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Fucking Weeaboo
Hurrah for my runs being up!!  :party:

This post is to apologize to Psychochild for ODing him on Legend of Mana. ^^;;

Oh, and Radix?  They were from DVD.  You can remove the "Thanks to Nate from transfering from VHS." lines.


Party it up people...these runs are psycho!
Fucking Weeaboo
I finally did it...I managed to plot out a full game 68-mission speedrun.  Daddy's Broom was giving me a hell of a time trying to figure out how to trigger it.

Estimated time for completion: 9:30.  Yeah, way too long for putting up here.  But sometime I'm gonna run it and record it just for the hell of it.  And then make Psychochild verify it. ^^
Quote:
I finally did it...I managed to plot out a full game 68-mission speedrun.  Daddy's Broom was giving me a hell of a time trying to figure out how to trigger it.

Estimated time for completion: 9:30.  Yeah, way too long for putting up here.  But sometime I'm gonna run it and record it just for the hell of it.  And then make Psychochild verify it. ^^


You sick bastard!

.... The verifying part.  Not the run. 
Do you think you will ever do a "No Future" mode game?
Fucking Weeaboo
Quote:
Do you think you will ever do a "No Future" mode game?


No.  For the following reasons.

1) It would drag out the game terribly.
2) It would get boring really fast having to fight pretty much every battle with enemies at Lv 99.

Nightmare would be one thing, but even that is fairly redundant to the present runs.

The only things I'd consider at this point would be to make another attempt to improve the present runs and to do a full game (68 missions, none failed) run.
Oh ok, but I thought that maybe you'd be allowed customised weapons/armor and/or a Golem that you made in the previous save, or do those not help? (I'd check myself but I didn't know how to really customise a weapon, armor or Golem)
Fucking Weeaboo
Quote:
Oh ok, but I thought that maybe you'd be allowed customised weapons/armor and/or a Golem that you made in the previous save, or do those not help? (I'd check myself but I didn't know how to really customise a weapon, armor or Golem)


Even if I kept a powerful weapon, it would still take forever to beat even a Lv 99 Rabite.  It would be really boring IMO for people to watch.


And I've been plotting out some tweaks to my Dragon run.  Since the mission list is the absolute fastest (proven!), I'm testing out a different map location and artifact placement.  We'll see where this goes.
Edit history:
Sir VG: 2006-05-16 06:06:05 am
Fucking Weeaboo
I...I did it.  A full game single session run, all recorded.  A whopping SIX DVDs on SP recording speed.  Let me tell you I'm sick and jittery from all the suger and caffeine intake doing this run. ^^;;

I'll be working on getting an time later when my body settles down.

The run was for the most part great.  I did have some problems with Catchin' Lillipeas and a few minor brain farts here and there, but overall great.  Well, I did have one death at the In Search of Faeries boss, but that guy is a pain in the ass no matter what.

One interesting thing that happened that was cool and scared me at the same time was during Heaven's Gate.  It was shortly after the 1st time you see Selva.  I finished my battle there and while trying to get the jewels on the left edge of the screen, I managed to get close enough to trigger the next battle before the one I was in was officially done!  It glitched the game a bit and looked really weird.  Fortunately it was easy to get out of it, but I'll have to get the video of that up to show you.

I'm still just...wow over this.   This was one of my biggest goals, not just as a speedrunner, but as a gamer in general.

I need to recover now.


Edit: Feel a bit better, thank goodness because now I have to work.

I took a bit to calculate the time.  9:59:10.  I made it just under 10 hrs!

And for the record, the game timer does continue even when the game is paused.  I had a noticable discrepancy between what I got for a time and what the game timer was at the save at the end of the game.
Edit history:
alexpenev: 2006-06-06 07:53:12 pm
10hr run?  Shocked
Just watched Dragon storyline. Already saved the other two, about to go watch them. Not bad Grin


I recently played this game for the first time. I beat it once last week, but I skipped visiting Li'l Cactus to get most of the diary entries... so I quickly rushed to beat the game when I realised that, and started over. Currently I'm advancing in all 3 storylines on Nightmare.

