Golden Sun (Sub 4 Hours????)

2013-01-20 07:11:10 pm

Hi there, I'm new to this whole speedrunning business, but Golden Sun is probably my favorite game ever and I do have plenty of experience messing with the RNG of the game as it is.

I've been playing around quite a bit with the retreat skips in GS and am working on developing a route. I haven't really started timing anything out, its more of one of those things where I'm creating a number of options, I'm not sure if anyone is looking into utilizing retreat skips, but I'd be more than happy to share my findings with anyone in this thread if there is still any interest.

I think with respect to retreat skips the trick will be to micromanage your pp so that you don't waste time driving it down below the threshold. Not sure what can be gained, but I would love to try some collaboration at some point with anyone who has been working on this.

wfp

2013-01-20 10:42:45 pm

i'd certainly be interested. i've seen this popping up on speedrunslive recently a couple times, and in general the route seems undefined. i'd really love a standard 100% ss or rta route developed, which i wouldn't think too hard considering how predictable the rng can be. imo anything specific discussed here would be greatly appreciated, though i don't know how much i can contribute beyond enthusiasm.

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-01-21 01:53:37 pm

Plexa: 2013-01-21 01:27:09 pm

2013-01-21 01:26:38 pm

I've been messing around with the retreat skips and pretty much settled on the list that pkGamer came up with. I'm planning on doing a kind of 200% GS/GS:TLA run so I have an additional skip after Manticore to Vale (. I've been messing around with all the retreat+save skips over the past two days and haven't been able to find anything meaningful - other than an amusing skip in Altin mines which triggers the Hsu cutscene before you get reveal (Feizhi and Hama aren't there heh!). Unfortunately, as I will be needing lift in TLA and for Kite this isn't a skip that I can use. Could be useful in an any% run though so I'll leave the details in the spoiler below.

Once you get out of bounds (via retreat/save in a second room) in the second level of the mine (i.e. after killing one statue) you need to align isaac's hair with the left edge of the screen. Once this is done, run 5-6 seconds left then straight down. If done correctly, you should trigger the cutscene. The door for this cutscene is rather wide (although there is one square right in the middle which warps elsewhere), so 5-6 seconds should do the trick. The exact coordinates of the right most square of the gate is (X,Y)=4271,140.

There's almost a statue skip in the mine as well, coordinates 4260,142 skip to the second half of the second mine - unfortunately, the water level in altin is dependent on the number of statues alive - not which statues are alive. Thus 'skipping' the second statue and killing the third will not grant access to the lowest level of the mine.

I've also not found any useful skips anywhere else. In particular, Venus lighthouse (outside of the one pk mentioned). I tried to find a gate in Venus lighthouse entrance to warp to Venus lighthouse (aiming for the door normally blocked by electric beams) but alas, I could not find one. There is a ton of useless gates around the Y=130 line when X is underflowed, but they all tend to either exit Venus or warp to one of the chests in Venus. I've also tried messing with the RNG in Venus lighthouse/Tunnel ruins to try and manipulate the battle into giving me a feathered robe drop but I have thus far been unsuccessful with my underleveled party. An easy way to get Grhyphons in the first Venus room, though, is to reset then cast move three times, the battle should be Gryphon x2 and a Golem.

Oh and in case anyone is wondering, I haven't worked out what RN values move/frost/growth/others add to the game when cast in a dungeon. In the first Venus room I casted each up to 9 times and did some cross casting of spells. I had some theories about how many moves = frost and so on, but when I tested them in tunnel ruins I had no luck in confirming them Sad

I've been messing around with the retreat skips and pretty much settled on the list that pkGamer came up with. I'm planning on doing a kind of 200% GS/GS:TLA run so I have an additional skip after Manticore to Vale (. I've been messing around with all the retreat+save skips over the past two days and haven't been able to find anything meaningful - other than an amusing skip in Altin mines which triggers the Hsu cutscene before you get reveal (Feizhi and Hama aren't there heh!). Unfortunately, as I will be needing lift in TLA and for Kite this isn't a skip that I can use. Could be useful in an any% run though so I'll leave the details in the spoiler below.
[hidden]Once you get out of bounds (via retreat/save in a second room) in the second level of the mine (i.e. after killing one statue) you need to align isaac's hair with the left edge of the screen. Once this is done, run 5-6 seconds left then straight down. If done correctly, you should trigger the cutscene. The door for this cutscene is rather wide (although there is one square right in the middle which warps elsewhere), so 5-6 seconds should do the trick. The exact coordinates of the right most square of the gate is (X,Y)=4271,140.[/hidden]
There's almost a statue skip in the mine as well, coordinates 4260,142 skip to the second half of the second mine - unfortunately, the water level in altin is dependent on the number of statues alive - not which statues are alive. Thus 'skipping' the second statue and killing the third will not grant access to the lowest level of the mine.

I've also not found any useful skips anywhere else. In particular, Venus lighthouse (outside of the one pk mentioned). I tried to find a gate in Venus lighthouse entrance to warp to Venus lighthouse (aiming for the door normally blocked by electric beams) but alas, I could not find one. There is a ton of useless gates around the Y=130 line when X is underflowed, but they all tend to either exit Venus or warp to one of the chests in Venus. I've also tried messing with the RNG in Venus lighthouse/Tunnel ruins to try and manipulate the battle into giving me a feathered robe drop but I have thus far been unsuccessful with my underleveled party. An easy way to get Grhyphons in the first Venus room, though, is to reset then cast move three times, the battle should be Gryphon x2 and a Golem.

Oh and in case anyone is wondering, I haven't worked out what RN values move/frost/growth/others add to the game when cast in a dungeon. In the first Venus room I casted each up to 9 times and did some cross casting of spells. I had some theories about how many moves = frost and so on, but when I tested them in tunnel ruins I had no luck in confirming them :(

Arkhanno

2013-01-21 01:58:56 pm

Plexa, you don't need a Feathered Robe to drop in order to complete Golden Sun. Feathered Robe gives +30 Agility, +20 Wind Power and +20 Wind Resistance. It is more beneficial to have Ivan equipped with the Water Jacket and Mia with the Magical Cassock for two reasons: Ivan will have increased Fire Resist for Saturos/Menardi and Fusion Dragon meaning he lives easier when it comes to a Granite turn and Mia will have more PP available for Wish/Ice Horn meaning you don't have to stock up on Psy Crystals. Whether or not you will need a Feathered Robe for GS:TLA I don't know, but I know you don't need it for GS. You can beat Fusion Dragon at level 18 (Entering Saturos/Menardi at level 16) with proper planning. I posted a video a while back showing that it is possible.

