Golden Sun (Sub 4 Hours????)

2010-04-19 05:30:53 pm

Thanks a bundle Cheese. Was your message speed set on max? I'll assume yes. I'm going to base my time off of when the first credit rolls.

I won't start serious attempts at beating them until tomorrow. Too much to do today. But I will say that I think its possible. I really do. And believe me, I know my Golden Sun. The raw power of Summons, at any level, make this a possibility. It may have to be slow. But it will happen.

As far as GS2 is concerned...I think I will run it, regardless of where this run goes. Now, it will probably be a long time until I actually start, and I'll have to both re-familiarize myself with it and read through all the literature on the subject of running it, but the concept of planning such an epic run is very appealing.

Manocheese

2010-04-19 05:35:24 pm

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

Yes, message speed was at max. On a related note, are you holding B during battle text? You probably already know this, but just in case you don't, holding B in battles scrolls through the messages as fast as possible (but it's faster to mash A and B repeatedly outside of battles).

FlamingMage

2010-04-19 06:05:53 pm

I knew these things, yes, but thanks for checking.
Actually, I find in practice that mashing B+A+L+R is the fastest Tongue

I don't know if hands can do this on the gamecube controller though.

Manocheese

2010-04-19 06:59:48 pm

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

Using a GameCube controller for this game definitely takes some getting used to. I'd recommend using a GBA-GCN link cable instead if you have one.

FlamingMage

2010-04-19 08:26:58 pm

I'll ask my bud if he does. Probably not.

I went ahead and fought them once, just to get a feel for it. San/Men was really easy with my uberturtle strategy, but Fusion destroyed me. The real problem was his poison attack. I need to redistribute my djinn somehow...I'll work on it.

Also, trolling old forum posts looking for speed run advice. Some funny tidbits I copy/pasted:

"It only took me about 7 or 8 hours to complete the entire game. Not long. But then again, I speed runned it." (No, you didn't.)

"my fastest time is 12 hours but only around lv 26" (lol, only double my level)

"geez theres more then 5 hours worth of cutscenes let alone gaming time. hahaha that'd be crazy" (Fail)

"the lowest level I've heard of beating this game is about 22."

In a upset that is totally surprising because things like this never happen, the average forum user is hopelessly incompetent at high-level GS play. I'm not going to read any more "I is d0in spedrun@!!1@!" topics anymore. Everything I need to know I taught myself, or learned from wolves, or pk.

Although I did learn "you can halt random civilians. they stop walking and flash grey for a few seconds, an if you talk to them, they just say "...""

Which is amazing.

Edit: Oh, yeah, do you guys think SDA would accept a bad ending run where you say no to the wise one in Vale and end the game right after Sol Sanctum?

I'll ask my bud if he does. Probably not.

I went ahead and fought them once, just to get a feel for it. San/Men was really easy with my uberturtle strategy, but Fusion destroyed me. The real problem was his poison attack. I need to redistribute my djinn somehow...I'll work on it.

Also, trolling old forum posts looking for speed run advice. Some funny tidbits I copy/pasted:

"It only took me about 7 or 8 hours to complete the entire game. Not long. But then again, I speed runned it." [i](No, you didn't.)[/i]

"my fastest time is 12 hours but only around lv 26" [i](lol, only double my level)[/i]

"geez theres more then 5 hours worth of cutscenes let alone gaming time. hahaha that'd be crazy" [i](Fail)[/i]

"the lowest level I've heard of beating this game is about 22." [i] :([/i]

In a upset that is totally surprising because things like this never happen, the average forum user is hopelessly incompetent at high-level GS play. I'm not going to read any more "I is d0in spedrun@!!1@!" topics anymore. Everything I need to know I taught myself, or learned from wolves, or pk.

Although I did learn "you can halt random civilians. they stop walking and flash grey for a few seconds, an if you talk to them, they just say "...""

Which is amazing.

Edit: Oh, yeah, do you guys think SDA would accept a bad ending run where you say no to the wise one in Vale and end the game right after Sol Sanctum?

ShinerCCC

2010-04-20 04:15:30 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Probably not. We didn't accept no "But...the future refused to change." for Chrono Trigger. Or any of the fake half-way endings for the Castlevania DS games.

If you can't get a GBA link cable, see if you can get one of these Hori digital pads. I used one for my Gradius Galaxies no-death run and Ikaruga (and some Zelda Collection), handles quite well, mine started to break a little but that's because I was mean to it.

http://www.aeropause.com/archives/digital-1000size.png

FlamingMage

2010-07-23 02:08:41 pm

<grumble><grumble><old man noise>

Hey, looky here! An update Wink

I can't seem to get a GBP startup disk for <15$...I've bid on five Ebay ones and they all got sniped, which kinda sucks.

Ah well, I'll put a request in the Trading Post, should have thought of that sooner. I may also start bidding a bit higher on Ebay, but I'm pretty broke sadly. Ah well, I really would like to record this run, it isn't honestly all that hard except for the Fusion Dragon.

