but I was surprised to see it in a TAS. Maybe later today, I'll double-check that I'm not talking out my ass again, and then go post something in the TAS thread so I'm actually helping rather than just complaining a lot...

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention this. I flipped through PeaceNLove's FAQ and it looked fine, and I remember relying on FlameFury's FAQ for a lot of my initial run-through (it's entertainingly-worded in place). However, one complaint I had about both of those was that they either didn't realize or didn't adequately express that their item shop info was for the GBA version. If you're planning on visiting a shop, make sure you find a walkthrough for the SNES version (I think I used DarkVortex's FAQ for that because it was near the top of the list, but I don't make any particular endorsement). It's pretty easy to tell the two apart: if you see Mrbl3s in the Spring item shop, it's the GBA version. If it looks like buying Mrbl3s is really inconvenient late in the game, it's the SNES version.

[quote="Abazaba"]
What do you mean by sub-optimal path choices?  I actually noticed a few things that were faster than what I had been doing, but nothing that I would classify as 'sub-optimal'.  I was mainly focused on the boss battles though.
[/quote]

Stupid walking-around stuff.  I'm nitpicking.

The runner goes all the way around to the north end of Nabal to dodge guards.  IIRC, there's a path that goes just north of the dragon shrine that works.  Also, after Tuntar gets destroyed, the runner goes around the Stone Robot and enters the foot from the front rather than just walking in the back.

It makes almost no difference, but I was surprised to see it in a TAS.  Maybe later today, I'll double-check that I'm not talking out my ass again, and then go post something in the TAS thread so I'm actually helping rather than just complaining a lot...

[b]EDIT:[/b]  I almost forgot to mention this.  I flipped through PeaceNLove's FAQ and it looked fine, and I remember relying on FlameFury's FAQ for a lot of my initial run-through (it's entertainingly-worded in place).  However, one complaint I had about both of those was that they either didn't realize or didn't adequately express that their item shop info was for the GBA version.  If you're planning on visiting a shop, make sure you find a walkthrough for the SNES version (I think I used DarkVortex's FAQ for that because it was near the top of the list, but I don't make any particular endorsement).  It's pretty easy to tell the two apart:  if you see Mrbl3s in the Spring item shop, it's the GBA version.  If it looks like buying Mrbl3s is really inconvenient late in the game, it's the SNES version.

Abazaba

2009-10-01 01:37:44 pm

Quote from Axel Ryman:

For the Warp issue, he plans on using Death Abuse instead of leveling her up. Since his characters come close to death/already dead by the time he needs to warp, he just gets himself killed easily so I can see why Warp would be a bit too much, though later on he probably will need it.

The gold issue is definitely big though. My only guess is he'll manipulate the item drops from the enemies near Bleak(They drop M.Drops and the G.Slimes drop Life2) for easier gold.

Neither of those strategies can be considered optimal (imo). It's already been discussed that as soon as you get Karn, you can get the...blanking on the name... flamdgr? flamerp? Whatever that thing in Winlan is that casts fire ball. Maybe it's not as vital in a TAS, but it's essential for us. And he's going to use death warp to go back where? Bleak to get the other Gbar on the way to Auria? Directly to Auria? Not having warp (or at least being very close to getting it) seems to be a big problem at that point in the game. At least it is for my run...

And he needs the first Gbar in order to progress the story. No way is it better to go all the way to Bleak to fight mobs, get gold, go back to Auria and buy Gbar. He needs 65000 right away. I'm assuming he's going to do the fairy quest, but again, I really think it's better to sell cures and some easy to acquire gear than it is to do all that back tracking.

Anyways, back to my run...

[quote="Axel Ryman"]
For the Warp issue, he plans on using Death Abuse instead of leveling her up. Since his characters come close to death/already dead by the time he needs to warp, he just gets himself killed easily so I can see why Warp would be a bit too much, though later on he probably will need it.

