Has anybody considered doing a Ep. 1+2 speedrun where you start with one character in episode one, play through it on any%, then with the timer still going go straight to episode 2 with the same character and play any% on that as well? I'd consider it more of a Both Episodes Any% category, but I'd be interested to see it run.

Just in case nobody has seen it, someone might want to change it to the correct spelling of "Phantasy Star Universe" instead of Univese so that people searching for the game can find it.

So I figured this would be a good time to assemble a variety of macros that people use in their runs. Some people play things differently, but I feel this may be a good place to at least record what Macros we are using to make things easier in this game.

I'll begin by the ones I use for Profound Darkness Phase 3 (keeping in mind that personally I use 2 Claws on Rika).

Megid Macro: Kyra - Star Dew Rune - Guard Rod Wren - Recover Rika - Double Slash Chaz - Crosscut

Cancelling Macro (same used in Phase 1 Start) Wren - Barrier Rika - Saner Kyra - Warla Chaz - Power Shield Rune - NaWat

Single Target Heal (works for Wren too) Kyra - Medice Rika - Double Slash Wren - Attack/Flare Chaz - Crosscut Rune - NaWat

I am actually considering picking this version of the game up to run. There is actually many difference that should probably warrant its own category, including huge map differences, item location differences, and the exclusion of the pause-jump glitch that is present in LotW.

Here is the Discord channel for anyone interested:

https://discord.gg/pkyfy22

All Phantasy Star games discussed here. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

Here is the Discord channel for anyone interested:

https://discord.gg/pkyfy22

All Phantasy Star games discussed here. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

Here is the Discord channel for anyone interested:

https://discord.gg/pkyfy22

All Phantasy Star games discussed here. Anyone interested is welcome to join.

It seems that there is a bit of popularity on the idea of Zio% among the community. Where Final Fantasy IV has Paladin%, people are interested in learning the first hour or so of the game up to the 2nd Zio fight.

Rules would be simple: Timer starts on Start of game Timer ends on last hit of Zio.

A small tournament is in discussion but we will see how the popularity gets first. If anybody has any questions about learning the game or about the tournament, feel free to contact me or, better yet, join the Phantasy Star Speedrun Discord channel: https://discord.gg/pkyfy22

So, I caught something while hunting for glitches yesterday. It is small so far and doesn't do anything for the game so far, but when you go to interact with an object (more noticeably an NPC) if you push in a different direction as you interact, you will face the NPC in the opposite direction you are facing (for example, if you are facing an NPC to the right and then press up as you interact with it, the NPC will face down). Now, this isn't useful or even interesting, but if you were to start to move away and press the A button, you will still talk to the person as though they are right in front of you. You could speak to an NPC on one end of town and then go to the other and still speak to that same NPC (AS LONG as the NPC doesn't move).

This works on treasure chests as well, but because of the flag that is set on the chest after you open it, it creates a new state and basically calls nothing at that point. I was hoping for a way to perhaps duplicate treasure chest findings using the glitch, but to no avail.

Currently, this little glitch seems useless. I was trying to see if I could perform some OOB glitch with it or even try to get the old man blocking the exit to Landen to move. The only use I could currently see that I haven't tested yet would be to save like 1 second after talking to Lyle and getting the Sapphire (by basically moving yourself closer to the exit).

This glitch is still quite a mystery and needs a lot in the way of research as to why it works, but I have discovered a couple of things recently about it.

1. The Pron glitch will work with ANY character that has an empty inventory by the time to talk to the 2nd Councilman at Skyhaven after learning the Word of Power.

2. The game will always decrease stats by quite a lot, normally resulting in an underflow of Speed, Damage, and Defense.

3. The game calculates these stat changes backwards, starting with the person with an empty inventory who is closest to Slot 5 (using Switch does not change this whatsoever). This usually is either Kara, but if you're playing as Aron, this will be Laya. However, if the person in slot 5 has an item but the person in slot 4 doesn't (usually Laya/Gwyn but would be Kara in Aron's quest) then the game will calculate that person first, and so on.

4. The person that gets calculated first will get the heaviest hit from the stat decreases. While I am still trying to figure out what exact number it decreases by (I so far have averaged speed to drop by between 83 and 85, while defense for this person drops by about a thousand), it seems to change from play to play, perhaps even frame by frame. Any other characters affected by the glitch will see drops to their stats by a much smaller amount.

