Dragon Warrior Monsters (NOTE: Team found!)

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2007-04-24 03:22:53 am

2005-10-26 09:05:18 pm

Never give up!

Originally, this thread was started as a request thread. However, I've decided I might very well do a run of this game, designed for but not requiring a Game Boy Color, myself, since I know quite a bit about the game and my initial request wound up fruitless.

You might be wondering how a speedrun of this game would work. Well, in all honesty, despite the game's inherent differences I think this run would play out much like the Pokemon runs did. I believe the following would be necessary for properly speedrunning this game:
-Knowing how to solve the puzzles after each gate (for those gates that have puzzles)
-Doing the right levelling behind the gates
-Picking up the right monsters (through whatever means)
-Making sure the monsters know the correct moves (you can't just give them moves whenever like in Pokemon; monsters in DWM have to inherit their skills, and I shall explain on request)
-Utilizing luck to get through the classification matches and the final tournament (ideally, that's the only place where you should rely on luck)

Before I start, though, I have some questions.

=Is there anyone else who's actually played this game?
=If I were to do a run, who would actually watch it?
=Does anyone else have advice for me, or will I generally be doing this run with only my own research (said research includes online strategy guides)?
=Just how many segments should this be, and how long do people suspect the run would wind up being?

If I can generate enough interest in this, I might try to find myself a Game Boy Advance and the appropriate Link Cable, since I have a Gamecube at home, and actually do the run. However, I want to guage interest first before I go that far.

Thread title:

Originally, this thread was started as a request thread.  However, I've decided I might very well do a run of this game, designed for but not requiring a Game Boy Color, myself, since I know quite a bit about the game and my initial request wound up fruitless.

You might be wondering how a speedrun of this game would work.  Well, in all honesty, despite the game's inherent differences I think this run would play out much like the Pokemon runs did.  I believe the following would be necessary for properly speedrunning this game:
-Knowing how to solve the puzzles after each gate (for those gates that have puzzles)
-Doing the right levelling behind the gates
-Picking up the right monsters (through whatever means)
-Making sure the monsters know the correct moves (you can't just give them moves whenever like in Pokemon; monsters in DWM have to inherit their skills, and I shall explain on request)
-Utilizing luck to get through the classification matches and the final tournament (ideally, that's the only place where you should rely on luck)

Before I start, though, I have some questions.

=Is there anyone else who's actually played this game?
=If I were to do a run, who would actually watch it?
=Does anyone else have advice for me, or will I generally be doing this run with only my own research (said research includes online strategy guides)?
=Just how many segments should this be, and how long do people suspect the run would wind up being?

If I can generate enough interest in this, I might try to find myself a Game Boy Advance and the appropriate Link Cable, since I have a Gamecube at home, and actually do the run.  However, I want to guage interest first before I go that far.

getter77

2005-10-27 11:28:15 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Ah, DWM..an interesting little game that beat the crap out of me early on :-/

I'd definitely be impressed to see a run of ths done...especially seeing as how freaking HARD I remember the game to be. I don't know of anybody else that has really been any good at it though..perhaps heading to Gamefaqs would enabel you to track down some good guides. Only that Demons: Revelations game for GBC was hard enough like this one to make me give up at it..so good luck!

AquaTiger

2005-10-28 05:07:15 pm

Never give up!

All right.

Since I see some minimal interest in this game, I'll go ahead and start working on the planning involved. This would probably be the run requiring the most advance planning I've ever done, and I'll be posting my findings here from time to time.

First order of business is what my party will look like at the end of the game. My current plan is this by the last classification and the final tournament:

-One consistent attacker, with a few strong spells, breath attacks, and at least one hard-hitting physical attack; plus loads of HP and ATK (Attack)

-One support-skill bearer, with one basic healing spell, one attack skill, and a whole slew of attack-nullifying skills to cripple the enemy; plus high DEF (Defense) and otherwise balanced stats

-One dedicated healer, with mostly healing spells and maybe one decent attack spell; plus high AGL (Agility) and loads of MP

Ideally, at the very least the dedicated healer should be a monster resistant to most skills that can be thrown at you. If possible, the monster with the support skills could also be that way, although I don't see it as likely. I'll try to find resources on just what monsters could qualify later on.

All right.

Since I see some minimal interest in this game, I'll go ahead and start working on the planning involved.  This would probably be the run requiring the most advance planning I've ever done, and I'll be posting my findings here from time to time.

First order of business is what my party will look like at the end of the game.  My current plan is this by the last classification and the final tournament:

-One consistent attacker, with a few strong spells, breath attacks, and at least one hard-hitting physical attack; plus loads of HP and ATK (Attack)

-One support-skill bearer, with one basic healing spell, one attack skill, and a whole slew of attack-nullifying skills to cripple the enemy; plus high DEF (Defense) and otherwise balanced stats

-One dedicated healer, with mostly healing spells and maybe one decent attack spell; plus high AGL (Agility) and loads of MP

Ideally, at the very least the dedicated healer should be a monster resistant to most skills that can be thrown at you.  If possible, the monster with the support skills could also be that way, although I don't see it as likely.  I'll try to find resources on just what monsters could qualify later on.

Saestrol

2005-10-28 06:17:10 pm

Speed Running Joy-bringer

I never actually played the game, but every body that I know said the game was very hard.

I think the hardest games come from the 90's compared to what there is today. I'll be looking forward to seeing this run though.

Lokarin

2005-10-28 06:53:51 pm

Killer Chobocos don't get any chocolate.

I have several charts which have all the monsters skills/growths and even RESISTANCES to various attacks that I used as a supplement for DWM 2... If you don't already have them I might be able to find them for you

(in 2, Butterfly was good for killing Darck because its virtually immune to gigaslash, and its stat upper move causes Darck to waste a turn with DeChaos...)

But this is 1, not 2.... right?

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-10-29 04:04:49 am

2005-10-28 07:25:14 pm

Never give up!

Lokarin: That's right, this is the first game I'm talking about, not the second.

I found that the GameFAQs guides were insufficient for my needs. Therefore, after a little looking-up, I think I have a good site for information I'm going to need.

It's DWM Central, which I shall link here so that I don't have to constantly search everywhere for it: http://www.tiger-marmalade.com/~yash/entertainment/games/

If anyone else wants to view that site, I must warn you it's got the occasional hiccup with it, so to speak.

My first analysis tells me the following:
-Slimes seem to make the most ideal dedicated healers. So far I'm eyeing MetalKing as the most likely monster for the healer role.
-Dragons and Beasts make the best dedicated attackers for their high HP and ATK. I have quite a few possibilities if I go the Dragon route - GreatDrak, Coatol, Orochi, BattleRex*, SkyDragon, and Divinegon* are the ones I'd look at first, with my favored choices each followed by an asterisk. Goategon and KingLeo are the choices if I go with the Beast route.
-So far, Zombie-class and Material-class monsters seem to make the best options for the support role. DeadNoble, WhiteKing, Balzak, Mimic, and Bombcrag are the ones I'm most likely to consider for this role - the first two are Zombie-class, the latter three are Material-class.

Edit: Okay, so my first little forays into the game (not really intent solely on speed either) got me past the Gate of Villager (that's the second one) at 26 minutes. Of course, I was taking my time a lot more, trying to level my monsters a little, in addition to trying to capture a slightly larger variety of monsters. (Current ones I have in this test are Slime, Anteater, Healer, Gremlin, GoHopper, and Dragon.) You'd be surprised how resistant a group with Anteater/Healer/Gremlin is to Dragon's FireAir and FireSlash attacks.

One big problem early on in this game is that the gate levels are quite randomized. Plus, without the right item you can't save behind them. So yeah, the first few gates will be an exercise in frustration when it comes time to do the real run.

Edit 2: My other big problem is levelling monsters - I think the way I'm going to handle this is getting several Warpwings and bringing just one monster into the gate each time. Then when I'm ready I put all three monsters in the party at once. This will be most important when I have to breed monsters, since they must be level 10 or higher. I may have to omit skill-hunting in favor of getting just the right monster initially, and I probably will need to keep skill-hunting to an absolute minimum in order to avoid breaching the 7-hour tentative limit (this game may not be exciting enough to risk 8 hours).

Edit 3: After some thought, I've decided I'm going to ditch the idea of having specific monsters by the end, take a combination that I find to work, and just work my way through the game that way, getting new monsters as appropriate. The random encounters aren't frequent enough to constantly level every monster, even only to level 10 (the level at which monsters can be bred).

