<This is an any% tool-assisted speedrun (TAS) of the English 1990 release version of the DOS Game Zeliard. Last input occurs at 8 minutes and 43.0123 seconds into the video which is entering the princess chamber after defeating the final boss.>
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk version 2.11.1 (dated May 1, 2026) using all default sync settings for DOS.
- ROM used: preinstalled Zeliard directory made into a CD image with file size 1,431,552 bytes.
- The SHA1 checksum of the above CD image is 2FC4561E93EC129B5C933EAC6CA072B1FF286149.
- Reach and defeat the final boss.
- Enter the princess chamber (this is when the last input occurs).
- This is a 40-second improvement over the 9:23 version of this TAS.
Common routines and game mechanics explanations
Internal movement mechanics
- Panel
- A single 8x8-pixel grid section.
- Area
- A group of caverns and its town with a set theme; a boss typically marks the end of an area.
Zeliard uses an internal resolution of 320x200 and is simply upscaled to 640x400. This 320x200 base resolution is what is referred to throughout this description. Zeliard uses a grid system for all movement and collision handling. All caverns are 64 panels tall by some multiple of 8 panels wide up to a max of 320 panels. Areas are made larger by interchanging multiple caves in a set. The viewing area is 28x18 panels.
- Cycle
- A single display refresh, a fixed 60 fps.
- Frame
- A game scene update.
Running and falling are always 1 panel per frame. Frame rate is determined by the speed setting (press F9 to change speed):
FrameDelay = 10-Speed; // internal method of frame handling
// FrameRate = 60.0÷FrameDelay; // direct frame rate conversion in frames per second
Default speed is 5 which means 12 frames per second. Speed 9, the max, means 60 fps while speed 0, the minimum, means 6 fps. Speed affects everything except speech text, shop animations, the "Encounter!" prompt flashing 7 times, the boss room fade in, the fade in of a passage upon defeating a boss, and the victory music upon getting a tear.
BizHawk appears to be indexed to exactly 125,875/1796 fps (the same as JPC-RR), which is about 70.0863 fps. Zeliard is designed for 60 fps. This 60/70 mismatching frame rate causes a lot of ripping and tearing effects and made TASing Zeliard a bit more difficult as the timings weren't always consistent. It also caused weird behaviors where, on one frame, I'm coming short of hitting the enemy with a chop but only 1 frame later, I touch the enemy when the chop should've connected before that point but it doesn't even connect at all even though it would've if the enemy was that 1 panel closer.
Exploration
When climbing up or down ropes, the pattern of movement is 2 frames of movement in the same direction followed by 1 frame of being still. When getting off of a rope, the character will have a 2-frame squat animation when rope transfers or falling from more than 1 panel above the ledge occurs. If dropping from 1 panel above without rope transfers involved, there is only a 1-frame delay before running begins again. If leaving from the same height, the ledge will not be reached. Thus, it saves 2 frames every time the rope is exited from when only one panel above compared to 2 panels above. It's not always possible to have this ideal setup though, such as from having to jump across a gap or from a moving platform for which there is a ledge first, among others. Sometimes, when a jump comes just short or a ceiling or the like is in the way and more height is needed, it is possible to wiggle left and right mid-jump before grabbing the rope to better optimize this top level exit - jumping is a fixed 1 panel per frame without the 1-frame stops while climbing a rope. This is especially more common when the Feruza Shoes are picked up. When an enemy collides with the character while on a rope, the character is pushed off unless actively in a climb state.
There are 4 types of platforms in Zeliard: fast horizontal, slow horizontal, sinker, and elevator. Fast and slow horizontal platforms, the most common type are yellow and red and move left and right within a fixed, preset range, once per frame for fast platforms and once every other frame for slow platforms. Sinker platforms appear the same as the horizontal ones, but don't move at all on their own. While standing on one, however, or jumping from one, it will sink 1 panel lower each frame. Elevator platforms are gray and green and don't move on their own. By holding up or down while standing on one and not moving horizontally, the platform moves in that direction. To jump from an elevator platform, hold left or right while pressing up or have an obstacle like a ledge or alma in the way. Upon jumping and getting on an elevator platform from the ground, stopping the horizontal movement and continuing to hold up allows for the platform to immediately start ascending without any delay. (Gray platforms can be used to damage enemies below them where the damage is simply "ElevPlDmg = Level÷2+1".)
A gap of 1 panel can be walked across as if it was solid. When falling and a ledge is 1 panel away, holding any horizontal direction toward that ledge will allow the character to land on it. This allows the character to get to a ledge 2 panels away from a rope or suddenly turn to face the opposite direction of travel for more jump efficiency.
