Game objectives
- Emulator used: Dolphin 3.0-378 (more-save-fixes)
- Takes no damage
- Takes damage to save time
- Starts from a saved state or SRAM (.dtm or save file) [links no longer exist]
- Forgoes time-saving death
- Uses hardest difficulty
- Manipulates luck
Emulator details
- Dual core off
- Idle skipping off
- Progressive scan on
- DSP LLE recompiler (this requires you to dump files from a wii or gamecube. If you need help with this, or otherwise cannot do it, PM me, and I'll help).
- Standard gamecube controller in port 1, no other controllers/wiimotes connected.
It should sync on any version after 3.0-365
Three significant improvements were made over my last run of this game. The first is significantly better luck manipulation. Many more random encounters were skipped than previously, and when i could not avoid a fight entirely, they were almost always either extremely short, or smoke bombed. All in all, i saved 11117 frames over my previous run due to better luck manipulation.
The other major improvements were better routing and boss fights. Although forging new weapons requires quite a bit of detouring (approximately 2300 frames worth throughout the run), it ended up saving much more time than i expected. All in all, i saved 16997 frames on the bosses, of which i suspect at least 10k of which can be attributed to having better weapons, the rest being mostly the result of improved attack patterns (3 attacks followed by a downslash).
Other than this, approximately 2480 frames were saved through small miscellaneous improvements. Of note, using air dashes to move faster in certain areas saved around 5 seconds, and doing less shopping (this is mostly thanks to better luck manipulation though) saved about 13 seconds. The rest were small gains to traveling and menu use.
Bosses
Blue Monk
This was just better optimized. 536 frames were saved in total. A slight advantage was had thanks to the better attack pattern, but in this fight it actually didn't make much difference, because the boss is so tall.
Wanyudo
The Botan Muramasa was equipped for a 5% damage bonus. This actually makes almost no difference at all. A total of 81 frames were saved, mainly as a result of slightly better optimization.
Yukinojo
553 frames were saved here. This fight was disappointing because so much time was lost because of the dynamic difficulty in this game. The improvements here were the result of fighting him on the ground, instead of in the air. Luck was manipulated pretty heavily to delay him from drawing a new sword as long as possible, and a technique was used to move through the boss while he attacked, allowing me to attack almost continuously at the highest damage rate possible at this point in the game.
Ippondatara
This is the first boss with a large advantage thanks to having better weapons. In total, this boss was 3,639 faster than my previous run. The biggest improvement came from delaying damage to force the secondary hp bar to drain more. In addition to simply doing more damage per hit, i also used the secret art flash, which deals around twice as much dps as normal attacks. Furhermore, the boss takes significantly more damage while in its boar form, so i manipulated it to stay there for an entire hp bar, after which i damaged the foot so fast that it skipped the transition up the the sky. It was actually possible to drain all of his hp during the second foot phase, and this would have saved around 5 seconds, but unfortunately it won't actually die unless it is in boar form. This was also the first boss to be impossible to improve before its final hp bar, due to the dynamic difficulty in this game.
Chimera
2,754 frames were saved here. Again, the stronger weapon helps tremendously here. More than that though, was using drawn back slashes to force him to fall to the ground. Thanks goes to youkai for figuring that out. I again managed to drain every single hp bar on the first possible frame.
Big Oni
This would be the third boss in a row to be perfect up until its final hp bar. A total of 3,267 frames were saved here. The botan muramasa helped a little with the extra 5% attack, as did the better attack pattern. Mostly though, the gains were had by manipulating the boss to stand still for the entire fight, and never attack, even a single time.
Raijin
Only 1,015 frames saved this time, at the cost of significant entertainment value. All but one hp bar was drained at the first possible frame, which was <1 second short of perfect. The main difference was destroying the orbs around her, making it easier to continue attacking without relying on earth hornet, which does terrible damage.
Fudo-Myoou
Last but not least, Fudo-Myoou. The obvious improvement here is that instead of being level 14 (enemies scale with level), i'm 12, and instead of using a 33 attack sword from level 9, i'm using a 53 attack sword that would normally require level 14. The lack of hp bars made this fight extremely easy to improvable. Doing around 70% more damage per hit, while the bosses had less hp, along with a slightly optimized strategy, i managed to save a massive 5,152 frames on this fight.
Thanks
I'd like to thank Youkai, from SDA. After seeing my tas, he decided to do a speed run of the game. In addition to finding a few different improvements i used in my run, he also provided the motivation to redo the run, by beating/matching some of my boss fight times, in real time.
Nach: I'm not sure that using hard mode here was necessary, as a goal of avoiding damage would be the same as hard mode, and not require starting from SRAM. In any case, I found this to be a nice movie. Even though there was a lot of running, it still was pretty cool, and it was a bit involved as you needed to avoid enemies in the process. The fights were very entertaining. Accepting.
