Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu/Mystic Quest) (GB)

2013-08-12 06:54:20 am

I was very surprised I could not find a thread for this one. All I could really find was a Japanese RTA (http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10908025) and the TAS (http://tasvideos.org/3020S.html).

The TAS route is possible but there is a lot of unfortunate luck involved. Also at that low level the final boss is damn near impossible for myself and I am sure most would have trouble. Also, one of the warps requires you to start sliding in the previous room, meaning you can slide right into spawns that will kill you. Getting to Julius with the girl instead of the man is safer as well since you have a constant source of free (outside of menu time) healing. The man might do some damage to Julius's first form if you are lucky, but in general he was pretty useless when I did not die instantly.

I am pretty far from matching the Japanese RTA time but I got 59:51 the other day (http://www.twitch.tv/revenantkioku/c/2730839). I have a few mistakes, but so does the Japanese RTA, so I known that it is definitely beatable.

I do have a few questions as I have never done a speed run before.

Since I am doing save/reload I suppose this would be an RTA, right?

What is the best way to do the timing? I go from pressing start on entering the girl's name to the last hit on Julius's third form. The reason for doing it after I put in the girl's name is that it seems the text box speedis controled by the player. The fastest I have been able to get it is by holding down A (or B) until the text ends then tapping the button. Holding down will not proceed, rapidly precessing is slower. You cannot proceed by tapping A (or B) while the other is pressed down. Some text cannot be sped up.

I am just learning so I do not really know the exact mechanics behind why these tricks work. In the RTA the three necessary skips are:

1. Warping to the snowy area. After saving the girl from the vampire, you get stuck on some plants in a screen transition, clear them with the sickle, save and then moving the screen to warp. In my latest run I brain-farted and reloaded my save when I could have just pressed left. Definitely slower to reload.
2. Performing a sword Will Attack perpendicular to a sliding tile. This is used several times in the TAS. In the RTA it is done in a fairly tricky spot where some bad spawns can slow it down. It also helps t
3. The Snowman Trick: This is why grinding walruses (walri?) is important. You get a spell which casts ice, go to the area with three doors and save/reload. This spawns some enemies, one of which you turn into a snowman and then push down into the stairs. Your NPC is also necessary as they help by pushing you into the snowman. Once you are about half way in you destroy the snowman and walk down into the area right before the final area. It is very important here to take the warp and not go up because otherwise you will go back to the snow area.

One unfortunate thing is that there are a few drops that are really necessary for the speed. You need the enemies in the cave where you get the sickle to drop Mattocks. One drop is necessary but the more the better because you want to fill your inventory.
In the vampire's area you want to get some Crystals from the owls so that you can instantly fill up your Will bar for skip 2.
Once you get to the snowy area you need to get the ice casting item from a walrus to do Skip 3.

Once you get to the last area, you want to have or get a full inventory to easily get the Aegis Shield, Genji Armor and Genji Helm. Elephants, Ninjas and Demon Heads drop them respectively.

If you get them to drop a chest when your inventory is full and their chest contains the item, when the "Your inventory is full." message comes up, just ignore it and keep on trying to open the chest. Eventually you will be given the equipment instead.

Ninjas drop elixirs so doing the last bit of grinding on them is optimal. They give good XP as well.

If there is a way to mess with the RNG, that would probably be a place to start to make Skip 2 or just get the drops in general, but I am not exactly sure what to do to figure that out.

Anyway, this has been fun as my first attempt at running a game. Like I said, I am pretty much going off of the information from others. I have not really figured out anything myself just yet, but hopefully I can figure out what the best way to do timing is and then start working towards something optimal.

Thread title:

I was very surprised I could not find a thread for this one. All I could really find was a Japanese RTA (http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10908025) and the TAS (http://tasvideos.org/3020S.html).

The TAS route [i]is[/i] possible but there is a lot of unfortunate luck involved. Also at that low level the final boss is damn near impossible for myself and I am sure most would have trouble. Also, one of the warps requires you to start sliding in the previous room, meaning you can slide right into spawns that will kill you. Getting to Julius with the girl instead of the man is safer as well since you have a constant source of free (outside of menu time) healing. The man [i]might[/i] do some damage to Julius's first form [i]if you are lucky[/i], but in general he was pretty useless when I did not die instantly.

I am pretty far from matching the Japanese RTA time but I got 59:51 the other day (http://www.twitch.tv/revenantkioku/c/2730839). I have a few mistakes, but so does the Japanese RTA, so I known that it is definitely beatable.

I do have a few questions as I have never done a speed run before.

Since I am doing save/reload I suppose this would be an RTA, right?

What is the best way to do the timing? I go from pressing start on entering the girl's name to the last hit on Julius's third form. The reason for doing it after I put in the girl's name is that it seems the text box speed[i]is[/i] controled by the player. The fastest I have been able to get it is by holding down A (or B) until the text ends then tapping the button. Holding down will not proceed, rapidly precessing is slower. You cannot proceed by tapping A (or B) while the other is pressed down. Some text cannot be sped up.

I am just learning so I do not really know the exact mechanics behind why these tricks work. In the RTA the three necessary skips are:

1. [b]Warping to the snowy area.[/b] After saving the girl from the vampire, you get stuck on some plants in a screen transition, clear them with the sickle, save and then moving the screen to warp. In my latest run I brain-farted and reloaded my save when I could have just pressed left. Definitely slower to reload.
2. [b]Performing a sword Will Attack perpendicular to a sliding tile.[/b] This is used several times in the TAS. In the RTA it is done in a fairly tricky spot where some bad spawns can slow it down. It also helps t
3. [b]The Snowman Trick[/b]: This is why grinding walruses (walri?) is important. You get a spell which casts ice, go to the area with three doors and save/reload. This spawns some enemies, one of which you turn into a snowman and then push down into the stairs. Your NPC is also necessary as they help by pushing you into the snowman. Once you are about half way in you destroy the snowman and walk down into the area right before the final area. It is [b]very important[/b] here to take the warp and not go up because otherwise you will go back to the snow area.

