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Posted: 10/15/2005 9:07 PM
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adelikat
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I'm glad to see that you are seriously attempting this run. I highly recommend you record your progress in an .fcm even though it isn't an optimized run at all. by replaying you can get more ideas and possibly catch things you would have otherwised missed. You should definately make a test run of a game before you attempt an optimized on, especially in an RPG as complicated as this. but at least make a movie and select record from "now" so that you can post it, so that I and others might be able to give comments. one thing you want to look into is whether button presses affect the random outcome. (Read my DW4 posts for more info). This can give you significantly more options, and reduce the amount of wait time when trying to get random events. The crest glitch thing looks very interesting but I have no idea how that might happen, it might be a result of bumping the console and getting glitched results (which in unfortunately un-reproducable on an emulator) Also, look into what random enemy drops. You might be able to get some essential items, or some things to sell. I know bullwongs leave wizards rings which should be useful this sight should be very helpful: http://www.woodus.com/den/games/dw2nes/ also, do you think that the lottery would be helpful?
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Posted: 10/15/2005 9:40 PM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 83
Location: Montreal, Canada
Hey, thanks for the info! Assuming it's possible to get through the game with only findable/droppable weapons and armor (if even that much is necessary), the only big-ticket purchase required in the game is the Jailor's key, which costs 2000 gold. The easiest way to get this money, I think, is to get a lottery ticket as a drop or from an item purchase (I didn't even remember shopkeeps doing this; I'll likely pick up a few Wings of the Wyvern to use as "shortcuts") and get the second prize, the wizard's ring, and sell it for 1950 gold. The two biggest points of contention for the creation of this run are how far to level and how heavily to equip each character. I don't think armor is going to affect anything if I can get luck manipulation right. So the main point, then, becomes weapons. The most effective layout would probably be the Sword of Destruction for the Hero (luck manipulation to avoid curse paralysis, dropped by certain end-game creatures), the Iron Spear for the Prince of Canock (odds are he won't be high level enough for the Falcon Sword's two hits to be worth the extra 24k+ gold, but I'll check his strength stats at various points in my run and compare) and the staff of thunder for the Princess. Getting them weapons is probably best since magic will only go so far and I don't want the five-boss ending to take an hour because I'm only doing 1 HP damage per swipe. I'll see if I can start recording from here, but a good chunk of my run is me running around like an idiot trying to remember where specific items and locations are; excluding a quick playthrough of the GBC version, I last touched this game when it was new on the NES, so it's mostly blurs in my head right now and this playthrough is doubling as a "where the hell is everything" refresher course for me. But looking at this I'd say it's probably reasonably completable in the 60-90 minute timeframe, and that figure would be lowered substantially if that rumored crest bug is figured out and determined not to be an ass-nudge of the console . So PC pinball games get "tilt" buttons but not NES emulators? :)
Posted: 10/15/2005 10:32 PM
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adelikat
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I didn't even think of cursed items (for my run as well)!! with luck manipulation the cursed affect wouldn't be a problem. as for the falcon sword: of course it would be worth it! Assuming you are doing criticals on every attack (unless of course for some reason you can't get criticals on bosses in this game). I forgot that wings can be used to go to other towns (for some reason I thought it was like dw1 and only returns to the original castle). Optimal use of wings will be very important and can potentially save huge amounts of time. assuming that you will be able to get cricials on all bosses I would estimate this game can be done in about an hour
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Posted: 10/16/2005 12:08 AM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
About the Falcon Sword: true, I didn't think of Criticals. Still, raising the 24000 gold needed for it is likely not worthwhile; I think the Iron Spear, while slower, won't be so much slower that it makes getting the Falcon Sword worth it. I think the only conceivable way to get it would be to sell the Staff of Thunder as well as getting a golden card through the lottery (so two lottery runs would be necessary), and by the time we'd get it it would only save time for the end boss fights; everything up until then can definitely go down with a Hero + Prince critical combo; all of the forced-fight creatures have a max HP of 70, and even at the low levels my characters are they can wreck that with one or two criticals. What I'm going to do is build a savestate at the end of the game with low levels, but all the useful weapons so I can do a side-by-side test with the Falcon Sword and Iron Spear to see where that leads. Optimal use of wings is also tricky, mainly because wings are particularly expensive in this game (80 gold); I know there's at least one chest in the silver key cave that has one, as well as one behind the golden key door in the first castle. I'm going to map out a route and figure out which locations make the most of the wings. So following another binge I've just gotten Rubis' Charm. I recorded from a position where I had gotten all keys and two crests (Moon and Sun), coupled with some fun-times screw-ups like taking blatantly wrong paths and the like :) Should make a good cure for insomnia. What I'd like to know is if it's possible for the Saber Lion in Osterfair Castle (whom you kill for the Moon Crest) can drop an Iron Spear (the ones out in the wild can); since this fight is mandatory it would save considerable bother if it gives me what I need (potentially the weapon of choice for the Prince). Other things I need to know: I never got a Dragon Potion in my original playthrough and didn't even know of its existence until recently; does it only save or does it heal as well? And if it heals, does it really work anywhere (i.e. can I use it for a full heal before fighting Hargon or Malroth?)