Health and dying
You start with 80 HP. Each pixel on the life bar is 8 HP. Small ticks are sets of 40 while bigger ones are 200. Max HP is 800; this occurs at level 16. While in the caverns, and the user has control, there is an internal frame counter that increases when no movement input (e.g. arrow keys) is set and not jumping across a gap (turning around to stop the horizontal movement starts the timer) or while in normal mode but cannot move (such as hitting a cliff edge after jumping). When this counter reaches 16, 2 is added to the current HP if current HP is less than the max. With HP being on an odd number, up to 801 is the maximum possible. The counter resets on any movement input when not falling. Thus, healing can occur while falling, swinging the sword, standing in spikes (even without the Pirika Shoes), or inside of an enemy. Yep, bring the titanium shield over to an area with an enemy that does less than 16 damage and you will receive 0 damage as long as the shield faces the direction of the enemy - stand there and you can fully heal (shields divide frontal damage by 4, 8, or 16 (depending on the tier) and damage dealt to the character equals the amount of shield damage - titanium and light shield have 16 so an enemy that does 15 damage, like the frogs in area 1, will do 0 damage to both the character and shield!). Shields are not used in this TAS as there simply isn't a need for one.
HP recovery potions found in the caverns restore 8 HP per frame for either 80 HP (red potions) or current max HP (blue potions) total HP. Recovery continues until either all HP is restored or the maximum amount is restored, whichever occurs first. As damage is handled first followed by potion recovery, while restoration is active, it is impossible to have less than 8 HP which makes you effectively invincible. (Using items from the magic shop is instant recovery.) Recovery potions will set HP to the max should it go over the limit, and stop the recovery as well even if all total recoverable HP hasn't been reached yet.
Dying results in losing all carried gold, half of the almas, and being sent back to Muralla Town's sage but you keep all items and gold deposited in the bank. Dying also results in obtaining experience, 127 for the first one and 125 for the second, uncertain past that. As such, dying is only effective at game start. However, it results in having to deal with speech that has a good amount of pausing so it costs quite a bit of time to do. Only 3 level ups are needed at minimum, giving 200 for max HP, which is the minimum to be able to do the required damage boosting in area 7 and the later trek through for accessing Aruggia. As level ups involve using the sages which have a lot of waiting on animation and text, they are best kept to a minimum as each takes about 12 seconds.
Sword combat
- Slice
- A sword strike starting from behind that swings across horizontally.
- Chop
- A sword strike starting from above and arcs around along the front going downward.
- Stab
- An aerial sword strike where the sword points downward.
- Slice-stab
- A slice where a stab immediately follows upon contact.
- Chop-stab
- A chop where a stab immediately follows upon contact.
- Double hit
- A slice starting facing away from the enemy to score a hit then turning to face toward the enemy for a second hit.
- Slice-slice-stab
- A double hit ending with a slice-stab, doing triple damage in a single swing.
Sword strikes come in 3 forms: a slice, a chop, and a stab. When a stab is used, a flag is set, and remains set until either a slice or chop is used. When an enemy is defeated while the stab flag is set, the enemy is not only guaranteed to drop an alma, but the alma drop is guaranteed to be the best possible one that that enemy can drop. When the sword makes contact with an enemy (but hasn't damaged it yet) and a stab immediately follows the frame after, the stab takes effect. This is referred to as a slice-stab or chop-stab. The double-hit tactic and slice-slice-stab tactics are the fastest ways to deal damage. This tactic is heavily used on the bosses for areas 2, 6, and especially 7, sometimes even on late game regular enemies where damage is dealt effectively every other frame.
BaseAttackPower = (Level >> 1) + (1 << SwordTier); // slice or chop damage dealt to regular enemies without sabre oils
SwordDamage = max((BaseAttackPower*(1+SabreOil)) << Stab, 255) << BossMod; // actual damage dealt
Max is a function that returns the smaller of the 2 values (think of it as A has a maximum allowed value of B, in "max(A, B)"). Level is how many times "your power has grown" occurs during a "see power" while visiting a sage, starting at 0. SwordTier is 0 for training, 1 for wise man, 2 for spirit, 3 for knight, 4 for illumination, and 7 for enchantment. SabreOil is the number of sabre oils used. Stab is 1 if the stab flag is set, 0 if not. BossMod is a modifier for handling damage dealt to a boss, typically anything from -4 (Vista without knight sword (estimated, not yet confirmed)), -1 (dragon body and Jashiin) to +3 (Pulpo face). BossMod is always 0 for regular enemies. BossWeak is 0 for the main part, +1 for a weak part that is to inflict double damage, and +2 for a weak part that is to inflict quadruple damage. This value is always 0 for regular enemies. The << and >> are bitshift operators, meaning to multiply or divide by 2^n.
In plain language, to help understand this more, start with 1 for training sword, 2 for wise man sword, 4 for spirit sword, 8 for knight sword, 16 for illumination sword, and 128 for enchantment sword. Add half of your level to this value (remove the fraction if you have one where level 3 means using 1 instead of 1.5). This resulting value is your base attack power. Take the number of sabre oils you have used since last visiting a town and add 1 to this. Multiply this figure by the base attack power to get your effective attack power. If you used the stab, double this result, otherwise, leave it unchanged. If this result is over 255, set it to 255. Otherwise, leave it as is. Lastly, either multiply or divide this value by 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16, depending on the boss and which part of the boss you hit. If you have a fraction, remove it. This will be your actual resulting damage. Damage does not vary at all; it is fully predictable.
