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Archdemon:
He is lv 50 and can cast death spell, I will in no way have lv 51+ so it's instant death, he only needs two of those to win.
Earth form -> stone cloud, same even lvl-independant.
Then his moon form just loves to cast this gas attack that shrinks everyone; at 1 dmg they can't outheal him anymore.
Apart from that Lise is basically a timer here, once she dies Hawk will be the controlled one and Kevin would fight alone; at this lvl Lise and Hawk will probably drop like flies. Kevin won't be a problem, he should be able to keep himself alive easily.
That's the first half of it, when he reaches ~50% he "dies" and gets more serious.
At one point or the other he will cast demon breath, which cuts magic defense seriously down; any of his other tricks deal with that ~580 damage; I guess there is the point no-input will definitly fail.
Overflow-death is right out impossible; during first form the sabers of his current element still deal normal damage, spells/items with his element get re-directed to us. In the second form he absorbs some sabers, but those deal dmg at the same time, so he gains/loses 0hp.
Kevin:
I can't so much as even look at equip for him, right, but the others are ok.
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Made some tests with Kevin's atk glitch.
Link to video
Seems like it's entirely possible to max his atk only once and then keep it through the rest of the game; flammie in case it comes after boss, timing lvl ups so they come in rooms where at least 1 enemy can be left while his lvl-up screen comes up,...
I tried to get this glitch way way earlier; my idea was to use the hammer on Kevin so he keeps his wolfform during screen transition and then hammer a few times more to keep him from changing until I reach with a different character a yellow spring (the things that shoot you upwards so you can see the map); but the game automatically halts, forces Kevin to change back and only then it catapults me upwards...
Even if it had worked, getting from 51 (8 str with weapon from rolante, right after getting the hammer) up to 100 would take 6 repititions alone (roughly 10 mins).
Moin coins:
opening menu+using coin ~450 frames
obtaining one from chest 400+ frames
Glitched kevin can do more damage in this time on everyone but the last two bosses (before those max hp is about 16k ish, bigieu 40k and archdemon 53-54k),
so 1-2 coins
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Ok, tech lv2/3 x2 is just normal attack that doesn't connect, then press and hold B at end of animation.
Weapon cancel.... hold A and direction when switching modes - seriously, so simply... I should have thought of that.
Double normal attack; attack (normal, tech, w/ever), hold A to get auto attack mode, when it then attacks release A to switch back to normal (should be very early during the attack animation), then press A again at the end, repeat.
Gorva... has just exactly the same luxury then our characters; while you are casting you can't die, only afterwards.
I sense a pattern here, all build upon the auto attack thing.
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4 to 5? wow, I thought 2 or even 3 would be a lot with each glitch.
Well, after these 4-5 I can let him lvl up, re-glitch and then maybe get the other 2-3.
But first things first: I got all variations for Gorva down equally sloppy:
9 darts, 3 axes, no mind up, agility 9 -> over 8k frames, still 1k hp left
9 light coins, no mind up, spirit 9 -> 8,1k frames
9 light coins, with mind up, spirit 9 -> 7,5k frames
9 darts, mind up, 12 agility -> 7,5k frames
just waiting while gorva is up -> 4,8k frames (same time I otherwise use the 7th coin!)
in all cases I used Kevin + Hawk, with active attack ups, lv 13, no healing was used.
no coins:
Link to video
coin spam
Link to video
note: Kevin had higher spirit than any of the 3 characters could have at this point, so I guess the result is even more in favor for waiting.
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Um yeah, wrong item. Demon Wolf Soul, or maybe 2 Carmilla Claws, since one character obviously won't attack anyway, and the seed for the soul would require visiting an Inn.
Ok, I tested the deal with gorva - darts don't work; I threw 9 darts and 3 axes at him, they simply don't reach the needed total damage. I split a video the moment where he moves upwards; if I do nothing he only uses his ghost rush and comes down shortly afterwards (3277 frames total from fight start until he appears down again), in the other one I throw a lot of items at him, the added damage is low, and he actually adds two castings of black curse before ghost rush (he appears down at 7735 frame); the part up to him moving upwards is exactly the same each time. Still need to test with light coins.
Killing stuff - it's not only about the exp but about money as well; weapons don't get cheaper and I'll have to make a second trip to Byzel after leaving the mana land, the first time around there is simply not enough money for everything.
Class changing at the moon mana stone would be possible too, since I have to "speak" to it anyway; in the Mana Land... I think I would have to make a small detour? Not sure.
