So far, the main .m64's rerecord count says "327905", but the real count is truly over a million, since many hexing and side-work were done.
None of these enemies want to attack you. I’m dead serious.
Putting a unit on each of the red tiles would kill all the required enemies on enemy phase. The ones I crossed out are killed with javelins on player phase.
Even 4 turning means you have to face 41 enemies, that’s 2 more than C11 Eir route. But realistically only a 5 turn can be achieved because Tana and Vanessa don’t have the combat to take on gargoyles, or even mogalls. This adds another 5 enemies, and the losses start to become apparent.
A quick test shows me that killing an enemy that has an opportunity to counter takes roughly 298 frames. Multiply that by 7 enemies and you have 2086 frames lost from killing those extra enemies. The fact that C11 Eir route is bigger cannot compensate for this difference. It doesn’t take that long to move characters (2 frames/square + lag between menus), and besides, you have to move fliers all over the place in C11 Eph route to kill some mogalls/gargoyles.
So, I can conclusively say that C11 Eir > C11 Eph.
Chapter 12 Eir vs Chapter 13 Eph
I TASed C13 Eph and achieved a 4 turn. For this to sync you need to activate this codebreaker code: 3202BEEF 0022. This is a code that keeps Cormag’s hp at 34, I accidentally left it on after planning the 4 turn. It might be simpler for me just to encode the chapter.
Some things to note: Normally Selena attacks Cormag, and has a ~66% chance of hitting him. However, for testing purposes I juiced up his res, hence why she’s attacking Seth, whom she only hits ~50% of the time. Doesn’t affect the manipulations much in the end, though. Another thing you might’ve noticed is Ephraim has more move than he should, as I hacked him up to make reaching this chapter considerably easier. Doesn’t make any difference in the actual TAS, as Vanessa could easily take over the RN burns, and I even do that on the last turn.
Also, I was pretty lazy with optimization, I used auto-fire a lot for instance. This should easily be compensated for by the fact that I didn’t care about Seth and Cormag’s level-up, and even if it didn’t, it’s only a few frames here and there. The bulk of the chapter comes from enemy phase.
So here’s the comparison:
C13 Eirika: 22461
C13 Ephraim: 23972
C13 Eir has a 1511 frame advantage. But wait, Gerik’s promotion costs a whopping 1267 frames. That reduces the advantage to 244 frames (~4 seconds), possibly less with tighter optimization.
Chapter 14
Managed a 5 turn on C13 Eph route. The only things I have to say: a lot of time will be added for RNG manipulation here because I juiced up Duessel’s hit, but more importantly Seth and Duessel’s res. This also means the berserker druids don’t target me, and they have staff accuracy in the high 80s-low 90s range. Dodging 2 in 1 turn is already around a 1% chance.
Quick frame count comparison:
C14 Eir route: 13397
C14 Eph route: 14977
This is… shocking. I expected C14 Eph to be much faster, it’s actually 1580 frames (26 seconds) slower! What’s worse is that each berserk attempt costs a few hundred frames, all 4 would add another 1000 frames easily, and maybe add in another 500 frames for dodging the staves and other things (hitrates, dodging damaging hits). That would put C14 Eir almost a full minute ahead.
So, here’s the tally:
C9 Eph > C9 Eir (unkown amount)
C10 Eph = C10 Eir
C11 Eph < C11 Eir (unknown amount)
C12 Eph < C13 Eir (~7516 frames)
C13 Eph = C12 Eir (244 frame difference)
C14 Eph < C14 Eir (~3000 frames)
For Eph route to win, C9 Eph would have to save almost 10516 frames (~3 minutes) by itself. That’s just not happening. C9 Eph has 8 less enemies to contend with, which would save around 2384 frames (298 / enemy in my earlier calculations). Now let’s add up some of Vanessa’ crazy manipulations required. 357 frames on turn 2 + 150 frames on turn 3 + 125 frames turn 4, and nothing significant the rest of the map = 632 frames. Let’s triple that to account for other manipulations in the chapter. That’s 1896 frames.
That sums up to 4280 frames lost, not even half of the advantage of C9 Eir route. Also, C9 Eir route has a larger map, and takes more turns, which likely means more enemy movement.