Lokarin: That's right, this is the first game I'm talking about, not the second.

I found that the GameFAQs guides were insufficient for my needs.  Therefore, after a little looking-up, I think I have a good site for information I'm going to need.

It's DWM Central, which I shall link here so that I don't have to constantly search everywhere for it: [url]http://www.tiger-marmalade.com/~yash/entertainment/games/[/url]

If anyone else wants to view that site, I must warn you it's got the occasional hiccup with it, so to speak.

My first analysis tells me the following:
-Slimes seem to make the most ideal dedicated healers.  So far I'm eyeing MetalKing as the most likely monster for the healer role.
-Dragons and Beasts make the best dedicated attackers for their high HP and ATK.  I have quite a few possibilities if I go the Dragon route - GreatDrak, Coatol, Orochi, BattleRex*, SkyDragon, and Divinegon* are the ones I'd look at first, with my favored choices each followed by an asterisk.  Goategon and KingLeo are the choices if I go with the Beast route.
-So far, Zombie-class and Material-class monsters seem to make the best options for the support role.  DeadNoble, WhiteKing, Balzak, Mimic, and Bombcrag are the ones I'm most likely to consider for this role - the first two are Zombie-class, the latter three are Material-class.

Edit: Okay, so my first little forays into the game (not really intent solely on speed either) got me past the Gate of Villager (that's the second one) at 26 minutes.  Of course, I was taking my time a lot more, trying to level my monsters a little, in addition to trying to capture a slightly larger variety of monsters.  (Current ones I have in this test are Slime, Anteater, Healer, Gremlin, GoHopper, and Dragon.)  You'd be surprised how resistant a group with Anteater/Healer/Gremlin is to Dragon's FireAir and FireSlash attacks.

One big problem early on in this game is that the gate levels are quite randomized.  Plus, without the right item you can't save behind them.  So yeah, the first few gates will be an exercise in frustration when it comes time to do the real run.

Edit 2: My other big problem is levelling monsters - I think the way I'm going to handle this is getting several Warpwings and bringing just one monster into the gate each time.  Then when I'm ready I put all three monsters in the party at once.  This will be most important when I have to breed monsters, since they must be level 10 or higher.  I may have to omit skill-hunting in favor of getting just the right monster initially, and I probably will need to keep skill-hunting to an absolute minimum in order to avoid breaching the 7-hour tentative limit (this game may not be exciting enough to risk 8 hours).

Edit 3: After some thought, I've decided I'm going to ditch the idea of having specific monsters by the end, take a combination that I find to work, and just work my way through the game that way, getting new monsters as appropriate.  The random encounters aren't frequent enough to constantly level every monster, even only to level 10 (the level at which monsters can be bred).

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-10-30 04:01:03 am

2005-10-29 05:49:30 am

Never give up!

Sorry for the double post, but my opinion's changing so fast that I'm concerned I may well run out of space in the above post.

Anyway, I decided to go back to the 'know what to have at the end' approach. Here's what my planned monster acquisition and breeding order looks like (getting to the right level is taken as an assumption wherever it occurs):

1) Make sure to catch either a Dracky or an Anteater monster in the first gate before fighting Hale. This one will never be used again after the Gate of Villager, but I need the extra power until then.

2) Talk to Pulio and then stand under the SkyDragon to get the SkyDragon egg.

3) Get a Gremlin in the Gate of Villager before fighting the Dragon. Make note of the Gremlin's gender.

4) Get a MiniDrak in the Gate of Talisman before fighting the Golem. Make sure the MiniDrak is female.

5) No need to get anything in the Gate of Memories other than the MadCat that automatically joins at the end.

6) Get a Demonite in the Gate of Bewilder before fighting FaceTree. Its gender is irrelevant.

7) After clearing E class, breed the Demonite you got in step 6 with Mick's Lizardman to get a Lionex.

8) Breed the MiniDrak and Golem you got in step 4, in that order, to get Swordgon.

9) Get a 1EyeClown in the Gate of Bravery. Make sure it's female. Also make sure to get a BeanMan, and make sure the BeanMan's gender is opposite that of the Gremlin from step 3.

10) Breed the MadCat from step 5 with the 1EyeClown in step 9 to get Grizzly.

11) Start developing the Lionex and SkyDragon. At the same time, breed the Gremlin from step 3 with the BeanMan from step 9 to get an Orc - make sure it's female.

12) Breed the Healer (Hale) from step 1 with the Orc from step 11 to get a SlimeNite. Make sure the SlimeNite and the Swordgon from step 8 are opposite genders.

13) Breed the Lionex from step 7 with the Dragon from step 3, putting the Dragon first, to get Battlerex.

14) Get a Gulpple from the Gate of Joy, and make sure it's female.

15) Breed the Gulpple from step 14 with the Facetree from step 6. You'll get another Gulpple - make sure it too is female.

16) Breed the SkyDragon from step 2 with the Gulpple from step 15 to get an Andreal.

17) Breed the SlimeNite from step 12 with the Swordgon from step 8 to get a SlimeBorg.

18) Breed the Andreal from step 16 with the SlimeBorg in step 17, in that order, to get MetalDrak.

19) Make sure to breed the Grizzly from step 10 and the Battlerex from step 13 with other monsters of the appropriate family to get a full set of skills. Just make sure Battlerex knows MultiCut (inherited from SkyDragon) before you breed him/her. (This step can occur as necessary after you have either monster.)

And there you have it, the final party would be MetalDrak, Battlerex and Grizzly - the MetalDrak is your main healer and the other two are attackers.

If I overlooked some monster breeding issues, please feel free to point out the bad step and find me a monster that WOULD work. I think I have this thought through, though. I'll also take suggestions for other routes, possible added breeding and capture steps (to get good enough skills), and final monster sets, and likely test them out from scratch (I will be using an emulator so as not to overwork the game cartridge in this phase, moving to the real thing as I get closer to recording). If I skipped a gate, though, it's because there's nothing I needed behind it, so no worries about that.

Of course, if you have other comments, also feel free to share those.

Edit: Steps 13 and 16 had to be edited due to new findings.

Sorry for the double post, but my opinion's changing so fast that I'm concerned I may well run out of space in the above post.

Anyway, I decided to go back to the 'know what to have at the end' approach.  Here's what my planned monster acquisition and breeding order looks like (getting to the right level is taken as an assumption wherever it occurs):

1) Make sure to catch either a Dracky or an Anteater monster in the first gate before fighting Hale.  This one will never be used again after the Gate of Villager, but I need the extra power until then.

2) Talk to Pulio and then stand under the SkyDragon to get the SkyDragon egg.

3) Get a Gremlin in the Gate of Villager before fighting the Dragon.  Make note of the Gremlin's gender.

4) Get a MiniDrak in the Gate of Talisman before fighting the Golem.  Make sure the MiniDrak is female.

5) No need to get anything in the Gate of Memories other than the MadCat that automatically joins at the end.

6) Get a Demonite in the Gate of Bewilder before fighting FaceTree.  Its gender is irrelevant.

7) After clearing E class, breed the Demonite you got in step 6 with Mick's Lizardman to get a Lionex.

8) Breed the MiniDrak and Golem you got in step 4, in that order, to get Swordgon.

9) Get a 1EyeClown in the Gate of Bravery.  Make sure it's female.  Also make sure to get a BeanMan, and make sure the BeanMan's gender is opposite that of the Gremlin from step 3.

10) Breed the MadCat from step 5 with the 1EyeClown in step 9 to get Grizzly.

11) Start developing the Lionex and SkyDragon.  At the same time, breed the Gremlin from step 3 with the BeanMan from step 9 to get an Orc - make sure it's female.

12) Breed the Healer (Hale) from step 1 with the Orc from step 11 to get a SlimeNite.  Make sure the SlimeNite and the Swordgon from step 8 are opposite genders.

13) Breed the Lionex from step 7 with the Dragon from step 3, putting the Dragon first, to get Battlerex.

14) Get a Gulpple from the Gate of Joy, and make sure it's female.

15) Breed the Gulpple from step 14 with the Facetree from step 6.  You'll get another Gulpple - make sure it too is female.

16) Breed the SkyDragon from step 2 with the Gulpple from step 15 to get an Andreal.

17) Breed the SlimeNite from step 12 with the Swordgon from step 8 to get a SlimeBorg.

