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 dodge and defeat bad guys. A become the most powerful Brood and a master of dodging.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.6
- Aim for the best ending
- Aim for the fastest completion
- Manipulation of luck
- Use of glitches
- Take damage to save time
So, this is my first TAS/PSX submission. I’ve never play the game casually but i have seen many speedrun of the game and i tried to do one myself that i didn’t finish
With this TAS i wanted to make a "perfect" speedrun, and there is some new strat at the beginning of the speedrun to show. The choice to not get Super Combo is just because i wanted to show the difficulty of every boss when you don't have this skill and to show some strats to defeat them instead of looking for a TAS where the half of bosses are defeat with a single or two hits
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. Since Peco and Garr have the same hitbox in battle, by using these characters and the defense form you can avoid nearly every battle in the adult part.
I pick up 10 Gene during the run because i need these to transform and use some dragon skill on bosses
I have made the choice to not use Super Combo Skill to make the run more entertaining
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.
In mine i kill myself to get out quicker than going to the boss of this place.
Nue 1(2 Turns) : for the first fight, I only needed to do about 120 damage. Critical hits from Rei do the trick
Nue 2 (5 Turns) : I kill Teepo and A on this fight to get Rei at Lvl 7 before Amalgam and get Exturn on him
I go fishing at this moment to get better weapon for the Manor
You don't need to get the wallet if you pass the guard with a frame perfect movement
Pooch (3 Turns) : With the weapons buy in Manillo Shop i’m able to finish the dog in 3 turn
Rocky (3 Turns) : I need to finish this in 3 turn because Rocky is doing Ovum wich is long and transform one of my character into an egg. Some Critical makes the fight easy
Torast (1 Turn): With the help of the Silver knife i’m able to finish the fight in 1 turn
Kassen (1 Turn) : 1 Critical and the boss is defeat
Galtel (2 Turns) : This boss has more HP so i need to kill him in 2 turn
Dosken (1 Turn) : 1 Turn for him by using Heal wich makes some damage against ghost and a crit from Teepo
Amalgam (2 Turns + 1 Ex) : Since Rei is lvl 7, i have exturn on this fight and i do critical damage each turn so i only need 2 turn and 1 ex to finish the boss
I take bunyan as master just to be stronger (Better Attack, Defense and HP)
Mutant (4 Turns) : I use momo in front because she deals a lot of damage on Mutant and i only use Nina and A just to use Molotov at the beginning to remove the protection of Mutant
Dodai + Claw ( 15 Turns W/Momo 2 W/ A) : Momo had to start the fight. Her ice chrysm makes a lot of damage. Also, she learns double blow to speed up the fight. When the Dodai is almost done, Momo deals few damage to Claw then A comes in, uses the Ivory dice from the Tower to doubles his level then use an Icicle to defeat everyone. I’m so lucky ;) at the end of the fight i get the Speed boots which give a lot of Exturn for the next fights.
Emitai (4 Turns and 3 Ex) : Dragonned A, then crit on Emitai to confuse Golem so then fight each other and then crit on Golem and Emitai until the end
Bullies (2 Turns) : 1 Crit to kill the Bullies and i was lucky to get crit and reprisal at the same turn to finish the battle in 2 Turns
Stallion (5 Turns) : Equip Titan’s belt and Transformed at the first turn, then Attack with crit on Stallion until he die. Again luck is with me ;) i get the Holy Mantle which i use only in desert later on the run
Zig (1 turn) : A crit of A is reasonable to finish the fight
In the lighthouse, I took advantage of the defense formation, so i don't get any encounter here.
Gazer (3 Turns) : I transform into a dragon to deal a lot damage. 3 Crit and a reprisal, Garr Helped a bit and it’s done
Dolphin (5 Turns) : I transform into an Electric dragon and deal 2 crit before using electric claw. To finish the boss i only need 1 hit from A
Right After Dolphin i go visit Meryleep to put A as Pupil to get later on the Run ShadowWalk Skill
Gisshan (7 Turns) : Since Gisshan defended so much, I took care of the dragons first. I only transform into Ice Dragon to defeat the to Dragons and Gisshan is killed with Ryu
I took advantage of the 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 (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : he's quickly history. 1 Reprisal on the first turn then 2 crit and it’s Done
Dragon zombie (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : I transform into a dragon and then 2 crits
Weretiger (2 Turns) : 2 Crits and a reprisal
Mikba (5 Turns and 4 Ex) : This the only fight where i heal. This was a really difficult fight because Mikba reprisal on every attack, so i had to deal with that.
