The core of this game is to go through the in-game events as quickly as possible and beat the necessary duelists one by one. Been trying to play around and route this game, my issue with an Any% run is that it’s inevitably hours of grinding for levels. It’s just kind’ve boring and monotonous after some point.

So for a completely arbitrary category, I’d like to suggest a run where the player would start with the max levels possible, and literally all the cards in the game. So the run would be greatly simplified from Any%. And yes, for this arbitrary run I’m saying we use action replay cheats to make this possible, and ONLY this much possible. No instant win cheats or others would be allowed.

If you cut out all the grinding for levels you have to do playing normally, there’s a total of 55 duels to go through, and with over 13,000 cards unlocked there’s plenty of choices for anyone to tackle the run how they see fit. It’s still roughly a 5 hour run give or take, and the player would have to have the game knowledge to trigger all the necessary events and win duels quickly.

Yea with Easy, you obv go thru the game faster but you get less stat points overall. I think for the tutorial, it goes 75 - 100 -125 for Easy, Medium, and Hard individually. There are a ton of little things I know about this game lol. Might post a wall of stuff on on it some day

I speedrun a couple GBA games, but played this a ton as a kid. May or may not ask a few questions, but would it be illegal to start at a higher difficulty, and then switch to easy? IIRC doing the tutorial on hard gives more stat points.

I'll do KoG when I go insane lmao

You'd prolly have to save in-game constantly to get all the cards, complete events, exams, etc. Will definitely run more card games tho :)

Glad I made a thread a while ago :) this was the main reason I switched to BGB. If you ever wanna add 2 seconds or so per reset at some point that's cool as well. Reset like 6 times, so clear difference from previous runs.

Went ahead and made the category, and posted a couple guides. Will submit a run soon. Anyone can feel free to comment here with thoughts, questions, etc.

Sup guys, this game is finally on the site :) so I guess we should decide on what rules should be allowed for runs of this game.

Tbh I'm not sure what a 100% speedrun, or a simple Any% with the rule to "complete the game" would be. I assume it's to unlock all the characters & all cards by beating Cell over and over.

The main reason I requested this game was to create an arbitrary category, simply called "Beat Cell Any%". Starting would be after choosing "Erase Data" in the options, since I don't know of an easier way to start fresh. The run would end after winning against Cell, when you reach the screen that says "You have defeated Cell!"

Going by those rules, it seems like an interesting run. I dunno of any glitches in this game that make it breakable. The main thing I've found is getting Red Style Mastery as a drop in Level 1, and making a Red Style deck to power through the game.

Interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this idea, and any other potential runs, strategies, etc.

Oh wow Avetixz coming through ¤applauds¤

Glad we have some estimates on the actual difference on emulator vs. console. I wanted to make this thread, just because if two runs are fairly close, and one was faster simply for resets, that'd be kind of unfair.

But then again, the only category is Any%; if new finds make old times obsolete that's just how it is in a way. Plus, someone could very well WR without resetting at all (Exarion has splits that smash my time, no resets)

But yea, just to make things equal, the easiest way I see is a penalty. But I'm down with most ideas outside of outright banning stuff (brought it up in the OP since it seemed to be an absolute solution to things)

Figured I'd make a thread about this, as it's something literally no one's really considered about this game.

It seems that if you reset the game directly after defeating someone, the game still recognizes the win. So for example, say you beat Seeker for the 5th time. If you choose to reset the game before Seeker starts speaking, the game will count the win.

(Note: To be more specific, it's after you leave the actual "duel screen", and right when you see the text box after the duel. Resetting during duels doesn't lead to anything)

Here's a vid of mine I posted on youtube using resets on an emulator:

At about 1:22:00, I just use the button combination on Gambatte to reset. At about 2:03:42, you see that I move on to Tier 3 without any issue.

Basically, with resetting, you can save time by skipping the random crap said by Seeker, Pandora, Slysheen, and Darknite. It also helps if you know you're losing a duel, or if it's just going very slowly. Since literally no one's done this, this can save minutes of time.

The thing is though, there's apparently no easy way to do this on console. All the runs posted are on emulator, no idea if anyone has tried on console. But I assume there's no easy way to just reset the game like there is on emulator.