One unfortunate thing is that there are a few drops that are really necessary for the speed. You need the enemies in the cave where you get the sickle to drop Mattocks. One drop is necessary but the more the better because you want to fill your inventory.
In the vampire's area you want to get some Crystals from the owls so that you can instantly fill up your Will bar for skip 2.
Once you get to the snowy area you need to get the ice casting item from a walrus to do Skip 3.

Once you get to the last area, you want to have or get a full inventory to easily get the Aegis Shield, Genji Armor and Genji Helm. Elephants, Ninjas and Demon Heads drop them respectively.

If you get them to drop a chest when your inventory is full and their chest contains the item, when the "Your inventory is full." message comes up, just ignore it and keep on trying to open the chest. Eventually you will be given the equipment instead.

Ninjas drop elixirs so doing the last bit of grinding on them is optimal. They give good XP as well.

If there is a way to mess with the RNG, that would probably be a place to start to make Skip 2 or just get the drops in general, but I am not exactly sure what to do to figure that out.

Anyway, this has been fun as my first attempt at running a game. Like I said, I am pretty much going off of the information from others. I have not really figured out anything myself just yet, but hopefully I can figure out what the best way to do timing is and then start working towards something optimal.

puwexil

2013-08-12 08:28:41 am

Professional Second Banana

Quote from revenantkioku:

I do have a few questions as I have never done a speed run before.

Since I am doing save/reload I suppose this would be an RTA, right?

What is the best way to do the timing? I go from pressing start on entering the girl's name to the last hit on Julius's third form. The reason for doing it after I put in the girl's name is that it seems the text box speedis controled by the player. The fastest I have been able to get it is by holding down A (or B) until the text ends then tapping the button. Holding down will not proceed, rapidly precessing is slower. You cannot proceed by tapping A (or B) while the other is pressed down. Some text cannot be sped up.

Yeah, if you're using tricks that involve resetting the game, your run would be considered 'Single Segment with Resets' (also known as RTA). SDA accepts SS w/resets submissions for all games now.

SDA timing is from gaining until losing of player control (which doesn't include opening or ending cutscenes if they're just text boxes with no meaningful player input), so for SD1/FFA I'd say timing would start when you are first able to move the boy during the intro battle with the arena monster, and end on the final hit on Julius.

Also, if you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading the recording section of our KB at https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Main_Page, and posting a sample recording in our tech support forum at https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/board/tech_support.html per the instructions in the stickied thread at the top, just to make sure your recording setup is good before you get a run to submit.

[quote="revenantkioku"]I do have a few questions as I have never done a speed run before.

Since I am doing save/reload I suppose this would be an RTA, right?

What is the best way to do the timing? I go from pressing start on entering the girl's name to the last hit on Julius's third form. The reason for doing it after I put in the girl's name is that it seems the text box speed[i]is[/i] controled by the player. The fastest I have been able to get it is by holding down A (or B) until the text ends then tapping the button. Holding down will not proceed, rapidly precessing is slower. You cannot proceed by tapping A (or B) while the other is pressed down. Some text cannot be sped up.[/quote]
Yeah, if you're using tricks that involve resetting the game, your run would be considered 'Single Segment with Resets' (also known as RTA).  SDA accepts SS w/resets submissions for all games now.

SDA timing is from gaining until losing of player control (which doesn't include opening or ending cutscenes if they're just text boxes with no meaningful player input), so for SD1/FFA I'd say timing would start when you are first able to move the boy during the intro battle with the arena monster, and end on the final hit on Julius.

Also, if you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading the recording section of our KB at https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Main_Page, and posting a sample recording in our tech support forum at https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/board/tech_support.html per the instructions in the stickied thread at the top, just to make sure your recording setup is good before you get a run to submit.

revenantkioku

2013-08-13 11:34:49 pm

Thanks! I dunno when I will actually be able to record a run (I currently have to play through my capture device. Need a better setup.)

I forgot to mention an important thing early on! There is a glitch where you can get a lot more defense out of armor than you should.

Instead of rushing to meet the girl, I grind the 140 R necessary to buy the iron helm. When the textbox comes up, I press start to open the menu, move the iron helm one slot over, get out save and restart. When it loads up, I press start after the textbox (You can proceed the textbox with start which is what I do.) then equip the helm to go up to 17 defense instead of 9 as usual. Ignore my fumbling when I try to equip the helm, that was just me literally screwing up.

Melodia

2013-08-14 12:03:04 am

Wow, I really like that color scheme for that game.

Yeah irrelevant to the run I know but still.

RaneofSOTN

2013-08-14 12:15:00 am

I want off the ride....

that double helmet is really key to being able to do anything. Those worms doing 10hp in the cave was just MURDER.

revenantkioku

2013-08-14 06:07:46 am

Yeah, they will do one damage or so now. Getting a good rhythm down for the grinding is necessary. The RTA focuses on the corner area, but I think working down that way and then moving over to the field next to where the girl is will probably be the best bet.

Poxnor

2013-08-18 02:29:42 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Another idea: instead of relying on getting a mattock drop, you could purchase a mattock in the Marsh Shop where you buy the key. Glitch the bronze helm to give 17 defence (instead of glitching the iron helm), and you can sell the iron helm for 70 gil, to pay for the mattock.

Lhexa

2013-08-19 10:49:43 pm

This was my favorite GB game, so I'd love to see a run of it. Best of luck to you!

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-07 02:30:44 pm

Crow!: 2014-05-06 01:01:19 pm

2014-05-06 01:00:27 pm

What's that gemma?

I've started working on a warpless / no OoB route. My latest run is here:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4202782
Edit: here's one that's 20 minutes faster:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4209622

Similar games (e.g. Zelda: ALttP) usually consider No OoB to be the primary category, but I can't seem to find any work toward that for this game. I think there should be, so here I am. (There is a TAS, but it does some pretty unrealistic things).

I'm presently working on optimizing a Wisdom based build, rather than the more intuitive Power route. My theory is that, in the mid game, Fire lets you level up faster than physical attacks, while in the late game, Will becomes the most important stat for killing bosses.

A full Will bar makes a spell deal triple damage, while physical attacks deal only double damage. Leveling up Will grants Wisdom but not Power. By level 25, leveling up Will improves your DPS vs bosses (even for physical attacks) more so than leveling up Power or Wisdom.

