Suikoden II

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-02-24 11:29:18 pm

2013-02-24 11:28:08 pm

All the things

Re-did the test-run this evening, and had a lot better results. However, my biggest point of frustration was from the Rabbit leveling. Everybody was level 12 after Sindar, except Jowy who shot up to 17. The biggest problem is that Nanami has no good armor, and she gets wrecked by all of the rabbit attacks. 4 attacks will kill her, even with the strongest defensive stuff I had. I was able to work around this a bit by setting up medicines on Jowy and Riou to keep them prone and her healed, but it was still tough. She can wipe them out the rest of the way with Fire, but the main issue is getting an opportunity where she is the only one left and can actually go first. The 'dillos will need some other work though, since they are resistant to fire and Jowy or Riou's AoE will wipe them out. However, I have a solution to the "Training Tsai" question as well. Essentially, you'd wait to level the Hero until your battle in the camp. Kill off Jowy and then dispatch the soldiers; they're all the same level as the Rabbits, so it should pump you up plenty. This ensures that even if you bring Tsai along, he won't participate in that battle. Alternatively, you could use both of those battles to power level, and just use the second one to level Nanami. This wouldn't work for Tsai though. At this point, I'm leaning towards leveling Riou and Nanami this way, and then instead leveling Tsai or Chaco at some later point. But the above strategy should still work for Tsai as well.

Regarding Kindness Early: I think it's worth it. Not only do you get a Kindness rune, but you also pick up a Dragon Armor and Dream Robe in the Forest, which means you don't have to change out armor Riou and Nanami ever. Not to mention it should make SD Sword, Abomination, and Pest Rat 100% consistent and faster. My very casual walk to Lakewest, with recruiting Hans on the way for kicks, took 7:30 to get back to Coronet. IMO worth it.

That way we also still get to use the Matilda Glitch for something...

EDIT: Regarding Nanami survivability, I should be able to get around this with the Armor Swapping glitch, but I can't seem to get it to work. Does anybody else have any experience with it?

Re-did the test-run this evening, and had a lot better results. However, my biggest point of frustration was from the Rabbit leveling. Everybody was level 12 after Sindar, except Jowy who shot up to 17. The biggest problem is that Nanami has no good armor, and she gets wrecked by all of the rabbit attacks. 4 attacks will kill her, even with the strongest defensive stuff I had. I was able to work around this a bit by setting up medicines on Jowy and Riou to keep them prone and her healed, but it was still tough. She can wipe them out the rest of the way with Fire, but the main issue is getting an opportunity where she is the only one left and can actually go first. The 'dillos will need some other work though, since they are resistant to fire and Jowy or Riou's AoE will wipe them out. However, I have a solution to the "Training Tsai" question as well. Essentially, you'd wait to level the Hero until your battle in the camp. Kill off Jowy and then dispatch the soldiers; they're all the same level as the Rabbits, so it should pump you up plenty. This ensures that even if you bring Tsai along, he won't participate in that battle. Alternatively, you could use both of those battles to power level, and just use the second one to level Nanami. This wouldn't work for Tsai though. At this point, I'm leaning towards leveling Riou and Nanami this way, and then instead leveling Tsai or Chaco at some later point. But the above strategy should still work for Tsai as well.

Regarding Kindness Early: I think it's worth it. Not only do you get a Kindness rune, but you also pick up a Dragon Armor and Dream Robe in the Forest, which means you don't have to change out armor Riou and Nanami ever. Not to mention it should make SD Sword, Abomination, and Pest Rat 100% consistent and faster. My very casual walk to Lakewest, with recruiting Hans on the way for kicks, took 7:30 to get back to Coronet. IMO worth it.

[size=2]That way we also still get to use the Matilda Glitch for something...[/size]

EDIT: Regarding Nanami survivability, I should be able to get around this with the Armor Swapping glitch, but I can't seem to get it to work. Does anybody else have any experience with it?

DrDoobie

2013-02-24 11:35:02 pm

From what I am able to see is that a lot of people have a problem with the Armor Swapping glitch and I haven't found a video or anyone able to explain it. I'll keep looking for something as I've never used that glitch before.

