The Story of Lufia II's Most Unpopular Speedrun
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- čas přidán 1. 02. 2024
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This Lufia 2 speedrun is ridiculous.
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Special Thanks To:
ThatsFairZack: / thatsfairzack
eLmaGus: / elmagus
Dank_Meats: / dank_meats
Kriegspyre: / kriegspyre
the_roth: / the_roth
RealCritical: / realcritical
Yogidamonk: / yogidamonk
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Resources:
Lufia 2 Ancient Cave Guide: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Lufia 2 Ancient Cave Speedrun Discord:
/ discord
Lufia 2 Ancient Cave Reference Site: ref.ancientcave.net/
HolySmoke's Lufia 2 RNG Notes: www.localhorst.tv/lufia2/
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Music: Legend of Dragoon - Royal Castle
untitled town theme (played during ad read, original song)
Digimon World 3 - MAGAMI Online Center
Lufia II - Tower
FFX - Beyond The Darkness
Parasite Eve - Out of Phase
Lufia II - The Savior Of Those On Earth
Energy Breaker - After The Rain - Hry
Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_doctorswellman, use my code SWELLMANFREE, and receive one free breakfast item per box while subscription is active.
they abuse their workers
Yeah, this sponsorship is not a good look at all. I'm a new viewer but this made me stop watching. Sad that most CZcamsrs just don't bother making sure their sponsor isn't harmful
“Im going to assume all of you know Lufia II, and how the game works”
Me who just clicked on a video to watch a random game I never heard of be broken by speed runners
To be fair, I think all you need to know is that it’s a FF-style turn-based RPG.
Ancient cave races are one of my favorite runs to watch. Its so exciting to watch something go wrong.
there's a rom hack of final fantasy 5 called ancient cave that's based directly on the dungeon
There's several games that have that hack! I've put hundreds of hours into the Earthbound ancient cave and it's sooooooo good
I love when modders go out of their way to put in Ancient Cave modes, it really is endless fun. All of the SNES FF's have something like that now (though FFIV's is extremely rough and was made as proof of concept).
I didn't know there were hacks for this kind of thing! FFV and Earthbound both sound fun!
secret of mana is another really cool one, the randomizer started out as ancient cave and just over time became a normal game randomizer
Being able to RNG manip a speedrun is impressive in a different way than the no manipulation route. Instead of improv, decision making, and luck, is more execution based, with heavy memorization, recognition of where in the pattern you are, and ultimately how long you can sustain it.
Both are impressive in their own ways.
Now a category with REAL CHEST HAIR is iris%.
I've only seen one Iris 100% run completed in one sitting... IIRC, it took the guy somewhat over 19 hours, and he said he felt like even that was insanely good luck, lol.
I beg to differ. a 100% Reject NOID (no instant death), thats the category that seperates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the psychopaths from the lunatics.
RNG manip resident sleeper.
@@Ravnesss No matter if you find it boring or not, RNG manipulation will always be a thing, especially in RPGs. RPGs are too luck depended and WR are often determined by encounter RNG, rather than execution. That's why most RPGs use RNG manip, if it's feasible.
@@neros_soren Yep. And those most rpgs I won't watch, cause RNG manip is resident sleeper.
Category split makes total sense but it's weird how they did it, the main category should be the true any% no matter how unpopular and have the fun no manip be a separate one. A link to the past does this with it's very unpopular any% because it's literally walking through a wall for a few screens.
I honestly really don't understand why some communities are so defiant on splitting categories... If theres a glitch, it works, and its controversial, then splitting the category genuinely is the best route to go. It keeps the purity of the category before the discovery and it allows those interested in performing rhe new trick their own leaderboard to not step on any toes.
Which can lead to really sparse and fragmented leaderboards.
That's my thought too. Granted, I'm not part of the game's community so I don't have the same insight, but if a community is upset about a kind of record defying their valued skills, then simply split categories so that record has a category with its own set of valued skills.
guess some communities are just weird,
meanwhile oot has like 20 or so if you count the category extensions
What I think is really dumb is the argument that RNG manipulation is against the philosophy of the ancient cave. Makes no f***ing sense, RPG's are all about RNG manipulation. Especially RPG speedrunning.
Now, instead of 12 players competing, we have 6 for this category, 3 for this one, 2 are fighting over that one, and the last player is happy with world record in a meme category.