Posted: 10/16/2005 1:36 AM
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adelikat
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as far as getting 24,000 might be possible getting the right enemy drops. the site I posted previously has this http://www.woodus.com/den/games/dw2nes/monsters.php that lists all the enemy drops. There are some premium items possible including the sword of destruction which will get you half way there as for getting criticals in your savestate run use a game genie code that gives you nothing but criticals, since you not recording there is no reason to waste time trying to manipulate them as for whether you can get the iron spear from the boss siber lion, my guess is that you can. but to be sure, find a game genie code that makes any enemy who can drop, drop and item.
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Posted: 10/17/2005 5:54 AM
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TheAxeMan
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I've gotten a Dragon Potion in this game before. It doesn't heal you, and it doesn't change the save spot (so when you die you'll go to the last normal save.) Still, you might be able to save, reset the game, and then load it up (yes, you can record a reset or a power cycle.) The effect would be the same as dying, but faster and without losing your sidekicks and half your gold. I would also wonder about the Falcon Sword and how much it would really help. Getting that much money should take quite a bit of time. If you get a wizard ring in the lottery you can be set on MP for the rest of the game. How hard would it be to get Cannock to a high enough level for Return, or even Outside? You can see metal slimes in the cloak of wind tower I think, and definitely in the dragon horn towers.
Posted: 10/17/2005 6:32 AM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Ah. Thanks for the info, TheAxeMan! In examining my video, I think going straight for the end ASAP is actually the fastest route. Doing only the minimum battles, my characters are already at a semi-reasonable level (only the end bosses remain, in theory), but I think leveling the prince and princess to the point where they obtain specific spells might not be worthwhile. This game seems to fall in a strange sort of middle ground between Dragon Warrior 1 and 4; unless the end bosses do something really funky, I think my characters are capable of inflicting reasonable amounts of damage to enemies, to the point where I think finishing off the end boss can be accomplished in very few turns (i.e. I'll be doing things a lot faster than the DW1 speedrun chipping away at the sleeping Dragonlord). At the level the prince is now (7), he's actually stronger with the iron spear (29) than he is with the Falcon Sword (14X2), so unless more than Strength factors into criticals the Falcon Sword is literally a useless purchase. Also, the only enemies that drop items that can be sold for enough for the Falcon Sword are only reached towards the end game (e.g. Cave to Rhone), and the added battles aren't likely to be worth it. Still, I'll further my experimentation; I'm very open to the possibility that I'm neglecting something and am wrong about this. I'm also going to consult an EXP chart to see where I can level my characters to before it just becomes excessive (i.e. where does killing 4 or 5 metal babbles get me?) How big of a metal babble fight is theoretically possible, anyway, eight metal babbles? I think buying wings is faster than leveling to get Return, though. One final note: I've found an always-critical Game Genie code (untested right now, though, so it could be wrong), but I've had no luck finding a "guarantee drops" code. Methinks I'll need to delve into the programming to see what can make that happen. More later; I'm falling asleep. Night.
Posted: 10/27/2005 7:44 PM
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Ryan8bit
Joined: 8/24/2005
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For some reason I thought the dragon potion was only in the gameboy version. How goes the run?
Posted: 10/27/2005 9:41 PM
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Paulygon
Joined: 4/6/2004
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I remember making some DW2 codes quite a while ago, but never got around to releasing them because I couldn't test on the actual cart. Never made one for criticals, but I did succeed in making one for always getting a treasure chest after battle: AESPGYZY You sometimes get extra gold instead of an item, but this is normal. You also won't get any items if the inventory is full, of course.