After I feel like I'm approaching a good time for the Wisdom route, I'll try a Power route and see which way seems to be faster in practice rather than just in theory.

The only sequence breaks I know of that don't require warps are that you can skip the Chocobo in the Jad area and you can get Nuke from Lich before rescuing Lorim. Nuke seems worth it for the Wisdom route, but I'm not sure about a Power build. There's a lot of risk fighting Lich that early, as his skulls one-shot you and his body may or may not one-shot you depending on dice rolls.

I've started working on a warpless / no OoB route.  My latest run is here:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4202782
Edit: here's one that's 20 minutes faster:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4209622

Similar games (e.g. Zelda: ALttP) usually consider No OoB to be the primary category, but I can't seem to find any work toward that for this game.  I think there should be, so here I am.  (There is a TAS, but it does some pretty unrealistic things).

I'm presently working on optimizing a Wisdom based build, rather than the more intuitive Power route.  My theory is that, in the mid game, Fire lets you level up faster than physical attacks, while in the late game, Will becomes the most important stat for killing bosses.

A full Will bar makes a spell deal triple damage, while physical attacks deal only double damage.  Leveling up Will grants Wisdom but not Power.  By level 25, leveling up Will improves your DPS vs bosses (even for physical attacks) more so than leveling up Power or Wisdom.

After I feel like I'm approaching a good time for the Wisdom route, I'll try a Power route and see which way seems to be faster in practice rather than just in theory.

The only sequence breaks I know of that don't require warps are that you can skip the Chocobo in the Jad area and you can get Nuke from Lich before rescuing Lorim.  Nuke seems worth it for the Wisdom route, but I'm not sure about a Power build.  There's a lot of risk fighting Lich that early, as his skulls one-shot you and his body may or may not one-shot you depending on dice rolls.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-09 04:06:18 pm

Crow!: 2014-05-09 10:03:09 am

Crow!: 2014-05-09 10:01:12 am

Crow!: 2014-05-09 09:59:02 am

2014-05-09 02:56:31 am

What's that gemma?

Some game mechanics data:

You can use items and spells (e.g. Cure) while stepping onto a teleporter square (e.g. stairs) in order to bypass the animation while still gaining the effect.

While you are in post-damage invincibility, you cannot interact with event tiles. This means no pushing buttons, and no activating teleporter squares. You can also walk into and through otherwise immobile objects such as treasure chests or Hasim's corpse, and those objects will be pushed away from yourself once you stop flashing. (I'll note that, if you could somehow take damage in the first screen of the Silver Mine, you could probably bypass needing Oil and therefore skip Wendel).

Damage to enemies gets scheduled to be applied before it actually gets applied, and there is only one slot for that damage to be. One consequence of this is, if two sources of damage come in rapid succession, the second one is applied and not the first. This can be bad if your companion's attack is less powerful than yours against the enemy in question.

There is a bug regarding loading saved games, where the game doesn't acutally set your Wisdom value for spell damages when the game is loaded. Looking at the status screen (or leveling up, which shows the status screen) fixes this.

Buffing crystals last around 12 seconds, and grant +15 of the stat in question. Each unit of Will generates 0.00625 of a bar of the Will Meter per second, so in the ideal case scenario, the Will crystal item is as effective as the Crystal item. Saved games do not remember any active buffs.

Even without filling the bar completely, the fullness of a Will meter seems to grant some bonus to damage output. I do not know the precise math for this, but suffice it to say that if an attack is sometimes strong enough and sometimes not strong enough to one-shot an enemy, then with a nearly full Will meter the attack generally will get the kill.

The Medusa's skirt is vulnerable to fire but not to physical attacks. However, the skirt takes only half damage from fire, so a Wisdom build must target the head if possible.

If you stand too close to the target that you burn with Fire, you will be stunned for the entire spell duration rather than just for the casting time. A Fire cast can be lost if you release the bolt with an unfortunate timing relative to its would-be target being deleted. The Lit spell's explosion animation can sometimes fail to occur, with comic results.

There is an interactable entity attached to Mattock-able walls. Walking into that entity lags the game heavily; therefore, you should not walk into a wall as it is exploding.

Trying to push any entity (even a non-enemy like a treasure chest or a snowman) while the Slep spell is active causes the game to lock up for a very long time.

Some game mechanics data:

You can use items and spells (e.g. Cure) while stepping onto a teleporter square (e.g. stairs) in order to bypass the animation while still gaining the effect.

While you are in post-damage invincibility, you cannot interact with event tiles.  This means no pushing buttons, and no activating teleporter squares.  You can also walk into and through otherwise immobile objects such as treasure chests or Hasim's corpse, and those objects will be pushed away from yourself once you stop flashing.  (I'll note that, if you could somehow take damage in the first screen of the Silver Mine, you could probably bypass needing Oil and therefore skip Wendel).

Damage to enemies gets scheduled to be applied before it actually gets applied, and there is only one slot for that damage to be.  One consequence of this is, if two sources of damage come in rapid succession, the second one is applied and not the first.  This can be bad if your companion's attack is less powerful than yours against the enemy in question.

There is a bug regarding loading saved games, where the game doesn't acutally set your Wisdom value for spell damages when the game is loaded.  Looking at the status screen (or leveling up, which shows the status screen) fixes this.

Buffing crystals last around 12 seconds, and grant +15 of the stat in question.  Each unit of Will generates 0.00625 of a bar of the Will Meter per second, so in the ideal case scenario, the Will crystal item is as effective as the Crystal item.  Saved games do not remember any active buffs.

Even without filling the bar completely, the fullness of a Will meter seems to grant some bonus to damage output.  I do not know the precise math for this, but suffice it to say that if an attack is sometimes strong enough and sometimes not strong enough to one-shot an enemy, then with a nearly full Will meter the attack generally will get the kill.

The Medusa's skirt is vulnerable to fire but not to physical attacks.  However, the skirt takes only half damage from fire, so a Wisdom build must target the head if possible.

If you stand too close to the target that you burn with Fire, you will be stunned for the entire spell duration rather than just for the casting time.  A Fire cast can be lost if you release the bolt with an unfortunate timing relative to its would-be target being deleted.  The Lit spell's explosion animation can sometimes fail to occur, [url=http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4204810]with comic results[/url].

