The final time for the run clocks in at around 6:40:25
So it's a pretty stressful run from start to finish which is due to the fact that so much of what happens is out of your hands. I've spent over an hour at times just trying to get the allies I want so that I can actually beat the game at low levels. The maximum level in the game is 50, and even at that level, you will get crushed if you don't have a good strategy.
I've tried every class and determined that Sorcerer class and a Healer class are the most optimal for beating the game quickly. I've tried all of the other classes as well, and the only honorable mention is the Warrior class characters that have high defense and a lot of HP (tanks).
The sorcerer class has three very important spells for the run; dizzy, remedy, and gale.
Dizzy: Dizzy is pretty much the most broken spell in the game by a mile. It costs 8 energy (MP) to cast, and any enemy that is inflicted with dizzy may only attack or move backwards. You can use it in normal battles, but it gets the majority of its use in boss battles. You negate enemy skill such as full heals and psychic energy which dispels your magic. Keep in mind late game you want to keep super on your main ninja so you can inflict damage faster. Just a note, I couldn't beat the game without cheating until I actually understood what dizzy was doing when I used it.
Remedy: Remedy regains roughly 70 health (hit points) at any time and it only costs 8 energy. It fails some of the time, but it is the most cost efficient heal in the game by far.
Gale: Gale gets replaced by multiblades once you've unlocked the western continent but it is the strongest magic that hits all targets. Gale averages from 39 to 70 damage on enemies that aren't resistant to it. Multiblades let you cast gale in combat when you use them as an item. Multiblades also have infinite uses and don't have a miss chance like gale does (unless an enemy has a strong resistance or is immune to it).
While we are on the subject Fire Staffs give you the ability to cast fiero when used as an item in battle which usually hits for 22-40 damage. You can pick them up at Kai castle for 1680 gold, and your sorcerer can equip them.
There are many reasons why I chose a healing class character. You can hit the oh crap button on the final boss gauntlet and get a full heal for a ridiculous amount of energy (73). You can cast revive after you reach level 28. revive restores any fallen ally to full health and FULL ENERGY. You can cast vanish to escape battles instantly, which is insanely important because otherwise there are some battles that you just can't run from. You can stack the guard spell on an ally making him almost impervious to attacks, and even if all of that isn't enough for you, you get the wings spell as well. As long as you have entered a castle, you may return to it using the wings spell or the Tengu wing. They both have the same effect for letting you escape any dungeon instantly as well (except for the cave on Oshima Island). So yeah, he can be a pretty busted class as long as you get him a Fire Staff and later a Multiblade.
So there you have it. I pretty much feel like any arguments for other classes are nullified by the fact that any ally you can recruit deals so little damage that it's better if they use Fire Staffs and Multiblades. So, sorry if you had a better opinion.
In my current route (which I don't think will be changed for a long time) I visit 3 optional dungeons which all have very specific reasons. The most important reasons that they all share is for level grinding and securing the proper amount of gold for the supplies you need.
I visit the Yoshi dungeon first to get the Yoshi blade and the Yoshi suit. They sell for around 3000 gold and I can level up at a decent pace, making my future level ups go much faster. It's about a 17 minute detour, but it just works out that I will get all the time back through purchases (like the early fire blade) and just from the fact that I gain an average of 2-3 levels and become more powerful and more efficient at destroying monsters.
The second optional dungeon is the most important one. The Tengu forest has an item known as the Tengu fan that you get for beating the boss. It has the same effect as the gust spell. Gust and the Tengu fan are used to blow one enemy at a time out of combat, but gust misses most of the time. It's more efficient for level grinding when you need to get rid of one enemy to either just survive, or to finish the battle up to 10 turns earlier. It's also a good alternative to wasting energy using the vanish spell all of the time. All I can really say about this item is try the run without it, then try the run with it.
The third optional dungeon is West of Aki. It involves fighting the second easiest boss battle in the game, getting the expensive Kusanagi, and getting a good amount of experience from the boss. I think out of all of the dungeons, this would be the most likely candidate from being cut from the run.