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-01-21 03:41:49 pm

2013-01-21 02:35:35 pm

Yes I know I don't need the feathered robe, but I figure it's a decent item even in TLA so if it's easily RNG'able it could be worth doing it. I do use Cossak/Water Jacket for the final fight and probably will continue to do so even if I can work out an RNG pattern for the robe. I'm currently optimising the GS section of the 200%, and am watching one of your runs at the moment to see if there is anything useful I can glean from it ^^

EDIT: in your any% run have you considered skipping hydros statue (and lift)? Judging from your New Year any% run you'd be able to skip through altin by around 2:10 at the consequence of missing spritz and probably 2:23 if you grab spritz. The skip is on the second level of the mine, going through the top left door and following the dungeon through until the first room with a frost puddle. After completing that room, retreat glitching back through the wall should send you to the left exit of the cave near Hsu.

Arkhanno

2013-01-21 08:26:50 pm

When planning for the route MrTeedus and I went through each area and tested every door with the Retreat glitch. Teedus did Altin Mines and he told me there was only one useful Retreat glitch there, which we use. I don't have time to test it out tonight. If you could make a video of it that would be amazing.

Plexa

2013-01-22 01:53:55 am

Yeah sure, I uploaded a simple demonstration here:
The retreat glitch you used is not optimal either. It's actually much quicker to retreat after the battle and then walk into the top left door - which is where the retreat glitch would have taken you. I have tried to show that in the video as well. Seeing as I was recording things, here is the glitch into the Hsu cutscene (not useful for your run, but funny nonetheless)

Arkhanno

2013-01-22 10:25:20 am

The problem I see with using that Retreat glitch is the experience for Isaac will be messed up; I'm not 100% sure he'll learn Ragnarok if we skip Hydros. I'd also prefer to not skip Spritz because having Boreas/Wish is extremely useful. I'll have to do some testing to see how I can make it work.

Plexa

2013-01-22 02:40:11 pm

Yeah that's one thing that is interesting about running this type of game - a sequence break isn't necessarily going to be beneficial to the run because of having to hit certain level targets for the final fight in the game. You already have to grind outside of Tolbi for Colosso, I guess Hydros would either add to that or be needed before Manticore.

Arkhanno

Edit history:

Arkhanno: 2013-01-22 07:43:45 pm

2013-01-22 07:43:09 pm

Assuming none of your characters die Isaac will hit level 13 from Kraken, which is exactly where you need him to be. I did testing to see how much experience I would need to hit 13 with Isaac if I skipped Hydros and I'd need 199 with my current strats. Luckily there's a Mimic in Altin that is along the way which gives 241 experience.

I noticed something while I was testing this: how did you skip the third Living Statue? You only had two water levels lowered but you were able to get to Spritz's room and retreat back to the second door. Is that a Save Retreat glitch or just a Retreat glitch?

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-01-28 09:41:09 pm

Plexa: 2013-01-23 09:58:07 am

Plexa: 2013-01-23 07:24:40 am

Plexa: 2013-01-23 07:24:03 am

Plexa: 2013-01-23 03:07:39 am

Plexa: 2013-01-23 02:46:33 am

2013-01-23 02:46:03 am

Ah as far as I know, since each level of the mine acts as a separate dungeon there isn't a way to get from the third level to the second. So to get spritz you'd need to kill the third hydros, grab spritz, retreat out (since you don't need to lower your PP in Altin prior to that), then run up to the second mine and then retreat glitch from there. I estimate that it would save a few minutes on the time by doing that. Of course, I don't know how much extra time you'd need to recover the lost EXP so it might not be worth it if you go for spritz. The route I'm planning can't skip the lift gem so I haven't checked the time on that.

EDIT: after seeing your route testing vid, I think I'll recheck the bottom floor of altin just in case there is a warp back. I don't think there is, but then again I wasn't exactly paying attention to warps backwards.

EDIT 2: Mmmmm I need to re-plan my route. I planned to retreat warp after manticore to vale to collect Kite+Sap - but - it appears that the Vault Cave is not activated yet. As in, casting reveal at the tombstones yields no ladder t_t. This is a very annoying setback as there is no vale retreat glitch that is convenient other than the one directly after manticore - and leaving the lamakan desert renders the vale warps useless. If I can't find a vale door in Kalay tunnel then I guess I will have to bite the bullet and do kite+sap after kalay. Grrr.

EDIT: after some testing I can't find any quick warps out from the third level of altin Sad

Ah as far as I know, since each level of the mine acts as a separate dungeon there isn't a way to get from the third level to the second. So to get spritz you'd need to kill the third hydros, grab spritz, retreat out (since you don't need to lower your PP in Altin prior to that), then run up to the second mine and then retreat glitch from there. I estimate that it would save a few minutes on the time by doing that. Of course, I don't know how much extra time you'd need to recover the lost EXP so it might not be worth it if you go for spritz. The route I'm planning can't skip the lift gem so I haven't checked the time on that.

EDIT: after seeing your route testing vid, I think I'll recheck the bottom floor of altin just in case there is a warp back. I don't think there is, but then again I wasn't exactly paying attention to warps backwards.

EDIT 2: Mmmmm I need to re-plan my route. I planned to retreat warp after manticore to vale to collect Kite+Sap - but - it appears that the Vault Cave is not activated yet. As in, casting reveal at the tombstones yields no ladder t_t. This is a very annoying setback as there is no vale retreat glitch that is convenient other than the one directly after manticore - and leaving the lamakan desert renders the vale warps useless. If I can't find a vale door in Kalay tunnel then I guess I will have to bite the bullet and do kite+sap after kalay. Grrr.

