In the Mod Checks thread we discussed having a pure Any% where the idea is: from a fresh save, unlock the Credits movie in the options menu as fast as possible like is typical for many games' Any%. So I did a run to see what exactly that would look like. I also did doublecheck and the credits movie is not unlocked at the start, the condition for unlocking it is clearing any mosou mode as fast as possible (You do have to save at the end for it unlock).

I was worried that it would just be kind of boring, just play through Huang Zhong's mosou mode. But it actually has a pretty good spread of speedrun tech. For one, there are two OOB glitches in only five stages. nice! Also 2p mode does, in fact, turn out to be optimal. On the battle of Bai Di Castle, Huang Zhong starts way on the other side of the map from where he needs to go, so starting that level with Ma Chao saves more than enough time to be worth playing with two controllers.

I got a 19:40.95. Bodyguard turned out to be less than useful. An 18:XX is probably possible. I know I didn't do Mt Ding Jun optimally. Also, it probably make sense to try to see if you can actually pick up Hex Harness with Huang Zhong so you can avoid backtracking. There is a fair bit of RNG in this run in regards to what weapons and items are unlocked. But that just gives you something to blame.

The rules are:

Unlock the Credits movie as fast as possible.

Time starts when confirmed "Start" on the first of any stage is played. Time ends the first frame the "cleared" save appears.

You must start from a fresh save and show you are on a fresh save.

Xtreme Legends is Banned. Hardware manipulation is banned. Turbo and Macros are banned.

Utilizing the options menu in any way prior to starting is fine, so long as the recording begins with a fresh save.

All glitches are allowed (if a glitch is discovered that doesn't require clearing or playing stages, we will redefine the category's timing mechanism).

You can use 2 controllers. But only 1 person can touch the controllers throughout the run. Using tools to hold down buttons is okay (rubberbands, clips).

and shu is the slowest kingdome to run . i have done a 14 min run with lu xun with items without using a horse. but its different without items . everything on wu is extremly speedy

and new strats can be discoverd

Oh, I hope there is new strats discovered! Honestly, I may be overestimating the benefits of unlocking hex harness. Mt Ding Jun is definitely a very slow level. It's certainly possible there's a better strat out there. I hope people post their own runs.

lu xun , cao pi and ling tong might be the best characters . dong zhao is the fastest character but hes not unlocked haha .

ma chao has fast movement but has a long campaign.

maybe zhang liao damn need to do some testing.

sun shang xiang maybe also be good

zhang fei and guan yu is not worth to test they both have the cheng du curse

i will do zhang liao it seems. like his moves and combos

The thing about best movement is that you're allowed 2 controllers, so movement doesn't necessarily matter for which Mosou Mode you play. Character position matters a lot too. So for instance, if you're playing Cao Pi's mosou mode, there maybe a good reason to play as Xu Zhu w/ p2 througout instead, because of a better He Fei Castle position. (although i'm just spitballing, I don't actually know if that's the case).

Here are all the initially available mosou modes and my initial thoughts on the mosou modes.

Wei:

1. Cao Pi - possibly viable; Includes Wei-side Chi Bi
2. Xiahou Dun - Non-viable, 6 stages.
3. Dian Wei - Non-viable, 6 stages. Includes Escape from Ch Bi.
4. Xu Zhu - probably viable; includes Tong Gate
5. Zhang Liao - probably non-viable. Includes Escape from Chi Bi.
6. Zhen Ji - possibly viable; Includes Wei-side Chi Bi

Shu:

1. Guan Yu - Non-viable, 6 stages. Includes Guan Yu Escapes
2. Ma Chao - Probably Non-viable; includes battle for liang province
3. Huang Zhong - definitely viable; horse unlock. Includes Mt Ding Jun
4. Zhang Fei - Non-viable; includes Chang Ban
5. Zhao Yun - Non-viable; includes Chang Ban
6. Xing Cai - probably viable; horse unlock. Includes Mt. Ding Jun and Jie Ting

Wu:

1. Ling Tong - probably viable;
2. Lu Xun - maybe viable - Would want to figure out He Fei Castle OOB w/o starting horse.
3. Sun Quan - maybe viable - Would want to figure out He Fei Castle OOB w/o starting horse.
4. Sun Shang Xiang - probably viable;
5. Zhou Yu - probably viable;
6. TaiShi Ci - maybe viable - Would want to figure out He Fei Castle OOB w/o starting horse.

i did a 33 min run 29 igt with zhen ji . gonna do more runs tomorow any new progress yourself umihime

dam xing cai is super op on lu xun campaign.

umihime have you done any more runs ?

