Shadow Hearts 3 in 4:19:21. Sub 4:20 time, which happened much faster than I thought! This time is only about at most, 3 minutes behind WR. Still, I have the itch to go back and do more runs of the game cause I should be able to get a lower time just based on past performances.. Theoretical time assuming everything goes right at this point is probably like a 4:05:XX but getting all those pieces to line up is probably unlikely.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Erick Theatre to Dark One - I think this is the first time I get the perfect on Dark One and three round him. Shame about the formations on the thugs within the dungeon, cause otherwise this should be a 7:50:XX instead of an 8.
Arkham University - Frank had stock for Ignorak so the Schofield II was pretty much a lock.
Grand Canyon - I had between 60-100% stock which is optimal but IIRC didn't get first turn. Doesn't change too much so this was looking solid at this point.
Chicago and Gangsters - Gangsters suck hardcore when the don't group together. Also, I lost more time here thanks to Dazzle dying on me, causing me to miss a ring and having to fix the capture.
Alcatraz - Pirate Fort - Pretty much minor time losses all over. Some of it is just due to unfamiliar menuing with Natan. Some of it was just bad formation/boss luck.
Vegas - This wasn't bad but not as good as it was in my PB. I finished Vegas at about a 1:57:XX. Most of the gangster fights were ok. They weren't optimal mostly due to positioning. Still, I was able to minimize the time loss because the Malice Edna fight went really well (lots of strikes on Red Bounces and Entrance!) but my stock situation was worse due to the gangster formations, so I couldn't bounce turns to Hilda as much as I wanted. I'm about 90 seconds to +2 minutes at this point.
Chichen Itza - I basically go into the red here significantly and don't recover at all until near the end. Why? Jeb Nigas refused to get POIZN'd despite me taking RICHARD approved YOLO tactics. I nearly get myself killed because of that but the fight ended up being long drawn out slug fest. Pictures were solid, but I did have to force 1 encounter just due to bad formations on the way to the boss. About +5 minutes at this point.
Machu Picchu - Kerufe goes down without a hitch. Having Natan at this point out made things a little easier and saves a little time each fight since I didn't need to fuse to access any of my options.
Vilacabamba - After the disaster in the last Killer fight on my PB, I was certain to gain time here. And I do! I made up only about 2 minutes though because Daoros is still a nuisance. I also take him out with a Double Combo from Johnny which in retrospect is a mistake since it really hurt me for the next fight. I'm developing better general rules now about this fight and I want to see if full Bat in actual practice makes this fight much faster cause it could be worth the risk.
Aito Cave - Lol. So after the disaster last run, I was like 100% certain I would save time. Nope. I ended up losing the 2 minutes I gained, meaning this fight is about 6 minutes slower overall than what it should be. Half my problem was just the turn order not lining up correctly so I could never Entrance Hilda after she was revived. If I had stock, I could just pass turns to Hilda and this wouldn't be an issue at all.
Salt Mines - Killer doesn't get one shot but I also kill him before he can benefit off Gale so this was not too bad overall.
Garland Residence - Lost time here too against BabyRage. I think it was just randoms though. I'm about +2:20 at this point. But now the end game comes and the Bat reroute takes over.
Before the Gate - Skipping the Roswell Hit Expands saves like 2 minutes. It's pretty damn good and you minimize the backtracking involved as well.
Malice Killer - Excellent turn order. Killed him with a 20 second save to boot, so yeah, this was great.
Malice Soakers - Much faster. The first tree is the biggest issue and I managed to get Ricardo to go before they did. Strike Barrier and it was pretty much coasting from that point on. Bat's big advantage over Mask Curvy? Energy Charge. Since the Keys give you a lot of stock, it enabled her to freely use Energy Charge Standard Doubles without significant risk. Not to mention, since she attacks almost all the time, she gets stock back every turn. I save at an estimate about 6 minutes on trees overall thanks to this. Of course, good turn orders and not getting too many run failures helps a lot too.
Malice Gilbert - Gilbert goes and does Gathering into Deep Grudge. I proceed to basically wipe him out from the ensuing lag on the Double. Hilda did about 6400 damage so lulz.
Lady - Stock situation was Ricardo at about 0.5, Natan at 0, Johnny and Hilda at 2. It was an awkward situation, but I make the best of it. Energy Charge Standards deals about 1400 damage, so they are the best source of secondary damage after keys were exhausted. I almost split early a couple of times because I did about 7000 damage and thought she would already be dead after the Third Key. Cue Ricardo's turn, hit a strike. Still not dead (7122 damage at this point)! I was a little worried after that because Lady would cure herself. Luckily, mah boi Johnny Garland could get a turn before her and did a Gale Blast to push the damage right into a kill. Lost about 40 seconds compared to PB because of stock situation basically.
Shadow Hearts 2 - AFter 10 years, I finally make it out of the train tunnels! So yeah, I want to play through the rest of this game now to see what I missed. Gameplay is a step up from 1 but down from 3 - main issue is just the overall difficulty. The combo system is also very superfluous (due to the above) and the mechanics feels entire unnecessary. Very much do prefer how it was eventually handled in 3 which was much more intuitive. Some tentative thoughts:
Re: Rings - Are a joke in this game. This is probably because I speedrun FtNW, which more or less requires you to get decent strike rates off tiny strike zones. Covenant's Ring *is* smaller and the speed of the dial feels different so the timing does change of course. However, the strike zones are like 3x as big as they are on TECHNICAL compared to FtNW. My favorite though is Energy Charge, having a strike zone about 8x as large as the one in FtNW. It's like Intrude! They realized, "oh hey, this ability was kind of good, we should nerf it".