Posted: 11/10/2005 11:13 PM
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ledauphinbenoit
Joined: 8/29/2005
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For those that may not have noticed, a Dragon Quest 2 run was submitted. http://tasvideos.org/854S.html Run was done on virtuaNES and is worth a look.
Posted: 12/2/2005 2:27 PM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Wow, that took way too long. Real life has been kicking my ass for the longest time (in Japan teaching English; language barriers don't make it very easy), but I've finally gotten the hang of work, meaning that I finally have the time and energy to do this run. I've started and am all the way...outside of Midenhall castle. Stupid deceptive game and it's "pressing A at the exact right frame is faster than holding A" nonsense. So using the submitted VirtualNES run as a guide, I have a solid idea on how to do things. Before leaving Midenhall, I purchased two medicinal herbs, which also each net me lottery tickets. I intend to cash in these tickets for a wizard's ring and a wizard's wand. The wizard's wand will be sold for 1875 gold, leaving me only 125 gold short for the jailor's key. If I'm still short after monster battles and the like I'll sell some of my character's inventory items (specifically the prince's, as he'll be dead for pretty much the entirety of the run). The structure of this game is such that the only fight that can't be won within about three turns is the final fight, and the only person who'll be capable of doing effective amounts of damage at such low levels will be the main character anyway (the Prince of Cannock won't be able to hit for more than 1 or 2 dmg, which isn't worth the extra time his turn would take). So leaving the Prince dead after dying in the "four bridges swamp" seems like the most effective strategy. I'll probably still get a leaf of the world tree to more quickly revive the Princess of Moonbrooke (paying a priest to do it forces an unskippable tune, wasting something like 5 seconds in all while getting a world tree leaf takes considerably less time if the game completion path is right). The only thing I still have to learn how to do is forcing enemies to drop items (so I can get Wings of the Wyvern and the Sword of Destruction as in the VirtualNES run) and forcing certain specific creature encounters (mainly metal slimes and babbles, but also creatures intent on killing me to teleport me back somewhere). I'm also curious about the new "smooth" walking without enemy encounters. My understanding is that pressing "right" just before in DW1 and DW4 allows an enemy battle to be "skipped," but I'd like to know more information about this bug to see if it also works in DW2 so I can more smoothly do the overworld. BTW, I can upload the FCM of my WIP if I can find space somewhere.
Posted: 12/2/2005 3:47 PM
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>language barriers don't make it very easy Tell me about it. Speaking of which, I think I just realized that "Metal babble" is Engrish for "Metal bubble". I can't believe I missed that before. I don't think that particular enemy talks a lot.
Posted: 12/2/2005 4:21 PM
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adelikat
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keep in mind that you should get crital hits on every attack in which case the prince might do enough damage to be worth keeping him as far as manipulatiing enemy encounters try holding different button (or none at all) on different frames BETWEEN each square on the map. DW4 is much easier to mainulate than dw1. im not sure about dw2. also in dw4, holding down left+right or up+down gives a different random encounter than just holding one or the other. i use that a lot to get "smooth" walking. good luck im glad to see you haven't given up on this run. can you post a WIP?
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Posted: 12/2/2005 4:34 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Could it be a Metal Bauble?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 12/2/2005 4:58 PM
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No, it couldn't. The japanese name for that species of enemy is バブルスライム (baburusuraimu) and バブル means bubble according to my dictionary. It's quite obvious it's only a mistranslation. That particular enemy (Metal babble) is actually called something quite different in Japanese, though. Thus ends this offtopic chatter.
