Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I believe that the recent announcements of PlayStation 5 hardware coming standard with an SSD and being backwards compatible with games that played on Sony hardware previously (with this game being a potential candidate), that it could be worth looking at this discussion again with that in mind.

Until then, recommending that people purposely play on outdated hardware is going to ensure that people like me will wait for the new hardware to come out before making the big commitment.

Wow! I had no idea. Thank you for posting this. I've waited a very long time to finally see a TAS of this game and it did not disappoint.

I've been learning more about the game myself and I'd like to point out that battles can be manipulated too and it doesn't require any frame precision whatsoever. Battles are pretty much predetermined at the start but actions can be changed if an enemy takes damage or you call a different spirit.

With that being said, you're only saving about 5 minutes and you're going to be making the zerel fight even more of a gamble than it already is unless you're also able to manipulate call amulets for that fight. It sounds quite possible though.

Sorry for the late reply. I am now following the game, so I'll be sure to check this out more often.

This information has actually already been heavily discussed here: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/arcana_snes.html

You can find out a lot more information there. There's also been a few speedruns of the game already available on Youtube, with an official TAS being planned.

If you're just learning the game, I have a few route changes you can consider. Chapter 1: Grab the two extra 500G chests Chapter 2: Long Sword for Rooks, 36 Water Cards, 36 Wind Cards, 9 herbs, 3 medicines Chapter 3: Ice Blade/Breast Plate/Iron Shield for Rooks, Scimitar/Seam Mail/Iron Shield for Axs, 72 Wind Cards, 9 medicines After that, I'm pretty sure you can proceed to the rest of the run like normal. Chapter 4, you can probably grab the honeys on the path that you would normally skip for a bit of safety for Chapter 5, but you'll also run the risk of running into more run ending enemies like Medusa.

Hope this helps.

Sorry about the late reply.

Basically, it's your preference if you wish to submit a run using the SDA single segment method (loading isn't allowed) or the Japanese RTA method. There aren't enough runners for this game to justify separating them as a category.

I personally vote for the idea of using the Japanese version if you're going for serious attempts at WR, but stick to my translation if you're playing the game in a marathon setting.

Anyone that gets a WR in this game at a marathon surely deserves it.

Thanks for doing the research Rane. I honestly didn't know all of this, and after hearing it, it would seem that it invalidates my run. The rightful thing to do would be to pull it from the record and start running the J version.

I highly recommend the translation I made, of course :)