A bug?
2 years ago
Russia

Does anybody know why sometimes damage to bosses becomes ridiculously low, like 1-8 points, despite very high characters attack? I tested it on 2 eng ROMs, BST one from 1999 and the newest 2.08v. The results are the same: Dragon is untouchable when I first get access to the Ark, but becomes normal after Beryl destroys Silver Kingdom, despite no attacking character stats are changed. Also, the last Hell Destiny fight is impossible if I bring the team of certain senshis but is ok with another group. Crystal Tokyo is much worse though, idk what to do to overcome this problem. This bug/mechanic is so weird and basically the only thing that keeps me away from speedrunning this game.

Germany

It's hard to give a specific answer here without seeing every detail myself but you have to keep in mind that this game has a very fine line of going from "normal" damage to "absurdly low" damage. Sometimes 1 stat point difference can already push you below said threshold. You also have to keep in mind that Luck gives you bonus stats, too. So during your testing, you might have experienced the same fight with the same stats, but different luck values, therefore giving you different results at different times if you were at the threshold line.

Russia

Thx for the reply Neviutz, but yeah - I understand these mechanics of the game quite well. It is not like I cant beat Nabu II cause of low Mercury attack :) I am talking about things like, Uranus with over 100 attack +15 from buff not dealing any damage at all. That is my Dragon exapmle (Esmeraudes 1st form). And then after visiting Silver Millenium and seeing Beryl demolitioning it I test the Dragon fight againg and the damage is over 3000 (no Uranus stats were changed). Then everything is fine until Crystal Tokyo where 120+ attack Uranus deals no damage again. I know that luck factor is affecting battle stats as well, but beleive me, I tested it a lot of times, loading the game state before attempting to fight (luck parameter will differ every time that way). I think my situation is something else, either translation patch messing up the ROMs, or emulator going crazy for some reason, or mb it is the unknown bug of the original game - who knows... Im continuing testing on the latest emulator version (it wasnt up to the date before), planning on trying Japanese ROM if updating will do nothing for me. Also, pls check your PM section here, I had been writing to you about some other stuff.

Russia

I have tested JP rom and it is doing exactly the same for me. Which means I am almost done with the idea of speedrunning this game :( I will try to explain step by step my thought process though. I came up with my own strategy based of my game expierence and runs by ZAKO and Neviutz. IMO Zakos run is almost perfect in terms of strategy but had some wierd stuff in it that I thought I could optimize. A questionable choice of him was giving the second Red Pupil to Venus instead of Saturn (the first one goes to Uranus). This is the moment where our senshi team is splitting up for Oppositio Senshi (OS from now on) and Crystal Tokyo (CT) missions. So I have tested Saturn with Red Pupil for OS mission and it ended up really well, Ive got much better result then what Zako had with Venus. If you dont know, inner senshi are a bad choice for fighting OS here, since they do lowered damage to their counterparts (Mars - Nergal, Venus - Ishtar, etc.), so Saturn is just ideal for that mission. But when Ive got to CT with Uranus, the damage bug appeared again and I couldnt do anything from here, so GG. Ive tried to take Venus instead of Saturn as Zako did for OS mission but the bug crushed me there too. Idk what I am doing wrong to cause this bug, mb it is the fact that I never use in-game saves, since this is a waste of time (saving after the damage bug appeared doesnt help), or some other things that I dont understand. But I dont wanna play a "guessing game" or recreate step by step somebody`s strategy. Too bad though :(

Germany

I mean, I don't really have a lot to say. All of the testing I ever did for this game is multiple years in the past and I haven't touched the game ever since. Fwiw, you didn't do "exactly" the same thing in the video you posted about the dragon. Your party was different and so was your luck stat. Regardless of the latter being lower the second time around you should have the same playing field for testing purposes. Especially in a scenario where you're unsure of what the cause of the weird behavior is. Also it could be that the dragon just can't be damaged properly before the scene. If that wasn't the case, it could also be that your average or overall party attack was too low with Moon in the party but it's obviously high enough now that Moon was replaced with Saturn. This could be a hidden mechanic for all I know and applicable to your situation in the other scenario you mentioned. My memory in regards to any tests I've done is too hazy and frankly, I don't really care enough to play through the game to test any of that myself right now when I don't plan to touch the game again quite yet.

Russia

I got it, the problem solved (well, kind of...)! First of all - thank you very much, Neviutz, from the bottom of my heart!!! <3 Even though you dont remember much about the game, your post pushed my thought process in right direction. I knew that definetly not the luck stat was a problem, since after all of my testing I knew exactly the margin that it can affect. Also, the idea of Beryl scene being the key here is not realistic too, since I have had the damage problem later in the game where you are moving through the game linearly and dont have other options to take. The diffrence in my party members is what Ive started to think of. And of course, I was aware that my party have changed, but for the dragon example I didnt have the opprtunity to leave it the same (Moon was captured by Demande). Also, Ive tested different party members in my other problem situations but didnt have any success with it. I thouht that mb my party has not enough exp or something, but some exp grinding in Crystal Tokyo also gave nothing. Your mentioning of "overall party attack" though is what have attracted my attention. I didnt have the chance to test it right away but I started to think of the problem from that perspective. And everything in Zako run have started to make sense suddenly. And now, after some more testing I have the answer. In my dragon example all I had to do was to change the accessories of my party. Simply -3 tiaras and +3 bracelets for Moon has made the trick! The damage became normal. Two bracelets wasnt enough. Increasing partys attack even more was useless since there are no linear or any other kind of dependence here (also, buffs in battle doesnt count, only the stats at the start of a battle). Simply it is like a toggle - if you dont have enough then get rect. Otherwise - ok you can play. I cant imaging this weird and unintuitive game mechanic was intended, so I am considering it like a game bug and developers oversight. I mean, if your party isn`t strong enough it will get destroyed naturally, there is no need for that kind of mechanic at all. With that being said, I am really happy now, since with that knowlege I can adjust my strategy and finally run the game that I love! I think that info will be pretty useful for the future runners, but idk where is the best place for it. Probably I should delete this topic and make a new one with a simple and short explanation about this "game mechanic". Or mb you know a better way to do it? PS. Also sorry for my Eng, it was hard to read for english speakers probably.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Germany

I vaguely remembered that I edited a lot of RAM values when testing things back in the day that's how I came to the conclusion it could have been related to that. As for the last part. There's no reason to to make another thread just for that. 99% of people will just copy whatever the fastest run does anyways, and the people who actually care to know will either figure it out by reading up on stuff like here, or ask about it in which case it's easy to point out.

Russia

Ok, thanks again and good luck with whatever you are up to ;)

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