Oh, and I gave up on attempting him. My party will be noticeably different in the final version (I'm cutting a Mars Djinn, among other things...) So I didn't want to find some perfect strategy and then have it not work. I'm sure its possible, and I'm sure sub 4 is possible, but the cutscenes before him take way to long for me to bother with finding a strategy for him that might not work on the actual run.

FlamingMage

2010-08-19 11:06:32 am

I bought a Game Boy Player. I think I'll record my Legacy of Goku run before GS, because LoG is <:25, but immediately afterward Golden Sun will begin!

I don't actually know how long it will take to ship here, but hey.

VorpalEdge

Edit history:

VorpalEdge: 2010-08-20 04:00:22 am

2010-08-20 03:50:19 am

welcome to the machine

Quote from FlamingMage:

In a upset that is totally surprising because things like this never happen, the average forum user is hopelessly incompetent at high-level GS play. I'm not going to read any more "I is d0in spedrun@!!1@!" topics anymore. Everything I need to know I taught myself, or learned from wolves, or pk.

Well, that's a shame. I have some cool things for you. :p

Quote from FlamingMage:

I never summoned or used a single Djinn. Regrettable, but I had to ensure that I was well healed for Eruption (which, admittedly, Saturos only used I believe once) and I needed as much health as I could get.

I have a problem with this statement. Watch this video. I beat Saturos before he casts Eruption.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9035657

Aside from the funny bad-execution moments (I made about 7 attempts before I recorded this, it was the first one that got anywhere near that far, and I haven't played this game in years until today), it should show enough that you should seriously reconsider your strategy. My party setup was as follows... I'll write this out very thoroughly, since I'm having a hard time understanding your strategy, other than that A: you have one, and B: you have crystal powders, and C: you don't use djinn. I'm sure you know most of this, but I might say something you don't. Here's hoping.

Party levels are 7/7/7/10. I've fought no randoms up to this point; I savescummed past them. The only battles I've fought are the bandits, the two djinn you need to fight to recruit, the lizardman at the entrance to the lighthouse, and 6 groups of 3 sirens to manipulate crystal powder drops. To get groups of 3 sirens rather than 2, save in the room you retreat warp to after the Mercury Djinn. Hard-reset, load, go through the north door (you'll get stuck in the statue your first time in this room; just move it to the left), then back up the stairs and run around. I specifically go for groups of 3 for the extra experience. The RNG method I used was:

Quote:

3 Sirens.
First turn, all centered on middle Siren:
Ivan: Ray
Isaac: Quake
Garet: Fire
Mia: Tundra
Middle siren dies.

Second turn:
both sirens do things. one regular attacks, the other casts froth.
Ivan: defend
Isaac: defend.
Mia: Frost on left siren, it dies.
Garet: Fever on right siren. It flashes and dies.

Crystal powder get.

Should probably find an rng method that doesn't involve isaac casting something after you dropped his PP below 6 to warp, though. >_> I just ran around until it restored.

The djinn setup in the video is
Ivan: Gust
Isaac: Flint, Forge
Garet: Fever
Mia: Fizz, Sleep (on standby)

Ivan has 59 agility at this point, which lets him act before Saturos and throw herbs the entire fight. Without Gust he would have 57. This number is 5 larger than it should be because I fed him the Mint from the vault inn (it was necessary for my old strategy, which had Ivan with Gust and Flint, where the extra speed was necessary for him to cast Cure faster than saturos acted. except I'm not high level enough for even that to work, and it was ultimately a dumb idea when you get free herbs anyways). With that boost gone, Ivan would have 52 agility, 1 higher than Saturos's 51. You might be able to get away with not picking up Gust in bilibin at all if you manipulate out good speed increases on Ivan's level-ups, although I don't know how that would affect your later strategies. The 7 hp loss from that is pretty bad, but iirc he still gets one-shotted by fireballs focused on him anyways. You can shunt him to the far left of the party so he's not targetted as often, and so the meat shields that are Isaac and Garet take the brunt of everything.

Crystal powder distribution is 1 on Ivan, 2 on Isaac, 2 on Garet, 1 on Mia. The one on Mia was useless and should be moved to Isaac. I don't know how you set the fight up currently -- you said you ended up cutting down by 3 (from 6, I think?), but I have no idea how you would do any damage at all if you both didn't summon djinn and used even fewer crystal powders.

Battle strategy is pretty simple. Ivan uses crystal powder on the first turn and then throws an herb before Saturos acts on every turn thereafter. Isaac and Garet just summon and resummon Kirin as quickly as possible, and throw powders in the down turns. Mia acts as secondary healer and casts Nereid twice.

In any case, you can definitely shave a turn off the video I posted. Summon Kirin on the first turn, try to get Nereid out faster, be more aggressive and use less secondary healing from Mia (and die a lot more often, but them's the breaks). I'll make a concerted attempt at doing that and simultaneously shaving a couple crystal powders tomorrow. I'm really curious to know what your strat is like, though. I think I'll try to recreate it.