With -4 as the likely (not yet confirmed) boss mod, a divide by 16, that is why Vista (area 5's boss) takes next to no damage with the spirit sword, even with 5 sabre oils and level 12. During the dragon boss fight, my base attack power is 9 (1 from being level 3, 8 from having the knight sword). I used 2 sabre oils so that's triple the damage, or 27. When I hit the dragon boss in the chest with a regular slice, I saw that it did 13 damage. A slice-stab or a regular chop to the head did 27 damage. A chop-stab on the head did 54 damage. The rounding truncation tells me that a divide occurred at the end (and a negative left bit shift is a divide (by a power of 2)). Alguien always took 255 damage and the stab had no effect. In the 9:23 version of the TAS, Alguien was taking about 128 damage instead of 255 so at least 1 sabre oil ensures max damage without the need of the stab). Jashiin took 127 damage and the stab kept it at 127. This means the boss modifier occurs after the effective damage part is handled. This leaves one question: what if the boss had a BossMod greater than 1, resulting in a multiply? Finding the memory address to change the weapon to the enchantment sword and testing it would work... or going back to the first boss, but the first boss only has 150 HP, so I can't fully test it on that. For the red slimes in area 5, if any sword other than the enchantment sword hits one, the slime will produce a copy of itself 2 panels away in the direction opposite of travel (unless blocked by something) and not take any damage (this is something I do often for entertainment purposes). Only the enchantment sword can destroy them.
RNG maniplation
- RNG
- Random Number Generator.
- Seed
- an input for an RNG to determine a pseudorandom value.
RNG manipulation is a classic among many games, especially RPGs. RNG stands for "random number generator". Random numbers aren't actually random at all - they are completely predictable if you know the algorithm. The seed used by the algorithm to generate the pseudorandom number can be a frame counter, an object's position (like the character), the current system clock, or just updates each time it is used, just about anything. Some games may have more than one RNG routine involved. Some objects and even enemies have behaviors that use the RNG. By performing certain actions, even though it would appear to be wasting time, it is possible to get more favorable actions or arrangements that result in a net time save.
Areas 6 and 7 are especially heavy on the need for RNG manipulation, though area 4 has a few cases as well and area 8's slime guns need it regularly. As an example, consider luring the fireman immediately below Llama Town's initial entrance over the cliff. While I could jump over and fall right away, the fireman often shoots a projectile. I need it to get over the edge as soon as possible so time spent shooting is wasted time. By waiting a few frames and dropping down while it doesn't shoot, all the while it moves 1 panel every 4 frames without stopping, I can proceed with minimal time wasted. Once it does fall, I need it to shoot a projectile as soon as absolutely possible so can I use it to damage boost across a big gap to get a key, a massive time save.
Other combat
SpellDamage = 2^(SpellTier+1);
Spells appear to do a fixed power of 2 damage with level, weapon, shield, or area having no effect. Espada starts with 2. Saeta is 4, Fuego is 8, Lanzar is 16, Rascar is 32, Agua is 64, and Guerra is 128. I'm not entirely certain on this though as some more testing is needed. Some enemies may have resistances or weaknesses to certain spells, increasing or decreasing the damage dealt, usually multiplying or dividing by a power of 2 (aka a "bit shift" in programming). Agar, the ice cube boss of area 4, takes 16 damage per frame from Fuego, a +1 BossMod.
When an enemy is defeated, an internal frame counter linked with it is set to 0. When it reaches 255, and the enemy either didn't drop an alma or the alma was picked up, and the enemy is at least 2 panels off screen from its spawn point, the enemy respawns exactly the moment the frame counter reaches 255. If the previous dropped an alma and the counter reaches 255, the enemy will respawn as soon as the alma is collected and its spawn point is at least 2 panels off screen. Almas never vanish with time, only upon collection or entering a passage.
When a boss is defeated, the passage to exit the boss room always appears 4 panels to the left unless any part of that goes inside something solid where the passage appears 5 panels to the right instead. Any keys or recovery potions that drop always have a fixed starting location above and drop down (there seems to be only a slight 1- or 2-panel variation on this). Thus, for a boss that drops a key upon defeating it, it is best to be 3 to 5 panels to the right of the key's spawn point, facing left (as it takes 1 frame to turn around). Recovery potions that appear upon defeating a boss are not needed and can just be ignored, though one is used after area 5's boss due to needing the HP to damage boost from a bird in area 6 to make a platform in time, saving 2 seconds.
