Hello everyone!

Important changes for The Legend of Dragoon is upon us all. I have now updated every category's ruleset to include no Save File corruption in some of these.

Firstly a quick note: Some can't menu after warping to the debug room, that's because of ghost saves. More on that later as we find an easy/confirmed method to replicate it. This should work on any console and disc as long as the ghost save data is correct.

Any% (Save file corruptions will be allowed and is now the new Any% speedrunning of this game). This category will have both Legit and Turbo categories separated still as in the old days. The optimal route will be to warp to Disc 4 and do whatever is necessary in your opinion to kill Melbu Frahma. Debug warping to Mayfil and back-tracking seems to be the most optimal way as of now.

Any% Classic is of course the old run we've been seeing for years if anyone is still interested in speedrunning without the debug room galore. Category rule now states that you can not use the save corruptions in your run.

Any% JP will be split for Any% and Classic the same way Legit and Turbo categories are.

Segmented Save file corruption will be allowed henceforth. So enjoy and break the game in pieces if that's what you like to do!

99% No Save File corruption will be allowed for obvious purposes. The purpose is to beat as much of the game as possible as close to perfection as possible.

Faust will be split as well into Any% and Classic once it's confirmed it can be done without issues while using the debug room.

All Bosses will probably follow the same route as 99% by not banning Save Corruption since you need to defeat all the bosses.

New Game+ is a new category that allows ghost saves (previous save data that can interfer with your new game data to warp you anywhere you like; furthest point being before Melbu Frahma).

The run must be performed on the same console to avoid multi console purchases, of course.

I don't know if this will be good or bad news for you. Some might not like that you can instantly warp to Disc 4; so we will have the Classic category still available as it was prior to this discovery.

To perform the Save Corruption into Debug Room:

Pre-requesite: --- Empty your Memory Card in a way that ghost saves are not present. One example is to save 15 times with Metal Gear Solid and then delete those. (Other games should work too, we just don't know which other games also work besides Metal Gear Solid).

1. --- Save in Seles as soon as you can on Save File 1.

2. --- Save in Seles on Save File 2 but RESTART your console ~4.7 seconds into the saving process to not let it finish completely.

3. --- Load up Save File 2 (you will be in the Debug Room)

4. --- Go to Chapter 4/Disc 4 - From the middle go straight down as far as you can, then to the left to enter Mayfil (back-track).

5. --- Once in Zenebatos (or anywhere you want to save) you have to OVERWRITE Save File 1 and RESTART your console ~3.7 seconds into the overwriting process to restore Character's corrupt levels (I recommend selling all items/armed before saving).

6. --- If everything is done correctly you will now be able to beat the game as quick as possible while starting in Disc 4 (or where ever you want).

Optional. You can use this method over and over to dupe the inventory or if you find other clever things to do with this. Don't let the mind stop you. Endless options await us all!

We recently discovered that we can utilize the save anywhere glitch to skip Zenebatos, Mayfil, and Divine Tree. Here is the current Any% route that I believe is going to be THE route. Gold may be tight on this route, so we may end up having to pick up the Rainbow Dress chest in Zenebatos, but I have yet to test it myself. I do want to point out that this route requires 4 frame perfect resets in order to dupe Psyche Bomb, which can be very frustrating. I highly recommend using a metronome to help with this (see Step 65 for details). I will be posting my notes once I have everything fully routed out. Sub 3 hours should be very possible with this route.

1. Get to Seles save point and make a normal save in Slot 1

• You may want to make more than 1 normal save here, as we will be overwriting this save later to fix the Level 0 glitch. Having multiple saves will give you multiple attempts at this.

2. Save in Slot 2 (must be a blank slot) and reset ~4.68 seconds after hitting save

• You have a 20 frame window with 4.68 seconds being the midpoint
• Each attempt must be on a blank slot, so if you fail move down to slot 3, then slot 4, etc.

3. Load Slot 2 and if you timed it correctly you will be in the Debug Room

• If you load in Seles, repeat Step #2 on a new blank slot

4. From Debug Room warp to Mayfil (go to Floor 4 and then straight down to bottom and left exit)
5. Take teleporter to warp to Zenebatos
6. Go to the item shop in Zenebatos
7. Sell 255 + 32 Broad Sword for 2870 gold and buy Charm Potions (need at least 11) 8 ) Save over your normal Seles save and reset ~3.7 seconds after hitting save (this will fix Level 0 glitch)

• See my post below for various possible outcomes. The exact time when you reset will affect your inventory.

