Submission #7316: ninespaces's DS Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey "any% (Neutral ending)" in 3:07:50.72

Game objectives

• Get to the game's "Neutral" ending as fast as possible
• any% - or maybe Jihad% is more apt
• Abuses the demon password system to trivialize most combat
• Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.7

Route information

• The game is fairly linear in terms of the main mission progression. That said, I was surprised a few times. Some routes that looked like they must be slower "on paper" saved up to several thousand frames.
• A note on random battles: It is usually faster to run from fights. The exceptions are: (1) when running fails; (2) when XP is needed, typically to advance a level for the HP/MP restore; (3) when it sets up a better RNG situation, typically for an upcoming boss.

The Red Sprite

• This game has a LOT of dialogue, and it is unskippable on a new game. You can hold X to speed up the dialogue, but it is faster to alternate A and X presses every frame.
• We auto-battle through the introductory fights, as it is much faster than selecting options from the battle menu.

Sector: Antlia

• Our first objective is to obtain enough Macca (money) to be able to purchase Shiva, the demon that will carry us through a large chunk of the game. To do that, we visit 3 treasure chests (chakra pot, revival bead, 500 macca) while advancing the first mission.
• We auto-battle as much as possible during these initial fights.
• Back at the Red Sprite, we sell our items and buy a level 1 Shiva for 1652 macca. Shiva comes equipped with 3 of the most useful skills in the game: (1) Jihad, an almighty damage type spell that also lowers the enemies stats; (2) Endure, a passive skill that lets the demon revive once automatically in battle; (3) Victory Cry, a passive skill that restores the demon's HP and MP after battle. Shiva also nullifies Expel and Curse damage, and drains Physical, Fire, and Electric damage. To be able to afford Shiva, we give the demon 1 in every stat except magic, which needs to be 30 to provide enough MP to cast Jihad.
• With our new carry friend, we go murder the first miniboss: Orias. Shiva sneezes at it and it dies.
• We collect a couple more items, then Irving upgrades our suit to let us search for Type A Forma. We use this upgrade to find Feather Flock, which Irving uses to upgrade our suit with Unlock A, letting us open A-type doors and progress further in Antlia.
• We make our way to and obliterate Antlia's boss, Morax.

Sector: Bootes

• We complete a mission and gather the next forma we need: Release Jewel, which gives us the ability to search for A-type Gates.
• We get rudely introduced to this sector's boss, Mitra, then get tossed back to the sector entrance.
• Now we go and uh.. "find" Norris, then rescue Zelenin with Mastema's help, and murder Macabre on our way back.
• We get Enemy Search A, allowing us to find and kill the hidden demon, Fomorian, on 4F. We then watch Jimenez (painfully slowly) smack Bifrons around, before killing Mitra.

Sector: Carina

• We buy the sub-app Enemy Begone to reduce random encounter rates.
• Mastema needs 2 demons from us to progress, typically summoned via passwords an NPC gives the player. But we just summon our own ones instead, so we don't have to go find the NPC. We're rewarded with Shibboleth, which Irving turns into the Horkos Buster.
• We bust Horkos... repeatedly. He drops an item that gives us the ability to unlock B-type doors.
• After more bustin' and plot, we get the Phase Shifter A ability, allowing us to make our way to and kill the sector's boss: Horkos.

Sector: Delphinus

• We get the Passage Jewel, which Irving turns into the Gate Search B ability.
• With Gate Search B we can access a new area in Sector Bootes to obtain the Madman's Stone, which Irving turns into the curative MK Gun.
• We zap Jimenez, letting us progress past this area soon.
• We now have to beat 5 Formless spirit fights to unlock the sector's boss. The Formless are scattered about the sector, so it wasn't immediately obvious which ones should be defeated to lead to the fastest time: 1st on 2F -> 2nd and 3rd on 3F (x2) -> 4th on 8F -> 5th on 7F on the way back down. This route, to my surprise, was much faster than killing the 5th on 8F, warping to the sector entrance, and climbing back up.
• With the Formless defeated, we make our way to the sector's boss: Asura.