Also, your bandit fight should look like this: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9035743

[quote="FlamingMage"]In a upset that is totally surprising because things like this never happen, the average forum user is hopelessly incompetent at high-level GS play. I'm not going to read any more "I is d0in spedrun@!!1@!" topics anymore. Everything I need to know I taught myself, or learned from wolves, or pk.[/quote]

Well, that's a shame.  I have some cool things for you. :p

[quote="FlamingMage"]I never summoned or used a single Djinn. Regrettable, but I had to ensure that I was well healed for Eruption (which, admittedly, Saturos only used I believe once) and I needed as much health as I could get.[/quote]

I have a problem with this statement.  Watch this video.  I beat Saturos before he casts Eruption.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9035657

Aside from the funny bad-execution moments (I made about 7 attempts before I recorded this, it was the first one that got anywhere near that far, and I haven't played this game in years until today), it should show enough that you should seriously reconsider your strategy.  My party setup was as follows... I'll write this out very thoroughly, since I'm having a hard time understanding your strategy, other than that A: you have one, and B: you have crystal powders, and C: you don't use djinn.  I'm sure you know most of this, but I might say something you don't.  Here's hoping.

Party levels are 7/7/7/10.  I've fought no randoms up to this point; I savescummed past them.  The only battles I've fought are the bandits, the two djinn you need to fight to recruit, the lizardman at the entrance to the lighthouse, and 6 groups of 3 sirens to manipulate crystal powder drops.  To get groups of 3 sirens rather than 2, save in the room you retreat warp to after the Mercury Djinn.  Hard-reset, load, go through the north door (you'll get stuck in the statue your first time in this room; just move it to the left), then back up the stairs and run around.  I specifically go for groups of 3 for the extra experience.  The RNG method I used was:

[quote]3 Sirens.
First turn, all centered on middle Siren:
Ivan: Ray
Isaac: Quake
Garet: Fire
Mia: Tundra
Middle siren dies.

Second turn:
both sirens do things.  one regular attacks, the other casts froth.
Ivan: defend
Isaac: defend.
Mia: Frost on left siren, it dies.
Garet: Fever on right siren.  It flashes and dies.

Crystal powder get.[/quote]

Should probably find an rng method that doesn't involve isaac casting something after you dropped his PP below 6 to warp, though. >_>  I just ran around until it restored.

The djinn setup in the video is
Ivan: Gust
Isaac: Flint, Forge
Garet: Fever
Mia: Fizz, Sleep (on standby)

Ivan has 59 agility at this point, which lets him act before Saturos and throw herbs the entire fight.  Without Gust he would have 57.  This number is 5 larger than it should be because I fed him the Mint from the vault inn (it was necessary for my old strategy, which had Ivan with Gust and Flint, where the extra speed was necessary for him to cast Cure faster than saturos acted.  except I'm not high level enough for even that to work, and it was ultimately a dumb idea when you get free herbs anyways).  With that boost gone, Ivan would have 52 agility, 1 higher than Saturos's 51.  You might be able to get away with not picking up Gust in bilibin at all if you manipulate out good speed increases on Ivan's level-ups, although I don't know how that would affect your later strategies.  The 7 hp loss from that is pretty bad, but iirc he still gets one-shotted by fireballs focused on him anyways.  You can shunt him to the far left of the party so he's not targetted as often, and so the meat shields that are Isaac and Garet take the brunt of everything.

Crystal powder distribution is 1 on Ivan, 2 on Isaac, 2 on Garet, 1 on Mia.  The one on Mia was useless and should be moved to Isaac.  I don't know how you set the fight up currently -- you said you ended up cutting down by 3 (from 6, I think?), but I have no idea how you would do any damage at all if you both didn't summon djinn and used even fewer crystal powders.

Battle strategy is pretty simple.  Ivan uses crystal powder on the first turn and then throws an herb before Saturos acts on every turn thereafter.  Isaac and Garet just summon and resummon Kirin as quickly as possible, and throw powders in the down turns.  Mia acts as secondary healer and casts Nereid twice.

In any case, you can definitely shave a turn off the video I posted.  Summon Kirin on the first turn, try to get Nereid out faster, be more aggressive and use less secondary healing from Mia (and die a lot more often, but them's the breaks).  I'll make a concerted attempt at doing that and simultaneously shaving a couple crystal powders tomorrow.  I'm really curious to know what your strat is like, though.  I think I'll try to recreate it.

Also, your bandit fight should look like this: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9035743

FlamingMage

2010-08-20 08:21:50 am

Yes, well, you're hardly the average forum user Wink

Wow, I totally missed that three siren method. I guess I never tested the room you're talking about. Thank you Smiley

Your Saturos battle was interesting indeed, with the added levels I'll get from the sirens I suppose mine will end up looking something like that. Oh, and I still get 6 powders. I originally got 9, and I think that in my actual run that 6 is the correct number. 7 or more might save a turn, but it takes longer to get. Actually, If I'm using groups of 3 sirens, I might only get 5 Smiley

Given that I was using a single siren before...