There is an interactable entity attached to Mattock-able walls.  Walking into that entity lags the game heavily; therefore, you should not walk into a wall as it is exploding.

Trying to push any entity (even a non-enemy like a treasure chest or a snowman) while the Slep spell is active causes the game to lock up for a very long time.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-11 01:28:39 pm

Crow!: 2014-05-11 01:22:06 pm

2014-05-11 01:16:14 pm

What's that gemma?

I've been working on a physical attack based route. It has a very different power curve than the magical route I had been running before, yet the two builds seem to complete the game in very similar amounts of time, which I find surprising. It means I'm going to have to optimize both routes fairly well before I can know which one is really better.

Some notes on a physical route:

The armor glitch (seen in the video in the 3rd post here) is worth it to a physical attacker, whereas it isn't worth it to the Wisdom build. There are many cases where you can kill stuff faster by blundering straight into them, and the armor goes a long way toward making Medusa's cave bearable.

The mid game requires preparation; once you reach Davias's mansion, the armor glitch ceases to be helpful (as the glitched helmet is inferior to the gold helmet), and both this dungeon and the previous one have precious few opportunities to score kills and gain levels. Beating Davias quickly requires bum rushing him, which means that you can't afford to get one-shot by him. The following areas are also brutal if you don't prepare. So, here's what I do:

- Once I have 20 Power points, I start leveling Stamina until the Dark Lord's castle.
- Pick up chests that have an opportunity to be bags of Gold. If you don't get any, sell one of the Owls' crystals.
--- You need to buy curatives in the mid game, and the Flame Whip at Ish, and it's harder to kill enemies than the magical route.
- Farm the pre-Airship Werewolves.
--- Werewolf rooms have the peculiar property that the enemies spawn regardless of whether you recently cleared that screen of enemies. (Thanks to BowieTheHero for telling me this!)
--- Right now I'm gaining 3 levels here.
- Visit the Jad item shop and buy some potions, both on the way into Davias's mansion (unless you happened to have enough cure potions for the fight from earlier in the game) and on the way out.
- Get the Were Axe from Davias's Mansion.

And with that combination of resources, you can get through the Dark Lord fight notably ahead of Wisdom builds.

With no Wisdom or MP to power the Cure spell, healing becomes a big problem in the late game. I'm picking up Elixirs from the Ice Cavern (2 room detour) as well as from the Ammonite Coast island (both on the way to get the Rusty Sword and the way back). I also stock up on X-Cures at the Floatrocks item shop. Ideally, I could cut out the Ice Cavern Elixir, and a very lucky / skilled run could probably cut the X-Cure shopping as well.

Levels 30 and later should be Will levels rather than Power levels. Assuming that you can land both halves of the sword special attack, and assuming that my understanding of this game's damage formulae is correct, the special attack DPS exceeds that of your physical attacks at around this level, and that damage increases faster by leveling Will than by leveling Power.

Unfortunately, though, the Dragon Sword and the Excalibur just don't compare to the power of Nuke. The last several bosses are wildly slower than the Wisdom build.

I've been working on a physical attack based route.  It has a very different power curve than the magical route I had been running before, yet the two builds seem to complete the game in very similar amounts of time, which I find surprising.  It means I'm going to have to optimize both routes fairly well before I can know which one is really better.

Some notes on a physical route:

The armor glitch (seen in the video in the 3rd post here) is worth it to a physical attacker, whereas it isn't worth it to the Wisdom build.  There are many cases where you can kill stuff faster by blundering straight into them, and the armor goes a long way toward making Medusa's cave bearable.

The mid game requires preparation; once you reach Davias's mansion, the armor glitch ceases to be helpful (as the glitched helmet is inferior to the gold helmet), and both this dungeon and the previous one have precious few opportunities to score kills and gain levels.  Beating Davias quickly requires bum rushing him, which means that you can't afford to get one-shot by him.  The following areas are also brutal if you don't prepare.  So, here's what I do:

- Once I have 20 Power points, I start leveling Stamina until the Dark Lord's castle.
- Pick up chests that have an opportunity to be bags of Gold.  If you don't get any, sell one of the Owls' crystals.
--- You need to buy curatives in the mid game, and the Flame Whip at Ish, and it's harder to kill enemies than the magical route.
- Farm the pre-Airship Werewolves.
--- Werewolf rooms have the peculiar property that the enemies spawn regardless of whether you recently cleared that screen of enemies. (Thanks to BowieTheHero for telling me this!)
--- Right now I'm gaining 3 levels here.
- Visit the Jad item shop and buy some potions, both on the way into Davias's mansion (unless you happened to have enough cure potions for the fight from earlier in the game) and on the way out.
- Get the Were Axe from Davias's Mansion.

And with that combination of resources, you can get through the Dark Lord fight notably ahead of Wisdom builds.

With no Wisdom or MP to power the Cure spell, healing becomes a big problem in the late game.  I'm picking up Elixirs from the Ice Cavern (2 room detour) as well as from the Ammonite Coast island (both on the way to get the Rusty Sword and the way back).  I also stock up on X-Cures at the Floatrocks item shop.  Ideally, I could cut out the Ice Cavern Elixir, and a very lucky / skilled run could probably cut the X-Cure shopping as well.

Levels 30 and later should be Will levels rather than Power levels.  Assuming that you can land both halves of the sword special attack, and assuming that my understanding of this game's damage formulae is correct, the special attack DPS exceeds that of your physical attacks at around this level, and that damage increases faster by leveling Will than by leveling Power.

Unfortunately, though, the Dragon Sword and the Excalibur just don't compare to the power of Nuke.  The last several bosses are wildly slower than the Wisdom build.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-14 10:36:01 pm

Crow!: 2014-05-14 09:42:03 pm

Crow!: 2014-05-14 09:41:02 pm

2014-05-14 08:24:10 pm

What's that gemma?

HP in this game scales as the square of your current stamina. The exact formula is:
HP = 19 + 0.1 * (Stamina) * (Stamina)

Fractional amounts are truncated, not rounded.

