• Not getting Shiki's Lv2 Fusion means you can get Safe Landing @Edoga immediately. The Lv2 was used to save time on DS because you can fusion the last chain in a battle, but :26 fusions in Remix means it's no good. Safely skip it in FR if you want.

• I've made a list of every single viable equip here. A bunch of it is DS only (because I'm currently routing it) but there's info for FR: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C_MFV8RcXwcIZYbUoTv7TkLJxp1fWRDO47mgKtIneWw

• I've changed my mind about getting Funky Shades; it's now in the DS run and works for FR. Get it so that you get the Choice Meat from the 104 wall @ W1D7, and then you can grab Definitivo Chili Dog on W2D4 for Beat after he consumes 2 BRAVE+. This requires 0 backtracking: you already go to the Scramble on W1D7 to fight ravens, and you pass by Mexican Dog on W2D4. It needs 3 Rare Metal, and Beat will digest in time for the berserk fight. This means you buy only 3 hot dogs, all for Joshua.

• Tektite is such a pain in the ass to get in DS, so now my DS route doesn't get any. But it's much easier to get in FR, so you could consider Patchy Biker Jacket. However it requires considerable farming time and slight backtracking (you need to buy 2 Durable Leather). I'm leaning towards NO for this.

• Camouflage is worth heavy consideration; it's now in the DS run and replaces Beat's Purple Sneaks. If Beat has San Fran/GBC/King Pendant, Camouflage is equivalent to ATK +12 until you heal out of SOS. Get in some extra damage for the first few seconds of a fight.

• Adamantite isn't worth it. CAT Deck is obtained after W3D4, so there's no time save to be had at all.

• Beat needs 2 BRAVE+ for GBC. Who gets the 3rd BRAVE+? If Beat gets it, he can wear Pi-Face's Cap for Kitaniji. This can put Beat at ATK 96 (10 base + 9 stickers + 3 chili dog + 27 GBC + 16 pendant + 15 cap * 1.2 camouflage) but you'd lose a few seconds in the Draco fight. If Neku gets it, Beat would have ATK -10, but Neku would have ATK +8 over San Fran. For DS, I'd give it to Beat because you can't cheese Kitaniji with a Lv3. But for FR, giving it to Neku is probably best.

I kinda like the scrappy organic experimentation where I peek into streams and make on-the-fly suggestions that may or may not work :p

• Insta-fusion on Tigris fails in FR. Worked in DS and SR, oh well

• I've been observing everyone's Tigris phase 1. People are losing several seconds by waiting for the taboo wolves to run into the pit. Well, you get Live Slow Die Fast (Psychokinesis T) on W2D4 from the story. In FR, it evolves to June Hearth January Fan, which lets you pick up enemies. I know a lot of runners avoid Psychokinesis, but the T variant isn't that cumbersome to use compared to the D and S variants. Maybe try out that pin, and if it works out, you save some seconds off the Tigris fight because you can just toss the wolves into the pit. Cool.

I hate how a run can randomly die on W1D4 because enough money pins didn't drop. You need 3 ¥500 drops on D3, and 2 ¥1000 drops on D4.

You fight up to 12 wolves for the ¥500 drops, and the drop rate is 15-45% depending on the LVG. There is an outside shot of whiffing this, but it's rare.

On D4, you're at Lv3, so there's a 19% chance of the ¥1000 drops whiffing, unless you fight the pig at 104. That pig provides 200 EXP, which should give you a level up. The pigs on D3 don't provide any EXP, so the 2nd pig (at Shibukyu) should be skipped in favor of the 104 pig on D4. A safe run would fight this pig, while a risky run would skip it. The WR played risky.

EDIT: After missing the ¥1000 drop for the third time, I've had enough. I'm incorporating the D4 104 pig into the run. The D4 104 pig is a time loss of about 15 seconds, but has these benefits:

• Puts you at Lv4, thus guaranteeing the ¥1000 pin drops at Lv1 for the Scramble wall
• Acts as a safety buffer in case you don't get the shark boss ¥5000 drop (80%). Without it, you don't have enough shopping money for D5.
• Eliminates controllable RNG uncertainty. (The only RNG that should be in this run, due to its length, are the brand missions and W3 reaper bounties.)

Enough category drama for now, back to routing discussion

• GBC is ridiculously good because ATK +27 is way above anything else you can buy. I'm getting personal best splits even on DS with it, and it really should be in every future run. It doesn't require you to get any materials, because you already have the 2 Tektite and Sleek Silk.

