So I was contacted by a runner called St4rwave in Twitter and later in Discord, who was interested in running the game but found Any% too long, and we started talking about the possibility of creating a shorter category through NG+.

After consulting it a bit with eekcast we came to an agreement on rules for it. Today, now that I'm home from ESA, I finished writing these rules and added it to the leaderboards, will be doing a run, optimizing the route and making a pastebin for it in the next days, but for now I wanted to open a thread to explain the rules and get any possible feedback:

** - Complete every main game day (every day except Another Day) in any given order. A day is considered complete when the save screen after the end card appears. **

Of course NG+ means starting the days from the phone menu. I don't know if there's any weird order for the days that makes it faster but I'd assume just starting on W1D1 and going through the days as normal works. The saving card clarification is just a universal way to include the credits since it'sthe standard for Any%, and in case they're not the last thing in the run they should be included.

** - Timing starts when selecting any day in the phone menu and ends after saving in the 21st completed day. Check in-game time at the start before selecting a day and subtract it to the in-game time on the last save to get the IGT. **

Just a small clarification on how to count the IGT.

** - All battles that give a results screen must be done on Normal difficulty, except those which are mandatory for progression within the game.**

This almost couldn't have been a rule, honestly doing this in Easy could've worked but there's a reason this rule exists for regular Any%. I tested the only reason you'd want to change difficulty in NG+, and you can die to Taboo Minamimoto just like in NG, which IMO makes the rule worth having.

** - All post-game pins and items are not allowed. You can find a full list of banned items here: https://pastebin.com/aepz7LCi**

This is the main contention point of NG+, since you could just overpower yourself to the max before starting a run and just get a way better time than anybody else. This category should be able to be started right from completing NG, even if you have to prepare a bit before doing so. Anything that could IN THEORY be prepared doing NG is allowed for that reason, while anything that is exclusive to NG+ isn't allowed

** - You may prepare a pin deck and builds for every character in advance.**

Similar to last rule's reasoning. As long as this build in advance doesn't break that rule, it'll be allowed.

** - All characters can not have any base stat above 10, except BRV. **

ATK starts at 10 for every character while DEF starts at 0. The base value doesn't change unless you eat stat-boosting food. Obviously this is a problem for NG+ because you could just boost your attack to the max. Defence, however, doesn't necessarily make any fight faster, only safer, so with this rule anybody who wants to take it safer can prepare beforehand. BRV of course can't be controlled like the other stats but the NG+ equipment ban makes it not worth to be boosted to the max. Base drop rate also doesn't really affect the route in any way.

** - Text skip is allowed.**

Pretty obvious. Hold L or R to go fast.

Finished my pastebin explaining the route and the best build I've come up with for now. This should be the only resource necessary to learn the category. https://pastebin.com/xeJ2S6cf

Unofficially SMASHED the WR tonight by over 13 minutes on my first attempt:

I had 9 out of a possible 24 RNG reapers, BUT I was lucky enough to skip the W2D3 Natural Puppy brand mission!

Deck: Main deck for weeks 1-2 was Tin Pin Thrift, Poison Bones, Dragon Couture, 2x Blue Blood Burns Blue, and One Stroke Vast Wealth (sub). For week 3, I swapped out one BBBB for another OSVW. This was a much different deck than the one used in the WR.

• Tin Pin Thrift is mandatory. +30% final damage for Neku with a single pin is just too good.

• Resonance DC gives +22 pATK to BBBB (111 to 133), and +16 pATK to OSVW (89 to 105). It's debatable if this is worth the pin slot, but I like it.

• Poison Bones should still be in the deck.

• A cure pin shouldn't be needed at all. Each level gives 50 HP, so you could run SOS and still start at a higher HP than the any% run.

• There isn't room for Her Royal Highness. You shouldn't need extra uses, as 2 OSVW is enough for Burst Rounds spam.

That leaves 3 attacking pins:

• While Anguis has 999 pATK, I dislike it being a useless pin for the majority of the fights. I also think it's actually a postgame pin because you don't get an opportunity to use it in any%. But I won't debate that very much when my run doesn't even use it.

• Ice Risers is so-so. It has 100% efficiency and can hit multiple targets, but it only has 43 pATK. It has nowhere near the raw damage potential of OSVW.

• A bunch of fights actually end before the puck can be passed. You need a pin that can dish out massive non-puck damage in under 2 seconds. BBBB fits that bill.

As per NG+ rules, all characters were at 10 base ATK and 0 base DEF at the start of the run. No postgame-exclusive equipment was used. Partners had all 9 ATK stickers. I won't reveal my equipment setup just yet, though! :p

Before I try again, I'm gonna ask for clarification: Is raising base DEF up to 10 allowed? The rules state no base ATK/DEF stat >10, so I want to be very sure about this. It actually does make the run faster, because if a character takes 0 damage from an attack, they don't flinch.

I'm really enjoying routing the NG+ run. Being 2h is a great relief to my sanity over the any% 5h run. I'm quite sure I can go sub-2h.

Equips have mostly been figured out. You want one character to be in SOS at all times. The exception is double SOS for week 1. Out of the 8 equip slots:

• 3 are used for Faster Puck 2 each, to reduce the puck passing time by 75%.
• 2 are used for Puck Power 2 (D+B Ring) & Puck Power 3 (Lavender Lotus), to start the puck at 4.5X.
• Vampire Dress is used on the SOS character, as it has the highest ATK boost in the game if postgame clothes are banned.

So there are 2 equip slots to play with. I have an idea of what's viable, but I'd need to try some more things out.

Now that I have an Any% Normal time, here are my thoughts on NG+:

Because Any% Normal for both DS and FR boost character ATK, I feel the current NG+ rules don't work anymore. Here's my take on what the rules should be:

• Base ATK for Neku ≤13, and ≤22 for the partners. For the maingame, all characters are able to eat 3 hot dogs for +3 ATK. All partners are able to get 9 ATK stickers. DEF should stay at 0 for Neku and 9 for the partners, as there is no reason to increase it.

• All food consumption is banned, except food that only boosts sync.

• As equips can't be sold, all non-postgame equips are allowed.

• All pins can be sold except for the starter pins, so all pins that can be sold should be sold before the run begins. Show an empty pin collection (except for the starter pins) and then start NG+. This means that you'll need to collect certain pins for the wall reapers.

• Premade decks can only have the starter pins before starting NG+.

• All other Any% Normal rules apply.

I feel this ruleset is better because I just one-shotted everything with Blue Blood Burns Blue in Shiki's week, and it felt quite boring. I have no interest in running NG+ again with the current rules, so this category is dead.