Plus, who decides the categories? I would argue I just speedean baldura gate 3, world record, in 78 hours. Catagory: you have to be literally me, sorry yall looks like I won again
Nobody does that category because its an entirely different run.
Ancient Cave requires you to understand mechanics like enemy movements, elemental attacks, weaknesses, what way to enter the stairs, knowing which enemies spawn where, and understanding the best way to make your setup work for the kill if it's not optimised.
Meanwhile manip requires a specific set of inputs that always will result in the fastest way to reach the jelly, with the optimum gear.
They are two vastly different ways of playing that heavily change the outcome of a set time. Both categories require different knowledge, and both categories are respectable in their own right. But they are not the same by any stretch of the imagination, and are as far away from eachother as any game's "Any%" and "100%" runs. Just think of it this way: If you want to learn one or the other, you need to learn completely different knowledge of the game. Completely. A good manip runner does not automatically mean you are a good any% runner, just like a good any% runner will not automatically be a good manip% runner.
The person that was banned failed to understand that, and as a result was very disrespectful towards the community as a whole, to the point it was the first (and to my knowledge) ONLY person to ever be banned from the discord community. There is a reason that The_Roth was supported by the community, and the other person was not.
That all said, its crazy to see how my own first floors synched up with RC's at 9:40 .. I never saw that footage, that was hilarious.
Absolutely. It's just two different things. And most important: If you do the one thing, you might consider the other thing completely unfunny. And fun always should be the most important criteria.
Besides, one or two years ago I saw Yogi playing Kureji Lufia for a bit and he displayed a very mediocre understanding of basic elemental weaknesses. Like he overleveled like 20 level somewhere in the beginning because he didn't realize that he did not hit the clowns with a weakness at all.
@@OnePieceObsessed from what I read Yogi enjoys manipulated runs, but he also admitted he would likely not play an unmanipulated run because he didn't find it entertaining.
Which is fine, but dont expect an entire community to cater to your demands.
@@michelvanderlinden8363 Yeah, that exactly nails it. It's perfectly fine to not like something and therefore be not that good in it, but then just accept it and don't demand everyone else be entertained in the same way.
He just did something completely different and then relies purely on technicalities when making his argument. Sure, it may not be explicitly forbidden beforehand, but it just is something completely different. And if he denies that, he is just arguing completely in bad faith.
@@OnePieceObsessed It reveals something about how a whole bunch of people outside the Ancient Cave community support this guy being allowed to gatekeep the community... instead of the community gatekeeping him as is good and proper.
I love watching head to head speed runs of the ancient cave, had no idea there was this much drama in the past about it! Thanks for the awesome video as always.
in all honesty, in the past 10 or so years or however long the discord community has been active, this was the *only* time there ever was any sort of drama. And the guy who caused it admitted he started drama because he could. Honestly, it's really pretty impressive how this is the only time there really was any sort of an issue.
Splitting the catagory and only caring about one of the offshoots makes sense but holy shit calling anything that exists in game on original hardware an unethical run is some of the most up their own ass elitism I've heard of in a while
the phrasing might have been off, but this one guy came in, flatout *demanded* his run be in the same category despite it being completely different, and complained about this for a week straight. And when I say "complain" I am being very nice on the phrasing.
Zack uses the wrong wording and he agrees it was phrased poorly. But keep in mind that this video does not show the rather obnoxious "I want it my way" behaviour shown for over a week by someone who was not active in the community beforehand, barely had any understanding of the game, and downtalked to literally everyone who even remotely disagreed with him. People were very fed up with him very quickly.
They have every right to be up their own arses. Elitists need to defend themselves from their passions being ruined by everyone else. Every community makes its own rules. Every category does too. There is no Commissariat that demands from on high that EVERY community allow things that are original hardware except cheat codes. Or that hacking is banned. Observe Shining Force and Super Mario Sunshine.
Hell, even Paper Mario's ACE% requires the use of the Expansion Pak and Ocarina of Time - neither of which are original hardware for playing Paper Mario.
@@michelvanderlinden8363 thank you for clearing that up
The most interesting topic here is what happens when speedrunning as competition and speedrunning as entertainment clash, as well as when a certain technique redefines a speedrun completely. It creates a divide in the hobby that is hard to bridge and is a part of why my personal investment in it dropped. Someone coming up with something that's much faster and technically allowed but takes the fun/spirit out of the run is fairly common.
I really enjoy all the behind-the-scene investigation, Doc. That's something no leaderboard can transpire. Keep up the fine job!
