Vandal Hearts (3rd Test Run Finished 8h-55m)

[ZenicReverie]

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Videos
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I thought adding some videos of the game might drum up interest, let's see if it works.  Once I start recording myself I'll post a select few more movies to whet appetites.

Game intro of first level, not player controlled, but it's scripted movement using the engine, so this is practically what the game looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Pajl8dMXE

Also, the intro music/cut scene to the main menu, just because I like it so much, short, sweet, and melodic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7ucnb2qwU

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Strategies for chapter 1.

***Stage 1***
Nothing really exciting here.  I position Ash and Clint to kill Zoot on turn 2, and move Diego out of the way so no enemies can reach him.

Stage completed on turn 2 player.

***Stage 2***
This is long only because I need to move everyone across the map.  Killing off my guys here doesn't help that happen any quicker.  Highlights are Diego killing off all the airmen in one round of counter attacks.

Stage completed on turn 9 player.

***Stage 3***
Clint needs to get to level 7 by the end of this stage, which is easily done near the end of the battle.  Getting the fire gem doesn't take too much more time. It'll be used in the next chapter to finish some dogs off quickly.

Stage completed on turn 10 enemy.

***Stage 4 - Rhine Bridge***
This is a quick stage as I rip through the bandits.  Clint needed to be level 7 to deal enough damage to the archer in order to kill it.  I'd rather not have the bats poison Diego, Ash, or Keira, but it doesn't hurt too much if only one of them gets poisoned.

Ash should easily be able to get to level 8, but it's something to keep in mind.

Stage completed on turn 4 player.

***Stage 5***
With Ash at level 8, he has Ice Storm, which helps to make short work of the Death Ant without much retalition.  After the battle, I buy Grog a better sword and get a Fire Gem for the last stage of chapter 2.

Stage completed on turn 2 player.

***Stage 6***
I used a different strategy here and moved everyone to one side, which keeps the far side from doing anything until it's too late.  I would have liked Kira to be level 10 by the end of this, but it doesn't seem possible without drawing out the battle.

Stage completed on turn 4 player.

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***Stage 1***
I need to avoid the villagers instead of slaughtering them and make a push through the level since killing all of them will result in losing the stage.

Kira and Ash need to be level 10 by the end, which shouldn't slow anything down, but it's something to keep in mind.

Stage completed on turn 10 player.

***Stage 2***
I'd like to get everyone up to level 10 by the end of this, since not doing so will make them less effective later on.  Getting everyone to level 10 and getting the class advancement increases their movement range and damage potential.  I accomplish this by using items.

I need to send someone off to get the moodring in the chest.  This will come in very handy in the next stage.

Stage completed on turn 6 enemy.

***Stage 3***
With the mood ring I'm able to take out one group of enemies turn 1.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 4***
This went really well.  I split the level in the middle with an in-battle save, which makes luck manipulation not suck. I still pick up a moodring in this level that I have yet to find a use for, so that could be a mistake since I have to take the time to move it from my inventory.  I may just sell it for some extra cash, so hopefully it comes in handy that way and I actually need the money. Only Ash and Sara survive this battle.

Stage completed on turn 8 player.

***Stage 5***
Found a better strategy.  Not really risky in any way, but it looks it.  I thought I could use the mood ring+eleni to kill the golems, but it's totally unnecessary.  In fact, beyond healing Ash once, Sara is left in the sidelines along with eleni or diego.  I may use eleni for some extra experience since she needs to be level 14 next time I use her, and she's level 12 now.  But actually, she needs to be level 14 after killing 1 guy, so it should be fine either way.  I don't worry about leveling Kira since she comes back later at level 21 no matter what.

Stage completed on turn 4 player.

***Stage 6***
The only way to complete this on turn 4 I've found is to have 2 flame gems.

Stage completed on turn 4 player.

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***Stage 1***
I don't know why this was turn 2 enemy, but I found the perfect placement so that the enemy gets slaughtered in counter attacks.
Stage completed on turn 1 enemy.