Also, I reviewed Cheetah’s old run, and he actually handled Phantom ship pretty well. He was 5162 frames behind compared to C11 Eir, 4062 when taking away Cormag’s promotion. 5 turning only reduces the enemy count by 2, another 600 frames roughly. There’s still a 3462 frame difference (~1 minute), and I won’t even be able to use Tana or Vanessa as effectively for killing mogalls/gargoyles.
Basically, the evidence is overwhelming that Eir route is faster. That’s my final decision.
Only took me 5 gigantic posts 0_o
Ephraim
The number of enemies seems to be exactly the same, but the placement and type of enemies varies a little. In particular, Eph route has a lot more dark mages, which makes 1-2 range more important.
I read through the earlier posts in this thread, and apparently Eph route saves a turn due to better unit positioning.
Chapter 16
Eirika
Ephraim
Counting squares on Eph gives 6 turns when you factor in Tethys and swiftsoles, which is 1 turn slower than Cheetah. Reinforcements are triggered by location, not turn count, so that shouldn’t create a significant difference. I’m more concerned about all the time lost watching status staves miss, having enemies move that won’t suicide into anyone, additional killed enemies, etc. None of that is an issue in losing a turn on a rout map like the previous chapter.
I think C16 Eir outweighs C15 Eph, albeit insignificantly.
Now what’s my final conclusion?
Gah! My gut feeling tells me Eir route is superior even with the added difficulty of C9, but the only way to properly know would be to TAS both routes, which is insanely time consuming just to test. I kind of want to do Ephraim route because I find it more interesting, and it would add variety to me and Cheetah’s submissions, as viewers would be able to watch both routes TASed.
This map is pretty long, looks to be an 8 turn just by counting squares. 37 enemies and 8 reinforcements, 45 total. The map’s linear nature lends itself to training Vanessa though, which is a huge plus.
Chapter 10
Looks like an easy 3 turn. Just need to make sure Ephraim can kill the boss.
Whoa. Note that with just 1 extra point of strength, Ephraim can 1HKO with a crit. This is base level Ephraim, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. The other enemies don’t cause him a problem, and Vanessa could kill 1 anyway if they get in the way.
Also, it may be possible to recruit Cormag with Tana (might cost a turn though). More importantly, if he can’t be recruited, he can be killed for a droppable elysian whip, which equals a promoted Vanessa.
Chapter 11
I kid you not, a 1 turn might be possible here, though it requires Cormag. Look at how few enemies are on the map to start with.
That’s a whopping 10 enemies. Though, add just 1 turn and this happens:
0_o 21 additional enemies, and if my memory serves me well, some of those monsters don’t attack you unless you’re right besides them. There’s about 4-6 reinforcements per turn until turn 6.
Chapter 12
I’m glad this isn’t a rout map, otherwise this would be a serious headache. Rather, you defeat a pathetic monster boss.
Taking a quick look at it, I can get Seth to the boss in 4 turns so long as nobody gets in his way. In my quick run through, 2 enemies blocked him on turn 3, but Vanessa could kill 1, while Duessel takes out the other.
Scary amount of enemies, 48 on turn 2. Good thing I won’t have to face most of them 
Nasty rout map, 44 enemies on turn 1, and 11 reinforcements by turn 5. That’s up to 55 enemies I’ll have to KO. Thankfully, Seth, Vanessa, Ephraim, Duessel, Gerik and Tethys can cover a lot of ground fast. This map is easily superior to C12 Eirika with those stupid spiders and mountains.
Chapter 14
Seems like a 5 turn by counting squares, maybe even 4 considering Tethys, though the doors are a bit of an obstacle.
Another consideration, Vigarde is freaking tough.
55 hp/24 def/62 avo is insane (remember throne tiles give 3 def/30 avo). 10 luck also makes him hard to crit, you need 22 skill just to get 1 crit on him unless the weapon used has a crit boost. Seth has 19 at the moment.
For a crit 1HKO, you need 43 atk. Seth currently has 20 str, with a heavy spear he has 47 atk. If he can’t crit, a 2RKO is easy.
What a beast.
Now let’s compare to Eirika route.
Eirika’s route
Chapter 9
Annoying 7 turn rout map. I’ve already covered the details. C9 Eph route might be faster due to not needing to rout.
Chapter 10
A seize map that can be 3 turned pretty easily thanks to bypassing the mountain. I’d say this map ties C10 Eph route.
