Game Played Vagrant Story Console : PSX Emulation : Bizhawk version 2.9.1 Version : NTSC Played by Darko Rerecord count 85440 RTA : 292480 frames (start at bios power up / end at final boss last input)

 Introduction

Vagrant Story is a masterpiece among classic PlayStation games released in 2000. It became the 3rd game at the time to receive a perfect score of 40 from the bible of video game reviews, the Famitsu magazine. Released just couple of days before the PS2, Vagrant Story from Square Enix became overshadowed by new titles and marketing emerging from the new generation console. Nevertheless, there are dozens of YouTube videos demonstrating the forgotten gem that is Vagrant Story and I seriously recommend to everyone to play it.

 TASing : In every heart of every player, there is a game that feels like it belongs to you. I spent my childhood playing Vagrant Story, spending thousands of hours completing the game multiple times to reach a 100% completion. This TAS took years to be completed, every frame, every movement, every Rng behavior, every scenario was deeply analyzed in order to produce the most accurate run by far. With perfection in mind, this tas provides never seen before skips, new tricks and gives the community a massive amount of unknown knowledge.

I hope you enjoy.

 Thanks to : o Chaotic Brave, The_eyes, Optrin : member of mullenkamp and Vagrant Story discord. They gave me precise information about the game and tested multiples scenarios in advance to get this tas as accurate as possible. o CoolHandMike : for correcting those information. o My dad that bought me this game when I was a child. o My wife Noura who understood how important this game means to me.

 Difference between Versions

 NTSC vs JPN Let’s get straight to the point : Japanese version of Vagrant Story is a completely difference game, and a much easier one.

This is due to 2 majors differences between the 2 versions : o The battle ability « Raging Ache », which is already the most broken ability in the game is twice more powerful in the Japanese version dealing 20% of Ashley's sustained damage instead of 10% in the NTSC. o The battle ability « INSTILL » in the Japanese version is in a league of its own. It is far superior to the NTSC one. It deals 10% of enemy max health as damage, where in ntsc it inflict 10% of Ashley's base damage. This means, where you fight a boss with 600 hp, you deal 60 damage in the Japanese version, where you will deal 10% of base damage (which is very likely to be 0 damage) in ntsc version. Those 2 abilities chained together in Japanese version makes all fight much quicker especially against boss where Ashley will likely deal no damage in Ntsc version.

Because Vagrant Story does have a lot of bosses, and the fact that Ashley will automatically learn new abilities (and losing time) in Ntsc version, the 2 versions of the game are split in the community for these reasons. Bosses can require up to 30 chains to be defeated in Ntsc version while 10 chains would be sufficient in Japanese version. I estimate that the game could be finished 15 minutes faster in Japanese version, bringing the total in game time close to 1 hour 10 minutes.

 NTSC vs PAL Those 2 versions are very similar, PAL version has two additional more frames to chain but the PAL version suffers the very well-known 50hz, making the game way slower overall.

 Major Skip

 Skipping Djinn boss (3 minutes saved)

In the Great Cathedral, the final chapter of the game, in order to reach the arch dragon, you first need to defeat the Djinn boss. A cutscene follows once he is defeated that will « awake » a platform allowing Ashley to cross the huge gap and reach arch dragon. Using a mathematical approach, I was able to determine Ashley absolute limit position where he will grab a ledge to climb a wall. Knowing the limit in both X, Y and Z position, I did the same in every platform where Ashley could possibly jump the massive gap in order to reach the arch dragon and tried every analog value possible to reach my target. This is the very first time this jump has ever been made. According to all the calculation I made, Ashley must stand at the absolute limit of the platform in X, Y and Z position (Ashley has a 50 units « window » in X and Y position where the game consider he is on the edge of a platform and the game will no longer increment Ashley position to prevent him from falling unless the inputs are held for 20 more frames and Ashley will fall off. Because Ashley must be on the absolute limit of the ledge, and because Ashley must hold a perfect 31° angle during the jump, and because he will reach the end of the gap at the absolute limit before falling, I refused to believe this jump was not made on purpose by the developer. This took 25 hours to process and roughly 3000 attempts. This is the first time ever this skip has ever been made. Let’s call in the Darko skip then 😊. A speedrunner could easily beat the world record, but a setup must be found to reach the limit of the ledge and the controller must be notched to maintain a dead prefect angle during the jump.

