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Joined: 11/15/2004
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I can't create a poll here, but I think that some might just like seeing Battle 37 start between battles 6 and 7. It would be a 'sacrifices time for glitch demonstration', which I am a known outspoken critic of (that can be done in real-time). I'd like to get a poll of opinions though, because this run is more for everyone else than for me. I've stated numerous times how much I dislike this game :) Atma: If I pick up the 2 mithrils available, I could afford a strong weapon by selling them. At this point, I have zero intention of having any mithril weapons crafted. Also, I've used Game Genie codes to beat the battle between Sheela and the glitch, and... she isn't in the hidden temple. Something must have to happen for her to trigger. ZeXr0: I think there may be a skip-able battle, I'm keeping up hope. You can get the blizzard ball in that one village. Is it reusable? Also, what is your feeling on demonstrating the glitch for entertainment? I love this screen shot:
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 2/1/2007
Posts: 245
Location: Israel
Well, the run will probably be ridiculously long anyway. I personally think that most RPG runs that go for 2+ hours might as well show everything the game has to offer (including crazy ass glitches as long as they don't stop the game from actually being beatable).
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Personally, I would prefer it if you didn't, especially if you think you can skip a battle later on (which I guess would use a similar method?), it costs quite a bit of time but also breaks the flow of the run with a long no "action" section. The less out of battle time the better in my opinion.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
I don't think it worth it. It's extremely long. I fought this battle once, using low-leveled charater and you hit about 1 every round. So it would take almost 200 turns to kill Lemon, which is very very very [...] long. The blizzard is not reusable. You should probably just beat the game as fast as possible, I'll be sure to look at your progress to found some optimisation that you may have missed. I'll try to look in details to the WIP you provided. To be sure you didn't miss something (like the Mitril that is right up when you go down the hole in the jail. There's another one before the crash of the boat. It might be better than getting the evil shot, and I don't think that the Evil shot would save much time. Getting the fact that you have you need three character and you need to finish the battle too. And Elric is slow as hell. I don't know if power water really worth the lost frame (you can find one in the temple where you find the sword of light). I don't think that Kiwi is a great choice either, he became strong, but you won't be able to level him up. If you have to concentrate on three character I would say Bowie Slade and Peter. Magician are useless if you are able to double hit when you want. Do you plan on getting May ? Luke is pretty useless, but you may be able to find a strategy like you did in Shining Force 1. I never really used Skreetch but is he good ? You have it before the temple where you can get Taya. And who do you plan to get at Creed ? Karna might be a good choice beause of Boost.
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Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
ZeXr0 wrote:
I don't think it worth it. It's extremely long. I fought this battle once, using low-leveled charater and you hit about 1 every round. So it would take almost 200 turns to kill Lemon, which is very very very [...] long.
Oh, the plan isn't to Kill Lemon, it's to get the evil shot, enter the battle, and egress back to the castle, like the WIP. I get the evil shot, demonstrate glitchy behaviour, and move on with the game normally.
ZeXr0 wrote:
The blizzard is not reusable. You should probably just beat the game as fast as possible, I'll be sure to look at your progress to found some optimisation that you may have missed. I'll try to look in details to the WIP you provided. To be sure you didn't miss something (like the Mitril that is right up when you go down the hole in the jail. There's another one before the crash of the boat.
There is also a mithril behind the tower. ATM, I'm avoiding Mithril, as I doubt I will get the dry stone, or enter the dwarf village. Time consuming, when I will most likely pick up enough strong weapons.
ZeXr0 wrote:
It might be better than getting the evil shot, and I don't think that the Evil shot would save much time. Getting the fact that you have you need three character and you need to finish the battle too. And Elric is slow as hell. I don't know if power water really worth the lost frame (you can find one in the temple where you find the sword of light).
At this point, I'm not sure if any of the Power items are worth it. However, many of my characters are so weak, it's somewhat pathetic.
ZeXr0 wrote:
I don't think that Kiwi is a great choice either, he became strong, but you won't be able to level him up.
The game forces me to get so many characters, as it stands, so I am going to avoid any optional characters.
ZeXr0 wrote:
If you have to concentrate on three character I would say Bowie Slade and Peter. Magician are useless if you are able to double hit when you want.