Omnigamer

2013-02-24 11:43:20 pm

All the things

Quote:

Armor Swapping
Each character can wear different types of armor, and some can not wear some types of armor. However, there is a trick to get around this. Just echange equipment directly from the individual character's inventory! It is easy! However, the person who is giving the unequipable armor to another has to be able to equip the armor that the other person is wearing. For example, if Humphrey is wearing Knight Armor, and Luc has a tunic on, you could do this because Humphrey could wear tunics, however, if Luc is wearing Magic Robes, this will not work. Also, if a character is wearing non-removable armor/accessories this won't work, and characters that can not use shields can not have shields swapped.

Is the advice listed on GFAQs and Suikosource. After reading through some other threads, there are conflicting reports that it was only in the JP version. Some people claimed to have gotten it to work in NA version, but can no longer replicate it.

DrDoobie

2013-02-24 11:54:21 pm

Even the wording there is weird since Luc and Humphrey can't wear tunics (least it's not letting me on my emulator). It seems more like an urban legend right now to me. :/

ohm_

2013-02-24 11:59:45 pm

When you do the 17 entrance/exit glitch, where exactly does it place you in the story? Go recruit Tsai I'm assuming. I'm only curious as I haven't had time to do it yet.

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 12:03:46 am

All the things

Humphrey's armor is also permanently attached, so he can't change it at all.

The 17 entrance/exit isn't really a glitch, just an abuse of the way the programmers set up the Pilika trigger. But I now believe it is faster to instead talk to the innkeeper in Ryube 17 times instead, which gives an equal number of points.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 02:12:02 am

2013-02-25 02:11:34 am

Quote from Omnigamer:

The biggest problem is that Nanami has no good armor, and she gets wrecked by all of the rabbit attacks. 4 attacks will kill her, even with the strongest defensive stuff I had. I was able to work around this a bit by setting up medicines on Jowy and Riou to keep them prone and her healed, but it was still tough. She can wipe them out the rest of the way with Fire, but the main issue is getting an opportunity where she is the only one left and can actually go first. The 'dillos will need some other work though, since they are resistant to fire and Jowy or Riou's AoE will wipe them out.

Just kill off the extra rabbits. Then use the fire rune with Nanami to finish off the last one with 100% accuracy. The rabbit will attack first, but it won't kill her. If some of them attacked her earlier, make sure you get her HP up with medicines. If Highlanders give enough exp then yeah we could get three people leveled up here.

ohm_

2013-02-25 03:07:01 am

Ah, right, it's been a long time since I've played though this game completely. Also I finished a map of North Sparrow Pass, just as a sort of first go at it. Let me know what you think, I know it's pretty bare bones. I ended up making it while I was walking through there on my way to Kyaro. http://imgur.com/awXj5rs

Vaslof

2013-02-25 06:35:17 am

Leveling up Nanami is actually way easier than Tsai. She is faster than the rabbits, so she can finish up bigger groups with her flaming arrows.

Also tested getting three characters leveled, ain't gonna work without backtracking. The Highlanders group you fight with just Riou and Jowy only has 4 Highlanders and will only get you to around lvl20. Also you can't "save" your low level, because Riou WILL NOT DIE. I waited 100+ turns and they did not hit him even once.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-02-25 08:09:12 am

2013-02-25 08:02:30 am

All the things

Nanami is not actually guaranteed to go faster than the Rabbits. If you're unlucky, she could end up at or below 50 SPD at level 12 (level 13 is safe, 11 you'd need to be pretty lucky). I can't remember exactly what I had in my file (lvl 12), but there were several occasions where she would go first some times, and then the cut rabbits would go first at other times. One of those such times was when I needed to kill them off, and they 2-shotted her before she could cast Flaming Arrows. I think I can work around it with a slightly different setup (Fire Lizard on Riou, level him first), but I need to plan it out a bit more. This also makes me think that going first isn't such a black-and-white thing as the speed differential; there may be a leeway of a few points where you are effectively equal speed.