Since i have Peco and Garr in my team i will only use them with defense form every time i will go in dungeon
Huge slug (2 Turns and 1 ex) : I used a transformation that i will use a lot in the run (Warrior) and as many fight i crits when i can
Shroom (3 Turns and 2 Ex) : I used my Exturn to cast Focus and then i used Aura to deal crit damage without any manipulation, and lucky i am at the last turn because i get a reprisal.
Gaist (4 Turns and 3 Ex) : Again i transform into an Ice Dragon and then it was magic damage manipulation on this fight because i used Frost Claw. The torches are annoying, but killing them would have taken time
Angler (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : Transform into Warrior and then using Focus and Aura to deal a single hit on the Boss
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.
Ammonites (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : One Critical hit is reasonable to defeat an Ammonite
Elder (5 Turns and 5 Ex) : Another Difficult Fight since i used ShadowWalk every turn i needed to do very precise damage and manipulate the boss to not get killed by him. Just at the beginning of the Fight i used a lot item to be overpowered to fight the boss
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). I use the Holy Mantle to avoid many battle. And i camp just before getting a battle to avoid all of them, it’s a little bit faster than getting a battle
Manmo (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : 2 Aura to kill that guy (Faster Strat for maybe another TAS use Gambit)
Chimera (5 Turns and 1 Ex) :I used Hourglass at the beginning of the fight to deal a lot of damage a little bit faster than normal way. I used Gambit on this fight to get faster crit and it’s faster to use Gambit than Aura
Arwan (2 Turns and 1 Ex) : Gambit deal less damage than Aura on Arwan this is why i used Aura on the second turn.
Dragon Lord (4 Turns 2 Ex) : Dragons are weak against the dragon sword. I used Trance + Infinity + Radiance to transform intro kaiser and then i used ShadowWalk all the time and thanks to Rei to give me a Wisdom Fruit so i’m able to continue ShadowWalk and Kaiser form for the end of the Fight
Sample 7 (2 Turns 1 Ex) : Transforms intro Kaiser then Attack to defeat that Boss Easy way
Myria (6 Turns 5 Ex) : Kaiser Form then ShadowWalk, Garr use Wisdom Fruit when needed and thank to the reprisal crit to make the fight shorter than expected.
Possible improvement : Less fight in Childhood Part and better luck on certain fight
Shoutout to DjKanjo who give me motivation to start and finish the TAS and Hidetomatsu to discover and help me to understand the Step Counter with Garr and Peco
And thanks to the Breath of Fire 3 Community for the help on some part of routing and fights.
Samsara: Let me just set aside a weekend and judge this real quick.
Samsara: So we seem to have a major problem here, and that's the combination of the game choice and goal choice.
As I stated in the thread, the current published Breath of Fire 3 run is sitting in the Vault at a low 5.3 entertainment rating, and having watched most of this run (in fast-forward over a couple days), I can see why. It's just... Cutscenes. And talking. And a little bit of walking. And then sometimes Fight Boys happens and my attention is held for a brief moment. Of course, I'm not familiar with the game or the series, and I don't think most of the audience is either, but judging from the way the run looks, I don't really see any entertainment increase from passing over Super Combo. It makes battles a little better, but it does nothing for the entire rest of the run.
The fact that Super Combo is passed over means this run does not qualify for the Vault, as it is an speed/entertainment tradeoff (and a significant one at that, it seems, with this run being 11 minutes slower than the published run despite numerous improvements), and that's honestly a shame, since the overall optimization is pretty good. It's just that goal choice. The thread (and myself) have been fairly vocal about it being arbitrary by site standards, ironically some of the most "vocal" feedback I'm seeing for the run is the lack of feedback at all. Discussions on IRC back up that there just isn't a whole lot of interest in the run, even if it had an encode for people to watch, it's 8 hours long and the biggest change between this run and the published run is forbidding the usage of something that makes it faster.
If you're really into TASing this game, I would suggest a straight improvement to janus's published run, using Super Combo. It should be easy with all the improvements found since it was made, and it would absolutely be acceptable and publishable. But as it is right now, I have to reject it for an arbitrary (and poorly received) goal choice.
