In Japan, this game is regarded as the first one of the “Seiken Densetsu” series, which is internationally known as the “Mana” series. The hero is a slave of the Empire Glaive. One of his fellows tells him the world is in danger. Thus the hero decides to escape and seek Excalibur to defeat Dark Lord. And to save the world, he has got to protect the Mana family…

Game objectives

  • Genre: ARPG
  • Emulator used: Visual Boy Advance v22-lua51
  • Allow Up+Down / Left+Right
  • Uses a game restart sequence
  • Uses Warp
  • Aims for fastest time

Takes damage to save time

If the hero gets hurt, he is pushed rapidly to certain direction, which boosts his walking speed.

Luck manipulation

The RNG is used every frame. In order to save time, I searched frames which result in the best.
  • When scrolling maps, wait some frames to change how enemies appear.
  • If I want enemies to drop some items, wait some frames before beating them.
  • To give more damage to enemies, time the best frame to attack.

About the movie

184954 frames faster than MattyXB’s current published run. This improvement greatly owes to new Warp Glitches.

Route to the Ending

Escape Glaive

No improvement.

Rescue the heroine and arrive at Kett’s

No need to purchase Axe. Kill some enemies as fast as possible. When level 1, beat only Myconids. Killing one Death Flower (who has 3 EXP) needs two swings of sword if the hero’s level is fewer than 3. So before entering swamps, the hero should be level 3.

Find Bronze Key

Before fighting against Lizard Men, the hero should be level 4. If the hero is level 4, only two swings are enough to kill Lizard Men. It takes three hits if he is level 3, resulting in losing some frames.

Warp from Cave of Marsh to Undersea Volcano via Ice Caverns

Get the man accompanied in the Marsh Cave. (He is necessary for Warp Method 2.) Then use Warp Method 1, which I explain below, to move to Ice Caverns. On the way in Ice Caverns, beat Walrus to get Blizzard from the treasure chest. (This magical item is also necessary for Warp Method 2.) Then again use Warp Method 1 to go to Undersea Volcano.

Warp from Undersea Volcano to the top of Tower of Gemma

Restart the game at a certain point and use Warp Method 2. Then reach in front of heroin’s mother and receive Excalibur.

Final Battle

Defeat Julius quickly. Then the movie will end.

Warp Glitches

I used two methods of warping.
  • Method 1 - Get the full Will and walk toward an Icefield which makes you slip. Use full power attack vertically to the slipping direction. Then the hero slips to the edge of the screen, walking through the wall. If you change maps in the wall, the next map can be another dungeon.
  • Method 2 - This Warp requires an NPC player. At the map in Undersea Volcano, where there are three doors and the stairs, save & load game to summon enemies. Then use Blizzard to make a snowman and convey it onto the stairs. Walk toward the snowman. An NPC player sometimes comes between the hero and the snowman. At that time, the hero slightly enters the snowman. When he enters it over 8 pixels, break the snowman and walk downwards. Then the map will scroll and you can reach the top of the Tower of Gemma.

Other improvements

The battle against Julius is worth to be featured. I will explain the difference from MattyXB’s run briefly.
  • Julius Form 1 - I used normal attack instead of the full Will attack. Sometimes the hero’s sword hits two Juliuses at the same time.
  • Julius Form 2 - The accompanied man’s Fire magic is very effective, which deals three times as much damage as the hero’s Excalibur. When Julius’s thunder remains on the screen, the man does not use Fire. So the hero sometimes cuts the thunder.
  • Julius Form 3 - The heroin in the middle of the map is just an object. Utilizing some invincible time, the density of swinging sword increased.

Useful RAMs to watch

In this game, you cannot see an enemy's HP or even damage dealt. These memory can help you to understand what is happening when the hero is fighting.
  • 0xD3F2 (1u), 0xD3F4 (2u) - damage, HP of BOSS
  • 0xC4EC (2u), 0xC4EE (1u) - HP, damage of Enemy1 (or an NPC)
  • 0xC504 (2u), 0xC506 (1u) - HP, damage of Enemy2
  • 0xC51C (2u), 0xC51E (1u) - HP, damage of Enemy3
  • 0xC534 (2u), 0xC536 (1u) - HP, damage of Enemy4
  • 0xC54C (2u), 0xC54E (1u) - HP, damage of Enemy5

Thanks

  • MattyXB: His warp glitched run gives me some good ideas, how to scroll maps quickly, how to earn enough EXP, and so on.
  • Cheap: A skillful Japanese speedrunner. What I did is just to follow his speedrun on real console. What is more, when I uploaded my testrun on Nicovideo, he watched it and advised me. This TAS greatly owes to him.
I hope that you will enjoy this TAS!

Flygon: Added YouTube module.

Nach: Okay, what happened to my Dark Night fight? And Final Fantasy without a Chocobo? Oh, and using the same name for both characters isn't confusing enough, you had to have two Mana girls running around during the Julius fight? I'm supposed to accept this?
Nice improvement to one of the first runs I ever judged. Accepting.