EDIT: after some testing I can't find any quick warps out from the third level of altin :(

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-02-06 05:49:11 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 05:40:39 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 05:37:55 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 05:37:27 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 05:36:44 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 04:52:36 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 04:50:01 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 03:10:22 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 03:09:53 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 02:52:56 am

2013-02-06 02:51:37 am

I sat down to do a practice run today, it went pretty good so I'll probably use that as my save file for GS2 for my combined run later this week. This is a 6/6/6/6 Djinn run for anyone who is wondering (in preparation for continuation in GS2). It was a 4:37 in game time, 5:06:31 real time (really annoyed that I didn't get sub-5). Although with that said, I'd be interested in any comments/criticisms about the run: http://www.twitch.tv/tl_plexa/b/364461308?t=68m
I didn't expect it to end up as a serious run (more a final test/frame drop test), hence the internet radio soundtrack as opposed to GS music Wink

Here are my own thoughts about this run:
- Before you say anything, I prefer purple background to blue, in a 13h run that extra second to change this isn't important as far as I'm concerned!!!!!! Also, I don't bother changing names for the same reason (I'm 99% words appear at 1 word/frame on fasting setting regardless of word length).
- Leaving Vale at 41:17 was really nice.
- Losing Garet in Bilibin cave really messed me up. It's really unusual for that to happen so I'm not experienced with that scenario. It meant that my RNG'd x4 Ooze/Mauler couldn't be killed and I was underleveled for Mercury lighthouse where....
- I lost Garet again to the RNG'd x3 Siren because I didn't have access to blue bolt due to not killing the Mauler party earlier. This cost me a trip back to Imil which....
- Added extra psynergy points to Mia/Ivan giving me more PP for growth/frost and netting me one more crystal powder than intended - adding another 30seconds onto my time (I only need 5 Crystal powders for Saturos)
- Losing Isaac/Ivan to Saturos was annoying, but sometimes Saturos just wants to troll you. It meant I needed to save crawl back to Bilibin else get crushed by a Mauler party and endure an Imil cutscene I really want to avoid!
- Tret was okay, I didn't need to fight that troll party but I was trying to make up for earlier EXP lost (didn't really matter in the end). Tret fight went longer than except as well.
- Fushin Falls went well. I wonder if there is a quicker way to do it?
- Morgal woods trolled me ugh. I almost didn't know what to do after Isaac died, but I figured I could get Quartz and revive that way - which worked. Although I need to work on RNG'ing quartz to revive in the free turn.
- Killer Ape was well behaved given I didn't RNG him.
- Altin went well as well, barring an extra summon on the first statue and losing someone (Ivan? I forgot), Quartz was still a pain to revive him.
- Got a bit lost in Lamakhan desert ._.;; that shouldn't happen.
- Manticore was well behaved today (the extra crystal powder was useful here, maybe that 6th one isn't so bad?), so was Vine (I have a neat RNG method for him though lol)
- Skipped water jacket, evidently I don't need it which is lovely - skipping cutscenes makes me happy.
- Vault 2 was great
- Ship was also fine. Kraken took one turn longer than expected though.
- I decided to grab ember and do the fountain RNG stuff before Babi in this run (hoping I could get the ninja class early - which since I didn't get Kite I couldn't do). I don't think that was worth it but I'm not sure. I don't think it lost/saved more than 5 seconds at the end of things though.
- Antmiller cave got a bit trolly, used up my water of lifes Sad

- Colosso was perfect.
- Suhalla desert was okay (wow that area causes a lot of frame drops), Suhalla gate worked well too after burning 30 PP on the siren type thing. I'm not sure if that was quicker than just doing it normally but oh well.
- Venus 1 was good, 2nd try path though.
- Damn tunnel ruins mucked me up good though. I forgot that you get fights in the room with Iodem and co. and got wiped and almost wiped - ugh. That really shouldn't happen and definitely cost me sub-5.
- My Venus 2 semi-save crawl strat worked really well.
- Saturos/Menardi trolled me first attempt Sad

had to reset to not lose Ivan (wasting a few minutes, probably less than 6 though). Second go went according to plan - fusion dragon took 3 turns longer to do though, probably because I didn't get much exp from Venus like I used to do. Dew saved my ass when Ivan died, and got that Dragon back under control.

EDIT: Just worked out how to RNG for ninja hood Smiley

yay. I can conceivably get x4 Ninja hoods (for TLA) but I'm not completely sure that they are necessary. I think I will aim for one hood to give to Mia or Piers in TLA to make sure I can Azul summon Valukar on the second turn with max strength.

EDIT 2: Upon looking at my footage, it looks like each RNG siren combo takes 1:20~ to do. That's a lot of time. Probably warrants me routing mercury again. Regardless, I'm positive that growth+frost RNG in that room is the best way to RNG for crystal powder and EXP at the same time. Especially given that I need a lot of control over my opponents since only plan on fighting five battles before that (x2 oil drop RNG, bandits, goblin party in bilibin, mauler party before imil).

I sat down to do a practice run today, it went pretty good so I'll probably use that as my save file for GS2 for my combined run later this week. This is a 6/6/6/6 Djinn run for anyone who is wondering (in preparation for continuation in GS2). It was a 4:37 in game time, 5:06:31 real time (really annoyed that I didn't get sub-5).  Although with that said, I'd be interested in any comments/criticisms about the run: http://www.twitch.tv/tl_plexa/b/364461308?t=68m
I didn't expect it to end up as a serious run (more a final test/frame drop test), hence the internet radio soundtrack as opposed to GS music ;)

