Golden Sun Max% FAQ

 			Golden Sun 2 Max% FAQ

Q: What is Golden Sun 2 Max%?
A: Collect as many djinn and summons as you can without using a password. At present we can obtain 65/72 djinn and all 13 summons.

Q: What djinn do you miss?
A: 6 djinn from GS1 (which are randomly chosen) and Shine who is found in Contigo. Because we do not use a password we don't have access to force so we can't get it.

Q: Do you collect Charon and Iris?
A: Yes.

Q: Uhhh, why is Felix called >_<'?
A: It turns out that the “random” puzzle in the game (the Great Gabomba, Gaia Rock Maze, Trial Road puzzles) are all generated based on what you call Felix. Turns out that >_<' is a name that gives optimal puzzles in trial road - there are other combinations such as ^^D but >_<' is by far the best.

Q: Is Golden Sun 2 similar to Golden Sun 1 when speedran?
A: GS1 and GS2 are very different speedruns. The speedrun for GS1 uses heavy manipulation of the random number generator (RNG) in order to minimise the number of encounters, flee from those encounters without fail and force bosses into favourable attack patterns. While GS2 and GS1 employ the same RNG mechanics, Camelot changed one important thing which makes RNG manipulation very difficult. After a reset and once the Nintendo screen clears, the game plays two intro cutscenes. The first can be cleared immediately and the second you need to wait until “PRESS START” shows. During both of these cutscenes a new random number seed is generated every frame. It is very difficult to land on the correct seed.

Q: Why is it hard? Can’t you just mash buttons?
A: There are a few problems with just mashing buttons. To mash buttons you’d need to be able to clear the first cutscene on the first frame and then in about 5 seconds time clear the next screen on the first frame. When I was trying this I ended up very inconsistent results. Moreover, because the first cutscene also adds random numbers and the second screen takes a fixed amount of time to get to “PRESS START” using visual cues to hit the right frame is inconsistent. Fortunately, the audio track between the two cutscenes stays the same and thus “counts” out the correct frame consistenly. Current I use an audio cue from this track to be able to get the correct frame.

Q: I heard you say that the run is very hard, why is that?
A: Along with the fact that RNG manipulation is very hard to do, there is a major sequence break in the game which allows you to get to Gondowan early. After the King Scorpion we glitch into Gondowan and we’re fighting mobs that we would normally encounter at level 12+ while we’re only level 8. Getting through this phase of the game without people dying is very annoying and hard. Particularly since the Great Gabomba dungeon contains mobs which can bring people instantly to 1HP and/or instantly kill them.

Q: Where do you use RNG manipulation in the run?
A: Given the difficulty of RNG manipulation, I only rely on precise RNG methods at a few parts of the run. These are forging the Spirit Ring and obtaining 2 Wild Coats from the Lemuria fountain. See http://pastebin.com/XyT7cehv for the specifics on how RNG manipulation works.

Q: I saw you save and reset for a boss, isn’t this RNG manipulation?
A: Yeah it is, but it’s very primitive RNG manipulation. Doing a hard reset will reset the battle random number (BRN) to 0. This means that the bosses will always start off with the same attack but I won’t know where that attack is going to hit. By using specifically mapped out actions, I can manipulate the bosses into only ever hitting 1 person or everyone. This means that the randomness in where the attack goes will not affect the attack pattern for the boss. (e.g. an attack that can hit up to 3 people could hit 2 or 3 people, the number of people hit changes the BRN). This makes bosses a lot more manageable than they would be while I’m at such a low level.

Q: How many lights are you turning on to fight the Serpent?
A: 0, ideally. RNG manipulation should allow me to make this happen.

Q: Do you RNG manipulate the Doom Dragon?
A: RNG manipulation against the Doom Dragon is basically impossible. The snow effect on the top of Mars lighthouse means that the RNG seed changes every frame. As there are dialogue boxes which need to be cleared during the talk with the Wise One, there’s no way to consistently clear those within a 1 frame window consistently. However, the first action of the Doom Dragon is pattern based and NOT random so it allows me a lot of control over the fight.

Q: Why the spirit ring and wild coat?
A: Spirit ring because its effect when used is Wish Well, this is essential to beat the Serpent with 0 lights. It’s also a really useful item because when used out of battle it doesn’t break (a feature unique to the Spirit Ring). i.e. I get unlimited healing out of battle at no PP cost. The Wild Coat will be duplicated using the Trial Road Glitch and distributed across my four party members. This will give them over 200 agility by the time I fight the Doom Dragon which allows for a really optimised fight.