If you are taking damage, not only can you not press buttons, but the current state of buttons that are being pressed can't change either. So, if you're standing on a button that's supposed to be pressed by a snowman, then get hit, then when you later push on the Snowman, the button will not work because the game never noticed you leaving the button. It also means that in the room with werewolves + 4 chests, if you manage to hit a chest while taking damage from one of the enemies, you can take a shortcut through the room. This is very unreliable though.

It is possible to save a bit of time (~3 seconds) on the room where you get the Chain whip by taking damage in the room before it. You can get the chain whip from the right square, without pressing the invisible button that locks you in, chain out of the area to the right, then walk down and out rather than up, around to the button, and out. This requires cooperative enemy positions, though.

The Dragon Zombie is weak against fire. Killing it with the Flame whip weapon is faster than using the Dragon sword. Use basic attacks, as a full Will bar only gets one chance to hit (as opposed to the sword attack's two hits). I'll have to check whether the Fire spell is also faster than casting Nuke; it'll probably be a function of how well Fire's homing bolt handles the shifting heads.

HP in this game scales as the square of your current stamina.  The exact formula is:
HP = 19 + 0.1 * (Stamina) * (Stamina)

Fractional amounts are truncated, not rounded.

If you are taking damage, not only can you not press buttons, but the current state of buttons that are being pressed can't change either.  So, if you're standing on a button that's supposed to be pressed by a snowman, then get hit, then when you later push on the Snowman, the button will not work because the game never noticed you leaving the button.  It also means that in the room with werewolves + 4 chests, if you manage to hit a chest while taking damage from one of the enemies, you can take a shortcut through the room.  This is very unreliable though.

It is possible to save a bit of time (~3 seconds) on the room where you get the Chain whip by taking damage in the room before it.  You can get the chain whip from the right square, without pressing the invisible button that locks you in, chain out of the area to the right, then walk down and out rather than up, around to the button, and out.  This requires cooperative enemy positions, though.

The Dragon Zombie is weak against fire.  Killing it with the Flame whip weapon is faster than using the Dragon sword.  Use basic attacks, as a full Will bar only gets one chance to hit (as opposed to the sword attack's two hits).  I'll have to check whether the Fire spell is also faster than casting Nuke; it'll probably be a function of how well Fire's homing bolt handles the shifting heads.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-12-31 09:00:56 am

2014-05-16 08:44:15 pm

What's that gemma?

Got a time I'm proud of, mainly because it had no deaths (until I got a phone call I had to answer at the final boss, anyway, which as far as practice is concerned doesn't count imo).
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4268659

For a submission, I think I'll be shooting for 2:17 in Super Game Boy time, or 2:20 in adjusted time (the Super Game Boy runs too fast).

Using Fire on the Dragon Zombie works perfectly; just be sure to fire from the front, rather than attacking from below.

I'll need to take a closer look at the 4-chests Werewolf room; I was unable to reproduce the shortcut mentioned above. I was able to execute the Chain button skip, but I didn't remember to actually walk straight down like I managed to earn myself the ability to do.

I figured out how the Armor Glitch works.

Here's the short version:
- Each time you load the game, every piece of armor past the first empty slot in your equipment inventory defaults to a ~~+8 bonus.~~
--- For comparison, a Bronze Helm is ordinarily +2.
- If you have glitched armor equipped when you save the game, that armor remains glitched when you load.

[EDIT: I don't think the +8 number I cite here is accurate; it's probably more like +11, though that number is much harder to explain, coding-wise. In any case, a glitched helmet is about as effective as the Silver helmet.]

Here's the long version:

In most games, when you equip a piece of armor, it goes to the game's lookup table of what the defense power for that piece of equipment is, and applies that defense to you. In this game, however, each piece of equipment in your inventory itself stores a copy of what its defense power is. So, the armor value lookup is executed not when you equip the armor, but instead when you obtain the armor.

This defense value, however, is not saved. Instead, when you load the game it (tries to) initialize the correct defense values for all the armor in your inventory. Unfortunately, though, when the game does this initialization, it assumes that your equipment inventory is compact; as soon as it finds an empty equipment slot, it assumes that its job is done because clearly it has found the end of your equipment inventory list.

So, every piece of armor past a blank equipment slot will have gone through the game loading procedure without being initialized. The default value, for whatever reason, is +8.

The defense value of the equipment you have on your person rather than in the bag, however, is saved. So, any glitched equipment you have will remain glitched even after saving. But every other piece of armor in your bad will be glitched or not-glitched depending on the above rules, every time you load the game.

Got a time I'm proud of, mainly because it had no deaths (until I got a phone call I had to answer at the final boss, anyway, which as far as practice is concerned doesn't count imo).
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4268659

For a submission, I think I'll be shooting for 2:17 in Super Game Boy time, or 2:20 in adjusted time (the Super Game Boy runs too fast).

Using Fire on the Dragon Zombie works perfectly; just be sure to fire from the front, rather than attacking from below.

I'll need to take a closer look at the 4-chests Werewolf room; I was unable to reproduce the shortcut mentioned above.  I was able to execute the Chain button skip, but I didn't remember to actually walk straight down like I managed to earn myself the ability to do.

I figured out how the Armor Glitch works.

Here's the short version:
- Each time you load the game, every piece of armor past the first empty slot in your equipment inventory defaults to a [s]+8 bonus.[/s]
--- For comparison, a Bronze Helm is ordinarily +2.
- If you have glitched armor equipped when you save the game, that armor remains glitched when you load.

[EDIT: I don't think the +8 number I cite here is accurate; it's probably more like +11, though that number is much harder to explain, coding-wise.  In any case, a glitched helmet is about as effective as the Silver helmet.]

Here's the long version:

In most games, when you equip a piece of armor, it goes to the game's lookup table of what the defense power for that piece of equipment is, and applies that defense to you.  In this game, however, each piece of equipment in your inventory itself stores a copy of what its defense power is.  So, the armor value lookup is executed not when you equip the armor, but instead when you obtain the armor.

This defense value, however, is not saved.  Instead, when you load the game it (tries to) initialize the correct defense values for all the armor in your inventory.  Unfortunately, though, when the game does this initialization, it assumes that your equipment inventory is compact; as soon as it finds an empty equipment slot, it assumes that its job is done because clearly it has found the end of your equipment inventory list.