There's a few options we can consider. We can outright ban resets on emulator, as I'm assuming it's not possible on the "real" version of the game. There's also the possibility of just banning emulators, but literally no one has used console lol. I'm assuming on a real Gameboy, simply turning it off an on would be the closest way to reset.

Again, an easy solution would be to add in to the rules "no resets if using emulator", as it's a pretty clear advantage. We could even come up with different categories. I personally kind of like the idea of skipping useless exposition; I'd even have time added to future runs if I'm resetting or simply turning the emulator off and on at certain points. Something like "For every reset, have 5-10 seconds added to your run", or for however long it might take to turn the game off and on, on console. I guess this is something for mods to consider, or if anyone has input.

Froggy with the hard work 0_0 thanks for the effort man! I know nothing of hacking games and roms myself, so I'm a dunce when it comes to that sort of thing lmao.

Yea the Blue-Eyes thing has only happened when I've used VBA emulators for testing, never with Gambatte.

The AI tree is extremely interesting; the way the AI summons and attacks in a certain order can get really particular.

I feel like I nearly understand how the AI goes about playing certain spells on its turn. Basically, you'll see it play all its spells either before, or after attacking. But it doesn't seem all that straightforward; of course, there are particular cards like Swords and Raigeki. But I wouldn't even say I've seen the AI play cards like Mooyan Curry, Red Medicine, etc. in a really consistent way.

But yea thanks again man, take all the time you need.

EDIT: Small question on the tree; in general I would say the AI prioritizes attacking sets before attacking by Attribute. But especially early game, I feel like the AI will try to destroy monsters with larger costs by attribute before attacking your set monsters. For example, say you fused for B. Dragon Jungle King, and then have a set monster on field. If you're dueling Joey, he may summon a Flame Viper, and attack B. Dragon instead of the random set. Just something I've seen over and over lol

First off, sorry if this is the wrong place, or if there's some other error with my post, I'm sure the mods will correct whatever issue comes up lol

I've been trying to develop my own strats for this game, so I've been testing this game off and on for a while. So I wanted to ask a few questions about the RNG, to anyone that knows much about it:

1. Is there a particular method for how card drops work?

• I feel like if there was some way to manipulate it, someone would have found it by now, but figured I'd just ask. The spreadsheet (big help by Froggy25) lists them by individual duelists, so we know it's from a preset list, but how does it determine exactly which drop it will give?
• And to just tie to this question, I've gotten Blue-Eyes White Dragon as a drop entirely randomly, from people outside whom you'd expect (Kaiba & P. Seto). Could we assume there's a small chance you could get it from anyone, and does any other card work like it?

2. How exactly does the AI prioritize the cards it will play for a turn?

• The AI is fairly predictable, in that for monsters it will play the highest card cost it can. So for 2 cards with equal cost, would it just play the one with the highest ATK?
• Mainly for the early game, if the AI has a chance to destroy something via attribute, will it always go for it? For example, if Yugi has Flame Viper, and you have Jirai Gumo, would he always attack it 100% of the time? What if you had a weaker monster, something like Leghul instead?
• It's clear that the AI likes to wait to use some of the stronger cards in game, such as Dark Hole, Raigeki, Crush Card, Swords, and a few others. I think for Yugi particularly, if he opens Dark Hole, he sometimes likes to wait until you have 3 monsters on the field to use it. I think for everyone else, they will use those cards when they cannot destroy your monsters by battle, run into your trap cards, or can't summon for the turn. And of course, there's always topdecking an out, but I'm sure there's a little more to it.

There's a bunch more I could say, but these were the issues I've thought about the most, and would have no idea how to really find out myself without testing for hours and hours lol. If possible, this can be turned into a general info dump on RNG and AI; I don't think there's many other good resources for this game outside of this site and maybe a couple GameFAQ's faqs. Thanks for any info you guys can offer :)

Just a quick post, finished the playthrough I did on youtube.

You could pause the vid at about 15:53 to see my Status and Duel Ranking. And then look around 27:30 to see my Status after becoming King of Games.

I've made a pastebin with most of the videos I've made, here's one with general notes, a decklist, and a list of who exactly I dueled: http://pastebin.com/L0mkCFim

Just wanna make a post about considering the best ways to buy all 1200 cards in the game. This is kind of a wall of text, but here goes:

Currently I have over 70% of total cards in game as I'm testing all this; I'm guessing in a real run, you'd have less than that, buy anyways I'll keep going.