So even if you play perfectly, there is a very good chance you will die at pretty much any part of the run. Mikawa can be hit pretty hard by a sabotage and end up not having enough supplies to bring enough men in for war. War can randomly be cancelled if your province has roughly the same amount of soldiers or less at the end of the month. Your general can rush in and get himself captured, ending the war before you even get to attack. So basically the RNG of war, and the RNG of sabotage on both sides means that you can play perfectly up to the point where you go to war; and then waste way too many days sabotaging your enemy, or you wind up locked out of taking a province because you screwed up war. This becomes a very problematic softlock where you can no longer win because your character gets a reputation for losing wars.
So if that isn't enough of a reason for me to want this category to be RTA, there is the added issue of having like 50-100 recruit-able characters that have fairly random movement pattern and fairly random starting positions. Not to mention there is only a small amount of characters that can be recruited for a speedrun. You also have to worry about finding an ally you need and having them disappear to a part of the map that you have no access to until way too late in the game.
The trust system to recruit your allies can be a little shaky. Sometimes you only have a matter of days to get the ally you need and you lose your chance because you didn't calculated the fact that they can lose as much trust as they gain in you over the course of a day. The fact that allies need 40 or 60 trust (based on how well you get along with them) to recruit, is the reason why it takes me 20 minutes to an hour (I've timed it and many tears have been had during this section) to recruit allies when I need them. In fact I even have it in my route to correct my final party because of how frustrating this mechanic can be. It does help to hit a seer every now and then to find out where allies are, and it also helps to ask their goal, but you still have to put in a fairly substantial amount of time into recruiting allies.
So even if you get everything else to work right, the amount of turns that dizzy works is random, and Oda can easily destroy you in either scenario if you mess up once or get slightly unlucky. I choose the cut-scene where Oda has no burns at the beginning of the game. It should be harder, but for some reason it is the only one I can beat at low levels.
Umm, I guess there is a lot more that I could actually say about the run, but I think that is pretty good for right now. Just check it out @ youtube.com/watch?v=pRpdfbhTlL8 and see for yourself. If you have any questions about why I do what I do in the run, or you have ideas about any improvements to the game; let me know and I'll address each question and comment when I can. I may also just make updates to the commentary as well. Until then enjoy some headset quality audio and all 4 segments that youtube broke my video into.
So it's a pretty stressful run from start to finish which is due to the fact that so much of what happens is out of your hands. I've spent over an hour at times just trying to get the allies I want so that I can actually beat the game at low levels. The maximum level in the game is 50, and even at that level, you will get crushed if you don't have a good strategy.
I've tried every class and determined that Sorcerer class and a Healer class are the most optimal for beating the game quickly. I've tried all of the other classes as well, and the only honorable mention is the Warrior class characters that have high defense and a lot of HP (tanks).
The sorcerer class has three very important spells for the run; dizzy, remedy, and gale.
Dizzy: Dizzy is pretty much the most broken spell in the game by a mile. It costs 8 energy (MP) to cast, and any enemy that is inflicted with dizzy may only attack or move backwards. You can use it in normal battles, but it gets the majority of its use in boss battles. You negate enemy skill such as full heals and psychic energy which dispels your magic. Keep in mind late game you want to keep super on your main ninja so you can inflict damage faster. Just a note, I couldn't beat the game without cheating until I actually understood what dizzy was doing when I used it.
Remedy: Remedy regains roughly 70 health (hit points) at any time and it only costs 8 energy. It fails some of the time, but it is the most cost efficient heal in the game by far.
Gale: Gale gets replaced by multiblades once you've unlocked the western continent but it is the strongest magic that hits all targets. Gale averages from 39 to 70 damage on enemies that aren't resistant to it. Multiblades let you cast gale in combat when you use them as an item. Multiblades also have infinite uses and don't have a miss chance like gale does (unless an enemy has a strong resistance or is immune to it).
While we are on the subject Fire Staffs give you the ability to cast fiero when used as an item in battle which usually hits for 22-40 damage. You can pick them up at Kai castle for 1680 gold, and your sorcerer can equip them.
