Psynergy: or just Magic. Can be used in battle to fight enemy/help ally, and some can used in map to solve puzzle. Most Psynergy have a constant damaging power, and so will not effect by low level casters.
Summon: Powerful moves that deals damage depends on target's maximum HP, but requires Djinni's to cast.
Djinni: Collectible object in Golden Sun, which can "Set" to characters to improve their status, or "Stanby" to cast Summon. Also when it is Set on a character, it can be used to cast some unique effect in battle.
RNG: Golden Sun have two kind of RNG, first one is used to decide enemy moves, damage variation, and first attack/be first attacked. This RNG changed when someone's action is executed, and is only manipulable by change the action of player. In this description I call it "Battle RNG". Second RNG is used more widely, decide how the encounter is process, result of escape, target of enemy move, and even those particle effects. This RNG can be manipulated in several ways, such as casting Psynergy in map, or select a move and cancel it in battle. Summons that cause particles emitting can also use to manipulate this RNG ans Summon's animation can be skipped. This RNG is called Normal RNG.
Ellement: There have 4 elements in game, Venus(Ground),Mars(Fire),Jupiter(Wind) and Mercury(Water). All enemies have atleast one weakness, let moves have the element of that type deals extra damage.
Glitches Used
Retreat Glitch: Triggered by casting "Retreat" through shortcut while Isaac have less than 6 EP (or PP in english version). This will make the map id stored in memory change into the map id that Isaac will teleported when Retreat is cast successfully. This can have two ways to use, and both are used in movie:
Save&Load: Save the game while the glitch will cause Isaac warp into the wrong position. It is because when saving, wrong map id will saved with the current x,y position, so when load the game, Isaac will warp into the x,y position at the map id where he should at.
Warp by entrance: go through doors when retreat glitch is triggered will cause the destination of entrance glitched, let him warp into some unexpected positions. This probably caused by door id map is depends on the map id, so when map id is glitched, door id is also glitched.
Climb Glitch: When Isaac is attempting to climb a ladder (or anything he can climb), there have 1F that allow player to open a menu before he start climb. This will cause player able to save the game while he is climb on a ladder, which will cause Isaac's z-position glitched, let him able to interact with some object that is at higher position than him. In this run, this glitch is only used at Altin Peak, to avoid lengthy animation from played.
Tricks Used
Return to sanctum: Hold L and Start while load a game will let Isaac warp into the sanctum in last city he visit. This can let him leave the dungeons quickly. Used a lot in the run to save time.
Short Saving: In this game, the saving process cost about 52-54 frames (depends on where Isaac are). But the saving can be abort by reseting at around 20 frames after the dialogue is appear, to save around 30F per save. At this point, data about flags, status, Djinni and other information about system is saved, but the data relate to Isaac's position will lost. So Loading these data will force you to do "Return to sanctum" trick.
Force first attack: When game is hard resetted, Battle RNG will reset to 0. This will cause the first battle after the reset always become a firs attack, let player escape the battle at 100% success rate. This is used a lot at late of movie, as at that point the probability of escape is near to 0.
Djinni Strategy
There have total 28 Djinni in this game, 7 in each element. In this run, Djinni is very important as it is essential to use Summon. Each element have 4 Summons, cost 1-4 Djinnis to cast respectively. As the LV4 Summons are very strong (cost 4 Djinni), I obtained first 4 Djinnis to let it is castable early.
Then, there have a Venus Djinni name Ground that can disable an enemy for one move, which is also essential in this run, so we will have 5 Venus Djinni.
For Mars Djinni, there have Flash, which can cast to reduce all damage taken to all party members by 90%, which is also essential in this run, so we will have 5 Mars Djinni.
For Jupiter, there have no other essentials, so we only have 4.
For Mercury Djinni, this is the weakness element of Final Boss, so we obtain all Mercury Djinni that is objtainable, which will be 5.
So in concule we will have a Djinni arrange ment of 5/5/4/5
Battle Strategy
Stanby Djinn's before fight, cast Summons, wait their recovery, use them to stanby them, cast Summons, repeat until we win : )
All normal encounter is escaped. We don't need any extra exp to beat final boss.