Man I remember way way back in the days for Segmented runs of this game, the Catfish fight took well over a year before it could continue. Ancient Cave runs though? Just as insane.
Such an underrated game because it was overshadowed by the JRPG titans on the SNES. And while it may not reach the heights of a Chrono Trigger, it belongs on that next tier down for sure. I searched for it and this was one of the first results, btw.
Always going to sub to anyone who talks about Lufia 2 on their channel. Such an underrated game! Great video.
mind if i share a little story of how i found out about this game and the connection it has for me?
a german youtuber named gronkh was my first ever lets player. he used a lot of different music in his very long lasting minecraft lets play. one of these songs was my favorite but i never knew where it was from...
a few years ago FOR NO REASON AT ALL i decided to play lufia 2 for the first time ever on a "totally legit nintendo console"
there i found it
Lexis Shaia Lab
the song the german youtuber used that i loved so much. it was in lufia 2 all this time. randomly picking up this game, i finally found this amazing song.
that and the story of lufia 2 made it a game i treasure even tho i never played it before :D
and now i got this video recommended YEARS after all of this happened
Weird that they called manips "unethical". Hacks or cheats would be unethical but manips just use the code of the actual game, right?
and so would a glitch lol
@@KusogeMan Yeah basically
Yeah, it's stupid. And most classic JRPG speedruns these days have a ton of RNG manipulation in their any % runs. It wasn't really possible back in the day, but with the tools we've had in the past decade or so if not a bit more, it's possible to figure out how RNG exactly works in games on a code-level and use it to your advantage.
@@thenonexistinghero It's not stupid, you're just blanketing the entire situation. The ancient dungeons is not a regular dungeon. Using manips defeats the whole purpose of the dungeon and might as well do a regular dungeon run. It goes against the spirit of the dungeon and it's purpose. That's why the category is not popular.
I mean it's partially part of the community by not staying in the rules no rng manipulation. Thou I understand the appeal of the dungeon without manipulation, I find it fair if people want to manipulate it
Of course it's the ancient cave!
Though, now I want to replay the whole game
Lufia 3's whole game is basically Ancient Cave-style dungeons. Story's not as good, but... overal it's still a good and fun game. Probably has the best soundtrack of any Game Boy Color game and the battle system is very unique in a good way. There's also an Ancient Cave in that game and that time around you can actually go 200 floors down. The game also plays a bit slower, so... ah... the run takes very long. I do think you're far less prone to die to RNG though and the boss on the bottom is pretty great and epic.
@@thenonexistinghero Oh, you mean The Legend Returns?
I don't usually call it Lufia 3, even if it's accurate.
I actually played it too a while ago and wanted to gl through it again as well.
Amazing music, and the combat system is pretty interesting too.
I never really got in the Ancient Cave though, even if I got this really good sword as a rare drop early on I'm quasi sure I could have brought there. It would have helped a lot.
I really need to play through this one too at some point
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 Yeah, that game. The Ancient Cave does take really long though. It can easily take 6-10 hours to go through all 200 floors (but you can quick save).
Some of my favorite tracks! Awesome music choice
bro i still haven't played Lufia idk why i watched this video, but i appreciated the discord hissy fits and music choice anyway.
Fr though, I had no idea people were this precious about their speedruns but I probably should've known.
If you skip 1 and play 2, you're missing nothing. Outside of 2's endlessly addicting endgame, the writing is peak 90s comedy with a plot that's not too shabby
do the thing and play the game
You're surprised that PEAK AUTISM attracted super autism? Really?
Gotta love the sponsor!! Get the bag my man, also video was flames 🔥
This is my favorite game of all time! Love the Ancient Cave
Would the accidental manip problem be solved by not goin into the cave through gift mode, instead using a normal save and taking some random steps around before enterig?
Oh man poor elmagus. Incredible when that stuff happens on his runs.
For Lufia 2, I mostly remember getting stuck on a puzzle for about four hours until we decided to read the manual, which told us how to turn in place or something that hadn't been needed or talked about prior.
Treasure Sword Shrine, yellow/red block puzzle. Drove me crazy as a kid.
The tutorial guy at the beginning of the game that you’re forced to talk to, explains how to R-turn
This has to be the regrowing plant puzzle lmao
@@georgeontheyoutubeRegrowing plant is more than 4 hours in on a casual first time playthrough I'd imagine.
IIRC the first time the R-button turn is necessary to solve a puzzle is actually a fairly innocuous pot-on-switch one in a cave (don't recall which.).