Here are my own thoughts about this run:
- Before you say anything, I prefer purple background to blue, in a 13h run that extra second to change this isn't important as far as I'm concerned!!!!!! Also, I don't bother changing names for the same reason (I'm 99% words appear at 1 word/frame on fasting setting regardless of word length). 
- Leaving Vale at 41:17 was really nice.
- Losing Garet in Bilibin cave [i]really[/i] messed me up. It's really unusual for that to happen so I'm not experienced with that scenario. It meant that my RNG'd x4 Ooze/Mauler couldn't be killed and I was underleveled for Mercury lighthouse where....
- I lost Garet [i]again[/i] to the RNG'd x3 Siren because I didn't have access to blue bolt due to not killing the Mauler party earlier. This cost me a trip back to Imil which....
- Added extra psynergy points to Mia/Ivan giving me more PP for growth/frost and netting me one more crystal powder than intended - adding another 30seconds onto my time (I only need 5 Crystal powders for Saturos)
- Losing Isaac/Ivan to Saturos was annoying, but sometimes Saturos just wants to troll you. It meant I needed to save crawl back to Bilibin else get crushed by a Mauler party and endure an Imil cutscene I really want to avoid!
- Tret was okay, I didn't need to fight that troll party but I was trying to make up for earlier EXP lost (didn't really matter in the end). Tret fight went longer than except as well. 
- Fushin Falls went well. I wonder if there is a quicker way to do it?
- Morgal woods trolled me ugh. I almost didn't know what to do after Isaac died, but I figured I could get Quartz and revive that way - which worked. Although I need to work on RNG'ing quartz to revive in the free turn. 
- Killer Ape was well behaved given I didn't RNG him.
- Altin went well as well, barring an extra summon on the first statue and losing someone (Ivan? I forgot), Quartz was still a pain to revive him.
- Got a bit lost in Lamakhan desert ._.;; that shouldn't happen. 
- Manticore was well behaved today (the extra crystal powder was useful here, maybe that 6th one isn't so bad?), so was Vine (I have a neat RNG method for him though lol)
- Skipped water jacket, evidently I don't need it which is lovely - skipping cutscenes makes me happy.
- Vault 2 was great
- Ship was also fine. Kraken took one turn longer than expected though.
- I decided to grab ember and do the fountain RNG stuff before Babi in this run (hoping I could get the ninja class early - which since I didn't get Kite I couldn't do). I don't think that was worth it but I'm not sure. I don't think it lost/saved more than 5 seconds at the end of things though.
- Antmiller cave got a bit trolly, used up my water of lifes :(
- Colosso was perfect. 
- Suhalla desert was okay (wow that area causes a lot of frame drops), Suhalla gate worked well too after burning 30 PP on the siren type thing. I'm not sure if that was quicker than just doing it normally but oh well. 
- Venus 1 was good, 2nd try path though.
- Damn tunnel ruins mucked me up good though. I forgot that you get fights in the room with Iodem and co. and got wiped and almost wiped - ugh. That really shouldn't happen and definitely cost me sub-5. 
- My Venus 2 semi-save crawl strat worked really well. 
- Saturos/Menardi trolled me first attempt :( had to reset to not lose Ivan (wasting a few minutes, probably less than 6 though). Second go went according to plan - fusion dragon took 3 turns longer to do though, probably because I didn't get much exp from Venus like I used to do. Dew saved my ass when Ivan died, and got that Dragon back under control.

EDIT: Just worked out how to RNG for ninja hood :) yay. I can conceivably get x4 Ninja hoods (for TLA) but I'm not completely sure that they are necessary. I think I will aim for one hood to give to Mia or Piers in TLA to make sure I can Azul summon Valukar on the second turn with max strength.

EDIT 2: Upon looking at my footage, it looks like each RNG siren combo takes 1:20~ to do. That's a lot of time. Probably warrants me routing mercury again. Regardless, I'm positive that growth+frost RNG in that room is the best way to RNG for crystal powder and EXP at the same time. Especially given that I need a lot of control over my opponents since only plan on fighting five battles before that (x2 oil drop RNG, bandits, goblin party in bilibin, mauler party before imil).

Arkhanno

Edit history:

Arkhanno: 2013-02-06 10:01:30 am

2013-02-06 05:58:37 am

For Fuchin Falls you, ideally, want to have 5 PP before doing the Retreat glitch to get to Zephyr. If you have 4 or less you won't regen enough PP to use Retreat after you get Zephyr because you'll only regen 1. If for some reason getting 5 isn't possible then after you get Zephyr go north one room then take the log to the left and do a Retreat glitch. It will take you to the entrance to the jumping puzzle so just head south and go across the log to exit. (If you don't understand what door I'm talking about it's door I on this map.) EDIT: Ignore this. I'm really tired so I forgot you were doing 100% for both games, which means Force. I don't recall any Retreat glitches that take you to the Force gem. Try a save Retreat glitch. You should be able to OoB somewhere in there.

I do have a question about the Siren Crystal Powder thing. Do you know what exactly makes them drop it? It looks like as long as you get a Rainbow kill you will get a Crystal Powder or am I just completely off on that? From my experience playing it seems that a Rainbow gets me Crystal Powders in SS but that might just be luck.

I'll edit this post with more thoughts on the run when I have more time to actually finish watching it.

EDIT: Corona - You only need to use Procne and Neptune to kill Corona. Procne will do ~150 damage and Neptune ~210 which will finish it off. Breeze is the first Djinn that you can one round due to summons. Every Djinn after Breeze you can one round with just summons. Once you get two tier 3 summons you only need two attacks to take it down. I've noticed that you do extra attacks a lot.

Living Statue - You don't need Neptune to kill them. >_>

Colosso - Wouldn't it be better to have Fever on Standby and use Ragnarok to kill your opponents so you don't waste time on the Rainbow kill?

Tornado Lizards - You could use Meteor with Ivan, Thor with Isaac and Flint with Garet to get a Rainbow. This will give you a little over 800 experience which will save time overall because you won't need to complete battles in other areas.

Tunnel Ruins - Around 5:43:20 you used Move twice to push the pillar. If you just pull it back one square then push it right it's faster than using Move twice. Also, you don't need to push it all the way to the wall.

Tunnel Ruins Statue Puzzle - Move the gold one last. That way you can just push them through the center. This way you won't waste time pushing it around two statues then into its position.

Venus Lighthouse Second Block Puzzle - Around 5:54:00 you should push the straight line third. If you push the blocks into the holes below it then you will only have to push it in two directions instead of four.

For Fuchin Falls you, ideally, want to have 5 PP before doing the Retreat glitch to get to Zephyr. If you have 4 or less you won't regen enough PP to use Retreat after you get Zephyr because you'll only regen 1. If for some reason getting 5 isn't possible then after you get Zephyr go north one room then take the log to the left and do a Retreat glitch. It will take you to the entrance to the jumping puzzle so just head south and go across the log to exit. (If you don't understand what door I'm talking about it's door I on [url=http://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/GoldenSun-FuchinTemple.png]this[/url] map.) EDIT: Ignore this. I'm really tired so I forgot you were doing 100% for both games, which means Force. I don't recall any Retreat glitches that take you to the Force gem. Try a save Retreat glitch. You should be able to OoB somewhere in there.

I do have a question about the Siren Crystal Powder thing. Do you know what exactly makes them drop it? It looks like as long as you get a Rainbow kill you will get a Crystal Powder or am I just completely off on that? From my experience playing it seems that a Rainbow gets me Crystal Powders in SS but that might just be luck.

I'll edit this post with more thoughts on the run when I have more time to actually finish watching it.