ZeXr0 wrote:
Do you plan on getting May ?
She is optional?
ZeXr0 wrote:
Luke is pretty useless, but you may be able to find a strategy like you did in Shining Force 1.
Here is hoping. Flyers will tend to get strong, just because they can get so far ahead of the rest of the force.
ZeXr0 wrote:
I never really used Skreetch but is he good ? You have it before the temple where you can get Taya. And who do you plan to get at Creed ? Karna might be a good choice beause of Boost.
I dunno. I've never played the game past battle 8. I'm also hoping, for effect, I will be able to leave Creed's, and take no one.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
May is optional, it's a Ranger (centaur archer). You get many character, but as I said, you can remove character by putting them in the caravan. Luke is really a poor fighter, even with great training. And the battle with Kraken will be something if you are very low leveled. Skreetch is optional, but he is a flyer that you get later in the game. You'll be able to take no one, but then you may miss boost of Karna if it's useful. I don't think there's any trick to get a ring to not crack. Mitril can be sold and the two that I pointed out are one step (one square) away from your way, so it might be good to take those and sell them to be able to buy enought weapon. And there's a third one that you can get just where you put the wooden panel. It's about 2-3 steps away from your way. (It's in the sand square)
BigBoct
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Something must have to happen for her to trigger.
I remember someone in Galam mentioning that the Priest has been slacking off since deciding to marry Sheela. Maybe that's it. Also, good luck to you.
Previous Name: boct1584
Joined: 8/27/2006
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Yeah, the Nazca ship might be what triggers her. By the way, with the walk on everything cheat, you can test some strategy. I read that on the forum of shiningforce.
Joined: 8/2/2007
Posts: 8
Location: Toronto, ON
So I'm attempting a speed run of this game. I've been playtesting some strategies for about a week and figured maybe you can use some of the info I've gathered for myself. This is a long post, filled to the brim with stuff you probably already know, so get ready to be bored. Maybe there's a diamond in the rough though. First off, so you know where I'm coming from, I'm using 8 characters thus far. I had planned on using less but found that concentrating XP on less characters was hitting the point where XP penalties for being too high were becoming a problem. I'm using Bowie (duh), Sarah (MMNK), Jaha (tank), Kazin (blaze, possible muddle2/desoul abuse), May (ranged), Peter (awesome), Gerhalt (raw atk), and Eric (PGNT). I've tried to end battles early whenever possible, which lowers my levels. But I've only got 8 characters for that XP, which raises my levels. So far I've been hovering around the 'average' level for different points in the game, but I started to lag behind in North Parmecia. Anyway, here's some possibly useful stuff that I've worked out. Yeah, you can walk right past May in Ribble. And then past her twice more when you return for the Achilles Sword. Poor May. How can you avoid getting one of the Creed's Mansion characters. The door to the desktop kingdom room is locked and all 5 spaces width-wise are blocked by NPCs. Can you egress from Creed's mansion? Luke, in a regular playthrough, usually becomes a hinderance in the second half of the game. His only stat that isn't mediocre is agility. Screech is even worse. Luke did come in handy for killing the Arrow Launcher in battle 16, but I ditched him soon after. Oh right! When I moved Luke and Peter to take out that arrow launcher, the golem that is right there got a turn and decided to just stay there. Hopefully that wasn't a fluke. Crappy stats aside.. flyers are especially useful in a TAS for those assassinate-the-leader battles. I'm using Peter and a PGNT Eric for that in my run. It worked well for things like killing the wizard in the bridge battle. It does not work well for Zalbard or any greater devil boss because they just have too much health and defense. Perhaps with Luke and/or Screech and, of course, luck manipulation, these kinds of things will be possible. Oh, and the power ring is very useful for this. Hopefully you can manipulate the amount of bonus attack it gives (it varies quite a bit, 40-50% I think). Why worry about fliers when you can walk onto any square (assuming you figure out how to do it in all directions)? Unless you can glitch someone onto a square, and then glitch someone over that person and onto the next tile (leap frog!), things like this will be annoying. Note the 2 tiles of unoccupyable space (except for the corners). An attack boost of 4 from the power water in the shrine after battle 2 may be worth it. I imagine you'll have trouble dealing damage if you keep skipping XP at the rate you are, even with double crit possibilities. You can also grab a mithril from the tip of the mountain for 0 extra steps if you need money. I've found no need to find/sell mithril in my playthrough