Submission #453: Acmlm's NES Dragon Warrior in 19:31.13

Nintendo Entertainment System
baseline
(Submitted: Dragon Warrior (U) (PRG1).nes USA PRG1)
FCEU 0.98.12
70268
60
2872
Unknown
Submitted by Acmlm on 12/4/2004 7:04 AM
Submission Comments
  • Recorded with FCEU
  • Uses death as shortcut
  • Luck manipulation
  • Fastest time to reach the ending
About a week later, here comes another run, with an even bigger improvement!
Here's what changed:
  • Picked "!" as a name instead of nothing
  • Got to Level 8 instead of 7
  • Beat one more Goldman
  • Bought 5 keys instead of 3, got the Wings at Rimuldar
  • Bought 2 herbs at Garinham (but didn't get the chest in the dungeon)
That added about 1 minute, but allowed to do this:
  • Got to the Dragonlord's castle with 6 herbs (max), more HP and MP
  • Beat the Dragonlord's human form in 8 hits instead of 12
  • Beat the dragon form with mostly Hurt, saving a lot of time and making the fight much less boring and repetitive
  • Used the wings to return to the castle instantly
So it ended up 4:32 shorter.
The character's stats aren't random, but determined only by the name. Using "!" gave me the best overall stats (mostly higher strength and agility), saving a few turns in some fights ... having a short name to scroll through only took away a small fraction of that saved time.
Using Hurt against the Dragonlord only has a 1/16 chance to work, 1/8 chance to do max damage (12), and all monsters have a 1/3 chance to wake up (which must be avoided). That made the odds quite low and resulted in some 3 second waits and non constant damage (10-12), but that was the best I could get. I actually went as far as figuring out the game's randomization and how it determined things so that I could make a program that simulates it and shows the results for each frame, allowing me to plan the whole fight in advance and saving a lot of re-records and trouble.

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Last Edited by on 1/1/2022 6:13 PM
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