***Stage 2***
I cast phase shift twice, since Zohar needs the extra experience points.  

Stage completed on turn 5 enemy.

***Stage 3***
Clive NPC is actually useful if I can position him just so by manipulating his AI, he delivers the finishing blow to end the stage.  I grab the Unicorn with Sara and use it here; she also uses a mage oil, allowing Zohar to cast phase shift 3 times.  Dolan is sacrificed, but gains a couple of levels in the process.  A very close stage for Ash.

Stage completed on turn 3 enemy.

***Stage 4***
I found a way to manipulate the mage and priest into coming towards my guys, so now I kill them a turn early.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 5***
I have a very quick strategy here now as long as I'm able to get Zohar to level 18 by this time.  It involves Zohar Phase Shifting three times and Ash assisting with some kills.  It's funny because I start the Ambush on the turn Ash says "Just a little bit closer."

Stage completed on turn 7 player.

***Stage 6***
Eleni gets to level 14 and cast Phase Shift twice, killing many guards.  See next round for a repeat of this.

Stage completed on turn 6 player.

***Stage 7***
So, I figured out that Dumas comes down after you kill off a certain number of the other enemies, so I do my best to meet that number.  I don't have to drop the gate though since Amon and Clint wouldn't be of much use against Dumas, and I really don't care about the key.  I was having Dolan take point, but the majority of the time he gained too much Atk and my strategy didn't work, so I use Ash, which is actually faster.

Stage completed on turn 6 player.

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Things I must remember before going on... advance Darius, exchange items, sell items, and equip people.  Probably going to be its own segment

***Stage 1***
It's a game of how fast can I kill off everyone except Ash.  Answer? 3 turns.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 2***
Amon picks up the gem so I don't have to transfer it later, this'll be used in stage 5. Completed a turn earlier and 12 minutes faster than the test run. I hope I can make that much savings on the rest of the stages.

Stage completed on turn 7 player.

***Stage 3***
I have a good strategy for this now that makes the archers not so annoying, and it's a turn earlier than my other strategies. I'm finding that I bought enough mage gems... probably too many as the armors each have one still.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 4***
I push Eleni and Zohar throughout the entire mission, sadly I'm underleveled compared to the test run, so this might be a little slower and 3 turns longer because no one else can keep up with the mages and still be useful.  I don't even bother moving Clint, Grog, or Dolan and let them fall off with the first car.  Once I get Darius up to 20 I let him fall off the second car as well. Diego barely makes 20, and Amon might die unless I can find a good way to avoid that.

Stage completed on turn 8 player. (This used to be turn 5, but that's only possible if everyone except the armors got up to 20 class transfer before this)

***Stage 5***
Save Kira fast.  This becomes a big pain if I don't have a skylord with an aura gem, which I will have, so this is a fairly straight-forward level.

Stage completed on turn 5 player.

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***Stage 1***
I hate this stage because you can't charge through it.  Too many mages and archers make it very hard to not lose one or two guys. (I'll probably just sacrifice guys for a better position. Something to note is that I should get the armors and clint to 20 by the end of this level)

Stage completed on turn 6 player.


I need to remember to advance Kira and buy equipment for her; otherwise she can't take out the boss. Also, I should advance Clint and the armors since I'm already advancing people.
***Stage 2***
This is as fast as I've found to do this.  I charge with four or five guys and move one airman left and the other right.  The one on the right takes the fire and the left takes out the Boss.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 3***
Another quick stage.  Turn 1, position, turn 2 launch full assault, turn 3 clean up.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 4***
Charge the dragon!  By this stage my mages should now have Salamander...  I need to make sure I get a wyrmfang for defeating the boss.  For some reason this didn't happen once before. It could have been due to not killing a certain number of enemies, but I really don't know and every source I've read says the item is just a given.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 5***
The boss takes 4 good attacks to die, so I charge with my mages, airmen, 1 monk, and Ash.  The monk is there to heal, I only need one airman to survive.  I pretty much ignore Kain as he shows up.