EDIT: Corona - You only need to use Procne and Neptune to kill Corona. Procne will do ~150 damage and Neptune ~210 which will finish it off. Breeze is the first Djinn that you can one round due to summons. Every Djinn after Breeze you can one round with just summons. Once you get two tier 3 summons you only need two attacks to take it down. I've noticed that you do extra attacks a lot.

Living Statue - You don't need Neptune to kill them. >_>

Colosso - Wouldn't it be better to have Fever on Standby and use Ragnarok to kill your opponents so you don't waste time on the Rainbow kill?

Tornado Lizards - You could use Meteor with Ivan, Thor with Isaac and Flint with Garet to get a Rainbow. This will give you a little over 800 experience which will save time overall because you won't need to complete battles in other areas.

Tunnel Ruins - Around 5:43:20 you used Move twice to push the pillar. If you just pull it back one square then push it right it's faster than using Move twice. Also, you don't need to push it all the way to the wall.

Tunnel Ruins Statue Puzzle - Move the gold one last. That way you can just push them through the center. This way you won't waste time pushing it around two statues then into its position.

Venus Lighthouse Second Block Puzzle - Around 5:54:00 you should push the straight line third. If you push the blocks into the holes below it then you will only have to push it in two directions instead of four.

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-02-06 02:51:48 pm

Plexa: 2013-02-06 12:02:03 pm

Plexa: 2013-02-06 11:42:38 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 11:40:51 am

Plexa: 2013-02-06 11:29:52 am

2013-02-06 11:25:02 am

The Siren Crystal powder isn't just the rainbow kill, it also needs precisely two djinn to do. Most RNG methods aim for 31, iirc this method hits 5 which triggers the 1/4 drop (2 for gust, 3 for fever with elemental kill). As far as I know I can't RNG the other two sirens, they're just there because they give the most experience in the dungeon.

I never found any oob stuff for fushin when I first looked, much to my disappointment. EDIT: I can do it slightly quicker. I don't need to do the dragon eye puzzle, just take the door in the room after breeze that goes back to the 'main' room of the dungeon and just run across the path in the dark.

With regard to extra attacks; that doesn't surprise me. I didn't write anything down regarding which summons to use and where, I should definitely do this in future runs. Neptune vs the statues, however, was just autopilot taking over and forgetting that neptune is a waste lol.

Everything else you said I'll take on board and incorporate into future runs. Thanks a lot for that Smiley

EDIT: completely unrelated, but, in Venus lighthouse 2 there are some garbage doors I didn't initially find (I only found them by chance just now as I my save in venus is apparently oob - was going to look at some of the tunnel ruins stuff). In particular, there is a garbage door which leads to the right most door in the room above the first room - i.e. the same place the retreat warp we use takes you. There's also a garbage door to the room *after* this (saving a puzzle) but the difficulty in hitting it and the fact its coordinates are 4279,205(!!!) make it not worth doing. This makes me think that any retreat door we enter is either:
a) a real door from the first room of the dungeon
b) a garbage door from the first room of the dungeon
Before finding these doors I thought that there were some other forces at play, but it might be just that simple. I'm going to play around with mercury lighthouse in a bit and see if I can find the cutscene garbage door - it might be quicker than going through the lighthouse again.

EDIT 3: Ah I see what you were saying about Tunnel Ruins. The puzzle where I used two moves I knew was a mistake when I did it. And pushing it all the way is a terrible habit t_t.

I did, however, realise that Venus 1 can be done slightly quicker by exiting to the right side before completing the first part of the lighthouse. This is because you can retreat out of here a little quicker.

EDIT 4: Not really worth a bump; retreat+chest doesn't work in this game unfortunately. No quick force gem/lift gem Sad

The Siren Crystal powder isn't just the rainbow kill, it also needs precisely two djinn to do. Most RNG methods aim for 31, iirc this method hits 5 which triggers the 1/4 drop (2 for gust, 3 for fever with elemental kill). As far as I know I can't RNG the other two sirens, they're just there because they give the most experience in the dungeon.

I never found any oob stuff for fushin when I first looked, much to my disappointment. EDIT: I can do it slightly quicker. I don't need to do the dragon eye puzzle, just take the door in the room after breeze that goes back to the 'main' room of the dungeon and just run across the path in the dark.

With regard to extra attacks; that doesn't surprise me. I didn't write anything down regarding which summons to use and where, I should definitely do this in future runs. Neptune vs the statues, however, was just autopilot taking over and forgetting that neptune is a waste lol.

Everything else you said I'll take on board and incorporate into future runs. Thanks a lot for that :)

EDIT: completely unrelated, but, in Venus lighthouse 2 there are some garbage doors I didn't initially find (I only found them by chance just now as I my save in venus is apparently oob - was going to look at some of the tunnel ruins stuff). In particular, there is a garbage door which leads to the right most door in the room above the first room - i.e. the same place the retreat warp we use takes you. There's also a garbage door to the room *after* this (saving a puzzle) but the difficulty in hitting it and the fact its coordinates are 4279,205(!!!) make it not worth doing. This makes me think that any retreat door we enter is either:
a) a real door from the first room of the dungeon
b) a garbage door from the first room of the dungeon
Before finding these doors I thought that there were some other forces at play, but it might be just that simple. I'm going to play around with mercury lighthouse in a bit and see if I can find the cutscene garbage door - it might be quicker than going through the lighthouse again.

EDIT 3: Ah I see what you were saying about Tunnel Ruins. The puzzle where I used two moves I knew was a mistake when I did it. And pushing it all the way is a terrible habit t_t.

I did, however, realise that Venus 1 can be done slightly quicker by exiting to the right side before completing the first part of the lighthouse. This is because you can retreat out of here a little quicker.

EDIT 4: Not really worth a bump; retreat+chest doesn't work in this game unfortunately. No quick force gem/lift gem :(

Arkhanno

2013-02-06 11:38:23 am

When you only have tier 3 summons you want to use the Djinn's weakness and the quickest summon animation. That will kill it in two attacks. If you have tier 4 then it doesn't matter what you use second tbh. You could kill it with pretty much anything. I just do two summons because it's easier.

This and this could help you determine what Psynergy to use if you decide to use Psynergy with a tier 4 summon.

FionordeQuester

Edit history:

FionordeQuester: 2013-02-09 10:11:54 pm

2013-02-09 10:10:04 pm

Hey, quick question Plexa. Instead of switching between using Djinn summons, psynergy attacks, Granite + Flash, and all of that for the Venus Lighthouse...why don't you just spread four Djinn of the same element around to everyone, do that for two different elements, and just summon two level 4 summons for every fight? That way, since the Djinn are spread around the whole party, it'll only take two Set cycles outside of battle to get both your Level 4 summons back. What do you think?

