Forget everything I said. After watching the current SDA run, theres just no real way to compete with a calculator run. Sure, you could save time at the start by just pressing forward (instead of JP farming), but you'd lose the advantage quick. Turn 1 > Ramza w/ MP switch > Flare CT5 > everything is dead in one shot. No amount of critical hits, teleporting, counter, etc, can compete. Sadly, its not so much a matter of "calculator is substitute for TAS precision", but more like "calculator skills nuke the entire field in 1 shot".
And frankly, I'd never want to see a Calculator TAS. It'd just be too boring, wouldn't have any entertainment value, and would just be X minutes faster than the current SDA but mirror it.
Having said that, I'd love to see a "no calc" run, or a "single class only" or "single CHARACTER (ramza) only" run. But those would probably be shot down as arbitrary, since they aren't as fast as a calc run.
The only other option, which I'm sure wouldn't be allowed, would be a TAS run of the 1.3 patch version of this game. For those who don't know, it completely changes the game and makes it near perfect balanced. It removes the JP scroll glitch, removes "broken" skills, makes enemies very well balanced (enemies with actual reaction abilities? gasp), and a whole bunch of other stuff. Basically, you couldn't cheese your way through it if you tried. But, it's a patch, and probably not well enough known by people to understand why its a GOOD patch, not just some random hack. Too bad, because IMO a patch run would be amazing since it actually makes the game hard (or at least, forces you to THINK instead of just cheezing your way through).
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