• In order to equip GBC, Beat must consume 2 BRAVE+. Neku can wear it immediately without BRAVE+ but only if he has consumed 9 ice cream. Otherwise, he must consume 1 BRAVE+. I feel that due to partner efficiency, and the knockback penalty for wearing it, GBC is better on Beat. Biker Jacket on Neku is still ATK +15.

• The buy order for GBC in the chart inadvertently unlocks the abilities of Blond Wig and Mini-crown, which wastes a few seconds. Here's a better buy order, given that you bought Ribbon Bonnet on W1D3: 3 Lace Bonnet, Ribbon Bonnet, Vampire Dress, 2x (3 Lace Bonnet + Ribbon Bonnet). This doesn't unlock any extra abilities, and is slightly less expensive (¥51090 vs ¥51480). Enjoy your 4 second time save lol

• Cure Drink goes in the deck upon equipping GBC. Using Cure Drink immediately at the start of a fight puts your HP at 75%. However, this only leaves you with 3 attacking pins, because the current plan is to keep Poison Bones in the deck until NP Resonance. Choose your 3 attacking pins wisely.

• If Beat consumes the 3rd BRAVE+ instead of Neku on W3D5, Beat will wear Pi-Face's Cap. He'd only be able to eat 1 hot dog to do this. If you want to do this, Neku only needs 6 ice cream for the whole game: he gets BRV 45 by W2D6, enough for Red Mohawk Set. In DS, Neku wants Pi-Face's Cap to reduce the damage he takes from Kitaniji's projectiles. But in Remix, it doesn't matter who gets the DEF +25.

• I'm not sure switching pendants at the end of the game saves any time. The possibility of Beat having ATK 79 (Sneaks/Pi-Face's Cap/GBC/King Pendant, 3 ATK stickers, 1 hot dog) for Kitaniji and Anguis is very appealing, and if this is good enough to prevent using fusion Lv3 on Kitaniji, that more than makes up for the inevitable time loss on Draco.

• Crazy but maybe actually awesome idea: On W2D7, detour to Shibukyu Main Store and defeat the sleeping pig (far right side -- scan quick or else a taboo symbol might get you, use the Switch home menu to KO it) for the Archangel pin. Use Archangel as your healing pin instead of Cure Drink, because Archangel is HP +70% and will activate instantly, putting your HP at a fresh 95%. Neku gets to fight a half-second earlier.

• For W2 Tektite farming, you need 2 total for Joshua and Beat's Lv3 fusion stickers, because GBC uses up the Tektite from the W3D1 pigs. But to be honest, I feel Joshua's Lv3 isn't worth it because it's only for Sho. Maybe consider pin slot 6 over Joshua's Lv3 instead, as Cure Drink/Archangel uses a slot. Both upgrades require 2 Scarletite/1 Tektite. (Pin slot 6 needs 1 extra Rare Metal.)

At some point there needs to be a standardized list of acceptable runs that are run by at least 2 people.

What if I submitted a "no food" run or a "no equip" run or a "only same brand" run? Or some other run where I make up some arbitrary ruleset that nobody else has vetted? They wouldn't go up. At this point I feel current NG+ and "all secret reports" are derived rulesets made up by one person. The latter has zero submissions.

The most accepted categories are:

• Any% where any and all in-game means (including sequence breaks and glitches) are used to complete the game ASAP. This is any% easy because once you get the easy sticker, nothing is stopping you from using it.

• Any% normal for this game has been run by the most people over the years, including people who haven't submitted here yet like me and TLPlexa, so it has that going for it.

• NG+ should have a less restrictive ruleset. If ultimate difficulty only isn't preferable, then we could discuss other options.

By the way, I don't mind the status quo if push comes to shove. I just gave my $0.02 on the matter, that's all.

My vote:

Merge 1P2C and 2P2C until it's clear that 2P2C has an advantage that 1P2C can't overcome.

Categories:

• Any% easy (pure speed)
• Any% normal (the traditional run)
• NG+ ultimate, no stat/equip restrictions (Ultimate difficulty is to make it different than any% easy, and is logical because ultimate is postgame only. It'll still be fast, but at least there might be unique pins/setups used.)

And retire the current NG+ and all secret reports. I know they're your pet categories Herreteman, and you put a lot of work into them, but sorry man, nobody is going to run those anymore. Current NG+ is too restrictive, and all secret reports feels like a crippled 100% attempt because the runner plays through the story twice but doesn't end up getting 100%.

FR does make it possible to 100% the game using a single device without long waits. What if someone were crazy enough to attempt 100% in one go using date changes? Hey, if someone can 100% Baten Kaitos in 2 weeks...

