I've actually been working at Normal ninja some more, had a couple runs a week ago that were going to be massive PB's. I've entertained the thought of a brawler/ninja race at some point, I think it's a fantastic idea. I will look into it!

I've also played with it a little since my initial post and I'm pretty sure it can only happen in side dungeons. It's happened a few times. Wasn't exclusive to Beast Mountain, but it has only occurred in non-story places. Still have no idea what is responsible.

The other day I was setting up my file for advanced and while I was grinding on Beast Mountain something pretty bizarre happened. I'm not sure if it can be done consistently or how exactly it happened, but if it can be replicated it would be a very, very handy trick. It happened offline, so I'm unable to go back and actually watch everything that happened leading up to it, so I'll just provide all of the details and maybe we can brainstorm and see if we can't try and test it.

I was in the final area before the boss and as I entered the "door" to the boss room it played the boss fight music for a very brief moment and then started playing the victory fanfare before it even loaded the room. The screen was still black and loading. When it loaded up, the dragon and will-o-wisps did not spawn and the portal leading to Klantol was already open. I had essentially skipped the boss completely.

• Ninja
• Spd. Lvl 6 active
• Battle sword equipped
• Speed ring equipped
• Healing water highlighted
• Beast Mountain (No snow)
• GBA JP (not emu)

I was not doing anything out of the ordinary. My only theory at this point in time is that I quite possibly entered the door on the exact frame that it appeared and that may for some odd reason have caused the skip. Thoughts?

I suppose I am curious myself, but loads really only affect real time and don't affect your in-game timer too much, so beyond just having the knowledge there isn't much of a reason to worry about it.

Getting ahold of everything I need to run on console after AGDQ. I'm a little worried about how my dupe times will suffer when I switch. With the way I have my button layout on my keys, duping is made simpler and I can do it really quickly because it's all a quick, swift and easy motion. Doing it with a controller certainly seems a lot trickier.

Pretty sure all you can really do is grind it out like Trysdyn said and get it down to muscle memory, but I would be really interested in it if anybody found some cool techniques for controller duping.

I was not aware of this, I am still relearning the game in general as I've come back to run it after probably almost 10 years of not playing it at all, so there is a lot that I do not know about in game. I kind of just remembered the game one day, looked at glitches and established this page and started running. I need to sit down and do some casual grinding. I really appreciate that tidbit, definitely gonna work it into my runs if it checks out, which I trust it will. You seem to know this game very well, I'd be happy to accept you for moderator if you have any interest in that. I've had the idea of making each character their own categories presented to me before and I kind of wasn't super interested in it, but you're the second to bring it to my attention. Perhaps it's honestly a good idea, I can see the merit in it.

This is a very solid strat, I had considered giving it a shot from the start as the brawler has always been my favorite class. Raizen is undeniably the best for advanced runs as you can start with lvl. 6 speed, which just saves such a massive amount of time with movement, but I can only reliably get his speed up to about lvl. 2 or 3 in typical normal run, so it doesn't even save a ton of time using him. As said, it certainly makes for a far riskier run, but it's very, very viable. Your run had a lot of whoopsies and you still managed to only be 10 minutes slower than my ninja run, which as it stands now is fairly decently executed. This definitely means this has a lot of promise. I love that you circumvent arena dupes too, it takes so much time.

I am fairly certain that if both were to be optimally executed, your strat would probably be faster in any% normal.

Hey Bengerman777. I completed and submitted my first run (2:13:34) of Shining Soul II today. It was a great run for a first and hopefully the submission is accepted. If you are still hoping to be a part of this, your time is now! :)