@@Elieson Yeah, the game explains it and it cannot be avoided. You're forced to use it in the tutorial dungeon. Honestly though, it is used so little throughout the game that when I was younger I used to forget about it and struggle with some puzzles that required it.
Wake up babe, DoctorSwellman made another Lufia 2 video
This is an awesome video and I must also say that the choice of Legend of Dragoon music is a serve
This video is Really making me want to learn the AC. just need to get a hold of the game
Holy shit a Lufia II video, hell yeah. Awesome video about an underappreciated game.
This is the mini game that gave me the love-hate for roguelike/lites in general. I love starting and playing through them. I hate it when i die and lose the 1-2 hours of progress with nothing to show for it, which is why i generally gravitate more towards lites with an upgrade system on fails. Lufia was kind of neat though since it took your knowledge of things within the game to make you think, is this enemy worth fighting for levels, does this weapon have an abusable skill to make the run better. Just a lot of fun to play through casually.
Watched yogi a bunch years ago. Knew he had to get a shoutout with this run. Great video. Was fun watching ancient cave runs
*immediately hears legend of dragoon music*
Omg yes
That room at the end... I've only ever seen it once.... I thought I dreamed it up lol
This video is the entirety of my Lufia knowledge, did guy start his run in a room with no exit?
@@kylewhite602 Yup. It's an extremely rare glitch, along with the hallway leading into the black void, in which a hallway never finished with a proper wall & you can just walk off into the black void. Go far enough & the game won't let you back in to the point where your run ends with you either using Providence or resetting the game. Sucks when it happens.
Heya DoctorSwellman, make more content. You're my favorite youtuber and go over my favorite games. I look forward to seeing your new videos! Stay hydrated.
I’ve just heard of this games existence, and dang does it sound cool!
Man...I miss roth. I wish myself back 8 years to enjoy the first FF4 tourney again.
I used to watch Ancient Cave runners for HOURS
@6 mins FFX music poggers
NEW SWELLY!!!
The real answer is because if you're going to use a manipulation in lufia 2, you should do the one that makes carts explode.
Love to see you making content for YT
for me the category should be split. and the non manip category should use a mod with an extra random seed to prevent manips.
1 of my all time favorite rpgs from the era.
"If you said no, I have no choice but to manipulate RNG in order to get a Yes from you."
Okay, you've got me, I'm watching this ad in full now.
Oh wow, I never thought this old writeup would ever be of use to anyone but myself xD
Glad it's appreciated
"Im going to assume you know about Lufia 2 and how it works"
Why would you make that assumption, ive never even heard of this game before
He has made a video about Lufia 2 previously and he has streamed speedruns for this game over on his twitch. I'd suggest you check those out.
Traviktox Cave Legend!!!!
I had to play this game in Japanese it was not easy. I can not read it so lol I figured things out thru trial and error. It was kind of a fun game my cousin did not like it when he could not understand anything but once I showed him stuff he memorized and loved the game.
We abused save states for rng in most our rpg gameplay. I did try some games with pure gameplay because I enjoy pure gameplay a lot as well.
that cave do be ancient
Great video, Swellman! Can't believe you didn't show any of your runs.
I thought about it but honestly the footage is better filled by community members who more than deserve the attention
Wack. I still haven't beat the ancient cave despite playing this game several times T_T
ANOTHER SWELLY BANGER WITH THE DRAGOON TUNES
I've had Hello Fresh. They'll promise you all their meals until your trial is up, then they'll constantly run out of ingredients for everything
aint no way
I dunno, Doc, why DOES no one speedrun this Lufia 2 category?
Oh, I guess you're about to tell me, neat!
King slime!!!
a 50 minute first place time in this game brought down to 5 minutes? sheesh
I love this game!!
Honestly I can understand splitting the categories if people find the newer methods less fun. But bitching about new glitches or rng manips being discovered is just childish
13:00 ish - whoah, how is that possible?
In the end it sounds like people got butthurt about a skill issue, then went about banning and invalidating his time.
Being banned is a skill issue.
played 1 and 2 but 2 was to boring for me dunno why.
Imagine if people started making rng manipulated speedruns of actual roguelikes.... that would be the ultimate way to miss the point of the game, but I guess this is the closest I'll get for now...
Calling the category with the fastest time anything but "Any%" is just wrong. If you make a split, the top of the "Any%" leaderboard should not change.