Damage boosting by touching an enemy's body is a common tactic used. This moves the character 2 panels at once, once per frame, unless a solid object or barrier is in the way. The direction of displacement is based on which side of the enemy the character is touching (e.g. touching the right side ejects to the character 2 panels to the right). For projectiles, the direction of displacement is toward the direction in which it travels. This displacement stacks in the direction of travel. If going right and you touch the enemy's right side (example, running under a bat just as the bat suddenly drops down on to you) you'll move 3 panels at once in a single frame instead of just 1, saving 2 frames each time. This can also be used to get up slopes without the Silkarn Shoes, where 3 such shortcuts can be used (in areas 1, 4, and 5). There is another shortcut, across a 6-panel gap in area 7 where a fireman's blue projectile is used to damage boost across the gap to get the key immediately under the town. When going up (legs are raised), damage boosting keeps the same vertical movement intact. When falling (legs pointed forward and downward), damage boosting moves the character 2 panels at a time downward instead of only 1. This is utilized with a bat in area 2 to move effectively 4 panels at once instead of 1. Pushing through certain barriers can result in moving 5 or even 6 panels in a single frame with damage boosting as is the case in area 7's Correr Cave via using the cerberus enemies.
Area-specific details
Area 1
- Town: Muralla Town. Theme: sand. Caves: Malicia and Peligro. Alma exchange: 1 to 6 gold. Max level: 3.
- Items: 2 keys (1 skipped).
- Boss: Cangrejo (150 HP); BossMod +3 (?), skipped.
- Tasks: 1. Get the key. 2. Obtain 50 experience. 3. Collect almas. 4. Stack snails to damage boost up a slope for a huge shortcut. 5. Enter Satono Town.
I skip the intro story stuff then set the speed to 9 first thing I can. In casual play, one would normally want to speak to the king to get 1000 gold, best used to buy a magia stone for very fast alma (and thus gold) accrual.
With needing to pick up the first level up (and heal while at it), I need to get a total of 50 experience during my time in area 1. Frogs are worth 5, snails are 2, bats are 3, and rats are 3. In total, I get 6 frogs, 3 snails, 1 rat, and 5 bats, totaling 54.
I also need to have 300 total almas by the time I get to area 3's town, and area 1 has a lot of easy 10-alma enemies where chop-stabs are used extensively to force ideal drops while going after getting 50 experience. 200 almas come from area 2's boss, so 100 extras are needed.
With the key obtained, and other tasks worked on along the way, the main goal is to utilize a massive shortcut that skips about 2/3 of the area and the first boss. The area with the twin ropes is the focus point. To the right of this are 2 frogs, for experience, but it also activates the snails that I need. After luring them over, I jump down below this area and stab some frogs to force almas. One of those almas is needed to block the lower snail so that the upper one can land on it, creating a stack. This stack is used to damage boost up the slope leading to where the boss exit is and Satono Town, which is area 2's town.
Skipping the first boss saves about 25 to 30 total seconds, but also lose out on a key. However, the key picked up is serving this role instead as the boss room door is still locked. The time saved is 3.967 from waiting for the "Encounter!" message to flash 7 times, 0.585 seconds for the passage to appear, 14.825 seconds from the sparkle animation and victory music, 1.312 seconds from skipping 2 passage transfers, and about 5-10 seconds from not having to do the other 2/3 of the area itself.
Area 2
- Town: Satono Town. Theme: rock. Caves: Peligro. Alma exchange: 1 to 6 gold. Max level: 6.
- Items: 3 keys.
- Boss: Pulpo (250 HP); BossMod +1 (tentacles and readying shoot) or +3 (face after shoot).
- Tasks: 1. Level up. 2. Utilize damage boosts for modest time saves. 3. Get both keys. 4. Defeat boss.
Upon first getting to Peligro, I have to wait for a platform so I beat up a few blue slimes then cross it. Right after, I have to damage boost off of the blue slime to set up the upper bat to get into the right spot and also get the area quite a ways below set up as well. Key in hand, I use the first bat to damage boost for moving 4 panels at once instead of 1. After falling a bit, I use the set up bat and ogre locations to damage boost off the bat to get through the ogre. As Ogres have 8 HP, they take a lot of hits so it's clearly faster to get a good setup that I can just damage boost through to skip over it. The ogre's axes also hurt a lot, doing 8 (upper) or 20 (level) damage.
The rest of Peligro is mostly straightforward. The relentless bats do tend to create some problems. In the area near the boss room with all the spikes, getting the blue slime and bat here set up the lower platform to be in a more favorable location and also gets the other bats in a more favorable location as well.
The boss is very quickly defeated using the double-hit technique, with a slice-stab being used if the tentacles are too high up), also the chop-stab and an occasional slice-slice-stab. Attacking stops briefly to jump over the water jet projectile where a chop-stab followed immediately after, ending right next to the boss for more double hitting. At the very end, the boss shoots out another jet, but a chop stab was all I needed to finish off the boss. Once a boss is defeated, their projectiles instantly vanish as well.
Area 3
- Town: Bosque Village. Theme: forest. Caves: Madera and Riza. Alma exchange: 1 to 8 gold. Max level: 9.