As for the soldiers, they're still more than sufficient. At level 12 they provide 24 levels; level 13 they give 20.5 levels. Anything for the hero in the mid-30s is sufficient, since his stats aren't as important as Nanami's and he'll gain quite a bit later.

Ohm_: it looks great! That's just what we need; something simple but with all the item locations and the general path. Thanks!

Nanami is not actually guaranteed to go faster than the Rabbits. If you're unlucky, she could end up at or below 50 SPD at level 12 (level 13 is safe, 11 you'd need to be pretty lucky). I can't remember exactly what I had in my file (lvl 12), but there were several occasions where she would go first some times, and then the cut rabbits would go first at other times. One of those such times was when I needed to kill them off, and they 2-shotted her before she could cast Flaming Arrows. I think I can work around it with a slightly different setup (Fire Lizard on Riou, level him first), but I need to plan it out a bit more. This also makes me think that going first isn't such a black-and-white thing as the speed differential; there may be a leeway of a few points where you are effectively equal speed.

As for the soldiers, they're still more than sufficient. At level 12 they provide 24 levels; level 13 they give 20.5 levels. Anything for the hero in the mid-30s is sufficient, since his stats aren't as important as Nanami's and he'll gain quite a bit later.

Ohm_: it looks great! That's just what we need; something simple but with all the item locations and the general path. Thanks!

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 08:44:41 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 08:44:25 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 08:35:23 am

2013-02-25 08:34:30 am

Star Dragon Sword and Abomination turned out really easy as I suspected. Both are either 1 turn kills or early 2nd turn. That's with going to the inn after Star Dragon Sword. I was more worried about safety than speed due to your warnings, but you cannot die in these encounters. This was with leveled Riou, but low lvl Nanami. EDIT: And s1 data loaded so higher level Viktor, that might have helped.

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 08:50:44 am

All the things

In my test run not too long ago with mid-30s Nanami and Hero, SD Sword took ~4 turns and cleaned up the non-high level members of the party. On Abomination I had to heal to avoid a wipe, and it took upwards of 6 turns. I nearly wiped on Pest Rat because he did his "cieling collapse" attack twice in a row for ~200 damage, even on levelled characters. This was all with Fury rune, but no S1 carry-over.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 11:36:28 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 11:05:11 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 11:04:36 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 11:03:35 am

2013-02-25 11:02:30 am

Riou was my star player. Explosion did so much damage with lvl50ish Riou. Viktor had double-beat and fury for Star Dragon Sword, but I removed them while I was in South Window to rest. Can't leave them on Viktor because he leaves the party after Abomination. The rest were using fire arrows or fire walls. You can find one fire wall in the dungeon, and Kahn comes with three. I could have had better optimization by giving his fire walls to someone else because he's likely to only cast Charm Arrow before the battle ends. I think I should also fight a battle at some point to level up my guys, then I could get Kindness Rain on Nanami and Thor Shot (EDIT: Bolt of Wrath I meant!) on Eilie. Even better, get another fire rune earlier if it's affordable. Might be a bit of an overkill though. Did you remember to remove all equipment from characters that are unuseable, and then equipping everyone in your party to the max once you have Eilie, Viktor and Freed? That could help with the survivability if you were having trouble. I didn't buy any gear from vendors though. Water rune level 2 spell is also quite good against Abomination if you are taking too much damage.

Vaslof

2013-02-25 11:33:44 am

^ Turns out you can remove Rina's Fire rune. When you get to South Window, go straight to rune shop. She leaves if you go to the inn. So that's a nice lil extra fire rune for the fights!

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 12:05:26 pm

All the things

I didn't actually use magic much at all (just not my style for semi-casual playthroughs). The damage done to characters is still significant though. Also, you can buy Fire runes in Muse or White Deer; you should have plenty for a reasonable amount if you don't invest in a Fury.