So, every piece of armor past a blank equipment slot will have gone through the game loading procedure without being initialized.  The default value, for whatever reason, is +8.

The defense value of the equipment you have on your person rather than in the bag, however, [i]is[/i] saved.  So, any glitched equipment you have will remain glitched even after saving.  But every other piece of armor in your bad will be glitched or not-glitched depending on the above rules, every time you load the game.

Deuceler

2014-05-17 09:14:24 am

SPEEDruns not SAFEruns

This is all really good stuff Crow! I have been considering this game for quite some time now, but with my schedule it will be a little bit before I can do anything with it. Keep up the good work!

Crow!

2014-05-18 11:45:06 pm

What's that gemma?

I finally got a good enough run with the physical route to bother linking to it in this thread:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4282451

There's still some pretty major errors (~4 deaths, I think). In general, I think the magical route is more consistent, but should everything go perfectly for the physical route, its best runs are probably slightly faster than the same from my present magical route. The run linked above, for instance, demonstrates what can happen when you get 4 Nectars and 4 Crystals to drop.

There's still some safety in my magical route that could be cut out for that strategy to take the lead back in the ideal case runs, though. I could skip a couple levels' worth of kills during the Rusty Sword quest (my Wisdom build runs are currently ending the game 2 levels higher than the Power builds). I could also skip the 2 early game stamina levels (either in favor of 2 Power levels so Kett's and the Marsh Cave are faster, or in favor of 1 Power level and 1 Wisdom level to get on with my main strategy sooner). The Flame armor at Ish could be skipped as well.

Both Bowie and I are being plagued with inexplicable deaths from the Black Wizard + Dark Knight enemy set. Most of the time, those guys deal up to 30 damage per hit to the mage build, or up to 20 to the fighter. But every once in a while, they deal in excess of 80 damage, and we don't understand why or how. Keeping HP above 90 in those areas is possible, but very time consuming.

I finally got a good enough run with the physical route to bother linking to it in this thread:
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4282451

There's still some pretty major errors (~4 deaths, I think).  In general, I think the magical route is more consistent, but should everything go perfectly for the physical route, its best runs are probably slightly faster than the same from my present magical route.  The run linked above, for instance, demonstrates what can happen when you get 4 Nectars and 4 Crystals to drop.

There's still some safety in my magical route that could be cut out for that strategy to take the lead back in the ideal case runs, though.  I could skip a couple levels' worth of kills during the Rusty Sword quest (my Wisdom build runs are currently ending the game 2 levels higher than the Power builds).  I could also skip the 2 early game stamina levels (either in favor of 2 Power levels so Kett's and the Marsh Cave are faster, or in favor of 1 Power level and 1 Wisdom level to get on with my main strategy sooner).  The Flame armor at Ish could be skipped as well.

Both Bowie and I are being plagued with inexplicable deaths from the Black Wizard + Dark Knight enemy set.  Most of the time, those guys deal up to 30 damage per hit to the mage build, or up to 20 to the fighter.  But every once in a while, they deal in excess of 80 damage, and we don't understand why or how.  Keeping HP above 90 in those areas is possible, but very time consuming.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-20 10:58:37 am

Crow!: 2014-05-20 10:56:54 am

2014-05-19 12:50:28 pm

What's that gemma?

Well, I figured out the otherwise-inexplicable deaths. There's a very major bug with the Heal spell in this game.

For whatever reason, when you cast the Heal spell, your Defense Power is temporarily set to 0. This situation is repaired as soon as you pause the game. So, every time you cast Heal, you should switch your B command to whatever you're going to want next immediately, rather than waiting until later when you actually want the action, so that you can restore your Defense Power.

Edit: this bug also affects the Unicorn potion, but not any of the potions that cure specific status ailments. (I was kind of expecting it to be tied to attempting to cure the Moogle status, but the Moogle potion does not cause this bug. To be fair, though, it would take a RAM trace to find out if the Moogle potion actually tries to do what it allegedly tries to do, since you can't use potions when afflicted with the Moogle status.)

Crow!

2014-05-21 05:36:10 pm

What's that gemma?

I have crushed my stated goal of 2:20 in game boy time, with a run that is ~2:13 after adjusting for Super Game Boy's speed boost.
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4300876

I have chopped a lot of time off the magical route by doing less leveling; I was previously getting up to level 36-37, whereas now I beat the game at level 33-34.

At the moment I don't see obvious routing improvements to be had. There's always opportunities to improve menuing, and this run's button rooms (ice or otherwise) did not go well. Cutting off another couple minutes is probably not excessively hard, after that there's going to have to be a breakthrough in routing or a lot of grinding.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-05-29 11:00:00 am

2014-05-29 10:58:17 am

What's that gemma?

An update, since it's been a while:

I've been trying to beat the run I linked in my last post, but it's proving to be rather difficult. It has pretty good item luck and exceptionally good enemy behavior luck. Getting through most segments of this game without losing large amounts of time due to being trolled by enemies (or npcs, which in this game are more dangerous to a speed runner than enemies) is rare, and there's only 3 or so such instances over the course of that run.

There are three points which have sub-par execution, and unfortunately two of those points are near the start of the run and at the end, which are a large part of what a viewer of the run will remember about it. So, I really want to get a new run - even if I got a time that was slightly slower due to RNG, if I had fewer reasons to worry that the run would look unpolished I'd be much happier.

I've tried to switch back to the physical damage route, but that route is even more prone to losing lots of time to bad RNG (or even just typical RNG) than is using magic. So, I'm left in a situation where I need to keep up solid execution for a 2 hour run in the same day that I also get luck that is unusually good.

I guess that's the story of most speed runs, but in any case that's where I am.

An update, since it's been a while:

I've been trying to beat the run I linked in my last post, but it's proving to be rather difficult.  It has pretty good item luck and exceptionally good enemy behavior luck.  Getting through most segments of this game without losing large amounts of time due to being trolled by enemies (or npcs, which in this game are more dangerous to a speed runner than enemies) is rare, and there's only 3 or so such instances over the course of that run.