Items
Only obtain follow items. This list excepts those items that are essential to finish the game:
Bandit's Sword: Obtained as 100% loot from Bandit and Thieves in Vault. It is didn't used in this run (not worth to equit as it only +4 from initial Short Sword), but as I obtained, so I list it at here.
Elven Rapier: Obtained in Bilibin Cave, used to boost Isaac's damage to Saturos in Mercury Lighthouse.
Elven Shirt: Obtained in Mogall Forest. Have a effect to boost agility to 150%. Equip to Iwan and he can move first in most Boss fight, provide chance to manipulate enemy moves.
Ninja Hood: Obtained in Tolbi Spring. Have a effect to boost agility by 20. Also Equip to Iwan to let him move first.
Kimono: Obtained in Tolbi Spring. Have a effect to boost agility by 10. Equiped to Mia for higher Defense and Agility. This is gave to Isaac after Obtaining next Item for same purpose.
Magical Cassock: Bought at Lalivero. Equip to Mia for higher Defense.
Jeweled Crown: Bought at Lalivero. Equip to Garet for higher Defense.
Walkthrough
Prologue
Escape all fight, Kill by Mystery Man and Mystery Women quick.
Vale~Sol Sunctum
In Sol Sunctum, use Retrea Glitch Save&Load to skip to the very last part of dungeon.
Vault
Nothing speciall. In boss fight, focus two Thieves to prevent Herb be used.
Goma Cave
Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load to skip to later part of dungeon. Head back to obtain Mars Djinni Forge.
Bilibin
Only come to obtain Jupiter Djinni, Gust. Use Return to Sanctum to quick exit the town.
Bilibin Cave
Obtain Elven Rapier.
Imil
Obtain Lucky Medal on the way to Mars Djinn, Fever. The snowman is considered dropped when a Move is touched it, even when player cancel it immediately.
Empty Bottle obtained after the cutscene about Mia
Mercury Lighthouse
After defeat Lizard Man, goto the postion shown in Movie, Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load. This will warp Isaac into very last part of the lighthouse. Head back and obtain Mercury Djinn, Sleet. Then use Retreat normally, head to where Mia join the party. Then use Retreat Glitch and enter the stair Isaac come. This will warp Isaac to top of the lighthouse, skip whole dungeon.
Saturos Strategy: The main damage source is LV2 Mercury Summon Nereid, and Tundra Psynergy cast by Mia. Before the fight, move Sleet to Isaac and Fizz to Ivan. When these two Djinn is complete its recovery, cast them, and let Garet Summon the Nereid can let Nereid be summoned once per 2 turns, maximize the damage. First Nereid is casted by Mia to increase her Mercury Elemental Power, increase her Tundra's damage. Sleet is gave to Isaac as he is equipping Elven Sword, can deal high damage through it.
After defeat Saturos, walk back to bottom of lighthouse and obtain Mermes' Water.
While heading to Kolima, give Isaac two Mercury Djinn, let him use Avoid to prevent encounter. This Psynergy only have effect at this point, as it only prevent encounter when player's level is enough.
Kolima and Kolima Forest
Go to Kolima Forest first to trigger the event. This event will triggered once when player enters Kolima Forest or Kolima. When triggered at Kolima, it will have some extra contents (Ivan use Mine Read to those trees), so trigger it at Kolima Forest first will save some time).
Then head to Kolima to let game memorize last town visit is Kolima, obtain Venus Djinn, Granite.
No special movement in Kolima Forest
Tret Tree
Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load to skip some part of dungeon, obtain Jupiter Djinn, Breeze. After the fight, Use Retreat Gltch Save&Load again, warp into outside of room, fight boss at there.
Use Retreat to leave Tret Tree, give the Tree Hermes' Water.
Fuchin Temple and Mind Road
Only come to Obtain Jupiter Djinn, Zephyr. Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load to skip the path.
Mogall Forest
Use Retreat Glitch to skip first puzzle of dungeon. Obtain Venus Djinn, Quartz.
Xian
Obtain Lucky Medal while waiting the women go to correct point.