Ideally the route would stop using magic as soon as possible without sacrificing time, with the exception being protection magic such as Earth and Water. The animations really stack up (I imagine 10 seconds or more for a single spell, and 2-3 for a typical attack?), and the setup time is non-negligible. Taking time to strip off items from characters, make sure you have available item slots, do rune management, and equipment set up before boss battles definitely adds up. It would not surprise me if a mostly-magic strat against Abomination took 1.5 minutes longer than an equal-turn physical strategy from animations alone, not including setup time. Coming up with a balls-out strategy of only the most optimized equipment exchanges, great menu work, and minimum magic/time actions may be faster overall, but my intuition says that they're probably about even in typical-use scenarios. Setting up for physical is just so much easier, and I'm betting more consistent.

That said, this may be another branching point between regular and NG+. Viktor was very little help in my experience, but he seems to be quite handy in your set up.

I didn't actually use magic much at all (just not my style for semi-casual playthroughs). The damage done to characters is still significant though. Also, you can buy Fire runes in Muse or White Deer; you should have plenty for a reasonable amount if you don't invest in a Fury.

Ideally the route would stop using magic as soon as possible without sacrificing time, with the exception being protection magic such as Earth and Water. The animations really stack up (I imagine 10 seconds or more for a single spell, and 2-3 for a typical attack?), and the setup time is non-negligible. Taking time to strip off items from characters, make sure you have available item slots, do rune management, and equipment set up before boss battles definitely adds up. It would not surprise me if a mostly-magic strat against Abomination took 1.5 minutes longer than an equal-turn physical strategy from animations alone, not including setup time. Coming up with a balls-out strategy of only the most optimized equipment exchanges, great menu work, and minimum magic/time actions may be faster overall, but my intuition says that they're probably about even in typical-use scenarios. Setting up for physical is just so much easier, and I'm betting more consistent.

That said, this may be another branching point between regular and NG+. Viktor was very little help in my experience, but he seems to be quite handy in your set up.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 12:47:26 pm

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 12:30:00 pm

2013-02-25 12:27:46 pm

Yeah I haven't had time to try early kindness rune yet, it could be faster. It's not so clear cut that physical attacks are always better though. My lvl50ish Riou with max weapon lvl will hit Abomination for maybe 120 points of damage. Realistically you could have a double-beat rune at this point, so 240 point of damage per turn, but obviously the time it takes is also doubled. In comparison, explosion deals 1600 damage and has a quick cast animation. But I will actually compromise and drop the Flaming Arrows out of these battles. They are weak and take too long to cast. Fire Walls are still in though. I managed to do 3 turn Star Dragon Sword saving my best spells, then 1 turn Abomination without resting in-between. And most importantly this way is 100% safe. Not saying that the kindness rune route isn't. I hope you stream it soon and we can find out Smiley

Viktor is less important if you don't rest because he won't have the rune(s) at any point.

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 02:53:04 pm

I was assuming Kindness equipped for phys strats. I doubt that a straight phys would be faster than magic without Kindness unless every character were level 35+. Double-beat and Kindness (no Fury) nets you ~1800 damage per turn, not counting other attackers. A crit will one-turn Abomination, and probably come close on Pest Rat. I haven't used Explosion in literally a decade so I can't remember anything of its animation, but if Riou isn't required to be doing anything else it's probably worth it for the one cast.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 04:19:48 pm

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 04:16:36 pm

2013-02-25 04:12:54 pm

Ah okay, I thought we were speaking of physical attack vs magic in general. A run with no early kindness rune will still get it at Lakewest. That means there's only two battles without it, the Star Dragon Sword and Abomination. I'm planning to use Tsai as my kindness rune bearer, so I will farm deaths with Fire Lizard, probably in the Cave of Wind. I don't actually remember, but if Lakewest / Two River / Kobold Village has a blacksmith, I can attach the kindness rune and have it for the Pest Rat. The only advantage the earlier kindness rune gets is in the two boss fights. Will the shorter animations make enough of a difference? I'm guessing no. Or am I missing something crucial?

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 04:50:11 pm

All the things

There is no blacksmith available for the entirety of Two River. You'd have to go back to the smith in Kuskus which is some added time if you want it for Pest Rat. The other benefit from Lakewest Early is not having to deal with equipment again for a long stretch of time for Riou or Nanami, or any item management at all. Optimized Lakewest Early costs on the order of ~6 minutes, maybe faster. I feel like you can gain about that much back from having it on 3 bosses and not having to set anything up. There's still the transfer time to put it on your post-Nanami Kindness bearer, but that's a pretty small tradeoff depending on when you choose to do it.