Anyway, LOM is gg. Has some cool ideas, pretty art, and sexy music. It's keeping me busy. But moral of the story - I'm newbie and haven't done all quests or know most of the items/ST/Magic/etc. I have some remarks:


- Very early in the game you can get an EarthSplitter axe (+31) from the Chobins (or were they Goblins... umm, the axe cats) in Mekiv as a drop. Needs some luck, but I got several when I was there so it's not super rare. Since it's very early on, maybe it's worth restarting for?

- Spear. My weapon of choice is the spear. It does a 4 hit combo (5 w/ fierce) and has looong reach. Its attack is comparable to the swords/axes (a few points less). Ever thought of using a spear?
Unfortunately I don't know if you can get one that rivals the Braveblade's 37 in your selected route, so it might e worse... but the spam speed (especially for just a 3-hit spear combo) seems faster to me. Plus, with the long reach, you can avoid close-range sun/dizzy attacks from enemies.

- Tackle. My two fav skills encountered so far are Tackle and Counterstrike. CS is good for regular enemies, but bosses don't give me much chance to CS (too many of them use magic). I'm like, hardcore, so I use Tackle to steal a few extra steps when the battle summary pops up. But also bosses. Normally, bosses turn invincible after continued spam attacks (sometimes just 3, as evidenced by your vid). But I can usually continue my attack for longer by doing 3 hit combo, tackle, 3 more hits, tackle, 3, tackle, etc. A spear helps minimise the reach required between tackles, so there's little time wasted. Is tackle easy to learn in a low-level quest?

- Running. Okay, I'm playing on emu (I don't have a PS, shame on me), and I'm using a keyboard. My button layout suggests that the PS can use both the joystick and dpad for Hero's movement. I use dpad.
When running, the first step Hero takes is a fast one. The rest are stable. When I run, I use the hypotenuse idea to speed up my running, by repeatedly taking "first-steps". For example, if I want to run North-East, I would hold Right and rhythmically tap Up. It only works for horizontal motion, but most dungeons are full of horizontal running. For best results, you can push against a wall and keep first-stepping at it to go fast (I can almost "outrun the camera" in a few scenarios). It looks like this in-game: http://paultanney.free.fr/alexpenev/misc/lomrunning.avi (1.7mb divx)

The first example is me vs you in Luon Highway. Granted, I start running as soon as the screen loads, but I think I still save a few frames. The second is me vs you in Tower of Leries, starting at the same frame (I just push against the wall here.) The last is me vs me starting at the same frame, in horizontal stretch (so I need to alternate between up and down diagonals to move straight).

Is this easy to do with a real controller? It's very easy on a keyboard, and it's helpful in just about every room in every dungeon. It could accumulate to a fair bit overall, so give it a shot and see how it works on a real PS.
Fucking Weeaboo
Quote:
- Very early in the game you can get an EarthSplitter axe (+31) from the Chobins (or were they Goblins... umm, the axe cats) in Mekiv as a drop. Needs some luck, but I got several when I was there so it's not super rare. Since it's very early on, maybe it's worth restarting for?


That could be an idea, as long as I get Rising Sun first, being that Rising Sun to my recollection is both a 1H Sword and Axe technique.

Quote:
- Spear. My weapon of choice is the spear. It does a 4 hit combo (5 w/ fierce) and has looong reach. Its attack is comparable to the swords/axes (a few points less). Ever thought of using a spear?
Unfortunately I don't know if you can get one that rivals the Braveblade's 37 in your selected route, so it might e worse... but the spam speed (especially for just a 3-hit spear combo) seems faster to me. Plus, with the long reach, you can avoid close-range sun/dizzy attacks from enemies.


Techniques are slow to be learned with what I generally use.  I remember getting a good spear on my full-game run on a practice attempt and NEVER learning a technique before I switched to Braveblade.

Quote:
- Tackle. My two fav skills encountered so far are Tackle and Counterstrike. CS is good for regular enemies, but bosses don't give me much chance to CS (too many of them use magic). I'm like, hardcore, so I use Tackle to steal a few extra steps when the battle summary pops up. But also bosses. Normally, bosses turn invincible after continued spam attacks (sometimes just 3, as evidenced by your vid). But I can usually continue my attack for longer by doing 3 hit combo, tackle, 3 more hits, tackle, 3, tackle, etc. A spear helps minimise the reach required between tackles, so there's little time wasted. Is tackle easy to learn in a low-level quest?


