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Yes, you read that correctly. I did another run of Shin Ankoku with one major change and a tedious amount of optimization. 15.43 is the time I received for my efforts. I'll only go into brief detail about the changes I made this time, but I should point out that another improvement hit me at around Chapter 15 of this run.The idea is to make sure Boa (who would've thought?) survives Chapter 12 and then replace Rena with him for the rest of the game. This would cut experience gain from that point on by about half, greatly reducing the time wasted in level up screens. It's also helpful that his growths are pathetic, because less stat increases on level up = less time spent. It also has to be Boa, because no other unit besides Rena will ever join with a C (or higher) staff level.
As for notable changes, look at my 16.57 plan and then make these adjustments:
1. Prologue-3 is solo Marth. Use one Vulnerary if necessary.
2. Rapier counter critical on the boss of Chapter 1.
3. Warp Marth to the boss in Chapter 7 and counter kill him. I used the save point for a Silver Sword kill, which required at least one critical, but you can afford the Rapier in this case (send it back and fish it out next chapter if you use it). This is the major change I mentioned earlier, and according to the results listing, it saved a whopping 23 seconds. For the record, this is HALF of the 16.57 version.
4. The first Warp staff will break during Chapter 11. Not a problem.
5. In Chapter 17, I had Jeigan weaken (a kill would've given him a level up, which is bad) the Warp Thief. Wolf grabbed two items from Jeigan (Wolf will now have four items) and finished him off. The Thief drops a Door Key and then the Warp staff, so you'll blow right past the Door Key message and then send the staff back. Genius, I tell you.
Note that I used Wolf because my Zagaro was dead. GameFAQs users would hate me for that.
6. Self-defense only for Chapter 19.
7. Swap Rena to one space below Marth in Chapter 20 and don't use Vulneraries. On Marth's second turn of running back to the right after visiting the village, have Rena swap the 1 use Warp staff with Hammerne and then repair it. Fetch it back on the next turn, before sending Marth to Lawrence (he's still cannon fodder). Do not use either of the save points.
8. Drop whoever is two spaces to the right of Marth in Chapter 25 and replace him/her with Ellis. Double Warp and win as usual, but remember to go for a one-hit kill on Medeus using Marth.
9. When a unit's movement menu comes up (attack, wait, etc.), pressing X will automatically select the currently equipped weapon/staff. It's not a huge deal, but I learned to use this at some point in the run.
10. Same as above, but I used Y to select the Fake Falchion for Medeus. Hoorah.
Finally, I'd like to note that the times listed in the results add up to 14.50. Sub-15 = WHEE!
P.S. MAGFest is going to be painful, if I go through with my plan to run the game for real while I'm there. This just set the bar far too low to be comfortable. That's good though, right?
4 comments:
Hey, don't know if you ever check your comments here, but I figure I'd give it a try before tracking you down on SDA. Do you have plans to ever record this? I tried out your strats and they were mighty good. I think you purposely omitted some small things, though, right? Anyways, I'm planning on making an SS of this, and I was wondering what Chapters you remember dying on a lot. I think some of those deaths could be solved by simply waiting a turn before warping, and in case the gate gets covered after the Boss dies, I could pick up a Physic staff from either Chapter 6 or 10. Otherwise, I'm not deviating from your strats much I think. Anyways, good luck at whatever you plan on running in the future!
Yako
I check for comments occasionally, but this is the first so it comes as a bit of a surprise. :)
I plan to try recording a real run while I'm at MAGFest from January 1st - 4th. I can't guarantee any results because of the difficulty of the recording method (and my shaky hands), but I'll definitely try my best.
As for (major?) omissions, none come to mind. A lot of the planning was done in the 16.57 run, so just follow that plan and then make the 15.43 revisions (plus the Boa idea). That should work out decently enough.
I should also warn you that a single-segment with some of these strategies would cause a lot of headache. In particular, I'm thinking the early chapters (1 - 7 or so?) would cause problems because of Marth's random stat gains. If he sucks too much, you're basically screwed.
Waiting a turn in Chapter 6 won't really help, by the way (from what I remember). Chapter 12 is also questionable, since you'll have to deal with Bolganon AND the Sniper. That's not to mention that if you wait too long, you'll be dealing with the Paladin group as well. >_<
Other than that, the three main trouble spots are probably Chapters 16, 21, and 25. 16 and 21 could be fixed by waiting like you said, but 25 is something I have no idea how to fix. Medeus' 1-2 range would weaken whoever is in the area if you didn't one round him, and the flunkies would easily finish the job.
If you do go through with this, let me know how it goes (and tell me what you did about 25). Thanks for the luck and good luck to you as well.
Merry Christmas too. :)
Merry belated Christmas to you too!
When I talked about omissions, I meant forging the Rapier, but I thought about it since, and I guess you don't forge it after all. In my SS, I forge it up to 11 Might so I can OHKO bosses by attacking them myself, so I save on damage taken.
From the notes I wrote during my planning run, I didn't seem to have problems with Chapter 6 and Chapter 12. Mind you, my notes weren't so great at the beginning of planning, and what with the randomness of Marth's leveling, I might very well have a hard time with them.
For Chapter 16, I actually skip the first two turns, and warp Marth on the third. I then have to build a wall around Lena so she survives.
For 21, I warp Marth on turn 1 to the fort left and up from the Boss. On turn 2, Marth moves to below the mage and kills it, and Lena uses Physic (I pick it up on stage 6, you lose zero turns from getting it if you save Julian). On turn 3, Marth either kills the other mage, or goes and kills the boss if he has enough HP.
Chapter 25 is a real problem. I'm still trying to make that one work. If I can't get it with just 1 Physic staff, I'm gonna look to see how accessible the second one is. With Boa, Lena, and Ellis, I should be able to warp, warp, hit Medeus, heal Marth, and then heal Marth again before he attacks, and hopefully his defense will be high enough to survive.
Those are my main ideas so far. I have to recruit a few more characters than you did, because I really can't afford to get hit with one of those x chapters.
Ok, I've got most of the run down pretty well, but there's two chapters that are just terrible. One is 25, because Medeus is so powerful, and the other is, unexpectedly, 23. If the two Gharnefs near the Boss connect, and they each have around 40% of doing so, you're dead. If one of them connects, and 1 of the 2 Mages with swarm connect (also with about 40% hit rates), you're very likely to be dead. Passing 4 turns at the beginning of the chapter gets rid of one of the Mages, but I still have to dodge twice at around 60% chance to survive... Since I have an extra warp staff use, I could maybe send over a decoy to damage a mage and draw fire? Oh, Jagen kills it 100% of the time with 2 uses of the mighty silver lance! :) Down to 16% chance of dying! Now to solve the Endgame.
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