So relearning my Any% Easy route has been a fun process. Most of it has been like riding a bike. After a 6 month break since your last ride, it can be a little nervous getting back on. But once you get going, the muscle memory kicks in. The only issue I've found is rerouting some of the newer strats and skips that've been found since I first started running the game back in March.
There are so many little movement strats I've found/thought of. Strats that have seemingly inconsequential influence on the time saved, but add up a lot over the run. For instance, I run to the side at the bottom of a ladder to avoid accidentally grabbing back onto it. Or doing rolls when falling off a box or a zipline. These little things are going to help me push the category to a sub 1hr.
I've spent the past couple nights doing attempts. My goal is to get as far as I can before I die (in the game lol). With the exception of a few places in the run, I refuse to reset unless Gabriel succumbs to the dreaded death. The exceptions are mostly in the first mission of the game. If I don't get the Spectre from the first enemy I dispatch, I reset. Or if I fuck anything up during the Lian escort at the end, I reset. Otherwise, I just want to push it as far as I can. So far, I've made it to the first Janzen mission without dying.
No matter how long it takes me, I will succeed. No matter how many Janzen Glitches I have to deal with, I won't give up. I quit running this category 6 months ago because I became frustrated. I kept getting the softlock, ending runs about 38mins in. And I knew I could push the time down, but I felt like the game just didn't want me to succeed. I've thought about the sub 1hr since.
I'm so happy I came back to the game. I wanted to leave the Any% category behind for a while. Just focus on IL runs and All Episode Missions runs. But the more I played, the more I thought about that Any% record. I love this game. I hold such fond memories of it from my teenage years. This is the only game I've found that has given me such a strong speedrunner urge. lol Dark Mirror was always there for me when I needed escape and happiness. So I want to do right by this game, and the excellent people who created it, and push it as far as I can.
This game CAN be broken. And the more we fiddle with it, the harder we push it to its limits, the more things we'll find hiding under the surface.
Btw, I found a piece of movement tech in "Security Section D" that saves a little time. At the end of the vent you go through to get to the bomb area (where you found the ATL drop skip), there's a crate that has a Flak Jacket in it. You can access that crate from inside the vent, which opens the crate AND starts the cutscene at the same time. After skipping the cutscene, Gabe will be in the normal position he is at the end of the cutscene with the armor. This saves time manually exiting he vent (which is slow af), manually opening the crate, the time it takes to do the crate opening animation, and having to reorient Gabe after opening the crate. It saves at least 5 secs.
I don't use the armor during IL runs. But it has been hella helpful in Any%. I found it by accident in the same run I found that ladder softlock. I just forgot to say something about it.
Learned a couple new things tonight during my runs tonight. During the mission "A Man Without Power," the electrician has a line of dialogue he'll sometime skip. While doing the part where you have to wait for him to count to three to pull a switch, he'll sometimes skip the line, "On the count of three." It happens randomly. Out of the eight run attempts I've done tonight, he skipped this line during three of them.
Also, in the first mission of the game, when Lian is shooting at the ladder to make it drop down, she'll normally shoot at it three times. However, during a few of my runs, she'd only shoot twice. It makes me curious about what other little things like this there are in the game. If I find any more, I'll be sure to post about it.
There's another thing I've noticed that seems rather interesting. On the mission "Freeman's Files," the code to the safe is randomized between three sets of numbers. One of those combinations can be 5-4-1. What makes this interesting is that it's the same code you use to access the door at the end of "Traitor In Our Midst," the mission that the Janzen Glitch happens on. From my experience, every time I get the 5-4-1 safe code, I get the Janzen Glitch later in "Traitor In Our Midst." So I wonder if these things are linked. Like maybe the game can't handle two keypads having the same code, so it goes a bit wonky or something. I noticed this back when I first started running the game. Thought it was something worth sharing.
The Lian and ladder thing: it seems that even if you blow the lock for make it lower, she still shoot at it, so basically is just an ammo waste. Also, some times happen that for some reason went backwards for a little, then shoot at it The keypad thing: in Man Without Power there are two codes: one is 541 and the other is 538. Is the only instance that there are two possible codes. The other places are always the same, I can say all by heart
There's a third code in Freeman's Files. I got it back when I was running the game on stream. It's rare, but possible.
539 584 541 are the possible safe combos 541 for the door on the Janzen Mission
And I don't remember the code to the safe in ep3 pt1, honestly I haven't opened it since I first started replaying DM. lol
Nice. You'd definitely do well at a 100% run. Also, I kinda broke the game during my last Any% Easy run attempt of the night.
Oh and I think my game might legit be broken. I can't get a run past the Janzen Glitch. Like, at all. Every run that makes it to him dies to the softlock. It kinda sucks when I'm on a crazy good pace. I haven't played the final three episodes in an Any% run since almost 7 months ago. This is why I quit playing back then. I'm gonna give it a month. If the game doesn't let me get any runs to the end, I'm just gonna switch back to ILs and All Episode Missions runs.
What the hell... I suggest to get a physical copy like me and try to emulate that Digital copies are broken for near all games I know
A 100℅ run will be possible, but my mind isn't ready for it haha Also, our saves need to have cleared the Story Mode once, on purpose to skip FMWs, but the problem is that we need to do 0% of Career Ratings and no evidences taken, plus trainings need to be "failed" too, in order to get just the bonus mission. The other bonus missions will need to be unlocked through the real 100% run
I have a physical copy, just no hardware to play it on. I think I might just do some of the other ILs I haven't rerun or run at all. I really wanna do some more tests on "Freeman's Files." I was doing 100 runs of it and recording the safe code I got and the switch combination at the end. That way I could get some data on the likelihood of each happening.
So the game works just fine during Mission Mode. It's only in Story Mode that the game loses it's fucking mind. Hell, I can even get past Janzen sometimes in Mission Mode. Not always, but still. So for now, I'm just gonna be sticking with MM and IL runs.
🤷♂️ Oh well. I really like doing the IL and All Episode Missions runs anyways. So it ain't that big a deal. At least until I can get a PSP to play it on.
Once I finish my tests on the level, I'll let you know what my findings are. I want to get the odds of each safe combination. And find out what the most common switch pattern is at the end of the level.
