Legend of Mana 100% Main Mode

Current Fastest Times

Unsubmitted to SDA

• 9:59, [insert link to Sir_VG's Twitch/Youtube]
• 8:03, [insert link to TheWowExp's Twitch/Hitbox]

Overarching Information

Events/Artifacts/Lands

[some of this might go to game mechanics, some is specific to 100%/allstory?]

Events

Legend of Mana has 68 total 'missions/quests'. The game refers to them as Events. Some are mostly story-based with minimal combat, some are mostly combat/exploration, and some simply involve running from place to place in various towns and talking to bartenders made out of puzzle pieces.

Artifacts/Lands

The deal with this game is that the world has been shattered into pieces, and the memories of the creatures that live in a place have crystalized inside various artifacts. In order to get to events, you need to drop the artifacts you've found onto your worldmap to turn them back into Lands.

The first Event in every land, with a few notable exceptions, generally has two slots for Artifacts (Primary and Secondary) to reward the player with. If the player has either already received the listed artifact or has more than two artifacts on their 'slate' (unused), then the reward will either change to a Metal or be dropped down to a single artifact reward. Planning a route involves researching what events will net you what artifacts, and planning when/where to place your artifacts. [Insert link to Gfaqs/googdoc?]

Shops, Monsters and You

The order in which you place artifacts and their distance from Home (the first artifact you place) determines the level of the monsters in dungeon/wilderness areas and the materials and weapons available in towns. The number in the artifact order is added to the distance in squares from home to produce a number, and if that number is above or below certain thresholds, you will get a specific result. [insert link to Gfaqs/googdoc?]

Missable Events/Failable Events

Two events in the town of Domina are missable altogether if you do not provide the correct levels of Mana to the town (usually done by placing the Mana Tree next to it near the end of the game, but possible otherwise with planning). Peewee Birdie and Seeing Double are the names of these events, and they require three wisp and three shade in Domina. Three Salamander might also be necessary for one or the other.

One event (Wimpy Thugling) in Duma Desert can be missed if the event Blessed Elixer is ignored and Duma Desert is not given three Dryad Mana.

If you go to the cafe in Geo before completing the Gilbert missions up to Gilbert: School Amour, the game will automatically start Gilbert:School Amour and not allow the player to start the previous missions.

If you select the wrong options in Gilbert: Resume for Love, Gilbert will explode and you will fail the mission.

If you start Cosmo before starting Gilbert: Resume for Love, Gilbert disappears.

If you select the wrong options during Peewee Birdie, or talk to Peewee 10+ times, he will explode and you will fail the mission. (I'm sensing a theme here)

If you reenter Gato for any reason after completing Flame of Hope, Daena is no longer in Domina for you to start Gaeus's Wisdom.

If you leave the map during Pokeihl: Dream Teller, Reach for the Stars, or Diddle Had It, you fail those missions.

If you complete Catchin Lilipeas before starting Where's Putty and (possibly?) Little Cactus and Diddle Had It, you lose access to those missions.

Treasure Map and Nordic Snowfield both have failure options. One is timed, the other is a sort of exploration puzzle with a tiny bit of RNG at the end.

Buried Treasure will not start unless you have, for some godawful reason, smashed 20 crabs at the beach.

Goals for Routing

• The Seven Wisdoms mission involves dragging an NPC to six different out-of-the-way locations. Compressing this down to complete other missions alongside these visits will be a large chunk of saved time.
• Ensuring that the missable and failable missions don't get overwritten means you have to get certain missions in specific orders within your route.
• Minimizing worldmap travel time, ensuring that some 'tough' bosses have reasonable health, and ensuring you have all the store levels/mana levels you need means you need to plan your artifact/land placement order carefully.
• Time-sink missions like Rachel and Lucky Clover, which involve either passing days on the worldmap or repeatedly entering and sleeping at a cafe to have days pass need to be compressed as much as possible (done together) or done piecemeal as you complete other missions alongside them to save time.

Possible Routes

[No available/known notes for the first two, links to videos of them would already be available once linked in the best times section.]

Two routes in progress of being optimized can be found here.