(Putting this back up here because of the rollback.)

Hey all! Just wanted to let you know that I posted my route notes and running guide for anyone to use. It is quite extensive, so I imagine anyone wanting to or currently running the game might be able to find something of use in it.

My current run of it is up on Twitch and has a great many mistakes in it, so you can use that for comparison, I guess. (I'm still not used to running it on a original NDS.) I'll be experimenting with changes to some areas of it, mostly around involving which equipment is purchased.

If you see anything about it that you would suggest changing, feel free to comment on it. In the meantime, I'm off to work on Rune Factory 2 for a while. (If anyone's interested, I can put up my incomplete notes for it as well.)

Alright, so I've done some testing results tell me that I won't be getting anywhere with changing the equipment purchased during the run. The skim amount of money provided by selling off the lumber from the adventure contest can be a lot, but the amount gained is slim. I briefly considered trying to upgrade the watering can once for the large damage boost the charge level provides, but one has to reach at least mining level 2 to even find Iron. That on its own takes too much time.

I'll continue to try and see if either of these methods produce anything of value, but I think using the Wolf for the damage output is the only one that works speed-wise. (A hit from the wolf is just a bit lower than that of the watering can and it's speed results in a higher damage per second.)

I'll update the guide with this information when I get the chance.

I think it's an All Bosses run, but there's a run on Nicolive that uses a cooking glitch to make 100k G. If you put a weed in a certain spot in your inventory, use the touch screen to hover it over an ingredient slot in the Kitchen, then press A, you get a glitched dish that sells for ~100k G.

(Happens around ~7:15): www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm33232798

Can also press L+Select on the final frame of a "Return to Dungeon Entrance" warp, then go through a door for the same invincibility glitch as being pushed up stairs during the animation. It is hard to do consistently, but it would really only be needed for a quicker / easier first half of Greed Cave

Thank you for finding this! I mean, if we can figure this out then we can cut the whole sleeping part from the run! ...Now if I can just figure out how this thing works. I may have to take a while translating it to get a sure answer, but quick testing has showed me that something is going on with how it won't let you place items in a slot already occupied.

I'll be working on trying to get a hang of these two glitches. I'll keep you updated with what I find!

As I've been working with these glitches, I've gotten the Cooking Glitch to work, but only on a Japanese ROM. It seems to have been patched out in the year it took to produce the USA version.

It seems to be a form of memory exploitation. The spot in question (one down, four over, third page) rewards a Sashimi (of some kind) that heals a bit, restores a bit of RP, does some rather strange modifications to your stats, and provides some elemental damage and resist. The actual point of interest is that it is level 229 and sells for 107,630 gold. The item used for duplication does not seem to matter- it can be a rock, a weed, a branch, or your watering can. Having an item on the first page is not required and the glitch only seems to happen on the third page, but having the item there helps visually. Raguna's cooking level also doesn't seem to have any effect on this.

The spots give: Level 1 Turnip, N/A, N/A, N/A, Level 4 Tomato Level 3 Turnip, Level 3 Eggplant, Strawberry before and nothing now, Level 229 Sashimi, Crashes game Level 11 Yam, Level 7 Onion, Level 17 Strawberry, Level 17 Grapes, Level 9 Strawberry

One time, I got eight of the Sashimis from one weed with a strawberry on its left; however, I can't seem to replicate those results.

All in all, it works, but I remembered that we still need 100 wood for the barn, for the wolf, for the Greed Cave entrance. If you wanted to take those minutes saved by not sleeping until Summer 26th, get mining to 2, get enough iron to upgrade the Axe from Bianca, and then chop stumps or branches as necessary, you could still do the run without the Adventure Contest...and you'd need to do it on the JPN version.

I haven't got that last frame warp to work yet, but I plan on testing it in BizHawk. If figured out, it would trivialize all the combat in the run. I also read where someone said you could rarely start walking on water with your Wolf, but I haven't confirmed that either.

I'll try to get some instructions and maybe a video made for it tomorrow. If you want them now for a run, I can go ahead and write up a quick and dirty version. (Also, thanks again for finding this!)

Thanks for testing this. I was doing some timings, and the axe upgrade should be ~3-4 minutes faster than sleeping to Summer 26, if you have good mining luck. The Greater Daemon split is around 7-8 minutes faster, getting the wolf breaks even at worst, and Greed Cave / finishing the game is 2-3 minutes faster if you can get invincibility with a warp spell.