Obtain Mercury Djinn, Mist.
After Leave Xian, head to north and obtain Mars Djinn, Corona.
Altin
Use Climb Glitch to skip some animation of the Mini Boss.
Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load at Second Altin Peak. Walk through the memorhy and reach Alpine Crossing, result a heavy skip of Altin Peak, include two Mini Boss and one Boss, but make one Mercury Djinn become unobtainable.
Lama Temple
Nothing Special.
Lamakan Desert
Obtain Jupiter Djinn, Somg, which will be last Jupiter Djinn be obtained.
Use Retreat Glitch Save&Load after obtain the Djinn, warp into outside of the map. The Boss Manticore is placed at 0,0, so we can fight the boss earlier than normal.
After beat the boss we will be warp into where we should fight him, let Isaac skip a lot of the dungeon.
After leave the Lamakan Desert, Obtain Venus Djinn, Vine.
Kalay
Nothing Special.
Obtain Mars Djinn, Scorch
Tolbi-bound Ship
Kill Enemies in one hit by one LV4 Summon. Use Mars Summon firsst to ensure Djinn's recovery will finish before Kraken
Kraken Strategy: Kraken is the only boss that will inflict by debuff, such as stun and sleep. Use Scorch and Mist to let him not able to move, and cast two Mars LV4 Summon + one Jupiter LV4 Summon will enough to kill him.
Tolbi and Altmiller Cave
Obtain Kimono and Ninja Hood in Tolbi Spring.
Obtain Mercury Djinn, Hail on the way to Altmiller Cave
Head to Kalay Docks and obtain last Venus Djinn, Ground.
Note that the order of Djinn and the dungeon may varies depends on how the encounter has changed by obtaining the Djinn. In my last run it was 150F faster to head Altmiller Cave first.
No special moves in Altmiller Cave
Colosso
No help from party members, as we need to wait opponent to goal.
give them better equipment to lower our defense, it is not nessesary, but also no cost on time (I can lower my item before opponent while I take it after them)
Obtaining items, open menu will not effect opponent's movement. (they will move while the menu is open.)
Use Mist and/or Scorch to disable opponent, cast Mars LV4 Summon while they are disabled.
At last fight, killed by enemy as quick as possible.
Suhalla Desert
Nothing special. Boss can be avoided easily even in non-TAS play.
Obtain last Mars Djinn, Flash. Most powerfull Djinn that can reduce all incoming damage by 90%
Suhalla Gate
Obtain last Mercury Djinn, Dew. Use Retreat Glitch and enter the cave can skip last map, save a small amount of time.
Venus Lighthouse 1
Exit from right first and re-enter, to reduce time after finish here.
In english version, there have a glitch that encounter will not move when Reveal is casted.
Choose right route, as it is shorter.
Lalivero
Buy Magical Cassock and Jeweled Crown.
Babi Lighthouse
move normally to Tunnel Ruins.
Tunnel Ruins
Nothing Special
Venus Lighthouse 2
Use Retreat Glitch at place shown, and move through the stair can lead to the room where first floor finish.
After first floor, head to top normally.
All encounter is escape by Save and Reseting the game.
Saturos & Menardi
Strategy: Give Mia 4 Mars Djinn to enable Wish, a psynergy that can heal all party member in once. Give Flash and Ground to Ivan, Zephyr to Isaac and balance the Djinn arrangement, let every one have atleast one Djinn in all element except Mia.
In the fight, use Flash, Ground, Granite and RNG Manipulation to prevent all member to dead. Main damage source are LV4 Summons. Use Zephyr and Vine to ensure that Ivan can move in first to provide room for manipulation.
Focus the target to Menardi as she have higher damages and lower health.
Fusion Dragon
Strategy: Same as Saturos & Menardi, but is much easier as his move generally have lower damage.
Finish
Movie end at last dialogue before "TO BE CONTINUE..."
Special Thanks
su_core: He teached me how to use free-camera when character is off-screen, and tell me the memory address of RNG's. My big thanks to him!
tl_plexa: Current RTA World Record holder. This TAS's route mostly is come from his route. Another big thanks!