Posted: 12/3/2005 5:49 AM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
No, don't end the opp-topic chatter now! No-one's heard of a babbling brook? But yes, it could be one of those translation "guesses," like Crash Man and Clash Man (both are technically valid and a matter of preference, and one would have to talk to the original Rockman 2 crew to find out what they were talking about). OK, now we can finish the chatter :) Yes, I can post a WIP for what it's worth (it's all of like 3 minutes so far. Oooh! I'm going to work on it some more this weekend, though). As for keeping the Prince alive, there's absolutely no way he can serve a purpose that would justify the time it takes to revive him. Keep in mind that I have to walk through some nasty damage squares and have to heal everyone still alive each turn (DW2 doesn't give you Stepguard until about EXP level 17, and my crew will be well below that), wait through the funky music to revive him, and various other douchebaggery. The only fight that would justify having some acceleration is the final fight, and you can't critical on him (similar to the Dragonlord in DW1) so the maximum damage the prince would be able to do there is 1 damage (2 with the falcon sword, but obtaining that is in a whole other world of impracticality and would require a minimum of about ten extra minutes). Beyond the critical hits, some more efficient overworld and never reviving the prince, there's very little the existing VirtuaNES doesn't already do that can be done faster. Thank you for the tips on enemy encounters, though. I'll experiment with that when I continue. Where's the best place to host a 22k in-progress FCM file?
Posted: 12/3/2005 2:05 PM
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adelikat
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php
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Posted: 12/4/2005 4:02 PM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Thanks for the uploader! My run to outside of Midenhall is here: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/417/Dragon%20Warrior%20II%20%28U%29.fcm Not much, but it's a start. Working on more. EDIT: Figure I should make a few comments. I haven't tested whether naming affects anything like in DW1. I'll do that before progressing further. If it does, however, I'm going to need help figuring out what the "Optimized" name is. During the intro the text boxes don't disappear for a very long time unless A is pressed at the correct moment. This corresponds to about 30 frames after the box becomes "finalized" (no more text is "typed") and assuming I didn't screw up somewhere or there's some other trick I don't know about, this is the fastest way to go through the intro. There is a delay of 2 frames if memory serves me getting the contents of the chest in order to manipulate the walking of the citizenry. In retrospect holding down buttons at key points may also affect things in my favor (this is how I got the citizens to show up as far out of my way as possible to minimize interference odds). The soldier, woman and dog can all potentially get in my way, but did not as the run stands now beyond that 2-ish frame delay. I did similar delays in buying the two medicinal herbs in order to obtain lottery tickets to be cashed in later. Following leaving Midenhall, my planned path is as follows: - Make my way to Cannock, talk to king, save. - Make my way to healing spring, talk to old man. - ASAP get into an enemy encounter populated by many tough foes, die, get revived in Cannock. - Go south to the town and pick up the prince. - Go to Hamlin, cash in lottery tickets for wizard's ring and wand, save game. - Go south, get Mirror of Ra in swamp, kill self in swamp. Following this the prince will never be revived. - Go to tower of wind, get cape, die. - Use mirror on princess, get princess. - Go to devil's horn tower, fight 1 metal slime for levels. - Go to coastal town, fight and defeat gremlins, manipulate luck so the fight yields wings. From there I'll have the ship. What's needed now is to determine the optimum order of the subsequent actions to minimize travel time. - Obtain the Golden Key (obtaining this is required for pretty much all of the other events, so doing this first makes sense). - Get a leaf of the world tree for reviving the princess quickly after a suicide warp. - Get crest from side of shrine. - Go to underground town, sell wizard's wand, buy jailer's key. Go to jail, get watergate key, leave. - Complete sequence of events to get Moon Fragment (watergate etc.), fight 1 metal babble on the way up. Die. - Revive in Hamlin. Use leaf of the world tree(not sure if now is the best time). Kill Ozwargs, get crest. - Go to tower, kill four gremlins, get sun crest. - Save in Midenhall - Go to Osterfair, kill saber lion, get crest. - Use moon fragment to go inside cave, kill clowns/wizards, get Eye of Malroth. Die. - Get second leaf of the world tree. - Go to cave to final zone, get final crest, die. - Obtain Rubiss' Charm - Get third leaf of the world tree (they only give you one at a time, unfortunately; might be faster to just revive if cash allows). - Go to final area. - Fight giant on overworld, get Sword of Destruction. - Kill all six bosses, use wings to return, finish game. From memory this is the complete game. I remember people having problems with the DQ2 run path, I'm going to look up those posts and weigh in the recommendations.