I have a little over 80,000 DP at that point; you can get a ton of DP just buy running thru the game as fast as you can with Machines. It helps that you get a multiplier if you win a duel quickly in this game. (I'll say that in my personal playthrough, since I'm using an emulator I've been able to buy some packs, almost randomly at various points in the game, just to complete them to around 95%. So then, assuming you focus on completing a bunch of packs all at once, you could have over 100,000 DP at whatever point you decide to buy all 1200 cards).

DP management is pretty critical in that way; in duels I've played to win as fast as possible. I've found that a fast, and consistent way to do it is with Cyber Stein, Cyber-End Dragon, and a booster such as Limiter Removal or Megamorph, getting an even 8000 with a direct attack. However, you could also use Cyber-Twin Dragon: directly attacking twice with a Limiter deals 10800 damage. So you get more DP, but also use up more overall time.

I think one of the better ways to buy all 1200 cards would be to decide on a general number of copies you want to buy for each pack. So basically, you choose some time you want to start buying all the cards in the game, use an in-game save on the Sunday before, and buy packs on Tuesday. You would then check your Status in the PDA that next weekend, and see the total percentage of cards you have. If you're not satisfied, just reset and try again. You would do the same when you decide to the Saturday-only packs.

I wanna acknowledge that, I try to buy individual packs up to around 90-95% card completion (the little red number in the upper right corner when you buy a pack). For example, say you decide to buy 15 copies of a certain pack to get to around 90%. I've seen that, even if you try buying 20 copies, it usually doesn't get you much closer to 100%. So my ideal is to have all packs completed to around 95%, but I suppose with enough DP you can do whatever you want lol

Choosing exactly how much you want to buy of all the packs is pretty tricky. You'd have to at least account for the following: the packs you've bought already, the packs you haven't touched, the packs that don't take many copies to complete to around 90-95%, and those that take a fuckton of copies lol (Invitation to the Dark comes to mind). Someone seriously going for a run would have to personally make those decisions.

I've been testing out different ratios of packs you want to buy. After buying cards in mass on a Tuesday, I've tried settling on having a little over 85% of total cards, then after buying Saturday packs, having about 92%. After all that, I have a little over 40,000 DP. I'm sure in a real run, someone would have completley different numbers than I do.

The only other pack you need to buy at that point would be Dorothy's Gift. It unlocks when you have 90% of total cards in the game (1080/1200 total), and was made to specifically get to 100%. So I guess you would use a similar strategy: save on the weekend, buy all copies you can of Dorothy's Gift on Tuesday, then check your Status next weekend. You can only buy 10 copies a week, and each costs 1000, so you're spending 10,000 DP a week. So I think it's important to plan out how many times you want to buy this pack, and make sure your DP hits that goal. So with about 40,000 DP, I know that I want to buy Dorothy's Gift 4 times over 4 weeks.

I think something to note on this pack, is that you'll get less new cards each time you buy it. So if you're around 90% total cards, you could probably get around 30 new cards when you buy Dorothy's Gift (or basically, about 3 new cards in each individual pack). But when you get to over 95% total cards, you'll see that you'll hover around receiving 20 new cards when you buy it. The way the pack's made I believe, is that the game looks for what cards you're missing, and generates Dorothy's Gift accordingly. So as the weeks go by, and you buy the pack diligently, you'll have less "new" cards you need to get, and so Dorothy's Gift gives you less new cards each week.

This is nearly rambling lol, but I guess my point is to be really careful when you decide to get all 1200 cards. You should aim for a certain cumulative percentage when you start buying cards in mass, and check your Status frequently.

Yea I can definitely show what I mean, I'm doing a playthrough on my Youtube channel, when I finish I'll show off when I get to King of Games. I'm using an emulator the whole time though, but the point will be showing that the game can give you King of Games before being Prince. I think I'll be at Elite Duelist right before doing the last exam.

Conceivably, the earliest time you could build a Machine deck is when you unlock Zane, which unlocks the Machine pack that next Saturday. So it would come down to having enough money to buy what you need, which means you have to aim for a certain amount of wins, and decide exactly how much you want to spend for certain packs.

Just to say, when I play, I assume that I'll get around 300-400 after every win, so basing off that is how I decide how much I want to spend for certain packs. Also, I guess in a real playthrough I would abuse the HELL out of the in-game save, and just reset until I get what I want.