Stage completed on turn 6 player.

***Stage 6***
Leena moves at the end of the enemy turns, and only if she has a clear path to the next switch.  So, it's all a matter of killing the enemy as fast as possible without blocking Leena's next move.  Pick up a wyrmfang from the chest.

Stage completed on turn 10 enemy.

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***Stage 1***
This stage is made possible without healers by the item H2O Water, I need to buy two of them.  Kain doesn't come down from his perch until you're close enough, so it's another race towards the enemy.

Stage completed on turn 9 player.

***Stage 2***
Pretty simlpe stage, just move forward to wipe the enemies out, nothing too difficult.  It feels like a filler stage to get a little more story into the plot.

Stage completed on turn 4 player.

***Stage 3***
My guys start to drop due to the heavy magic use, but I get enough damage through to take out the boss when I reach him.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

***Stage 4***
My last run here ended on turn 4, so I may have been a little slower than usual.  I may have focused my damage differently or possibly due to having Clint as an Armor.  It was actually the fact I only got 1 wyrmfang instead of two.

Stage completed on turn 3 player.

[mikwuyma]

Wow, this was one of my favorite SRPGs when I was young.  I don't think this would be the most exciting run, but there might be some interesting strategy (especially in the missions where you only need to kill the team leader).

Note: I haven't played this in so long I forgot all of the unit names, just bear with me here.

First off, don't go out of your way to level up. You should get plenty of levels from completing the missions.

Also, you might want to turn one or both of your healers into monks.  I know, monks suck, but white mages do zero damage.

It should go without saying black mages should be upgraded along the mage path

I have a feeling you want more wing soldier than archers, since wing soldier do more damage.  However, Wing soldiers become less effective as the game goes on.

I think you should have an armorman or two, since they're stupidly effective mid-game.  However, in the later missions, they're useless (can't cover space quickly enough).

Yeah I know none of this stuff is specific, but I've never attempted to speedrun the game.

[sulretal]

I just don't see this game being speed run. It's quite an awesome game, yet I could imagine it'd take longer than 8hours to speedrun.

[getter77]

I've never seen an SRPG run that I didn't find absolutely enthralling...so I say go for it even if it does wind up having to be one of the longer runs on SDA.

[ZenicReverie]

It's been a while since I've gone through the game, but 8 hours seems like a lot more than I remember, maybe 6 hours...  I'll work on it over the next couple of months and post a better estimate plus any useful tactics.

[Ragnarok]

I would definitely say that it can't take too long to speed run because it took me slightly over 19 hours to beat it the first time. I think 5 to 6 hours is a good estimate.

[Razakin]

First off, don't go out of your way to level up. You should get plenty of levels from completing the missions.

Also, if you level up guys, leave the main char out of it. If I remember correctly, the levels of enemies are almost same as main characters.

Anyways, looking forward of this.

(And my first post in here, broke my lurking status, bloody hell.)

[Ragnarok]

Only the trial battles' enemies' levels are based off Ash's level. Since getting Vandalier is a waste of time in a speedrun, Ash's level does not need to be kept low. I too would agree that there is no need to level up. ( I could be wrong though)

[ZenicReverie]

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Jan 17
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I've put an order for the DVD recorder, but it's back ordered, so I'm waiting for that to ship at the moment.  I'm still working on the strategy involved.  The most time saving things will be to make as few moves as possible, limit long animations, and reduce the number of moves the enemy ends up doing, which usually means reduce the number of turns a stage takes to complete.

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Jan 2
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So final time for my latest test run is , last save 10 h 14 minutes, which puts the final time at approximately 10 h 33 minutes, which is a 5 hour improvement over a regular play through.  This is without any specific optimization and I was mostly testing how the game would flow without Armor or Archer classes.  With optimization of each map I hope to bring that down by 3 hours, but 2 hours seems more reasonable.  I'm still having fun with the game, so I'm not giving up hope yet on getting the timing down.