Sector: Eridanus

• We rudely ignore Zelenin and go pick up the Goetite forma, unlock a shortcut, then warp back to the Red Sprite so Irving can give us the Forma Search B upgrade.
• Forma Search B lets us find the Asteria Stone, which we take to Zelenin via a route that is surprisingly faster than what you might think when looking at the maps.
• We unlock another shortcut before heading to the top of Eridanus - but we can't fight the sector boss just yet.
• We visit Captain Jack in Sector Carina and agree to search for some items.
• We hunt down the Hydro Apple, Ice-10, and X Metal in Sector Eridanus, taking them back to Jack, who then gives us Gate Search C in Sector Eridanus.
• We fight the first form of the sector boss, Ouroboros.
• We traverse the outer part of the top of Eridanus, taking out 4 mini-bosses to unlock (and kill) Ouroboros's 2nd form.

Sector: Fornax

• We unlock a shortcut then fight the first of 4 mini-bosses, Moloch.
• We take the right path first to the Moon Mirror and the 2nd mini-boss, Orcus. A battle where a Mahama stone saves the day.
• A quick stop at Jack's Squad HQ, then we take the left path to the Sun Mirror and the 3rd mini-boss, Mithras.

Jack's Squad HQ

• We make our way to the squad member who gives us the door code, then "rescue" Jiminez, before beating up Jack himself. We get the Star Mirror and Enemy Search B.

Sector: Fornax

• Now we take the middle path to the sector boss, Tiamat. On the way we use our newly acquired Enemy Search B to find and kill the Strange Demon, then fight the 4th mini-boss, Asherah. Tiamat is the first boss that Shiva is no match for, but no problem - we summon a level 1 Demiurge with 99 magic who annihilates her.

Sector: Grus

• Plot happens for a while, then once we have Phase Shifter B we head to (and ultimately kill) the demon Grendel to advance the Neutral ending and get access to deeper parts of this sector.
• We get Remedium which Irving turns into Unlock C.
• We make our way to this sector's boss: Maya. Maya insta-kills anyone who uses a skill on her. Solution? Buff up Demiurge and one-shot her.

Sector: Horologium

• Gore introduces us to Mem Aleph, the final boss, but unfortunately we can only see it as a pixelated blob right now.
• We get Unlock D.
• We re-visit previous sectors to find Cosmic eggs. In Antlia we get one from Wu Kong. In Bootes, one from Zelenin. In Carina, one from Zhu Yin. And in Delphinus, one from Cherub.
• Back at the Red Sprite, we pick up an EX Mission that will soon reward us with an armor. This armor lets us survive the final boss.
• We beat Skadi, giving us Gate Search D and deeper access to this sector.
• In the dark zone of 1F, we advance RNG using the password output option to ensure that the next battle is with Fafnir, for the EX Mission. Doing so saves us a lot of time later when we encounter Fafnir again on B7F.
• After a long walk, we fight the 2nd to last boss on B5F: Jimenez.
• We have 2 goals on B7F. First, press the 3 switches to remove the pillar blocking our path. Second, talk to Fafnir to finish the EX Mission. We hit the south switch first, then the west, then talk to Fafnir, then open a shortcut, go back to Base to get the reward and make a quick sale (more on that in a moment), before returning to the 3rd switch via B6F.
• Now we're on the home stretch. We use a a repel auto-battle strategy on the final boss, because it's much faster than summoning another powerful demon and fighting regularly. We reflect around 6000 damage to Mem Aleph each round, all going well. But we need 101679 macca to summon our 3 repel demons, and we were just short -- that's why we made a quick sale back at base.
• We summon our 3 demons, do some RNG manipulation, put on our fancy armor, and auto-battle our way to victory in this 2-phase fight against Mem Aleph.