because I only need to buy weapons for about 4-5 people. I managed to get all the 5k+ goodies in Pacalon without any trouble and I've still got weapons on characters I'm not using to sell. I used to complain about AI-Peter killstealing and gaining too many levels, but when I started playing with speed in mind he actually fell so far behind he wouldn't even attack in a couple battles. Peter is a super awesome character but he will require a little help when you finally get control of him. Luckily he's so awesome that he catches up quite quickly. You might be able to keep him in the action if you can get the turn orders so that a monster charges into Peter's attack range, because he usually will move all the way over to attack. The Kraken battle is actually very easy, assuming you have enough attack to actually damage him by that point =). On easy, only one of his legs will move to attack you as you make your way to the head, which doesn't move at all. Once near the edge of the raft, you can have Peter or Luke land a blow on the head and he'll get super pissed and charge after your other characters (usually uses 'Aqua' for nasty damage). I hope you can manipulate Taros to not use Bolt2 and to miss with his attacks, otherwise he's going to be quite a challenge. Taros' sword casts Bolt2 and he drops it sometimes, but I'm pretty sure no one can use it since no one can equip it. The fairy forest battle can be used to power level a character. The pic on GameFAQs pretty much sums it up. I haven't tested the viability of a 1-man army technique, so I can't tell you how quick it will be or how high you can get your stats/levels. You can skip battle 19, the one right after you get the caravan. There's a 3x4 square (the 12 spots for your characters I think) that triggers the battle you can walk right around. It's pretty easy to 'find', just left of the elven village and north of the river. Everyone gets their MOV completely reset upon promotion, so it could be a waste to give someone a running pimento pre-promotion. I can see this being annoying as by the time you get your first one (that port town right after the Kraken) you're usually about ready to start promoting. We all know TAS's do not showcase the usual, so you'll probably be stuck holding on to a precious pimento for awhile. Or use it and never promote, who knows what will be possible. My egress point got set to the port town just after the Kraken at some point in the game. I don't recall using the priest to save there (or anywhere), but I know I definitely promoted characters there. If you wanted to change your egress point, promoting might have the same effect as saving. I recently got to Zalbard and luckily (or unluckily) didn't have trouble pulling him away from his friends. He was still in the north section of the map (he usually drops down to the platform and waits to throw Bolt2 at you) and he got 2 turns in a row. His AI seemed to know what this could mean and he used both turns to come all the way down to my units on the right staircase. This was bad because he fried a big chunk of my units before I was ready, but it was good because I was able to pound on him without worrying about other enemies. I know you've got a handle on turn manipulation, so having him charge down just to miss one of your characters could be a possibility. I wonder how manipulatable the AI is in the battles where monsters can hurt themselves (prism flowers, burst rocks)... there could be some hilarious potential there. When I get to the late stages of the game I'll have more info for you in terms of low level viability. I wouldn't be surprised if you got stuck dealing 1 damage to damn near everything. I have just reached Moun and I'm already having trouble both dealing and taking damage. Manipulating the cursed weapons to not mess with you might solve that problem, assuming you can get to the rest of them. Ugh, there. Everything else I've learned either doesn't apply to a TAS or are trivial AI triggers that you'll notice yourself right away. I hope something in there was useful. I'm dying to see more segments, so keep up the great work!
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Good info mitchical! DarkKobold is busy with optimizing SF1 but this could speed up the SF2 project when it continues. I'd like to see your speedrun progressing :)
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mithical wrote:
First off, so you know where I'm coming from, I'm using 8 characters thus far. I had planned on using less but found that concentrating XP on less characters was hitting the point where XP penalties for being too high were becoming a problem. I'm using Bowie (duh), Sarah (MMNK), Jaha (tank), Kazin (blaze, possible muddle2/desoul abuse), May (ranged), Peter (awesome), Gerhalt (raw atk), and Eric (PGNT). I've tried to end battles early whenever possible, which lowers my levels. But I've only got 8 characters for that XP, which raises my levels. So far I've been hovering around the 'average' level for different points in the game, but I started to lag behind in North Parmecia. Anyway, here's some possibly useful stuff that I've worked out.