Battles 1 and 2 are fairly optimized at this point, having played them enough and their simplicity.  Everything else will be up for further optimization as I go along.  Although I'm getting to a solid strategy for battle 4 as well as battle 5.  Much of the time saving will come from later chapters.

I have some more testing to do, including seeing if abusing a leveling exploit will be of any assistance to the run.  At this point, I can safely say that I'll need 1 - 2 Armor classes and 1 - 2 Archer classes.  I'm leaning more towards 2 in both cases, as the swordsmen class are about as useless in the late game as the armor class, but armor is insanely powerful in the mid game.  After a couple more rounds of testing, I'll break down the strategy on a per level basis.

[ZenicReverie]

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Progress: Dec-30
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So final save time was 15 hours 16 minutes with about 17 more minutes for the final level up to the final blow of Dolf.  I think that's where the time stops although there is some further dialogue that I have to go through.  That only adds about 2 - 3 more minutes.

Right now I'm going through a test run with some small bits of strategy to get a better idea for what works and what doesn't.  Specifically I'm trying a run without armor class, archer class, or healer class characters.  Monks have some good healing abilities that are nearly on par with healers, but they have to be right next to the other character, so we'll see how that goes.  In chapter six there is an item call H2O Water which allows anyone to heal the entire party, so I definitely won't miss the healer in that regard.  I think the only class I'll really miss are the archers since I really won't have a good defense against wingmen.

So far a definitely unoptimized run, but test speed run has me at the end of chapter 2-1 at 1 hour 18 minutes, which is about an hour faster so far.  Something I've noticed is that I really have to watch who's leveling up, as I need to have certain people at the next class transfer as soon as possible.  Kira for instance needs to be level 10 for 2-2 so she can hit the switch on turn 2 instead of turn 3.  Magic items will definitely increase the speed of battles, so I also need to plan out my gold spending and find where I can purchase and use effectively the magic items.

After this test run is completed, I'll need to figure out exactly where I want to segment the run.  I'm thinking of doing it basically any time I'm allowed to save just because the enemy blocking will slow down the run an extra turn or more.  It's a real pain and appears to be quite random.  Things go along considerably faster if the enemy never blocks.  I can see the enemy blocking being quite the run killer in a single segment run.  Either that or I'd have to take less risky strategies.  As there were a number of times I took out an enemy with only a few HP to spare.  Also, status effects can be quite troublesome.

The next update I'll more this casual play info down further in the thread to make way for strategy planning and test run info.  After that I'll condense this post again to form the strategy I'll use in the final run and the progress of that.

I wonder if anyone is reading this...  

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Progress: Dec-28
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I expect to have a recorder by end of January, probably closer to mid-January, so the recording will start the latest by then.

The holidays took their toll on my play time, as I attended to familial duties.  Anyway, I've just made some good progress on the casual play through.

I'm up to Chapter 5-1 with a play time of 10 hours 40 minutes.  There have been quite a few levels I could have done faster, and will take advantage of in the speed run.

I've been having trouble the past couple of scenarios because my heavies are falling behind in levels, since they have trouble reaching the enemies, thus they are the last ones to yet get upgrades.  My bowman and swordsman had the same trouble, but have been able to catch up at the end of 5-1.

Getting the second class transfer and keeping up with equipment really is essential to having a quick time since without them, the fights last longer.  I seem to have an over abundance of gold at the moment as well, so in the speed run, I'll do my best to purchase combat items as necessary.

Inventory management will play a vital role in getting a good time.  Spells are powerful, but they become costly when considering time.  I'll have to run some tests to see what the animation times are and how that plays against how powerful the spell is.

I'll finish up the casual playthrough before I post next.  My next post will have the final time for that game, which shouldn't be much more than 15 hours I'm guessing.  The purpose being to get myself familiar with the game again, and get a high time estimate, half of which should be a good speed run estimate.

I'll discuss some strategy as well for the different levels and development paths of each character.  Then it's on to the slow run where I'll go through and collect as many items as possible and test out different strategies.