GoddessMaria: I must say that this movie has been technically sound. The optimization levels & RNG manipulation are good, despite the minor possible improvements, and the reception from the audience has been mostly positive. Good job!
Hey this is pretty good! Looks like you worked out how stupid stairs are in this game, most of the staircases seem to be optimised. I've noted down comments as I spotted them.
0) You lose frames throughout the run because names are not shortened, at least shortening Isaac's name is worth it
1) vs Bandits in Vault, you should take damage on Isaac so you can use Cure on him later in Goma cave. It would have saved you using two additional moves (~4s) after curing Garet to drop PP below 5 (you had 8 PP so 1 cure would drop that to 5PP)
2) Why did you leave Vault going through the south exit? All my tests indicated that going top was generally faster (unless I'm really bad at timing)
3) In Bilibin cave seems like you could let the "get item" animation last an additional frame to save attack cancelling in the next fight?
4) The second fight in Bilibin cave can't be optimal, way too many attack cancels. Use the get item RNG to manipulate a better path.
5) Hit three encounters on the way to Imil, can get that down to two with a better seed. There's also some sub-optimal movement you can use going around the corner to Imil to minimise the encounter counter which might be helpful
6) What happened when you moved the snowman in Imil? It didn't fall down in my movie, is that just an emu bug?
7) I'm surprised going the right staircase at Mercury entrance is faster, I thought left would clearly be better :P
8) Your retreat warp after beating the lizard fighter looked unoptimised, since you can do the warp lower and walk diagonally to minimise movement frames. I could be wrong about this though so I'm curious to know if you did this intentionally.
9) The Saturos fight was cool. I like using Isaac to heal after the Psynergy Stone. Shame that it doesn't save any time at Tret though.
10) I'm almost positive that skipping the first retreat warp in Tret will save time over this route. In RTA we can't control RNG so the retreat warp saves time on average, while in TAS it should be faster to manipulate fights to drop HP (and hence PP) and get optimal escape luck.
11) Another thing, you can actually do Tret backwards in RTA and I wonder if doing Tret backwards or using the early OOB would save time in a TAS setting (it loses something like 10-30 seconds in RTA the last time I tested it with RTA strats). In the second room of Tret take the left exit and you can get OOB there, you can skip right to Breeze in that OOB saving you climbing the tree. If you can find the right door this should be faster with TAS strats.
12) You use Cybele against the Killer Ape, usually we try to avoid this at all costs because it takes forever. Is there no way to avoid it in TAS?
13) You get a fight between Mogall Forest and Xian, I would suggest you add some RNG frames from one of the summon animations to avoid this encounter. It's certainly possible.
14) The door you used to skip Altin is not optimal in TAS. Its the only door you can hit reliably in RTA, but there is a door which takes you to the left exit which I could only ever reliably hit in a TAS setting. That saves a lot of time since you skip the Hama cutscene when you exit the right side. I can't find where I wrote down the coordinates for the door unfortunately :( but I do know that the door exists!
15) The manticore skip seemed good, but I wonder if you tested a S&Q-less skip to Manticore? You can enter reveal, go into retreat mode, then leave reveal to glitch out the Lamakan map. Slightly to the left of where you do the normal retreat warp there is a sinkhole embedded into the wall. If you fall into the sink hole, run from the enemy, you will get put at (0,0) and just need to press A to fight the manticore. It's definitely slower in RTA because Lamakan is hell, but it might be faster in a TAS setting.
16) I wonder if you could enter/exit Lamakan after getting vine to dodge an encounter?
17) In the ship menu you can at least 1 frame by doing the menu when you give the lucky charm to the captain instead of doing it before the fight.
18) Getting ground after altmiller is faster in a TAS setting. We get ground before Altmiller in RTA to make the RNG more consistent and hence faster on average. You don't have to worry about that so you should get ground after.
19) The post-ship part of the game is quite different to RTA so I don't have as many comments, aside from questioning the amount of saving and reseting you do. While I appreciate why you do that (more than the average person at least!) it would seem that more attack cancelling/grn manipulation could be used to get runs saving the reset.