I'm hoping to go with even less. For example, Kazin's blaze can't do double.. but desoul sounds good. If it has any chance of killing a boss... It will kill a boss. Gerhalt's MOV sucks.
mithical wrote:
Yeah, you can walk right past May in Ribble. And then past her twice more when you return for the Achilles Sword. Poor May.
Have you considered getting the evil shot and May? Focusing on her early? She'd be quite the power house with the evil shot. Plus, I need to test if Taros can be hit with any weapon that would not normally be available to the player... Skipping Achilles Sword would make the game a bit faster.
mithical wrote:
How can you avoid getting one of the Creed's Mansion characters. The door to the desktop kingdom room is locked and all 5 spaces width-wise are blocked by NPCs. Can you egress from Creed's mansion?
Honestly, I've yet to play through all of SF2. I just don't enjoy the game like I did SF1. Therefore, I've not really tested much past about battle 9. I'm hoping for big sequence breaks, and not finding them..
mithical wrote:
Luke, in a regular playthrough, usually becomes a hinderance in the second half of the game. His only stat that isn't mediocre is agility. Screech is even worse. Luke did come in handy for killing the Arrow Launcher in battle 16, but I ditched him soon after. Oh right! When I moved Luke and Peter to take out that arrow launcher, the golem that is right there got a turn and decided to just stay there. Hopefully that wasn't a fluke.
mithical wrote:
Crappy stats aside.. flyers are especially useful in a TAS for those assassinate-the-leader battles. I'm using Peter and a PGNT Eric for that in my run. It worked well for things like killing the wizard in the bridge battle. It does not work well for Zalbard or any greater devil boss because they just have too much health and defense. Perhaps with Luke and/or Screech and, of course, luck manipulation, these kinds of things will be possible. Oh, and the power ring is very useful for this. Hopefully you can manipulate the amount of bonus attack it gives (it varies quite a bit, 40-50% I think).
Flyers with power rings and movement rings are by far the best. I've yet to test if the equip glitch works in SF2 like it did in SF1.
mithical wrote:
Why worry about fliers when you can walk onto any square (assuming you figure out how to do it in all directions)? Unless you can glitch someone onto a square, and then glitch someone over that person and onto the next tile (leap frog!), things like this will be annoying. Note the 2 tiles of unoccupyable space (except for the corners).
Actually, I've done through testing. The only way you can move is 1 square right, or 1 square down. You can do this numerous ways, which I showed in the last two videos. However, for battle 16, the right side is prime for the movement glitch. You just move 1 character to the right. Additionally, you can move 2 characters. Using the glitch, you can move from an uninhabitable square, to an inhabitable square. I demonstrate this when I go over the wall in Battle... 5?
mithical wrote:
An attack boost of 4 from the power water in the shrine after battle 2 may be worth it. I imagine you'll have trouble dealing damage if you keep skipping XP at the rate you are, even with double crit possibilities. You can also grab a mithril from the tip of the mountain for 0 extra steps if you need money. I've found no need to find/sell mithril in my playthrough because I only need to buy weapons for about 4-5 people. I managed to get all the 5k+ goodies in Pacalon without any trouble and I've still got weapons on characters I'm not using to sell.
Does the power water really give up to 4? I thought it was 2. If it is 4, I really can't afford to skip any.
mithical wrote:
I used to complain about AI-Peter killstealing and gaining too many levels, but when I started playing with speed in mind he actually fell so far behind he wouldn't even attack in a couple battles. Peter is a super awesome character but he will require a little help when you finally get control of him. Luckily he's so awesome that he catches up quite quickly. You might be able to keep him in the action if you can get the turn orders so that a monster charges into Peter's attack range, because he usually will move all the way over to attack.
The biggest problem with Peter/Geshalt and Co, that I found with my speedrun, is that the gap in levels can't be made up with ultra powerful weapons, and good luck manipulation. If a character can't equip weapons, you may find them lagging. They have better atk growth over many levels... but you won't get that in a speedrun.
mithical wrote:
I hope you can manipulate Taros to not use Bolt2 and to miss with his attacks, otherwise he's going to be quite a challenge. Taros' sword casts Bolt2 and he drops it sometimes, but I'm pretty sure no one can use it since no one can equip it.
