Month: September 2021

So. Today I did a speedrun. 54 minutes 59.79 seconds. Or maybe even a few hundredths of a second earlier, it’s hard to say. But whose counting?

I used a hobbit bard, a half-orc magician, and several of the original team that loads when the game is first started (e.g., Merlin, El Cid, et al.). The first and the last fights in the game were a team effort.

Lost 3 full minutes wandering around Kylearan’s Tower – single biggest loss of time. (My speedrun depth mastery is fairly shallow, it’s hard to get this deep into it). I think there was probably about 5 minutes of efficiency across the entire run in getting lost, sub-optimal pathing, and sub-optimal Mangar strategy. So, sub-50 minutes is probably doable.

Critical Timings:

• 01:30 – An influx of gold.
• 04:45 – Level 7 Magician (Spell level 4) becomes Level 1 Conjurer
• 16:53 – Level 13 Conjurer becomes Level 1 Wizard
• 19:49 – A brief visit to adventurer heaven
• 40:40 – A level 30 Wizard leaves with his team and begins the assault on the Two Towers.
• 49:34 – Entered Mangar
• 54:59.79(+/- .05) or earlier – We’re home.

Video with post-run audio commentary: 54 Minute Speedrun

So, basically, my runs have been focusing on the Magician -> Conjurer -> Wizard path that skips half the magician levels, gets conjurer to 13, and then levels as wizard to 30. In my initial trials, I have been able to get to Mangar in just over an hour, doing it relatively slowly in a “is it possible” mode. And it is.

I’ve decided to use the default heroes, particularly the firehorn on the bard, to farm the 66 skeletons in the catacombs. I roll a hobbit bard with 18 dex and 17 luck and they work about 2/3 times to wipe the skeletons. This gives the party about 6-12k in gold. This allows us to get a few quick levels as a Magician to build stats and get mystic shield, and then swap to Conjurer (Apar) and then Wizard (SPSP).

The main issue is the lack of the Magician’s REST. This is particularly an issue after the possession trap, when your hp is defaulted to 1. FLERE is not really a quick way to heal up, and it drains a lot of SP. It may be that we’re forced to get REST.

In any case, the bard lets us skip the red dragons, saving time spent healing. The rest of the run is just object collection and pathing. I’m completely confident that a 60 minute run is doable. It’s just a matter of luck.