20) Why do you skip the Gaia Blade? There doesn't seem to be a good explanation for this. Of course, you're not getting it for the attack power rather the +Venus power which gives judgement a nice buff which my logic tells me would save at least one action on Menardi/Saturos and FD which could compensate for the time taking to get it.
21) The S&M/FD fights are really long. I know in Any% that these fights are longer than 100% (which gets both down in 9 turns in RTA) but there is probably some rerouting you can do to speed this up.
All in all this was really fun to watch :) great job!
So the retreat glitch only saves ~20 mins from a 3+ hour long TAS. Huh. I'd thought it'd be like sub 1 hour or something gamebreaking due to all those runs that forgoe it. :P
Hey this is pretty good! Looks like you worked out how stupid stairs are in this game, most of the staircases seem to be optimised. I've noted down comments as I spotted them.
0) You lose frames throughout the run because names are not shortened, at least shortening Isaac's name is worth it
1) vs Bandits in Vault, you should take damage on Isaac so you can use Cure on him later in Goma cave. It would have saved you using two additional moves (~4s) after curing Garet to drop PP below 5 (you had 8 PP so 1 cure would drop that to 5PP)
2) Why did you leave Vault going through the south exit? All my tests indicated that going top was generally faster (unless I'm really bad at timing)
3) In Bilibin cave seems like you could let the "get item" animation last an additional frame to save attack cancelling in the next fight?
4) The second fight in Bilibin cave can't be optimal, way too many attack cancels. Use the get item RNG to manipulate a better path.
5) Hit three encounters on the way to Imil, can get that down to two with a better seed. There's also some sub-optimal movement you can use going around the corner to Imil to minimise the encounter counter which might be helpful
6) What happened when you moved the snowman in Imil? It didn't fall down in my movie, is that just an emu bug?
7) I'm surprised going the right staircase at Mercury entrance is faster, I thought left would clearly be better :P
8) Your retreat warp after beating the lizard fighter looked unoptimised, since you can do the warp lower and walk diagonally to minimise movement frames. I could be wrong about this though so I'm curious to know if you did this intentionally.
9) The Saturos fight was cool. I like using Isaac to heal after the Psynergy Stone. Shame that it doesn't save any time at Tret though.
10) I'm almost positive that skipping the first retreat warp in Tret will save time over this route. In RTA we can't control RNG so the retreat warp saves time on average, while in TAS it should be faster to manipulate fights to drop HP (and hence PP) and get optimal escape luck.
11) Another thing, you can actually do Tret backwards in RTA and I wonder if doing Tret backwards or using the early OOB would save time in a TAS setting (it loses something like 10-30 seconds in RTA the last time I tested it with RTA strats). In the second room of Tret take the left exit and you can get OOB there, you can skip right to Breeze in that OOB saving you climbing the tree. If you can find the right door this should be faster with TAS strats.
12) You use Cybele against the Killer Ape, usually we try to avoid this at all costs because it takes forever. Is there no way to avoid it in TAS?
13) You get a fight between Mogall Forest and Xian, I would suggest you add some RNG frames from one of the summon animations to avoid this encounter. It's certainly possible.
14) The door you used to skip Altin is not optimal in TAS. Its the only door you can hit reliably in RTA, but there is a door which takes you to the left exit which I could only ever reliably hit in a TAS setting. That saves a lot of time since you skip the Hama cutscene when you exit the right side. I can't find where I wrote down the coordinates for the door unfortunately :( but I do know that the door exists!
15) The manticore skip seemed good, but I wonder if you tested a S&Q-less skip to Manticore? You can enter reveal, go into retreat mode, then leave reveal to glitch out the Lamakan map. Slightly to the left of where you do the normal retreat warp there is a sinkhole embedded into the wall. If you fall into the sink hole, run from the enemy, you will get put at (0,0) and just need to press A to fight the manticore. It's definitely slower in RTA because Lamakan is hell, but it might be faster in a TAS setting.
16) I wonder if you could enter/exit Lamakan after getting vine to dodge an encounter?
