Advanced routing - The Oryon route (in progress)

First you have to understand that this run is probably the one that needed the hardest work i ever done in a run, either for the route or for the attempts that leaded to current record. Don't loose courage if things don't get in line perfectly at the beginning, even when i run, the slightest change or mistake from what you should have done can instant kill the run. Usually i can reset, because i perfectly identify if it kills the run of will just delay it, but don't do it yet. Try to adapt to the situation until death (which will come eventually) and try to understand what was the important thing you missed, and how it ends. It will help you to find which backup strat is possible for this specific situation, and if it was a run killer or not (they can be a mistake, miss or critical at a pecific point).

Basically, a run is never the same, and it will challenge you. Don't loose faith, 1min loss in a stage is not much, it is the usual cost for one combat round. The game can help you later, too, and you gain back 2 min.

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GENERAL STUFF:

_The general route is not something stable you can rely on, you can consider my run as the 'risky route', but i began with the 'humble route'. This can cause me more resets because i focus on a certain time, but don't do it yet, or you'll never go past the second half of the game. The 'humble route' is already dangerous, you'll go with minimum party and experience. To be more practical, being risky will be to rely on specific kills for money or levels up where if you have a miss, you can't have it anymore. The humble way is when you kill the guys before, where it is less optimized but where backup strats are possible. Go risky when you have already handled some good times. I'll give you the general key waypoints only, i cannot explain all. But first levels will be detailled.

_Your dream team will be Princess / Murak / Eldor / Frye for the guys that are present at the start, and only Oryon as hired guy (second healer). For the first runs, i advise you to keep Dayne, or you might have really bad times on the last 2 stages. Don't waste experience on any other char than the 4 first, but Frye will take only one level up. If you keep dayne at the begnning, it will be also to have extra kills for money safety, he can take some of it, but try to avoid it. Princess, Murak and Eldor will need certain lvl min at certain points, they are the priority.

_You can usually manipulate enemy movements by just placing your characters on specific tiles, most of the time enemy reaction will be always the same, sometimes a little change will not affect the setup. But they are 'key triggers' that will always change the setup, and some are random, as an example, if your princess takes a critical hit, she may attract enemies that originally would not have gone for her. I will not explain them all here, the general strats will come with the detailled stages.

_So, learning the run will have mostly to do with understanding how to react to unexpected situations, so that you can arrive at the key points with the good situation, the route is adaptative. For example, if you kill an enemy who was planned for Princess with Eldor, you'll have to know where on a later stage you can exchange a kill between them (kill with Princess an enemy planned for Eldor) so that things fall back in place. These 'exchange points' are not many, you don't want to miss them.

_Take extra caution for the order in which you play the characters, the cursor movement on screen is slow, and you want to optimize it. Most of the time you will have two groups of characters to switch, sometimes three and healings to do (avoid to have to move from one char to the healer and back again to play this char, if possible). I won't go into maths but first, try to find cycles as to end your last turn with the guy you will take to go to the door on next round, it saves one move. Also, if you have to move one character towards another one, do it in a way you will play this another one just after. Stuff like that. These optimisations can be huge, run lasts almost 2h.

_just in case you didn't notice, there is a special rythm to get with textboxes. Keeping button pressed is enough to make text go fastest speed, but you'll have to it do for each text, and then do the menuing quick in between. This can easily lead to mistakes when you want to be quick, because menu inputs go really fast (almost no latency in selection menus). Try to get as close from the quickest, but with a little margin to be sure. For example you can see it straight at the first level of my record, when the Princess strikes back to the second water guy.. i was supposed to flee but i wanted to go too fast, and missed the input.

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LIST FOR SHOPPING:

_I will put here not only what i buy in my runs, but also what else would be interesting to buy, i dunno, route might be improved. You'll also find the complete list of items on websites. The stages numbers are the ones of the stage you just finished. The items i don't take will be in brackets, don't take them all, you'll be missing money, but one of them can help at the beginning.