5. The others who get their stats decreased may see an underflow in defense, but it also may not be enough. Their speed seems to drop by about 14 and their defense by 104. This would not make the other characters faster, but providing their natural defense is low enough, it would underflow it. However, beware that leveling in Lashute could overflow the defense value and leave your character very weak.

6. Though glitch this also underflows the Damage stat (by quite a lot usually), for some reason it has no real affect on the damage calculation. I don't know why, nor do I care to know at this point unless it can be done to figure out a way to one-hit Rulakir and Dark Force.

Conclusion:

The lower level you do this at, the better. You could technically get 3 characters (perhaps 4 if you are playing a different quest where you can stack the key items on one character, which won't happen in Aron's quest if you use Gen Skip) but with weaker results for other characters. That being said, I can only really recommend possibly doing more than one character during Adan's quest in an All Gen run because Adan's is by far the fastest 3rd generation to speedrun (even faster than a skipless Aron quest where you played through Nial's quest), therefore getting Gwyn the extra stat buff would be nice as well, providing their levels are low enough (below 35 I would recommend for safety for any other person aside from the one in the last slot). Leveling up can still provide overflow.

However, it is safe to say that you probably want somebody with a strong GiRes as your go-to for this glitch, so most likely Laya (or Kara if her speed is low enough, allowing her to attack first and wipe out the front line during Rulakir's battle). Having a very low speed is not necessarily a bad thing, it just means that you will have to adjust your GiRes spending accordingly. Using the glitch on Wren is pointless, as is with Mieu. It is possible your Main Character could benefit from it if you make him into more of a support role during the final battle (I could only possibly see this benefiting Sean though, but you still have Laya to use it on).

I just ran this last night to great success in my opinion. I will be uploading soon, but we probably should define some rules that define this category a bit better.

It really only has one rule: "No use of Generation Skip". Saying that, the title of the category may also be confusion, as All Generations may be interpreted as "All Endings" or similar (where the player plays through all final characters). Perhaps maybe something like "No Gen Skip%" or similar would be easier for the viewers(though I personally still like the sound of AllGen% better), or make a 3rd category (which I do plan on running as well) that is titled "All Endings" with the rules would be "Finish all four final generations".

It would appear that the Lyle fight is a huge gate to finishing a run of this game. Jiseed has done most of the research on this already, but there are a few things I want to confirm about the fight.

0. Rhys does get healed before the fight. Don't waste time to top him off.

1. There is no out-speeding him. Unless you level Rhys up to 14, you're most likely not going first.

2a. Though the Steel Sword will out-damage the Sword, it will only do so by 3 points per hit, making the fight last just as long (still a 4 hit fight). The extra defense provided by the Steel Sword doesn't help much either. That being said, low damage rolls can make the Sword go up to 5 hits, in which case it is GG anyway. The Steel Sword, on the other hand, would almost always guarantee a 4-hit fight. There's the drawback is you lose the money that would otherwise be spent on a Steel Armor, which would cause Lyle's normal attacks to do 15-16 damage instead of 13-14 (see note 3). Those two points can make a huge difference in this fight.

2b. In THEORY, even if there was a way to get any item you wanted (such as the PStar2 Inventory Glitch), at Level 8, you would still need Orakio's Sword in order to one-shot Lyle, or two Royal Needlers. Two Royal Knives or a Royal Sword would not finish him in one shot unless Rhys had high damage.

2c. In THEORY, if there was at least a glitch that could give unlimited money, two Royal Needlers could be bought in Hazatak before going to the Western Cave in Aridia, plus it would give you enough speed to go first.

3. Having a Sword and Steel Armor would bring Lyle's normal attacks to about 14 damage per hit. You can give Lyle's Boots to Rhys to decrease the damage by 1. A Steel Sword alone brings Lyle's normal attacks to about 16 damage, or 15 if you have the Boots equipped.

4. A Steel Knife/Shield combo would make the fight slower without generating much more in defense (Rhys would only deal 9 damage per hit). However, Steel Knives can cast Shu, I am just unsure as to what level at this point and if it would even be worth it.