18) Breed the Andreal from step 16 with the SlimeBorg in step 17, in that order, to get MetalDrak.

19) Make sure to breed the Grizzly from step 10 and the Battlerex from step 13 with other monsters of the appropriate family to get a full set of skills.  Just make sure Battlerex knows MultiCut (inherited from SkyDragon) before you breed him/her.  (This step can occur as necessary after you have either monster.)

And there you have it, the final party would be MetalDrak, Battlerex and Grizzly - the MetalDrak is your main healer and the other two are attackers.

If I overlooked some monster breeding issues, please feel free to point out the bad step and find me a monster that WOULD work.  I think I have this thought through, though.  I'll also take suggestions for other routes, possible added breeding and capture steps (to get good enough skills), and final monster sets, and likely test them out from scratch (I will be using an emulator so as not to overwork the game cartridge in this phase, moving to the real thing as I get closer to recording).  If I skipped a gate, though, it's because there's nothing I needed behind it, so no worries about that.

Of course, if you have other comments, also feel free to share those.

Edit: Steps 13 and 16 had to be edited due to new findings.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-10-31 04:28:20 am

2005-10-30 01:14:49 am

Never give up!

Once again, a lot of stuff in this post, which is why I'm bothering to put it in a new one.

After studying skills, here's what I'm looking at:

-The skills HealUs (which I'd planned to get from Healer) and GigaSlash (planned to get from Mick's Lizardman) are out of my reach as far as a speedrun goes. They require stats I will not be able to get in a reasonable time frame.

-I can breed the Orc and SkyDragon at very low levels, simply because the skills they bestow (Vivify and MultiCut, respectively) are natural skills. A monster does not need to learn a natural skill to pass it on through breeding.

-If I can get a female Demon-type monster from some gate before Joy that I'm not using elsewhere, I should breed Facetree with that to get the Gulpple instead of winding up with one extra breeding cycle.

-My dedicated healer might wind up as a jack-of-all-trades monster instead, simply because so many skills from outside are pouring in. (It's the longest of the breeding chains I'm using, for crying out loud!)

-Being near the end of the Gate of Anger at 2 hours and 22 minutes seems to tell me that the 7-hour limit's going to be much easier than I thought previously.

-A lot of gates are going to be missed, if it turns out to be possible, especially later on.

-I can't say the same for classification matches, unless I find it relatively easy to beat ones higher than the one I'm supposed to fight.

-I can't stress how much luck is going to need to play into this. I am not, however, going to constantly reset until I get max stats - that's not feasible in the span of a real person playing. I'm just going to worry about getting the right monsters with the right genders.

-I'm going to have to turn down a lot of monsters who just wanna tag along.

-I project the three monsters I finally get will be at least level 27 by the time I beat the Starry Night Tournament.

-Breeding SkyDragon with Lionex apparently produces Andreal, not Battlerex as I thought.

-Stocking up on Warpwings is going to be a requirement every chance I get.

-I need to level monsters individually to have much chance of going fast enough.

Now, I would like to hear advice on where to segment this run. I think that's the biggest piece I'm missing. Other than that I'd still like to hear comments from everyone else.

Once again, a lot of stuff in this post, which is why I'm bothering to put it in a new one.

After studying skills, here's what I'm looking at:

-The skills HealUs (which I'd planned to get from Healer) and GigaSlash (planned to get from Mick's Lizardman) are out of my reach as far as a speedrun goes.  They require stats I will not be able to get in a reasonable time frame.

-I can breed the Orc and SkyDragon at very low levels, simply because the skills they bestow (Vivify and MultiCut, respectively) are natural skills.  A monster does not need to learn a natural skill to pass it on through breeding.

-If I can get a female Demon-type monster from some gate before Joy that I'm not using elsewhere, I should breed Facetree with that to get the Gulpple instead of winding up with one extra breeding cycle.

-My dedicated healer might wind up as a jack-of-all-trades monster instead, simply because so many skills from outside are pouring in.  (It's the longest of the breeding chains I'm using, for crying out loud!)

-Being near the end of the Gate of Anger at 2 hours and 22 minutes seems to tell me that the 7-hour limit's going to be much easier than I thought previously.

-A lot of gates are going to be missed, if it turns out to be possible, especially later on.

-I can't say the same for classification matches, unless I find it relatively easy to beat ones higher than the one I'm supposed to fight.

-I can't stress how much luck is going to need to play into this.  I am not, however, going to constantly reset until I get max stats - that's not feasible in the span of a real person playing.  I'm just going to worry about getting the right monsters with the right genders.

-I'm going to have to turn down a lot of monsters who just wanna tag along.

-I project the three monsters I finally get will be at least level 27 by the time I beat the Starry Night Tournament.

-Breeding SkyDragon with Lionex apparently produces Andreal, not Battlerex as I thought.

-Stocking up on Warpwings is going to be a requirement every chance I get.

-I need to level monsters individually to have much chance of going fast enough.

Now, I would like to hear advice on where to segment this run.  I think that's the biggest piece I'm missing.  Other than that I'd still like to hear comments from everyone else.

AquaTiger

2005-10-31 12:53:04 pm

Never give up!

All right.

If anyone is still reading (and I'd like some indication), I've hit a point in a test run where there is no way I can make the seven-hour limit. (I'm finding it impossible to beat A-class or S-class and I only have 44 minutes - I can't level and do everything else in that time frame.) Therefore, I'm restarting it later today.

I've recalled a bunch of mistakes I made during the test run, so I can at least refine my strategy. Here's what I need to remember next time:

-Skip the entire 'getting an Andreal to get MetalDrak' sequence. That's right, my dedicated healer is instead going to be a SlimeBorg.

-Don't bother befriending FaceTree in the Gate of Bewilder or Battlerex in the Gate of Anger. They're no longer necessary.

-Stock up on Warpwings almost every chance you get - it's going to save plenty of frustration.

-Bring no more than two monsters behind a gate after Anger, so they can be levelled faster.

-Stock up on healing items after any Warpwing splurges.

-Consider skipping the C-class matches and maybe even the F-class matches.

Any other advice is greatly appreciated, although as I said before I'd like an indication that this is still being read.

All right.

If anyone is still reading (and I'd like some indication), I've hit a point in a test run where there is no way I can make the seven-hour limit.  (I'm finding it impossible to beat A-class or S-class and I only have 44 minutes - I can't level and do everything else in that time frame.)  Therefore, I'm restarting it later today.

I've recalled a bunch of mistakes I made during the test run, so I can at least refine my strategy.  Here's what I need to remember next time:

-Skip the entire 'getting an Andreal to get MetalDrak' sequence.  That's right, my dedicated healer is instead going to be a SlimeBorg.

-Don't bother befriending FaceTree in the Gate of Bewilder or Battlerex in the Gate of Anger.  They're no longer necessary.

-Stock up on Warpwings almost every chance you get - it's going to save plenty of frustration.

-Bring no more than two monsters behind a gate after Anger, so they can be levelled faster.

-Stock up on healing items after any Warpwing splurges.

-Consider skipping the C-class matches and maybe even the F-class matches.

Any other advice is greatly appreciated, although as I said before I'd like an indication that this is still being read.

getter77

2005-10-31 09:46:27 pm

100% runs=great to watch

I'm sure there are other people checking the thread besides me...and hopefully some of them actually have some skills at the game to offer ya good input towards your success. Keep up the hope!

Z

2005-11-01 03:14:20 pm

I'm reading =) But since I haven't registered I usually refrain from posting.

AquaTiger

2005-11-01 06:21:29 pm

Never give up!

I'd taken a slight break from this game, but I think I'm ready to get back into it now.

Still no Game Boy Player or Game Boy Advance right now, so vids are unlikely. However, I shall make sure to give a progress report soon.

