This is a game with almost no following so allow me to be the first? I saw this has no following and wanted to try to contribute. I have no way of recording gameplay so I can show you a speed run but I have started developing strata to do so. Hope to help grow a following for this game!

In terms of speed or just a casual. Casually I have finished in 33 hours. Developing a speed run, I feel like it could be finished in 12-16. Anywhere between 3 and 4 hours per chapter. Skipping cutscenes, doing crits, farming for exp and setting up a team so they can rush through without the risk of wiping you can get through the first 2 levels of Alice in about an hour to an hour and a half. Again, still developing a run.

This game seems like it would be pretty fun to run. What party members would be used?

I know from beating this game before that the best party members are Front Row: Aegis, Kanji, P4AU Back Row: P3AU, Naoto So it does end up being 3 from p4 and 2 from p3 but they are the strongest in the game, naoto would be abused in a speed run becuase she is able to use the insta-kill abilities en mass. aegis used to draw attacks when you need to grind, kanji for the same, P4 is physically stronger than P3 and P3 is used almost purely for his strength in magic attacks. From testing out the theories I read I figured out they are the best, I'm trying to develop a strategy to get through the first chapter with only using the certain needed characters, but I haven't been able to route it out yet. and since we have the any% runs only, I'm figuring we don't do many extra side quest things, and it will be RNG heavy based on the sub-persona cards that are given The sub-personas are JUST AS IMPORTANT as the characters we choose to run with.

Also, I'm thinking time would start upon either when you choose the protagonist or when you are first able to fast forward all the chat options.

Simply based on team composition it would make the most sense to start on the p4 side it seems. I feel that having time start at choosing the protagonist would be more consistent. Also I'm assuming this run would most likely be without dlc? Some of the side quest stuff could be done for extra experience/weapons or accessories but we'd have to figure out which are the most beneficial.

It has 2 sides for starts. P4 and P3 currently on normal are the only two run types the kiss have put in. I'm doing a p3 run to test a team and currently my best team is using p3 and aegis of course with shinjiro, ren and Ken. Both sides would use ten because recovery is a really powerful move to stay alive and frozen spear is good against the swords which is also good. Ken has Hama. Which when you do p4 side start, naoto has hama and kudo

Plus, every run would need every single enemy encounter you get because experience was tight as it were when doing a casual run.

Oh I was under the impression that the team composition would be Front: Aegis Kanji P4AU Back: P3AU Naoto I didn't realize the different runs would be using different characters, that makes this game that much more interesting.

After the queen of hearts boss fight, when all the characters become available, would your team change or will it still only have p3 characters?

Well it's only the beginning of the runs until you get the second set of chracters.

So then the only big difference between the two runs is just the beginning?

Well, the experience difference between the starting characters and the new characters would be routed in as well

That makes sense. What level are you beating queen of hearts at on the p3 side? For p4 I can do it most realiably at level 9-10.

My first t Run I was able to do it at 10th level

Have you made any progress since then? Also I made a list of all the shadows and their affinities if that would be helpful