Re: Randoms - Because of the above, enemies are *really* easy. And I mean pathetically so. They don't have the same level of damage as the ones in FtNW and with such a convoluted combo system, they can't even combo to make you worry about them more. You can get ambushed and not have anybody die. Meanwhile in FtNW, you get ambushed and it's potentially fatal. Now add in the fact that you can regularly one shot them (not even requiring you to use the best mage in the game!) without hitting weakness and it's all kinds of amazing. Really, the main reason I fight them is because a) I needed to improve my strike rate back up since this file was from 10 years ago and b) I want to see if I can be prove wrong as well as remain somewhat within the relevant level curve.
Re: Bosses - Are largely wusses. Having Energy Charge super early is probably a mistake. As is getting Entrance really early. Then there are so many multipliers. So ridiculously many. Like it reaches the point of VP2 silly. I'm okay with this though since it just means I get to crush everything into fine powder. The highlights so far include ORKOing Rasputin and Nicholai as well as OHKOing Hojo. Even if I don't OHKO, a 2HKO is super likely just because of how much damage the first hit deals. I am sad that I cannot stack the Mind's Eye with the Extreme. But given how the bosses just basically explode at this point, I suppose it is just gratuitous overkill.
The good news for SH2 bosses is that if you are boss that is Veronica or earlier, I will view you as much more durable because that is before where all the really broken stuff is gotten. For the record, after Veronica you get: 2nd copy of Entrance, Mind's Eye and Lucia's crit oil as available options. These all add up to making boss durability much worse. I suppose I could do a learning curve scale (so the later you are the more likely you will feel the full brunt of the effects on some of these abilities) but I rarely vote in the DL anymore, so this is just speculative.
Re: Europe Arc - Largely fluff but has the better gameplay portion. Bosses survive more than 4 actions. I like that the story gives you flash backs of SH1 so if you haven't played SH1 in awhile or at all, you can still get the general gist of what are basically the key points (Alice dying, Albert summoning a greater god etc.). Instead of putting inside a library or something that basically says "here, read this if you want to care about the story". I like this for 2 reasons. 1) There is cutscene skip so you can skip all this if you wanted and 2) the fact that it is put into the cutscene makes me feel like the designers are saying "We care about the story and narrative", which at least makes me want to pay attention. If you just dump it into a library I feel like you really don't care either, so then the question becomes 'well, why should I?'.
Also, the joke characters are a little less obnoxious I suppose. Joachim/Ana are much better than Frank and Mao. But just like in FtNW, the supporting cast doesn't really get a lot of screen time. This is largely Yuri's story (or a continuation of it from part 1) and to a lesser extent, Karin's story and the game makes that pretty clear. Even Gepetto who is Alice's uncle and Blanca don't do much (although I guess for Blanca, this is excusable). Still, nothing too exciting happens. They spend about 70% of this arc just talking about the mysterious powers of the mysterious mistletoe or mysterious activities of the mysterious assassin group.
Shout outs however to Lenny, who is the rising star of the villain cast, which is largely forgettable. I didn't care much for Veronica or Rasputin or Nicholai, but Lenny is genuinely cool and its great to see that they didn't kill him off AND bring him back in part 3 as Johnny's butler. Well done Azure.
Re: Japan Arc. I'm about halfway through this is I were to guess. I just got out of the Hojo lab. This is kind of where the game starts picking up. The mistletoe curse becomes more relevant, what Kato is doing becomes more obvious and they do less beating around the bush overall. I guess hiding the mysteries are starting to pay off but we will see once I completely finish the game. The one thing they are *not* being mysterious about is regarding Karin's true identity. This is kind of strange, but I guess they didn't want this to be completely out of the left field and are making it well foreshadowed.
Re: Character Balance. The way I play, this is also kind of messed up. In general Yuri > Blanca > Lucia >>> everyone else for bosses. Magic multipliers just isn't as good here as they are in FtNW so going physicals for boss fights are largely the way. Since Yuri has sole access to Energy Charge, he is by far the best at it. Since like FtNW, you really only have one set of good physical boosting accessories, you really only need one good support, which in this case is your fastest character, Blanca. Shout outs to Lucia for adding an additional 2x multiplier for free basically, which negates the thought required from me to consider other characters in this scale
For randoms, this is a little more interesting. Magic is superior here because they have AoE. Physicals don't. Obvious choice should be that the best mage is the best at randoms right? Well, not quite. Because enemies once they get their turn, move out of formation and since tech rings are so easy to hit, it's actually the fastest character who is usually the best here. Scale is something like Blanca > Ana / Lucia > Yuri / Gepetto > Karin > Joachim/Kurando. Ana and Lucia have stronger magic than Blanca so they take out stuff that aren't weenies. Also, Ana has a camera, which is very valuable. Yuri still has ST OHKO off decent speed so he's still good, but not great. I don't like fusing in randoms and think it's basically a waste of time since Blanca or whoever can waste half the field beforehand anyway. Gepetto's game worst speed bites him since he often can't move before enemies do, but his innate bonus + high MAG means he can take out more durable enemies that the other can't, which is something. After that, Karin is better than Kurando and Joachim because she can actually use magic, unlike the former and has better int/speed unlike the latter. She's worse compared to the others at the top because she doesn't offer any advantages in comparison.
