UPDATE - sorry for necroposting after 4 years, I hope y'all are doing fine.

The community found out that different emulators have different loading times.

PsxFin has faster loading times than Duckstation.

Now it's up to the community and the mods to decide whether:

1: force people to play on a specific emulator;

2: accept IGT instead of RTA;

3: do nothing and leave the rules as they already are.

Cuckoo's Nest is more efficient, but potentially slower. By playing that Mission, I achieved the highest rank right upon completing "Last Resort".

I still can't understand the ranks mechanic. Are they calculated based off your score or the number of targets destroyed?

I mean, would it be more efficient (and I say "EFFICIENT", not necessarily faster) play "Midnight Assassin" (more points) or "Bear Tracks" (more targets)?

Seems like Nemesis's strategy is the fastest so far, but I'm still figuring out if there are more efficient strategies for the 2nd playthrough, you younger folks will tell me if they are feasable and faster, my reflexes aren't what they're used to be =D

OK, in the last few days I've tried a couple of strategies to get the highest rank in the 2nd playthgough...

"SPEEDRUNNER" - DOESN'T WORK

Destroy red TGTs and aces only. It's not enough. The max rank you might get is Major.

"LAST RESORT" - DOESN'T WORK

Just like "Speedrunner", but in the last mission destroy as many F-15s as possible. I killed off 28/30 planes (lost the count myself) but I got "Major General" only (which is two ranks below Commander in Chief).

I think that it's worth trying to improve my "Last Resort" strategy or Nemesis' speedrun strategy.

If someone has a better route, let me know!

I'm opening this thread to discuss the best/fastest strategies to achieve the 100% completion in AC2.

Just as a reminder, the rules are:

• Start with a blank savefile;
• Collect every medal (thus you must play the game twice);
• Buy every plane in the game - all 24 of them;
• Achieve the highest rank - Commander in Chief.

So far, NemesisXploder's strategy seems to be the most clever and efficient.

1 st playthrough - Priorities: planes, medals, time

• Played on "EASY"
• Destroyed only some of the enemy aces
• Played "Alphaville"
• Stopped at "Kingpin"

Nemesis's strategy is brilliant.

The rank you get on the 1st playthrough doesn't get carried to the 2nd one (=your rank starts from zero), so it's useless to destroy everything on screen.

He played on easy, just went for the red targets and some aces. He then played "Alphaville" because the ground targets on "El Dorado" and "Sentinel" aren't as much a pain in the neck on easy difficulty. He didn't get past "Kingpin" - it's just a waste of time.

Basically in the 1st playthrough you should get all the "normal" aircraft and the medals from "Tin Castle" and operation Alphaville, while taking as little time as possible.

2nd playthrough - Priorities: planes, medals, score

• Played on "HARD"
• Destroyed all the enemy aces he encountered
• Played "Bellissima"
• Played 'til "Fighter's Honor"

Here things get more complicated.

You must destroy ALMOST everything you see, without missing any enemy ace. Contrary to normal speedrunning strategies, he played "Opera House", "Midnight Assassin" and "Cavalry" during operation Bellissima. The main task for this playthrough is to destroy as many enemies as possible in order to get the highest rank. That's the reason why the 1st playthrough is basically a normal speedrun.

Player ranks are set according to two variables: targets destroyed and time taken to complete a mission. It just means that you have to finish within a reasonable time.

He then destroyed the Z.O.E. on "Kingpin" and reached the good ending - which is obligatory to get the highest rank.

Here's what more or less Nemesis killed off in his second playthrough (red targets won't be mentioned):

1. GAMBIT: everything
2. EASY MONEY: everything except Superfly
3. CITY ON FIRE: everything
4. OPERA HOUSE: everything + 2 x Death Cowboys
5. GREASED LIGHTNING: C5
6. MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN: everything + 2 x Razorbacks
7. SLEDGEHAMMER: Z.O.E.
8. RISING HIGH: red TGTs only
9. SWORDSMITH: aircraft only + Tallman & M. Sphere
10. TOY BOX: almost everything + Stalker [as you know, this mission is RNG dependent]
11. SEAGULL: everything + 2 x Hangmen
12. ONE NIGHT STAND: TGT only
13. POWER PLAY: all planes + Z.O.E. + 2 x ships
14. DARK STAR: 3 x Death Rave 2000
15. DEAD END: everything, except the guarrd towers + 4 x F.F.F.
16. CAVALRY: everything
17. FINAL COUNTDOWN: everything
18. JEWEL BOX: every aircraft + 6 x mssl + 7 x guns [most likely the AA defenses near the red targets]
19. KINGPIN: all aircraft + Z.O.E. + 3 x guns + 3 x mssl
20. LAST RESORT: TGT only
21. FIGHTER'S HONOR: Z.O.E. + 10 x F-15

Some testing for 2nd playthrough

Destroying red TGTs and aces only gets ya the "Major" rank.