17) In the ship menu you can at least 1 frame by doing the menu when you give the lucky charm to the captain instead of doing it before the fight.
18) Getting ground after altmiller is faster in a TAS setting. We get ground before Altmiller in RTA to make the RNG more consistent and hence faster on average. You don't have to worry about that so you should get ground after.
19) The post-ship part of the game is quite different to RTA so I don't have as many comments, aside from questioning the amount of saving and reseting you do. While I appreciate why you do that (more than the average person at least!) it would seem that more attack cancelling/grn manipulation could be used to get runs saving the reset.
20) Why do you skip the Gaia Blade? There doesn't seem to be a good explanation for this. Of course, you're not getting it for the attack power rather the +Venus power which gives judgement a nice buff which my logic tells me would save at least one action on Menardi/Saturos and FD which could compensate for the time taking to get it.
21) The S&M/FD fights are really long. I know in Any% that these fights are longer than 100% (which gets both down in 9 turns in RTA) but there is probably some rerouting you can do to speed this up.
All in all this was really fun to watch :) great job!
Thank you very much! It was very interesting to watch your RTA videos. Surprised me a lot!
Here's some answers to questions i can answer. Appreciate to these suggestions!
about stairs: Very want to question those programmers how they programmed these stairs. Why they have all different way to climb and down!
0) The only reason for this is that i don't want to see a name with single letter : ) (It is a great advantage in english version as "I" will make sense, and i will do it too)
1) Noted.
2) TOTALLY FORGOT THAT THERE IS ANOTHER EXIT AT TOP. It should be faster from top. Noted
3) Noted. And is applicable to other places.
4) Noted.
5) Noted.
6) It is told from the comment on Nicovideo. As the description, the snowman in game is considered as dropped when move is cast on it. So cancel move after casting still allow to obtain Fever.
7) I never tested it, so no comment on it.
8) It is not intended. Or most thing is not intended.
9) Distance is a large problem :)
10) Noted.
11) Noted. Still a lot more thing to discover!
12) Noted. It should good to change Cybele to two Ramses, after one Venus is recovered.
13) Noted
14) Noted
15) O..K.. Definitely this will work. Another appreciation!
16) Noted
17) Hmm, i'm not very understanding this...
18) It should be that in my opinion too, but in this run go ground first was quick. Should have some problem on dealing with that be first attack fight.
19) All saving and resetting (before Venus Lighthouse. In Lighthouse is 100% inescapable) is tested and compared with RNG manipulation. when Cancelling is over 37 times, Save and reset will be faster.
20) It is resulted from my last run (not uploaded). In that run, i recognized that i didn't equip anything after the lalivero shop (literally any equipment, include gaia blade), so i had thought that these items are not necessary to beat it, so not obtained. I think i need to have another run to test this. +91 attack should let other Damaging Djinns worth more.
21) Definitely need rerouting and can be faster. The primal objective in my run was to beat the game, and those boss fights (especially last two) have less tries, as i was not sure these bosses is able or not to be defeated in this condition.
Again thank to these precious opinions that is very helpful! I will make next run better, definitely.
jlun2 wrote:
So the retreat glitch only saves ~20 mins from a 3+ hour long TAS. Huh. I'd thought it'd be like sub 1 hour or something gamebreaking due to all those runs that forgoe it. :P
you know why? because there have too many dialogues than dungeons : )
0) It does same frames though :) I've also thought about shortening other names (Garet/Ivan/Mia) but it doesn't save time in regular dialogue since the game displays names one word at a time. But it *might* save time in battle text since I believe that the game displays battle text in chunks rather than 1 frame/1 word like dialogue. It's plausible that you might save some frames from shortening their names, but it might take longer to shorten the names... I have no idea to be honest :) Isaacs name certainly saves time since the very first cutscene has his name a few times while the text is set to 1 frame/1 letter. So you save 2 frames each time his name is said!
2)Haha Werster also goes out the bottom, I was wondering if I was just horribly missing something :D
6) Oh my god that's so sick. I never realised that. Thanks for the time save :P I wonder why it happens?
17) You have to open the menu to give the anchor charm to the captain. You should do the djinn menu there since it saves having to open the menu a second time.
