So close... D: https://splits.io/2f2y I'll get there next time :)

I was about a minute and a half ahead, then brainfarted in dressrosa and forgot I needed to capture the SMILE factory myself. I also gambled by trying out Ace on Punk Hazard and Thriller Bark, which in hindsight, was probably not the best idea.

Anyways, since not all characters have the same movement speed, I stick to the fastest, Sanji and Ace being the most broadly useful. I use Sanji for most stages, and Ace for levels where Sanji would be slower. Namely, a couple of levels with female enemies, romance Dawn, as his lv1 super lets him skip a set of dialogue early in the stage, saving about 10 seconds, and Baratie, which lets you skip having to chase Don Krieg around the map and just wait for Sanji to reach the target location.

Then, there's 3 stages where I use Luffy. Marineford 1, to save myself from having to escort both him and jimbei, Marineford 2, since the level ends for him once you defeat Akainu, and 2 Years later, where he oneshots pacifistas and, most importantly, Perona with his SSST

trying to get a NG+ run below 4 hours. I'm getting close, but I still end up losing time to inept AI when escorting allies in later stages, and missing enemies with special attacks. Here's the splits from a run a couple of days ago: https://splits.io/2etf

There was some bad AI, and I made a few too many mistakes.

Glad to hear you're enjoying him :)

Sky walk, when used mid combo, homes in on a nearby enemy and smashes them into the ground. It's a little naff when used on its own, since the animation takes forever and can't be cancelled out of.

Once you have all golden coins in the game, every character will be limit broken. A lot of coins will need to be obtained through grinding bounties and powerful enemies in dream log/Nightmare Log. To that end, I’d suggest someone that would speed up the process. Whitebeard is the first character that springs to mind.

Sanji’s SSST deals a LOT of damage, and is by far his best spammable move. His TTSS ignores shields, so it’s useful for taking out base captains. His “can’t damage female enemies” clause can be evaded using his lv2 super (TS sanji) or a kizuna rush finisher. Just make sure the opponent isn’t invincible when you use it i.e. powering up or activating their hero power :)

Welcome, Kingkiwi2013! Always happy to see a new face :) Pirate Warriors 3 is pretty straightforward as runs go, clearing missions quickly and wiping the floor with bosses as soon as you can hit them. From there it’s all about movement and character choice.

I generally prefer TS characters, although PTS Chopper is one of my favourite characters in the game. His pseudo-grappler moveset is a lot of fun to use and deals a lot of damage.

I do like Sabo, although his S string is a little unwieldy. It might just be me, though. I’ll give him a shot. Thanks :)

I'm trying out Ace on a few stages. His run speed appears to be as fast as Sanji, his lv1 super comes out faster, and can potshot bosses from a great distance. In theory, it should make stages where you can't use Sanji a little faster (i.e. baratie, return to sabaody) and, perhaps, some stages with female opponents, where a kizuna attack would take too long. Although the hit window on his lv1 is earlier than Sanji's, meaning it needs to be activated later in a boss's power up animation.

Whoops, that’s my bad. You’re right, I did mean sub 4 hours. Something must’ve gone wrong in the brain-thinking process :P

Hey all, I’m back after focusing on uni for a bit and playing Dynasty Warriors 9 for about 60 hours before coming to the slow realisation that what I was feeling wasn’t enjoyment, but a spiteful denial that the game just isn’t very good...

So! With renewed vigour and a fresh perspective, I’m grinding out stages to see if there’s anything I can squeeze out of them.

I managed to skip an entire dialogue exchange in Romance Dawn by defeating the two marine captains that tell you where the swords are before the mission description finishes. It chopped about 15 seconds off my time. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to reproduce it yet, and it wasn’t recorded, I may have hallucinated it. If I still can’t pull it off through normal means, I may try burning a lv1 super on one of them to stagger the text boxes and maybe buy a couple more seconds.