I never wrote down my strat because I knew I'd want to improve it before the real segment. Pretty much, it ended up being using Ward every turn on whichever character I knew he was about to attack so they could survive, meanwhile killing him with I believe Air Slash. It wasn't pretty, but it still saved time since I got so few powders. But now that I'll be a higher level I'm sure I'll find something better.

Oh, and damn you for moving Ivan to the left! That was my secret pro strat! Angry

Yes, well, you're hardly the average forum user ;)

Wow, I totally missed that three siren method. I guess I never tested the room you're talking about. Thank you :)

Your Saturos battle was interesting indeed, with the added levels I'll get from the sirens I suppose mine will end up looking something like that. Oh, and I still get 6 powders. I originally got 9, and I think that in my actual run that 6 is the correct number. 7 or more might save a turn, but it takes longer to get. Actually, If I'm using groups of 3 sirens, I might only get 5 :) Given that I was using a single siren before...

I never wrote down my strat because I knew I'd want to improve it before the real segment. Pretty much, it ended up being using Ward every turn on whichever character I knew he was about to attack so they could survive, meanwhile killing him with I believe Air Slash. It wasn't pretty, but it still saved time since I got so few powders. But now that I'll be a higher level I'm sure I'll find something better.

Oh, and damn you for moving Ivan to the left! That was my secret pro strat! >:(

Thanatos

2010-08-20 08:28:50 am

wait, why move ivan to the left? do enemies mostly attack to the right?

also, finish this goddamned run already, i wanna see!

FlamingMage

2010-08-20 08:39:10 am

All group psyenergy has a damage pattern something like: 1:2:3:2:1 , with bigger numbers showing more damage. Since Ivan has so low health, having him in the center of the party means he takes more damage and dies more often.

VorpalEdge

Edit history:

VorpalEdge: 2010-08-20 04:55:19 pm

VorpalEdge: 2010-08-20 04:21:10 pm

VorpalEdge: 2010-08-20 04:16:19 pm

2010-08-20 04:09:36 pm

welcome to the machine

Ivan: Fizz
Isaac: Flint, Fever
Garet: Sleet, Forge
Mia: Gust

First turn:
Ivan: Jupiter (61/61 of 1200)
Saturos: Heat Flash
Isaac: Venus (69/130)
Mia: Nereid (153/283)
Garet: Kirin (88/371)

Second turn:
Ivan: Herb
Saturos: Fireball
Isaac: Crystal Powder (102/473)
Mia: Ply
Garet: Crystal Powder (102/575)

Fizz, Flint, Sleet, and Gust reset.

Third turn:
Ivan: Fizz
Mia: Herb
Saturos: Attack
Isaac: Crystal Powder (105/680)
Garet: Sleet (41/721)

Fever and Forge reset.

Fourth turn:
Ivan: Herb
Mia: Nereid (173/894) *
Saturos: Fireball
Isaac: Fever (35/929)
Garet: Forge

*This is the risky part. Mia attacks instead of healing. Good luck, you'll need it. Wink

Saturos needs to not kill anybody with the Fireball (hard, but doable if he targets Mia with his first fireball so only 3 people are damaged, or by a fluke), and needs to not kill anybody with the heat flash next turn (probably needs to hit whoever Ivan herbs in his next action).

Fifth turn:
Ivan: Herb
Mia: Crystal Powder (102/1031)
Saturos: Heat Flash
Isaac: Crystal Powder (104/1135)
Garet: Kirin (100/1235)

Saturos was felled! Crystal powders used: 5.

The following turns:
Saturos: Attack
Saturos: Eruption

Also, I don't remember anyone gaining a level after I farmed the sixth group of three sirens. I think they were all 7/7/7/10 after five battles. Just note that Ivan has only 57 agility with the Mint +5, so you're going to want to manipulate out good level-ups for him to be sure he can act first consistently.

I suspect you could do this with one fewer crystal powder if you took an extra turn, but then you're looking at being a lower level and that's not a rabbit hole I feel like climbing down currently. If Ivan loses a level then you instantly lose more time than you save...

Ivan: Fizz
Isaac: Flint, Fever
Garet: Sleet, Forge
Mia: Gust

First turn:
Ivan: Jupiter (61/61 of 1200)
Saturos: Heat Flash
Isaac: Venus (69/130)
Mia: Nereid (153/283)
Garet: Kirin (88/371)

Second turn:
Ivan: Herb
Saturos: Fireball
Isaac: Crystal Powder (102/473)
Mia: Ply
Garet: Crystal Powder (102/575)

Fizz, Flint, Sleet, and Gust reset.

Third turn:
Ivan: Fizz
Mia: Herb
Saturos: Attack
Isaac: Crystal Powder (105/680)
Garet: Sleet (41/721)

Fever and Forge reset.