Posted: 2/6/2006 5:27 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Ok, reviving this thread because I have been thinking about this game. Is anyone still working on this? Anyway, had a few ideas to cut a few more things out: Instead of healing to get past the spikes, just use medical herbs. Unfortunately, it will take a while to buy enough of them. However, not many items are needed to finish the game, so there's plenty of room across the three characters. I think the time to get and use them will be offset by not needing anyone else alive ever. So the lottery won't be necessary, I'd rather pick up an iron helmet from a metal slime. Edit: Here's the start of a run, up to getting the keys. It's pretty rough, really I'm just trying to see if this strategy is going to work. http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/DragonWarrior2-TheAxeManv0.1.fcm I've learned more about manipulating battles, there are some good and bad points, but I think there's enough flexibility to make the battles turn out very well every time. If it's not clear, my plan is to use lots of wings and only keep the hero alive. I can pick up Erdrick's Armor at the end to avoid damage squares, but I might need medical herbs in the volcano dungeon. Another edit, here's my fancy route plan, from the ship. Note that at this point my last save is in Hamlin. -sail to Zahan, get gold key -visit fire shrine, pick up sun crest -Wellgarth is next. Cash in items and buy jailor's key and more wings. Get watergate key and immediately use wings, saving lots of time -Arrive in Hamlin, go to dungeon and get past ozwargs to get water crest -Go to the lighthouse and beat four gremlins (they drop more wings) to get the stars crest. Jump off the tower and back to the ship -use the shrine warping network to reach the shrine north of Beran. Walk tdown to town. -Save in Beran and use wings to get the ship. Sail to Tuhn. -Use the watergate key. Sail around to the tower of moon. It may be faster to wing back to Beran, but maybe not. -Go through tower of moon and get moon fragment. Then get jumped by enemies and die. Might need to kill a metal babble for a load of exp and gold. -Revived at Beran. Sail west and stop in at Osterfair for the moons crest. Don't save, get back on ship and go to the volcanic sea cave (use the moon fragment) -Navigate lava dungeon, get eye of malroth. Either die or possibly pull a trick with dragon potion. -Revived in Beran. Use the eye and take the road to Rhone. Pick up the life crest and Erdrick's armor. -On reaching Rhone, save at the shrine there. Take the portal back to Beran. -Sail to Rubiss' pad and get his charm. Use wings to warp back to Rhone. -Storm Hargon's castle, picking up a sword of Destruction on the way. Use it to wail on Hargon, Malroth and the henchmen. -Epilogue - wing back to shrine, take the warp to Beran. Sail to Midenhall. Game over.
Posted: 2/7/2006 12:03 AM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Daamn, never thought of getting an Iron Helmet from a Metal Slime. That does even things out quite nicely, I must say. I'd put things on hiatus briefly while I sorted some things out in that funny "real world" place, but I remember I couldn't get smooth random encounter avoiding working right so I was going to get some advice on timing. Still, it sounds like you've made considerable progress, TheAxeMan. I'm at work now but will check your in-progress run when I get home.
Posted: 2/7/2006 4:25 AM
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TheAxeMan
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Hehe, I haven't figured out smooth walking either and I am also having trouble manipulating encounters when I do want a fight. But I consider these details that can be worked out later. The main thing is getting a route down. If you watch this you see that for gold/exp/weapons I got a wizard's ring and beat a demighost for his chain sickle. But really I think the ideal case is to forget about the lottery and beat two metal slimes, both dropping iron helmets. My level will go up a bit more and I will use the proceeds to pick up a broadsword at the Lianport weapon shop which will be an acceptable weapon all the way until the sword of destruction.
Posted: 2/7/2006 8:52 AM
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univbee
Joined: 7/28/2005
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I laughed at your workaround for the Ozwarg battle at the end. I had no idea that worked. That being said, I'm a little puzzled by your Wings spending spree. It seems to me that dying is generally faster, but then I could be wrong. Or maybe this is just for testing puposes. In any case, great job so far.