Chapter 11
Another rout map, 41 initial enemies but only 1 reinforcement on turn 9 according to serenes forest. This took Cheetah 8 turns, though I’ll admit the last 2 were pretty uneventful. I’m almost certain C11 Eph route is faster.
Chapter 12
This map should be compared to C13 Eph, since that is also a rout map. Regardless, Eph route wins easily, as this map is just absurd. Gigantic map with low move enemies in hard to reach places? No thanks.
Chapter 13
This map compares well to C12 Eph, in fact it’s considerably faster since Aias can be killed on turn 1. Pretty big victory for Eir route.
Chapter 14
C14 Eph wins, no contest. This map takes Cheetah 8 turns to complete, whereas I estimate Ephraim’s takes 4-5.
Final Verdict
Eirika Route Advantage:
Chapter 13
Ephraim Route Advantage:
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 14
Ties:
Chapter 9?
Chapter 10
Overall: Ephraim Route
In fact, I can see Ephraim route being faster even on normal mode, and I didn’t even take into consideration Vanessa’s earlier promotion, which should do wonders for her.
Edit: I'm watching Cheetah's old abandoned run where he goes on Ephraim route, and he got Tana to recruit Cormag on turn 2. This makes Ephraim route even more awesome.
Edit 2: 1 turn of chapter 11 (pirate ship) is confirmed to be impossible. Sucks too, only 2 enemies are out of range.
Edit 3: Just had a serious look at C9 Eph. The best I could come up with is a 10 turn strategy, and Vanessa barely sees any combat. She's forced to kill 2 cavaliers late in the map, and maybe 1-2 shaman (they're less pesky towards her survival). That would get her 2 level-ups at best. Then, next chapter she sees no combat at all, as it's a 2 turn and she's occupied ferrying Ephraim. By the time she gets to C11, her combat is unsalvageable, and Cormag is superior to her in every way, except for spd/avo. Even then, a promotion brings him to 14 spd, the bosskill brings him to 15, and that's good enough to double a shocking number of enemies in the game. I know this because I remember hyping the crap out of Duessel in fire emblem debates back in the day, and he only has 12 speed.
All to say, if I go Eph route, Cormag becomes my main flier, which is fine I guess.
Some other considerations for Eph route: I have to trade Ephraim back his Reignleif, and also Orson's silver sword at the end of 5x. The Reignleif should be obvious, it allows him to kill the C10 boss, and the silver sword allows Seth to 1HKO enemies while carrying Ephraim, which proves to be useful right away. Also, I need to stack up on way more javelins.
Vanessa is occupied, so only Tana could do it. Oh wait, the archers have 4 luck. She can’t crit or double unless she uses the slim lance, which Vanessa desperately needs, and she has to dodge the other archer’s attack on enemy phase. Then, presumably her arriving on the south island will lure some of the enemies over, so she’s screwed after she kills the second archer (her combat truly sucks).
Conclusion? There’s no going around having to ferry Seth to the south. And without further ado, here we go.
Prep
Turn 1
The combination of Seth and Eirika remove all the pirates south of them, and Vanessa critkills the pirate she’s about to attack in the picture. The level-up she requires is a bit wild: hp/str/skl/spd/def, thank goodness it’s on player phase. Tana moves down in preparation of ferrying Seth, and Kyle sits still. The only reason he’s here is to take out those 2 soldiers who don’t move unless someone’s in their attack range.
The only enemy phase manipulations are making Seth land all his javelin attacks, and have Vanessa critkill the archer that attacks her. Not too bad.
Turn 2
The first pic shows Tana carrying Seth, the second the ideal position for Vanessa. I want Vanessa to get attacked by the 3 mercs (she can survive all 3 hits) and the archer (required dodge obviously), while being out of range of the 2 soldiers and the myrmidon.
Now, I have 2 options here. Either Vanessa critkills one of the mercs with a javelin, or she equips a slim lance. The benefit of the slim lance is that she doubles and 3HKOes, and her crit chance goes up by 5. Thus, a slim lance + javelin combination leads to a 2RKO, and any slim lance crit is an instakill. She has 9 crit with the slim lance, giving her a 17.19% chance to crit at least once in 2 hits. Her odds of critkilling 2/3 mercs on enemy phase with a slim lance are about 7%, but critting all 3 makes it fall down to 0.5%. She also has to dodge the sniper’s attack, he has about 67 true hit on her.