Fourth turn:
Ivan: Herb
Mia: Nereid (173/894) *
Saturos: Fireball
Isaac: Fever (35/929)
Garet: Forge

*This is the risky part.  Mia attacks instead of healing.  Good luck, you'll need it. ;)
Saturos needs to not kill anybody with the Fireball (hard, but doable if he targets Mia with his first fireball so only 3 people are damaged, or by a fluke), and needs to not kill anybody with the heat flash next turn (probably needs to hit whoever Ivan herbs in his next action).

Fifth turn:
Ivan: Herb
Mia: Crystal Powder (102/1031)
Saturos: Heat Flash
Isaac: Crystal Powder (104/1135)
Garet: Kirin (100/1235)

Saturos was felled!  Crystal powders used: 5.

The following turns:
Saturos: Attack
Saturos: Eruption

Also, I don't remember anyone gaining a level after I farmed the sixth group of three sirens.  I think they were all 7/7/7/10 after five battles.  Just note that Ivan has only 57 agility with the Mint +5, so you're going to want to manipulate out good level-ups for him to be sure he can act first consistently.

I suspect you could do this with one fewer crystal powder if you took an extra turn, but then you're looking at being a lower level and that's not a rabbit hole I feel like climbing down currently.  If Ivan loses a level then you instantly lose more time than you save...

FlamingMage

2010-08-20 05:13:27 pm

Nice plan, thanks Smiley

I'll do some more testing when I get there in the run, but this seems optimized.

giganotabehemoth87

Edit history:

giganotabehemoth87: 2010-08-23 05:23:32 pm

giganotabehemoth87: 2010-08-23 05:18:35 pm

giganotabehemoth87: 2010-08-23 05:05:37 pm

giganotabehemoth87: 2010-08-23 04:54:01 pm

2010-08-23 04:17:29 pm

I have to say I'm very much looking forward to this speed run. As an avid fan of the golden sun series and having done an extremely rough and intentionally sloppy speed run of it myself (a pathetic 6 hours 20 minutes embarassed

) it sems that sub 4 hours really is the perfectly optimised limit to go after. I've seen the 100% run on youtube in which he did a few backtracks to get the djinn in vale and Lumpa and possible vault and I wondered what time could be achieved for an any% run ignoring these extranouos backtracks. I was going to do some serious attempts at it myself as it seemed no one else who I was aware of at the time was doing it. But in the end I didn't quite have the motivation to do it and I let it slip my mind. Although I knew in the back of my mind a sub 4 hour time would be a possible target. Also it's great that you do some item drop manipulation to get some powerful items to speed up battles and such (the joys of segmented runs thumbsup

). This is definately something I would have overlooked in the planning of my speed run until someone brought it to my attention. Even after having fun with RNG drops in the TLA by getting 10 Orihalcons or 5 tisifone edges lol.

In fact after having just switched my ds on and checked my save slots on the LTA I realised I still have a save at ankohl ruins at 4 hours 20. Actually I'm well inside the ruins and probably nearly finished it. I made the ruins the last place to visit before heading to lemuria and facing poseidon. I think I optimsed the best route through the easten sea. Collecting the trident parts on route to places with minimilist backtracking. Even so, up to now I think it isn't very well optimised before you get your ship and head to sea as something tells me my time should be at least 30 minutes less. And indeed I recal a few mistakes costing a few minutes which I simply saved over. I think I made it my goal to sub 8 hours on this game but I don't think I'll manage it. Plus I havn't played the game for several months.

Best of luck with the run. You'll get sub 4 hours !

I have to say I'm very much looking forward to this speed run. As an avid fan of the golden sun series and having done an extremely rough and intentionally sloppy speed run of it myself (a pathetic 6 hours 20 minutes :embarassed:) it sems that sub 4 hours really is the perfectly optimised limit to go after. I've seen the 100% run on youtube in which he did a few backtracks to get the djinn in vale and Lumpa and possible vault and I wondered what time could be achieved for an any% run ignoring these extranouos backtracks. I was going to do some serious attempts at it myself as it seemed no one else who I was aware of at the time was doing it. But in the end I didn't quite have the motivation to do it and I let it slip my mind. Although I knew in the back of my mind a sub 4 hour time would be a possible target. Also it's great that you do some item drop manipulation to get some powerful items to speed up battles and such (the joys of segmented runs :thumbsup:). This is definately something I would have overlooked in the planning of my speed run until someone brought it to my attention. Even after having fun with RNG drops in the TLA by getting 10 Orihalcons or 5 tisifone edges lol.

In fact after having just switched my ds on and checked my save slots on the LTA I realised I still have a save at ankohl ruins at 4 hours 20. Actually I'm well inside the ruins and probably nearly finished it. I made the ruins the last place to visit before heading to lemuria and facing poseidon. I think I optimsed the best route through the easten sea. Collecting the trident parts on route to places with minimilist backtracking. Even so, up to now I think it isn't very well optimised before you get your ship and head to sea as something tells me my time should be at least 30 minutes less. And indeed I recal a few mistakes costing a few minutes which I simply saved over. I think I made it my goal to sub 8 hours on this game but I don't think I'll manage it. Plus I havn't played the game for several months.