- Items: Hero's crest, 2 keys.
- Boss: Pollo (500 HP); BossMod +1 (far) or +3 (close).
- Tasks: 1. Get hero's crest. 2. Get key. 3. Cut through thorns. 4. Enter Bosque. 5. Exchange almas. 6. Buy 2 sabre oils. 7. Defeat boss.
Area 3 is the first to feature more than one linked cave. It is also the first to introduce key items. The first focus is to get the hero's crest. The key immediately follows. Cutting through the thorns right after, at the cost of 44 HP, saves a couple of seconds; they do 4 damage per frame.
Once in town, where I must have at least 300 almas, I exchange almas at the bank using the game's best exchange rate, for at least 2400 gold. This is used to buy 2 sabre oils at 1200 gold each. The sabre oils will be used much later on.
The boss follows right after. To maximize damage on this boss, chop-stabs are needed while as close as possible to it. Each chop-stab does 16 damage thanks to the huge +3 boss mod. When pinned up against the wall, the boss is very prone to wanting to fly - by hitting it on the exact frame that it goes into flight mode, flight mode is canceled and keeps the boss pinned against the wall. While pinned it almost always wants to fly, rarely using the dart (apparently, that's a 1 in 8 chance).
Area 4
- Town: Helada Town. Theme: ice. Caves: Escarcha and Glacial. Alma exchange: 1 to 4 gold. Max level: 12.
- Items: Ruzeria Shoes (skipped), 3 keys.
- Boss: Agar (500 HP); BossMod 0 with sword, +1 with fuego.
- Tasks: 1. Damage boost off turtle for platform time save. 2. Enter Helada Town. 3. Level up. 4. Stack green slimes to damage boost up slope for shortcut. 5. Defeat boss.
When running on the ground here, every 2 panels moved means 1 panel of sliding. Jumping has 1 panel of sliding in the facing direction per panel jumped. There does seem to be some exceptions to this regarding jumping, but I have yet to delve into the finer details. Grabbing a rope cancels all accumulated slide. The Ruzeria Shoes prevent the sliding but are not necessary (and really out of the way to get).
Shortly upon entering, I need to damage boost off of the turtle so I can make a platform without having to wait for it, saving about a half second (there's 1 frame to spare). This, in turn, also saves time on another platform after a long drop to the right, as it's nicely lined up.
Once in town, I get the fuego spell, needed for area 4's boss and a good bit of area 5, and the second level up. One of the town residents stops to speak - these remarks can be ignored but the 2-part text must be dealt with.
Past town, I stack the green slimes to damage boost up a slope to skip 2/3 of the slippery platforming section and rush to the boss. RNG manipulation is required to have the icicles on the ceiling fall so that they don't interfere and to also ensure that the boss doesn't jump at all.
Fuego hits very hard on the boss, if it doesn't decide to jump, doing 16 damage per frame, double the normal amount and at double the normal rate. I did some slight RNG manipulation to ensure Agar didn't jump at all. For something silly, I have the passage spawn at the leftmost point possible, which also replaces part of the passable level textures.
Area 5
- Town: Tumba Town. Theme: haunted. Caves: Corroer and Cementar. Alma exchange: 1 to 2 gold. Max level: 15.
- Items: Pirika Shoes, Honor Crest, 2 keys, blue recovery potion.
- Boss: Vista (700 HP); BossMod -4 ?) no knight sword) or +1 (with knight sword).
- Tasks: 1. Get Pirika Shoes. 2. Get ledge key. 3. Damage boost up slope. 4. Get Honor Crest. 5. Get second key. 6. Enter Tumba Town. 7. Get Knight's Sword. 8. Damage boost up slope. 9. Defeat boss. 10. Get full recover potion.
Area 5 has a lot of tasks to do. The first focus is the Pirika Shoes, which provide immunity to all hazards when used. This includes spikes, thorns, gelroid, fire, and lava. Once obtained, the key on the open ledge follows.
A big shortcut exists in area 5 that not only saves cutting through about 1/3 of area 5, it also saves a key. It requires a minimum of 50 HP though, by utilizing the ceiling crawler enemy to damage boost up the 6-step slope.
The red slimes after this need to be destroyed using the fuego for time save purposes. The Honor Crest and subsequent key are quick access.
Tumba Town is entered where I only go to the weapon shop to trade the Honor Crest for a much-needed weapon upgrade, the knight sword, which adds 7 to the base attack power, a major, much-needed boost. I return to the previous area, damage boosting up the slope again, then going for the boss.
Vista is defeated the quickest using short jumps and chops, with slice-slice-stabs used when the boss descends.
Area 6
- Town: Dorado Town. Theme: gold. Caves: Tesoro, Plata, and Arrugia. Alma exchange: 1 to 4 gold. Max level: 18.
- Items: Silkarn Shoes, 2 keys (1 skipped).