There are three points which have sub-par execution, and unfortunately two of those points are near the start of the run and at the end, which are a large part of what a viewer of the run will remember about it.  So, I really want to get a new run - even if I got a time that was slightly slower due to RNG, if I had fewer reasons to worry that the run would look unpolished I'd be much happier.

I've tried to switch back to the physical damage route, but that route is even more prone to losing lots of time to bad RNG (or even just typical RNG) than is using magic.  So, I'm left in a situation where I need to keep up solid execution for a 2 hour run in the same day that I also get luck that is unusually good.

I guess that's the story of most speed runs, but in any case that's where I am.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-06-30 05:53:27 am

2014-06-30 05:52:51 am

What's that gemma?

More than a month's worth of attempts later, I have finally beaten the above time by about 2.5 minutes.
http://www.twitch.tv/iicrowii/c/4566510

There's a lot of embarrassing mistakes, most notable being three instances of going into my inventory to select an item that it turned out I didn't actually have. However, the only major time loss is in the Ice Cavern, where Eyes trolled me harder than usual. When you add together all the places where things usually go wrong but in this case they don't, the result is a huge improvement.

I plan to submit this run shortly, so keep an eye on the verification forum.

Crow!

2014-07-10 08:21:02 am

What's that gemma?

I have submitted the run, so any of this thread's lurkers who are familiar with this game can head on over to the Verification forum and sign up to verify it. There aren't very many people who speed run this game (I'm 10 of the last 11 posts in this thread, after all), so there's no need to be shy and defer to others who you think are better than you at the game, because those people are probably too few in number to get the run to verification on their own.

BOWIEtheHERO

2014-07-16 06:01:56 pm

I have developed a strat for Julius 3 in the physical build that will kill him in one cycle. You only need one elixir, and requires memorising every spawn point, but you can usually get the Flying Sword and 2 stabs in for the lower spawns...

I'll highlight my practice and link it when I get home from tour this week.

I need to spend a bit more time on the bosses with the Physcial build, because optimizing your aggression is where the time saves can really come from late game, as the Physical build drops off a little. Particular boss battle strats are the only way to speed up the late game for FFA for me, at least. I've been choking on my boss battles, And my glods are now a good 14 minutes ahead of my PB. Glods are almost on par with you now, Crow Tongue

seka

2014-07-28 02:10:57 am

Hi there,

This game being one of my favorite since my childhood (still have the french cartridge working !), I thought about running it as soon as I got hooked into speedruns, a couple of month before AGDQ 2014. However, I did not, because the warp route didn't appeal to me and I found other quick games to run, probably easier to start with. Now I'm back to it, and runs of Crow made me want to practice.

So, I'm not a skilled player, but I'll try to find some strat for bosses. As of now, I'm trying the physical route, and enjoying it. However, instead of putting points into stamina, I put them all in power. I'm not sure it's faster, I'll have to try both once I manage a good run. I still die sometimes, but I feel it's quite faster after Medusa's cave. But in order to survive there, I have to buy gold armor in Jade, so it might not be worth it. Best run I did until I stupidly died (because of basilik...), I was at 47:50 at the end of the airship.

Anyway, still many thing to practice. I'd like to see one of your run Bowie.

Also, Crow, I was wondering why you don't run the japanese version. The text is much faster than any other version.

Hi there,

This game being one of my favorite since my childhood (still have the french cartridge working !), I thought about running it as soon as I got hooked into speedruns, a couple of month before AGDQ 2014. However, I did not, because the warp route didn't appeal to me and I found other quick games to run, probably easier to start with. Now I'm back to it, and runs of Crow made me want to practice.

So, I'm not a skilled player, but I'll try to find some strat for bosses. As of now, I'm trying the physical route, and enjoying it. However, instead of putting points into stamina, I put them all in power. I'm not sure it's faster, I'll have to try both once I manage a good run. I still die sometimes, but I feel it's quite faster after Medusa's cave. But in order to survive there, I have to buy gold armor in Jade, so it might not be worth it. Best run I did until I stupidly died (because of basilik...), I was at 47:50 at the end of the airship.

Anyway, still many thing to practice. I'd like to see one of your run Bowie.

Also, Crow, I was wondering why you don't run the japanese version. The text is much faster than any other version.

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2014-07-28 07:57:46 am

Crow!: 2014-07-28 06:12:36 am

2014-07-28 06:12:01 am

What's that gemma?

I don't run the Japanese version because 1. I don't own it, and 2. I don't know Japanese, so the extra delays for me to identify items in the inventory would make me play worse. SDA usually factors out differences in text display time (see, for instance, the current Little Nemo run which was slower than the incumbent but replaced it anyway because apart from the difference in cutscenes it was faster).

Here's a link to one of Bowie's runs: http://www.twitch.tv/bowiethehero/b/550047738
I know he has a faster time out there somewhere, but I was unable to find it easily.

Skipping Stamina either means getting a lot more levels total, or it means getting wrecked in the mid game. Getting Gold Armor before Medusa Cave is a clever way to delay the onset of the problem, but Davias, Golem, Chimera, and the Dark Lord all totally suck if you don't have the extra defense. Davias in particular should 1-shot you if you touch him, necessitating a slower, chain-based strategy.

Have you completed a run that made past the Dark Lord without leveling Stamina, and if so, do you have it recorded somewhere? I'd like to see if you're using some strategy we haven't thought of to survive the difficult portions of the game.

IIRC, Bowie does not bother with the armor glitch, figuring that since you eventually need Stamina anyway, he might as well start taking it fairly early on rather than spending the ~2 minutes it takes to get yourself a glitched helmet. I think he takes more points in Stamina total than I think is fastest, though; IMO once you're past the mid-game it's more profitable to take a few Will levels to improve your ability to heal and improve the usefulness your damage multiplying Will bar rather than to continue with Stamina.

[edit] oh, and please consider signing up to be a verifier if you haven't already: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/runs_needing_verifiers_3961_new_runs_july_22_2014.html

I don't run the Japanese version because 1. I don't own it, and 2. I don't know Japanese, so the extra delays for me to identify items in the inventory would make me play worse. SDA usually factors out differences in text display time (see, for instance, the current Little Nemo run which was slower than the incumbent but replaced it anyway because apart from the difference in cutscenes it was faster).