The gold issue is definitely big though. My only guess is he'll manipulate the item drops from the enemies near Bleak(They drop M.Drops and the G.Slimes drop Life2) for easier gold.
[/quote]

Neither of those strategies can be considered optimal (imo).  It's already been discussed that as soon as you get Karn, you can get the...blanking on the name... flamdgr?  flamerp?  Whatever that thing in Winlan is that casts fire ball.  Maybe it's not as vital in a TAS, but it's essential for us.  And he's going to use death warp to go back where?  Bleak to get the other Gbar on the way to Auria?  Directly to Auria?  Not having warp (or at least being very close to getting it) seems to be a big problem at that point in the game.  At least it is for my run...

And he needs the first Gbar in order to progress the story.  No way is it better to go all the way to Bleak to fight mobs, get gold, go back to Auria and buy Gbar.  He needs 65000 right away.  I'm assuming he's going to do the fairy quest, but again, I really think it's better to sell cures and some easy to acquire gear than it is to do all that back tracking.

Anyways, back to my run...

Axel Ryman

2009-10-01 04:08:36 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

FlameRP is what you're thinking.

At the end of the movie, he has 5222G left, 3 sellable items(Dirk, BronzSD, and ProtnA) which total at 525, and a level 7 Nina. Since he needs 65000G for the G.Bar...well let's calculate.

2000G from a drawer
20000G from giving the guy a massage with Nina
10000G from the G. Tiara
2000G from another drawer
20000G from the fairy sidequest
5000G from the Vitamin

Total:
59000

This means he needs about 6000. He has 5747 from selling those 3 items, minus 650 from buying a Vitamin, totaling at 5097, meaning he needs 903G, and since you can sell a Cure(1000G) that you can obtain from Auria he's kinda done there, so the G.Bar can be bought on his first trip, meaning easy travel to Bleak. Also, I didn't count G obtained from the Pouch use, which would give 5000 G for the price of 1300G. If he does happen to go for that though, he'll need to sell another Cure and a Life, again also found in Auria.

Then save at Bleak, get the Icicle, go to Arad, then the tomb, get Karn, find the Book, then die off to warp back to Bleak to do the Darkness Key thing. I forget if the enemies stop showing up after getting the key, but either die or walk out. By then Nina will probably have gained 6 levels if kept alive. She needs 9300 to be level 13, and has 765 currently. G.Slimes around Bleak, at Krypt, and in the tower with the D. Key give off 800 EP each. I forget if EXP is split though here. Not only that but then there are the 2 bosses you fight, Sandworm and Eyespy, which give 1200 and 2800 respectively.

To be honest, the only time you might need Warp in this area is from the D. Tower to Auria, but...you need to go back into the cave between Bleak and Auria to get another G. Bar for the Gunpowder, and you need Karn for that, so you might as well go through it after getting the D. Key. So far you won't really need Warp till you need to get Bleu because of death abuse, and that's still a bit of a ways to go.

FlameRP is what you're thinking.

At the end of the movie, he has 5222G left, 3 sellable items(Dirk, BronzSD, and ProtnA) which total at 525, and a level 7 Nina. Since he needs 65000G for the G.Bar...well let's calculate.

2000G from a drawer
20000G from giving the guy a massage with Nina
10000G from the G. Tiara
2000G from another drawer
20000G from the fairy sidequest
5000G from the Vitamin

Total:
59000

This means he needs about 6000. He has 5747 from selling those 3 items, minus 650 from buying a Vitamin, totaling at 5097, meaning he needs 903G, and since you can sell a Cure(1000G) that you can obtain from Auria he's kinda done there, so the G.Bar can be bought on his first trip, meaning easy travel to Bleak. Also, I didn't count G obtained from the Pouch use, which would give 5000 G for the price of 1300G. If he does happen to go for that though, he'll need to sell another Cure and a Life, again also found in Auria.