This is getting a bit messy, probability breakdown again.
Sniper dodge: 33% chance
Vanessa critkills 0/3 mercs: 56.79%
Vanessa critkills 1/3 mercs: 35.36%
Vanessa critkills 2/3 mercs: 7.34%
Vanessa critkills 3/3 mercs: 0.51%
Vanessa 2 kills + sniper dodge: 2.42%
Vanessa 3 kills + sniper dodge: 0.17%
Before turn 2 enemy phase, Vanessa is level 7.24. She gains 11 exp from an attack, and 37 exp from a kill.
2 kills: 24 (base) + 11 (attack) + 37*2 (2 kills) + 1 (dodging sniper) = 110 exp. She levels up.
3 kills: 110 + (37-11) = 136 exp
Either way, she’s levelling up, and she wants def again because it reduces 4 damage hits by mercs to 3.
Str/skl/spd level-up: 11.55%
Str/skl/spd/def level-up: 2.31%
This sucks. Check out the modified probabilities now.
Vanessa 2 kills + sniper dodge + str/skl/spd level-up: 0.28%
Vanessa 2 kills + sniper dodge + str/skl/spd/def level-up: 0.056%
Vanessa 3 kills + sniper dodge + str/skl/spd level-up: 0.020%
Vanessa 3 kills + sniper dodge + str/skl/spd/def level-up: 0.0040%
To put this into perspective, let’s look at the estimated RN burns required, and the frames lost assuming a rate of 5 RNs burned per frame.
1) ~357 RNs (~71 frames)
2) ~1786 RNs (~357 frames)
3) ~5000 RNs (~1000 frames)
4) ~25000 RNs (~5000 frames)
*Bolded the outcome I consider the most reasonable for my purposes.
Only the first 2 are even feasible, so that rules out Vanessa getting 3 kills. Either that, or I let her eat a bad level-up, but the consequences of that will show right away.
One more consideration, Vanessa’s durability is seriously an issue. She can take 4 merc hits before she’s going to need to dodge every single hit she faces. Problem is, these mercs have a very high hitrate, 73 true hit to be precise.
0/3 mercs hit (19 hp left): 1.97%
1/3 mercs hit (15 hp left): 15.97%
2/3 mercs hit (11 hp left): 43.17%
3/3 mercs hit (7 hp left): 38.90%
Yikes. At least she can survive the turn taking all the merc hits.
Turn 3
Tana drops Seth and moves back to safety, nothing special.
Vanessa has to kill the pirate (remember they don’t attack her, they just charge for the village). This introduces 2 options: a javelin kill and a slim lance kill. She doesn’t level up on the kill even if she killed all 3 mercs on the last enemy phase.
There are serious advantages and disadvantages to both weapon choices. If she uses the javelin, that puts her out of range of 2 of the 3 mercs, and she will only face 3 attacks: a myrm, a merc, and the sniper. The drawback? Her avoid goes to hell.
With javelin
Sniper 81 hit
Mercs 3 damage/86 hit
Myrm 7 damage/73 hit
With slim lance
Sniper 63 hit
Mercs 3 damage/70 hit
Myrm 7 damage/52 hit
Based on the turn 2 data, the most feasible outcomes are Vanessa killing 1-2 mercs. In particular, if she kills 2, she’s only facing one merc on turn 3 enemy phase regardless of what weapon is equipped. For this reason, I can confidently say that sticking with the slim lance is the way to go.
Even with the minimum hp amount of 7 left, Vanessa can take 2 merc hits (assuming the other one is even alive). The probability of her dodging both the myrm and the sniper are a decent 14.4%. Vanessa’s exp gain now is unpredictable due to all these contingencies, but assuming she levels up again by the end of turn 3 enemy phase, she’ll have an 11.55% chance of getting str/skl/spd. Def is pointless now because she’s almost guaranteed to be 1HKOed by everything from now on. Getting hp doesn’t help either as it only increases her max hp, not her current hp.
So, that gives us a ~1.66% cumulative odds of success so far, very manageable. Vanessa doesn’t have to crit the myrm because she 2HKOes with a slim lance, but killing him would make it easier to survive next turn’s enemy phase. Her crit chance is 8%. Adding in the crit makes a ~0.13% cumulative chance, still in the realm of sanity (~753 RNs or ~150 frames).