Actually, you can spam attacks as long as you don't go into the last hit of the combo.  There's no set time frome of how many hits until the boss goes invincible, it's just whenever they decide to use a special attack.  Some bosses (see Jewel Beast on the Jumi Storyline run) I can spam attacks and they NEVER get to do anything!  So tackle won't help much there, but thanks for the suggestion.

Quote:
- Running. Okay, I'm playing on emu (I don't have a PS, shame on me), and I'm using a keyboard. My button layout suggests that the PS can use both the joystick and dpad for Hero's movement. I use dpad.
When running, the first step Hero takes is a fast one. The rest are stable. When I run, I use the hypotenuse idea to speed up my running, by repeatedly taking "first-steps". For example, if I want to run North-East, I would hold Right and rhythmically tap Up. It only works for horizontal motion, but most dungeons are full of horizontal running. For best results, you can push against a wall and keep first-stepping at it to go fast (I can almost "outrun the camera" in a few scenarios). It looks like this in-game: http://paultanney.free.fr/alexpenev/misc/lomrunning.avi (1.7mb divx)


Possible, but I'll admit I've tried to do it and occassionally my old fogie brain remembers things wrong, especially when a direction switches (there are a few places in the underworld where you leave a screen NE and then move NW).  I try to do it whenever I can, but trying to remember every little detail, even with my love for the game, is quite hard.


Also, I am working on a new version of Dragon Storyline.  There's no changes in quests (the one I used in the present video, v3) is the shortest by far...there's no doubt about it.  There'll be some other things incorporated though.  I might try for it in a couple days when I FINALLY GET SOME TIME OFF OF WORK.

It'll be nice to finally get 2 days in a row off of work...

Keep and eye out for v4!  And I'll give those suggestions some thought too.
Edit history:
alexpenev: 2006-06-08 03:41:02 pm
What about a segmented run? You've done the others already. Some of us want to see how low the timer can go. You could improve your boss battles and movement, maybe also try for some lucky drops?

Another few points:
During The Murmering Forest, conisidered recruiting Chitto (Chobin Hood)? He should be near the Punkster boss, if Dryad mana level is full. I notice you have an aversion to pets, but I think they can pay off (well, not a rabite...) Need to do monster corral for him, I would assume, but maybe it can be exchanged for another episode? I've noticed that Chitto likes to keep his distance, so he shouldn't die too often. Apart from the annoying cutscenes where for some silly reason the pet decides to crawl instead of run to its resignated location, what else makes pets slower?

A more substantial question... (I don't have access to this particular episode since I've solved it, but I can access the dungeon, at least):
In Gato Grottoes, in the "Dungeon" area with the tunnels, the top tier has 2 tunnels (call them A and B, the entrace is near B). The bottom tier has two others, C and D (exit near C, D leads to the elixir room). When chasing the Sproutling, you follow the breadcrumbs and enter B, following the cliff down and engaging a few enemies on the way. But I think A leads directly to C (there are two fights on the way, and I'm pretty sure the Moldy Goo fight can be skipped if you hug the wall, leaving just one fight). Your route had more fights/tunnels/loading screens, so I'm thinking either tunnel A is blocked in that particular episode, or you made a boo-boo.

When you do Two Torches, I'm pretty sure Escad is standing outside tunnel B, which is at the beginning of the dungeon. But you warped to the waterfall and made your way to him in reverse via tunnel C. How come? (again, I think you can skip the Moldy Goo encounter)
Fucking Weeaboo
I figured out about the Escad thing later.  I got kinda suspicious that "hey this looks like the entrance" and it was.  It will be done on all future runs.

As for the The Flame Of Hope thing, see above...I just figured out about that backwards route.  I'll be experimenting with it whenever I get back to Jumi/Fairie routes.

