So I'm attempting a speed run of this game. I've been playtesting some strategies for about a week and figured maybe you can use some of the info I've gathered for myself. This is a long post, filled to the brim with stuff you probably already know, so get ready to be bored. Maybe there's a diamond in the rough though.
First off, so you know where I'm coming from, I'm using 8 characters thus far. I had planned on using less but found that concentrating XP on less characters was hitting the point where XP penalties for being too high were becoming a problem. I'm using Bowie (duh), Sarah (MMNK), Jaha (tank), Kazin (blaze, possible muddle2/desoul abuse), May (ranged), Peter (awesome), Gerhalt (raw atk), and Eric (PGNT). I've tried to end battles early whenever possible, which lowers my levels. But I've only got 8 characters for that XP, which raises my levels. So far I've been hovering around the 'average' level for different points in the game, but I started to lag behind in North Parmecia. Anyway, here's some possibly useful stuff that I've worked out.
Yeah, you can walk right past May in Ribble. And then past her twice more when you return for the Achilles Sword. Poor May.
How can you avoid getting one of the Creed's Mansion characters. The door to the desktop kingdom room is locked and all 5 spaces width-wise are blocked by NPCs. Can you egress from Creed's mansion?
Luke, in a regular playthrough, usually becomes a hinderance in the second half of the game. His only stat that isn't mediocre is agility. Screech is even worse. Luke did come in handy for killing the Arrow Launcher in battle 16, but I ditched him soon after. Oh right! When I moved Luke and Peter to take out that arrow launcher, the golem that is right there got a turn and decided to just stay there. Hopefully that wasn't a fluke.
Crappy stats aside.. flyers are especially useful in a TAS for those assassinate-the-leader battles. I'm using Peter and a PGNT Eric for that in my run. It worked well for things like killing the wizard in the bridge battle. It does not work well for Zalbard or any greater devil boss because they just have too much health and defense. Perhaps with Luke and/or Screech and, of course, luck manipulation, these kinds of things will be possible. Oh, and the power ring is very useful for this. Hopefully you can manipulate the amount of bonus attack it gives (it varies quite a bit, 40-50% I think).
Why worry about fliers when you can walk onto any square (assuming you figure out how to do it in all directions)? Unless you can glitch someone onto a square, and then glitch someone over that person and onto the next tile (leap frog!), things like
this will be annoying. Note the 2 tiles of unoccupyable space (except for the corners).
An attack boost of 4 from the power water in the shrine after battle 2 may be worth it. I imagine you'll have trouble dealing damage if you keep skipping XP at the rate you are, even with double crit possibilities. You can also grab a mithril from the tip of the mountain for 0 extra steps if you need money. I've found no need to find/sell mithril in my playthrough because I only need to buy weapons for about 4-5 people. I managed to get all the 5k+ goodies in Pacalon without any trouble and I've still got weapons on characters I'm not using to sell.
I used to complain about AI-Peter killstealing and gaining too many levels, but when I started playing with speed in mind he actually fell so far behind he wouldn't even attack in a couple battles. Peter is a super awesome character but he will require a little help when you finally get control of him. Luckily he's so awesome that he catches up quite quickly. You might be able to keep him in the action if you can get the turn orders so that a monster charges into Peter's attack range, because he usually will move all the way over to attack.
The Kraken battle is actually very easy, assuming you have enough attack to actually damage him by that point =). On easy, only one of his legs will move to attack you as you make your way to the head, which doesn't move at all. Once near the edge of the raft, you can have Peter or Luke land a blow on the head and he'll get super pissed and charge after your other characters (usually uses 'Aqua' for nasty damage).
I hope you can manipulate Taros to not use Bolt2 and to miss with his attacks, otherwise he's going to be quite a challenge. Taros' sword casts Bolt2 and he drops it sometimes, but I'm pretty sure no one can use it since no one can equip it.
The fairy forest battle can be used to power level a character. The
pic on GameFAQs pretty much sums it up. I haven't tested the viability of a 1-man army technique, so I can't tell you how quick it will be or how high you can get your stats/levels.
You can skip battle 19, the one right after you get the caravan. There's a 3x4 square (the 12 spots for your characters I think) that triggers the battle you can walk right around. It's pretty easy to 'find', just left of the elven village and north of the river.
Everyone gets their MOV completely reset upon promotion, so it could be a waste to give someone a running pimento pre-promotion. I can see this being annoying as by the time you get your first one (that port town right after the Kraken) you're
usually about ready to start promoting. We all know TAS's do not showcase the
usual, so you'll probably be stuck holding on to a precious pimento for awhile. Or use it and never promote, who knows what will be possible.
My egress point got set to the port town just after the Kraken at some point in the game. I don't recall using the priest to save there (or anywhere), but I know I definitely promoted characters there. If you wanted to change your egress point, promoting might have the same effect as saving.
I recently got to Zalbard and luckily (or unluckily) didn't have trouble pulling him away from his friends. He was still in the north section of the map (he usually drops down to the platform and waits to throw Bolt2 at you) and he got 2 turns in a row. His AI seemed to know what this could mean and he used both turns to come all the way down to my units on the right staircase. This was bad because he fried a big chunk of my units before I was ready, but it was good because I was able to pound on him without worrying about other enemies. I know you've got a handle on turn manipulation, so having him charge down just to miss one of your characters could be a possibility.
I wonder how manipulatable the AI is in the battles where monsters can hurt themselves (prism flowers, burst rocks)... there could be some hilarious potential there.
When I get to the late stages of the game I'll have more info for you in terms of low level viability. I wouldn't be surprised if you got stuck dealing 1 damage to damn near everything. I have just reached Moun and I'm already having trouble both dealing and taking damage. Manipulating the cursed weapons to not mess with you might solve that problem, assuming you can get to the rest of them.
Ugh, there. Everything else I've learned either doesn't apply to a TAS or are trivial AI triggers that you'll notice yourself right away. I hope
something in there was useful. I'm dying to see more segments, so keep up the great work!