I did it "one sitting" in the sense that I didn't retry any days. However, I saved after each day and took a short break after each week, so that's why I didn't submit it. I'll do an actual live run on Twitch when I'm ready.

Even though I did Beat's week in 1h14, I still feel it's the least optimized and that I can shave some more time off it. W3D4 is the most important day to optimize because it has 11 fights. I feel it can be done in 12 minutes IGT. For Shiki's week, I'm going to cut some fights out of it, especially the 4-chain raven fight because I don't need lots of rare metal anymore.

EDIT: Just finished routing my new strategy. Can't wait to try it out, though I'm pushing the boundary of available budget: ¥304k by W3D2. I needed to trim quite a few things to even get it there.

EDIT 2: Finished W3D7 in 32:16 real-time, which is 3 minutes faster than the WR split of 35:16. Gonna polish up the other days, but this is looking great.

EDIT 3: This new run isn't exclusively SOS from W2D5+. However, it still picks up Tin Pin Thrift, because ATK +30% for free is still fantastic. Poison Bones' DEF Break is equivalent to ATK +20%, and it's used for the entire game. I just feel Tin Pin Thrift works well by itself without requiring Sun Emperor or Camouflage. Tin Pin Thrift is retired at a specific point, but I'll reveal it once I'm certain this route is faster.

I don't feel Sun Emperor has a place in the run because farming 9 RM for 3 Tektite is a buzzkill, and it'd have to replace Purple Sneaks. (The other slots are hat + top + accessory, all of which provide equal or better ATK for less money.) My new routing uses 0 Tektite and I'd like to keep it that way. (Saving 10-15 sec on Sho with the Joshua Lv3 fusion isn't worth the money and time loss for 1 Tektite.)

King Pendant has always been available in the maingame.

One last equip to consider: Goth Bondage Coat on W3D2 for Beat. GBC is ATK +27, but induces SOS. However, unlike the other SOS clothes, you can immediately heal at the start of a fight, and GBC's ATK will stay at +27. Cost is an issue. However, the JP wiki claims that GBC is unlocked at FSG Lv3, while in DS, it was unlocked at FSG Lv5. Test this, because I can't check myself. As for required materials, the W3D1 pigs give you 2 Tektite, and 1 Sleek Silk was given via a wall on W1D6.

EDIT: Replaced wall of text with an updated table.

• W1D3: Bye-bye Star Cap!
• W2D4: Both BRAVE+ are bought for Beat because he needs to consume 2. Neku's BRAVE+ is deferred until W3D5.
• W3D2: Cash out to ¥84k instead of ¥33k. Look at the table for details.
• W3D5: Negotiator is skipped. Neku's BRAVE+ is bought.
• W3D7: If you feel risky, put the GBC on Neku before Kitaniji.

The table has removed some equips which only give ATK +1. Those skips will save money and time because you enter 3 less shops. (Funky Shades isn't worth the extra money and time.)

Beat's ATK should be a whopping 64 at the beginning of W3D4 instead of 40, because Beat will equip the King Pendant and the GBC at the same time. This should save significant time for the 11 fights on that day, and for the rest of the game. Bonus: A random reaper bounty on W3D2 or W3D3 allows GBC + King Pendant to be equipped against Uzuki. If you don't get one, you saved time anyway. Win-win!

Punchy, you expressed concern that the run being >3h is awkward for festival submissions. Try an any% easy run next time and see if that's sub-3h. The only change from any% normal is that Reaper Beat should probably be fought all three times instead of dodging. The easy run would also have a bit less money to work with.

Any% easy should be a new category for FR because it'd be the "pure speed" category. Maybe retire the "all secret reports" category, because it's lame to see someone play the game twice in one run, and no one has submitted anything for it yet.

Finished my first serious test run. Overall I'm semi-happy with it, but I'm still rusty, and my Shiki/Joshua splits could be a bit better.

IGT splits: Shiki: 0h05, 18, 38, 48, 1h01, 20, 29 Joshua: 1h34, 46, 2h05, 22, 36, 43, 51 Beat: 2h59, 3h06, 14, 28, 37, 42, 4h05 W3 RNG bounties: 5 Game overs: 3

I tried putting SOS clothes on Neku, starting on W2D5 with Sun Emperor. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough at the game to consistently beat the W3 bosses with no heals, especially all 3 Uzuki fights and Kitaniji. DEF break is a total killer. Very happy with W3D7: I cleared Draco Cantus in 34 seconds.

