FE4 Overview

FIRE EMBLEM 4 GENEALOGY OF THE HOLY WAR SPEEDRUN COMMENTARY

Detailed overview of the FE4 speedrun. The core route was NOT developed by me. It was done by a japanese TAS which is no longer available on youtube - the route was transcribed then done in a RTA route setting by ghostwheel then mute then me.

Original version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUAhYo2IufQ
Sped-up watchable version: to be uploaded

VILLAGES

One of the most important parts of the speedrun that isn't obvious is killing/blocking bandits from burning villages. A village burn animation costs ~4 seconds per burn per turn, so having units going around to kill and/or block them is critical in a speedrun. It is absolutely worth burning fast turns to get rid of bandits just to avoid this animation (chapter 4 is the big example).


RNG MANIPULATION

This game is even more "riggable" than the GBA FEs - literally anyone who has played the game casually knows that nothing changes the RNG outside of... combat and level-ups and enemy AI. No cursor wiggling. This means the only way to burn RNS independently of the map is to spam the arena - which is what casual playthroughs do. This is obviously absurdly slow, so the route is designed to usually burn RNs by usually level-ups - which is still very slow, but nowhere close to as slow as arena. This made trying to find route improvements basically impossible, as unlike the GBA FEs where I can easily cursor wiggle to burn exactly any number of RNs within a second or so, trying to burn any amount of RNs in FE4 required effectively an entire overhaul of the entire route. Anytime you see some random warp/return spam followed by a level-up, chances are, it's to burn RNs since that's the most effective way to do so, which still burns SEVERAL RNs.

But well, this is RNG manipulation so it's cheating, and since it's literally impossible to avoid RNG manipulation, therefore literally everyone who touched this game is a cheater. But it's a cheated WR so enjoy.


RESCUE GLITCH

The Rescue Staff is obtained in Chapter 5 and is incredibly important for mobility. Normally, the Rescue Staff warps a distant unit to the staff user. But when it's done on a castle guard, the game still thinks that unit is guarding the castle, and thus has access to the "Depart" command, which lets you move again. So you can effectively move infinitely by spamming "Depart"... over and over and over again. The bottleneck is attacking, as attacking a unit still ends your turn (you still retain the glitch) - so one can call it "reverse galeforce", as it lets you move again if you DON'T attack. (thanks z_mistake for that suggestion lol)


PAIRINGS

Aideen x Claude: This is one of two pairings that get the rescue staff - the other being Aideen x Azel. Claude pairing gets it in Ch05, and Azel pairing gets it in Ch04. Their daughter Lana needs Claude's holy blood to use the rescue staff immediately in Ch06. There is a much slower RTA route that uses the Azel pairing to get the rescue staff earlier in gen1, and Lana can inherit it via a glitch despite normally being unable to, but an Azel!Lana still can't use it until grinding to level 20 for promotion anyways, so the TAS route ended up using Claude!Lana.

Erinys x Lewyn: Each child unit burns 1 RN at the start of chapter 6 to (I think) roll their random luck stat. This pairing is the fastest way to burn exactly 2 extra RNs at the start of chapter 6 - yes, RN burning is that horrible in FE4, and I was unable to find any other faster way to burn exactly 2RNs at the end of ch05 / start of ch06. Fee herself isn't needed for anything except her Berserk Sword (which her substitute has too, so it doesn't matter).


GEN 1 UNITS USED IN THE RUN

Sigurd - lol

Aideen - Staffbot. Spams warp to teleport units around castles, and eventually gets the paragon band to grind to level 20 - she can't use the Rescue Staff until she promotes. Her warp-spam levels serve as a convenient way to burn RNs too.

Sylvia - Dancer

Quan - The only early promoted mount that can keep up with Sigurd. Helps chip/adept/crit something to death in the way, when Sigurd can't quite crit everything yet.

Ethlyn - The only staffbot that can keep up - she heals and uses the Return staff. She enables a 20% sibling/lover crit for Sigurd/Quan respectively - very important for specific kills early on, when Sigurd hasn't built up any crit on his Silver Sword yet.

Finn - The best mounted combat unit after Sigurd in the speedrun, thanks to Pursuit, Brave Lance, and Miracle (+10 avoid per hp below 11). He clears some groups of enemies out, and is trained up for gen2 ch07.

Dew - Thief. Visits villages so he can do a big money dump on Aideen so she can buy the paragon band and repair the warp staff.


GEN 2 UNITS USED IN THE RUN

Seliph - Inherits a bunch of fun stuff from his dad, including a high crit Silver Sword and Paragon Band and Leg ring and Knight and and haha go brrrrr hahahahaha

Lana - Inherits the Rescue Staff from Aideen. Unlike her mom, she can use it without promoting thanks to Claude's holy blood, so she doesn't need to hit level 20 at all - this unfortunately means that any random warp she does to level-up is purely for RN burning, since the exp is completely unnecessary and a timewaster.

Laylea - Dancer. Lene's substitute

Finn - Basically the Ch07 timesaver after all the gen1 investment. He kills every bandit in his Ch07 area to cut down on burning animations - Leif and Janne (Nanna's substitute) can't fight at all, so they block off villages to mitigate burning animations.