Posted: 2/7/2006 9:18 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Yeah, for testing I am trying to err in using too many wings. After I finish I can try to analyze where they actually save time. In the spring of bravery cave it is definitely faster to die when you can do halfway decent job manipulating luck. An optimization for this is to walk through some swamp on the way to Cannock. In other cases, like simply warping outside from the King of Cannock, I'm not sure if the wings save time. After factoring the time needed to sell items and buy the wings, it may not be faster. It is important to get rid of unneeded items since only the hero will be alive. This is a pretty complex issue, I'll have to look at when I need the wings, when I'm going by item shops, what I have to sell, etc. Perhaps there are some chests not far out of the way? However, once the wings are obtained, they are almost certainly faster. You don't have to start the fight or wait for any hits. You don't have to listen to the person who revived you (No breath, cold as a cod. Yes, AxeMan, thou art truly dead. I suppose I should revive you, though thou deservest less.) There is only one fadeout and you go straight to the outer world which is what I want in most cases. Now for luck manipulation, the only thing I've gotten results from is waiting. Buttons in the middle don't seem to have any effect. This would seem to point to smooth walking not being possible. Does anyone have more insights on this? There are also some things I can't seem to manipulate. I tried to get iron helms from two metal slimes and the second one would only give me gold in the chest no matter what. When is gold vs item determined, or is there some rule like alternating? The other thing is stats. Power is all I have to worry about, though maybe hp too. Can I pick a stronger name or are the stats always consistent?
Posted: 2/9/2006 4:52 PM
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TheAxeMan
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Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Ok, I made it almost to the end before my solo strategy breaks down. It doesn't look like I can dodge Atlas's attacks, at least not on level 9 with no magic. There was a similar problem on the green dragon, but I could control the damage better. Atlas always attacks, and twice each turn. Otherwise the route worked out rather nicely, I probably would have finished right around 50 minutes with at least a couple minutes of possible improvement since this is a pretty rough test run. http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/DragonWarrior2-TheAxeManv0.2.fcm This is where some hacking might be necessary. How do dodged attacks work? Another thing that needs to be figured out is manipulating first hit in battle, since it seems to be determined before other things. Oh one more thing, I've watched choco-mint's run but couldn't understand what was going on in the battles since he was playing the Japanese version. I know he used some magic, but which spells? If sleep works then that is how I would roll. I think I will hack something together to pull a finish out of this test run and find a strategy to beat the bosses. Sleep comes at a pretty low level, I could get that without keeping Kailin alive through most of the game. With her alive I can also forget about picking up Erdrick's armor. She needs a wizard's ring though. Edit: Ah, it could be possible to do with a preemptive strike. Atlas, Bazuzu and Zarlox should all be killable in two hits. That leaves Hargon and Malroth, who I think can both be manipulated to miss. But is it possible to get a preemptive on those three? ("But the Enemies did not not see thee") Another edit: Another possibility with some limits: Use one of my sidekicks as a meat shield. This is especially attactive if Atlas is the only one who can't be manipulated. I could use a leaf of the world tree specifically for this purpose. Ok, I tried sleep and there doesn't seem to be any chance of it working on Atlas. Of course it is possible to beat Atlas just by sacrificing someone, but Malroth even more mean. Malroth is immune to critical hits, so the battle will go on for many turns. Also, his actions seem to be limited to: -breathing fire (min damage around 37) -undodgeable and unsurvivable attack (at my level) -healall--restore all hp Obviously I can't let him use healall if I expect to beat him, so I need some way to nerf him. Actually, looking at choco-mint's run it seems that he used Surround, so that's looking like the best option. I'll have to keep the princess alive after all.
Posted: 2/13/2006 4:19 PM
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TheAxeMan
Ambassador, Experienced player (709)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Completed test run (51:34): http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/DragonWarrior2-TheAxeManv0.2.fcm It took a lot longer to beat Malroth than I thought (no criticals), so I didn't finish until 51:34. However, the end part was hacked together so I didn't have to redo the run and there is quite a bit of improvement possible. Still, this is well ahead of choco-mint's 55-min run, even after adding in the three minute prologue. The trick to beating Malroth on low level is surround. Sleep does not work. Now the princess of Moonbrook learns surround on level 6, but the light sword casts it when used as an item. The only way to obtain it is to buy it in Wellgarth for 16000 gold. That's pretty steep, but if it means this game can be done solo, it just might be worth it. The light sword is also the most powerful buyable weapon, so it will cut the number of hits in some battles. I still think it will be worthwhile to pick up the sword of destruction later though. In my next attempt, I'll try to clean up a few loose ends and grab the light sword. By cheating the lottery repeatedly, it should be possible to get the gold without too much trouble. Wizard rings sell for 1950. I'll have to check what the discount for the golden card is, it may be worthwhile at this spending level. As far as the route, I'm pretty happy with it and probably won't make any big changes unless someone points out something I haven't seen. This still needs to be a test run because I'm not sure if it will work.
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