Stage 4  - Oryon (the healer) [+ Helberd for Eldor]
Stage 5  - Fire (for Murak) [+ Cold for Murak]
Stage 7  - Blaze (for Murak)
Stage 9  - Drain (Princess) and Frost (Murak)
Stage 10 - Life (for both healers)
Stage 12 - Drain (Murak) [+ Claymore for Princess] - note that drain can be bought later for Murak if money is not enough. I think i buy here a Hauberk for Princess when i don't have the money for drain, i'll have to check my runs to confirm it.
Stage 13 - Bolt (Murak)
Stage 14 - Drain (Murak, if not bought before)
Stage 15 - Claymore (Princess) and Hauberk (Princess and Eldor)

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So with some levels we will see the basics of the routing. It would need too many work for schemes, so i assume we can follow my record video for the example. I could even put time marks maybe when i have time.

LEVEL 1:

As you'll see the first level is pretty basic, and shows the Princess + Murak strat perfectly. They move a bit further than the others, and it consists in moving them in a position where they are on 2 touching tiles. Murak prevents the 4th enemy to attack the princess on the right and block her, and Princess is free to move to the door. Note that the kill is for money and experience only, we could end the stage without killing him, but the optimisation lies in taking the quickest kills. We take advantage of the fact that Murak's first Air spell is pretty effective on Water guys (exactly 2 spells + 2 Princess attacks to kill them at Lvl 1).

But wait, let's go back just before that. Note that in my record, i had forgotten that you can end your turn at any moment. You are not obliged to move Ratt or Frye, but still move Dayne in the same position than in my run. Because yeah, that's where the routing fun begins.
The 2 Monsters, the Wisp and the Skorp, will attack with random patterns, it seems trivial but it is not. For later purpose, Dayne will have to kill a Wisp, and Princess too. This is where it becomes complex: this Wisp will attack either Princess or Murak. Princess is the quickest RNG, because she can kill it straight (it saves 1 or 2 attack rounds, Princess kills in 2, against 2 Murak defends and 1 or 2 Dayne attacks). But actually, this is also the risky strat for this level!!! because in the next level, you will need Dayne to get his Wisp, and try to make the Wisp attack you (to save your round action). The bad thing is that when the wisp don't attack Dayne in 2nd level, the cost in time is bigger than what you should have lost with killing him in stage 1! More, the backup strat when you have to move to kill this Wisp is also less reliable..
When they attack Murak, don't strike back, you'll notice the attack animation is a bit slower than an missed escape (don't forget to quick pass these texts too with the button). If you go into timing like i did, you'll notice that all Murak's spells animation dont last the same time, let's say i did the job for you there ;)

Conclusion: Wisp is the first key point of the run, always remember who killed the wisp in first stage, Dayne or Princess. Also, don't kill the skorp with the Princess (you'll know why later, Princess needs to have 3 monsters at one point, and not 4, to get a special monster, the Wurm). This skorp always go for Eldor, who will not have many occasions to reach his key lvl for Fire Boss.

So this begins to show more precisely how you will exchange kills by adapting to the RNG, and how it will affect the run timing, there are different setups to learn for each stage, not only one. And i didn't even talk about misses or criticals. It is simple here, criticals on the water guy are good, misses not. 2 misses on him is a reset. But if you have one miss with Princess or Murak, you can still kill him by going on the tile up or down to him with Murak and attack (so you can cast 2 spells, instead of 1 when you are at range). You can move between 2 enemies in diagonal, if you have at least one of the 4 tiles next to you where you can move (up down left right). This can be useful if you are fed up to loop reset on the first stages :P

Basics of Crystal Warriors speedrun

Most unlikely that anyone but me is interested in this, anyway i'll share the knowledge i gained by routing this game:


GENERAL INFOS:

Crystal Warriors is a tactical RPG with 16 stages (or battle fields) to complete. To complete a stage, there are 2 solutions: kill everyone or reach the enemy gate. There is an exception for the 5 boss stages where the only condition is to kill the boss. The game is hard, experience is limited to level 9, and the choices you make with investing money can be run killers casually. In town you can buy equipment, spells and sometimes hire a new character.

There are 4 types of characters (warrior, mage, healer, the Princess), and you can choose up to 9 characters for your team to beat a level. Warriors belong to an element, while healers, mages and the princess are neutral to elements. The Princess is special, a kind of warrior that can learn certain spells. If the princess dies in combat, the game is over.

This game is based on 3 elements, Fire is strong against Wind, Wind is strong against Water and Water is strong against Fire.

There are 2 types of adversaries on the battlefield,  monsters and enemies. Monsters can be tamed when beaten, so that you can use them to attack or defend when the character who tamed it is in combat. You cannot retreat from a monster fight. Enemies are the ones you really fight, their element and kind are hidden until you scan them or go to combat.

