I was optimizing the TAS for this game and I came across a new route that should bring the time down to 51/50 ish seconds with a good wizard fight.
AI behavior is seeded to some degree based on frame entry from the title screens. One in particular has the AI cast the imprison spell in lieu of a fight. The spell is way faster than a second battle.
Note that this is optimized for TAS (final input) so you'll still want to end the fight as close to the end spot as possible.
Enjoy!
How does the end timing work on this? The rules say the moment your piece is placed on the final power point square, but you aren't moving a piece to win, you are finishing a battle. Is it the moment the pieces spawn back on the board? They don't all spawn back in at the same time, so when all of them are present? I think that is the moment the music changes.
Or, should the timing end the moment "The game is ended..." appears a the bottom of the screen?
Or is the game over the moment of the last input? Before this route, the times pretty much ended on the last input of putting the goblin on the power point square, but now that the game ends with a battle it is hard to gauge where the final stopping point is.
I would suggest that timing starts the first frame the cursor moves and ends the first frame "the game is ended..." appears. I also think that the timing should go to milliseconds since the top times are all going to be very close to each other.