Nahoc: Will publish this one when I'll get time.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14773
Location: 127.0.0.1
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
I need to get back into the groove, I'll chuck up some SD and HD encode. Edit: Due to heating issues, the encode is delayed 18 hours. I'll leave it up to others to pick it up, however annoyed I might be if they do. :p
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
Wow! That's quite an improvement. The fighting looks very good too. I'm a little annoyed that both the characters were named A, but that doesn't matter very much for a run this short. I would like to request, though, that if you make a warpless run of this game, that you give them different names. I think wasting one frame to name the girl "B" would make things a lot clearer when you actually get to see the full plot of the game. Regardless, very nice job, and Yes vote. One other question, though: why do you get the Sickle? You do most of your fighting with the sword anyway.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Skilled player (1564)
Joined: 5/15/2010
Posts: 141
Location: Japan
184954 frames. A very huge improvement. Of course, Yes vote!
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
incredible run of one of my favorite game great warp, i was a bit worried about the low level but you definitly played it nicely (especialy for the last 2 levels...) also the julius fight is just ironic....
mklip2001 wrote:
Regardless, very nice job, and Yes vote. One other question, though: why do you get the Sickle? You do most of your fighting with the sword anyway.
you need the sickle to cut the wines also it's a litle bit stronger that the basic sword...
Active player (383)
Joined: 12/23/2010
Posts: 30
Location: Japan
mklip2001 wrote:
I would like to request, though, that if you make a warpless run of this game, that you give them different names. I think wasting one frame to name the girl "B" would make things a lot clearer when you actually get to see the full plot of the game.
I regret to say but I am not planning to make a warpless run. That seems a labor. However, I think naming differently sometimes makes a TAS more enjoyable.
Nicos wrote:
mklip2001 wrote:
Regardless, very nice job, and Yes vote. One other question, though: why do you get the Sickle? You do most of your fighting with the sword anyway.
you need the sickle to cut the wines also it's a litle bit stronger that the basic sword...
Nicos is true. The Sickle is necessary to go to the first Warp point. Additionally, with the sword, the hero cannot give any damage to Walrus even level 5.
Current project: Another Mana Series?
Ambassador, Experienced player (695)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Incredibly awesome and unexpected run. The planning and execution is very good. Can't blame you for not being interested in a warpless run. I'm sure you can make some big improvements but it would still be long and borderline interesting to watch.
Skilled player (1633)
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy
Awesome run. Seriously, seriously awesome run. I love how casually Touch-me says that he obsoletes the previous movie by 184K frames, or 54 freaking minutes! Touch-me, how goes Secret of Mana?
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: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Active player (383)
Joined: 12/23/2010
Posts: 30
Location: Japan
DarkKobold wrote:
Touch-me, how goes Secret of Mana?
My SOM run is only 1/4 finished. Someday (when my TAS has 50% finished or I find new glitch) I will upload my WIP. Then I would like to discuss it on the SNES forum.
Current project: Another Mana Series?
Skilled player (1703)
Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"
mklip2001 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed that both the characters were named A, but that doesn't matter very much for a run this short. I would like to request, though, that if you make a warpless run of this game, that you give them different names. I think wasting one frame to name the girl "B" would make things a lot clearer when you actually get to see the full plot of the game.
I think the problem is that some people would then go ahead and "fix" that 1 frame "improvement" and then claim that they did the run faster.
Synahel
She/Her
Joined: 1/19/2011
Posts: 259
Location: France
Awesome game. Awesome run. Your second warp glitch made me giggle a lot, that's incredible. Voted yes for sure.
Active player (421)
Joined: 9/27/2004
Posts: 650
Location: Canada
mklip2001 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed that both the characters were named A, but that doesn't matter very much for a run this short. I would like to request, though, that if you make a warpless run of this game, that you give them different names. I think wasting one frame to name the girl "B" would make things a lot clearer when you actually get to see the full plot of the game.
I don't want to speak out of turn because I've never played this game let alone tried to tas it, but in a lot of games I have messed around with where you could name your character, pressing a direction and the A button on the same frame would work. So in those games you could name your character something other than "A" at the expense of 0 frames. Why this isn't done more often in general is beyond me but I guess that's a different question all together. edit: just finished watching it; very nice work :D
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Man, what. Nice work!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Editor
Joined: 3/10/2010
Posts: 899
Location: Sweden
A decent glitched run.
Joined: 12/19/2010
Posts: 126
nicely done:) a YES for me
live life
Player (142)
Joined: 7/16/2009
Posts: 686
jlun2 wrote:
mklip2001 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed that both the characters were named A, but that doesn't matter very much for a run this short. I would like to request, though, that if you make a warpless run of this game, that you give them different names. I think wasting one frame to name the girl "B" would make things a lot clearer when you actually get to see the full plot of the game.
I think the problem is that some people would then go ahead and "fix" that 1 frame "improvement" and then claim that they did the run faster.
We'd just reject that. Such an improvement is never going to get past the workbench. Remember, a run must also be entertaining, and the entertainment loss would (probably) not make up for the 1-frame improvement. On-topic: I love these kind of obsoletions. Will watch this ASAP.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Player (42)
Joined: 12/27/2008
Posts: 873
Location: Germany
Yay! I love warp glitches! [/generic Yes vote post]
Joined: 5/14/2007
Posts: 525
Location: Pisces-Cetus filament
^ Also, I would like to suggest the following screenshot: It is optimized.
AzumaK wrote: I swear my 1 year old daughter's favorite TASVideo is your R4MI run :3 xxNKxx wrote: ok thanks handsome feos :D Help improving TASVideos!
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14773
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1752] GB Final Fantasy Adventure "warp glitch" by Touch-me in 17:41.33