Like I said, I'm really hoping they programmed Taros the stupid way, by making him invulnerable to everything currently available. That way, using the Battle 6 to 37 glitch, I can kill him with a stronger better ranged weapon.
mithical wrote:
The fairy forest battle can be used to power level a character. The pic on GameFAQs pretty much sums it up. I haven't tested the viability of a 1-man army technique, so I can't tell you how quick it will be or how high you can get your stats/levels.
Hopefully, I won't need to power-level at all. Manipulation + small force may be enough...
mithical wrote:
You can skip battle 19, the one right after you get the caravan. There's a 3x4 square (the 12 spots for your characters I think) that triggers the battle you can walk right around. It's pretty easy to 'find', just left of the elven village and north of the river.
YAY for sequence breaks! I didn't know about this one.
mithical wrote:
Everyone gets their MOV completely reset upon promotion, so it could be a waste to give someone a running pimento pre-promotion. I can see this being annoying as by the time you get your first one (that port town right after the Kraken) you're usually about ready to start promoting. We all know TAS's do not showcase the usual, so you'll probably be stuck holding on to a precious pimento for awhile. Or use it and never promote, who knows what will be possible.
You sure about that? I thought SF2 was different from SF1 in that regard.
mithical wrote:
My egress point got set to the port town just after the Kraken at some point in the game. I don't recall using the priest to save there (or anywhere), but I know I definitely promoted characters there. If you wanted to change your egress point, promoting might have the same effect as saving.
Also, story line can change the egress point as well. You can't egress past the boat, after the earthquake, even though it would help you skip 90% of the game.
mithical wrote:
I recently got to Zalbard and luckily (or unluckily) didn't have trouble pulling him away from his friends. He was still in the north section of the map (he usually drops down to the platform and waits to throw Bolt2 at you) and he got 2 turns in a row. His AI seemed to know what this could mean and he used both turns to come all the way down to my units on the right staircase. This was bad because he fried a big chunk of my units before I was ready, but it was good because I was able to pound on him without worrying about other enemies. I know you've got a handle on turn manipulation, so having him charge down just to miss one of your characters could be a possibility. I wonder how manipulatable the AI is in the battles where monsters can hurt themselves (prism flowers, burst rocks)... there could be some hilarious potential there.
The AI in SF2 is much harder to manipulate. If the enemy can't attack you one turn, they only move one or 2 spaces forward, to lure you in, out of your attack range. I prefer the stupid AI of SF1.
mithical wrote:
When I get to the late stages of the game I'll have more info for you in terms of low level viability. I wouldn't be surprised if you got stuck dealing 1 damage to damn near everything. I have just reached Moun and I'm already having trouble both dealing and taking damage. Manipulating the cursed weapons to not mess with you might solve that problem, assuming you can get to the rest of them. Ugh, there. Everything else I've learned either doesn't apply to a TAS or are trivial AI triggers that you'll notice yourself right away. I hope something in there was useful. I'm dying to see more segments, so keep up the great work!