There are many reasons why I chose a healing class character. You can hit the oh crap button on the final boss gauntlet and get a full heal for a ridiculous amount of energy (73). You can cast revive after you reach level 28. revive restores any fallen ally to full health and FULL ENERGY. You can cast vanish to escape battles instantly, which is insanely important because otherwise there are some battles that you just can't run from. You can stack the guard spell on an ally making him almost impervious to attacks, and even if all of that isn't enough for you, you get the wings spell as well. As long as you have entered a castle, you may return to it using the wings spell or the Tengu wing. They both have the same effect for letting you escape any dungeon instantly as well (except for the cave on Oshima Island). So yeah, he can be a pretty busted class as long as you get him a Fire Staff and later a Multiblade.
So there you have it. I pretty much feel like any arguments for other classes are nullified by the fact that any ally you can recruit deals so little damage that it's better if they use Fire Staffs and Multiblades. So, sorry if you had a better opinion.
In my current route (which I don't think will be changed for a long time) I visit 3 optional dungeons which all have very specific reasons. The most important reasons that they all share is for level grinding and securing the proper amount of gold for the supplies you need.
I visit the Yoshi dungeon first to get the Yoshi blade and the Yoshi suit. They sell for around 3000 gold and I can level up at a decent pace, making my future level ups go much faster. It's about a 17 minute detour, but it just works out that I will get all the time back through purchases (like the early fire blade) and just from the fact that I gain an average of 2-3 levels and become more powerful and more efficient at destroying monsters.
The second optional dungeon is the most important one. The Tengu forest has an item known as the Tengu fan that you get for beating the boss. It has the same effect as the gust spell. Gust and the Tengu fan are used to blow one enemy at a time out of combat, but gust misses most of the time. It's more efficient for level grinding when you need to get rid of one enemy to either just survive, or to finish the battle up to 10 turns earlier. It's also a good alternative to wasting energy using the vanish spell all of the time. All I can really say about this item is try the run without it, then try the run with it.
The third optional dungeon is West of Aki. It involves fighting the second easiest boss battle in the game, getting the expensive Kusanagi, and getting a good amount of experience from the boss. I think out of all of the dungeons, this would be the most likely candidate from being cut from the run.
So even if you play perfectly, there is a very good chance you will die at pretty much any part of the run. Mikawa can be hit pretty hard by a sabotage and end up not having enough supplies to bring enough men in for war. War can randomly be cancelled if your province has roughly the same amount of soldiers or less at the end of the month. Your general can rush in and get himself captured, ending the war before you even get to attack. So basically the RNG of war, and the RNG of sabotage on both sides means that you can play perfectly up to the point where you go to war; and then waste way too many days sabotaging your enemy, or you wind up locked out of taking a province because you screwed up war. This becomes a very problematic softlock where you can no longer win because your character gets a reputation for losing wars.
So if that isn't enough of a reason for me to want this category to be RTA, there is the added issue of having like 50-100 recruit-able characters that have fairly random movement pattern and fairly random starting positions. Not to mention there is only a small amount of characters that can be recruited for a speedrun. You also have to worry about finding an ally you need and having them disappear to a part of the map that you have no access to until way too late in the game.
The trust system to recruit your allies can be a little shaky. Sometimes you only have a matter of days to get the ally you need and you lose your chance because you didn't calculated the fact that they can lose as much trust as they gain in you over the course of a day. The fact that allies need 40 or 60 trust (based on how well you get along with them) to recruit, is the reason why it takes me 20 minutes to an hour (I've timed it and many tears have been had during this section) to recruit allies when I need them. In fact I even have it in my route to correct my final party because of how frustrating this mechanic can be. It does help to hit a seer every now and then to find out where allies are, and it also helps to ask their goal, but you still have to put in a fairly substantial amount of time into recruiting allies.
So even if you get everything else to work right, the amount of turns that dizzy works is random, and Oda can easily destroy you in either scenario if you mess up once or get slightly unlucky. I choose the cut-scene where Oda has no burns at the beginning of the game. It should be harder, but for some reason it is the only one I can beat at low levels.
Umm, I guess there is a lot more that I could actually say about the run, but I think that is pretty good for right now. Just check it out @ youtube.com/watch?v=pRpdfbhTlL8 and see for yourself. If you have any questions about why I do what I do in the run, or you have ideas about any improvements to the game; let me know and I'll address each question and comment when I can. I may also just make updates to the commentary as well. Until then enjoy some headset quality audio and all 4 segments that youtube broke my video into.
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