Regarding training up the Kindness bearer if you don't do it at the Muse/Highland border, it shouldn't be much of an issue so long as they tag along for required zaku fights. Just having them present should feed them the experience they need to unlock most of their rune slots, and you can still hook them up with Fire Lizard to ensure the Kindness value stays low. If the route assumes a Fury rune, then you may have to be creative if you go with Chaco, but otherwise should not be an issue.

There is no blacksmith available for the entirety of Two River. You'd have to go back to the smith in Kuskus which is some added time if you want it for Pest Rat. The other benefit from Lakewest Early is not having to deal with equipment again for a long stretch of time for Riou or Nanami, or any item management at all. Optimized Lakewest Early costs on the order of ~6 minutes, maybe faster. I feel like you can gain about that much back from having it on 3 bosses and not having to set anything up. There's still the transfer time to put it on your post-Nanami Kindness bearer, but that's a pretty small tradeoff depending on when you choose to do it.

Regarding training up the Kindness bearer if you don't do it at the Muse/Highland border, it shouldn't be much of an issue so long as they tag along for required zaku fights. Just having them present should feed them the experience they need to unlock most of their rune slots, and you can still hook them up with Fire Lizard to ensure the Kindness value stays low. If the route assumes a Fury rune, then you may have to be creative if you go with Chaco, but otherwise should not be an issue.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 05:33:05 pm

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 05:32:42 pm

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 05:32:05 pm

Vaslof: 2013-02-25 05:31:53 pm

2013-02-25 05:31:35 pm

Changed my mind, I will farm deaths on Tsai at the Muse/Highland forest since I have him at 1 HP after leveling up Riou.

Sucks about the blacksmiths. Trip back to Kuskus, if it's even possible, can't be worth it. I think my setup can handle Pest Rat though, we'll see once I try it.

You are probably right about the menus. I'm new to speed running so it's hard for me to tell how much time menus waste. Good thing is that those boss fights weren't close, so I only have to do a few things to set up. Swap Kahn's fire wall, equip the other, remove Rina's Fire rune and attach it to Eilie.

Omnigamer

2013-02-25 05:51:34 pm

All the things

Well, I'm trying my best to be a bad speedrunner right now and take the easiest way out, so it's really great that somebody is challenging my thoughts on this :Þ I want to believe that there's a use for the tricks and such that are available, but I think in perfect play your methods for that section of the game are probably a bit faster. The consistency is another matter though; I'm not convinced that it's safer yet. Regardless, keep it up!

CVagts

2013-02-25 11:12:01 pm

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

Quote from Omnigamer:

Streamed a bit of playing around with this. As the video indicates, Neclord isn't inside the chapel in Tinto if you do this skip, unless you've beaten the Stone Golem. The Golem appears to be the trigger for a lot of the zombies inside the city to show up, and if you escape talisman out of the mines after beating the golem, you can do this skip and head up to the chapel that way. That's almost definitely slower than just finishing the mine route though. It would really only be worth it if we could skip the golem somehow.

Vaslof

Edit history:

Vaslof: 2013-02-26 09:55:39 am

Vaslof: 2013-02-26 09:55:24 am

2013-02-26 09:55:10 am

Do you have to leave Ruybe village to get Shiro and Kinnison to appear or can you just go straight to the forest after the cutscene?

CVagts

2013-02-26 09:58:30 am

"Let's put a SMILE on that face!"

If you put the nest back up on the way to getting Tsai, I'm pretty sure you can just head back into the forest after the Luca cutscene to get them.

Omnigamer

2013-02-26 10:02:44 am

All the things

I think it's a time-based trigger. I got them by putting back the nest during Millie's quest, walking up to Tsai's house, screwing around a bit, and then they were there when I walked back on the way to Bonaparte. But yes, you can just revisit after the Luca scene and it should work every time.