9. Load the save file you just made in Zenebatos with 3 Darts

• If your Darts are Level 0, repeat Step #8 (must be over a normal Seles save every attempt)
• If your Darts are level 1, you are good to go! You will be left with either the inventory you had in Seles (no charms) or the inventory you saved with (all charms minus last 9 inventory slots). Either is fine and you can proceed

10. Go back to shop and buy Jade DG Armor, Dark DG Armor, and charms (need at least 11)
11. Take teleporter to warp to Aglis
12. Pick up the Magical Hat and Moon Serenade chests (they are right next to each other)
13. Use Charm Potions to get to Psyche Bomb Challenge without any encounters
14. Use 1x Healing Potion (so you have 3x left)
15. Complete the Psyche Bomb Challenge and get the rest of the party (they will all be min level) -Dart 1, Rose 8, Haschel 13, Albert 15, Meru 17, Kongol 19, Miranda 23
16. Party: Dart, "Kongol", "Miranda" -Miranda must be in the bottom slot. This will give you a slightly bigger window for resetting when duping exp at Windigo
17. Everything will be back to normal at this point (no more level or party glitches)
18. Go get the Psyche Bomb X, but DO NOT KILL KRAKEN -The game will softlock in the Psyche Bomb Challenge room after Kraken because Buckle won't be there to talk
19. After obtaining Psyche Bomb X, continue south and pick up the next chest with 200 Gold
20. Leave Aglis and use the teleporter to warp to Zenebatos (the door will stay open)
21. Fly to Ulara
22. Buy Magical Greaves and Magical Ring (Equip both on Miranda)

• You don't have to do all the Ulara dialogue - you can just go to shop and leave

23. Run to Death Frontier and pick up Bandit's Shoes and Power Down
24. Fly to Fueno
25. Buy Sparkle Dress (Miranda)
26. Buy 3x Healing Potion, 6x Charm Potion, and 20x Burn Out (do not sell Moon Serenade - we will be duping it for gold later)
27. Fly to Deningrad
28. Run to Kashua Glacier
29. Pick up the Heavy Mace chest
30. Pick up the Phoenix Plume chest
31. Equip Rose with Dark DG Armor
32. Equip Haschel with Bandit's Shoes and Phoenix Plume
33. Equip Albert with Jade DG Armor
34. Equip Miranda with Magical Hat
35. Make a normal save in Slot 1 before Windigo but DO NOT OVERWRITE YOUR DEBUG ROOM SAVE (we need to use that save later so do not overwrite it during the run)
36. Kill Windigo (sacrifice Kongol)
37. Equip Haschel with Brass Knuckle (only after 1st Windigo)
38. Go back to the save point and make normal saves in Slots 3-5 (again do not overwrite your Debug Room save)
39. Reset and load Slot 1 (the save you made before Windigo
40. Overwrite Slot 3 and reset at ~3.7 seconds
41. Load Slot 3 and if you timed it right, you will still have the Windigo experience but you will be able to kill Windigo again -If lower level (reset too late), just overwrite the next slot -If higher level and Windigo already killed (reset too early), reset and load Slot 1 again and overwrite the next slot
42. Repeat Steps 36-41 as many times as needed for experience (I think 4 total Windigo kills will be optimal but I haven't tested it yet)
43. Go back to the save point, heal Miranda, and make normal saves in Slots 3-5 (again do not overwrite your Debug Room save)
44. Party: Dart, Kongol, "Rose"
45. Get an encounter on top of the save point (you must be on the save point or this will not work)
46. Die to the encounter (dying over a save point keeps your save flag enabled so you can save anywhere until you enter a room with a save point)
47. Load your Debug Room save
48. From Debug Room warp to Moon (go to Floor 4 and then take the leftmost exit) - this will take you to before Miranda's fight w/ Death Rose
49. Overwrite Slot 3 and reset at ~3.7 seconds
50. Load Slot 3 and if you timed it right, you will have Level 1 Darts
51. If you have Level 0 Darts, reset, reload Slot 1, and repeat Steps 44-50 and overwrite next slot
52. You will be left with 0 gold at this point
53. Pick up the Frozen Jet chest
54. Use 1x Healing Potion on Haschel
55. After Claire cutscene, pick up the hidden 200 gold chest to the left
56. Equip Magical Hat and Magical ring on each character for their Moon fights
57. Heal at the Inn after Haschel's fight
58. Equip Kongol and Albert with Bandit's Shoes for their Moon fights
59. After Kongol's fight, go down the stairs, press switch to open door, and pick up Gold DG Armor chest
60. On Doel Phase 2, use Power Down and Burn Outs
61. Equip Albert with Scale Armor
62. Equip Rose with Clothes
63. Use/sell the rest of your charms
64. Sell Heavy Mace, Brass Knuckle(s), Jade DG Armor, Dark DG Armor, Gold DG Armor, Indora's Axe
65. Dupe Psyche Bomb 4 times to get 16x Psyche Bombs following these steps: -The resets must be frame perfect in order for the dupe to work. I would highly recommend using a metronome to help with the 3.75 second reset timing. The metronome settings I use are 65 BPM, 8/8, Bottle (see link below). If you are consistently missing either early or late, feel free to adjust your BPM (if you are struggling with adjusting the metronome, let me know and I can help). You can also use the metronome to help with the 3.7 second resets earlier in the run (use 66 BPM, 8/8, Bottle). https://metronomer.com/noflash.html
66. Note that duped Pysche Bombs are not kept when used (i.e. if you have 16 P Bombs and use 2 in a fight, you will be left with 14 after the fight), so try to save as many as possible for Melbu
67. Buy Destroyer Mace, Violet DG Armor, Silver DG Armor, and Giganto Ring (Haschel) (need 3100 gold total to buy all) -After buying Destroyer Mace, you can sell the Brass Knuckle you had equipped. Skip Silver DG Armor if you can't afford all
68. Equip Meru with Sparkle Dress
69. After Meru's fight, party: Dart, "Meru", "Miranda"
70. Use Healing Fog on Meru
71. Equip Miranda with Magical Hat, Magical Ring
72. If you couldn't afford Silver DG Armor, equip Miranda with Sparkle Dress
73. Pick up the Gravity Grabber chest
74. Try to run away from the encounter
75. Party: Dart, "Albert", Miranda
76. Addition: Hex Hammer
77. Sacrifice Albert on Super Virage and Zieg
78. Wreck Melbu with Psyche Bombs and Hex Hammers :)