Best of luck with the run. You'll get sub 4 hours !

Thanatos

2010-08-25 04:52:37 pm

yeah man i can't wait either, it's taken way too long for someone to speed run GS, go flaming mage!

p.s i don't understand why you didn't wanna play Demon's souls that one time you asked people for what game to play. Sad

FlamingMage

2010-08-25 05:03:31 pm

Technically off topic, but I guess I'll respond Wink

Sadly, I really do suck at demon's souls. I'm not saying I have no potential to be good, but not everyone likes watching games they've never played, especially when the streamer is dying every 3/4 minutes Smiley

I'm sure you'd get a big audience if you streamed it, but I need to get quite a bit better before I'm comfortable making others watch me fail.

pkGamerB

Edit history:

pkGamerB: 2010-10-29 12:06:17 pm

pkGamerB: 2010-10-29 11:26:42 am

2010-10-29 11:25:44 am

Agent PK

Sorry for the bump, but I've finally had time recently to put in some serious work toward planning my 100% run! (wasn't sure if a separate category should get its own topic, so I just posted it here)

Anyway, so far I've just been doing a rough "experimental" run, where I'm just trying out new boss strategies and making use of a lot of stuff I've found in this thread, particularly the Retreat Warp, Siren RNG, and Saturos strat. As of now, the only warps that were already mentioned here that I can really use are in Mercury Lighthouse, Suhalla Gate, and Babi Lighthouse. I did find a couple of pretty useful spots on my own that were pretty helpful:

- In Vault Cave, I Retreat Warp twice (up the steps and back down the steps) in the room after the one with the ice puzzle, which takes me straight to the exit for Sap. I don't have to bother with opening the floodgate, which I like a lot.
- In Lunpa Fortress, warping in the first room with the Brigands takes me straight to the bottom floor. I just have to go up two floors to grab the key before going to Toadonpa. Not a huge time saver, but it does let me skip two Brigand fights, which is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, since I have to go through Gondowan Cave to get Tonic, the Altin Mines skip FlamingMage mentioned a while ago isn't very helpful for my run, since I need Lift to get through the cave and back (unless I'm missing something). I'd use the Lamakan desert warp to skip Manticore and go straight to Vale to get Sap and Kite early, but since I have to go all the way to Lunpa after Colosso, I figured it'd be best to just grab all three at the same time (plus Manticore only takes me like 2 1/2 rounds to beat, compared to the time it takes to walk from Vale to Kalay).

I've also worked on my boss strategies quite a bit, particularly the Manticore fight, which took me entirely too long before. I'm a lot more aggressive in attacking now, so I've cut the number of turns it took to beat most of them in half from my youtube run. I think my route was already pretty solid (aside from the lack of retreat warps), so I'm not sure how much I could improve that other than better execution. Adding more segments will definitely help with that. My previous best had around 30 segments, and some of them were way too long, which led to sloppy play near the end of some of them, and me not wanting to do the whole thing over again. I'm probably looking at a little over 60 parts now. Here's a rough list of my projected save points. I may add or remove some eventually:

1. After past
2. Before Sol Sanctum
3. Before Flint
4. Before Thieves
5. After Vault exit
6. Before Goma Cave
7. Before Forge
8. After Bilibin exit
9. Before Lighthouse
10. Before Sleet
11. Before RNG #1 of 5 (Crystal Powders)
12. Before RNG #2 of 5
13. Before RNG #3 of 5
14. Before RNG #4 of 5
15. Before RNG #5 of 5
16. Lighthouse Aerie
17. After Lighthouse
18. Before Kolima Forest
19. Before Inside Tret
20. Before Breeze
21. Before Tret fight
22. Kolima Woods exit/Kolima
23. Before Fuchin Temple
24. Before Mogall Woods
25. Before Quartz
26. Before Mogall Woods boss
27. After Mogall Woods
28. Before Altin Mines
29. Spritz room
30. Water Guardian room
31. After Water Guardian
32. Before Lamakan Desert
33. Before Manticore
34. After Desert
35. Before Ship
36. After Ship fight #1
37. After Ship fight #2
38. Before Kraken
39. After Ship Exit
40. Before Hail
41. Inside Altmiller Cave
42. Before Squall
43. After Altmiller
44. Before Colosso Rd 1 (waiting room)
45. Before Colosso Rd 2 (stage descriptions area)
46. Before Colosso Final
47. Before Tolbi exit (don't forget Ember!)
48. Before Vale Cave
49. Before vault Cave
50. Before Lunpa Fortress
51. Before Toadonpa
52. After Lunpa exit
53. Before Suhalla Desert
54. Before Crossbone Isle
55. Before Suhalla Desert 2 (after tornado from Crossbone)
56. Before Suhalla Gate
57. Before Venus Lighthouse 1
58. Before Lalivero
59. Before Lighthouse Ruins
60. Before RNG #1 of 2 (Feathered Robe)
61. Before RNG #2 of 2
62. Lighthouse Ruins end
63. Venus Lighthouse Aerie