Calling it "True Any%" is extremely petty. It's basically creating a trash can that the mods can throw runs they don't like into.
I don't get it, isn't finding the fastest possible route the entire point of an "Any %" speedrun?
If you wanna talk about violating the "spirit," then speed running RPGs violate the "spirit" of RPGs, so they shouldn't be considered RPGs by that logic.
2:10 OH ARE YOU NOW? LOL
raise your hand if this is the first time you've ever heard of this game 🙋♀️
Bout
Some
Like
Has
Done!
Making a manip% category sounds honestly really dumb, if optimized "real" runs involving RNG manip anyway. It isn't like glitches where each one is a different instance that can be evaluated separately, it's just one technique.
But it blows up the entire point of running the Ancient Cave that the entire community built up. Nobody was crying about the campaign mode being RNG manipped, only the roguelike bonus game that centres entirely around adapting to RNG. It's like claiming to have beaten Nethack by savescumming your arse off while defeating all the mechanisms to prevent savescumming - hence why it's its own category, like how TASes are.
12:39 dude should be embarrassed making those sounds geez
This is the magic of elmagus though.
Why is the community so salty? Sounds like a skill issue to me.
Video begins at 2:10
Basically looks like a shallow community's shallow views killed other categories. Basically like a village full of old farts holding onto tradition and getting in the way of advancement.
Man you are leaving toxic comments all over this video talking shit about literally one of the most supportive gaming communities around. If I didnt know any better I'd almost call you Yogi.
@@michelvanderlinden8363 They're only supportive if people are willing to do what they want them to do. But a bunch of whiny little brats when someone brings something new to the table.
@@thenonexistinghero bullshit. The_Roth was supported all the way on his manip run when he spoke about it. Because The_Roth understands its a different way or learning and running the AC, and he has no issues with it being a different category. The other guy however, had a very bad attitude from start to finish, and this video is being very kind by NOT showing his overal attitude towards the people speaking.
Someone said "lets do a providence run". It was treated as a joke, but sure, lets do a category. A 3-man run category? No problem. Any sort of category is welcomed if a person can explain whats unique about it. So maybe do yourself a favor, and not talk shit about a community you're literally not even a part of?
@@michelvanderlinden8363 Someone's attitude doesn't matter. The fastest is the fastest. It's one thing if a game is broken entirely through glitches, but this is just RNG manipulation which has been a staple of JRPG speedruns for quite a while. And people manipulate throughout the AC constantly as well, such as running against walls to manipulate the position of enemies that randomly move around until they're in a favourable position.
@@thenonexistinghero Someone's attitude *absolutely* matters.
Nobody invalidated his run. Nobody said "thats not allowed". What people said was simply "we're going to look into this being a different category altogether", and they checked with other games if there was any precedense to this. Turns out, a couple of other games that have runs fully (or almost fully) manipulated simply set a different category. There was a community vote about this, and the community felt this kind of run was so different from the usual one, that it would be best put under its own, new, category.
Yogi at that time however, demanded it remain the way it was. It didn't matter what the community said, he wanted it to stay the way it was, and his behaviour in the discord was not acceptable.
Regarding your "you manipulate enemy movement".. you can't be serious in that comparisson. Moving until an enemy moves out of the way is vastly different from doing a step-by-step, frame-perfect-input manipulation I question wether or not you even know anything about this game at all.
The manipulated run is legit, and valid, and accepted by the community, under the category "any% manip". Nobody else had an issue with it. So stop trying to pretend like this is some evil community trying to hold back someone because god damn this is just dumb thinking at this point.
sorry but that discord is pathetic.
the way the argue makes no sense, the rules are flawed. sad they let it out on someone who legit beat them.
communication is not existing from these mods.
You understand that Yogi's run was kept, correct? Nobody said his run was invalid. Just others moved on to a different category. That's literally it. You can't force everyone else to play the category you're good at - Yogi's run can stay there, just the fact is there isn't tons of competition in a category that allows manipulation.
you didnt even read what i said. these mods are manchildren
Diet Penguinz0
Who?
MY WIFE JUST HAD HER BOYFRIEND's BABY. I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Team yogi all the way 😎
Get outcompteted. Cry about it. Have a discord echo chamber. Have them cater to you by making a new category. Act like you won when, in reality, you're just a crybaby.
For God so loved the world he gaved his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal John 3:16
Manip shouldn't be it's only category. Losers that don't put effort in are the ones crying