Nemesis' strategy seems to be the fastest so far, but maybe it can be improved a little by destroying the following enemies as well:

1. EASY MONEY: destroy the Superfly as well
2. SLEDGEHAMMER: 5 x AH-64
3. RISING HIGH: 2 x X-29
4. ONE NIGHT STAND: 2 x Mi-24
5. POWER PLAY: 1 x gun, 3 x mssl
6. DEAD END: 2 x towers
7. JEWEL BOX: 3 x guns, 4 x mssl

By doing this you might not need to destroy the F-15s on the last mission, but I'm not totally sure...I have to run some more testing before confirming this.

Spasibo, I did't know this. I'm looking forward to see the results.

Another question: as far as you know, is there a way to break the game and make an any% run in a few minutes just like they did for GTA: San Andreas? Unfortunately I know nothing about programming/memory manipulation, so I can't test this myself.

For the 100% category:

1. if it's really possible to achieve "Commander in Chief" playing on normal difficulty instead of hard, we should totally let speedrunners do so.
2. I didn't know that you don't have to destroy everything to achieve the highest rank. That will be useful for my next TAS, thank you

I've been trying to replicate it on BizHawk, but with no results unfortunately

Thank you, I will try what you suggested

Hi,

I'm writing this because unfortunately I have no more spare time to dedicate to this site. The problem is that I am a moderator for the following games:

1. Treasures of the Deep, PS1 (I'm the only moderator);
2. Strikers 1945, PS1 (I'm the only active moderator; the other one hasn't been active for over a year)
3. Disney's The Little Mermaid II, PS1 (fortunately the other moderator is active)
4. Xenophobe, NES (the other mod is active)

I want someone else to replace me, so that whoever submits a speedrun doesn't have to wait too much long for it to be approved/rejected

Thanks

FOR SINGLE LEVEL SPEEDRUNS

You may use a savefile in which you already completed the game or use the allowed cheats listed above.

Everything is allowed as long as you don't use the forbidden cheats or cheat during the speedrun you wanna submit.

The main point of the category is beating a single stage, so I think it's pointless to do all the grinding required for the full game speedrun

You welcome, pal. I hope you found the NTSC version of the game in the meantime

SINGLE LEVEL RUN RULES

TIMING Timing is in-game time: when you submit a run the video MUST show the mission's results, where time is displayed.

CHEATING Cheating during the speedrun (aka pausing the game to input cheats during the video you want to submit on the leaderboard) is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

However, being a single-level category it is pointless to force players to endure long money grinding sessions. After all the point of this category is to complete only a single level ASAP.

As a result you are allowed to use the following cheats to unlock the game content faster: all equipment; all missions available; all weapons; extra gold. Forbidden cheats: infinite health, infinite ammo, unlimited payload, no fines, super speed and unlock all doors

But once again I repeat: CHEATING DURING THE LEVEL YOU WANT TO SUBMIT ON THE LEADERBOARDS IS FORBIDDEN!!!

That is all.

Now you may submit speedruns for single levels.

The categories are "Any%" and "Greek Tablet".

Runs of "Training dive", "Hitler's lost gold" and "Atlantis" submitted in the "Greek Tablet" category will be moved to "Any%".

Check the specific rules on the leaderboard.

I made this post just to avoid misunderstandings about the required objectives for every category.

ANY% Finish the game as quickly as possible. Police chases are NOT required (except for the 6 obligatory chases at the beginning).

100%

1. Complete the game;
2. Complete all the police chases.

EXTRAS ANY MEDAL Complete all the following extras with AT LEAST a bronze medal:

1. Driving School;
2. Spotlight Missions:
3. Combat Missions.

EXTRAS ALL GOLD Complete all the following extras with a GOLD medal or "Recoil" badge:

1. Driving School;
2. Spotlight Missions;
3. Combat Missions.

MAX%

1. Complete the game with ALL the police chases ;
2. Complete all the extras mentioned above with at least a BRONZE medal.
3. Complete all the tracks in "Race Mode". This is basically a 100% + EXTRAS ANY MEDAL + Race Mode.

SUPER%

1. Beat the game with ALL the police chases;
2. Complete the following extras with at least a GOLD medal or a "Recoil" badge:

• Driving School;
• Spotlight Missions;
• Combat Missions;

3. Complete ALL the tracks in "Race Mode". This is basically a 100% + EXTRAS ALL GOLD + Race mode.

To get info about time start/ending, check the categories on the Leaderboard.

I think you should stick to NTSC. Overall higher speed is preferrable than saving a few frames. And the dialogues are only a small part in the game.

Just watch how faster are US/JAP games compared to our EU games:

I think you should consider the idea to split the leaderboards into different sections for each console.

N64 has faster loading times than PS for example, and any run will always be faster.

Hi, I've got a question for who plays on arcade: is there a difficulty selection screen on the arcade/emulator?

I want to add a rule for future speedruns: to show clearly the difficulty selection screen before recording.

You should play the US/JP version of ANY console game, because NTSC has a higher framerate than PAL.

This game can be frustrating and hard as f@ck sometimes. Does anybody know an effective way to dodge the missiles they fire at you?

In the hard difficulty a missile is enough to one-shot you. Although I managed to complete a speedrun on Hard, I can't find a way to dodge 'em consistently.

Thanks.

Some time ago, I've uploaded a video walkthrough for all the locations of the Greek tablets in the game, it might be useful for you, if you want to make a 100% speedrun.

Enjoy!