Acryte

Edit history:

Acryte: 2005-11-01 09:34:17 pm

2005-11-01 08:08:33 pm

Zelda Scientist®

(First part is a direct copy/paste)
About dragon warrior monsters:
It wouldn't be too random to get a win out of it, as you keep or discard certain techniques, and you can memorize which monsters learn which techniques, and also memorize which monsters have A + B = C for breeding, as well as figuring out the pluses. The route is generally straightforwards, but general strats would be like this:
get beast tail early so you can find holes easiest.
If need be, buy the shiny harp, and unlock the mettable gate as fast as possible (spam harp and level to the needed amount)... though this requires finding random tiny medals, and that can be extrordinarily tedious and random. (I'll give you that)
Breed for high plus monsters.
Get the following spells:
Healusall (the best)
Palsyair (WOW!!! Spam it. If all 3 are paralyzed then you win!!! hahaha.)
Ironize (use ironize, then feed treats to enemy... you don't have to worry about your dudes killing it)
Stopspell (holy crap this is good!)
Stepguard (or whatever it's called. Then damaging maps don't matter)
Lifesong or vitrify (brings back dead allies)
Megamagic (for bosses, if you have a 999 mp monster in the works)

helpful attacks:
ultradown (probably won't get it though)
Multicut
hellblast
bigbang
whiteair (easier to get)
scorching (can get it early and then spam it) -> whitefire
rainslash is an easy one to get that you can spam for a while too.
quad hits(I forget. multi hit?)
twin something or other (doubles attack)
etc.

=========
necessary monsters:
goldslime. (no explanation needed)

work out the planning and the monster breeding, and w/ segmented runs, it won't be too insanely hard. Honestly though, I hear there is a TAS out isn't there?
Wonder if they critical on every attack. Also, randomly praying for a church hole, or holes like that is awesome. Finding other masters early is also key, so that you can get some quick XP, or so that you can steal their high level (rarer) monsters. Oh, and need I say that the monsters that they carry is based entirely off the cumulative levels of your own monsters? Yep, there are different groups of monsters that they have according you your total levels for your monsters. The planning for that is awesome because you can buy bookmarks and save (inside the gates) in front of a master, and then play him over and over until you steal the desired monster from him.

============
Monsters that are stealable from the other masters:
Metalking (oh yeah)
Greatdrak
Orochi (I think so)
BattleRex
Skydragon (Multi-cut)
Divinegon
Goategon
Deadnoble (HealUs -> HealUsAll, tatsucall)
Lionex (HealUs -> HealUsAll)
Balzac (Multi-cut)
Mimic
Bombcrag
LavaMan ----V
Iceman ---->Gold Golem (bigbang, tatsucall) anyone?
Phoenix
Blizzardy
DanceVegi (K.O.Dance)
Whipbird (tatsucall)

(note that there are many more which I have omitted. Going off memory here)
=======

In my opinion, if you can get (somehow) monsters with high enough levels (before the class which lets you breed with that 1 guys iceman), you could grab a lavaman and then storm the game w/ a goldgolem (big bang is insane). Or, you could just wait till later and steal both a lavaman, and an iceman.

From that point, once you have a gold golem, you can play until you catch a spotking (not too hard) and then breed for a GoldSlime (;>)
or, for the best combo....
breed a madcondor W/ the spotking to make a kingslime. Then breed the kingslime w/ the goldgolem. this will give you vivify and HealUs -> HealUsAll... though I'd rather grab a different monster for that and skip all the extra leveling time.
==========
campable skills:
Surge (just useful)
radiant =slime
megamagic =slime
Surround
Revive + Warcry = monster remembers: lifesong (I'd rather catch a monster that learns it)
Defense + Surround + SlowAll = Remembers Ultradown (great attack, but too many lame spells that waste space...aka defense and slowall)
Thordain + Lightning = remembers Hellblast (This is doable)
ZombieCut + Vacuum = remembers multicut (this is doable)
SleepAir + PoisonAir = remembers Palsyair (Holy Crap this is PIVOTAL)

===============
technically, just for the record, you could theoretically go through the entire game w/ ridiculously low level characters, if you had:
1) a monster w/ ironize
2) a monster w/ PoisonAir (whole group), PoisonGas (whole group), PoisonHit (1 foe),
Optional:
3) a monster w/ lifesong (takes 2 turns so... use lifesong, and then use ironize = free attempt to revive)
This is just a really slow strat that makes it possible to beat the game at ridiculously low levels. (by spamming ironize. I just thought of this strat too. haha.)

My best bet would be either:
3 monsters spamming palsyair,
2 monsters spamming dance techniques (K.O. Dance would be nuts), while 1 spams palsyair.
2 monsters spamming surround or curses while 1 spams palsyair.
or
(each scenario having a healer (w/ healusall), 1 w/ ironize, and 1 with a major attack spell.
==========

wow, Motivation is BEASTLY. +50% dam off any attack.

This run sounds awesome because the paths you take according to monster types, as well as the planning and knowledge that you can have beforehand is immense, and yet so flexible. This should be a very interesting run, and I'll probably lend a hand in it.

(First part is a direct copy/paste)
About dragon warrior monsters: 
It wouldn't be too random to get a win out of it, as you keep or discard certain techniques, and you can memorize which monsters learn which techniques, and also memorize which monsters have A + B = C for breeding, as well as figuring out the pluses. The route is generally straightforwards, but general strats would be like this: 
get beast tail early so you can find holes easiest. 
If need be, buy the shiny harp, and unlock the mettable gate as fast as possible (spam harp and level to the needed amount)... though this requires finding random tiny medals, and that can be extrordinarily tedious and random. (I'll give you that) 
Breed for high plus monsters. 
Get the following spells:  
Healusall (the best) 
Palsyair (WOW!!! Spam it. If all 3 are paralyzed then you win!!! hahaha.) 
Ironize (use ironize, then feed treats to enemy... you don't have to worry about your dudes killing it) 
Stopspell (holy crap this is good!) 
Stepguard (or whatever it's called. Then damaging maps don't matter) 
Lifesong or vitrify (brings back dead allies) 
Megamagic (for bosses, if you have a 999 mp monster in the works) 
 
helpful attacks: 
ultradown (probably won't get it though) 
Multicut 
hellblast 
bigbang 
whiteair (easier to get) 
scorching (can get it early and then spam it) -> whitefire 
rainslash is an easy one to get that you can spam for a while too. 
quad hits(I forget. multi hit?) 
twin something or other (doubles attack) 
etc. 
 
========= 
necessary monsters: 
goldslime. (no explanation needed) 
 
work out the planning and the monster breeding, and w/ segmented runs, it won't be too insanely hard. Honestly though, I hear there is a TAS out isn't there? 
Wonder if they critical on every attack. Also, randomly praying for a church hole, or holes like that is awesome. Finding other masters early is also key, so that you can get some quick XP, or so that you can steal their high level (rarer) monsters. Oh, and need I say that the monsters that they carry is based entirely off the cumulative levels of your own monsters? Yep, there are different groups of monsters that they have according you your total levels for your monsters. The planning for that is awesome because you can buy bookmarks and save (inside the gates) in front of a master, and then play him over and over until you steal the desired monster from him.

============
Monsters that are stealable from the other masters:
Metalking (oh yeah)
Greatdrak
Orochi (I think so)
BattleRex
Skydragon (Multi-cut)
Divinegon
Goategon
Deadnoble (HealUs -> HealUsAll, tatsucall)
Lionex (HealUs -> HealUsAll)
Balzac (Multi-cut)
Mimic
Bombcrag
LavaMan ----V
Iceman  ---->Gold Golem (bigbang, tatsucall) anyone?
Phoenix
Blizzardy
DanceVegi (K.O.Dance)
Whipbird (tatsucall)

(note that there are many more which I have omitted. Going off memory here)
=======

In my opinion, if you can get (somehow) monsters with high enough levels (before the class which lets you breed with that 1 guys iceman), you could grab a lavaman and then storm the game w/ a goldgolem (big bang is insane). Or, you could just wait till later and steal both a lavaman, and an iceman.

From that point, once you have a gold golem, you can play until you catch a spotking (not too hard) and then breed for a GoldSlime (;>)
or, for the best combo....
breed a madcondor W/ the spotking to make a kingslime. Then breed the kingslime w/ the goldgolem. this will give you vivify and HealUs -> HealUsAll... though I'd rather grab a different monster for that and skip all the extra leveling time.
==========
campable skills:
Surge (just useful)
radiant   =slime
megamagic   =slime
Surround
Revive + Warcry = monster remembers: lifesong (I'd rather catch a monster that learns it)
Defense + Surround + SlowAll = Remembers Ultradown (great attack, but too many lame spells that waste space...aka defense and slowall)
Thordain + Lightning = remembers Hellblast (This is doable)
ZombieCut + Vacuum = remembers multicut (this is doable)
SleepAir + PoisonAir = remembers Palsyair (Holy Crap this is PIVOTAL)

===============
technically, just for the record, you could theoretically go through the entire game w/ ridiculously low level characters, if you had:
1) a monster w/ ironize
2) a monster w/ PoisonAir (whole group), PoisonGas (whole group), PoisonHit (1 foe), 
Optional:
3) a monster w/ lifesong (takes 2 turns so... use lifesong, and then use ironize = free attempt to revive)
This is just a really slow strat that makes it possible to beat the game at ridiculously low levels. (by spamming ironize. I just thought of this strat too. haha.)