Of course, the Fontaine event that gives you a ton of DP can be the main way you get the money you want... I dunno if you guys would be interested in buying stuff that raises life, such as Solemn Wishes, to further abuse that event, but it's an idea.

I promise you, there's no need to get 10 wins on the 2 other Obelisk Blue girls. I guess there's no way to know for certain which duelists' the game checks for when determining King of Games, aside from a ton of testing, but you don't need to duel Alexis' lackeys at all I'm pretty sure. I mean, I guess I always duel them once because of the event that gives you Alexis' number, but that's it I guess lol

In first hand practice, I can say that Prince of Games definitely isn't needed. We don't need to think of lower duelist rankings as a sort of prerequisite for King of Games; you should really get a certain ranking for specifically where you want to be in the game.

For instance, we know that we have to be in Slifer Red for a certain period of time to unlock Blair and Gerard. Personally, once I have enough wins on both, I decide to do all the Timed Duels, which is necessary to get higher duelist rankings, giving access to Obelisk Blue. (100 wins, and 100 Timed Duels gives the ranking Elite Duelist, just to say.)

Tbh I consider the Prince of Games ranking kind of a consolation prize; it's the highest ranking you can get before 12 whole exams have passed. Ideally, 200 wins and 1200 cards can be obtained at a quick rate, but the 60% Written Exam is the condition that makes it necessary to go through a lot of the in-game time (by sleeping in basically).

First post in a thread on speedrun.com, hope this doesn't look stupid lol

I just wanna say, that as a category going for a King of Games run would be extremely tedious, as least going through it legitimately. I honestly think that using an emulator, and its save state function should be considered... either that, or just not do the run at all, since it's not worth it really.

If we can consider save states, then I'd say to definitely use it to guarantee certain events going through. Sometimes they just don't happen conveniently when playing the game.

And the other reason, albeit a much lazier one, is buying cards. You could conceivably get every card in the game, but when you play the game for some time you see how hard it is lol. Save states make it much, much, much less exhausting.

Another thing I wanna bring up is the criteria for King of Games. As someone who's completed the game a few times I'm sorta confident it's the following:

1. Have 200 wins by beating all duelists at least 10 times.
2. Have 100% of all cards in the game (1200 total).
3. Have at least 60% on all Written Exams.

For the 200 wins, you DON'T need to beat 20 different people 10 times, you simply go to dorm and dorm an duel whoever is there. When you count it all up, you get 18 duelists to beat 10 times I believe. The extra 20 can be from events, or just dueling whoever you want. I tend to duel Fontaine more than 10 to get to 200, just because (arbitrarily) I think she's the easiest to beat.

The 100% cards condition is a big reason why you need to do so many of the events... it's kind of a dumb condition to have in a YGO game IMO, and why I think doing this run legit, on a real GBA is too much.

The 60% Written Exams is a percentage given by your PDA, you can look in the "Status" screen. To simplify it, basically every 2 correctly answered questions is 1 percentage point. So the max 10 correct on an exam means you can get 5 percentage points. Do a little math, and you see that you need at least 12 exams, or 120 correctly answered questions to get to 60% Written Exams. So that means that, even if you only miss 1 question in a whole run, you'd have to do at least a 13th exam. Another reason why I like save states :)

I'm positive you DON'T need to do every single event... really just the ones that unlock certain packs or duelists really. For example, an event I used to do a lot is the one where you duel Jaden at Harbor, the one that "reveals" Blair is a girl. But it's completely unnecessary, and you don't even go through the Choco-Jamboree duel when you skip it.

One last thing, I'll mention that if we're thinking of the fastest possible deck to win with, I think it would be Machines. (If someone were to ever want to TAS this game, obviously some kind of Exodia strategy would be best.) Cyber Stein and Limiter Removal are unlimited, and the game hands you Jinzo after doing the first event with Titan. I abuse all those cards in my playthrough on my YT channel :)

But yea, King of Games is really, really ambitious. I guess the Obelisk Blue Any% is an OK run, though really RNG based. The fact that losing once to Chazz, and him just not happnening to spawn can just be killer lol. I'm sure though that another kind of run can be made, such as reaching a certain duelist ranking, or maybe reaching a certain event.