- Boss: Tarso (640 HP); BossMod +1.
- Tasks: 1. Get Silkarn Shoes. 2. Damage boost off bird to time save with a platform. 3. Get key near town. 4. Enter Dorado. 5. Get final level up. 6. Use both sabre oils. 7. Defeat boss.
Area 6 has quite a few tasks as well. The first task is the Silkarn Shoes. The section leading up to the room with the Silkarn Shoes needs a lot of emphasis on RNG manipulation. Not only does the ghost need to be far enough left that it won't interfere with climbing the rope, the dropping gold brick cannot block access to the passage that leads to the Silkarn Shoes.
Once the Silkarn Shoes are obtained, I return to the original, main area and cross platforms to the right. Once past those platforms, the bird immediately below town must be used for damage boosting in order to make a slow moving platform in time (with zero frames to spare), otherwise, it costs 2 seconds having to wait for it. The key is picked up then Dorado is entered. I pick up Rascar and the last level up while here.
Upon exiting town, I use the 2 sabre oils and put on the Silkarn Shoes while having to wait for platforms. This triples damage from this point of the game onward as I never visit a single town after this point. Entering town forfeits all active magic effects (sabre oil and magia stone).
The boss moves fast and hits incredibly hard (wiping out 280 HP in a single hit). It has an annoying foot slam action that causes a ball to bounce and roll along the ground that must be jumped over. The first use immediately after getting the first hit in is mostly okay, since chasing after the boss upon hitting it is required, but others require RNG manipulation to force it to not use this. Simply changing your X position changes the action it uses, for what I've observed. A chop-stab does a huge 108 damage to this boss from the 2 sabre oils and the +1 boss mod. A slice-slice-stab does 162 total damage, 1/4 of its total HP.
Area 7
- Town: Llama Town. Theme: fire. Caves: Caliente, Reaccion, and Correr. Alma exchange: 4 to 2 gold. Max level: 20.
- Items: Elf Crest (skipped), Asbestos Cape (skipped), 3 keys (1 skipped), 2 blue recovery potions.
- Boss: Dragon (800 HP); BossMod -1 (chest) or 0 (head).
- Tasks: 1. Use fireman to cross gap for a key. 2. Use cerberus to push through invisible barrier twice. 3. Defeat boss.
For every 64 frames without the Asbestos Cape on, 15 damage is dealt due to the heat and the "it's too hot" notice appears. Internally, a timer counts once per frame. After it updates and it's a multiple of 64, the damage is dealt with the message displaying right after.
The first thing to do is lure the fireman right below town over the edge. Some RNG manipulation is needed to get the fireman to not shoot while dropping below it and to shoot first thing upon turning around. The projectile is used to damage boost across the gap to get the key. The gap is 6 panels and a normal jump covers only 4 panels. Damage boosting, while going up, doesn't affect vertical movement but adds 2 panels to the horizontal, which gets the 6 total needed to cross the gap. Compared to going through Llama Town to the other side, getting the key over there, then coming back around, this method is much faster. (Also, entering town makes the sabre oil no longer take effect.)
Correr is entered where the cerberus is needed to push through an invisible barrier where I could pick up a recovery potion and a key along the way. A brief pause was needed to get a cerberus from the right on the second round to not interfere with getting the main intended cerberus to push through the barrier a second time to get to the boss room area.
The dragon boss starts with the head lowered so an easy chop-stab is used to deal a huge 54 damage at the start. From there, it's just baiting the boss to aim its flame away from its chest area then double-hitting it extensively, getting away when it aims its flame downward. If the boss decides to move a lot, that's also a good time to get a bunch of hits in. When 54 or less HP remains, a chop-stab to the head can finish it off. In casual play, sabre oils, magia stones, and the blue potion glitch are the best way to bring down this boss.
Area 8
- Town: Pureza Town and Esco Village. Theme: ocean. Caves: Absor, Desleal, Milagro, Falter, and Final. Alma exchange: 1 to 6 gold (Pureza) or 1 to 8 gold (Esco). Max level: 255.
- Items: Lion's head key, Feruza Shoes, Enchantment Sword, 4 keys (1 skipped), blue recovery potion.
- Boss: Alguien (800 HP); BossMod 0.
- Final boss: Jashiin (800 HP); BossMod -1.
- Tasks: 1. Get lion's head key. 2. Back track to area 6. 3. Aruggia. 4. Get to boss area. 5. Defeat Alguien. 6. Defeat Jashiin. 7. Enter princess chamber.
The first target is the unusual key on top of a ledge, the lion's head key. This involves jumping from a platform in the right location. Key in hand, backtracking to area 6 is needed. It's faster to cut through area 7 and jump down from area 6 than it is to use the rightmost building in Purexa Town (and, with that, lose the sabre oil). The first slime gun in area 8 must drop an alma to prevent it from respawning as it takes more than 255 frames to make the loop around. Aruggia has no enemies at all and is just all treasure. The Feruza Shoes double jumping height and the Enchantment Sword deals 255 damage to everything (before the boss mod takes effect).