Here's a link to one of Bowie's runs: http://www.twitch.tv/bowiethehero/b/550047738
I know he has a faster time out there somewhere, but I was unable to find it easily.

Skipping Stamina either means getting a lot more levels total, or it means getting wrecked in the mid game.  Getting Gold Armor before Medusa Cave is a clever way to delay the onset of the problem, but Davias, Golem, Chimera, and the Dark Lord all totally suck if you don't have the extra defense.  Davias in particular should 1-shot you if you touch him, necessitating a slower, chain-based strategy.

Have you completed a run that made past the Dark Lord without leveling Stamina, and if so, do you have it recorded somewhere?  I'd like to see if you're using some strategy we haven't thought of to survive the difficult portions of the game.

IIRC, Bowie does not bother with the armor glitch, figuring that since you eventually need Stamina anyway, he might as well start taking it fairly early on rather than spending the ~2 minutes it takes to get yourself a glitched helmet.  I think he takes more points in Stamina total than I think is fastest, though; IMO once you're past the mid-game it's more profitable to take a few Will levels to improve your ability to heal and improve the usefulness your damage multiplying Will bar rather than to continue with Stamina.

[edit] oh, and please consider signing up to be a verifier if you haven't already: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/runs_needing_verifiers_3961_new_runs_july_22_2014.html

seka

2014-07-28 09:32:28 am

I tried the japanese version, and I agree identifying items could take a while, particulary weapons. Anyway, I was merely curious, I don't care much as long as everyone run the same version !

Honeslty, appart from Medusa's cave, I didn't had much problem during the rest of the "run". I did died sometimes, but I think it's more due to my low experience than anything. For Davias, I do use the chain, so it is indeed slow, but he does not one shot me. I tried once with charged sword attack, but it only ended faster because Lester hit Davias no less than 20 times... I had absolutly no problem with Golem and Chimera. I used the 2 hits combo with the morning star, which is really easy on Golem, a bit riskier on Chimera, but they die pretty fast. And Dark Lord, well, again the morning star is my weapon of choice. I stay above or under him, and I hit him while facing left or right. This way the attack will push him away from me. I reckon for some bosses, I can only take one hit before needing to heal, but even with the Kraken, it's okay since it dies before I take a second hit. Hardest boss is probably the Lich.

I don't remember what level you are at the end of your physical run, and I didn't watch Bowie's run yet (thanks for the link by the way), but as for me, on a kinda slow run, I was lvl 39 just before Julius. I felt killing enemy was faster than avoiding them most of the time, except in the Gemma tower. Not sure I'll reach this lvl on a faster run however.

Unfortunatly I don't have any run recorded yet, as I was mainly writing down the route to help me memorize where to go, what items I need and all. But since I'm done with that part, I'll try to record a decent run and upload it on youtube (I will stream in a couple of weeks or so, but can't for now because of my connection).

I tried the japanese version, and I agree identifying items could take a while, particulary weapons. Anyway, I was merely curious, I don't care much as long as everyone run the same version !

Honeslty, appart from Medusa's cave, I didn't had much problem during the rest of the "run". I did died sometimes, but I think it's more due to my low experience than anything. For Davias, I do use the chain, so it is indeed slow, but he does not one shot me. I tried once with charged sword attack, but it only ended faster because Lester hit Davias no less than 20 times... I had absolutly no problem with Golem and Chimera. I used the 2 hits combo with the morning star, which is really easy on Golem, a bit riskier on Chimera, but they die pretty fast. And Dark Lord, well, again the morning star is my weapon of choice. I stay above or under him, and I hit him while facing left or right. This way the attack will push him away from me. I reckon for some bosses, I can only take one hit before needing to heal, but even with the Kraken, it's okay since it dies before I take a second hit. Hardest boss is probably the Lich.

I don't remember what level you are at the end of your physical run, and I didn't watch Bowie's run yet (thanks for the link by the way), but as for me, on a kinda slow run, I was lvl 39 just before Julius. I felt killing enemy was faster than avoiding them most of the time, except in the Gemma tower. Not sure I'll reach this lvl on a faster run however.

Unfortunatly I don't have any run recorded yet, as I was mainly writing down the route to help me memorize where to go, what items I need and all. But since I'm done with that part, I'll try to record a decent run and upload it on youtube (I will stream in a couple of weeks or so, but can't for now because of my connection).

Crow!

2014-07-29 08:44:36 am

What's that gemma?

Enemies deal very different amounts of damage depending on whether they hurt you themselves or hurt you with their projectiles; in Davias's case, his projectiles deal 20-25 less damage than contact with his body. Most non-boss enemies are the opposite, dealing far more damage with their projectiles than with their bodies.

At present, I end both my physical and magical runs at level 33. There's nothing special about that number; it's just what happens when I give myself the mindset that starting in the Volcano I should only kill enemies that are blocking my progress.

Beware of Kraken; his behavior is very random, and Bowie has learned the hard way that sometimes he scores many more hits than he ordinarily does. Being complacent in that fight will result in losing some runs unexpectedly.

Lich's movements are annoying, but they're not random, so if that fight is giving you some trouble, get a save just before it and practice. With proper execution, you can beat him without getting hit.

Let us know once you have a streaming setup ready and I'll follow you on Twitch.

Enemies deal very different amounts of damage depending on whether they hurt you themselves or hurt you with their projectiles; in Davias's case, his projectiles deal 20-25 less damage than contact with his body.  Most non-boss enemies are the opposite, dealing far more damage with their projectiles than with their bodies.

At present, I end both my physical and magical runs at level 33.  There's nothing special about that number; it's just what happens when I give myself the mindset that starting in the Volcano I should only kill enemies that are blocking my progress.

Beware of Kraken; his behavior is very random, and Bowie has learned the hard way that sometimes he scores many more hits than he ordinarily does.  Being complacent in that fight will result in losing some runs unexpectedly.

Lich's movements are annoying, but they're not random, so if that fight is giving you some trouble, get a save just before it and practice.  With proper execution, you can beat him without getting hit.

Let us know once you have a streaming setup ready and I'll follow you on Twitch.