The truth is, I really can't stand TASing this game, due to the massive level of imperfection inherent in the new RNG system. As matO said, I am way more interested in perfecting SF1. I may also move to the less popular Shining in the Darkness afterwards. I am going to continue this game at some point, especially if I can find large sequence breaks, such as a way to skip Achielles sword.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
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Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
Wow, I really hope you'll do SitD DarkKobold. My run could help much more there than my embarassing SF1 :]
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Joined: 8/2/2007
Posts: 8
Location: Toronto, ON
Yeah I was giving Gerhalt the running ring, but then Kazin needed some love in the MOV department too, so I gave Kazin the running and Gerhalt the power (because like you said, underleveled + no-weapon character = bad). He'll get the second pimento (gave the first to Sarah). All stat boosting items add 2-4. It is very easily manipulated: use it, see result, load if undesirable and take 1 step, repeat. There might be a more desirable way of manipulating it, that's really more your department. I haven't checked out your glitch demonstrations yet (except for the wall hop in your WIP), I figured that huge sequence break was a TAS thing. Getting the Evil Shot would be an interesting thing to test. The problem I foresee is that it basically means May will be killing everything and then hitting an XP wall. I guess if I used her sparingly to completely decimate monsters (leaders!) every now and then it would mean even levels with some increased speed. If Taros can be killed with the evil shot that would be just dandy. Bowie needed 4 attacks, 2-3 heals, and 2-3 healing items to survive him, plus I wasted a couple turns getting everyone in the right position. Skipping the sword however, means skipping 2 battles. I didn't skip battle 4 (checked the WIP too late) or those 2 battles (obviously), so I could foresee trouble in the XP department. Dropping Gerhalt and maybe someone else remains a possibility, to keep levels up, but I can see this making the game even more unfun to speedrun/TAS than it already has been for us. Ah, but having fun is secondary to producing quality work, so we toil on. Yeah when I snuck '(except the corners)' at the end I meant doing just what you described for battle 16. I'm actually not sure about the MOV reset on promotion, I just read it in a couple FAQs (it was more than 1 guide that mentioned it). I noticed the enemy AI 2 steps thing. It seems enemies are either what I call 'active' or 'inactive'. Active means they'll use their turn to do the '1 square up, 1 square right' sort of movement and edge their way closer until you're in their range. Then they charge in and attack. Inactive means they usually end their turn doing nothing at all. Inactive monsters seem to turn active as you kill the ones in front of them. They will still attack if you get in their range though... I think. Maybe this is why the golem didn't attack me in battle 16. As for your hatred, just because this game is similar to SF1 doesn't mean the strategies used have to be as outrageous as the TAS for it. The changed RNG system means such things just aren't possible. I think you'll be less stressed if you accept that and just produce the best work you can with what you've got. Or maybe I'm way off. =)
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Location: Killjoy
mithical wrote:
I haven't checked out your glitch demonstrations yet (except for the wall hop in your WIP), I figured that huge sequence break was a TAS thing. Getting the Evil Shot would be an interesting thing to test. The problem I foresee is that it basically means May will be killing everything and then hitting an XP wall. I guess if I used her sparingly to completely decimate monsters (leaders!) every now and then it would mean even levels with some increased speed.
You may really want to look into those. They may be more fundamental for your run then mine, since you can easily pick up a super strong weapon extremely early.
mithical wrote:
If Taros can be killed with the evil shot that would be just dandy. Bowie needed 4 attacks, 2-3 heals, and 2-3 healing items to survive him, plus I wasted a couple turns getting everyone in the right position. Skipping the sword however, means skipping 2 battles. I didn't skip battle 4 (checked the WIP too late) or those 2 battles (obviously), so I could foresee trouble in the XP department. Dropping Gerhalt and maybe someone else remains a possibility, to keep levels up, but I can see this making the game even more unfun to speedrun/TAS than it already has been for us. Ah, but having fun is secondary to producing quality work, so we toil on.
I did some testing. You can't even start the battle without the sword in your inventory :( Also, this game is very unforgiving to TAS.
mithical wrote:
I did some testing. You can't even start the battle without the sword in your inventory :( Yeah when I snuck '(except the corners)' at the end I meant doing just what you described for battle 16. I'm actually not sure about the MOV reset on promotion, I just read it in a couple FAQs (it was more than 1 guide that mentioned it). I noticed the enemy AI 2 steps thing. It seems enemies are either what I call 'active' or 'inactive'. Active means they'll use their turn to do the '1 square up, 1 square right' sort of movement and edge their way closer until you're in their range. Then they charge in and attack. Inactive means they usually end their turn doing nothing at all. Inactive monsters seem to turn active as you kill the ones in front of them. They will still attack if you get in their range though... I think. Maybe this is why the golem didn't attack me in battle 16.
Yeah, the CPU rarely makes mistakes like that. Not much else to add. This is pretty much spot on.