18) You can probably use Babi's squiggly text (the text that wobbles on screen) to advance the RNG to get favourable encounters after Altmiller, but also extra frames during meteor vs hail to get good encounters before altmiller.
19) If I recall correctly, defeating a mob with summons took a similar amount of time to saving/resetting/running. Perhaps the extra levels from taking a fight or two can reduce the number of ACs required. Could also look into using Sand to advance the RNG to a nice place to minimise encounters.
21) Fair enough :) I was impressed that it was even possible to beat them with that setup! I was also impressed with Ivan dying to #savetheframes.
Happy to offer any advice :)
@jlun, I sat down and timed out all the cutscenes and almost half of the game is taken up by cutscenes xD
0) It does same frames though :) I've also thought about shortening other names (Garet/Ivan/Mia) but it doesn't save time in regular dialogue since the game displays names one word at a time. But it *might* save time in battle text since I believe that the game displays battle text in chunks rather than 1 frame/1 word like dialogue. It's plausible that you might save some frames from shortening their names, but it might take longer to shorten the names... I have no idea to be honest :) Isaacs name certainly saves time since the very first cutscene has his name a few times while the text is set to 1 frame/1 letter. So you save 2 frames each time his name is said!
2)Haha Werster also goes out the bottom, I was wondering if I was just horribly missing something :D
6) Oh my god that's so sick. I never realised that. Thanks for the time save :P I wonder why it happens?
17) You have to open the menu to give the anchor charm to the captain. You should do the djinn menu there since it saves having to open the menu a second time.
18) You can probably use Babi's squiggly text (the text that wobbles on screen) to advance the RNG to get favourable encounters after Altmiller, but also extra frames during meteor vs hail to get good encounters before altmiller.
19) If I recall correctly, defeating a mob with summons took a similar amount of time to saving/resetting/running. Perhaps the extra levels from taking a fight or two can reduce the number of ACs required. Could also look into using Sand to advance the RNG to a nice place to minimise encounters.
21) Fair enough :) I was impressed that it was even possible to beat them with that setup! I was also impressed with Ivan dying to #savetheframes.
Happy to offer any advice :)
@jlun, I sat down and timed out all the cutscenes and almost half of the game is taken up by cutscenes xD
0) Garet's name in Japanese let me feels like taking 1 extra frame to display than other PCs, so shorten it may save some frames, but still i don't really like to shorten it, so...
6) maybe is the way they controlling flags was not good. like, casting move on snowman will create an invisible object at where snowman drop, and snowman itself have no collision boundary? who knows :)
17) Noted. Another thing never come out from my mind. Thanks!
18) Encounter manipulation is another big problem that didn't dealt very well in this run. Yeah i should know that obviously from that bridge to Altmillar is shorter than to dock.
19) My first test run was using that way (kill monsters in Venus lighthouse). As we have very low health, we need to use Flash to reduce damage (or use cure to heal party members), and low agility also cause enemy will move in every fight. In average that each fight cost around 20 seconds vs save&reset 14 seconds. A few leveling should help, so... More Tests!
21) I was feel like hit by a hummer when i done it without even notice it. (My third run, and reason i start this run). The main reason for Ivan Sacrifice is the success of quartz's revive in next turn, or i will need to set ground to avoid Menardi uses death scythe.
about cutscenes: that is more than i thought...
So the retreat glitch only saves ~20 mins from a 3+ hour long TAS. Huh. I'd thought it'd be like sub 1 hour or something gamebreaking due to all those runs that forgoe it. :P
you know why? because there have too many dialogues than dungeons : )
Funnily, there's more than onethreadregarding text being (J) or skipped being annoying. :P
Really well done TAS even without the improvements Plexa mentioned.
I still voted meh though simply because it's a 3 hour, dialogue heavy run. Not like that's your fault anyways. There just isn't enough action in Golden Sun to keep my interest and I got bored pretty quickly. Still, you did a good job on this and I think it should be vaulted at least.
This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.
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[2893] GBA Golden Sun by kien_ in 3:12:47.59