I think there was a question I had for you guys, but I'm drawing a blank right now. I guess I'll remember later. Tongue

Sorry for the bump, but I've finally had time recently to put in some serious work toward planning my 100% run! (wasn't sure if a separate category should get its own topic, so I just posted it here)

Anyway, so far I've just been doing a rough "experimental" run, where I'm just trying out new boss strategies and making use of a lot of stuff I've found in this thread, particularly the Retreat Warp, Siren RNG, and Saturos strat. As of now, the only warps that were already mentioned here that I can really use are in Mercury Lighthouse, Suhalla Gate, and Babi Lighthouse. I did find a couple of pretty useful spots on my own that were pretty helpful:

- In Vault Cave, I Retreat Warp twice (up the steps and back down the steps) in the room after the one with the ice puzzle, which takes me straight to the exit for Sap. I don't have to bother with opening the floodgate, which I like a lot. 
- In Lunpa Fortress, warping in the first room with the Brigands takes me straight to the bottom floor. I just have to go up two floors to grab the key before going to Toadonpa. Not a huge time saver, but it does let me skip two Brigand fights, which is pretty cool.

Unfortunately, since I have to go through Gondowan Cave to get Tonic, the Altin Mines skip FlamingMage mentioned a while ago isn't very helpful for my run, since I need Lift to get through the cave and back (unless I'm missing something). I'd use the Lamakan desert warp to skip Manticore and go straight to Vale to get Sap and Kite early, but since I have to go all the way to Lunpa after Colosso, I figured it'd be best to just grab all three at the same time (plus Manticore only takes me like 2 1/2 rounds to beat, compared to the time it takes to walk from Vale to Kalay).

I've also worked on my boss strategies quite a bit, particularly the Manticore fight, which took me entirely too long before. I'm a lot more aggressive in attacking now, so I've cut the number of turns it took to beat most of them in half from my youtube run. I think my route was already pretty solid (aside from the lack of retreat warps), so I'm not sure how much I could improve that other than better execution. Adding more segments will definitely help with that. My previous best had around 30 segments, and some of them were way too long, which led to sloppy play near the end of some of them, and me not wanting to do the whole thing over again. I'm probably looking at a little over 60 parts now. Here's a rough list of my projected save points. I may add or remove some eventually:

[hidden]1.	After past
2.	Before Sol Sanctum
3.	Before Flint
4.	Before Thieves
5.	After Vault exit
6.	Before Goma Cave 
7.	Before Forge
8.	After Bilibin exit
9.	Before Lighthouse
10.	Before Sleet
11.	Before RNG #1 of 5 (Crystal Powders)
12.	Before RNG #2 of 5
13.	Before RNG #3 of 5
14.	Before RNG #4 of 5
15.	Before RNG #5 of 5
16.	Lighthouse Aerie
17.	After Lighthouse
18.	Before Kolima Forest
19.	Before Inside Tret
20.	Before Breeze
21.	Before Tret fight
22.	Kolima Woods exit/Kolima
23.	Before Fuchin Temple
24.	Before Mogall Woods
25.	Before Quartz
26.	Before Mogall Woods boss
27.	After Mogall Woods
28.	Before Altin Mines
29.	Spritz room
30.	Water Guardian room
31.	After Water Guardian
32.	Before Lamakan Desert
33.	Before Manticore
34.	After Desert
35.	Before Ship
36.	After Ship fight #1
37.	After Ship fight #2
38.	Before Kraken
39.	After Ship Exit
40.	Before Hail
41.	Inside Altmiller Cave
42.	Before Squall
43.	After Altmiller
44.	Before Colosso Rd 1 (waiting room)
45.	Before Colosso Rd 2 (stage descriptions area)
46.	Before Colosso Final
47.	Before Tolbi exit (don't forget Ember!)
48.	Before Vale Cave
49.	Before vault Cave
50.	Before Lunpa Fortress
51.	Before Toadonpa
52.	After Lunpa exit
53.	Before Suhalla Desert
54.	Before Crossbone Isle
55.	Before Suhalla Desert 2 (after tornado from Crossbone)
56.	Before Suhalla Gate
57.	Before Venus Lighthouse 1
58.	Before Lalivero
59.	Before Lighthouse Ruins
60.	Before RNG #1 of 2 (Feathered Robe)
61.	Before RNG #2 of 2
62.	Lighthouse Ruins end
63.	Venus Lighthouse Aerie
[/hidden]
I think there was a question I had for you guys, but I'm drawing a blank right now. I guess I'll remember later. :P

FlamingMage

2010-10-29 04:43:13 pm

Awesome, glad to see this moving along Smiley

I'm recording my Legacy of Goku run right now, and using the GBP is proving to be quite a problem. I'll move onto this whenever I can get that bloody run finished.

pkGamerB

Edit history:

pkGamerB: 2010-11-02 02:02:16 am

2010-11-02 02:00:23 am

Agent PK

Just a small update here:

I'm nearing the end of my first real practice run, and at the Venus Lighthouse Aerie, my time is 4:27 (levels: 18/17/17/18), which is on pace to be 21 minutes faster than my best run (all Djinn collected, obviously). Depending on how well I do, the endgame usually takes me around 20 minutes give or take a few, which would put me in the neighborhood of a final time of about 4:47. I'm hoping I can refine this even more in my next run to get 4:45 or better. There were still 5 or 6 random battles I fought that I should've avoided. Overall, I was pretty happy with my boss fights though. Two of the extra ones I fight (Manticore and Toadonpa) can be beaten in 3 and 2 turns, respectively; a major improvement from my previous run. The "minibosses" in Crossbone Isle are just as easy.

