I've been working on and off on adapting my notes into an actual written route, with boss strats and everything necessary.
Also submitted it as a guide but I don't fully trust that what I wrote is good enough, any amount of feedback is appreciated.
Final Remix has inspired me to run the DS version again after many years, and I want to do it while all the stuff is fresh in my head again. There are some new routing ideas that I'd like to try. I can do maybe 4 serious runs in a weekend, and I'll probably work on it for a month or so.
Can't find my prepped saves that I use for practicing specific days anymore, so I'll have to remake them.
Doing some good progress. Apparently my old guide was too safe, so this time I'm routing it with an aggressive plan in mind. My food plan is complete; hamburgers aren't used in the run because +ATK is more important than +HP. I'm trying to align all the instances where food is eaten in order to save time.
My planned run has a budget of ¥282K, with the W1D6 checkpoint at ¥69K and the W2D5 checkpoint at ¥189K. The WR run has the W1D6 and W2D5 checkpoints at ¥79.5K and ¥230K, and doesn't buy anything after W2D5. My planned run will visit shops 3 more times after W2D5. Hmm...
The following is a cheat code to immediately get the "game cleared" sticker, which allows you to fast-forward through the text with L or R. Press UP+SELECT once the game begins on W1D1, and you can blast through the text. It also has the side effect of unlocking all items in shops, so make sure you don't buy something that isn't normally available on that day.
94000130 FFBB0000 D5000000 000102AE D6000000 02072C80 D5000000 000102A7 D6000000 02072C84 D2000000 00000000
EDIT: Eww, looks like forcing the game cleared sticker has a serious consequence: the game no longer gives you any of the one-time items such as Scarletite or tutorial book items, instead replacing them with 500 yen. This includes the phone menu sticker. I've added code to include the phone menu sticker, but I'll have to practice without the code for at least a while until I have saves up for each day. Maybe someone can look into a code that enables text skipping without using the game cleared sticker?
The English wiki doesn't have a shop list with availability dates. Use https://wiki.denfaminicogamer.jp/subarashiki_final_remix/%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7 to find out when stuff is available. (Last column is availability date. If you don't know the items in Japanese, use the 3rd column, cost, to figure it out.)
I've been spoiled by Final Remix, because I had forgotten how brutal DS hard is. While I could do W2D2 Tektite farming on hard in FR, I can't do it reliably on DS without lengthy cheese. DS hard (0.61) is significantly tougher than FR hard (0.9375), and Joshua is awful, only dealing 8hp x puck with his finisher. Enemies also have 2x efficiency, which means they usually deal more than 2x damage because Neku has very low DEF.
Due to Shiki's much higher damage output on W1D6, especially against decaravens with her air finisher, I'll move the rare metal farming back to W1D6 and keep the Pop Pendulum fights where they are, as Neku with Burst Rounds has much higher DPS than whatever you have on W2D2.
Note that rare metal isn't dropped by any of the decaravens in the Cornix Canor fight.
Currently routing week 3.
Fuck Uzuki. She is still a monster, especially when trying to beat her with no heals. I've made a special deck without OSMB just for her and my PB is 35 seconds, but she can still RNG you into a game over. I am practicing the Uzuki fight a LOT, because the run lives or dies by that fight alone. I don't feel any of the other fights are too difficult.
Finished my first serious test run. Overall I'm semi-happy with it, but I'm still rusty, and my Shiki/Joshua splits could be a bit better.
IGT splits: Shiki: 0h05, 18, 38, 48, 1h01, 20, 29 Joshua: 1h34, 46, 2h05, 22, 36, 43, 51 Beat: 2h59, 3h06, 14, 28, 37, 42, 4h05 W3 RNG bounties: 5 Game overs: 3
I tried putting SOS clothes on Neku, starting on W2D5 with Sun Emperor. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough at the game to consistently beat the W3 bosses with no heals, especially all 3 Uzuki fights and Kitaniji. DEF break is a total killer. Very happy with W3D7: I cleared Draco Cantus in 34 seconds.
