TL;DR Do you know any other obscure games with potential for fun discoveries like boss quick kills and sequence breaks?

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The obvious answer is Zelda and other “Zelda like” games, so let me explain.

The number 1 thing I enjoy about speedrunning this game is the boss fights, some are really challenging, and others have a fun quick kill using bombs or the fire wand. I love the music and graphics, I didn’t have a TG-16 growing up, but it feels just like a SNES game to me, very nostalgic. In Neutopia there’s no back tracking since there is a hub that connects the 4 overworlds and you are automatically sent back there after each dungeon. Since it’s divided into 4 worlds there’s a nice change of scenery and music after every 2 dungeons. The speedrun sequence breaks every world, so the dungeon order becomes 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5, 8, 7. So the speedrun goes back and forth between feeling underpowered and overpowered, it’s really fun! There are no boring puzzles or fetch quests, or level grinding. There’s only one short cutscene at the beginning and not too much text, plus it’s on the TG-16 so I you can use the turbo switch to mash through text.

I think another key thing that makes it fun to run is not having to learn any complex tricks that require TAS-like precision. Since there are so few runners, there’s still a lot of fun stuff to discover and there aren’t any crazy game breaking glitches. The WRs are good, but there is still a ton of room for improvement.

It might seem like a weird comparison, but for me I think it feels a bit like Shadow of the Colossus. There’s a long trek to the dungeon, then a quick, intense boss fight. The only other game I’ve found that I enjoyed running is Tower Of Turmoil.

Looking forward to hearing any suggestions, thanks! ^_^

Just curious if there are any good guides / resources for this game aside from the 1:20:29 speedrun video itself. I've only found a couple topics on the forum.

Shop Item Lists: http://www.thespiritengine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=299 Description of a 2:23:15 run from 2009: http://www.thespiritengine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=314

I like this game a lot, and I'll probably do some runs for it soon, but I am frustrated by a bug. Sometimes the door won't open after clearing a room of enemies. You can exit and re-enter to kill the enemies again in a different way to avoid the bug, but for speedrunning that's a huge time loss. And there is at least one room where you fall and can't exit and re-enter, so it's a soft-lock. Has anyone else has this problem? I am running the game on the BizHawk emulator.

Boss strategies:

Vulcan (aka The Derpy Dragon) takes 4 damage from bombs, so instead of 17 sword strikes, he goes down very fast with 1 sword strike and 4 bombs.

It is possible to stack the Gargoyles and kill them simultaneously. This turns 22 sword strikes into only 11. It's also possible to place well timed bombs in the middle of the room to make the fight even faster. I usually do 3 bombs and 5 sword strikes.

Lich Turtle (aka Poverty Trinex) can be a real headache. It is possible to stack all three heads together, but very difficult to pull of consistently. Instead, it's a more reliable strategy to kill 2 heads, then the last one.

The Mad Crab is already a very fast fight with the tier 4 fire, but it's also possible to kill it in one cycle with 3 well timed bombs. This is especially useful in any% no fire wand.

Routing:

In all categories you can try to get a bomb drop from scorpions or lizards on the way to Crypt 2, then get the potion and bombs from the old man on the way to Crypt 1 instead, saving walking time and screen transition time.

In any% no fire wand there is a much faster route to Crypt 2 if you turn north instead of going east to where you would normally get the fire wand. This saves 4 screens.

In any% no fire wand, it is possible to beat Dirth's Illusion with the steel sword instead of exiting to get the strongest sword, but It's a VERY hard fight. It takes 46 hits with the steel sword vs 23 hits with the strongest sword.

TAS strategies:

I discovered some things from making an any% TAS and a no fire wand TAS. Perhaps these could be useful in RTA also.

By holding diagonal directions against a wall, brick, or water's edge, you can walk 4 or 5 pixels closer to that surface. This only works in certain directions. Against an upper wall it works both L to R and R to L. against a lower wall it only works R to L, against a right side wall it only works U to D, and against a left side wall it's not possible at all.

The bell glitch skips playing the melody, saving 2+ seconds. It's frame perfect, and even though I made it happen in 26 times in 2 TASes, it's still a mystery. Here's what I do know. It requires you to be touching a wall or block, so in RTA you might as well touch a wall as you ring the bell to have a chance at getting the glitch. And, it doesn't work when you have an hourglass active. Perhaps the glitch happens because there is a problem with switching between music and the bell melody? Maybe there is an audio cue? Who knows.

Although it's probably TAS only, there are certain frames where you can manipulate item drops and enemy movement with seemingly random combinations of inputs, even pressing select can affect it.

In the TAS I kill Dirth in 4 cycles, hitting him a maximum of 8 times each cycle. This seems like it should be possible in RTA, but it would take a lot of practice.

Lore:

Not really a discovery, but I like knowing the names of things. In the Japanese guide published by Futabasha there are names for all kinds of things.

The four spheres are Southrilia, Megidonia, Aquaramses, and Iscarion. The bosses are Vulcan, Golem, Gargoyle, Seant Beach (no idea), Mad Crab, Tartle Luch (terrible misspelling of Turtle Lich), Crystal Mars, and Reflecter Mask (another misspelling). Even the crypts have names. Gaias, Istom, Darks, Vals, Maima, Karma, Rasma, and Guildom. Of course the enemies have names too, but they're really generic, like "Flyman," "Sheepman," "Griffon Knight" or names that sound cute in Japanese, like the grasshoppers are "batarin."

There is also a 4 page manga that gives a back story. Hundreds of years ago, the high priest Po Ramuel, the swordsman Murdock, and the mage, Raana went on a quest to seal Rafael (Dirth) in Castle Galm in the arctic. Murdock is mentioned in Neutopia 2.

There was going to be a 9th level, "Arctic Castle Galm" but instead some ideas for it were moved to crypt 6 and others were saved for the next game.

Hopefully this info will be useful or interesting to other players in the future. I've been playing this game way too much, so I'm gonna take a break for a while.