5. The biggest problem isn't Lyle's attack, it is Zan. His Zan is approximately at Level 6, and with no current way to mitigate Technique damage (see note 7) and no way to manipulate (currently) the damage rolls, this is by far the biggest problem.

6. As far as safety goes, a Level 10 Rhys with fair stat gains with a Sword, Steel Armor, and Boots would have possibly about 58 HP and could 4-hit Lyle reliably. One could potentially take two medium damage Zans and still be able to Dimate your way out. Gaining levels won't help make the fight quicker, but it will make it safer with higher HP.

7. This brings me to an interesting hypothesis: It is believed that the Intel stat affects TP, and while that have some merit to it (though it makes no sense because Rhys, Lena, Nial, and Sari all have Intel but 0 TP), I believe it could in fact help to mitigate technique damage. My reasoning behind this is that I tried playing out a battle with a Level 1 Rhys vs. Lyle. Lyle's Zan constantly hit close to and over 30 HP damage. However, in looking at the video of my run, my Level 11 Rhys was taking close to 23 damage from Lyle's Zan. I will test this at some point by getting a hex editor and ramping up Rhy's Intel by a crazy amount to see if it helps.

In conclusion, the fight currently is an RNG crapshoot and can make or break a run. Generally, if a runner can get past Lyle, they are home free. Until some glitches are found or some more information/strats are discovered regarding stats, this fight will always be a barrier.

After doing extensive research and math on the possibilities of weapon damage based off the Power Up/Antidote Glitch and how it affects rollover damage (which happens after damage surpasses 255), I have been interested to make a few discoveries. (TL:DR at the bottom)

-Any%- Weapon Choices in Any% is actually a bit easier to make as you only have really two shops to choose from and only two characters to worry about: Nei and Amy. This limits you to really only 5 weapons to choose from: Steel Bar, Ceramic Bar, Knife, Scalpel, and Ceramic Knife (though you could grab a Fire Staff in the Red Dam, but more on that later).

The currently accepted method for Any% routing involves 2 Ceramic Knives for Amy and 2 Ceramic Bars for Nei. Since encounters are minimized as well by the numerous glitches, choosing your weapons basically comes down to what will do how much damage to Dark Force and Mother Brain.

First with Nei's weapons. The Ceramic Bar on average will deal about 105 Damage to Dark Force and 220 Damage to Mother Brain (rollovers factored in). The Steel Bar, on the other hand, will deal 191 Damage to Dark Force but only 68 Damage to Mother Brain (again, rollovers factored in). To get max damage in both fights, it would be required to switch weapons after the Dark Force fight (382 per round for Steel Bars on Dark Force and 440 per round for Ceramic Bars on Mother Brain), but switching would take up menu time which can be the difference between a PB or not.

So let's break this down. If Nei were fighting alone, it would take nearly 7 turns to down Dark Force (providing each attack hit) with Steel Bars and 12 turns with Ceramic Bars. However, if you equip one of each for this fight, it would only increase the amount of turns needed by 1-2 for Dark Force. Likewise, against Mother Brain, 2 Steel Bars would take 17 turns while 2 Ceramic Bars would take about 6, but one of each would raise it to about 8-9 turns.

So in the end it all comes down to one thing: How fast can you menu and how much time would it take you to buy one or two Steel Bars at the beginning? If you can go through menus fast enough, having a set of Steel Bars and Ceramic Bars for the final two fights (or one of each if you can pull off an Equipment Glitch fast enough) will probably net you with faster times and quicker kills with the final two bosses. If you feel slow on the menuing, having one of each equipped at all times will result in greater consistency. As far as the time it takes to buy the Steel Bar(s), consider that having at least one steel bar will cut off at least 2 turns off of Dark Force alone (4 turns if Nei is alone, but since she is not, using a 1/2 estimate). The time spent at the shop in Paseo to get this weapon is generally less than 2 turns in a battle, but keep in mind that Dark Force can still be a troll).

As for Amy's weapons, given the options, the Ceramic Knife deals the most damage to both Dark Force (211 per hit) and Mother Brain (167 per hit) providing you buffed her with Antidotes (which is recommended). A Knife and Fire Staff on average will deal more damage to monsters on your way to the final bosses, but that isn't a big deal in Any% when you only really have to worry about Skure and Dezo enemies. It is an added bonus that you need two Ceramic Knives in order to get 3 of the Nei Items. The Fire Staff will do the SAME amount of damage to Dark Force on average, but LESS damage to Mother Brain, so it makes 2 Ceramic Knives truly the only viable weapon in an Any% run.