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Lot's of helpful stuff - yay!^^
About re-record count: I often make a back-up of the .smv file after I have completed some stuff (bosses/rooms, especially lvl-up manipulations) and then try to improve it; this often leads to a couple hundreds of re-records going missing when the first/early try seems to be favorable (can be either time, health or exp-wise).
And thanks for the site - though I can't read japanese and translators are... well, translators.
About the moon coin idea - sure it would work; cast any necessary stat-ups/downs, switch p2 off, p1 -> Riese, video end; I thought the ending required a bit of input, but that's not the case. Although it will be strange to have the game go on so much longer; 10-20 mins w/out input?
Fairy: I tried talking with less NPCs, but didn't work, the other TAS has the same, so I guess it is that way.
@RaneofSoTN - I know your run; I've watched it a few times and lurked a bit around the discussion for it; so I feel honored for you showing up here.
Gorva - I wanted to go either w/out throwing items or replace light coins (~300 frames) with darts (~110 frames) by Hawk; I'm testing that right now.
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Will the final video be fun to watch? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know; I just know I want to give it my best and see it through to the end; if it should actually get accepted in the end, the better, but that's a very long time away anyway.
And thanks for pointing me to those videos, I'll have a look at them later.
edit:
Ok, after watching that I tried to reproduce skipping drawing weapons; I got it to work twice in about 3-4 hours and then only on a specific sceen, so unless I'm missing the obvious (again) and someone can point it out to me, I'd say I'll skip it; normally drawing weapons takes about 25 frames, the "skip" I managed robbed me for 15 frames of control for 2/3 characters while the third (AI) character draws like normal; so 10 frames difference each time - would be about 2 minutes tops through the entire run?
I started re-making the run from FMH on; I still can't make him skip heal light only bubble breath, time is now about 42 seconds for the fight.
Link to video
If that's still to slow I can as well give up.
About ropes: the one was actually meant for after Tzenker, I forgot the volcano...
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Ok, just to see that we understand us:
Characters and their stories
Duran (Fighter) & Angela (Magician) - Dark Knight, Koren, Dragon; black rabite
Kevin (Grappler/Boxer/Werewolf) & Charlie (Cleric) - Jester, Heath , Lich
Hawk (Thief/Rogue) & Riese (Amazon /w lance) - Bigieu, Prince, Archdemon
I have the last one; does that help?
I don't speak japanese either, but I played the game through about a dozen tiems with translation patches.
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stat downs: Hawk vs Lise
-Lise gets def down at 20, Hawk later at 27 or so (7 lvls is a lot if we can finish at about 33)
-Hawk actually needs to invest (a lot) in agility to learn them, Lise nothing
-Hawk's are elemental; if a boss absorbs that element, the stat-down is not applied.
Light side Hawk's spells shouldn't be useful either:
the transformation and sleep spell should be obsolete with sufficient luck manipulation; and the damage ones - let's say not worth it.
So he won't cast at all, and go dark for +1 max str.
The plan was to fight enough so that I can class change right after I have gotten both water and fire spirit - as in after bill&ben and 3x golems.
Lv20+ at gildervine would be useful.
Reason for this specific story line - most people tend to think that this one's the hardest path, so yeah.
About expected time... a normal speed runner said he once did (slightly) above 5h, aiming in his current try for under 5h (both in game time). I recall I'm about 4 min ahead with a bit mroe exp and money, but less than 4,5h don't seem too realistic then.
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I haven't found any signs of a TAS or WIP of a TAS for this game yet, so I try making one myself.
Input for two players is used; three players is only possible by hack, therefore not allowed here.
The WIP currently lasts almost 55 minutes, ingame 52 minutes and a few seconds. It ends soon after leaving Forcena via canon on the way to Byzel.
Team consists of:
Kevin - wolf form and all of it's bugs/features
Riese - learns invaluable stat-downs after class change (stat ups can be replaced by items from Byzel's market, and cast faster in fact)
Hawk - out-performes all remaining characters; casters are obvious inferior on a TAS (unless someone finds a game breaking glitch that requires them), and Duran would only be faster on the first boss, afterwards glitches help Hawk more
edit: Hawk is selected as lead, Kevin as 2nd, Riese last.
One glitch I use so far is forcing the game to allow strength on every lvl up (until stat cap at least); this is achieved by confusing/overloading the game; might not look too good and sacrifices a bit of time now, but makes more than up for it soon (max str 9-10 lvls too early).