He played a large role in pushing this game to where it is today. Without his work, amongst others, this run would never have happened.

Hell yeah, someone should go try telling my friend PringleTheOne that Dragon Warrior/Quest music sucks... he'd go batshit crazy.

Long story short, the run manipulates the game's random number generation (RNG) throughout. All those little moments where he waits a bit on the map, waits to enter battle commands, brings up an extra "Command?" in battle, or tries to use a non-battle item in battle, are for the purpose of RNG manipulation (based on the frame count) to avoid encounters, be able to run away, get critical hits, or have the Dragonlord's 1st form cast STOPSPELL every turn. It also makes SLEEP work on the Axe Knight and Dragonlord, and makes HURT work on the Dragonlord -- all of which would normally be a 1/16 chance.

Sorry for the late reply, this is going to be a wall of text because understanding the manips in this game is somewhat complicated. The RNG manips in this game take a lot of planning and routing. Basically you need to know what frame you are on so that you can know where the next enemy encounter is going to happen, and you need to stop walking briefly just before reaching that spot to avoid the upcoming encounter. (when you stop walking for even 1 step the game cycles thru the RNG and allows for the next encounter to happen at a later spot) The indicators I use to know what upcoming patterns I will receive are the movement of the NPC's in the castle and town when I descend the Tentagel staircase or leave the item shop. For example 50 seconds into the game the 2 NPC's I pass by move left, right, down, and left. This movement helps to indicate the upcoming enemy spawn positions on the overworld. Using save states on an emulator and slowing the game down to 1 frame per second I can find that pattern happens at a specific frame when I clear the text box after talking to the king, and when replaying the game and getting the same pattern I will then know exactly where the enemies will spawn. From there, I watch the patterns of the NPC's in town to determine exactly what frame I am on, and what walking pattern I should use to reach the metal slimes. Again, this is done by slowing the game down in emulator and using save states to find which frame I cleared the text box from the merchant I bought the herb from, and can correctly predict the path to the slimes. Using trial and error and figuring out where the enemy encounters are allows me to know when to stop and let the game RNG cycle so I can continue walking without an encounter for a short while before I need to stop again to avoid the next encounter. Its a lot of work but also a lot of fun, and having organized notes is a must, as there are many different patterns the game will throw at you depending on which frame you are on when you leave town and begin walking the overworld. Once you reach the slimes, you need to figure out what to do to make them spawn, (such as waiting for a certain number of steps) again thru trial an error (using save states preferably), then you need to figure out the fastest way to kill them with a crit. The first split is actually one of the more complicated sections in the game, but the last split is by far the longest and hardest to pull off. Hope this helps!

Thomas Lichman RNG manipulation isn't gaming, in my opinion. This isn't beating the game quickly. The game was never played. The programming was fucked with, and nothing more.

Glad you enjoy it! A live streamed run at a charity event is going to be done this Wednesday around 1pm and you can watch it right here: www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick

Manipulation. It takes practice to get it right. You don't have to be a TASer to be able to do what he did. Chillax.

@@cammy85 haha yes i wrote that a while ago. i am now aware of the rng manips 👉

@@cammy85 using an emulator to slow frames is TAS. An emulator is the tool.

MarioKart Plushies Welcome to joys of old school RPGs. Lol

Yep. You have to bring up the command list to go down the stairs.

I completely understand where you're coming from. In the sequels and other RPGs, standing on the stairs automatically sends you up or down.

Sorry for the late reply, this is going to be a wall of text because understanding the manips in this game is somewhat complicated. The RNG manips in this game take a lot of planning and routing. Basically you need to know what frame you are on so that you can know where the next enemy encounter is going to happen, and you need to stop walking briefly just before reaching that spot to avoid the upcoming encounter. (when you stop walking for even 1 step the game cycles thru the RNG and allows for the next encounter to happen at a later spot) The indicators I use to know what upcoming patterns I will receive are the movement of the NPC's in the castle and town when I descend the Tentagel staircase or leave the item shop. For example 50 seconds into the game the 2 NPC's I pass by move left, right, down, and left. This movement helps to indicate the upcoming enemy spawn positions on the overworld. Using save states on an emulator and slowing the game down to 1 frame per second I can find that pattern happens at a specific frame when I clear the text box after talking to the king, and when replaying the game and getting the same pattern I will then know exactly where the enemies will spawn. From there, I watch the patterns of the NPC's in town to determine exactly what frame I am on, and what walking pattern I should use to reach the metal slimes. Again, this is done by slowing the game down in emulator and using save states to find which frame I cleared the text box from the merchant I bought the herb from, and can correctly predict the path to the slimes. Using trial and error and figuring out where the enemy encounters are allows me to know when to stop and let the game RNG cycle so I can continue walking without an encounter for a short while before I need to stop again to avoid the next encounter. Its a lot of work but also a lot of fun, and having organized notes is a must, as there are many different patterns the game will throw at you depending on which frame you are on when you leave town and begin walking the overworld. Once you reach the slimes, you need to figure out what to do to make them spawn, (such as waiting for a certain number of steps) again thru trial an error (using save states preferably), then you need to figure out the fastest way to kill them with a crit. The first split is actually one of the more complicated sections in the game, but the last split is by far the longest and hardest to pull off. Hope this helps!