As for the Murmuring Forest, my levels won't be high enough.  I have to do it too early to get enough AFs out there to make it happen.  I could get the duck at Lake Kilma in time for In Search of Faeries, but at the same time of doing that, I also make the boss one realy pissed off boss (if Jinn is full, the boss is stronger).

And as for pets in general, they're useless.  They don't do that much damage and Rabite especially is snower than snot in January.  I only use him when I do because of the 3-person requirement for The Ghost of Nemesis.

As for doing segmented, about the only place it would really be of some use is The Bejeweled City, but there aren't any close save points to make it beneficial.  The game is generally consistant on all the important issues, so it's a matter of just playing it well.  Plus the game isn't that exceptionally long or hard or just in need of segmenting because of luck issues.


As for the pet requirement for The Ghost of Nemesis. the only other way I know at the moment to deal with it is to get a Golem, but that would require me to do something to get the Broken Doll (likely Reach for the Stars), The Infernal Doll, Professor Bomb's Lab, and Golem Go Make'm.  WAY too much time.  I'm not sure if you can get like the duck at the lake or chobin hood from the woods or whatnot, I haven't tested that yet.  But I can't take some other NPC (like Bud, Lisa, Elazul, etc).  You can only have 1 NPC and 1 pet/golem.  But Monster Corral isn't exceptionally long by that token either.
Fucking Weeaboo
Yeah, Sandra returns to my av/sig combo which means one thing.

I'm running this again.

Fitting, as my speedrunning career began nearly one year ago, working on the Jumi storyline.

Now I'm back to working on it again.  And I figure a possible improvement of 5-7 minutes at least, based upon a practice run.

This is due to the following:
1) Total map reconfiguration.  I use a different location and place things differently.
2) Remember the path I always took while doing "Two Torches"?  Well, I can use that backwards during "The Flame of Hope" instead of my normal path.
3) BRAVEBLADE RETURNS.  I can usually get this during "The Looking-Glass Tower" which gives me a big boost.  I still switch to SwordOfFate when I get it.
4) A slight change in "The Lucky Clover" by NOT taking Elazul with me and finishing the mission alone.
5) polsy pointed out to me that during "Cage of Dreams", you can refuse to go in with Pokeihl, which then when you walk in, the conversation is mostly done.
6) Using "Summer' Lovin" instead of "Teatime of Danger" to get AF Rusty Anchor.  With this change I actually wind up with the exact # of AFs needed to finish the game, not 1 extra like usual.

I've also got ideas for improving Dragon and Faerie storylines.  Also involves some map reconfiguration.

Here I go again with my evil addiction. ^^;;
You'd better bust your fingers doing some crazy zigzag walking... it will look so h4x.
("Mommy, mommy, why is the man running funny?" "It's faster, dear" "COOOL!")
It's shorter by one room and one fight to take the upper Boink at the start of Cosmo.

It's also fractionally shorter (not having to pick the second option, and then one speech bubble fewer) to call Esmerelda a thief in the principal's office in The Lucky Clover. Though, are you interested in that sort of 1-2 second saving vs taking your preferred conversation path anyway?
Fucking Weeaboo
Quote:
It's shorter by one room and one fight to take the upper Boink at the start of Cosmo.

It's also fractionally shorter (not having to pick the second option, and then one speech bubble fewer) to call Esmerelda a thief in the principal's office in The Lucky Clover. Though, are you interested in that sort of 1-2 second saving vs taking your preferred conversation path anyway?


I personally like not calling the poor girl a thief.  As for the boink, I'll have to check that out.

...when my work schedule stops murdering me again and gives me some time to run it.
A few more small time-savers:

In Faerie's Light, all of the Dudbears will buy one step before you ask them (the final Dub! is unnecessary). You also loop through the conversation with the second Dudbear twice - first saying Dud! to the second question, then Dub!

Niccolo's Business Unusual 2 - you don't need to go to the Cancun bird's nest, just leave the room and return. The fairy appears in 15-20 seconds - as long as you're not standing on the bridge.

