With further study of the save corruption glitch and a newly found way of credit warp, this movie uses another new route and improves the current published movie by a whole 6349 frames (or 1:46.299)!
Repair the save data by copying to/deleting the first save file, instead of saving
Writing anything to the first save file can repair the save data, so why bother saving? Copying to or deleting the first save file can do the same thing, and it is much faster because it doesn't need to reset the game.
(After deleting the first half of the save data) However, the player's HP was also 0 now, and in this case, no event could be triggered; Soma would have no item to sell. ...
But it turns out that I was TOTALLY WRONG. Deleting the first half of the save data also set the player's level to 0; in this case, the game will reinitialize a lot of things on loading the save data:
Clear all recently equipped souls and equipments.
Unequip all souls (do not turn off ability souls though).
Let Soma have exactly 1 Casual Clothes and 1 Knife, and equip them; unequip the accessory.
Initialize all player stats as the player is at level 1.
Initialize the key config.
Set both the Area ID and the Room ID to 0. This however do not instantly teleport player to the staring room, unless you sleep the game.
Move the player to a certain position in the room.
All things written in bold can be abused to save time. As a result, corrupting the save data twice to return to the starting room is totally unnecessary.
With these 2 findings, a new route was born. This route was already about 1 minute faster.
Credit warp
In this game, showing the credits roll doesn't mean beating the game, bacause simply jumping to the credits roll it doesn't unlock anything that is unlocked by the good ending. However, I recently found that it is possible to directly jump to the end of the final dialog of good ending, and this will unlock everything (special mode, Julius mode, second quest, etc...) while skipping the whole ending cutscene, which saves about 40 seconds.
The only flaw is that at the end of the credits roll, only Soma and Mina will appear above the "AND YOU!" text, just like the case in the normal end. If you want all the other characters to appear there, you must either beat the Chaos boss or complete the first good ending dialog, but this credit warp does neither. However, you can confirm that everything is unlocked by returning to the main menu after the whole credits roll (or simply press A+B+Select+Start to soft reset the game during the credits roll), so I think it still count as beating the game with good ending.
Stage by stage comments
It's recommended to read the previous submission if you want to know how exactly the save corruption glitch works.
Before the 1st save corruption
I started the game from save slot 2. Slot 1 was specifically left for repairing the save data.
I saved at the very first save room, then I re-enter the save room and slept the game, because I needed this specific player's position later.
1st & 2nd save corruption
The first save corruption was to delete the player level in the save file 2, to trigger a reinitialization on loading. Before that, I copied save file 2 to save slot 1, so that I could later repair the save data by deleting the save file 1. I then deleted partial of the save file 2. This could be done without leaving the "Copy Save" menu, because the game will delete the save file before copying.
After loading the save file 2, the Area ID and the Room ID were both 0. I combine this with the player position in the sleep save data, so Soma would appear at the top left corner of the starting room. Beside this, Soma was stuck in the wall of the save room, because the position was also changed by the reinitialization. This would let Soma warp later.
3rd save corruption
I slept in the room with Room ID 0x16. Then I loaded the save file 2, and let Soma warp to a room with Area ID 0x01. I combined them so Soma would appear in Area ID 0x01, Room ID 0x16. However, the last room of Area 0x01 is Room 0x10, so the game would actually load Area 0x02 Room 0x05, which is the Malphas (and Hammer) room.
4th save corruption
I slept in the Malphas Room and deleted the first half of the sleep save file (until the Area ID and the Room ID were set to 0). This triggers the reinitialization again, and Soma appears at the bottom left corner of the starting room.
Note: The Grave Keeper soul was deleted, so Soma couldn't back dash; It could be kept if I didn't delete the first half of the sleep save file, but instead load the normal save file and overwrite the first half of the sleep save file, which turns out to be a little slower.
Shop Glitch
I set the pointer at 0x20004E4 to 0x8062665, which is the pointer of the second good ending dialog; and set 0x20004EE (main state) to 2, which means the dialog has ended and the game is going to unlock the good ending stuff. If I set the main state to 3, it instantly jump to the credits roll without unlocking anything.
Before this I needed to set 0x20004EE to non-zero first. Normal attack set it to 1 and bullet soul attack set it to 2, but they didn't last for enough time: If I could skip the dialog like in the second quest, or Soma was using a weapon with longer attack stun, it would work. Instead, I made Soma fall from a high place by changing the Y position using shop giltch. The falling stun set 0x20004EE to 4 and last just enough time.
nymx: I recently saw a video about the possibility of ACE in Super Mario Brothers. Even though I understand the basic principle, the part that I wasn't aware of was how it was figured out in the first place. Once I saw how that was accomplished, I was able to follow the different concepts that were tested in order to find the fastest solution. Even though this insn't ACE, I realize the effort here in trying to force that game ending value to be triggered within the "Save Game" data. Very facinating stuff. I have a great respect for this type of TASing, and the effort that you put into making this happen. Excellent job!