Currently, I’m trying to perfect the SUPER skip. It’s a pain. The panty thief needs to advance at just the right speed. Too fast or slow, and Franky will get them.

I’ll probably try and record a full run within the next week or so. I want to taste that sub 3:00:00 :)

Edit: sub 4 hours, not 3. What even is time.

So, even on easy, the final bosses in later stages take more than one sanji lv1 super to take out the last section of health. I decided to try out a couple of stages with a slightly different skill setup, trading pirate alliance for hero’s strength. Turns out pirate alliance suffers from diminishing returns at LV100. By the time the end of the stage rolls around, I usually end up with enough KOs to reduce the last section in one super.

I want to say that NG+ sub 4 hours RTA is possible. It certainly feels within grasp. :)

Thank you ^_^ Unfortunately splits in video aren't possible for me at this time, my laptop can't handle OBS or Xsplit very well. But it's good to know I can finally submit a run :)

Hay all.

I have a complete run video, however there aren't any splits in the video itself. I have the splits in a livesplit file. Am I still okay to submit it?

Flipside, can confirm kizuna attack knocks Magellan out of his super :)

So, turns out I couldn't combine my NG RTA run into a single video file so I can't justify submitting it, but I uploaded it as a playlist for reference purposes, if anyone is interested:

Category: Legend mode NG Any% Difficulty: Normal (looks like only the first part shows up, you'll find the playlist on my channel.)

There's some audio desync in a few places, mostly in parts 1 and 2. I made many mistakes during the run, a lot of them due to forgetting about enemy officers in Loguetown so Sanji did what he does best :/ I managed to waste time in water 7 because I thought i'd try the Nami route. What I DIDN'T know was that you needed to clear out the front of the mansion a couple of times before she starts making a move. Also bad routing on levels. And I got a little too trigger happy with Luffy's R1.

splits are here: https://imgur.com/a/HKKFu

Any questions/criticisms about the run are appreciated, and I will answer to the best of my ability.

NG+ super hard sounds nasty. I kind of want to try it now XD I’d need all of the characters used to be maxed out, though.

Flipside13, a note about the bit at the end of punk hazard. if you take out the base at the top first, zoro should head to the base he’s supposed to go to without much hassle.

Welp, it took me until right this second to notice that people were doing their RTAs on easy difficulty. I’ve been grinding out on normal since that’s what the records were set on at the time I started running.

looks like I need to start running easy mode. Depending on if strats are different enough, would it be worth adding different difficulties to the category bar?

Wow, 0-1 is getting pretty crazy. Nice work Frantasy and Persona ^_^

Flipside, congrats on another record, mishaps aside ;) I’m watching the run as I type. I notice you’re not using sanji’s SSST (“boar soup shot” in the movelist. Sorry, I’m not familiar with the PC control layout). It does a ton of damage, pushes enemies back and stuns bosses in hyper mode after about two uses. It also covers a decent amount of distance, so it can be launched from a relatively safe distance. To almost guarantee hits on bosses moving around a lot, lock onto them and dash cancel after the third normal attack. It should position you next to them :)

Did using your special on kuro at that point stop his hero ability from triggering? He usually activates it once he reaches the third segment.

Oh, by the way, in my recorded NG run, I managed to pull off the don krieg skip and shaved about 40 seconds off my best. Good find is good ^_^

I’d love to stream, but I don’t currently have a pc capable of it. I’ll give it a shot once my new laptop arrives.

I have a NG run recorded, but for some reason my capture card split it across multiple video files. I’m combining it right now, but it could take a while. There’s also a couple of points where about a second of footage was lost when it split up the files, and some audio desync. There’s also no splits on the video itself, just a separate livesplit file. So there’s a chance I can’t submit it.

Most of the run was “spam SSST until it dies”. It might be an idea to have the skill that lets you deal damage to logia on. I used kizuna rush for those fights.

RTA. I think I used sanji for every stage bar thriller bark, marineford 2 and punk hazard.