The merc will die (he was already weakened), and so will the myrm (critted), leaving the sniper alive.
Whoo!
Turn 4
Seth critkills the boss with a javelin.
Since the sniper has 8 luck, the only way I can crit him is with a slim lance (4% crit chance). To ORKO I need a slim lance double crit, a lovely 0.16% chance (~625 RNs, ~125 frames). At least it’s on player phase, and let’s pray there’s no level-up.
You’ll notice that killing the sniper means the pirate goes free. That’s fine, Vanessa can take him out the next turn easily.
There's supposed to be 3 soldiers in the picture, but they are no problem, Kyle can take them out on enemy phase without interfering with the other enemies that Vanessa’s taking care of.
For once the enemy phase isn’t outrageous. Only the mage and merc can attack her, and there’s a very good chance Vanessa 1RKOing mercs with a slim lance now. If not, her crit chance is still high, around 19% in 2 hits.
Turn 5
This archer limits how far Seth can go. If I don’t kill him, he gets left behind.
This is where I’ll be moving Seth.
Goodbye pirate. There’s only 1 contingency of interest here. If I kill the pirate at range with a jav, Vanessa can 1RKO the mage on a counter, but loses the 1RKO on the merc. If she attacks the pirate at 1 range, the mage isn’t even in range.
Enemy phase is super easy, I might have to worry about Seth breaking javelins, Vanessa needs to dodge 1 merc, and possibly levelling up.
Turn 6
Oh Amelia, how I hate you.
Soldiers are cannon fodder for Vanessa, but she has to dodge all of their hits. Again, level-up possibility is always there, but that doesn’t create much of a problem.
This is a little more facepalm worthy. By having him crit the mage and simultaneously going on the forest (+1 def/20 avo), Kyle's crappy combat is actually salvageable. With 2 turns he can take out the 4 enemies.
There’s also the option of sending a different unit than Kyle to mop up these enemies and the 3 earlier soldiers. Movement’s not an issue at all. I’ll look at Garcia and Artur.
Turn 7
No need for pics, Kyle (or whoever replaces him) finish cleaning up, and Seth kills Amelia in the most overkill fashion possible. Vanessa could kill her too, as she’s in range. She’ll gain like 6 exp to Seth’s 1, and advance her weapon level a bit, for what that’s worth.
Granted, I wasn't too impressed with the boss palette change, particularly Ridley, and some of the rooms were a bit off-putting. Nonetheless, this was a visual feast, which is something strange for me to say considering I'm not at all a graphics whore.
As for the gameplay, no complaints in terms of optimization, from an untrained eye this looks on par with the technical quality of currently published Super Metroid TASes. There was nothing that stood out as groundbreaking about the hack like the continuous shinespark ability in Redesign, but I was still thoroughly entertained throughout.
For the complaint that the game lacks enemies, I don't see how that really makes a difference. The intrigue of the metroid series is in the adventure/exploration, I always found the combat outside of boss battles to be secondary, if not a nuisance at times. All we're really missing from a lack of enemies is damage boosts, no big deal.
My biggest concern is that godawful Ridley fight. The second Samus' bombs ran out and all she was left with was a weak charge beam, I knew this battle was going to be painfully long. Even with 4x speed this took too long.
I'll finish by saying I don't really agree with the site's general attitude against publishing hacked runs. As long as the play quality is there and the hack offers something unique (which this one clearly does in its visual presentation), I'm all for it.
Edit: Voted yes, obviously.
This creates 2 problems: first, Vanessa gets attacked twice, even with a slim lance equipped she’s facing hit rates of around 64 display hit (~74 true hit). Here’s some probability breakdowns:
Vanessa gets hit twice and dies: 54.76%
Vanessa gets hit ½ times: 38.48%
Vanessa dodges both attacks: 6.76%
The most favourable outcome is already in the realm of probability of a critical hit. If we let Vanessa take a hit, that creates more burden of manipulation on future turns, though she will have more avoid to work with.
And, obviously I have to actually kill those pirates. This is made more annoying by the fact that 2/4 of them have hand axes. There is actually a way to get all 4 of those pirates attacked on turn 1 enemy phase. See picture below.