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-02-10 10:53:14 pm

2013-02-10 10:03:53 pm

1. It takes a while to rearrange all the Djinn
2. Everyone will be very weak without any significant classes so I'm committed for every fight (and rely on flash a lot)
3. My current method of save+reset, run, flash+summon is pretty quick and the run is quicker than the fight

The Venus lighthouse from the run that lost a ton of stuff out of it only took somewhere in the region of 10 minutes which is quick enough for me at the moment.

Arkhanno I need to look into your strats for fusion dragon Sad

did a run today where I ended up at the saturos fight severely under leveled (around 16-17) and my strats wouldn't work for them. Kind of annoying since I was at the Aerie at around 4:13. Had to level up for 7 mins or so to get the levels to have a shot. (Then fusion dragon severe blowed/outer spaced on a turn where I dont have any protection up lol...)

FionordeQuester

2013-02-10 11:09:01 pm

How exactly DO you decide when to use summons, when not to, and when to run, and when not to and all of that? Because it seems to me like in that optimization run, you would struggle to decide whether to rely on psynergy attacks, or just summoning monsters in the Venus Lighthouse, and as for running or not, as far as I can tell, you run only when you're sure you'll survive, but I can't tell for sure.

Plexa

2013-02-10 11:17:49 pm

Currently, I always use summons in Venus with a semi-save crawl (yeah its lame). Mostly because I absolutely need to one turn them otherwise I'm dead. By that stage in the game, unless you're 22ish, I think it's always better to default to summons. My semi-save crawl always allows me to run from one fight then crush whatever I get next. Otherwise, running in Venus lighthouse is super risky - one missed run could spell death for someone in your party and then you're not going to have a good time. Fighting everything with psynergy/djinn takes forever (and you have to heal afterwards else you risk running into golems/those things that cast dynamite whos name I've forgotten) and getting caught after a fight with recovering Djinn is almost always death as well; that's how I settled on the semi-save crawl.

Arkhanno

2013-02-11 10:18:53 pm

That is my strategy for Saturos/Menardi and Fusion Dragon. It's super safe because if you don't do that at level 16 you're just going to die. Also I tested to see if it was faster to use Boreas on Garet and it wasn't. Plus that was done on emulator a few months ago so there's a lot of lag and poor menus. If you'd like me to write it out then I could.

Plexa

2013-02-12 02:47:54 am

Thanks to help from Arkhanno, made some progress on working out the kinks in the second half of my run. Three points of interest from my perspective was:
1) Mists almost random RNG vs Kraken (A hard reset should allow for Mist to sleep kraken, as we discovered today, that doesn't always happen for no apparent reason)
2) RNG'ing for the Kimono
3) Quartz behaving strangely and not reviving when he should (the battle RN should have allowed for it?)

It was also good to get another fight against the Fusion dragon, looks like my new strat is sufficiently safe for levels 17/17/16/18 (16 Ivan, 18 Mia). I'm pretty pleased with that. Again, I can't thank Arkhanno enough for the advice during the practice.

Arkhanno

2013-02-12 03:40:30 am

Haha. No problem. Glad I could help. I'll try to pop in whenever I see you streaming. <3

wfp

2013-02-13 12:15:23 am

does it make any sense to have isaac in battle with all the water djinn instead of mia? i would think you'd want ivan and mia cycling the protective flash/granite/ground djinn while your two characters with the highest attack stats serve as your damage dealers (though i dunno how much damage if any you lose on summons vs what you gain on other attacks).

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-02-13 09:52:30 pm

Plexa: 2013-02-13 09:50:51 pm

2013-02-13 09:24:00 pm

Arkhanno's strat is safer than mine and I use Venus on Mia, Jupiter on Isaac and Mercury on Garet. So yes, it does make sense for something like that. But with less Djinn it turns out that its much harder to pull that off - as Arkhanno found out in practice. No real reason why I have Mercury on Garet and not Isaac, personal preference I guess!

I have a vid of some Fusion Dragon practice where I trialed a bunch of things, you can see that here: http://www.twitch.tv/tl_plexa/b/366277387

You can also see that my strat is pretty capable of handling terrible RNG on Fusion Dragon if you check out my most recent GS1 run (which was 4:37:50 or something)

Plexa

Edit history:

Plexa: 2013-03-12 07:02:31 am

Plexa: 2013-03-11 05:04:44 am

Plexa: 2013-03-10 08:55:42 pm

Plexa: 2013-03-10 07:26:22 pm

2013-03-10 07:10:18 pm

Guide to the Random Number System in GS1

Update 2013/3/13: Corrected the grouping of some of the psynergies. Added information about ARN.

I recently claimed the 100% WR off of Werster using a run which focuses on heavy RNG manipulation to proceed through the game. Unfortunately, it looks like RNG manipulation will result in the quickest run through the game as it allows you (with good planning) virtually unlimited control over the game. I say unfortunately because it means that a conventional playthrough of GS1 will nearly always be suboptimal and instead of needing the skills to make decisions about PP management, how to deal with random mobs and finding a balance between running and fighting the only skills that will be required is for someone to sit down and map out what they want to achieve and the manipulate the RNG to get that result. I genuinely hope that Werster continues to try playing the game without the RNG because I think with the perfect run he will have a superior time to an RNG manipulated run, but we'll see I suppose.