My best bet would be either:
3 monsters spamming palsyair,
2 monsters spamming dance techniques (K.O. Dance would be nuts), while 1 spams palsyair.
2 monsters spamming surround or curses while 1 spams palsyair.
or
(each scenario having a healer (w/ healusall), 1 w/ ironize, and 1 with a major attack spell.
==========

wow, Motivation is BEASTLY. +50% dam off any attack.

This run sounds awesome because the paths you take according to monster types, as well as the planning and knowledge that you can have beforehand is immense, and yet so flexible. This should be a very interesting run, and I'll probably lend a hand in it.

AquaTiger

2005-11-01 10:43:16 pm

Never give up!

All right.

Looking at this, I think I'll hold a bit on actually playing through a strategy until I check this out more. I need to refine my strategy.

Some things to keep in mind, though:
-Out of my original final trio of MetalDrak/Battlerex/Grizzly, the Battlerex, and how I get him/her, will be the most likely to stay as it is, although I might breed a better dragon-class monster with Lionex.
-Replacing the healer is going to be the tough task.
-I canNOT believe I forgot all about PalsyAir. I loved using that skill.
-The breeding you're talking about? That's right after E-class, so I'd have to get a LavaMan VERY early. I don't foresee getting the required MetalDrak for that so early, so there's one I'd HAVE to get from a rival master. (Other option is to breed a Bird-class with that IceMan to get Blizzardy, but I don't know if I want to go that route.)

Here are the final parties I considered so far:
-SlimeBorg/Battlerex/Grizzly (the party I was going to use in my latest attempt; SlimeBorg's the healer, and the other two are attackers)
-WhiteKing/Blizzardy/Chamelgon (WhiteKing's the healer, Blizzardy is a generic attacker, and Chamelgon spams PalsyAir which he gets naturally)
-GoldGolem/Coatol/SlimeNite (GoldGolem is the natural attacker, Coatol would have had DragonKid and Andreal as ancestors to get PalsyAir, and SlimeNite will have Healer and Orc parents to get the healing spells I need)
-WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex (WhipBird gets Ironize free and will get LifeSong from its ancestry, DanceVegi gets K.O.Dance and will have PalsyAir in its ancestry, and Lionex gets HealUs and will have GigaSlash in its ancestry if you can get high enough levels)

Any other possible good parties?

All right.

Looking at this, I think I'll hold a bit on actually playing through a strategy until I check this out more.  I need to refine my strategy.

Some things to keep in mind, though:
-Out of my original final trio of MetalDrak/Battlerex/Grizzly, the Battlerex, and how I get him/her, will be the most likely to stay as it is, although I might breed a better dragon-class monster with Lionex.
-Replacing the healer is going to be the tough task.
-I canNOT believe I forgot all about PalsyAir.  I loved using that skill.
-The breeding you're talking about?  That's right after E-class, so I'd have to get a LavaMan VERY early.  I don't foresee getting the required MetalDrak for that so early, so there's one I'd HAVE to get from a rival master.  (Other option is to breed a Bird-class with that IceMan to get Blizzardy, but I don't know if I want to go that route.)

Here are the final parties I considered so far:
-SlimeBorg/Battlerex/Grizzly (the party I was going to use in my latest attempt; SlimeBorg's the healer, and the other two are attackers)
-WhiteKing/Blizzardy/Chamelgon (WhiteKing's the healer, Blizzardy is a generic attacker, and Chamelgon spams PalsyAir which he gets naturally)
-GoldGolem/Coatol/SlimeNite (GoldGolem is the natural attacker, Coatol would have had DragonKid and Andreal as ancestors to get PalsyAir, and SlimeNite will have Healer and Orc parents to get the healing spells I need)
-WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex (WhipBird gets Ironize free and will get LifeSong from its ancestry, DanceVegi gets K.O.Dance and will have PalsyAir in its ancestry, and Lionex gets HealUs and will have GigaSlash in its ancestry if you can get high enough levels)

Any other possible good parties?

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-11-04 02:24:55 am

2005-11-03 06:13:44 pm

Never give up!

Sorry for the delay, but I decided to test the WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex combination out. I'm not completely done with it yet, but I have some insight regardless.

Advantages to this route:
-I can catch all but one monster I need before finishing E-class - the lone exception being BeanMan, which I can catch right before D-class. (If I can find another Plant-family monster besides FaceTree or Stubsuck before E-class, that will be substituted for BeanMan.)
-I can finish all but one breeding cycle quite quickly before completing D-class, since the monsters level so fast.
-Required skills are either naturally attained by the final monsters or were natural skills of the parents, meaning I can breed monsters ASAP.
-(NEW INFO) This combination gets ancillary skills from ancestry that make it quite lethal to combat. For instance, the WhipBird gets Curse and both WhipBird and DanceVegi get SleepAll, which while not as lethal as PalsyAir, is still incredibly useful. I completed C class with two monsters at level 12 (Lionex and DanceVegi) and the other at level 16 (Florajay, which will be one of WhipBird's parents soon) without a single of my monsters being KO'ed because of this fact (well, and the fact I switched constantly between Charge/Mixed/Cautious directions each round - that's the only commanding you're allowed to do in the Arena) - those are fairly low levels last I checked.

Known caveats:
-The last breeding cycle (to get WhipBird) has to be done after completing B-class (I said A-class earlier; my mistake), meaning I have to spend time making that lone monster catch up to the rest of the group.
-Four out of the five monsters I have to convince to join with treats have to be female, so serious luck manipulation to get the right genders must happen early.
-Due to how early I'll be breeding these monsters, the DanceVegi and Lionex will have pretty low stats.

Breeding Cycle:
-Get a female Dracky in the beginning Gate.
-Get a female Stubsuck, a Gremlin, and a Picky in the Gate of Villager, making sure the Gremlin and Picky are opposite genders, as well as fighting and getting the Dragon at the end.
-Get the Golem at the end of the Gate of Talisman - technically, getting Picky can be held off to here.
-Breed the Stubsuck with the Dragon to get FireWeed.
-Breed the Gremlin with the Picky to get Demonite.
-Get the FaceTree at the end of the Gate of Bewilder.
-Breed the Dracky with the FaceTree to get Florajay.
-Get a female BeanMan from the Gate of Bravery.
-Breed the Golem with the BeanMan to get Facer.
-Breed the Demonite with Mick's LizardMan (found by beating the Goopi in the north middle part of the Arena in Rock-Paper-Scissors, code of Scissors-Rock-Scissors-Paper-Scissors) to get Lionex.
-Breed the FireWeed with the Facer to get DanceVegi.
-Once you can breed with May's Rayburn (restaurant in northeast of arena, after B-class), breed the Florajay with it to get WhipBird.

I'll test how viable this group remains as I go, but regardless I'll be skipping out on the guardians of most gates because they don't give experience.

Edit: I discovered some nify info playing late into the game. Apparently, your monsters know far more about your enemies' weaknesses and resistances than, usually, you would. For instance, I noticed my WhipBird (who had somehow acquired the Bang series, and has Explodet) refused to use his attack spell on a pair of Servant monsters (I'm at the Gate of Reflection in this run, yes). I couldn't believe it. I directly ordered him to use Explodet, and to my surprise, both were indeed immune to that spell. Interesting, isn't it?

For those that are wondering, in this test run I'm at the Gate of Reflection in 6 hours and 16 minutes. It took so long because of several things:
-I didn't completely and utterly abuse luck.
-At times, I went out of my way to gain experience when my monsters were already pretty powerful.
-I did not run from a single battle (if my mindset continues, this would probably be the first RPG speedrun without a single incident of running away). The reason? If you run from a battle, your monsters' personalities change for the worse - and pretty drastically as well.
-I refused to find ways to stock up on Repellent (which would have alleviated the previous problem a little).