One possible change to the route could be duping experience at Super Virage (15k exp) rather than at Windigo (11k exp). Most of our characters will need experience for their Moon fights so we still need to kill at least 1 or 2 Windigo. However, it might be optimal to do 2 Windigo and 2 Super Virage or something along those lines. I will update this post as we do more testing.

Shoot I might have to get involved in something like this. Love it! Watching eagerly!

Time to derust myself, lets break this game

Tested for 4 hours, can't menu after debug room no matter what I try

I wanted to post some updates here as I have been testing things with the route. I will be updating the post I made above as I continue to try to figure out the most optimal route. One important thing to note that I just discovered is that if you warp to Mayfil from the Debug Room, you cannot kill Kraken. The game will softlock in the Psyche Bomb Challenge room after Kraken because Buckle won't be there to talk. The door to the Zenebatos teleporter will still stay open though, so you can just fix the party, get the Psyche Bomb, and leave. I'm thinking going back to kill Windigo and Lloyd for experience will be worth it. EDIT - You can also kill Kamuy as long as you enter & exit Evergreen Forest on the Furni side (do not enter or exit the forest on the Deningrad side). I believe these three fights will give us the most experience in the least amount of time while also not breaking the game. After killing them, we can just fly to Zenebatos and continue the game normally. I also mapped out the frame-by-frame results for save corruptions, which I listed below. This should be helpful for anyone else attempting to route/run this.

Saving in Seles on blank slot to enter the Debug Room (reset # of frames after hitting save; divide by 60 to convert to seconds): 270 = Too early 271-290 = Debug Room w/ 3 level 0 darts and 255 + 32 Broad Swords 291-292 = Too late - sliding down hill in Seles w/ 1 Level 0 Dart 293+ = Too late

Saving in Aglis over normal Seles save to fix Level 0 glitch (reset # of frames after hitting save; divide by 60 to convert to seconds): 216 = Too early - load in Seles 217-218 = Too early (cant cross bridge), correct levels, Seles armed and inventory 219-220 = Correct levels, Seles armed, Seles inventory 221-224 = Correct levels, Aglis armed, Seles inventory 225-226 = Correct levels, Aglis armed, Aglis inventory (minus last 9 items) 227-230 = Dart Level 0 w/ Broad Swords equipped, Kongol & Miranda correct, Aglis armed, Aglis inventory (minus last 3 items) 231-232 = Dart & Kongol Level 0 w/ Broad Swords equipped, Miranda correct, Aglis armed, Aglis inventory (minus last 3 items) 233+ = Everyone Level 0 w/ Broad Swords

One other thing I wanted to mention is regarding ghost saves. Your memory card can store previously deleted files, and using the Debug Room will sometimes load these previously deleted files. In order to get rid of these ghost save files completely, you must fill up your memory card with saves from another game and then delete them. There may be an easier way to do it, but for now we know that this method does work for getting rid of the ghost save files.

I'll look into it tomorrow.

I have just about every version of the PS2 except for the 30 series. Have both label copies of the game for English and Japanese.

I cannot menu after entering debug room on any of my consoles, I think it's my discs that are the problem for me.

It seems to have everything to do with the memory card and the data you use to wipe the ghost save data! I have a memory card setup that works for me, with some JP castlevania(?) saves and MMX4. I delete everything on my card and add the same back from another card in a certain order, then delete the MMX4 and one of the castlevania saves and it works every time from New Game! Very confusing!

This is something that you have to do at least once with the debug room... It just simply won't get any better than this.

Just wanted to point out that I've updated the route in my original post above. Should be interesting to see what kind of times we can get with this route. Enjoy!