Aruggia leads straight to area 8 again. This is just one long route to get through with a lot of enemies that always give 255 experience for each one defeated. (Even with that, it still takes nearly 56,000 enemies to reach max level, assuming zero waste. This takes on the order of 6 to 8 minutes per level so that's around 20 hours just to get max level.) There are 2 keys to pick up along the way, one along a short detour, the other in what I call the monster's den as there are a huge number of enemies in the small area. Unless current HP is over 120, the blue potion is needed to survive one unavoidable hit from Alguien.
Alguien takes 4 hits to defeat. 3 regular hits, at 255 damage each, is 765 total, leaving 35 remaining. One use of Rascar to get 2 hits of 32 damage, done right away, is enough to get 3 quick hits in via double hits and a chop.
Jashiin follows, where the enchantment sword always does 127 damage to it (not 255 due to the -1 boss mod). With the damage maxed, stabs have no benefit so double hitting is a requirement to maximize efficiency. Sadly, it requires about 15 seconds of waiting for the boss to even start to show up at all. With enough double-hits to bring Jashiin's HP below 20%, the vanishing routine stops being used, allowing for rapid double hitting to take effect. During the wait, I do a repeated series of jumps and move out a distance that follows the Fibonacci sequence then stop in the middle of the arena. Once the boss is defeated, I do the jumps in reverse until the passage shows up. From there, it's simply entering the princess chamber to complete the game, the last input.
Key RAM addresses
To help with making this TAS, I utilized BizHawk's RAM search feature to study the inner workings of the game. This section details the key RAM addresses in focus.
Health parameters
These values relate to the character's current health in some manner. Memory addresses are indicated as 6 hexadecimal digits that always start with a 00 or 01 as the first 2.
- 00ACE0: Current HP. The life bar is a good representation, but... I need to damage boost through an enemy to save 2 seconds, taking 10 damage to do so, but do I have 9 HP or do I have 14 HP? Both display the same, but one results in death, the other is a survival. The life bar isn't precise enough for that. This has the exact figure.
- 014B68: Rest timer. Increments by 1 each frame in certain conditions. When this reaches 16, 2 is added to current HP if not maxed and this resets to 0. See general mechanics for details on how this works.
- 014B75: Heat timer. Increments by 1 each frame while in area 7's caves without the asbestos cape. When this gets to any multiple of 64 "if HeatTime & 0x3F) == 0)" upon an increment, 15 is subtracted from current HP and the "it's too hot!" notice appears.
General stats
These values relate to general related game play stats.
- 00ACDD: Level. This is how many times "your power has grown" shows up when you use "see power".
- 00ACDE: Experience. This is the actual experience obtained. When a level up occurs, the amount of experience needed for it is subtracted. If this new amount is greater than what is needed for the next level, experience is reduced to 1 less than this amount.
- 00ACE8: Keys. This is the total number of regular keys being carried.
- 00ACD0: X position. This is the character's X (horizontal) position. When this exceeds the level's width or goes negative, it simply wraps around.
- 01AB85: Y position. This is the character's Y (vertical) position. When this goes negative or above 63, it simply wraps around.
- 01AB91 or 01AB95: stab flag. If this is 2, stab is active and defeated enemies will always drop the best possible alma. (I can't quite tell which one it is.)
Target enemy X positions
In order to monitor key enemies to know if the method is a go, I needed to watch over these key values.
- 01853E: Area 1 upper snail used in stack. I needed this so I knew when the snail activated so I could optimize my timing.
- 017E3C: Area 4 upper green slime. Just past Helada Town, I needed to know where this upper green slime was so I could properly stack it for damaging boosting up the slope.
- 0185DF: Area 6 ghost near Dorado. A ghost happened to drift to near Dorado and got into a bad spot where I needed to do some manipulation to move it to a more usable location.
- 017E0A: Area 7 cerberus. I don't know how to describe this exact instance of the cerberus, since there are probably about a dozen of them in Correr alone, but I needed to know where this cerberus was so I ensure it won't interfere with getting a different cerberus to damage boost me through the barrier a second time.
Boss HP
Did that chop-stab take effect at all or do I need to alter the timing slightly? Did I miss Pollo's arm or hit it? Like with character HP, the enemy's life bar isn't precise enough as going from 94 HP left to 89 appears as if nothing changed. Each of the 9 bosses in focus has an HP value.
- 015416: Area 1. This boss is skipped so it is not used, but included here for reference.
- 0156D3: Area 2.
- 0153C6: Area 3.
- 015241: Area 4.
- 015369: Area 5.
- 0153F3: Area 6.
- 01568F: Area 7. There is another boss in area 7, but, because the town is never visited, it is never seen and I haven't looked up the HP meter for it.
- 015659: Area 8.
- 015856: Final Boss.