Some other notes so far:
-I went through EVERY classification match. I might consider skipping A-class next time, but in any event there were some interesting close calls where only my DanceVegi survived.
-LureDance seems to be a lot more useful than K.O.Dance for some reason. At least the DanceVegi uses PalsyAir.
-My Lionex has too little max MP to learn HealUs, so I'm going without that skill. I trust them to live long enough to be healed separately anyhow.
-My hardest fights so far have been the S-classification finale and the guardian of the Gate of Reflection (the latter of which I'm still working on beating).
-I opted to stock up on WorldDew and WorldLeaf items before entering the Gate of Reflection - if I'm lucky and get some ElfWater, the guardian matches in that gate will become possible.

Sorry for the delay, but I decided to test the WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex combination out.  I'm not completely done with it yet, but I have some insight regardless.

Advantages to this route:
-I can catch all but one monster I need before finishing E-class - the lone exception being BeanMan, which I can catch right before D-class.  (If I can [b]find[/b] another Plant-family monster besides FaceTree or Stubsuck before E-class, that will be substituted for BeanMan.)
-I can finish all but one breeding cycle quite quickly before completing D-class, since the monsters level so fast.
-Required skills are either naturally attained by the final monsters or were natural skills of the parents, meaning I can breed monsters ASAP.
-(NEW INFO) This combination gets ancillary skills from ancestry that make it quite lethal to combat.  For instance, the WhipBird gets Curse and both WhipBird and DanceVegi get SleepAll, which while not as lethal as PalsyAir, is still incredibly useful.  I completed C class with two monsters at level 12 (Lionex and DanceVegi) and the other at level 16 (Florajay, which will be one of WhipBird's parents soon) without a single of my monsters being KO'ed because of this fact (well, and the fact I switched constantly between Charge/Mixed/Cautious directions each round - that's the only commanding you're allowed to do in the Arena) - those are fairly low levels last I checked.

Known caveats:
-The last breeding cycle (to get WhipBird) has to be done after completing B-class (I said A-class earlier; my mistake), meaning I have to spend time making that lone monster catch up to the rest of the group.
-Four out of the five monsters I have to convince to join with treats have to be female, so serious luck manipulation to get the right genders must happen early.
-Due to how early I'll be breeding these monsters, the DanceVegi and Lionex will have pretty low stats.

Breeding Cycle:
-Get a female Dracky in the beginning Gate.
-Get a female Stubsuck, a Gremlin, and a Picky in the Gate of Villager, making sure the Gremlin and Picky are opposite genders, as well as fighting and getting the Dragon at the end.
-Get the Golem at the end of the Gate of Talisman - technically, getting Picky can be held off to here.
-Breed the Stubsuck with the Dragon to get FireWeed.
-Breed the Gremlin with the Picky to get Demonite.
-Get the FaceTree at the end of the Gate of Bewilder.
-Breed the Dracky with the FaceTree to get Florajay.
-Get a female BeanMan from the Gate of Bravery.
-Breed the Golem with the BeanMan to get Facer.
-Breed the Demonite with Mick's LizardMan (found by beating the Goopi in the north middle part of the Arena in Rock-Paper-Scissors, code of Scissors-Rock-Scissors-Paper-Scissors) to get Lionex.
-Breed the FireWeed with the Facer to get DanceVegi.
-Once you can breed with May's Rayburn (restaurant in northeast of arena, after B-class), breed the Florajay with it to get WhipBird.

I'll test how viable this group remains as I go, but regardless I'll be skipping out on the guardians of most gates because they don't give experience.

Edit: I discovered some nify info playing late into the game.  Apparently, your monsters know far more about your enemies' weaknesses and resistances than, usually, you would.  For instance, I noticed my WhipBird (who had somehow acquired the Bang series, and has Explodet) refused to use his attack spell on a pair of Servant monsters (I'm at the Gate of Reflection in this run, yes).  I couldn't believe it.  I directly ordered him to use Explodet, and to my surprise, both were indeed immune to that spell.  Interesting, isn't it?

For those that are wondering, in this test run I'm at the Gate of Reflection in 6 hours and 16 minutes.  It took so long because of several things:
-I didn't completely and utterly abuse luck.
-At times, I went out of my way to gain experience when my monsters were already pretty powerful.
-I did not run from a single battle (if my mindset continues, this would probably be the first RPG speedrun without a single incident of running away).  The reason?  If you run from a battle, your monsters' personalities change for the worse - and pretty drastically as well.
-I refused to find ways to stock up on Repellent (which would have alleviated the previous problem a little).

Some other notes so far:
-I went through EVERY classification match.  I might consider skipping A-class next time, but in any event there were some interesting close calls where only my DanceVegi survived.
-LureDance seems to be a lot more useful than K.O.Dance for some reason.  At least the DanceVegi uses PalsyAir.
-My Lionex has too little max MP to learn HealUs, so I'm going without that skill.  I trust them to live long enough to be healed separately anyhow.
-My hardest fights so far have been the S-classification finale and the guardian of the Gate of Reflection (the latter of which I'm still working on beating).
-I opted to stock up on WorldDew and WorldLeaf items before entering the Gate of Reflection - if I'm lucky and get some ElfWater, the guardian matches in that gate will become possible.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-11-04 05:15:02 pm

2005-11-04 05:07:36 pm

Never give up!

All right.

My variant of the WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex strategy, for the most part, works. However, I still need to refine it so that I have more time available by the end of the game if I need it.

This is evident because I can beat Durran at the end of the Gate of Reflection with items left over and every monster standing at the finish. However, there is still the matter of the Starry Night Tournament - I have a final save right before it at 6 hours and 57 minutes, which is cutting the tentative limit very closely.

The first two matches go very well - beating those two groups is simplistic in all honesty. However, beating Milayou, the final boss of the game, is another matter entirely. My DanceVegi - who is critical to this party because he is fast and has the disabling moves - gets knocked out by the end of the first round (usually around the point where her RainHawk casts MegaMagic) and the rest of my party follows suit in the second round before they can revive the DanceVegi or even heal themselves.

I'm going to have to look up and find out some monsters that are resistant to Zap, Explodet, and MegaMagic (the only three spells that Milayou's party ever uses), and see if I can seamlessly incorporate any of them into a party of three monsters.

I plan on starting another test run within a few days, so if there are any suggested strategies, I'd like to know before that time. Luck abuse in this early stage will still be very limited, particularly in the monster acquisition phase, so strategies revolving around that are not likely to be taken.

Mistakes during this run:
-I lost a lot of time at the Gate of Reflection - at least half an hour, probably more - because I did not have enough items during the first two trips to face Durran at the end.
-I also probably lost time fighting as many Mimics as I did - almost every chance I could, just because Mimics give the most experience at higher levels. I also refused to run from battles - this is perhaps the only RPG-style game I know about where running from a battle is a VERY bad idea.
-I might very well have bred certain monsters too early - Lionex is one case where I cannot hold off (although I'd like to know of a better Devil-class parent monster than Demonite that I can get and breed up reasonably quickly, because Demonite has too few MPs). I could, however, probably have waited on the breeding cycles for DanceVegi, just to get higher stats after breeding.

All right.

My variant of the WhipBird/DanceVegi/Lionex strategy, for the most part, works.  However, I still need to refine it so that I have more time available by the end of the game if I need it.

This is evident because I can beat Durran at the end of the Gate of Reflection with items left over and every monster standing at the finish.  However, there is still the matter of the Starry Night Tournament - I have a final save right before it at 6 hours and 57 minutes, which is cutting the tentative limit very closely.

The first two matches go very well - beating those two groups is simplistic in all honesty.  However, beating Milayou, the final boss of the game, is another matter entirely.  My DanceVegi - who is critical to this party because he is fast and has the disabling moves - gets knocked out by the end of the first round (usually around the point where her RainHawk casts MegaMagic) and the rest of my party follows suit in the second round before they can revive the DanceVegi or even heal themselves.

I'm going to have to look up and find out some monsters that are resistant to Zap, Explodet, and MegaMagic (the only three spells that Milayou's party ever uses), and see if I can seamlessly incorporate any of them into a party of three monsters.

I plan on starting another test run within a few days, so if there are any suggested strategies, I'd like to know before that time.  Luck abuse in this early stage will still be very limited, particularly in the monster acquisition phase, so strategies revolving around that are not likely to be taken.