Sub-40 should be possible now, but I think we need to skip clearing Carmite and/or getting the wolf to break 30 minutes. You can use pausing and the L+Select menu to get a few pixels closer to the Greed Cave loading zone, but I wasn't able to trigger it (on the JP version, at least). I doubt it would be different on US/PAL, but we wouldn't have to money glitch for HP restoring and better weapons

This is a rough route I was working on: https://pastebin.com/c5fnqypJ

The route's looking great! Now that I've taken care of everything else for the day, I can get to work on writing up the Cooking Glitch technique and doing frame-by-frame testing in emulation. I'm not sure if I'll get to a video just tonight, considering the oncoming storm, but I'll try and get a short guide to applying the Cooking Glitch.

I'm really happy to hear that just doing the axe upgrade can make some positive changes. I've always been searching for a way to enter the Greed Cave at the earliest possible convenience and I'll see if it is possible to use L+Select to pass through the barrier. (Maybe it's just because I seem to be bad at counting to 100.) I'll check both versions, but at this point JP may be more useful for just the Cooking Glitch, let alone the faster dialogue.

Considering the circumstances, I'm wondering how hard it would be to get two more pieces of iron for an upgraded watering can. I don't remember how powerful the 2nd tier can was, but I do remember that it charge attack seemed to have a high multiplier. Regardless, I think saving some of the glitched sashimi for its bonus water damage could help (anything to get the shifts out of the way quickly would be nice).

Edit: An Update- I've modified the guide to include a short instructional on doing the Cooking Glitch, as well as an extra, very fast method to generate eight more mystery sashimi. I'm currently working on doing a video for it now.

Also, would it be worth considering adding the healing potions to the route? They make good healing in a pinch, for safety's sake, even if they are slow to get.

Back with another update!

I've made a run with the new route notes, and given how it got 2nd place with all of my mistakes, it just shows how much faster this new route is. I'll be trying to run it some more and push that time lower on the emulator while I wait on getting my JP copy of the game (got lucky and found one in the states at a bargain).

I'll be working on doing a rewrite of the guide specifically for the JP version as having the Battle Axe and War Hammer makes the gameplay so much more different. On this note, I found that bothering to get the hammer from Leo is unnecessary and my belief that you had to be at mining level 2 to obtain Iron was founded only on bad luck in testing on my part. Also, the medicine bottles are unnecessary, but they really can help when it comes to fighting the Greater Daemon.

When you buy the War Hammer, use it to smash rocks in Toros Cave only. Unless it was bad luck again, I could not for the life of me obtain a piece of Iron from the Carmite Caves. Use the Battle Axe to make short work of everything and chop branches along the way (every 10 means one less stump to chop later). Also, the Battle Axe charge seems to do well against shifts, but I still haven't tested a run with the watering can.

Also, I finally made that video for the Cooking Glitch! I narrated it (with captions in case my accent/drawl is too thick) and it covers the secondary method I mentioned that makes 8 glitch sashimi at a time. It's on my YT and I put a link to it in the Any% Guide for easy reference. I think I've covered everything there seems to be worth noting about it here and in the video, but if there's any more questions about it, I can probably answer. (I didn't note it well in the video, but the item in the first slot of the inventory only helps for visualization.)

(Final, off topic note. I may try streaming at some point soon, though it'll need to be late midnight, UTC-4 timezone where I'm at. I may do some of the stuff regarding RF1 or I might show off some of the routing I've been working on for RF2, it just depends on what people want to see.)

Another short update covering some new things I've found:

With the need to reach 0:00 on the clock, it has become much harder to lose time on tilling the 100 squares for the pass. In most of my runs, I'm done with tilling and collecting items for selling by only 11:00. I spend the extra time laying out branches to chop later.

Sleeping in the bed at least once is required to have the De Sainte Coquille family appear. This is necessary for the axe, but not for the glove (Tabatha is waiting around there anyways.)

I believe that buying the Steel Sword/Windsword from Leo on the same visit you get the upgraded Axe will make faster work of Grimoire than the Battle Axe, suggesting you have enough levels. Getting enough level-ups is where my current run didn't do so well.