If you are wondering about weapons for Rolf and Rudo, equipping anything on Rolf won't even break 50 damage on either boss and will only serve to eat up precious time. The Nei Shot on Rudo can deal about 100 damage, but against Dark Force, he won't last long anyway and there would be no sense to revive him for Mother Brain since she will 1-2 shot him anyway. So just leave them be as a damage soak/curse beacon for Dark Force and let the men just die. Don't bother equipping them with anything.

-100%- This is where weapon choices get interesting as you have to worry about enemies all across the game. Because of this, Anna is highly recommended with her Slashers to clear out mobs fast. But we will get to that in a moment.

Choosing the right weapon here means you have to take into consideration how likely a weapon is to kill an enemy in one or two hits AND which item you use to buff your characters (Antidote is generally the best rule of thumb and was used in the calculations. If I find better results I will post them). After tons of math and research into enemy HP, Defense, and how the overflow affects the damage formula, I developed what is known as a Heat Index for weapons. In sense, it is like this: If a weapon would take more than 2 hits to kill an enemy, I labeled it as a cold weapon against that enemy. If the weapon can one or two shot an enemy, I labeled it as hot. The more weapons that were labeled as hot, the higher number it would have on the Heat Index. (at some point, I will load my charts to a pastebin or something similar once I fine tune my findings).

I also discovered that because one weapon can be hot against an enemy while another cold against the same enemy, I found it generally a good rule of thumb to never equip two of the same weapon unless you are in a boss fight.

So let's start with Nei, who only has 3 choices to begin with. The Steel Bar actually has a higher Heat Index rating than a Ceramic Bar and does more damage to Nei First as well. That being said, the Laser Bar (which can be bought in Kueri) has a higher Heat Index than either of them and does twice as much damage to Nei First than the Steel Bar. Thankfully, as well, most the monsters that the Laser Bar is cold against will NOT be seen by Nei (only Spit Kill and Toader from my calculations would take minimal damage from it), so dual wielding Laser Bars once you get to Kueri would theoretically maximize Nei's damage.

Now let's look at Anna. She actually uses the weapon with the highest Heat Index which is the Boomerang. Unfortunately, the Boomerang is a single-target item, unlike the other slashers, and the throw animation is longer than melee weapons, making the Boomerang a bad pick in a speedrun. That leaves the Slasher, Laser Slasher, Fire Slasher, and Nei Slasher (The AC Slasher is never obtained in the run and in fact is rather weak on the Heat Index, so that weapon is omitted). The Slasher and Fire Slasher are both equal on the heat Index, but the Slasher has what I like to call a higher "Kill Factor", or the ability to one-shot an enemy. Though I used the Fire Slasher in my WR run, in future attempts I will be omitting this item as the item's damage is too close to that of the Laser Slasher, so the enemies it will be cold against will be similar (again, going with two different items in each hand to minimize the chances of battles going over one turn). The Laser Slasher is actually a very good weapon with a high Heat Index and even has a slightly higher index than the Nei Slasher. However, the Nei Slasher is cold against a lot of enemies in Dezo, including Dark Force (though it performs very strongly against Mother Brain at 214 damage per hit). Both the Slasher and Laser Slasher deal moderate damage to Dark Force (148 and 168 respectively) and the Slasher deals similar damage to Mother Brain. However, the Laser Slasher deals AMAZING damage to Mother Brain, BUT, it is to a point where it might be too amazing (242 damage on an average variable roll in the damage formula). This could be risky if Anna got higher strength gains in her initial level ups after Powering her up and/or she gets high variable rolls, and since there is no way to really tell what damage is being done to the final bosses, using the Laser Slasher against Mother Brain could net in a DPS loss (but then again, it might not).

So for Anna, using a Slasher and Laser Slasher through most of the game should net in the most balanced DPS with dual-wielding Laser Slashers for the final two bosses. If you feel worried about a potential overflow against Mother Brain, you could go with a Slasher and Nei Slasher.