 Box skip (30 seconds saves)

Similar to the previous skip, inside the Sanctum, Ashley must solve a very easy box puzzle to reach the upper wall. This can be skipped using the same method as described before although there is a 4 unit window in both X and Y position where the jump is possible. Because Ashley can reach the upper wall faster, he no longer has to wait for the platform (which has a set position the first time you enter the room) to cross the gap which saves 30 seconds in total. It possible to not move the box at all by using a very long weapon, that took some time to farm and to destroy upper boxes using this weapon. This is also the first time this jump has ever been made.

 Glitch None Despite our effort, the game's well understand mechanics and almost every ram’s information being comprehend, Vagrant Story remains one of the few, if not the only Psx game where no glitch has ever been discovered. The community raised a couple of hundred dollars donation for the first player to discover any glitch that could help the game to be finished quicker. If Vagrant Story did in fact receive a perfect review score, this might also be due to the fact that the game’s programming system is actually extremely rock solid and no one can break it. All glitch hunters are welcome, and be a legend to be the first ever to get any glitch in Vagrant Story. Join us on Vagrant Story discord.

 RNG : RNG is the key word of Vagrant Story, and it is not your friend. Let's make this clear. If you take this TAS and change 1 single frame of this run, the WHOLE RUN is de-synchronized and cannot be played. Vagrant Story’s RNG is determined by dozens of factors that change every 2 frames and it required THOUSANDS of attempts for one single room to make enemy behaviors in your favor. RNG is determined by the following factors : o The first frame pressed when you enter a room o A random variable based on total time when you enter the room o If Ashley is in battle mode or not o Your HP pool o The sum of your Strength, Intelligence, Agility ( on multiple new game +, Ashley’s power is so large, that enemies will no longer cast deadly spells but instead will try to auto attack. This is irrelevant for new game because Ashley will never reach this level of strength) o Your current status (poison, paralyzed…) o Every Movement command press within 2 frames. As you might guess the last RNG factor is by far the most significant one, for every 2 frames enemy behavior might completely shift and they can attack Ashley. This run demonstrates what RNG manipulation has to offer. A single room like the crumbling market, where the Dullahan will either cast a spell on him or cast spell on Ashley took 1280 attempts for 5 seconds of gameplay. This is the first time ever the game has been completed without an enemy casting a single spell once with enemies having massive and deadly spell range. Sometimes Ashley will get hit by an auto attack, either because the attack is undodge-able, or because it will reduce Ashley HP, making Raging Ache ability way more effective. Because early game ennemy bat are extremely aggressive and can cross the whole room at lighting speed, some action aren’t frame perfect to delay the RNG into a favorable situation. Losing couple of frame to not getting hit allow to save a lot of time (getting hit cost roughly 240 frames).

 Base Damage RNG / Crit Every 2 frames, RNG will give Ashley a random value of +0 to +5 base damage that doesn’t change once Ashley enters a new room. It is extremely important early game to reduce the time spend on enemies. Once this damage bonus is set, Ashley will also a get another +0 to + 5 damages when he attacks an enemy. Getting both RNG allow Ashley to deal up to 10 more damage early game which multiplies by 2 when he crits. Later on, this becomes irrelevant, because boss's defensive stats are so high that Ashley's base damage will always be 0, so it can only deal a maximum of 0 to 5 (x2 if crits) damage. Unless you spend time grinding your weapon. Once Ashley is in battle mode and the sphere grid is open, the % of critical chance when hitting an enemy and the % of getting a Crit change every 2 frames. Once the Crit value is located it is important for Ashley to travel the maximum distance near the exit and reduce the time where the sphere grid is open. In most cases, it is done frame perfectly. Later on, as enemies get most resistant, it is pointless to wait for a Crit to occur as chaining ability will do way more damage and it is faster to miss the first strike than waiting for the Crit to happen. In the first ghost Ashley encounter, it is possible to kill him in 2 hits if Ashley gets a Crit, gets the +5 base damage bonus when entering a room, and gets +5 damage when hitting the ghost. Sometimes 1 or 2 frames are lost on purpose just before exiting a room in order to get the RNG on the next room and the very needed +5 base damage bonus (x2 if critical hits).