Overall I think SOS can be great in the hands of an amazing player, and it can definitely go sub-4h, but it's way too risky for me. I also have another idea that I want to try out first, which might be better than SOS.

Currently routing week 3.

Fuck Uzuki. She is still a monster, especially when trying to beat her with no heals. I've made a special deck without OSMB just for her and my PB is 35 seconds, but she can still RNG you into a game over. I am practicing the Uzuki fight a LOT, because the run lives or dies by that fight alone. I don't feel any of the other fights are too difficult.

Merge it. It still hasn't been proven that 2P2C is faster than 1P2C. The current 2P2C time is 19 minutes off the 1P2C time, and that was with 0 bounties on W3D6/W3D7.

All secret reports is a niche category, as some pigs will need to be claimed in the maingame, and food consumption would be targeted more towards BRV to enable equips like Samurai Wig/Biker Gloves. Because it significantly changes the any% normal routing, I'm personally not interested. SOS likely wouldn't work well in A New Day because of "restore" dissonance noise fights. But it would work everywhere else.

As for NG+, I think it's a dead category with the current rules tbh, which feel way too restrictive. The current NG+ rules were designed to give the NG experience without the slow text speed. However, FR has given NG fast text speed, thus making the current NG+ rules superfluous. Also, current any% normal runs are now using permanent ATK+ food. I feel NG+ should just allow players to go wild with whatever stats and equips on ultimate difficulty for the goal of shortest ultimate completion time possible. It would also allow anyone to submit a NG+ run with their current save instead of wiping it just because they used stat-boosting food.

Maybe run Ribbon Bonnet over Star Cap permanently, as the time loss for buying Ribbon Bonnet (about 5 seconds) should be less than the time saved for the D3 fights. It's also a ¥6000 save. Any extra money you have by W2D4 or W2D6 goes into buying ATK Capsules, so this seems good.

Star Cap's ability (sync +20) isn't necessary, considering that Punchy only used her fusion against Cornix Canor.

It's ¥1800 in the JP version, which means the JP wiki was incorrect.

Hmm what

Ribbon Bonnet (Shiki ATK +5) cost ¥3000/BRV 117 in DS. But it got lowered to ¥1800/BRV 107 in FR, which means Shiki can wear it immediately on W1D3 for cheap. The yen discount appears to be an English-only buff, as the JP wiki lists it at ¥3000/BRV 107. It would work for all fights during D3, then get replaced by Star Cap on D4.

Maybe there are other buffed clothes hiding around. I mainly used the EN wiki (which has DS stats) for buylist prep, so there could be other changes.

EDIT: This and other changes (starting yen, ATK Capsules) were all in Solo Remix, too.

Final buylist. Massing ATK for all weeks works, and Punchy lowered the WR to 3:16:09, a 7.5 minute improvement. Slight changes to the original buylist:

• Neku can't equip BBT, so that was a mistake. He can equip the Yellow Tee for ATK +1. Punchy didn't bother with this.
• Double-spiked Cuff has the ability "ATK Break Finisher". This is a detrimental ability, as it overrides Poison Bones' DEF Break. After a practice run, we decided to just go with more Spiked Chokers at a slightly additional cost.
• For W2D7, Joshua's lv3 is so powerful against Sho that it's better to run BBT over Denim Blouse just for the faster fusion.

As for routing changes, the NP Resonance pin was obtained on W3D5 by doing the mass reaper fight on lv1 hard. It has the benefit of no longer hearing Punchy bitch about what should go in his extra pin slot. :p His final deck was Nenekiri (replaced by Lightning Rook after Kitaniji) + NP Resonance + 3 NP pins.

Any further timesaves with the mass ATK strategy would be based on execution, and a bit of luck. A radically different routing strategy that might challenge this is SOS, but farming the additional Tektite could be a massive time loss. (Sun Emperor needs 3, Goth Bondage Coat needs 2)

Shoutout to Punchy for working on this run and giving me the motivation to pry into FR a bit further. I'd assume this would also work for Solo Remix, but SR has slower text speed and no co-op.

EDIT: Routing pic removed; see updated one on page 4

Try this. No detours required.

Week 1: Neku could eat a hot dog too, though that delays the equips. I don't think giving him a hot dog is a great idea. Shiki has ATK +2 on D5 and D6, and ATK +4 for the GM. Neku has ATK +4 on D6. This is very modest so I don't think much time will be saved here. But there aren't any better ATK clothes.

Week 2: Joshua immediately has ATK +5 on D1. This goes up to +8 on D4 from Red Mohawk Set (+7), and Joshua gets to keep the 2nd Biker Jacket for D3-D7, excluding the GM. If you have enough money for 3 San Francisco, then you won't need to swap out Joshua's. Maybe a 5-minute save if we're being optimistic.