Then save at Bleak, get the Icicle, go to Arad, then the tomb, get Karn, find the Book, then die off to warp back to Bleak to do the Darkness Key thing. I forget if the enemies stop showing up after getting the key, but either die or walk out. By then Nina will probably have gained 6 levels if kept alive. She needs 9300 to be level 13, and has 765 currently. G.Slimes around Bleak, at Krypt, and in the tower with the D. Key give off 800 EP each. I forget if EXP is split though here. Not only that but then there are the 2 bosses you fight, Sandworm and Eyespy, which give 1200 and 2800 respectively.

To be honest, the only time you might need Warp in this area is from the D. Tower to Auria, but...you need to go back into the cave between Bleak and Auria to get another G. Bar for the Gunpowder, and you need Karn for that, so you might as well go through it after getting the D. Key. So far you won't really need Warp till you need to get Bleu because of death abuse, and that's still a bit of a ways to go.

Abazaba

2009-10-02 08:03:24 am

See, that's my whole point. That's the SECOND trip to Auria, not the first, if you do the fairy quest line. You have to talk to the woman in Auria, then go back and talk to the fairies (sit through crap about not cutting trees). Then you have to go find the boy (sit through crap about not cutting trees). Then go back to the mother to collect your 20,000.

Maybe he could death abuse his way back to Auria. Wait, no, because then he loses his gold. Well, I guess he could deposit it. Is there a depository in Auria? I don't recall. But still, that's another thing he'll have to do.

Like I said before, I'm not qualified by any means to judge a TAS. But I don't think doing the fairy quest is a good speedrunning strategy at all, especially since he past so many easy to grab chests for cash. It would be a lot less walking, and zero cutscenes.

Oh, and your sell prices are too low, I think. If you sell to 'Gobi', it is increased by... 12.5%? Something like that. So the GTiara actually nets you 12.5k. I'll have to double check later tonight, but I'm pretty sure it does.

Oh, and we'll just have to agree to disagree about Nina. I'm pretty sure in my current run, I kept her alive the entire time through Krypt, and she still isn't level 13. Just FYI. And yes, XP is split between the party.

See, that's my whole point.  That's the SECOND trip to Auria, not the first, if you do the fairy quest line.  You have to talk to the woman in Auria, then go back and talk to the fairies (sit through crap about not cutting trees).  Then you have to go find the boy (sit through crap about not cutting trees).  Then go back to the mother to collect your 20,000.

Maybe he could death abuse his way back to Auria.  Wait, no, because then he loses his gold.  Well, I guess he could deposit it.  Is there a depository in Auria?  I don't recall.  But still, that's another thing he'll have to do.

Like I said before, I'm not qualified by any means to judge a TAS.  But I don't think doing the fairy quest is a good speedrunning strategy at all, especially since he past so many easy to grab chests for cash.  It would be a lot less walking, and zero cutscenes.

Oh, and your sell prices are too low, I think.  If you sell to 'Gobi', it is increased by... 12.5%?  Something like that.  So the GTiara actually nets you 12.5k.  I'll have to double check later tonight, but I'm pretty sure it does.

Oh, and we'll just have to agree to disagree about Nina.  I'm pretty sure in my current run, I kept her alive the entire time through Krypt, and she still isn't level 13.  Just FYI.  And yes, XP is split between the party.

__sdfg

2009-10-02 09:53:27 am

D:

Auria stuff: Gobi gives you about 10% more than the "standard" price for items. However, the guy next to him gives you about 30% above standard, so the G.Tiara sells for 13000 GP there. I don't think there's a depository in Auria... though the TAS runner might be able to make death abuse work if he doesn't go for any of the other sources of cash in Auria until after he dies. Still, though, I think it'd be slower than collecting and selling Cures and M.Drops, which have almost the same total payoff. It might be better than some of the dresser-looting in terms of GP-per-second, but if you get the money from selling stuff, you don't need the full 20000 GP fairy bonus, and the dressers will add less absolute time to the run.

