Apparently I missed the boat when everyone switched from
FF2 US/FF4 SFC to FF4 GBA. I wanted to say, I might be able to help out a little with advice since I improved Peter's run of FF2 US at SDA by 20 minutes from 4:15 to 3:55. You can get the run
here and the comments
here for now if anyone's interested. It may not be very useful for a FF4 TAS, but at the very least, it has to be a better reference/source of ideas than Peter's old run.
Disclaimer: I have not played FF4 GBA and do not intend on getting it or the ROM. This also means I haven't watched the WIP either. Anyway, I'm a little surprised that the opinions of the remake are so positive here, but at SDA the
reaction is mixed, especially on battle speed 1. I'm completely surprised that there are people here who are against powersave abuse, and even sequence breaking and mass leveling. Has this site been invaded by TG? I thought the TAS crowd would be the most liberal on use of glitches, massive luck manipulation, and all that. To me, if you don't use everything you can, that's like those people who complain that the text is advancing too fast and could you please wait more.
Now some general points I want to say about this TAS in progress. I hear all this talk about fighting regular enemies in a TAS and it seems really suboptimal to me. I tested multiple times in a real speedrun up to Paladin, and not leveling at all vs getting Rydia Lit1 is definitely faster. In fact, most of the time I save vs Peter is because I only fight 2 regular enemy fights in the entire game, both DMachin's. And in a TAS, not fighting regular fights has to be an even better decision than in a speedrun, because you can just manipulate better, and even better in hardtype because you can do all this stuff like Tellah's random spell.
Also, are we completely sure that the Alerter guys in the Giant don't still summon Dragon Mechs, because it wouldn't make sense for them to take that out. Even in FF2 US, some Alerters summon Centaurs and others summon the Dragon Mechs. I needed to reload many times because I got Centaurs and there's no way to tell until they're summoned. It could still be like that in this version and Tilus just didn't test very well. I would have suggested Attacker/Defender because it should be better in a TAS (I used DMachin because it is too difficult to use Attacker/Defender in a speedrun). But if that no longer works, I suggest the same leveling spot as my run, only gaining minimal levels of course. (Rosa is the one who needs to be in highest level if that helps you.) I also thought duping Excalibur would be better in a TAS but apparently the item glitch has been fixed, so I think either Crystal sword or nothing would be the best. I can't give a solid suggestion because I do not remember exactly how much harder hardtype Zeromus is, but I think Crystal sword should be better because Cecil's attack goes way up and it doesn't take long to get.
As for items to get, this is what I have settled on for FF2 US speedrun... you need to adapt this to FF4 GBA TAS (I removed some obvious things to remove), but whatever is still valid I believe is correct. At least it's some ideas.
- Darkness sword
- buy 4 Headbands after you get Yang in Baron
- get the Tiara and Change rod from Rydia's house after getting airship (the Tiara goes on Rydia, then can go on Rosa in the end)
- Fire sword
- Earth hammer
- Catclaw, potentially a previous claw if it increases attack multiplier
- buy Blizzard spear in Cave Eblan
- Dragoon EQ
- Protect ring
- White robe
- Crystal sword
Basically, you want something if it drastically increases your attack power, increases your attack or magic multiplier, or helps you need fewer levels to gain vs Zeromus. Except for Zeromus, I don't get a single item for defense in a speedrun, so it ought to be even less necessary in a TAS. Everyone seems to usually want to pick up too many items. It's usually not worth the time. If you think maybe it should be more manipulation and less items, I suggest items and more manipulation would be even better.
I wanted to say, it seems very strange that a lot of the romhackers on gamefaqs will discover interesting things and then leave them on the gamefaqs board where nobody will see it and it gets erased, compared to an FAQ where people could see it, or posting here where people could really use the info. I know there was a guy who knew every little thing there is to know about Lufia 2 but went AWOL, and quietkane was busy killing himself trying to experiment everything.
That's all I can think of right now.