Regarding My Guides: I'm currently rewriting my guide into two different ones, one that functions on any version (the old route), and the JP version only route (current competitive route). I'll have them up in not too long, given that I'll just be splitting up the old guide and writing a few new parts. I'll also include the raw text notes I used for my recent run, (it can still reach sub-50 with a tad more optimization and less goofs).

I'll probably be heading off to working on RF2 for the next while or so. I burnt myself out pretty hard trying to get the world record, but I'll still be checking in here to update my guides and discuss new routes.

I'm back again to note that I've added a new guide, one specifically for the JP version! I moved the Cooking Glitch guide there as it would make more sense than sitting it next to a run based on the US version. It should explain most questions about the run and highlights every part of the route I used for the WR.

On that note, I recently got my physical cartridge JP copy of the game, so I can now run that on original hardware again. As to the run, I've given it a few more shots, but the best one (would have been about a tie to my current run) was ended pretty short by abysmal luck in Toros Cave. Out of every single rock in the dungeon, I only got two Iron. RNG has become a major factor aside from boss behavior, it seems. I've discovered that if you can get a total of 7 iron, make the Tinplate Watering Can and use that against the shifts, it does about 50-60 damage on a level two charge. I don't know if it would save any time given that you'll need to wait at least another ~3 minutes, but it's something.

But, yeah, until we find a way to nullify the need of either Carmite Cave or the Wolf, the run's still probably upper 40's with best possible RNG and perfect execution. If we could only somehow glitch in key items...

On to other news! I'd like to hand out an overdue welcome to @enu, who's been burning through Frontier's times and did a recent run for RF1! I'm watching to see how far you push this game, fellow runner!

Following that, @DezertPenguin8, I'd like to know when you plan on streaming the RF series again. I just barely missed you last time, and I'd have loved to see it live. (I woke up early just a few minutes after you'd started. If I had checked my computer before going back to sleep, I would've seen ya!)

Also following that, I'll be preparing to see if I can do a test run of RF2 live (just the 1st Gen) either Sunday or Monday. Just gotta sort out some issues I'm having getting the stream to function. I'll probably put a post in the thread I made there if I get it working.

Back with an actually short update! Since the RF2 stream last Sunday, I've had my hands a bit full with other stuff, so I haven't got around to even thinking about RF1 or RF2. I'm still around, just held back some. The guide for Any Version still needs some revisions in regards to recent finds and I'll be getting to that. My focus is still on RF2 for now, but I'll keep on trying to make improvements on this route, (I've been thinking about trying to apply RNG manipulation).

Aside from that, just wanted to give another thanks to @DezertPenguin8 for hosting me during that stream! It was a great surprise and really made the stream for me. I'm not the most vocally excited person around (can't even yell that loud,) so I just wanted to make sure you know I did appreciate that. I hope I was entertaining enough for your viewers!

Back with another set of announcements! (Just trying to keep an update going roughly every week or so.)

Routing Rune Factory 2 so much got me to thinking about doing a Marriage% run for RF1, so I've been writing up the routes for all the bachelorettes (and subsequently neglecting the Any% any version guide). They all mimic the majority of the standard run (most up to Toros Cave), while bringing back the dearly missed nearly 2 month wait for the Adventure Contest. (I mean, I suppose you could chop 2000 wood, but I haven't even got around to considering if that would be faster.)

I believe Rosetta or Lara will end up being the fastest, using the Cooking Glitch to produce all money and Strawberries needed. The only run I think that will tie between languages would be Mei, and that's just because you'll have to do a lot of fishing anyhow (I've theorized that fishing would be the fastest way to make money on the US/PAL version).

On the other side of things, I will try to get a stream in this weekend considering I missed it last Sunday. RF2 was nice to do, but unless I feel like trying to demonstrate what I have for the 2nd Gen, I'll probably just run RF1 or maybe something else. (I've got some other games I'd love to show off sometime, just got to get around to them.)

Time for a new update!

So @enu has just completely cut the time for this game, just like they did with Frontier. Apparently, you can both skip Carmite and Toros, as well as get the invincibility glitch (as @DezertPenguin8 noted before) with the screenshot function. I guess it's time to start practicing frame perfect strats? Maybe there's just an easy way to do these? I suppose I'll get to figuring it out and update the guide with the new route.