Equips for the brand walls -- NP: Black Stripe, Brown Jeans // DB: Knit Casquette, Denim Blouse

Week 3: Stays largely the same, but Beat wears Biker Jacket (+10) instead of Hey Everybody (+7) until he gets Negotiator on D5. Neku stays with Red Mohawk Set until Beat can wear King Pendant, then he gets the Wild Boar Pendant.

Beat's week is now cleared in under an hour. At this point, I think his week is almost optimal; virtually every fight in his week is under 30 seconds. Clothing looks good because I can't find anything better than San Francisco/Negotiator/King Pendant. The only significant non-glitch time saves here would be less random reaper bounties. Another thing to maybe explore is skipping the 2 pigs, but this would mean fighting the bat boss and Uzuki with a crippled Beat.

Looking at Shiki and Joshua's weeks, their clear times are still a bit over 70 minutes. What if we massed ATK on these weeks too? The boosts aren't as juicy, but Ideally the setup is Purple Sneaks + hat + top + accessory. This means Green Warm-ups as a battle equip isn't needed. (You'll still need 4 Mus Rattus clothes for the W2D5 wall.)

Hat: Knit Casquette (+4) is ideal for Neku/Joshua. Star Cap (+5) is for Shiki only due to BRV. This is the best until W2D4, where you can buy San Francisco (+7).

Top: Maybe getting a second Biker Jacket (+10) for Joshua on W1D6 could work, as Neku will equip his on W2D2. (The 2nd Durable Leather is given at the W1D6 Molco wall.) For the D+B wall, Denim Blouse (W2D4 Molco, +5) looks OK, and means you don't need to buy Stronger Cap/Cupid Tee. For week 1, Alive (W1D4 Wild Boar, +3) works for Neku and Shiki (until she equips the Biker Jacket), but it might be too expensive in the early stage of the game. Buying 2 Alive here means you don't have to buy 2 New York on W3D2 to raise shop FSG.

Patchy Biker Jacket is +21 for Neku but I don't think it's worth the time loss to farm 5 Tektite for it.

Accessory: Double-spiked Cuff (W1D5 Molco, +3) isn't special but it's still better than Nylon Waist Pack. On W1D7, you can buy Funky Shades (Kurakura, +4), and on W2D4, you can buy Red Mohawk Set (Tigre Punks, +7). Neku can get a Wild Boar Pendant (+9) for himself on W2D2.

By replacing all of the Mus Rattus equips with beefier stuff, money will be in very short supply, so some of these suggestions may not be feasible.

Lastly, you can play risky on W3D6 if you're using Natural Puppy pins. Set level to 1 and hard at the start of the day, and any random reaper fights will drop the NP Resonance pin. Wearing it is equivalent to ATK +14 if you're playing with Casual Pendulum/Innocence Beam/Sweet Talk Tether. But you're screwed if you can't beat it. Hmm.

I've been spoiled by Final Remix, because I had forgotten how brutal DS hard is. While I could do W2D2 Tektite farming on hard in FR, I can't do it reliably on DS without lengthy cheese. DS hard (0.61) is significantly tougher than FR hard (0.9375), and Joshua is awful, only dealing 8hp x puck with his finisher. Enemies also have 2x efficiency, which means they usually deal more than 2x damage because Neku has very low DEF.

Due to Shiki's much higher damage output on W1D6, especially against decaravens with her air finisher, I'll move the rare metal farming back to W1D6 and keep the Pop Pendulum fights where they are, as Neku with Burst Rounds has much higher DPS than whatever you have on W2D2.

Note that rare metal isn't dropped by any of the decaravens in the Cornix Canor fight.

Punchy tried mass ATK Beat last night. It works, I'll leave it to him to tell you about it

In DS, the Force Rounds pins with penetrating bullets bugged out. As a penetrating bullet went through an enemy, the enemy became invulnerable for a few frames. This caused penetrating Force Rounds pins to have significantly worse real DPS than regular Force Rounds pins. Black Venus, even without the set bonus, was the Force Rounds pin of choice because it used regular bullets. Sexy Beam was the best Natural Puppy Force Rounds pin.

I can't test out Remix anymore so experiment to see if they fixed this.

True. W3 doesn't have enough fights for Viper Drink to be of any use, and all of the other ATK+ foods are inefficient. Hot dogs are used because it's the only option. DEF and HP foods are irrelevant, and sync foods fall under the fullness threshold anyway.