Any% is now our default category. Feel free to upload runs.

umihime have you done any more runs ?

I haven't yet, I've been doing attempts in another game. Just now catching up on what I missed lol. I might try to grind it down soonish. But I am pretty proud of this attempt for the immediate moment. iirc I got the stage 3 and tiger amulet and horse helm, so I think it'll probably take a few dozen attempts to beat.

edit: oh wait i forgot about mt ding jun and the bodyguard. Ya this record can be an 18:xx I just gotta route it. Will probably do some this month.

Oh and I was looking at the Zhen Ji Lu Xun runs.

Zhen Ji - idk if anyone's done this in a run before, so I wanted to mention it - iirc, there's an OOB on the south east gate on that first level. At one point I tried routing ice orb for unlock all character chaos mode and ended up dropping it from the route. Zhen Ji starts close enough to a horse in your run,

Lu Xun - I've been thinking about this a lot from unlock all characters%, but I wonder if it's possible to trigger menghuo's ambush with one character and attack him from the north with a second character. I feel like there's something there.

Nice that we all have runs up! Can I ask a point of clarity? I timed myself and the other two runs I watched from entering the first stage until the clear screen showed up after the last battle is over. It seems I misunderstood, or rather I would like to ask why you guys seemed to time it to the end screen where you can see the run's stats? That isn't the normal end spot and I'm not seeing why we should change it just for this one category. Happy to hear your thoughts though!

Congrats on the run! I didn't think Ling Tong was faster, but that seemed way faster than I expected.

So I timed the end for the final save. The final save will say "CLEAR" once you actually save the game. There's a few reasons I choose that as an end point. As a practical matter, it gives a very clear audio and visual endpoint of the run as opposed to like "fading out" or text on the screen or w/e. It also gives info that can be helpful in verifying the run like the difficulty, the in game time and other things.

As a category matter, if you don't save you don't unlock the credits movie. I mean, I'm not 100% it doesn't unlock if you watch through the whollllee credits, but I know you can't soft reset to watch the credits movie. I'd count it though this time. This time's gonna get beaten quickly - with all the activity i mean. I'm sure we'll collectively bring the time down.... it's early in the category. Idk how to say that without sounding like a jerk. It's fantastic time! You crushed it.

No worries! I plan on lowering this time myself anyway so my run will become obsolete soon anyway. I'm just happy with the activity and I know what you're saying. From now on I will end the runs on the clear screen.

Ya, my whole thought behind the "if we find a different way to unlock the movie we will find a way to retime" is because I just feel in my bones there might be some way to do some kind of save corruption glitch which will probably split the leaderboards when we find it it some day. But until then, I don't want to make people actually sit through the character cutscenes that play before the credit movie actually starts, because I know the fastest way to get the credits to play would be to save, soft reset, go to options and then play the credits movie - which is interesting and maybe we should do that, but also that's kinda dumb.

wait - is the character cutscene skippable, i actually don't remember.

Okay so we'll end the timer once the game clear screen shows with the IGT. Works for me. As for character cutscene, you can turn the event ones off but the movies are not. Unfortunately you always have to spam skip through all the character dialogue between missions, no way to avoid that I don't believe.

i have a question . for new game chaos you need to unlock lu bu and beat his campaign . to do this you need to unlock diao chan and beat wu shu and wei campaigns. you probably need to beat 5 campaigns maybe more to do new game chaos or am i wrong ? chaos, its locked under lu bu

That sounds right although i forget the exact unlock requirements. I can remove chaos from the options for any%