mithical wrote:
As for your hatred, just because this game is similar to SF1 doesn't mean the strategies used have to be as outrageous as the TAS for it. The changed RNG system means such things just aren't possible. I think you'll be less stressed if you accept that and just produce the best work you can with what you've got. Or maybe I'm way off. =)
I need to suck it up, since more people want to see this run than any other I have planned or am working on. ZeXr0 said it right, I should have started with this one. Some fun things have happened in this TAS already, but as one person said in my last TAS, 'there is only so much optimized cursor movements you can watch.' I can't really see asking people to watch suboptimal cursor movements :(
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 6/24/2007
Posts: 119
http://www.shiningforcecentral.com/faqs/sf2_04.txt ::::::: Reduce Spell Damage :::::: (Japanese Version Only) Press down, right, left, up & then down again when the enemy starts to use the magic attack. It will reduce the magic attack by 90% on Peter and 80% on the others. :::::: Increase Stats by 250 :::::: (Japanese Version Only) You must have 99 experience points, then get muddled by LV2 Muddle, because LV 1 only decreases accuracy, and 2 makes you crazy. Then, the character must attack one of your own guys, and HIT (not miss. I suggest that you "Quit" just after being muddled, then try until it hits.) then you'll get a new level, and stats will increase by 250! :::::: Avoid all Attacks :::::: (Japanese Version Only) When your character is being attacked, press Right and C. The enemy will get 2 attacks and you will counter, but they will all miss.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Might be a good thing, but for the stat increased, the first time you can get hit by Muddle 2 is a couple of battle after the Nazca ship. Maybe you could try the japanese version. It's less fun to watch, but if it cuts the time a lot. Like being able to manipulate double hit without having to care about being hit.
Joined: 6/24/2007
Posts: 119
how about that battle 6 to 37 skip? and manipulate the mist demon to glitch the 250 stats at the lemon battle? http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/genesis/file/563341/28017 After the battle, Geshp will swear you'll pay for this ;_;. Head down from this screen and get into one of the hardest battles in the game. Enemy Name | # of | HP | MP | ATT | DEF | AGI | MOV | SPELLS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mist Demon | 2 | 68 | 28 | 100 | 41 | 51 | 6 |Muddle1-2 Chaos Wizard | 2 | 53 | 49 | 86 | 48 | 59 | 5 |Blaze1-2-3-4 Bow Rider | 4 | 61 | 0 | 95 | 55 | 44 | 7 | Executioner | 1 | 64 | 0 | 92 | 46 | 45 | 6 | Hell Hound | 4 | 62 | 0 | 105 | 49 | 50 | 6 |Flame1-2 Minotaur | 2 | 58 | 0 | 98 | 51 | 44 | 5 | Evil Bishop | 2 | 64 | 51 | 95 | 48 | 46 | 5 |Aura1-2, Blast1-2-3 Red Baron | 1 |150 | 0 | 102 | 54 | 62 | 6 |
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
It's impossible to go after a couple of battle. As the land didn't crashed, it is impossible to enter the tower. It would be nice to have a super powered character, but then it would seems so easy that it wouldn't worth it. It would remove all the awsomeness of the game.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Perhaps have a glitched run, for the Japanese's version and a "non-glitched" run for the American version?
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Well maybe, but it would be nice to start with a run :P
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
True that.
Joined: 8/23/2006
Posts: 46
Anything still going on with this?
Skilled player (1651)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
I got frustrated by the difficulty in manipulation as well as the lack of massive sequence breaks. I've found that the Achilles sword can be gotten early, but I doubt it will help all that much, and the battles required to get it may take more time than less, given lower levels. If it were possible to get the kraken battle earlier, a bunch of battles could be skipped... It's too bad the walk over squares is impossible to do outside of battle. I may get back to this project after LUA for gens is complete. Part of that is reliant on me getting the GM2 format done. :(
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 7/9/2009
Posts: 6
I'm planning on running a TAS of the Japanese version of SF2 as it has more exploitable glitches and the RNG will most likely actually be abusable. I have no idea how the RNG works or how to use it so I would need help doing so, however I am more than willing to do the actual speedrun if I had help figuring out how to work the RNG. Also, I've been working on a Beyond Oasis 100% speedrun but that would take a break for this. Shining Force 2 has been my favorite Genesis game forever. Let me know if anyone is willing or capable of helping me out. Thanks in advance.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
The RNG changes when a menu is open, which makes the manipulation pretty hard and very lenghty because you something have to way a lots of frame to accomplish what you want. I think there's a couple of WIP that you can download and see how it's done. What's the difference between U and J ? I know that J can open chest, and that I think you can lower magic damage with a trick. But other than that, is there any difference ? You should do a WIP of the first battle and see that you think about it. It will probably be a very very very hard game to TAS. Anyway, Good luck, and I hope to see a WIP of this soon :P
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