The first think you need to know about is that there is 5 random numbers in Golden Sun, 4 of which are important and the other one being virtually uncontrollable outside of a TAS or well designed segmented run. I name them as follows:
Battle Random Number (BRN) - This is the one people have been exploiting for years in order to get drops, first strike etc. It's rather well understood at this point.
Party Random Number (PRN) - This one is the one which tells you what party you will encounter and until now hasn't been that well understood outside of some situations
Encounter Random number (ERN) - This one tells you when your next encounter is going to happen, i.e. the number of steps before you get a fight
Attack Random Number (ARN) - This one tells you were the attacks from your enemies are aimed, in some instances it is controllable but in general it isn't
Frame Random Number (FRN) - This is just a random number selected by the frame that you are on

Let's review how each of these is manipulated:

BRN
0 BRN means first strike
Hard Resets sets BRN to 0
Sanctum Warping does not affect BRN
Psynergy in the overworld in general does not affect BRN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events*

PRN
Hard resets change the PRN to whatever the room tells it to default to (possibly 0)
Sanctum Warping does affect PRN
Some psynergy affects PRN**
Going through a door affects PRN
Dropping down a cliff using the shoot thing
The BRN at the end of a battle affect PRN
Your level affects PRN
In the overworld, walking in forests or not in forests can sometimes change PRN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events*

ERN
Hard resets do not affect ERN
Sanctum warping does affect ERN
Some psynergy in very limited circumstances affect ERN**
The BRN at the end of a battle affects ERN
In the overworld, walking in forests or not in forests can sometimes change ERN
Your level affects ERN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events can sometimes influence ERN*

ARN
This one still has me confused. It appears to be dependent on the frame but there are times when this can be accurate predicted (e.g. Killer Ape) and times that this can't be predicted (e.g. Saturos).
One thing which definitely affects it is if you enter an attack (i.e. after you're done selecting what to do on that turn for a person) that attack will add a specific RN to the ARN corresponding to what the move was. If you go back and cancel the move (i.e. spam B) this will NOT undo the addition of the RN to the ARN. i.e. x4 Attacks on Saturos will be different from Attack with Isaac, cancel, then x4 attacks.

FRN
You need to be frame perfect to do any of these tricks, the longer since the last sanctum warp/hard reset the more difficult this is to manipulate

* So I've mentioned these 'Frame dependent RNG rooms and events' but not really explained them. These are rooms which continuously or near continuously add the FRN to the BRN and PRN and make the RNG impossible to predict outside of a TAS/Segmented setting. As a rule of thumb, if the room has an active element in them then they will be a frame dependent RNG room. Removing the active element does not remove the dependence on the FRN. Every town with the exception of Xian is also a frame dependent RNG room. I have no idea why Xian is an exception, but all my tests indicate that time spent in Xian has no influence on the RNG. My guess is that is because Xian contains no randomly moving people. I will provide a list of known locations below. Frame dependent events are events where interacting with them changes the random number. I will provide a list of these below as well.

Frame dependent rooms
Prologue Vale (room with garet, room with felix in it)
Mogall Forest Room 3 (swinging nut)
Living statue rooms in Altin (all three, living statue is an 'active' element of the room)
Lamakan desert (the desert part, each dust cloud kicked up adds a FRN)
Venus Lighthouse Interior (the room with the three sandstreams, and any time you kick up a dustcloud)

Frame dependent events
Opening a chest/getting an item outside of battle
Acquiring a Djinn
Killing Tornado Lizards
Some doors in Venus Lighthouse Interior (to the best of my knowledge, still working on venus interior)

The lucky medal fountain works off of the PRN, so winning an item there has a reliable effect on the PRN.

Some things which don't affect RNs
Here is a list of things which you may think should influence the RNG, but do not:
Switches in Altin
Cart rides in Altin
Setting/stanby'ing Djinn
Swapping Djinn around
Dropping items from your inventory
Using items from your inventory

** So psynergy can be useful in manipulating the PRN, and in doing so we can secure a party from which we can run from. I do not know how these psynergies relate to each other unless they are equal. I did a ton of testing and could not find a reliable relationship. The effects of psynergy also change depending on whether its used in a dungeon or in the overworld oddly enough.

Psynergy list
Reveal*** - healing psynergy: have no influence on the RNG
Lift - Carry - Force: all have the same influence on the RNG (as far as I'm aware)
Douse - Halt: have the same influence on the RNG
Cloak - Mind Read - Gale - Whirlwind - Catch - Avoid****: No influence in dungeons, has same influence in the overworld.^
All other psynergies have unique influences on the RNG

***Reveal is special because in Venus Lighthouse Exterior it actually prevents the RNG from working at all. So if you walk through the dungeon entirely in reveal mode you will never get an encounter. I am yet to find any other dungeon with this type of behavior.
**** Avoid only has this behavior if it can't stop encounters because you are too low leveled. Otherwise it can stop encounters occuring.
^ Incidentally, with the exception of Avoid, every one of these psynergies is used outside of battle by an NPC. Dora uses catch, Ivan uses mind read in Vault, Ivan also uses Whirldwind/Gale, Cloak is used by Isaac after Lunpa where you have no control.

Occasionally, psynergy will affect the ERN. This will normally change the number of steps by a small amount. This is something to be aware of when you are working out your own methods.

Here is an example method, one of the very first that I used myself (I'm normally level 2-2-4 or 3-3-4 at this point):
- In Bilibin cave once you get the Elven Raipier equip it to your desired person, get mars/venus ready and hard reset (DO NOT DROP DOWN)
- After dropping down the cliff you should get a 3 Goblin party with attacks first (use Venus/Mars/Ray to kill it)
- Next party will be a Golbin which you will also have first strike on (run form this)
- Next party will be a troll/bee/rat solider, you can run from this
- When in the icy part of the cave immediately use move twice
- If you don't waste steps you can leave the cave without an encounter
- Hard reset once you are outside Bilibin cave
- Re-enter bilibin cave and use one move then exit
- Get Venus/Mars ready
- Next fight is Mauler+3 Ooze (Venus/Mars/Ray, Defend/Fire or Flare/Ray)
- If you are quick you won't get an encounter to Imil, else its a Gnome which you can run from

That will get you reliably to Imil with some extra experience because hey, you need it for Saturos lol. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[b]Guide to the Random Number System in GS1[/b]

Update 2013/3/13: Corrected the grouping of some of the psynergies. Added information about ARN.

I recently claimed the 100% WR off of Werster using a run which focuses on heavy RNG manipulation to proceed through the game. Unfortunately, it looks like RNG manipulation will result in the quickest run through the game as it allows you (with good planning) virtually unlimited control over the game. I say unfortunately because it means that a conventional playthrough of GS1 will nearly always be suboptimal and instead of needing the skills to make decisions about PP management, how to deal with random mobs and finding a balance between running and fighting the only skills that will be required is for someone to sit down and map out what they want to achieve and the manipulate the RNG to get that result. I genuinely hope that Werster continues to try playing the game without the RNG because I think with the perfect run he will have a superior time to an RNG manipulated run, but we'll see I suppose.

