So, I did a couple test runs of Japanese PC Chronicles the past couple days. I figured this version would be able to beat Complete relatively easily, since it has cancel to speed up text, and the Silver Sword cutscene can be skipped. However, it's looking like the times are comparable to the Steam version, despite these things. This is even taking into consideration the recent Minea Plains clips (a free 20-30 seconds, depending on how much trouble it gives), but there's smaller stuff like waiting to move before bosses. Granted, I am pretty rusty, but it's still feeling like Complete is the faster version time-wise.
Just to clarify, what settings should I be using in the config, if that matters any? Here's mine right now:
I know one of the options messes with the FPS (60 or so compared to 75?), but I did a quick test just outside Minea, and confirmed that it doesn't affect the time any (shouldn't, at least).
Regarding that cutscene, looks like the times are about right, though it looks like my Chronicles run was maybe a second slower for that dialogue. I was just holding down cancel, wasn't mashing confirm, if that matters at all.
Anyway, I did a run of Complete just a while ago, with similarly terrible execution. The Japanese PC Chronicles time came out to roughly 42:17 and the Complete time came out to roughly 41:09; both runs had ~2 minutes of major errors (deaths and bad execution on bosses, Vagullion excluded from this). This is not accounting for my sloppy play in general (slow menus, an occasional brain fart regarding where to move, stupid stuff like that).
Actually, it looks as though Vagullion is killed at about the same time in both runs, despite my Complete run having a ~30s faster fight (~1:05 vs. ~1:35 - not sure on Chronicles, but for Complete, it's optimally ~40s on Easy). For Darm Tower, looks as though Complete only had ~10s of notable mistakes (death to Yog & Omu), while Chronicles had ~50s (had to play safe with Pictimos, death + a reload at the Flame Sword, and dying to Dark Fact a couple times). Hmm, though the Chronicles Darm Tower was kinda bad in general, a lot of damage taken from normal enemies.
So, here it looks like Complete after Vagullion was ~23:53 with ~1:50 of notable errors + ~25s potential improvement of Vagullion himself. Accounting for the remaining ~10s of errors in Darm Tower, the run could've ended at ~38:45. Actually, I know for certain it can be more than that, given that was about my estimation (well, excluding insane Vagullion luck) before the Minea Plains clips, but whatever, it'll serve for comparison purposes.
Chronicles after Vagullion was ~23:49, with ~1:10 of notable errors + I'll guess a ~50s improvement for Vagullion (I don't know the optimal time for him for Chronicles / +, but I'll guess ~45s). Then with the ~50s of errors in Darm Tower, that means the run could've ended at ~39:27. Again, it's most definitely more than that, especially when you consider Kreggan's Chronicles+ time without the Plains clips, but yeah.
Ugh, I really don't want to time things room by room. :( Too close to call, though...
Seems part of the issue is the Complete grinding was ~20s faster.
Anyway, I did some timings between Complete and Chronicles (I'll do + sometime later):
These are rough timings using a stopwatch, though I did try and make certain the timings were free of dumb errors. Bosses especially may differ by a couple seconds.
The main thing to take away from this is that for most scenes, Chronicles is a few seconds faster, but loses time because of the wait on boss entries / exits. There's one standout weird thing in particular, and that's the timing for the cell trap differs significantly between versions, but I've no clue why. Dogi busts down the wall at ~22s in Complete, ~30s in Chronicles, and ~25s in Chronicles+. I also noted that the mirror animation plays on the subscreen in Complete, but not Chronicles (unsure of +).
Unless there's a flaw in how I'm doing things, I'm not 100% comfortable saying Chronicles is for sure faster, just because of the extra steps to get to the equipment subscreen, mouse support, and the Monocle shortcut ("R", but still need it equipped). Probably not enough to make Chronicles slower, but Complete doesn't seem far behind at all.
I timed the trap room the same way: as soon as the trap activated to Dogi breaking down the wall (though the pastebin entry also accounted for Dogi's dialogue). I did notice that it didn't seem to make a difference what portion of the cell I examined (even if it was all 3 areas), so long as that + the Luta dialogue were done fast enough.
Anyway, just started going through Chronicles+ now. Looks to be a tad faster than Complete of the couple scenarios I've timed so far, but I think the boss stuff is going to hurt it too much, if the text doesn't already. Not to mention, there's actually two non-boss instances that Complete does a couple seconds faster than Chronicles: Feena + Mask dialogue and Feena on the pier.
And the Chronicles+ times included with the above:
Don't know why, but looks like even most bosses differ a little in +'s favor over Chronicles. Weird.
Anyway, + is definitely the slower of these 3 versions. At some point, I'll need to re-run the games without so much dumb stuff, to make sure that the end times really do reflect the timings above. Not sure when, I don't really have a comfortable setting to do good attempts at the moment.