Nina stuff: If you fight only bosses, and you don't deliberately kill off other party members to give her a boost, Nina will not reach level 13 until after you defeat Octo. Getting her to level 13 after beating EyeSpy, without doing some grinding in advance, would require having both Bo and Ryu dead at the end of five boss fights or so, which is really tough to pull off. I'd recommend using death abuse to get back to Bleak from Krypt. Climbing your way back out of Krypt takes a while anyway.

By doing some deliberate party-killing (though not as much as in the scenario I mentioned above), you can get her to level 13 after Cloud. However, as Axel pointed out, you need to go back into the cave between Auria and Bleak for the other G.Bar, so getting Warp then won't help you with the story at all. The question is whether you want to be able to warp around and pick up the FlameRP/LifeAR/IcyDR conveniently before you go through the Failed Boating Adventure story arc.

For my (eventual) segmented run, I might try to get the LifeAR & friends early, provided that they prove themselves useful enough to be worth the time spent retrieving them. After all, the sooner I get them, the more battles they'll have a chance to influence, and the more time they'll potentially save. I don't think I'd bother trying to do that for a single-segment run, though. It basically requires Nina being the sole survivor against Cloud, which... sucks.

[b]Auria stuff:[/b]  Gobi gives you about 10% more than the "standard" price for items.  However, the guy next to him gives you about 30% above standard, so the G.Tiara sells for 13000 GP there.  I don't think there's a depository in Auria... though the TAS runner might be able to make death abuse work if he doesn't go for any of the other sources of cash in Auria until after he dies.  Still, though, I think it'd be slower than collecting and selling Cures and M.Drops, which have almost the same total payoff.  It [i]might[/i] be better than some of the dresser-looting in terms of GP-per-second, but if you get the money from selling stuff, you don't need the full 20000 GP fairy bonus, and the dressers will add less absolute time to the run.

[b]Nina stuff:[/b]  If you fight only bosses, and you don't deliberately kill off other party members to give her a boost, Nina will not reach level 13 until after you defeat Octo.  Getting her to level 13 after beating EyeSpy, without doing some grinding in advance, would require having both Bo and Ryu dead at the end of five boss fights or so, which is really tough to pull off.  I'd recommend using death abuse to get back to Bleak from Krypt.  Climbing your way back out of Krypt takes a while anyway.

By doing some deliberate party-killing (though not as much as in the scenario I mentioned above), you can get her to level 13 after Cloud.  However, as Axel pointed out, you need to go back into the cave between Auria and Bleak for the other G.Bar, so getting Warp then won't help you with the story at all.  The question is whether you want to be able to warp around and pick up the FlameRP/LifeAR/IcyDR conveniently before you go through the Failed Boating Adventure story arc.

For my (eventual) segmented run, I might try to get the LifeAR & friends early, provided that they prove themselves useful enough to be worth the time spent retrieving them.  After all, the sooner I get them, the more battles they'll have a chance to influence, and the more time they'll potentially save.  I don't think I'd bother trying to do that for a single-segment run, though.  It basically requires Nina being the sole survivor against Cloud, which... sucks.

Abazaba

2009-10-02 10:34:04 am

I actually don't disagree about using death warp in Krypt. I did it too in my current run. The enemies don't clear out after you get 'confidence' so it makes total sense.

I just don't like acquiring Karn, and then wasting his turn because he can't do anything meaningful against Cloud, Knight, Squid, or Octo. And making the fights last longer, you get less XP, blah blah blah.

From the TAS perspective, I'm sure he doesn't care about getting the armor as much as we do, but FlameRP is just a hop skip jump away with warp. I dunno, I'm just not a fan.

