Submission #2796: DarkKobold's GBA Shining Soul II in 1:17:29.03

OMG, Double Submission, all the way! All the way across TASVIDEOS.ORG! So Intense! Yeah!

Eliminated Double Rainbow Joke

Shining Soul II is an Action RPG by Atlus. The game departs from it's predecessor in many ways, including the lack of a monument system, a changed RNG, faster paced action, and more character classes. Additionally, the storyline and setting departs completely from any previous Shining title, and instead focuses on a young warrior protecting a generic kingdom.

Unlike Shining Soul 1, the RNG is 100% frame-based, and thus, the number of attack options was limited. However, each attack still had to be manipulated with a range of 5-30 frames per attack. Some bosses take an upward of 100 hits to kill, and each attack took 10-30 seconds to manipulate, using a Lua script that checked the next 30 frames worth of attacks. This was extremely, extremely tedious. Additionally, I will stand on top of a chest for a few frames to ~1 second to manipulate the item dropped.

This run is 12:32.15 faster than the the previous run.

I manipulated the drop of 3 Orihalcon in dungeons 4 and 5. This allowed me to forge the Masamune +1, which had +39 attack and +3 critical. I sacrifice leveling my critical skill to get to Sword-level 3 earlier. This weapon was more powerful than the weapon I had equipped by +17. This resulted in fewer attacks required to kill all enemies, greatly reducing all boss fights after obtaining the weapon. For a laugh, it should be noted that I pay the forger an entire ten gold to forge the weapon.

In the first run, I had obtained a Lvl 1 Speed Scroll, and stuck with that the entire run. Each level of speed scroll makes your movement 1/10th faster. Thus, I opt to get a level higher in my Speed Skill, at the expense of critical level, or +2 critical. This improved most rooms by a handful of frames, adding up over the course of the run.

Before the 3 Orihalcons in Dungeons 4 & 5 were obtained for the weapon, I manipulated two to drop in Dungeons 2 & 3, for selling. These are the most expensive mineral, and thus gave me quite a bit of spending power, 600 for the first, and 750 for the second.

Valuing (Identification) Scrolls - In the first run, I had to visit the item shop to sell my Orihalcon, and then the item identifier. Each identification cost >600 gold in the previous run, each scroll costs 200. In my testing, I found out that before Dungeon 4 is completed, the item seller will randomly sell 1-3 valuing scrolls. I manipulate the seller to have 2 after dungeon 2, (determined by when you close the dialog with the King, ~70 frames of manipulation), and 1 after dungeon 3. I use the remaining money to buy grenades.

Grenades - I learned later that grenades do fixed damage. This was mainly used to free Camile. Freeing Camile was one of the worst parts of the previous run, as I had to swipe away at her for 60 seconds, doing 2-5 damage for 300 HP. Additionally, I found a glitch. You need to free Camile to learn the password to the next dungeon. However, if you take the staircase to the next level at the same frame she is freed, you skip about 30 seconds worth of dialogue. Grenades also were used to help me kill a few bosses faster, saving quite a bit of time.

Suggested Screenshot

This run, according to Sonikkustar: "This is a movie about a game that has something about Shiningness or something. No, not the movie, The Shining, something more like the video game Shining series."

klmz: Judging. This might take a while.

DarkKobold: Arrrgh. I found a item-duping glitch online, that I failed to use. It can easily save minutes off the run. Will redo soon.