 Chaining To defeat bosses, Ashley must chains its ability together at the cost of its risk bar. Unfortunately chain missed/ succeed are set in stone once the process is started. Every combination has been tried multiple times to reduce the total number of chains during boss battle, this is why Ashley might wait some frames during the grid sphere to get the best possible RNG for the chain to success. Because Chaining is a very long process of every bosses fight. It crucial to pick up a weapon with very low recovery chain frames. The Staff is by far the weapon with the quickest chain animation, and will be used most of game despite its very poor range and base damage. For the Ogre lord boss fight, it took 500 attempts to get the perfect RNG of the Lord Ogre’s movement behavior, and Ashley movement to be able to reach it’s body parts, which are the most vulnerable to chain attacks. Because learning a new ability leads to a unskippable animation, I sometimes make more chains on purpose to get the ability learning process during the boss cutscene, skipping the whole animation (like on the water elemental boss). Later in the game, I also on purpose increased some chains to be able to obtain the very strong Phantom Pain ability (the last offensive ability that can be learned).

 Items Dropping Enemy kills will sometimes drop items that take forever to be picked up by Ashley. RNG was made to avoid 100% of them unless they have a 100% chance of being dropped (on bosses) 3 crucial drops (32/255 chance of dropping) that increased Ashley speed were manipulated to obtain these items.

To sum this up , when Ashley enters a room where you need to defeat an enemy : o You need to enter at the correct frame to get +5 bonus damage o You need the enemy behavior to be in your favor, running toward you, never casting spell, and not blocking your paths o You need to get the + 5 damage when hitting o You need to get critical hits o You need the chains successions to be extremely favorable o You need the enemy to not drop an item. o Once inside the room, every 2 frames changes the enemy behavior depending of the movement command Ashley does. This is why Ashley sometimes waits a bit before entering a room or to open the quick menu to delay the RNG into becoming favorable. Some enemies do have however fixed pattern no matter the RNG. For example, the gargoyle in the donjon are set to run away once you enter the room. This is the only time where magic has been used because it took too long to reach the gargoyle and to kill them. Some enemies also have a set behavior to cast spells. It is crucial to reach them and silence them before they cast any very long spells like buffs or debuffs.

• Tricks.  Quick exit Ashley cannot exit a room while a ground enemy is considered airborne. It is crucial to manipulate RNG behavior to avoid them jumping when Ashley is about to exit a room. This run will be 100% full of quick exits.

 Limestone quarry puzzle skip At the end of the limestone quarry you must solve a puzzle to move some boxes allowing Ashley to jump to the exit. This puzzle is usually skipped using faerie wings that increase Ashley's speed and jump by 22% (base speed =18 / Faerie wings speed = 22) . However if Ashley stands on the closest possible platform, there is a 2 frame window to move Ashley slightly to make the jump possible without the use of faerie wings.