Axel Ryman

2009-10-02 11:30:18 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Well the TAS however isn't as fully planned out as the BoF2 TAS currently is. If worked on more, its possible the runner will start over to actually level Nina. Warp can be useful to get FlameRP due to the 90 damage use, and make the 340/370 damage from manipulating Thunder Dragon criticals, Bo's Fry, and using the E. Key become 340/430 damage(340 mainly on a turn where Acorns are needed). Will take about 4-5 turns.

Another thing about leveling Nina though is she's VERY useful in the Morteo battle because of her Zom1 spell, as it will deal 80 damage to him. Morteo's HP is 1500(756; 744), so 80+80+90 = 250 on the first turn so the Hero can transform, then add 130 to that for 380 on the 2nd turn, totaling at 630. Depending on turn rotation, you could give Bo an Acorn and let the Hero damage Morteo to put him into his 2nd phase, which would probably be the best thing to do(unless the Hero got lucky and Slammed Morteo on the 2nd turn). Then repeat the assault for 2 turns and he's dead. If anything, I say use a Mrbl1 to induce a Slam with the Hero on the 2nd turn.

Well the TAS however isn't as fully planned out as the BoF2 TAS currently is. If worked on more, its possible the runner will start over to actually level Nina. Warp can be useful to get FlameRP due to the 90 damage use, and make the 340/370 damage from manipulating Thunder Dragon criticals, Bo's Fry, and using the E. Key become 340/430 damage(340 mainly on a turn where Acorns are needed).  Will take about 4-5 turns.

Another thing about leveling Nina though is she's VERY useful in the Morteo battle because of her Zom1 spell, as it will deal 80 damage to him. Morteo's HP is 1500(756; 744), so 80+80+90 = 250 on the first turn so the Hero can transform, then add 130 to that for 380 on the 2nd turn, totaling at 630. Depending on turn rotation, you could give Bo an Acorn and let the Hero damage Morteo to put him into his 2nd phase, which would probably be the best thing to do(unless the Hero got lucky and Slammed Morteo on the 2nd turn). Then repeat the assault for 2 turns and he's dead. If anything, I say use a Mrbl1 to induce a Slam with the Hero on the 2nd turn.

Enhasa

2009-10-02 02:41:27 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

How does the BoF2 WIP this new guy is doing, compare to the old stuff done by people like Atma? I guess I have a natural incredible bias against trusting someone with a split Cloud/Sephiroth avatar, lol.

Axel Ryman

Edit history:

Axel Ryman: 2009-10-02 03:44:28 pm

2009-10-02 03:36:29 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from Enhasa:

How does the BoF2 WIP this new guy is doing, compare to the old stuff done by people like Atma? I guess I have a natural incredible bias against trusting someone with a split Cloud/Sephiroth avatar, lol.

So far it looks good, but its similar to that of the FFV and FFIII/VI ones. By that I mean abusing 1 thing to easily win(Ryu's dragon forms) even at a low level. I never got to see the old one by Atma, but Janus' happens to not go to Giant Island at all, unlike Atma's, where he fights a K. Sludge and obtains the ArmyGL(Or so I read), as well as using Bleu for damage. So far Janus just finished saving Ganer and being teleported back to Township. Atma's finished time is 5:35:13 while Janus' is currently 4:02:44.

I just downloaded Atma's old run so I take a quick look at it...wait why we discussing it here instead of a BoF2 thread?

Enhasa

2009-10-02 04:20:14 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

I dunno, I'm sorry, there's a BOF2 thread after all, but this is nothing new and I'm sure talk will return to BOF1 soon.

Yeah, it's obvious what the best boss strategy is, and the unique thing about BOF2 is it actually helps your damage (because it's percentage-based so you can heal up to full AP) to be in lower levels.

Are you saying Atma uses Bleu for damage or Janus does? I saw Atma's but that was years ago so I don't remember anymore.

Axel Ryman

2009-10-02 04:32:48 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Atma does, but mainly in random encounters. I don't think Janus gets her till after he gets the Great Bird and needs to go to the Thieve's Tomb. Only use he uses her for is her speed to give Wisdom Fruits.