Does that mean you need to be able to see the frame numbers and eh "rng" at all times when playing the game, or did you actually practice this with those visible enough times to remember exactly how long you need to wait and fiddle round at each spot, merely by looking at how long you have had the game running? I am impressed that this kind of thing can be done in a non-action game with so few visual cues, especially during the fights, where nothing is moving except the cursor blinking. Or can you tell by what point the music is at?

Its all trial and error and knowing what frame I start the run on. I can tell what frame I started on after the throne room (by started on I mean when I clear the text box and start walking) by watching how the NPCs move as I exit the castle. From there I use trial and error to find which tiles on the overworld I will get an encounter on, and I stop briefly just before reaching it so I can avoid the encounter. Once I do find an encounter I want, like the metal slimes, I again use trial and error to find what series of inputs i need to do to crit the slime. I take many notes, writing down what I need to do for future run attempts and work from there. Audio cues are used after a battle ends and before I start walking again to help determine when I can manipulate the next favorable encounter. The frame counter was there to show the (no movie) which means the run was done in real time and not prerecorded. The cursor blinking strategy is something I discovered when routing the game, if you hold a direction the cursor cannot move in and then press A, it will buffer the input to every 16th frame, making for reliable and precise inputs that can be replicated in future attempts.

Great achievement in life. lol 100's of hours spent on cheating a game. I was a kid when this first came out. Took me days to complete. no guides, no secrets. Just real rpg play. This is just a BS hacked cheatcode run.

wrong. you people do know when you tell someone their run is too good to be believed they just smile, ya? so i guess thanks? :)

yes, this is a manip used in the run on the Goldman, Axe Knight and the Dragonlord.

Ouijawii makes you appreciate the limit they placed on the snooze spell later on lol

Ouijawii can you manipulate it on the original?

the route is literally whatever you can come up with. It's all trial and error and execution. I think that's why I love this run a much as I do, there is no set way to play it. anyone who can manipulate frames can try out whatever they think will work. very fun game to route. without a doubt the most fun i've had figuring out a speedrun. I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

manipulation. if you start walking away from the king on the same frame every time you will encounter the same enemies in the same spots every time. so i use this knowledge to skip encounters i don't want by stopping briefly while walking around, until i reach an enemy i want to kill. from there i also use knowledge from practicing those battles to know when and how to execute the commands necessary to beat them.

You can tell by watching NESCardinality's run. They use a precise sequence of button presses to manipulate the random number generator. I think they figured it out using save states on an emulator but it must have taken a hell of a long time.

at 20:37 - when you pick it up it automatically equips

Not without a custom device that picks up something outside. Radio background or lava lamps or something. However, modern RNGs are a lot more capable and harder to game than the old NES ones.

Louie Salerno he used save states to learn how to do the RNG manip, not for the actual run

Jean-François Bouchard he also used save states to get the crits every time (he admits this himself), and to get the human-form dragonlord to cast stopspell unsuccessfully every time, and i find it awfully hard to believe that he could beat the dragonlord at level 7 using only sleep and hurt spells without s/l. its still a great run, and, to me, the most impressive part is getting through the dragonlords castle without a torch

Louie Salerno then I can't argue. I would tell you to check Nescardinality's run from AGDQ. He does all this but love no emulator no save state.

Jean-François Bouchard yeah youre actually right and im wrong. Ive figured out how to get wolflords every battle to the right of the bridge to hauksness desert, and magiwyverns every battle in the mountains south of the desert. I cant figure out it for metal slimes tho. It seems like theres regions, and a numbered enemy list, and a counter to go through the enemy list. If anybody has a map with the regions borders, thatd be greatly appreciated

Twenty-five minutes twenty-one seconds, by NESCar.

There is no "cheating." All the random number generator manipulation is done by taking actions on the correct frame. Now, those correct frames were _originally_ figured out by people making Tool-Assisted Speedruns (TAS) using emulators, savestates, and super slow motion to figure out how taking actions on a given frame number would lead to positive outcomes -- finding Metal Slimes, avoiding other enemies, or getting critical hits, getting 1/16-probability spells (SLEEP on the Axe Knight, and SLEEP/HURT on the last boss) to work, etc. But the real-time human speedrunners don't cheat; they use the information from the TAS, but they still execute everything themselves, using extensive notes on where and when to take the required actions. And that's how a lot of speedruns work -- TAS creators figure out what's technically possible to accomplish, and real-time speedrunners try to see if those tricks are humanly possible to perform. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.

@@Zalis116 he is using an emulator to slow the frames. Its not with original game and console. Its an emulator assisted run.

you might be amazed to learn that it isn't then, if you did a little research on this speedrun. but thank you for the compliment.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eM2YZpNzzr2rZWw.html my main competitor in this game did this live on original hardware, in front of a big crowd with well over 100k people watching the live stream. I was on the couch behind him. But if for some reason you still feel the need for me to prove this is possible, donate just $100 to my paypal, which you can find through my twitch link in the description, and I'd be happy to do this for you on original hardware, with a web cam pointing anywhere you want me to point it.

Your skepticism is justified jason. Your wrongnesss is not.

just wait till you see my newest WR!

?? Why would you think I cheated??

Probably because he has played the game before.

Carl Sticht It's an Any% run, so anything goes in this case. Even then, I doubt there even is any ingame cheat to exploit with.