Mistakes during this run:
-I lost a lot of time at the Gate of Reflection - at least half an hour, probably more - because I did not have enough items during the first two trips to face Durran at the end.
-I also probably lost time fighting as many Mimics as I did - almost every chance I could, just because Mimics give the most experience at higher levels.  I also refused to run from battles - this is perhaps the only RPG-style game I know about where running from a battle is a VERY bad idea.
-I might very well have bred certain monsters too early - Lionex is one case where I cannot hold off (although I'd like to know of a better Devil-class parent monster than Demonite that I can get and breed up reasonably quickly, because Demonite has too few MPs).  I could, however, probably have waited on the breeding cycles for DanceVegi, just to get higher stats after breeding.

Acryte

2005-11-05 10:36:12 am

Zelda Scientist®

Wait, I thought you just stole the lioneX? That one's really common. You also know that you can steal mettables right?

AquaTiger

2005-11-05 01:21:13 pm

Never give up!

Stole the Lionex? No way. Let me get the statement I think you misinterpreted:

Quote:

-Breed the Demonite with Mick's LizardMan (found by beating the Goopi in the north middle part of the Arena in Rock-Paper-Scissors, code of Scissors-Rock-Scissors-Paper-Scissors) to get Lionex.

I refer to one of the opportunities in-game to breed with someone else's monster. Lionex is gotten (well, this is one way) by breeding a Devil-class monster (although some Devils won't work here) with Lizardman - I felt it was better to use this breeding opportunity rather than use a Lizardman I got myself, considering that it isn't until the Gate of Reflection where you can get your own. Or should I wait that long? (In which case I must rely on luck to get Sirloins.)

As for Metabbles - I've seen owners with Metalys, but never Metabbles. Keep in mind, I'm limiting my luck abuse at this time. I'm not sure what route you're suggesting, unless this is for MetalKing or GoldSlime.

Acryte

2005-11-09 11:32:56 pm

Zelda Scientist®

Not sure about what route I'm suggesting by the mettables since I remembered you can steal MetalKings from the dudes (bookmarks help alot). I was suggesting a goldslime route that encompassed getting a goldslime quick by breeding goldgolem w/ the metalking. Either way, keep pluggin awat at the game and great job.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2005-12-29 06:34:46 pm

2005-12-29 06:13:00 pm

Never give up!

Alright.

Since I got the Game Boy Player I need to record this run, I am going to revive my plans for doing this.

Who knows, I may even record some segments and show them to people.

Edit: Looking at my old strategy again, I'll skip the breeding with Mick's Lizardman and breed the final combinations as late as possible (just before S-class, except for the one where I need a Lizardman, which I'll do immediately AFTER S-class). This means that Florajay, Fireweed and either Demonite or Facer will have to see me through most of the game. The reason I want to hold off breeding? They'll have higher stats if I breed the monsters later rather than sooner.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2006-01-09 09:07:54 pm

2006-01-09 06:05:32 pm

Never give up!

It's official - I've picked up this game again.

I've read somewhere (read: the Japanese speedruns thread in General Chat) that a speedrun was done on the Japanese version of this game and their time was below 4 hours and 30 minutes. That gave me renewed interest in attempting an on-console speedrun. (Although I'm curious what monsters they use in that run.)

Well, technically it's still practice right now, but so be it.

I've decided the first segment will carry me from the beginning of the game to right in front of the first Traveler's Gate. 3 minutes at that point. Why that small of a segment right at the start, you might ask?
-I can't save behind Traveler's Gates at this stage.
-I need Slib's hit points to be above 28 - the number is somewhat randomly determined.
-I want to optimize this part.

That said, there's a couple miscues this early. One is going the wrong direction in a couple of places - less than two seconds total lost on that. The other, larger one is saying the wrong thing to Pulio (it's a couple of seconds faster to tell him 'no' at first rather than 'yes', but I rushed and accidentally picked 'yes') when the first choice comes up. Other than that, the segment's good - Slib had 30 HP, the highest I've ever seen him have.

Edit: I took care of what will be the second segment today as well - completing the Beginner's Gate, getting a female Dracky in the process, and getting to the Arena. I'm at 7 minutes to that point. The segment took a lot of restarts because the female Dracky didn't want to show up. I also had a bit of a close call against Hale, the Healer monster at the end of the Beginner's Gate, but now that he's on my team things get a bit easier.

It's official - I've picked up this game again.

I've read somewhere (read: the Japanese speedruns thread in General Chat) that a speedrun was done on the Japanese version of this game and their time was below 4 hours and 30 minutes.  That gave me renewed interest in attempting an on-console speedrun.  (Although I'm curious what monsters they use in that run.)

Well, technically it's still practice right now, but so be it.

I've decided the first segment will carry me from the beginning of the game to right in front of the first Traveler's Gate.  3 minutes at that point.  Why that small of a segment right at the start, you might ask?
-I can't save behind Traveler's Gates at this stage.
-I need Slib's hit points to be above 28 - the number is somewhat randomly determined.
-I want to optimize this part.

That said, there's a couple miscues this early.  One is going the wrong direction in a couple of places - less than two seconds total lost on that.  The other, larger one is saying the wrong thing to Pulio (it's a couple of seconds faster to tell him 'no' at first rather than 'yes', but I rushed and accidentally picked 'yes') when the first choice comes up.  Other than that, the segment's good - Slib had 30 HP, the highest I've ever seen him have.

Edit: I took care of what will be the second segment today as well - completing the Beginner's Gate, getting a female Dracky in the process, and getting to the Arena.  I'm at 7 minutes to that point.  The segment took a lot of restarts because the female Dracky didn't want to show up.  I also had a bit of a close call against Hale, the Healer monster at the end of the Beginner's Gate, but now that he's on my team things get a bit easier.

Enhasa

2006-01-10 05:52:27 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

But hopefully the 2:03 doesn't scare the living crap out of you. Wink

Look in that thread again for more info.

AquaTiger

2006-01-10 01:17:51 pm

Never give up!

2:03? Unfortunately I can't read that report in that other thread, since I don't know a shred of written Japanese. And website translators seem to be unable to give me a meaningful translation, although I did pick up somewhere that they use a Grizzly. Grizzly monsters have insane attack, which may help them since they can manipulate luck to their will - I'm pretty sure that's a tool-assisted time - but they have low defense, especially magic defense, which is why I don't bother with them in the strategy I have now.

I think going below four hours (it might go all the way down to three if things go REALLY well) on a live console is good enough for a human player.

Anyway, I just played what would be the third segment - surviving G class and getting to just before the Gate of Villager. My time's 11 minutes to that point, and the only error I can think of was probably opting not to restart when the last group of monsters in the classification matches decided to poison my whole group (the extra text probably took away at least half a minute, even with the fastest possible text speed).

By the way, I realize these short segments kind of go against my normal principle of going as long as possible before saving. There's just that much luck manipulation that needs to go on this early. Trust me, later segments will be longer.

2:03?  Unfortunately I can't read that report in that other thread, since I don't know a shred of written Japanese.  And website translators seem to be unable to give me a meaningful translation, although I did pick up somewhere that they use a Grizzly.  Grizzly monsters have insane attack, which may help them since they can manipulate luck to their will - I'm pretty sure that's a tool-assisted time - but they have low defense, especially magic defense, which is why I don't bother with them in the strategy I have now.

I think going below four hours (it might go all the way down to three if things go REALLY well) on a live console is good enough for a human player.

Anyway, I just played what would be the third segment - surviving G class and getting to just before the Gate of Villager.  My time's 11 minutes to that point, and the only error I can think of was probably opting not to restart when the last group of monsters in the classification matches decided to poison my whole group (the extra text probably took away at least half a minute, even with the fastest possible text speed).

By the way, I realize these short segments kind of go against my normal principle of going as long as possible before saving.  There's just that much luck manipulation that needs to go on this early.  Trust me, later segments will be longer.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2006-01-11 04:49:34 am

2006-01-10 08:05:03 pm

Never give up!

More progress has been made.

I've completed what will be the fourth segment - making it through the Gate of Villager while picking up a female Stubsuck, a Gremlin, and the Dragon at the end. I'm at 21 minutes at this point - it would have been less, but I did some levelling that turned out to be absolutely crucial at the fight with the Dragon. That fire breath of his is an absolute killer. (Actually, none of my monsters collapsed during the fight - the Healer, Stubsuck, and Gremlin all came very close to it multiple times though.)