Also in the Queen, Atma fights all the enemies he encounters, while Janus usually has the enemies escape(Except if he encounters 1 weak enemy, which he kills).

Trubo is a bit slow on Atma's since he survives the first fight(Dying is faster) and then sitting through 2 turns of his attacks to beat him in fight 2. Janus just dies in the first one and dodges both attacks in the 2nd fight and uses the KamikazeBl to kill him.

I'm mainly skipping a lot of the game, only watching the fighting. Atma's random encounters are bad, while Janus avoids unneeded ones altogether. Currently I'm at the Queen part so I'll see if there's anything else.

__sdfg

2009-10-02 09:39:59 pm

D:

Random thing: I actually fired up my BoF cartridge today, to try to motivate myself to take the hour or two that I inevitably waste on Rock Band every week and waste it on this instead.

The blank-name trick didn't work for me. I was able to leave Ryu's name blank when creating the new game, but when I went to start things off, the save slot was indicated as still being blank, rather than having a new game in it.

...so now you know, or something.

Axel Ryman

2009-10-02 10:43:56 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

I just figured out how to get it to work perfectly. Go to a blank space and use that, then hit B to delete the space, then hit End. I also switched the text to Fast and immediately went back and Game Start was available.

__sdfg

2009-10-03 07:39:16 am

D:

Confirmed. It doesn't have to be a blank space, either: you can enter 'a', delete that, and start a new game with less cursor movement.

Unfortunately, BoF doesn't repeat the hero's name over and over like some other RPGs I've played, so the savings will be small, but it's still neat.

Axel Ryman

2009-10-03 09:13:40 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Either way it will save a small amount of time, and every second counts.

On an unrelated note, the BoF2 TAS is complete. Movie time is 4:55:16 at 1062973 Frames.

Rainman7

2009-10-21 10:18:42 pm

Quote from Axel Ryman:

On an unrelated note, the BoF2 TAS is complete. Movie time is 4:55:16 at 1062973 Frames.

Has it been released? If so, where can I pick that up?

Axel Ryman

2009-10-21 10:50:39 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

A decision for it still hasn't shown up yet. There is an MKV of it though.

http://engelsish.org/avi/breathoffire2-tas-janus.mkv

Rainman7

2009-10-22 03:13:03 am

Cool. Dl'ing right now. I am amazed to see this game beat in under 10 hours, let alone 5. I remember it being a very slow game... come to think of it, I should probably find out which version of the game it is before I go off spouting my mouth.

Thanks!

Axel Ryman

2009-10-22 03:22:10 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Oh right, its the SNES version. If it was GBA then a lot more time would be cut cause of the dashing. Whole video is over 5 hours long by about 5-10 minutes cause of the lengthy credits, so it'll be the longest RPG run on TASvideos if accepted. However I wanna see more progress on the BoF1 run.

Axel Ryman

2009-12-21 04:01:45 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Hmm I wonder if anything is going on with this run, however I'm mainly bumping this to announce that Janus is no reworking on the TAS for this. Went up to getting the 2nd dragon forms.

__sdfg

2009-12-21 04:11:40 pm

D:

Finished school; currently working on replacing my car/apartment/job. Trying to avoid working on this until I've made some progress on those.

Also, I've gotten to Prima, which means I have a wide array of equipment to potentially get. Most of the work from here is going to be testing every boss fight with different stuff (with/without AngleAR on Nina, with/without IcyDR on Karn, with/without FlameRP or ThundrRP in my inventory, etc.). Gonna be a while before I have anything really interesting to report.

I'll try to take a look at the TAS in the next couple days, in case there's anything in it that I feel is worth highlighting.

DoubleThink

2009-12-21 08:19:37 pm

There's a word for that

Great to hear. Just note that the latest TAS update is not the optimised one, but a continuation of the very scrappy test run he did a while back.