I guess its time for me to start running RF1 again.

(On the usual side note, I'd be trying to stream, but I've been way too tired lately to get around to it. I don't drink caffeine anymore, so it's kinda difficult for me to stay awake that late. Apologies!)

Back with another quick update!

@enu has again brought the time down even further to the point where we don't even have to get the Carmite Pass anymore. (No more tilling 100 tiles, hurrah!) The strategy for pulling these off really does seem to be just pause buffering and using the screenshot command to move further through the event barriers. From my attempts at it, the Carmite Cave is nearly, if not, frame perfect while Greed Cave is a little less so.

I did discover that you can screenshot buffer your way into Carmite Cave even while Mist's tutorial is still active. I didn't test the full repercussions of doing it, but time won't move until you go back to the farm and do it. That could possibly save a fraction of time (that's what we're down to now), but it's still incredibly difficult.

I'll try to have the new guide up in the next few days. I'm still mostly working on RF2 and a run for an entirely new game.

Getting into Carmite before clearing Mist's tutorial makes all deaths take you to the title screen, and I couldn't manage to buffer into the town, seems like the whole loading zone was changed to a textbox trigger.

I've been working on some notes, selling at the Clinic instead of the 12:00 PM shop should save 2-3 minutes. I think sub-15 is the limit, we'd have to find some new stuff to get a sub-10 https://pastebin.com/bx2crMFX

Edit: I assumed his sub-20 was still using the 12:00 PM shop to buy food for the higher damage buff, but it's virtually the same as those notes. Sub-20 was probably the last big milestone, just a matter of fully optimizing the EXP route now

I figure the game treats you as inside a dungeon until the tutorial is completed, probably because of the orc spawn. It's a shame, it might've been really useful to skip the dialogue by just taking hits from the orc until you could manage to pass out. On that note, the only place I could glitch into during the intro was Carmite as well, (which makes sense given that it's trigger is the same as it usually is.)

(Oh, and the screenshot glitches work on the English version as well.)

Given that my route notes are nearly the same as yours at this point, I have to agree that the run really is down to just grouping the enemies up right to get just enough EXP off them to speed up the fight against Grimoire. After we figure out which combination gives us the maximum possible levels, it's just down to precise optimization at that point.

On the off hand, I've done a little work on the Marriage% route, but it's mostly straightforward. It doesn't get any more complicated than glitch in strawberries and tons of money, befriend Jean (Rosetta) or Wesley (Lara) to FP 3, sleeping to the Adventure Contest, and buying stuff from Ivan. For Lara, you just have to make sure you can get access to the third cave (and no passing out) while Rosetta is simply just being able to enter Toros Cave. Everyone else is either just dedicated grinding, and in the case of Mist, just a normal run with a bunch of turnips (and tilling) at the end. I can do a run of it sometime if you think that it'd make a good category.

Wanted to pop on by with some other little things I've found regarding the cooking glitch.

Apparently, the other utensils have different results, but either the game day or the number of utensils affects the rate at which certain spots will crash your game (requiring power off- no reset). With the blender, you can make some sort of medicine in the usual magic spot (level 200 and worth 164,000 gold, no visible effect on use), and one of the spots lets you make a level 94 Turnip. All the other spots either don't work or crash the game. Fun!

The kitchen knife really only makes some kind of juice, either Pineapple or Apple. The frying pan only makes an eggplant in one of its spots, I forget which. Nearly all of their other spots don't function or instant-crashes the game. Curiously, having these utensils does something to the normal kitchen table, rendering most of its spots crashes as well. It would be a lot better if I actually knew what data I was modifying when we do this, but oh well.

I'll try testing if the forge does anything and I'll update my findings here. Though it wouldn't be too useful, it'd be interesting to see what weapons come out as result! (Oh, and I'm getting better at the Carmite entry as well!)

Hm. It seems I've found a bit of a snag: the cooking glitch seems to function differently on emulators. I've done some hours of testing and I cannot for the life of me recreate the effects that I listed far above with the cooking glitch on my physical copy of the game. In all cases, I can get the sashimi to appear as usual, and some cases the onion and the second row turnip will come through fine, but the strawberries and tomato (two items I need for my current route) refuse to do anything other than crash my game time and time again.