Overall I think SOS can be great in the hands of an amazing player, and it can definitely go sub-4h, but it's way too risky for me. I also have another idea that I want to try out first, which might be better than SOS.
Was that 4:05 segmented (or rather, not in one sitting)? It's a pretty decent time and would be close to sub 5 RTA, so this route may be pretty fast. I may give it a try and go for a lower WR, although I feel like the only fights that can be more optimized to save a non-trivial amount of time are the final gauntlet in W3D7.
I did it "one sitting" in the sense that I didn't retry any days. However, I saved after each day and took a short break after each week, so that's why I didn't submit it. I'll do an actual live run on Twitch when I'm ready.
Even though I did Beat's week in 1h14, I still feel it's the least optimized and that I can shave some more time off it. W3D4 is the most important day to optimize because it has 11 fights. I feel it can be done in 12 minutes IGT. For Shiki's week, I'm going to cut some fights out of it, especially the 4-chain raven fight because I don't need lots of rare metal anymore.
EDIT: Just finished routing my new strategy. Can't wait to try it out, though I'm pushing the boundary of available budget: ¥304k by W3D2. I needed to trim quite a few things to even get it there.
EDIT 2: Finished W3D7 in 32:16 real-time, which is 3 minutes faster than the WR split of 35:16. Gonna polish up the other days, but this is looking great.
EDIT 3: This new run isn't exclusively SOS from W2D5+. However, it still picks up Tin Pin Thrift, because ATK +30% for free is still fantastic. Poison Bones' DEF Break is equivalent to ATK +20%, and it's used for the entire game. I just feel Tin Pin Thrift works well by itself without requiring Sun Emperor or Camouflage. Tin Pin Thrift is retired at a specific point, but I'll reveal it once I'm certain this route is faster.
I don't feel Sun Emperor has a place in the run because farming 9 RM for 3 Tektite is a buzzkill, and it'd have to replace Purple Sneaks. (The other slots are hat + top + accessory, all of which provide equal or better ATK for less money.) My new routing uses 0 Tektite and I'd like to keep it that way. (Saving 10-15 sec on Sho with the Joshua Lv3 fusion isn't worth the money and time loss for 1 Tektite.)
I hate how a run can randomly die on W1D4 because enough money pins didn't drop. You need 3 ¥500 drops on D3, and 2 ¥1000 drops on D4.
You fight up to 12 wolves for the ¥500 drops, and the drop rate is 15-45% depending on the LVG. There is an outside shot of whiffing this, but it's rare.
On D4, you're at Lv3, so there's a 19% chance of the ¥1000 drops whiffing, unless you fight the pig at 104. That pig provides 200 EXP, which should give you a level up. The pigs on D3 don't provide any EXP, so the 2nd pig (at Shibukyu) should be skipped in favor of the 104 pig on D4. A safe run would fight this pig, while a risky run would skip it. The WR played risky.
EDIT: After missing the ¥1000 drop for the third time, I've had enough. I'm incorporating the D4 104 pig into the run. The D4 104 pig is a time loss of about 15 seconds, but has these benefits:
- Puts you at Lv4, thus guaranteeing the ¥1000 pin drops at Lv1 for the Scramble wall
- Acts as a safety buffer in case you don't get the shark boss ¥5000 drop (80%). Without it, you don't have enough shopping money for D5.
- Eliminates controllable RNG uncertainty. (The only RNG that should be in this run, due to its length, are the brand missions and W3 reaper bounties.)
@Gippy have you been updating Herreteman's notes with your new findings? Because it said it was updated three months ago.
@Herreteman this is the most recent run of yours: Am I correct?
I'm wanting to learn this speed run to the point where it takes at least a 6 hours to run it in 4 days. I want to submit it to RPG Limit Break because I believe people should experience it as it was meant to be. I very much believe it was a game meant for the DS.
But if I don't make it in this year, I will try for next year. People want to re-experience a game they played a year ago in a new way right?
Thanks for any information you can provide.
AFAIK there haven't been any conclusive faster new strats that Gippy has posted, so I haven't really tried to add them to my notes or try to do a run with them. Either way, 6 hours with current strats is a pretty realistic milestone, it's not hard at all to achieve, gl learning and gl with RPGLB submissions!
