It's possible that the SNES version is different, but I don't recall being able to use Imperial 9 Cherie to grind because she refused to cast Fireball. She had a really nasty habit of attacking anybody caging her in even when it was an incredibly bad idea for her. Going to assume that has something to do with her not being a mage class.

I tested my route on Bizhawk today though, and I noticed that the last few enemies in Imperial 10 don't behave the same way between SNES and Saturn. The enemies start moving after a while, and the usual Fireball mage is obsessed with casting Thunder instead until MP limitations force Fireball. Perhaps Cherie also behaves differently? Worth noting that I was using J 1.0, and I don't know what 1.1 changed.

The run itself was somewhere in the 5:15 range for the Chaos route. I knew the Saturn version would be faster overall, but I honestly expected it to be a smaller gap (certainly not around two hours).

Honestly, I'm really doubting the Hein grind for Any% SNES after this. Teleport is great, and being able to remove all damage roll nonsense for Bernhardt is certainly a plus, but the grind takes SO long. An Elwin grind early + a good support team following him everywhere is probably the better way.

[Edit]: Yeah, I was super wrong on this Elwin grind only thing. Just did some casual testing and I was basically only seven minutes ahead at Scenario 15. Unfortunate that the second grind is probably here to stay (optimally), but at least it makes some of these scenarios far less frustrating?

That's an interesting idea about Light 9 grinding though, assuming I'm understanding you correctly. You're saying to feed Hein to Paladin in Scenario 6, and then use Imelda in Light 9, right? Are you sure that Imelda uses Fireball though? I seem to recall her being Thunder-happy there. Getting Hein any experience early on sounds kind of rough because Elwin is busy breaking everything in half, but perhaps Turn Undead would be a huge deal for him there?

But yeah, when it comes to Light path recommendations, I honestly don't know. I initially worked on a Light route and hit the brick wall of Liana being taken away. Rather than figure out a proper way to deal with that, I chose to just bypass the problem entirely with New Legend (since you keep her there). Obviously not an option for SNES. :(

If I had to guess, it would probably be the Bozel branch in Light 13 and pursuing Sonia in Light 19. Bernhardt is probably too much of a pain in the butt to kill without Blast combos, and chasing Sonia skips dealing with Chaos at all. Not that Chaos is particularly strong, but one less boss to fight sounds good.

You might have already figured some stuff out, but have you tried Heal grinding? I routed the heck out of the Saturn version, and that seemed to be the best option overall. You lose a lot of time early on, but then breeze through most of the game once you're set up.

Not sure how applicable it is to the SNES version (haven't played in years), but it seems like it might balance out. Saving enemy phases is probably a lot more effective on the SNES version, since AI movement is slower.

Essentially, you trap Morgan as the sole survivor in Scenario 3. Block Liana in safely, and then grind Elwin to Sage until he learns Again. Grab the Runestone in Scenario 5. From there, you either grind Liana or Hein depending on what route you've chosen. Liana for Light route, and Hein for all others. (I don't remember if SNES has a Light route that lets you keep Liana, so it might be Hein for all in that version.)

If you grind Liana, use Morgan again in Scenario 4. If you grind Hein, use the top-left mage in Imperial 9. If you choose Hein, you need to keep that Runestone to use on him there. If you choose Liana, the Runestone is just there for funding Elwin's ballistae.

For Liana routes, you start breezing through the game starting at Scenario 5. For Hein routes, it starts at Imperial 10. The grinding itself takes like 45+ minutes (?) on Saturn, so keep that in mind. If you're doing an all endings run, the grind REALLY pays off.

But yeah, that's the basic idea. My route notes are on the Dramatic Edition page, so take a look if you want to see what might apply here as well.

My understanding is that it's inaccurate enough to potentially affect the run. If nothing else, I recall seeing something about wall clipping around Gold & Silver that doesn't happen on hardware, but it's been far too long to remember specifics.

I've added my notes to the guides section, but I wanted to write down a couple other things for possible reference.

1. Untested, but it might be possible to save a small amount of time against Mouri if you set up a couple Battle Permits beforehand. This would require you to start with at least 185 points if you keep the same item loadout in the notes.