Movement range depends on the character and type of terrain, and also if you have an enemy next to you or not.


RNG:

There is not a lot of RNG in this game, but it has a big impact on the strategies and on the time gain or loss:

_monsters movements, and in a smaller amount enemies movements. Most of them can be manipulated by your actions and position on the field, but some setups show random variations among 2 or 3 possibilities.

_damage is fixed in most of the time, depending on the elements, levels, weapon and the terrain type, but in some places, there can be a variation of 1 or 2 damage which seems random based, especially against monsters.

_critical strikes and misses are your biggest concern. Critical doubles damage so it has a big impact, misses can troll you a lot. In lots of situations criticals are not wanted, because damaging an enemy to at least half of his HP will trigger the healers to heal him. You basically have to figure backstrats for any of these misses/criticals, sometimes it is not possible as it kills the run (setup fails that cause 5 min loss, or enemy who kills a guy with a critical)


STRATS:

When it is not a boss stage, the fastest will be to rush to the enemy door. Because we need money and experience, kills are needed along the way.

Most of the time, i made setups using the fact that enemies take the Princess as a primary target, leaving space elsewhere for another guy to go to the door. Sometimes Princess alone is tough enough when enemies are few and don't block her.

A lot of setups also use Princess and Murak as a team, because these characters have more movement than the other, and become strong quickly. By placing one next to the other, any of them has at least 1 tile free from enemy that can lead to free space, and they need 6 enemies to block you instead of 4 (just like in the game of Go). If needed, one of them can kill a blocking enemy so that the other can go on walking in the same round.

Additionally, i found special placement setups that manipulate enemy movements, because in a lot of stages a healer or a tough guy has the role of occupying the enemy castle door tile to prevent you from escaping. These setups are meant to cause this guy to move and leave the door open, either by trying to be sure that the Princess (or another) will have enough free space around to attract the tough guy, either in case of a healer by keeping an enemy below half of his HP each round, once the healer has moved from the door, because enemies healers never move when they heal, so he cannot rear back to the door to block it.

Sometimes healers are used to attract enemy mages or to prevent them from attacking the Princess, as they seem to be primary targets for them. Risky strat in late stages because the healer can be oneshot by a critical spell.

A special care has to be given if it is an attack turn or defence turn for combat, because if you attack an enemy below half his maximum HP, healers will heal him. But the AI healings are chosen at the very beginning of the round, when the enemy attacks begin, you are sure there won't be anymore healings in the AI turn, you can then freely damage enemies below their healing trigger, so you can kill them after when it is your turn.


DREAM TEAM:

To have the best team to beat the game, even casually, you have to buy a second healer, damage is just too big at the end of the game, even when you are level 9. So yeah, hire Oryon after stage 4, definetly.

Then, you already have your team.. you even need to say goodbye to Ratt and Dayne at one point, they will take more time to play, so even when they could be useful, the time loss is not worth it. I actually killed them in my previous runs, but i have to test if it is not quicker just to remove them from the team if possible to remove any (not found yet) :p

EDIT:
By a weird routing mind process, i forgot at one point that you could end the round at any time and thought you had to play all your party characters each round. This was the main reason i ended up  killing Ratt and Dayne. So in theory, you could keep Ratt and Dayne until the end of the game with just not playing them. It seems not possible to rearrange your team or have one of the characters not to play for a stage.

But the fact is that the presence of Ratt or Dayne will change the starting tile of the other characters too, and some (a lot) of setups i have found are not possible with them in the party, because the characters start at a different position and either the enemy behaviour changes, or characters are 1 or 2 tiles too far to reach positions in time. For the moment, it seems a better option to sacrifice them, as i haven't found really relevant setups with Dayne alone or both of them (Ratt is quite useless endgame, i never really considered keeping him only).

So there is a little time to gain on the record at the start of the game, because i had to move Ratt and Dayne to keep them close to the action (because the cursor to select your character is very slow, and i otimized quite a lot the order of my moves to save time). I figured strats already, but never improved my time with the fact you can end your round anytime.. well.. because the run is hard mostly ^^



Kaddath.

Name	Author
Advanced routing - The Oryon route (in progress)	Kaddath 8 years ago
Basics of Crystal Warriors speedrun	Kaddath 7 years ago