Ok, here's my second attempt at this. Instead of keeping the princess alive for her magic I buy the light sword and use that to get the surround effect on Atlas and Malroth. In fact, I beat the game without ever casting a spell! However, at 51:02 this is only slightly faster which can be explained by other optimizations here and there. If you watch you can tell why it is slower: seven lottery spins just takes too much time.
So now I'm pretty sure that it will be better to develop a plan which has the princess alive until Malroth. I'll use her magic to speed up battles. I will still be using death as shortcut quite a few times, so I'll probably pick up the leaf of the world tree and might work in the Rhone shrine too. Since I have to keep the princess alive, Erdrick's armor looks less attractive, I might skip it. There are more possibilities to speed this up so I bet I can get under 50 mins.
http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/DragonWarrior2-TheAxeManv0.3.fcm
Edit: Ooh, I forgot about the dragon potion, which becomes much more useful when the princess needs to stay alive! Basically, it will have the same effect as dying without actually dying (I save my game and reset, when I load it up I am at the last town I saved at.) Having the princess alive more will speed up battles as sleep and infernos will be useful, particularly fighting four gremlins.
I think this time around I will go for defence magic, which requires killing six metal babbles in addition to the required fights of the game. An optimization here could be finding fights with multiple metal babbles. Also, I will skip Erdrick's armor and use two trips for the Rhone cave. This trades off going through Beran to the cave entrance a second time with the advantage of not needing to save in Rhone, so I'll teleport all the way back to Beran at the end.
updated outline:
--Start off the same as before, but will re-examine wings usage. Only need two lottery tickets which will both yield wizard rings (one to sell, one to use.)
--After getting Princess, keep her alive. Fight a metal slime in Dragon Horn as before, get an iron helm.
--Sell helm and one wizard ring, buy broad sword (this will be hero's weapon until near the end.) Beat gremlins for ship.
--Sail around to collect items, may get the leaf this time though.
--Warp back to Hamlin as before. Then I'll need to figure out if I want to die on the ozwargs or not. If I use the death trick as before this could be where I use the leaf. The princess must survive this somehow.
--Climb star crest tower, beat gremlins for crest. Go to Beran as before.
--Go to Tuhn for the watergate, then do moon tower. Here is the first place I can fight metal babbles, and I will beat at least one for a dragon potion.
--After getting the moon fragment, use dragon potion to save, then reset. Continue game in Beran.
--Sea volcano cave. Another spot for metal babbles, and I believe this is the best place to see groups of two or three of them. Since I used the dragon potion, the princess will be alive to get the exp.
--Deal with evil clowns and get eye of malroth. Use dragon potion again to get back to Beran without dying.
--Go to Rhone cave, get life crest. Two options to get out I need to test: use dragon potion again, or just walk out and use wings.
--Get final crest and charm of Rubiss. Wings back to Beran.
--Back into the cave, go clear to Rhone. On the way, fight a green dragon for the sword of destruction.
--In Rhone, go straight to Hargon's castle. Tear through all the bosses. Beat Atlas either with surround or use a leaf to bring back the prince to take one for the team. On beating Zarlox the hero will be at level 14 and princess 10. Use surround and defence on Malroth.
--Use wings and end up outside of Beran. Sail to Midenhall through Zahan as before to finish.