The first think you need to know about is that there is 5 random numbers in Golden Sun, 4 of which are important and the other one being virtually uncontrollable outside of a TAS or well designed segmented run. I name them as follows:
Battle Random Number (BRN) - This is the one people have been exploiting for years in order to get drops, first strike etc. It's rather well understood at this point.
Party Random Number (PRN) - This one is the one which tells you what party you will encounter and until now hasn't been that well understood outside of some situations
Encounter Random number (ERN) - This one tells you when your next encounter is going to happen, i.e. the number of steps before you get a fight
Attack Random Number (ARN) - This one tells you were the attacks from your enemies are aimed, in some instances it is controllable but in general it isn't
Frame Random Number (FRN) - This is just a random number selected by the frame that you are on

Let's review how each of these is manipulated:

[b]BRN[/b]
0 BRN means first strike
Hard Resets sets BRN to 0
Sanctum Warping does not affect BRN
Psynergy in the overworld in general does not affect BRN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events*

[b]PRN[/b]
Hard resets change the PRN to whatever the room tells it to default to (possibly 0)
Sanctum Warping does affect PRN
Some psynergy affects PRN**
Going through a door affects PRN
Dropping down a cliff using the shoot thing
The BRN at the end of a battle affect PRN
Your level affects PRN
In the overworld, walking in forests or not in forests can sometimes change PRN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events*

[b]ERN[/b]
Hard resets do not affect ERN
Sanctum warping does affect ERN
Some psynergy in very limited circumstances affect ERN**
The BRN at the end of a battle affects ERN
In the overworld, walking in forests or not in forests can sometimes change ERN
Your level affects ERN
Frame dependent RNG rooms and events can sometimes influence ERN*

[b]ARN[/b]
This one still has me confused. It appears to be dependent on the frame but there are times when this can be accurate predicted (e.g. Killer Ape) and times that this can't be predicted (e.g. Saturos).
One thing which definitely affects it is if you enter an attack (i.e. after you're done selecting what to do on that turn for a person) that attack will add a specific RN to the ARN corresponding to what the move was. If you go back and cancel the move (i.e. spam B) this will NOT undo the addition of the RN to the ARN. i.e. x4 Attacks on Saturos will be different from Attack with Isaac, cancel, then x4 attacks.

[b]FRN[/b]
You need to be frame perfect to do any of these tricks, the longer since the last sanctum warp/hard reset the more difficult this is to manipulate

* So I've mentioned these 'Frame dependent RNG rooms and events' but not really explained them. These are rooms which continuously or near continuously add the FRN to the BRN and PRN and make the RNG impossible to predict outside of a TAS/Segmented setting. As a rule of thumb, if the room has an active element in them then they will be a frame dependent RNG room. Removing the active element does not remove the dependence on the FRN. Every town with the exception of Xian is also a frame dependent RNG room. I have no idea why Xian is an exception, but all my tests indicate that time spent in Xian has no influence on the RNG. My guess is that is because Xian contains no randomly moving people. I will provide a list of known locations below. Frame dependent events are events where interacting with them changes the random number. I will provide a list of these below as well.

[b]Frame dependent rooms[/b]
Prologue Vale (room with garet, room with felix in it)
Mogall Forest Room 3 (swinging nut)
Living statue rooms in Altin (all three, living statue is an 'active' element of the room)
Lamakan desert (the desert part, each dust cloud kicked up adds a FRN)
Venus Lighthouse Interior (the room with the three sandstreams, and any time you kick up a dustcloud)

[b]Frame dependent events[/b]
Opening a chest/getting an item outside of battle
Acquiring a Djinn
Killing Tornado Lizards
Some doors in Venus Lighthouse Interior (to the best of my knowledge, still working on venus interior)

The lucky medal fountain works off of the PRN, so winning an item there has a reliable effect on the PRN.

[b]Some things which don't affect RNs[/b]
Here is a list of things which you may think should influence the RNG, but do not:
Switches in Altin
Cart rides in Altin
Setting/stanby'ing Djinn
Swapping Djinn around
Dropping items from your inventory
Using items from your inventory

** So psynergy can be useful in manipulating the PRN, and in doing so we can secure a party from which we can run from. I do not know how these psynergies relate to each other unless they are equal. I did a ton of testing and could not find a reliable relationship. The effects of psynergy also change depending on whether its used in a dungeon or in the overworld oddly enough.

[b]Psynergy list[/b]
Reveal*** - healing psynergy: have no influence on the RNG
Lift - Carry - Force: all have the same influence on the RNG (as far as I'm aware)
Douse - Halt: have the same influence on the RNG
Cloak - Mind Read - Gale - Whirlwind - Catch - Avoid****: No influence in dungeons, has same influence in the overworld.^ 
All other psynergies have unique influences on the RNG

***Reveal is special because in Venus Lighthouse Exterior it actually prevents the RNG from working at all. So if you walk through the dungeon entirely in reveal mode you will never get an encounter. I am yet to find any other dungeon with this type of behavior.
**** Avoid only has this behavior if it can't stop encounters because you are too low leveled. Otherwise it can stop encounters occuring.
^ Incidentally, with the exception of Avoid, every one of these psynergies is used outside of battle by an NPC. Dora uses catch, Ivan uses mind read in Vault, Ivan also uses Whirldwind/Gale, Cloak is used by Isaac after Lunpa where you have no control.

Occasionally, psynergy will affect the ERN. This will normally change the number of steps by a small amount. This is something to be aware of when you are working out your own methods.

Here is an example method, one of the very first that I used myself (I'm normally level 2-2-4 or 3-3-4 at this point):
- In Bilibin cave once you get the Elven Raipier equip it to your desired person, get mars/venus ready and hard reset (DO NOT DROP DOWN)
- After dropping down the cliff you should get a 3 Goblin party with attacks first (use Venus/Mars/Ray to kill it)
- Next party will be a Golbin which you will also have first strike on (run form this)
- Next party will be a troll/bee/rat solider, you can run from this
- When in the icy part of the cave immediately use move twice
- If you don't waste steps you can leave the cave without an encounter
- Hard reset once you are outside Bilibin cave
- Re-enter bilibin cave and use one move then exit
- Get Venus/Mars ready
- Next fight is Mauler+3 Ooze (Venus/Mars/Ray, Defend/Fire or Flare/Ray)
- If you are quick you won't get an encounter to Imil, else its a Gnome which you can run from

That will get you reliably to Imil with some extra experience because hey, you need it for Saturos lol. If you have any questions feel free to ask.