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Progress: Dec-20
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I don't have a recorder yet, but getting one should be imminent.  So, in the spirit of that, I've started playing through the game casually since it's been a few years since I've picked it up.  The first thing I've noticed are all the ways I can save time by not playing how I normally play.  After the intro scene and first fight I saved at 11 minutes.  I then did a trial speed run of the same segment and got a time of 4 minutes (3 minutes should totally be possible with perfect execution), so cutting my end play time of the casual play through in half should be a good estimate of overall time.

At the end of Chapter 2, stage 1 of casual play I'm at 2 hours 10 minutes.  One of the hardest parts of the run will probably be balancing the purchase of equipment.  One of the highlights was an excellent, and close, battle against the sand ant where he fell in 2 rounds, so that will most likely be close to the strategy I use there, but it requires I collect the fire gem in the golem level, which is easy enough to do.

I'm planning to do a slow run after this to test inventory (item and equipment) management.  I'll collect everything and execute my battle plans, but I'll attempt to use as little of the items and equipment I get, and test to see what is quicker against how long it takes to get the items...  This will probably be the slowest part.  After that I should have a good plan for the speedrun.  Definitely going to be segmented at first.  Depending on how small I can make the run, I will also attempt a single segment after that so long as I can find the time.

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Logistic Info
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Saves are shown to the minute,  but seconds are also recorded.  This was tested by saving, loading, waiting 35 seconds, then repeating across 3 save files.  This'll make timing a lot easier.

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Old Post
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So far, I've picked three games to try and speedrun based on how easy it would be for me to complete the run.  Here's one that would take a little more planning and luck to get through fairly quickly.

Vandal Hearts is a turn based strategy game, much like Ogre Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics.  It's for the PS1, and has a few missions where you can choose speed over progression, so it might be interesting to watch.  If there's any interest, then I'll post more on planning the run.

I'm thinking a segmented run depending on how things look, but might be persuaded to make it SS.  Recording wouldn't start until next year, but I really want to get something planned and practice soon, so I'll have something to record and post.

I know of one trick where you can rack up some easy levels, but I'll probably skip that because it takes a while to do.  Also, I won't be getting the Vandalier (sp?).  I'll leave that for the 100% run.  This is what I'm thinking so far.

[ZenicReverie]

I'm in the middle of test run at the moment.  I have a DVD recorder, but when the screen isn't moving the color red seems to shake a little.  I think I may need to invest in some s-video cables.

I also lost my job, that is to say I will lose my job soon, so I'm currently in job search mode and don't have a lot of free time to put into this.  I'll update once I'm done with my test run.

I'm still in job search mode, taking longer than I thought originally.  It might be a move across the country.  In any case, I probably won't get back to this until at least May, but hopefully sooner.

My DVD drive can't seem to read the format from my DVD recorder, which is really... odd.  The PS2 can read it fine...  In any case, I still need S-video cables I believe to reduce the red flickering.  I'll update this once I get either one working, but I believe both are blockers at this point.

[ZenicReverie]

It sure has been a while, but I've got good news.  I'm back and ready to do this.  I have a new computer with DVD drive that is able to read the discs I'm recording on.  Strangely the red flickering is gone, but some of the camera shifts cause the screen to look pixelated.  I'll buy some S-video cables tomorrow now that I know I can at least record and send videos.

I've contacted mike to find out if the video quality is acceptable.  I still need to work on the timing, as my last attempt was nearly 9 hours.  I've also been away from the site for a while, so I'm sure some things have changed.  Let me know if you're still looking forward to this.

[getter77]

Best wishes at your renewed attempts to smack this game down.   