On a side note, I SO wish the sanctum warp trick required that you actually entered the sanctum first. I thought I had come up with this awesome plan to sanctum warp to Tolbi after finishing Lunpa Fortress, but then I realized it sends you to the one in the last town you entered, not the specific sanctum you last entered. Oh well. xD

I also remembered one of the questions I had before. Am I missing something, or is there a better way to get Isaac into retreat warp range than spamming Frost, Move, etc? Just a minor gripe, but I guess it could save a little time in the end.

Just a small update here:

I'm nearing the end of my first real practice run, and at the Venus Lighthouse Aerie, my time is 4:27 (levels: 18/17/17/18), which is on pace to be 21 minutes faster than my best run (all Djinn collected, obviously). Depending on how well I do, the endgame usually takes me around 20 minutes give or take a few, which would put me in the neighborhood of a final time of about 4:47. I'm hoping I can refine this even more in my next run to get 4:45 or better. There were still 5 or 6 random battles I fought that I should've avoided. Overall, I was pretty happy with my boss fights though. Two of the extra ones I fight (Manticore and Toadonpa) can be beaten in 3 and 2 turns, respectively; a major improvement from my previous run. The "minibosses" in Crossbone Isle are just as easy.

On a side note, I SO wish the sanctum warp trick required that you actually entered the sanctum first. I thought I had come up with this awesome plan to sanctum warp to Tolbi after finishing Lunpa Fortress, but then I realized it sends you to the one in the last [i]town[/i] you entered, not the specific sanctum you last entered. Oh well. xD

I also remembered one of the questions I had before. Am I missing something, or is there a better way to get Isaac into retreat warp range than spamming Frost, Move, etc? Just a minor gripe, but I guess it could save a little time in the end.

FlamingMage

Edit history:

FlamingMage: 2010-11-02 04:40:00 am

2010-11-02 04:39:50 am

Frost and douse are equally long animations for -5. I try to use potent cure for lowering his pp mostly.

Manocheese

Edit history:

Manocheese: 2010-11-02 05:58:19 am

2010-11-02 05:55:09 am

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

I do a combination of things to burn PP. In battles leading up to the spot where I want to warp, I sometimes use expensive psynergy that I wouldn't normally use, though you have to be wary of long animations. I also use my most expensive healing move to fully heal everyone after every battle. Once I'm at the spot where I want to do the warp, I use Move repeatedly. That's in TLA, though; in GS, you could give the Frost Jewel to Isaac, and Frost is just as fast as Move IIRC (and much faster than Douse).

pkGamerB

2010-11-02 09:43:37 am

Agent PK

^ Yeah, I usually use Move early in the game, and give him the Frost Jewel as soon as I get it. I don't really fight any random enemies in my run, so I don't really have a chance to use up PP in battle, plus sometimes my HP is full and I can't spam healing moves unless I happen to take damage before I run from a fight. I guess I could try to always keep his PP sort of low by using him as my main healer instead of Mia outside of battle, even when I'm not close to a warp spot. Or I could make it a point to fight at least one set of enemies near my warp point just to burn up some PP.

Manocheese

2010-11-02 11:28:02 am

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

I think spamming Frost or Move is almost certainly going to be faster than fighting enemies you would otherwise avoid. One thing to consider is that Move might be shortcutted because it is used so often, so it may be faster to use Move than Frost when burning PP.

One thing I wanted to make sure you were aware of is that when you have the first strike (i.e. you catch the enemy by surprise), you have a 100% chance of being able to flee. I noticed that you fought some random battles when you had the first strike in your old run.

pkGamerB

2010-11-02 02:22:02 pm

Agent PK

I was thinking the same thing about Frost vs enemy encounters. I only use the retreat warp a few times, and some of them are close enough together that my PP's not fully recovered yet. The only times I remember having near full PP was in Vault Cave and Babi Lighthouse.

I actually learned about the 100% flee thing from this thread, mainly the fact that after a hard reset, the first encounter is always a first strike, which helps a lot at the start of a segment. One thing I was sort of up in the air about was adding extra segments to avoid encounters I know I can't run from in 1 or 2 turns. I really don't like having segments that are under a minute or so long, but I'll probably make use of it in some places later in the game when I can't quickly kill the stuff that won't let me escape without wasting several turns.