That leaves everybody else now (Rudo, Amy, Hugh, Kain, and Shir). Rudo, Kain, and Shir can use Daggers, Amy and Hugh can use Scalpels (which deal the same damage as Nei's Steel Bars), Amy can use a Fire Staff, Anna can use a Whip (which does the same damage as Ceramic Knives), Hugh and Kain can use Laconian Maces, and Shir can use a Laconian Dagger. Surprisingly, both Laconian Maces and Daggers performed VERY well on the Heat Index, but since there is no easy way to obtain them (because we do no shopping in Dezo and I have not found an easy way to get them through an Inventory Glitch yet), those items are being omitted. Also being omitted are shots and guns, as their damage calculation does not factor in the massive attack gains from the Antidote Glitch, so there would be no benefit to using them).

A Knife has a high heat Index but performs poorly against Mother Brain (53 damage per hit) and average against Dark Force (148 per hit). The Ceramic Knife performs well against Dark Force and decent against Mother Brain, which the Laser Knife (bought in Zema) is slightly weaker against Dark Force (126 damage) but is the strongest weapon against Mother Brain outside of the Laser Slasher (227 damage). The Heat Indexes of the Ceramic and Laser Knives are also similar, and on average where one weapon is cold to an enemy, the other would be strong against.

The Scalpel, Dagger, and Fire Staff are all good weapons with high Heat Indexes as well (though the Scalpel is a bit weaker in that regard) and all deal great damage to Dark Force (each hovering around or above 200 damage), but they are all VERY weak against Mother Brain. Because of this, for the remaining 5 characters, it is recommended that having a Ceramic Knife and Laser Knife would optimize consistency and damage.

Remember what I said about not having two of the same item equipped at the same time while going through to minimize odds of a cold item (this includes two different characters as well)? It may be feasible to keep at least a Scalpel and Dagger wielder around at the same time (for instance, Amy with a Scalpel and Laser Knife, Shir with a Dagger and Ceramic Knife). You could play around with it potentially, but until further testing is done, a Laser Knife and Ceramic Knife makes for the best combination.

THIS being said, much like the Any% fights, if your menuing is fast enough, you could use 2 Ceramic Knives for the Dark Force fight and 2 Laser Knives against Mother Brain. This also includes having Anna equipped in that manner as well for the faster animation speed.

-Conclusion- Thanks to Jiseed's Antidote Glitch and the discovery of damage overflow, a need for figuring out what works best can be quite a daunting challenge. I hope this post/guide provided some insight. Keep in mind that these calculations were done on averages and on what the possible max Attack Power a character gets could be. Your results may vary slightly from my findings and math.

-TL:DR- Any% Weapons: Nei: 2 Steel Bars for DF, 2 Ceramic Bars for MB, or one of each if your menuing is on the slower end. Amy: 2 Ceramic Knives, no questions.

100% Weapons: Nei: 2 Steel Bars up to Kueri, then 2 Laser Bars Anna: 1 Slasher and 1 Laser Slasher, then 2 Laser Slashers against DF and MB (or Ceramic/Laser Knives if your menuing is fast enough). Everyone Else: 1 Ceramic Knife, 1 Laser Knife (can switch to 2 Ceramic Knives vs. DF and 2 Laser Knives vs. MB if you can menu well).

Places to buy Weapons: Steel Bar: Paseo Ceramic Bar: Oputa Laser Bar: Kueri & Piata Slasher: Zema Laser Slasher: Kueri Ceramic Knife: Arima & Oputa Laser Knife: Zema

I am putting this out here for what I have discovered and so that I don't forget about it later. TL:DR at bottom.

(credit to Crystalgate from a gamefaqs forum who figured out a weapon damage formula that was as close as one can get)

Damage = Weapon Damage ¤ (Character's Natural Damage + 30) / (Enemy Defense + 30) +- Random Variable (assumed to be around 10% or so of formula up to that point, or it could be as little as 1-2).

Needlers and Shots seem to go by a much simpler formula as they both ignore defense completely.