I also sold all the items I had to this point, although my mistake was not having the 400 gold I needed for the Beast Tail even after selling - I had about 383 or something like that. Why the Beast Tail? It makes finding the exit of each level of the Traveller's Gate much faster, as it acts like a compass. (If I wind up getting MapMagic though, I can probably ditch the Beast Tail.)

Edit: Completed what would be the fifth segment - completing the entire Gate of Talisman while getting a Picky and the Golem. I'm at 31 minutes, which includes one fairly significant mistake - I tried to beat the F-class matches and failed at it. Normally that'd be an instant restart of the whole segment, and in the final run such an incident will be so, but since I had the money to enter it again, did not want to go through the trouble of getting a Picky again, and am on the practice run, I just decided to save it there. That'd probably be two or maybe three minutes right there.

More progress has been made.

I've completed what will be the fourth segment - making it through the Gate of Villager while picking up a female Stubsuck, a Gremlin, and the Dragon at the end.  I'm at 21 minutes at this point - it would have been less, but I did some levelling that turned out to be absolutely crucial at the fight with the Dragon.  That fire breath of his is an absolute killer.  (Actually, none of my monsters collapsed during the fight - the Healer, Stubsuck, and Gremlin all came very close to it multiple times though.)

I also sold all the items I had to this point, although my mistake was not having the 400 gold I needed for the Beast Tail even after selling - I had about 383 or something like that.  Why the Beast Tail?  It makes finding the exit of each level of the Traveller's Gate much faster, as it acts like a compass.  (If I wind up getting MapMagic though, I can probably ditch the Beast Tail.)

Edit: Completed what would be the fifth segment - completing the entire Gate of Talisman while getting a Picky and the Golem.  I'm at 31 minutes, which includes one fairly significant mistake - I tried to beat the F-class matches and failed at it.  Normally that'd be an instant restart of the whole segment, and in the final run such an incident will be so, but since I had the money to enter it again, did not want to go through the trouble of getting a Picky again, and am on the practice run, I just decided to save it there.  That'd probably be two or maybe three minutes right there.

AquaTiger

Edit history:

AquaTiger: 2006-01-12 05:48:02 am

2006-01-12 03:57:23 am

Never give up!

Okay. Still more progress being made. Sorry for the triple post, but I'm basically making one post a day and updating that as the day goes on.

I couldn't do much, but I did complete what would be the next segment - beating F-class. It took a lot more tries than expected - I even had to swap a monster out and put a different one in just to have a chance. Stubsuck is horrid compared to Gremlin when it comes to beating groups of 3.

I'm at 34 minutes to this point, and I'm considering the bizarre move of skipping E-class altogether. (I can revisit the Gate of Bravery later.) In order to do this, I will need to breed the Stubsuck and the Dragon, and then try to raise the resulting Fireweed up a few levels, then put the Gremlin and the Healer I have in the same party with him.

Later (after the Gate of Anger, one of only three completely mandatory gates, hopefully), I will need to breed Gremlin and Picky, then Dracky with the FaceTree I'm getting in Bewilder, then Golem with the BeanMan I plan on getting when I finally go to the Gate of Bravery. Those sets will be bred early, then I'll just have to wait.

FireWeed, Demonite, and Facer (or on occasion, Florajay) are going to be seeing me through until after B-class, when I swap out Demonite for WhipBird (from Florajay and May's RayBurn). After S-class I plan on picking up a Lizardman in the Gate of Reflection, and breeding the Demonite with it then, as well as breeding the Fireweed and Facer there too. I know I'll have to start from scratch as far as monster levels go, but my final monsters will be that much more powerful if I wait this long.

Anyway, I might have missed him saying something on this, but I wonder if Acryte (or anyone else proficient with this game) agrees with me on the notion that I should never run away from a battle.

Edit: Completed the Gate of Bewilder. Due to some odd luck, I did this in two trips. What kind of odd luck? Well, my Healer got knocked out, and both my Dragon and Stubsuck were poisoned, but I was able to find a Warpwing. I swapped Healer out for Dracky and things went well after that. At the end of the gate, I took on every Stubsuck except the farthest one, as those give massive experience and I desperately needed it. In fact, Dracky got to level 10 by the end of the gate, which allowed me to breed her (that's right, it was a female) with the FaceTree right away. I'll hatch the Florajay I got as a result later - for now I have to raise Dragon, Stubsuck, Gremlin, Picky, and possibly Golem up a few levels.

I'm at 43 minutes following this part, and some severe levelling may be in order very soon. However, if I can get away with not levelling until the Gate of Anger, I'm going to wait until then - it'll take far less time to level up there.

Edit 2: I've decided to make my next segment a levelling-up of Dragon, Stubsuck, Gremlin, and Picky, followed by breeding all four of them off and hatching the resulting eggs. I'll be using the Gate of Bewilder to do this, since although that gate will probably aggravate me to no end (damn EvilSeeds and their paralyzing abilities), it's the best gate for levelling that I have open. And I'm not able to beat D-class or even E-class at this point, since I didn't spend too much time levelling yet, so I figure this: Why not get the monster set that will see me through to late in the game right now?

Edit 3: The level-up segment is done. I officially have FireWeed, Demonite, and Golem as my party right now. Once I level those three up some more, I shall tackle either E-class or, if I'm lucky, D-class. My time is 58 minutes at this point, but I think things will pick up from here.

Okay.  Still more progress being made.  Sorry for the triple post, but I'm basically making one post a day and updating that as the day goes on.

I couldn't do much, but I did complete what would be the next segment - beating F-class.  It took a lot more tries than expected - I even had to swap a monster out and put a different one in just to have a chance.  Stubsuck is horrid compared to Gremlin when it comes to beating groups of 3.

I'm at 34 minutes to this point, and I'm considering the bizarre move of skipping E-class altogether.  (I can revisit the Gate of Bravery later.)  In order to do this, I will need to breed the Stubsuck and the Dragon, and then try to raise the resulting Fireweed up a few levels, then put the Gremlin and the Healer I have in the same party with him.

Later (after the Gate of Anger, one of only three completely mandatory gates, hopefully), I will need to breed Gremlin and Picky, then Dracky with the FaceTree I'm getting in Bewilder, then Golem with the BeanMan I plan on getting when I finally go to the Gate of Bravery.  Those sets will be bred early, then I'll just have to wait.

FireWeed, Demonite, and Facer (or on occasion, Florajay) are going to be seeing me through until after B-class, when I swap out Demonite for WhipBird (from Florajay and May's RayBurn).  After S-class I plan on picking up a Lizardman in the Gate of Reflection, and breeding the Demonite with it then, as well as breeding the Fireweed and Facer there too.  I know I'll have to start from scratch as far as monster levels go, but my final monsters will be that much more powerful if I wait this long.

Anyway, I might have missed him saying something on this, but I wonder if Acryte (or anyone else proficient with this game) agrees with me on the notion that I should never run away from a battle.

Edit: Completed the Gate of Bewilder.  Due to some odd luck, I did this in two trips.  What kind of odd luck?  Well, my Healer got knocked out, and both my Dragon and Stubsuck were poisoned, but I was able to find a Warpwing.  I swapped Healer out for Dracky and things went well after that.  At the end of the gate, I took on every Stubsuck except the farthest one, as those give massive experience and I desperately needed it.  In fact, Dracky got to level 10 by the end of the gate, which allowed me to breed her (that's right, it was a female) with the FaceTree right away.  I'll hatch the Florajay I got as a result later - for now I have to raise Dragon, Stubsuck, Gremlin, Picky, and possibly Golem up a few levels.

I'm at 43 minutes following this part, and some severe levelling may be in order very soon.  However, if I can get away with not levelling until the Gate of Anger, I'm going to wait until then - it'll take far less time to level up there.

Edit 2: I've decided to make my next segment a levelling-up of Dragon, Stubsuck, Gremlin, and Picky, followed by breeding all four of them off and hatching the resulting eggs.  I'll be using the Gate of Bewilder to do this, since although that gate will probably aggravate me to no end (damn EvilSeeds and their paralyzing abilities), it's the best gate for levelling that I have open.  And I'm not able to beat D-class or even E-class at this point, since I didn't spend too much time levelling yet, so I figure this:  Why not get the monster set that will see me through to late in the game right now?

Edit 3: The level-up segment is done.  I officially have FireWeed, Demonite, and Golem as my party right now.  Once I level those three up some more, I shall tackle either E-class or, if I'm lucky, D-class.  My time is 58 minutes at this point, but I think things will pick up from here.