Do you have a partner on "take over if I'm not looking" FAST?
Also what do you mean by this?:
"Tutorial battles // For these battles, whenever Shiki doesn't have puck, cancel her combos early by pressing any other direction. // This makes it so you can get more damage while waiting for puck or pin reboot, and will ultimately make the fights faster. // On Neku's side, just use all the pin gauge whenever you can."
@Herreteman Thanks for your reply and for the luck.
I only check SRC twice a day so if you need a quick reply send me a DM on Discord or a whisper on Twitch,
The tutorial fights thing basically says that during a normal combo with Shiki, pressing any direction but the one she's currently using to attack will cancel the combo. It's faster to start and cancel combos for damage than finishing them if she doesn't have the light puck.
I don't understand the first question ¯_(ツ)_/¯
You can set the partner (Shiki, Josh, Beat) to "Manual, slow, medium, fast". Manual is you control the upper screen person yourself, the others the AI takes over for battling the enemies. So should I have it set to manual?
Also if I'm low on the cash required to buy some stuff, can I set the difficulty to "Easy" for a battle to get cash? I have no idea why I'm like 10k-5,000 short all the time...
Well I got it in, 6 hours 2 m in game time...after credits split was 6:53:43 technically, even though the blue at the end shows a second later. I didn't know just hitting split at the end of your splits would stop the timer ^_^;.
Doubt it'll get accepted because someone submitted the Switch one that takes less time.
I'd link my video, but...eh it's pretty uh...nah.
I had a bout of pneumonia in December that stopped me from doing the run. I'll give it another try next month or in March. There's no rush.
Fairly sure that I have a new routing that beats the current WR. The Goth Bondage Coat for week 3 strategy used in Switch actually works in DS, but with a twist: it's put on Beat. I have the whole thing routed, just need to practice it. It uses 15 rare metal and 0 tektite. (The 2 tektite needed for GBC is obtained from the W3D1 pigs.) Joshua's level 3 fusion isn't needed for Sho: getting the rare metal + tektite for it eats up too much time. Instead, Tin Pin Thrift is obtained so that you can clear Pork City faster, and clear Sho with a level 2 fusion. Tin Pin Thrift is out of the deck once GBC is obtained.
@Gippy If you need 15 rare metals for that coat, then don't you need to farm still? How is it cut out of the route? I agree that Joshua level 3 fusion isn't needed for Sho, even if you use the current setup. Tin Pin Thrift sounds risky...
Also do you have notes for this new route by chance?
Rare metal:
3: Biker Jacket 1: Shiki ATK sticker 3: Definitivo Chili Dog 2: Extra Slot 6: King Pendant If you have 3 extra rare metal after getting the King Pendant, you can get both of Beat's ATK stickers.
Goth Bondage Coat requires Vampire Dress (bought), 2 Tektite (from W3D1 pigs), and a Sleek Silk (obtained for free).
There should only be a single case of farming: a 4-chain on W1D6. You get most of the rare metal here, and the rest on the required 3-chain on W1D7 (do this mission at Scramble Crossing instead of Hachiko).
I do have notes but I would rather release them after I make my attempt.
Tried a run today, got an IGT of 3h59!
IGT splits: Shiki: 0h05, 18, 36, 47, 59, 1h17, 25 (1h25) Joshua: 1h30, 42, 2h01, 18, 33, 40, 48 (1h23) Beat: 2h56, 3h04, 12, 26, 33, 39, 59 (1h11)
My Joshua splits aren't that great, and I could probably save time with less menuing. It seems that running Tin Pin Thrift in W2D6 and W2D7 doesn't really help much at all. You still want to do it, but because most enemies die in one 3.5X+ puck shot anyway, it's not much of a timesaver except against Sho. However, running Tin Pin Thrift for the final 2 fights helps a bunch: Draco Cantus was cleared in 1:09.53 in the WR, but just 37.08 in my run.
Once I feel I can do this consistently I'll film and submit it.