Drowned Dreams - don't need to talk to the Flowerling & mermaid, or listen to Basket Fish gloating.

pre-Two Pearls - using the stairs twice is equivalent to using the stairs once and talking to Elazul. So using the stairs (ie, going upstairs) 6 times is enough to get rid of them. Somewhat less entertaining to watch, but saves me about 10 seconds. Slightly dependent on loading times, I suppose. Note you also don't need go back up and see the empty bed.

pre-Alexandrite, pre-Teardrop Crystal - just going into Home, but not your actual house, seems to be enough to trigger Elazul/Pearl and Inspector Boyd.

...and that's all I could squeeze out of Jumi. Good luck!
Edit history:
Sir VG: 2006-09-18 10:49:01 am
Fucking Weeaboo
Thanks for all the tips.  I gave it all a test through and figured it all out.

I kinda knew about the last one (not going into the actual house, just the home area) because of the Cage of Dreams triggering that happened in a couple of the v3 runs, but since Jumi was done first (and it was not discovered during that run, but after) it was not applied during it.  Besides the two spots you mentioned, it also works pre-The Lucky Clover.

And I've decided to call poor Esmeralda a thief.  Might as well...not like a dead girl can remember.  ^^;;

As a humerous testing, I refused to help Elazul in "Two Pearls" at the top of the tower.  I wondered if the fight would happen 'behind the scenes' but instead, I fight Elazul with the help of Blackpearl.  While it was fun, it's longer than the reverse scenario.  Oh well.  I found it to be fricken hilarious nonetheless.  ^^;;
Fucking Weeaboo
Jumi v4 is complete and I am EXTRAODINARILY happy with this run.

The biggest highlight was the luck I got.  I was making one weapon addition to this run: Braveblade.  My only way of getting it is a drop from the sword monsters in Tower of Leires.  I got it as a drop...THE FIRST TIME I FACED THEM.  I NEVER get that kinda luck.

There's always little half-second tidbits here and there, but overall this run is awesome.

Jumi v4 - 2:41:16 (8:11 improvement over Jumi v3 according to my timing)

Big thanks to polsy for all the tips.  Made for a great run. ^^
Hey, nice job. Glad I could help. I usually feel like such a leech around here  Wink
On Dragon:

In The Flames (mapping this was a joy): after defeating Zenoa (blue), you can avoid a few battles by going through the right-hand door, going up a couple of rooms until you fall down, go up again and fall down into the room with the 2 Land Dragons, except you can avoid this fight by hugging the wall, then going down takes you to the entry staircase.

On Faerie:

The Murmuring Forest - you don't need to talk to Roane, going straight to the Courtyard of Rain works.

Star-Crossed Lovers - joining Escad instead of Daena means Matilda talks way, way less. Saves about 20 seconds....but...Escad disappears off to the Jungle at the start of Heaven's Gate, so retrieving him far outweighs that saving. It's not worth it if you think not having Daena costs you 20 seconds.

Tiny textbox savings - in The Gorgon Eye, saying '....' for the password exchanges the penguins dancing with one textbox.
In Search Of Faeries - You only need to speak to Tote once. And replying 'Who's Tote?' to Daena saves two textboxes.

Random others - Gilbert doesn't care (much) if you spend the lamp money in Faerie's Light.
The bonus fact in The Guardian Of Winds isn't quite true - the title theme also plays in the Lilipea's village.
Fucking Weeaboo
Awesome man, continuing to find cool timesavers.

I did figure out about the title theme thing later, when I did the full game run (which was after I wrote those notes).

I'll need to play around with those when I get back to running LoM again.  Though I'll miss the Penguin "What?" password. ^^
Yeah,  the What password is certainly funnier Smiley

One other thing I forgot to mention due to not writing it down - you can (a certain amount of wiggling possibly required) run past Selva in Heaven's Gate.
Edit history:
AquaTiger: 2007-01-21 03:36:17 am
Never give up!
I understand that the moment I post here this will get shoved to Older Consoles, since this IS a PS1 game we're talking about, but I feel I have some things to say despite not having reviewed the thread well yet (this assumes also that you're still up to trying again).

First off, are you 100% certain the one-handed sword is the best starting weapon?  It might just be unfamilarity with the game, but I'm under the impression that despite your ability to keep enemies pinned with the one-handed sword, the damage dealt isn't the fastest possible for the early parts of the game.