On the emulator, all of these go through fine. I've tried matching up as many possible variables between the two as I can, (times, people met, tiles tilled, names, etc.,) but nothing seems to change the outcomes. The only thing of note that I can say is that when I do spawn the strawberries and tomatoes, the top screen flickers on the emulator (as well as the season symbol) while it just freezes my physical copy. The only thing I can imagine is that DeSmuMe is stabilizing the ROM and stopping the freezing.

Well, until I figure this out, the Lara/Rosetta runs are pretty much gone. I'll have to go back to routing one of the other bachelorettes now. (I do suppose this explains the crashes on the other utensils as well.)

Hey, it's been a while!

It'll be a while before I get to working on my guides again as I've currently got a lot going on in my life right now. It'll be a while before my schedule clears up, so it's likely they'll be outdated for a while longer. I may get a Marriage% run done at some point soon (really not that much to it, I'm just low on time currently.)

I'll probably do the Lara/Rosetta as separate runs just to show what they would be just in case someone manages what to find out what determines the results of the cooking glitch. Until I can recreate the effects on the original cartridge, it'll be emulator only and not really fair to those who play on original hardware.

Until then!

I should probably make a new thread for some of this stuff, but I wanted to give a quick run-through of the various stuff I've found in the meantime.

• The Cooking Glitch is actually really simple compared to what I used to think was involved. You've only got to hit A once while in just the general vicinity of the crafting bar. The sashimi will be there regardless.

• I've gotten extended versions of the Cooking Glitch to work on hardware. This is mostly in part to me forgetting a specific factor in the situation that wasn't immediately obvious, but yeah. I've so far documented about half of what it can do, and will get around to the rest later.

• Marriage% is most definitely possible now, though I'm still fully reworking the details. Whether or not we want a category for each bachelorette is something we'll have to consider though. The current devised routes are for Felicity, Lara, and Rosetta. I know theoretically what can be done for the others, but I've been focusing these three.

• I've no clue if Mist simply requires you to have triggered the credits, or her requirement is actually something more arbitrary like having the Greed Cave Pass.

• Everyone has a specific position on each festival, per festival. I'm working on documenting all of them soon.

• The Carmite Cave pass is required to do the Adventure Contest. I suppose that makes sense, but I'd almost figured they wouldn't have bothered. Eh, tilling 100 tiles really isn't that bad and makes passing out easier.

• Bosses defeated and story progression seem to be stored separately. Unfortunately, this means no sequence breaking the game back in time.

• Doing the Cooking Glitch backwards is a thing, but, er, it doesn't really do much so far but just reveal some oddities in the programming. I call it Reverse Cooking Glitch because I suppose that makes it sound cooler than it is for now.

• Eating food that lowers RP when it would send you under zero does underflow. It's effectively infinite, but crashes the game on triggering map transitions or opening a menu.

• The orc in the intro does so little damage to you compared to the others for a reason. Aside from it's lower HP values, the intro also gives you a defense buff.

• Using the start button once to buffer the Invincibility Glitch makes it far easier, though it is still very possible to land the exact frame without needing it.

• Occasionally when mashing inputs for eating, hitting a specific frame seems to eat the next item in the stack as well, instantly. You can do this for picking up items too, but it just duplicates the sound.

• Some villagers behave oddly based on seeing events. For instance, if you enter Carmite on a Holiday and trigger Ivan's event to give you the detector, he disappears for the rest of that day. It's odd. If you enter Leo's on a rainy day, he'll still be there after the cutscene and functions as normal.

• Based on some rough calculations, the Claymore has the highest base DPS on basic attacks of the basic weapons. In the case of it vs. Battle Axe, the Claymore will deal more damage over time and consumes less HP/RP provided the target doesn't have too high of defense. Charged Battle Axe is still supreme at destroying the shifts given their high defensive values.

• When charging a weapon, you can hear the charging noise start before the weapon itself is actually charged. That tripped me up way too much. There's still a frame or so just before the visual effect shows that the charge is fully functional at, but it's a lot safer to just wait on the visual.

• The biggest enemy to Any% is the RNG, I think. Damage variation, misses, enemies resisting topples, and Grimoire's AI.

• You can lose full seconds to mashing through dialogue.

• The R button on my DS is very worn out now.

• I will actually get out some new notes and a glitch guide sometime here soon. I really need to take a break for a day or two after that grind.