Omachi should get the Popularity Staff until the Kouhime/Sill scene right before the scene introducing Shimazu. At that point, you'd switch Omachi and Daidouji to Battle Permits. With enough luck, Omachi and Daidouji will both attack Izumo on that turn, and you can safely defend any counterattack. From there, you'd switch Omachi to Tange Dog, dismiss/unequip Daidouji, and finish claiming Izumo.

Obviously this idea would require multiple things to go your way on top of everything else. Specifically, you'd need Tenshiism to not ruin their troop totals, and you'd need both permit users to pick the right target consecutively. Still, it's an idea that might be worth testing if you want to save a little time. (Having Daidouji around will probably mess with enemy troop scaling though, so that might be a drawback.)

2. I haven't put much effort into ironing it out yet, but it appears that the 165+ points notes mostly work for 5-star difficulty as well. You'd obviously need to make some tweaks, but it's surprising how much applies. It appears that the main snag is funding, so you'd want to take the Jizo bonuses + 10,000 starting gold. This allows you to abuse the troop limit/cost gates to get the necessary troop counts for your tanks. You'd probably also want to go up to 40 satisfaction instead of 30 to make that happen.

The other snag seems to be that you'll need to resign yourself to safety saving at certain points. I'm not sure you'll be able to get around reloading at specific points until the enemies don't counterattack you, because you just don't have enough Instant Time Pass to block everything.

So yeah, that's all I have for now. Hopefully this is useful to somebody. :)

I'm kind of surprised to hear that early rockets is a new thing. I used a different method in my run from a couple years ago, but I guess it went under the radar. :P

Specifically, I just get one from a rooftop shooter right before the end of the Party Time chase. It's fairly simple to touch down on the roof and take care of business without losing the chopper, and it's all during waiting time anyway. Probably no time difference either way, but it's neat to have multiple ways to do the same thing.

Possibly worth mentioning the couch warp at the end of Nyteblade's Return from that run too. I've never watched much of any other runs since I like to blind route, but maybe it's useful? You can warp to the bottom floor of the lobby by diving off the second couch on the left during the elevator section. From there, you just need to go halfway up some stairs to enable the elevator trigger for the next section. Might not be that useful on Casual, but it certainly saves some pain on Hardcore since you end up mostly skipping a wave of enemies.

Also, I found a minor skip for Trojan Whores a couple years ago. You can skip turning the power back on if you're airborne when you take out the last sniper. Might not be useful since it requires already having a chopper in your helipad, but throwing it out there. I recorded a video, but never uploaded it. Let me know if it sounds useful at all and I could plop it on YouTube or something.

I have a few questions about the New Game All Stories rule set:

1. Why are the tutorial maps required? They don't give cards, and what little gameplay is there is mostly trivial. They aren't even included in the Story Mode tab, so it makes even less sense. I realize they are mandatory from a fresh start, but since they don't give you anything relevant to a run, I don't see the point.

2. Is the unskippable introduction required? The rules wording makes it sound like time would start after that, and it would actually allow you to freely change your controls without losing time. However, the only run currently on the leaderboard apparently includes the introduction in the timing. Which is it?

I also wondered about why first completions of levels are required for a New Game All Stories run. I'm guessing it's because even with a stock setup at base level, any cards you'd get per level completion would be extra because your base save file already picked up some cards.

Would it really make THAT much of a difference in a run though? It seems like the only real barrier for eliminating pointless cutscene skips that just slow down the run's pace. I imagine it would make slightly more of a difference at higher difficulties, but still. Only other thing it would change is the default team, but you could just require a runner to re-enter Story Mode between arcs to fix that. (Not that I think it would even matter outside of melee somehow being super good for something.)

Alright, fair enough. I'll leave it alone. Figured I'd check though.

Thanks.

Since the Japanese version does seem to have a small advantage with Mecha Godzilla, is there any interest in splitting the leaderboard by region?

There's currently only one Japanese version run on the leaderboard, but with the recent activity I've seen, perhaps that will change.

Let me know what you think. I'm in favor of a split, personally.

I don't know if there's a topic for this kind of thing, but apparently my notifications/followed games are linked to someone else's account. I just received notifications and have a followed game from Molotok's account (note the "k", not a "v").

No idea how something like this is even possible, but could someone fix it please? Thanks.