Changes from the first TAS
The making of the first TAS, with a time of 9:23, was streamed live on my Twitch at twitch.tv/ulillillia on Aug 14 and 15 of 2026. I never used the bank or magic shop and I had 2 more level ups, giving barely enough HP to survive the heat while battling the dragon boss then cutting through area 7 again. I used JPC-RR.
The making of this TAS was streamed live as well, on Sep 26 overnight into Sep 27 of 2026. This is the current 8:43 TAS.
A few key changes were made that greatly improved the time. The first was reducing from 5 to only 3 level ups. The second was skipping dying entirely. The third was exchanging almas for sabre oils as 200 HP isn't enough to survive area 7's boss without the asbestos cape.
How was this faster? First, it takes about 11 to 12 seconds to process a level up, from having to wait so much for speech and animation. Skipping 2 saves about 23 seconds plus extra for travel time. Second, not dying means eliminating more speech and animation stuff (though dying does provide a shortcut back to town and back up again). Skipping deaths and getting the first level up in Satono instead not only heals the damage from damage boosting up the slope in area 1 for the big shortcut, it also gets me Espada and it's exactly right along the path as well. The 50 experience is easy enough to get, especially since almas are also needed and area 1 is really good for that. Third, although it costs time to do the alma exchange and purchasing of the 2 sabre oils, there is a slight net savings because of how long the 2 sabre oils last, being 4 total bosses across 2 1/4 entire areas due to never visiting any further towns. At least one is required or HP is inadequate to survive area 7's heat for the long boss battle. A second is picked up, taking 2.882 seconds to do so. This saves about 150-300 milliseconds or so with area 6's boss and about 2.5-3 seconds with area 7's boss. By eliminating the level up in area 5, travel time to get to the sage hut and back is eliminated.
Areas of improvement
There area a few points of uncertainty that could result in more time saves. The first entry may bring the time below 8:40, though it's too close to call.
- 1 (medium impact, medium uncertainty). Can one more level up be eliminated? With 2 sabre oils, HP is sufficient enough to survive the dragon boss, but there are 2 key problem points. The first is the need to damage boost off of the bird in area 6 to save 2 seconds. This requires 120 HP which would be the max possible. There isn't any way to get an odd amount for the +2 heals on 16 rest frames without a shield which costs a lot of time to get. Losing this means losing 2 seconds, but is still a net gain of about 9 seconds. Then there's area 7, where I'd have 160 HP, and need at least 3 damage boosts. It would seem like enough, but the heat damage would eat up the last 40. A juu-en fruit from area 3's magic shop can help with this but requires 30 more almas to be collected for the 240 price and it costs nearly 3 seconds to make that purchase. As the second sabre oil is indeterminate for a time save, the extra gold could be used, instead, for buying a couple of juu-en fruits instead. Alternatively, I could get the last level up in area 5 instead. The recovery potion from area 5's boss negates the 50 to damage boost up the slope, but needing 120 HP for the bird to save 2 seconds leaves just 40 left, plus the +2s. It's barely even enough to get through to area 7. A juu-en fruit would be required before damage boosting off the fireman's projectile for the key. Barely enough HP would remain to get the recovery potion in time. But then there's one last critical problem: Alguien. Without Rascar, Lanzar would need to hit 3 total times to do at least 35 damage to it. Only a single hit from Alguien can be survived.
- 2 (minimal impact, medium uncertainty). Does getting a second sabre oil actually save any time at all? It seems too close to call, with the uncertainty present. A second sabre oil makes the area 7 boss considerably faster, slightly affects area 6's boss, but has almost no effect anywhere else. The first sabre oil is all that's needed to ensure max damage with a basic slice or chop.
- 3 (low impact, high uncertainty). Is it worth the time to get the 1000 gold from the king and buy a magia stone for areas 2 and most of 3? It seems too close to call. Doing so makes getting through areas 2 and 3 much easier, and makes area 2's boss go down before it even gets a second water jet shot in.
- 4 (medium impact, very high uncertainty). Is it possible to make Jashiin appear any sooner than 13.697 seconds? As soon as the boss room appears after the cape swing, his first appearance is a whopping 960 frames later.
- 5 (very high impact, very high uncertainty). Is it possible to skip the tear-acquisition victory music and stuff? This would knock off almost 2 entire minutes if this can be skipped.
- 6 (high impact, ultra high uncertainty). Can the "Encounter!" upon entering a boss battle be skipped or cut shorter? 8 total cases of it costs just over 30 seconds.
- 7 (low impact, high uncertainty). Can shopping be made any faster? Speech is reasonably fast enough as it is, for the most part, but is there any way to make it go any faster?
- 8 (low impact, low uncertainty). Better RNG outputs. If the RNG can be set much better in the longer run, there can be some slight improvements.
- 9 (very low impact, high uncertainty). Can the ceiling crawler in area 5 be used to damage boost up the slope right by the Honor Crest? I don't think it'll result in any time save and the zombie in the section below will present some problems, being in the way.