Since Artur can be 1HKOed, the pirates prefer attacking him to Vanessa, even when both are in range. Problem is, Artur can’t 1HKO back, even with a crit, and he can only double the ones that use a steel axe. Garcia can achieve a 1HKO, but he has 1 crit. Eirika can too, but she’s only in range of 1 pirate since we can’t change her starting position. Also, she can’t 1HKO unless I manipulate enemy stats, and she can’t double either.
So, while this doesn’t prevent a 4 turn completion, it does put a serious strain on time lost (requiring 2 rounds of combat on most of those pirates) and manipulation (Artur surviving, tons of crits).
Oh, it gets better. On Cheetah’s run, the mercenaries were doing 0 damage to Kyle, and he could cleanly 2HKO them with a javelin. Now the mercenaries double him for a total of 8 damage, and he can’t 2HKO even if he uses a javelin + steel lance combination. Also, on normal mode the promoted archer is weaker than a normal one, and Kyle ORKOes with a javelin. Now he can’t even double or crit (the sniper has 8 luck!), and he 4HKOes with a steel lance, which, if he equips, will get him doubled and reduced from full hp to 1.
I think the worst part is, he only has 3 crit before factoring in enemy luck. He needs 2 level-ups before he has 4 crit, and the enemies he faces have 3-4 luck. So, even if I pull off godly manipulations, those enemies will still take a while to KO. The only way to salvage his offence is with slim lance criticals, and even then he still needs 2 rounds of combat to take out mercs.
Tl;dr Kyle sucks now. There’s no chance in hell he could handle the west side of the map. I thought of having him and Forde team up for player phase kills, but that creates its own set of problems, in that Forde sucks even harder on enemy phase.
The only high-move units I have left are Tana, who’s busy with a pirate way left from the group of other pirates, and Franz, whose bases are worse than Kyle/Forde.
So, unless I’m missing something obvious, goodbye 4 turn. This is really bad because now I have to kill an extra 6 reinforcements 
With this set-up, Eirika kills 1 pirate with a rapier crit (not too hard), and Seth ORKOes the remaining pirates easily with a javelin (only slight hitrate issues). Next turn, Seth moves up to Tana, and she’s in exactly the same position as Vanessa is optimally starting on in turn 1. Nice.
The bigger concern is the west.
Vanessa’s offence with a javelin sucks, and there’s three 1-2 range enemies she has to face (2 archers and a mage reinforcement). She also has to kill 2 pirates that are moving away from her on player phase. Apparently they’d rather burn villages than attack Vanessa, and this is highly problematic.
A quick runthrough using some codebreaker codes tells me that even in the best case scenario that Vanessa gets all the player phase crits she wants and at least 1 enemy phase critical, she still has a lot of trouble taking out all the enemies in 5 turns. Of note, she has a hell of a time taking out the sniper. Without the slim lance, she’s forced to 2 round. With it, she can only 1RKO by procuring 2 crits in a row, a measly 0.16% chance. Getting that on player phase is in the realm of burning 1000 RNs, and burning RNs at a generous rate of 5 RNs per seconds, that’s 200 frames, or over 3 seconds of cursor movement just to kill that 1 pesky enemy.
When you factor in Vanessa having to crit, possibly levelling up (desperately needs str/skl/spd on every one, possibly even force def now), all the dodges she has to make, particularly from those archer 1HKOes, and other irritating factors like hit rates, we’re talking about manipulation hell on each turn.
I’m starting to think the optimal strategy here is to have Seth do a C turn around the map, even though that means the map will take at least 6 turns. This kind of combat failure will be short lived fortunately, as I’m receiving some awesome units in the upcoming chapters: Gerik, Tethys, Innes, Saleh (!!!), and Dozla make units like Kyle and Forde look like complete chumps.does that new trick work in the other gba fire emblem games?
In Ch2, would it not save time for Vanessa to hand Ross over to Moulder, so that once Garcia is done killing things she can rescue him and remove the Other Phase messages?
Also, does Eirika need such a large level up?
Ch3: Why not kill Bazba on player phase with a crit rather than a double attack on enemy phase?
Other than that, things are progressing nicely. You didn't scroll the screen in 5x for one of the cav kills however, so there's still slight room for improvement.
Completes a piece of crap