Second, I'd suggest taking a look at the technique list again and testing some of the techniques with damage ranks of 3 and 4.  Even if it turns out starting with the one-handed sword IS best, I'd say have a look at the techs for just the two sword-type weapons (you DO switch to a 2-handed sword in the Dragon storyline run, after all).

I'm particularly paying attention to the following techniques, as they appear to require the least diversion to get (I do not mean 'easy', I just mean these are the least complex and require the least work getting extra abilities before you can even try to learn the tech):

For 1-handed sword:
-Cutting Pine (I think I've seen this tech used by an NPC somewhere in one of your runs)
-Smashing Blade
-Invisible Death
-Dynamite X (don't even need any extra abilities for this one, AND it appears to me that you can still use Crouch while working toward this)

For 2-handed sword:
-Bring It On
-Skullsplitter
-Quakebringer (the Moonsault ability needed might take a little effort to learn, but as far as I can tell, you can still use Crouch to work toward this technique after Moonsault is dealt with)
-Triple Offense
-Deep Swing (judging from your previous runs, this one fits your ability usage best)


If there's difficulty in actually USING the tech, maybe there's a chance you could demonstrate to me somehow (describing its hit radius, showing the tech in action, whatever) so I can realize why you're using one thing instead of another.

Also, if certain special techs also require other special techs and not just abilities, or something else not observed in the tech list would hinder the ability to learn these later ones, I'd like to know, as that kinda brings my ideas crashing down.
Edit history:
Sir VG: 2007-01-21 04:05:20 am
Fucking Weeaboo
Most of the time I use techs merely to avoid damage when I can't hit the enemy than to actually damage it (though if I time it right to get a big blow, that's definately a bonus).

The problem with 2H swords at the beginning is that they're SLOW.  REALLY SLOW.  Daggers while faster, are weaker than 1H swords.  I found a list of initial damage caused by weapons in the game at start:

Menos 2 Handsword - 12 HP
Menosglove - 8 HP
Menosknife - 9 HP
MenosSword - 10 HP
MenosAxe - 10 HP
Menos2HAxe - 12 HP
MenosHammer - 12 HP
MenosSpear - 11 HP
MenosStaff - 7 HP
MenosFlail - 8 HP
MenosBow - 8 HP
Caduceus - 12 HP

I gain 2 damage per hit going with a 2H sword, but the hit speed is much slower than a 1H sword.  Daggers are not much weaker, but the hits feel more inconsistant than a 1H sword.  Hammer and 2H Axe have the same problem...they're slower per hit.  I'm not familiar with the caduceus though.  Spear feels slow as well over a period of time, so it's probably not worth using either.

Yes, I do switch over to a 2H sword later, but only because I get one that's considerably stronger than any 1H sword I have access to (except Jumi's SwordOfFate, which is one of the strongest weapons in the game), since at that point, my strongest weapon usually is SteelSword (20) and BraveBlade (37) comes as a drop for considerable damage, making switching weapons at the cost of losing techs worth it.  SwordOfFate(40) I'll use for Jumi though all the same.  I know locations where I can get drops in Jumi and Dragon for BraveBlade (Tower of Leires and Bone Dungeon), but I need to figure out something for Faerie.

I haven't used a lot of those techs, except Cutting Pine.  Unfortunately, it's got a really crappy hit range.  On some of the big bosses it's fine.  But on fast moving bosses or bosses with a small hit zone, it's awful.  I found it to be worse than Rising Sun.  I'll certainly check out some of those other techs.  I do need to use Defend/Crouch as it gets me Counter Attack which I need for Counterstrike, as it's a GREAT technique in some situations, most notably Mana Goddess.  After that I really don't focus on anything, because Counterstrike and Crouch are really all I need.

Edit: I looked over a technique list, and did see one ability that would be helpful with my current learn list...but I probably haven't ever learned it due to speedrunning...

Deep Swing (2H Sword) - Crouch, Defend, Counterattack, Counterstrike

It has the highest attack level, but I've never learned it and probably won't because of the way I play it.  And given the other 4 level attacks with weapons and techniques I have (so far), I don't think I'll learn ANY of them if I don't learn this.