Knights Contract any% NG+ RTA in 1:36:57
8On my third day of doing runs, I finally got a sub 1:40. The time could go even lower, though: my sum of best is around 1:34 at the moment.
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Some commentary on the tactics, as well as what went well and what didn't:
2:57 - I didn't cover it in a separate video yet, but you can skip some navigation at the end of Episode 1 by breaching this wall after the boss.
9:19 - I'm not sure if it's RNG or just strict positioning, but sometimes the fight barrier refuses to be clipped in Episode 4. First hair-raising part of the run.
10:27 - some fighting is pretty sloppy in this run. This encounter and the next one are good examples of that. With proper magic management they both would end instantly, but instead waste 15+ seconds here.
20:21 - best to carry Gretchen through most of the tower because otherwise she gets stuck on things or can even get hurt by enemies.
24:25 - I might have to rethink my Episode 8 tactics... It should be a simple level, but I've lost time here in most of my runs so far.
For some reason I couldn't use Spirit Cannon fast enough during 2nd phase, which caused some extra enemies to appear. Then I made a bad call and cast Spear lv. 3 to deal with the enemies, which then wasted a lot of time during the boss itself.
30:14 - I carry Gretchen through this part because if one of the spiders decides to attack her, she might die before you reach the first switch. (The switch animations teleport Gretchen near you, which usually helps if she is in danger.)
31:30 - I didn't intend to take out Spirit Cannon here, but it worked out surprisingly well...
32:10 - the only goal in this fight is to kill the two wraiths. Usually it can be done quick and painless, but not this time around. Some fights are just really RNG-heavy, and my careless aiming didn't help either... Very ugly looking gameplay.
33:00 - hmm, if I just HAVE to blow Heinrich up here, maybe I could do it up the stairs instead...
35:05 - Episode 10 is one of the most chaotic, RNG-heavy bits of this game. It went fairly well in this run, though, down to the boss Trendula who can waste a lot of time if she starts the fight with wrong actions.
47:00 - Minukelsus has extremely powerful specials, but his aim (and A.I. in general) is terrible, making performing fast fight tactics with him an eternal crapshoot. This fight for instance would be over in 5 seconds, but in this case the "stab" special was cancelled because Minukelsus got hit, thus changing the timing for everything.
49:35 - one of the dumbest things in this run... It was pure RNG, because there was no way to predict the wraith coming between Heinrich and Minukelsus, which caused the explosion potion to knock Heinrich into a fatal direction.
50:35 - the hound enemies are only affected by "stab", so the fight tactic is trying to use it effectively and damage killing most of the hounds with the downsmash attack. It's pure chaos.
52:25 - this chase sequence is really weird. It's extremely unreliable if you just try to do it honestly and carry Minukelsus on Heinrich's back. That's why I invented this weird setup for it: as your first action, do Minukelsus' circle special and leave him behind. This, for some reason, distracts the spawning super enemy so that he doesn't insta-kill any of the heroes, and you can then roll through the whole set piece instead of carrying Minukelsus.
55:06 - Gretchen always starts her levels with some pre-allotted poor magic choices, so you have to fix them before doing anything else. I prefer the pure damage magics such as the spikes. My gear features both of the cooldown reducing gear through the whole run so that I can spam the magic attacks quicker.
57:19 - this is another hair-raising skip which doesn't always work, and I'm not sure why.
57:56 - have to stop to pick up extra special gauge to do another skip later in the level.
1:06:22 - the difficult Episode 14 skip went astonishingly well in this run. The fight afterwards was sloppy, though.
1:10:52 - who could possibly think this is fun level design?
1:12:14 - the only decent tactic vs Shadow Gretchen is knock her down and then do stab special on her. The problem is that she avoids your melee attacks arbitrarily, making the whole fight an RNG-mess.
1:18:40 - have to remember to switch back classic magic settings before beating the boss for Episode 16.
1:19:43 - the boss can be insta-killed with Spirit Cannon, but only during certain of her animations. So you got to wait for her to do the first move. Sometimes it's too unpredictable, and the shot misses...
1:22:54 - time loss: didn't get Episode 17 skip the first time.
1:29:15 - another time loss: Heinrich got stuck inside the collapsing boss, so I had to quit and restart the fight.
1:30:29 - I intentionally fail this QTE to speed things up.
1:34:26 - the final boss 2nd phase has some invulnerability timer, which prevents you from doing much damage to her for most of the fight.
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