FE8 RR 0% LTC Ch.17 (with Commentary)

[@queenlyarts]

3:30 Yay, epic Ross moment!! Interesting how Reverse Recruitment loses a turn here, when you were otherwise able to put together clears than saved turns for most of the run. It's cool that you adapted though, and took the opportunity to find a way to get more weapon rank on the new RR lategame carry. And yeah, I was definitely expecting Seth to be stronger for some reason (RIP), so I understand him not getting the Goddess Icon. I'm still stumped on it though, so I'll ask before making any crazy theories- is the entire cast recruited? It looks like they are, but maybe this added a Creature Campaign unit or something haha. My only semi-realistic guess is that a unit needs to get hit/crit to manipulate enemy AI in the next chapter (everything past that seems like a Warp Skip with no Enemy Phase), and you've just been waiting to give the Goddess Icon to them until after then. Something else I've been meaning ask that probably relates more so to your experience with speedrunning- is there a reason that you sometimes jump between the selected unit directly on the map, and other times by looking at their inventory and scrolling there? I would guess the order would be the same, but I'm honestly not sure.

[@osfe_]

Yeah for pretty much the entire playthrough having RR units has only really made things easier/unlocked faster clears on maps, but this is kinda starting to change, mostly due to having very different lategame carry options. Despite FE8's reputation for being one of the easier games in the series, some of the lategame bosses can pose a significant challenge to kill quickly with a decent level of reliability in a 0% growths context. We're still mostly able to keep up with 0% growths past this point, but there are a couple scenarios where missing Super Cormag means we have to approach things quite differently. And OK yeah I'll be completely honest about the Goddess Icon: I totally forgot to use it for like 90% of the run. I have a tendency to overlook it in comparison to the other much more impactful stat-boosters like Energy Rings/Speedwings and I totally just forgot about it and let it sit in Garcia's inventory for the longest time lol. I do remember it though and it still has a pretty noteworthy use that probably wouldn't have happened if I'd used it earlier! But yeah nothing strat-defining/turn-saving. As far as why I sometimes switch characters by scrolling through their stats screens, there absolutely is a reason! It’s a mix of both wanting to make it easier to quickly execute the clears and have the overall presentation look cleaner/less sloppy. Usually L-switching to jump between units is fine, but there will occasionally be scenarios where that won’t work (or will at least make the clear more difficult to execute/look messier). L-switching basically just jumps to the next available unit (or the topmost available unit if the cursor isn’t currently hovering over anyone) going by deployment order, so you're totally right that the order itself rarely changes. I only really use the stat screen whenever I want to move someone who’s somewhere above the current unit in deployment order (or really far below the current unit) but not nearby anyone else on the map that can be reached easily with L-switching. I could’ve chosen to just L-switch a bunch of times to get there, but that usually looks messy, especially if there are several spread out units in between that end up making the screen jump around a bunch in the process. I could also just move the cursor there manually if the next unit I wanna move isn’t too far away, but that introduces more room for error during execution and can also just be slower. Most of the time you can at least L-switch to someone nearby and manually move the cursor from there, but there are still a few exceptions, most notably Chapter 14. Our units are split into two groups on opposite sides of the map and the way the groups are split up makes relying solely on L-switching super messy. I’m really glad you asked though; despite it being a super small and seemingly insignificant detail, planning out stuff like efficient movement order/unit switching ended up taking quite a bit of time and effort during the recording process. It kinda adds another layer of optimization beyond lowering turncount which I found pretty enjoyable; probably just my speedrunner brain talking lol