The Brood, an ancient race of dragons, is all but extinct. Their power was so strong that they had to be killed. A, the last one of the Brood, is awaken after 400 years and he wants to know more about his people.
Well aware of his fearful power, A uses it until he becomes strong enough to rely on his physical power. After which he manipulates luck to an indecent extent, using frame-by-frame advance to pulverize his foes, and even the final boss. It may be a little anti-climactic, but it's much quicker this way
Game objectives
- Emulator used: PSCX-RR v0.1.3
- Aim for the best ending
- Aim for the fastest completion
- Manipulation of luck
- Use of glitches
- Take damage to save time
Comments
So, this is my first PSX submission. This was also the very first PSX RPG I ever played. Although not as interesting as BOF 2, BOF 3 is still a good game, with interesting plot twists, a good soundtrack and customizable characters through masters (although only onw, Bunyan, is shown).
The speedrun can be accelerated through many things :
- Althought fights can't be totally avoided, they can be greatly delayed. For some reason, walking along the edge of the screen keeps the monsters away. Also, in very narrow corridors, using the defense stance keeps the party from engaging combat (is it a glitch?). Finally, starting to walk one frame before a combat would otherwise occur delays the combat. Sometimes, the party can start running again without fighting. This explains the sometimes weird walking patterns I sometimes take
- Although A (Ryu) is a dragon, he never uses his power after getting his revenge on Balio and Sunder. Instead, he uses Super Combo, a technic taught by his master Bunyan (who makes A a killing machine with higher attack). Normally, the most skilled players would be able to press 7-10 buttons one after the other in order to attack foes. But thanks to frame-to-frame advance, the skill can be pushed to its limit (32 hits). When the button is pressed influences the amount of damage
- As mention above, barely any dragon power is ever used. Only one optional gene, thorn, is picked up.
- Only 3-4 weapons are ever bought. The others are found/stolen
- Healing is used only once
- It's minor, but since Peco doesn't speak much, he is used is some occasions (Steel Beach, Angel Tower) to diminish the amount of dialogue
- Unuseful characters are killed as much as possible, so that Momo can get might and so that A can be as strong as possible. He is helped with ivory dice, which doubles the experience earned in a battle (hence the 60 k experience against dragon lord)
Highlights of the game
- Nue 1 : for the first fight, I only needed to do about 120 damage. Critical hits from Rei do the trick
- Nue 2 : Although Rei dies, I was able to finish the fight in three rounds
- Pooch : I hate that dog. I was able to finish it in 4 rounds, but with great misery since only Rei does decent damage
- Rocky : The rooster was much easier. His jump attack can do very little damage, which helped Rei resist the attacks
- Torast : Teepo is quite strong! Down in 3 rounds and 2 critical attacks
- Kassen : Ghosts are weak against holy magic - including healing magic
- Galtel : He only casts weakening spells, so he goes down easily
- Dosken : I don't know if it's a glitch, but a holy attack against him make him cast heal on our party
- Amalgam : He had to die before the 5th round, in which he always casts astral warp. A's death was convenient; one more level under Bunyan
Bunyan is the only necessary master in the game. He gives better attack, defense and HP. It's all that A needs.
- Mutant : plants are weak against fire. Which is why Momo does so much damage (and A barely needs to do any!)
- Dodai : Momo had to start the fight. Her ice chrysm makes a lot of damage. Also, she learns blind (for later) and double blow to speed up the fight. When the Dodai is almost done, A comes in, uses the Ivory dice from the Tower and doubles his level!
- Emitai : It was quite a lucky fight. Dragonned A countered a few times against the golems which sped up the fight.
- Bullies : counters are quite useful
- Stallion : three dragon strikes and it's out! I was able to do it thanks to Garr's Titan belt (which he traded for the soul gem)
- Zig : Since it's a speedrun, Beyd only needed HP to survive Zig's lucky strike. When he did, a lucky strike of my own took care of Zig
In the lighthouse, I took advantage of the defense formation. And for ALL after mentionned fight, monsters are down using Super Combo. Without exception
- Gazer : blinding it doubled the experience yield
- Dolphin : a lucky fight. In my previous tries, i wasn't able to kill it one the first round
- Gisshan et al. : since Gisshan defended so much, I took care of the dragons first.
I took advantage of the (apparently) famous Angel Tower glitch. Using a normal formation, the whole party warps on a block leading to the bottom of the tower, saving at least 2-3 minutes
- Garr : he's quickly history
- Dragon zombie : undeads are weak against fire (flare sword, bought in Urkan Tapa)
- Weretiger : unlike what my speedrun FAQ said, Rei can be down with as little as 450 hp
- Mikba : Since he has some resistance to fire, I had to switch swords. But he's easy nonetheless
- Huge slug : Another monster weak against fire
- Shroom : neutral against fire, but still easy
The defense formation is most useful in the Tidal cave. I only fought once!! But for that, I had to walk alongside the walls
- Gaist : Another sword switch against this fire demon. The torches are annoying, but killing them would have taken time
For the rope pulling mini-game, I think frame-by-frame advance helped
- Angler : Although it's a fish, tis strong against electricity. And for those who followed the run, using super combo takes about as many frames as with Aura!
Riding the boat can be frustrating. Even when the boat isn't moving - but the screen show it - the engine still heats up.
For the shisu, only one sprig of horseradish is necessary. And the length of the fish doesn't matter.
In the Black Ship, for some reason, the Booster Counter took 2000 frames more than my tryouts
- Ammonites : the barbarossa (bought is junk town) is lightning-based, which is useful against fish
- Elder : he takes care of the other, I take care of him
For the crossing of the desert, I realized that it was a speedrun. So I didn't drink water of rested during the day (don't try this at home, kids).
- Manmo : If I didn,t kill it on the first try, it would have countered my attack
- Chimera : I miraculously killed it without using last resort
- Arwan : To facilitate the next fight, I needed to avoid its attack
- Dragon Lord : Dragons are weak against the dragon sword. I used my two last ivory dice, boosting me to level 37
- Nues : I wished I could have countered every time...
- Mikbas : 3 seconds shorter without the dragon sword (fire based)
- Myria : I was thanfully lucky to withstand Myria's attack on last resort.
Possible improvement : Better luck during fights, try to get the gooking sword (which would be used for at most 4 fights), improve enemy encounter (try to get the holy mantle)
Screenshot suggestion : frame 694 530, the famous Angel Tower glitch
frame 1027681, which would be dubbed "Naked women are very susceptible"
FractalFusion: Judging.
FractalFusion: Well done. Accepting for publication.
GabCM: I'll upload FerretFaucet's 512kb encode in a single part to YouTube, and then I'll use his stuff for publication.