Q: Why did you clear Felix’s/Isacc's name repeatedly at the start of the run before entering in names?
A: With no save files present, the game will skip the two intro cutscenes that make the RNG difficult to predict. Thus the RNG is completely predictable when starting a fresh file. Each time I clear Felix’s or Isaac's name a new set of Djinn for Isaac’s reunion party is generated. I'm looking for Ground, Flash, Spritz, Kite and 5 jupiter djinn.

Q: Wait, Isaac’s party’s Djinn are random?
A: Yup. They’re generated at the start of the game. You can influence this by clearing Felix’s name, opening up the “Enter Password” screen or saying no to a transfer file. The four “backup” djinn from GS1 are also random; they’re generated based on the RNG seed once you reunite with Isaac.

Q: What glitches are used in the run?
A: We use the retreat glitch extensively, the Trial Road glitch and the burst glitch. We also use a bunch of poor collision detection to speed up various dungeons.

Q: What is the retreat glitch?
A: When you have less than 6PP and Retreat set to L or R, using retreat via the hotkey will result in retreat failing. However, the game will mistakenly think that retreat worked and that Felix is actually in the first room of the dungeon. Walking through doors or accessing chests will result in the game looking up the door or chest as if it were in the first room and this can have some strange consequences. This will often allow you to skip large portions of the dungeon and obtain certain items in the wrong place (best example is accessing Iris early: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFvWDkaU0AE ). Moreover, if you save and reset the game will load Felix into the first room of the dungeon at the same coordinates he was at in the previous room. This can allow me to get out of bounds and access a bunch of garbage data doors scattered around underflowed coordinates. TLDR; allows me to skip even more of the dungeon. Sometimes the game will look up a door that doesn’t exist in the first room, instead of crashing, then game will instead send you slightly south-west of Madra. This is used a few times in the run as well.

Q: What is the Trial Road glitch?
A: After leaving Trial Road all your items will be returned to you (you leave various items in chests throughout the dungeon). An unintended aspect of this is that if you drop an item from your inventory, it will be returned to you after you leave the trial. Dropping an artifact item will result in the item appear in the artifact menu in the shop. I drop 3 Wild Coats on trial road and then buy them back in the shop – thus duplicating my wild coats.

Q: What is the burst glitch?
A: A programming oversight allows burst to be used up certain height 1 cliffs. This allows for some hilarious skips in Magma rock (where this glitch is abused) including the ability for Felix to walk on lava.

Q: You saved and reset and ended up in a strange place, what happened?
A: Either I used a retreat warp (you will have seen me fail using retreat before saving) or I did a sanctum warp. Sanctum warps are not glitches, it was designed as data-recovery feature in case something bad happened to your file (e.g. data corruption, getting stuck in a strange place). To recover the data and warp to the last sanctum you hold L+Start while loading the file.

Q: What is your endgame party?
A: Jenna-Isaac-Piers-Ivan. Ivan and Isaac are strict upgrades over Sheba and Felix, Piers can output more damage than Mia so is another natural upgrade. The final slot can be filled by Sheba, Jenna, Felix or Garet. Jenna offers the best stats/utility so I'm currently using her. Felix might be faster but it makes PP management more complicated since we need to retreat warp a bunch at the end of the game.

Q: What classes do you use in the run?
A: Base classes up until Aqua Rock interior skip, then Jenna and Felix go into the Brute series (venus and mars djinn respectively). Brute+Base basically covers the rest of the game.

Q: I saw you sleep-lock the Avimander and King Scorpion, I thought you couldn't do that?
A: Aha! The GS wikis will have you believe that 40 luck makes bosses immune to status conditions (and thus only the Chest Beaters and Moapa's knights are able to be afflicted with status conditions) but this isn't quite correct. The 40 luck = immunity seems to hold in the original golden sun, but in GS2 an amazingly helpful guy by the name of VanishMantle (http://www.twitch.tv/vanishmantle) discovered that there's actually separate status vulnerability portions of code for each of the bosses in the game. What this means is that bosses can be weak to certain status conditions or be susceptible to status conditions despite having 40 luck.

A great example of this is Moapa who has 40 luck, his knights which have 37 and the Avimander who has 41. It isn't hard to work out that Moapa is immune to all status conditions, while his knights (with 3 less luck) are rather prone to stuns and sleep. Very clearly, the Avimander is susceptible to sleep as well despite having the highest luck rating of all three. This illustrates that status vulnerability has other factors than just luck (otherwise Avimander would be immune) and the discovery that VanishMantle made.