Damage = Weapon Damage +- Random Variable

From the research I have done, Fanbi is an additive bonus to the WEAPON DAMAGE. The amount of damage increased is based off what level Fanbi is at (so a Fanbi 1 will only increase the weapon damage by 1 whereas a Fanbi 20 will increase the weapon damage by 20). These effects do stack, so by casting it multiple times on the same character, it will just keep increasing the damage their weapon deals. Also keep in mind that one cast of Fanbi affects ALL weapons equipped by the target, so Fanbi is much better suited to be used on characters who dual wield, such as Mieu or Kara.

I assume Ner works in a similar way to the formula in that it just flat out increases defense. Haven't tested it yet since Ner isn't all that useful for a speedrun.

ALSO NOTE that the formula holds true for enemy attacks as well, except since they only have a base ATK, that number is put into the formula in both Weapon ATK and Natural ATK.

As far as Technique damage goes, it's a fairly simple formula. As one already knows, the more points you put into a technique, the more damage it will do.

In each of the formulas below, x = Technique Power

Foi Damage = Between 5x to 8x +- Random Variable Zan Damage = 4x +- Random Variable Gra Damage = 3x +- Random Variable Tsu Damage = 4x +- Random Variable Res Healing = 5x GiRes Healing = 2x

For example, if you have a Foi 10, then at max the technique will deal 80 damage.

NOTE that some enemies are resistant to certain techniques. In that case, damage dealt is equal to the power of the technique (a Foi 10 would just deal 10 HP damage). Technique damage cannot be changed by defense for your own characters (kinda unfair if you ask me), though I may test later to see if certain pieces of armor carry with it resistances.

-TL:DR- There is always a small random variable added or subtracted to the damage total.

Shots & Needlers: Damage = Weapon Damage + Fanbi Stacks

All other weapons: Damage = (Weapon Damage + Fanbi Stacks) ¤ (Natural Damage + 30) / (Enemy Defense + 30)

Fanbi increases Weapon damage equal to technique power of Fanbi. Can be stacked.

Techniques: Foi ¤ 5 to 8 Zan ¤ 4 Gra ¤ 3 Tsu ¤ 4 Res ¤ 5 GiRes ¤ 2

I am just wondering if somebody can add a 100% (aka All Dungeons, No Key Item Glitch) Category to this game.

With Jiseed's newfound glitch to add values into slots, a 100% run is now very doable.

The only real rules are that pulling key items out from the Inventory glitch is banned (that would kinda defeat the purpose of all dungeons anyway, since each dungeon has a key item in it, or a boss).

Key items are defined as follows: Letter, Key, Dynamite, Teim, Recorder, Key Tube, Maruera Leaf, Maruera Gum, Red Card, Yellow Card, Blue Card, Green Card, Plasma Ring, Prison Clothes, Prism, and all 9 Nei Items. Duping of Key Items is also forbidden (like Duping of Teim for the Teim glitch, or duping of Dynamite to save from having to get the other 2).

It also requires that all characters be recruited, though doesn't have to be used. And it should go without saying that it requires all bosses to be defeated.

I ran this category today and got a 2:45:29, which even for an old RPG like this is very good IMO. Keep in mind that this is NOT a glitchless category, just a restriction is set.

I know that you can glitch the inventory of any of the characters and access the values of data for the character behind them (in sequential order), but I started to wonder what values are behind Shir, since she is the last character on the list.

I am having a difficult time figuring out what the values are and how deep they go. There are a lot of null values, but the ones that do show up in her inventory (past slot 24, since 17-24 is just her status and name), at least up to slot 56, seem to change after every battle, and what they change to depends on which area you had the battle (for instance, getting into a battle near Paseo gives lower numbers but getting into a battle near Piata gives much higher numbers). I'm assuming the game keeps track of which enemy groups you've faced, but that is just a theory so far. Removing the item from these slots does nothing and they return after a battle, so that just furthers my assumption.

I'm going to play around with it some more and see what I can find. There seems to be a lack of save state hacking info out there to help with this part of the data. I'm also curious to see if anybody else has tried glitching Shir's inventory to see what can be found.

I know this game isn't widely run and the only category right now is 100%, but to the moderator, would it be possible to allow an any% run of this game (in which you don't need to get all the puzzle pieces, just get the Scepter)? I've been tinkering with this game and have an any% down to 24:xx minutes right now, getting all relics and the first 8 contracts (just leaves a 3x3 box in the middle but more than enough to see where the Scepter is).