 Jumping/Running Running is faster than jumping because Ashley’s jump will suffer a 2 frame delay while crouching and a 4 frame delay when landing (the higher the jump, the longer the landing) . However jumping is very important because Ashley cannot be hit while he is crouching or airborne. However he is extremely vulnerable while landing because they are a 4 landing frames or more where he cannot move or attack.

o Sliding : While jumping and maintaining speed preservation, Ashley has a 2 frame window where he can slide off a platform reducing the landing lag, but this prevents him from doing any action after. If the platform slide is close to the floor, Ashley will suffer 0 frames of landing lag when landing.

o Analog movement Vagrant Story offers a crucial 59° angles in the 4 cardinals directions for a possible 236 different analog combination plus the classic 4 cardinals one. Using analog movement is absolutely crucial to massively reduce the time Ashley spends inside rooms. For example on the very first room, if you hold straight Down+Left to reach the exit, Ashley will bump into the wall for 6 frames before reaching the exit. A very sub optimal Japanese tas has been made 12 years ago, you can clearly notice the difference of digital versus analog movement. This TAS has been tested frame by frame, analog value by analog value for Ashley to reach its destination at the fastest rate possible. Luckily it is extremely easy to spot if Ashley will touch a wall for even a single frame, because it’s leg will not display the running animation for a couple of frames. The part of the game where Ashley is in the Snowfly Forest prevents any view of Ashley legs so all ram information of its current position and speed has been tested frame by frame.

o Stairs Ashley suffers less penalties or even none when landing on stairs. However when climbing stairs and using a jump, there is a 2 frame window when Ashley will land exactly on the top of the step’s stairs allowing him to instantly jump again.

 Door : Doors are a massive part of Vagrant Story for these reasons : o They are a lot of doors to open o Ashley is fully vulnerable when he opens a door, and he needs to wait for the door to be completely open before being able to exit. o Ashley has probably dodged all enemies so they are very likely to be close to him when he wants to open door increasing the chance of being attacked o A very well known thing about doors is the ability to equip/unequip a weapon for 0 frame penalty.

• Door Canceling It has been discovered that Ashley can use a trick called door-canceling. If he stands completely still for 2 frames and inputs a jump command the next frame he will jump during the door opening sequence. Because the game never expected this behavior, Ashley is actually vulnerable during the 2 frames of crouching and an enemy can attack him (this is not possible otherwise). When actually in the air, Ashley cannot be attacked and can reach the exit of the room. However most doors in the game have a very low ceiling where Ashley’s head will bump into the roof and lose all speed momentum acquired during the jump, and he can’t reach the exit before getting attacked. Ashley must complete a back jump and a frame perfect turn around to pass right below the door’s ceiling at a sufficient distance where the game considers the room has been exited and thus he cannot be attacked by the enemy.

• Camera rotation Rotating the camera takes forever in Vagrant Story. If Ashley preforms this command 3 frames before exiting a room, the camera will be rotated on the next room with no frame loss. For obscure reason, some rooms, especially boss rooms, cannot be rotated during an exit.

• Instant turn around Ashley suffers a 8 frames delay when he turns around. For some obscure reason this can be skipped if Ashley uses a perfect 45 analog turn around for 2 frames on door lock by sigil or if he slides on platform which is very useful on box puzzles. This trick has never been discovered.

• Lich Lord item skip On the great cathedral, you must defeat a lich lord and its 2 dark skeletons to get a cutscene. It is usually better to kill her first because she is by far the most dangerous one. For an unknown reason, if you kill the lich lord last, it will not drop any items besides those items having a 255/255 chance of being dropped (always), saving few frames.

• Landing cancel On the great cathedral Ashley will sometimes jump between floor making long jumps, and drastically long landing animations because of the height of his jump. This can be canceled by landing at the edge of a platform, and inputting an opposite movement command the frame he lands.

• Wheel stats If Ashley waits 2 more frames when he gets the wheel bonuses after a boss fight, the wheel rotation stops perfectly on the bonus allowing the bonus to be exited 18 frames faster than normal. Because Menuing in Vagrant Story is extremely long, it is important to reduce its use. Ashley will get MP+2 bonus a lot to reach the threshold of 75MP, and being able to use teleportation accordingly. Past this point HP is better to increase Raging Ache damage slightly.

CoolHandMike: Claiming for judging.

CoolHandMike: Removed unnecessary text in the goal field. Having empty just means any% aka fastest completion.

CoolHandMike: Replaced file with truncated version that removes the credits from the movie file. New movie inputs end after skipping the second cutscene so the credits can play.