The arcade difficulty ranges from 1-8, with the default being 4.

Chronicles of Mystara has four difficulty options, Weakling, Apprentice, Knight, and Master, with the default being Apprentice.

I was wondering which difficulty in the arcade version matched up best with Apprentice, and if it is allowed to change the arcade difficulty to match the Apprentice difficulty.

The reason for this question is the Elf has an arcade exclusive glitch that lets you skip the Mud Golem fight by using Ice Storm or Cloud Kill at the start of the fight, and this glitch doesn't seem to be present in Chronicles of Mystara, presumably due to the way the cutscenes seem sped up.

I will check the difference in difficulty between the arcade version and CoM at a later date and write again.

The usefulness of skipping the mud golem is questionable for the following reasons

During the cutscene the elf is defeated by the mud golem. The game is over and the player loses items, including magic weapons and the Gauntlet of Ogre Power.

The strategy of losing items including game over should not conform to a quick clear, so I was not concerned about the difference between platforms.

I'd like to know this too! it'd be interesting to see the differences between arcade and CoM (of course I did try the mud golem skip and was disappointed in CoM!).

Also congratulations on the WR and thank you for the guide!

I didn't realize this couldn't be done in Chronicles! I've done it in multiplayer over Fightcade previously and I just assumed it worked in CoM as well...

As for difficulty differences; the only clear difference I ever saw between arcade level 8 and CoM Master difficulty were the amount of skeletons the shadow elf has during the refight in Sable Tower (Master mode had fewer if I remember correctly). Hard to align the difficulties when Master mode isn't even difficulty-8. I really wish they were 1:1!

On CoM Apprentice, Lich summons two zombies per Animate Undead. Arcade default (level-4) Lich summons three. I'm not sure which difficulty below arcade default reduces the zombie summons to two but that'll probably be the one that is closest to Apprentice. Unless it was just an arbitrary CoM change in the first place haha.

In the original version of LEVEL 4, the first stage ogre leader had two skeletons. This indicated that CoM's apprentice was a difficulty that did not exist in the original.

CoM also fixes a freezing bug that occurs in combat with the Black Dragon. However, it is wise to avoid this bug during speedruns, as it extends the time that the Black Dragon will fall if the conditions for the bug are met. Condition of the bug: Defeat the Black Dragon at the moment it spits out its breath.

In the meantime, the "CoM I am planning to prepare three leaderboards: "CoM", "ミスタラ英雄戦記" (PS3), and "Arcade and Emulator".