[ZenicReverie]

So, I've passed the video quality test for SDA.  Check out the post for an example of how level 1 will look.  I'm going to start the run this week, and I'll update with the completion of each chapter.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,9658.0.html

[ZenicReverie]

I've nearly finished chapter 1.  On the last segment, the Ant battle, I questioned if I should combine it with the previous one because it's only about 5 minutes, but I decided to focus on optimizing for time sake since I have a feeling I'm going to be on the high end of 7 hours.  However, the next two battles are back to back without a point to easily save at.  I'm avoiding the in-battle saves because it generally breaks up the flow, and segmenting on a map seems unnecessary at this point.

I know of three other places where there are two battles back to back, so this won't be the last time I'll need to do this.  The most difficult probably being the jail.  If anyone's actually playing along, I'm at 00:36 after the Ant battle and equiping Grog.  I've tested out a couple strategies for the next two maps, ship and village, and I'm ready to start recording that soon.  It should be just about 1:00 or less at the next save.

I'll probably update again after I've finished with the jail unless someone asks for something sooner.


Edit: Not a full update, so I don't want to bump.  I just wanted to voice that I hate the amount of luck in this game.  In the segment I'm recording now I need to have nearly zero blocks on both sides and not be poisoned.  Poisoning adds about 15 - 20 seconds.  The first time I got such a run I almost stopped right there and moved on, but after trying a slightly different strategy I cut the time by nearly 40 seconds.  I know if I keep trying I can cut another 10 - 15 seconds, as the last one had a number of 'miss clicks' or brain farts.  Nearing about 300 attempts at this segment so far though, it's very taxing.  I'll keep working at it. 

By the way, this segment is the one after the ship+village one, which means I may as well update at the end of this chapter as I haven't gotten very far.  I quoted 1:00 save time and ended up with 0:54 and the next one will end at 1:07 most likely.  After this segment I'm going to take some time to go through the rest of the game, as I don't know if it's faster to get Swordsmen or Armors.  I can't recall any place I needed Swordsmen over Armors, but Armors are slower to move and take more damage from magic.  It'll also give me a better estimate for the end time, which I'll update once I'm done testing.

Edit #2: Of course I post this and then only 15 attempts later I get a good segment.  Only 1 mistake, which costs 1 - 2 seconds, and one case of bad luck that costs 7 - 8 seconds (now you get why luck manipulating is so necessary in this game, it's the greatest time sink.).  I can live with this though as it happens at the very end of the segment and doesn't look too bad compared to the amount of time it would take to get this perfect.  So, I'm finally moving on from this dreadful segment, which probably won't be the last of its kind.

On a side note, probably the greatest time saving device is to be able to skip through text very quickly.  I'm doing this by rapidly pressing x then o.  x skips the dialogue to the end and o advances to the next bit.  o skips slower, and there seems to be a throttle on one button as just pressing x isn't as fast.  If I knew how the RNG worked, then it would be a lot easier to get perfect segments, as I wouldn't have to worry about segments ending due to bad luck.  As it stands, I'm at a loss since it truly seems random.  Probably reseeded on loading with the current time or something.

Edit #3: I just went through another test run and got a time of 9:40 at the end, which is really good considering that's a 50 minute improvement on my last play through, and this attempt was riddled with interruptions (family stuff) where I let the timer run and didn't feel like restarting plus it has no optimization.  So, I'm going to try again and make Clint a Swordsman instead of an armor and see how that goes.  I'm convinced that Dolan should be an armor now after playing through again, but I'm not sure if Clint would be better as a swordsman.  During the last few levels I hardly touched the armor guys, but an extra swordsman might be good.

Last Edit: Latest test run is just about 8:55.  So the final run will definitely be less than 9 hours, and I think 8 hours is a good goal to shoot for.  Once I get past the second chapter the enemies seem to block a lot less, or maybe it's because I'm just using magic more often, so attempts will be less annoying.  I'm also definitely using Clint as a swordsman.  During these test runs I'm not worrying a lot about excessively moving my units, but during the run I'm only going to be moving those units I need to move and use later.  Something strange happened in this test run, I didn't get the wyrmfang from the fire dragon.  I'll have to look out for that and make sure I get it; I can't find any reason for it online.  Next post will include a chapter update.