RPG speedruns are fairly scarce for three reasons: 1) LOOOOOONG 2) Slow 3) Random! Comparatively, Legend of the Seven Stars is very fast paced and short when compared to classic Square and Enix RPGs. Another great thing about its gameplay is that enemies can be avoided with skill and practice and battles can be made all the easier by mastering the science (and, at times, art) of "timed" attacks and defense. Thus a speed run comes down to how much I can skimp on and still make due.

There are only two spots in the game where I need to sit down and actively level up. 1) The Mushroom Kingdom and 2) The Mole Mines. Other than these two areas I ignore as many enemies as possible and avoid engagements. Level ups occur from invincibility stars or bosses. Speaking of invincibility stars, I DO NOT use the glitch wherein you die and have infinite stars. That is considered against the rules here at the SDA because you must suicide and warp backwards. I do, however, like this rule in this context because it forces you to play fairly within the game's designed parameters. I probably go faster than if I used it anyway.

When performing a first and second practice run along with looking in the official strategy guide, along with many resources on the internet, I learned a lot about the mechanics behind this game. Some I knew, some I only thought might be true. For example, did you know...

- Some bosses have weaknesses to certain specials ("jump" is considered an element like ice and fire)

- The closer you time an attack the more damage it does (I had a suspicion about this when using the lazy shell, where it's obvious to see that sometimes it does 250 and then the next turn it suddenly does 450. It's all about the timing. I finally confirmed it by looking at the formulas for the attack in the "Battle Mechanics" guide @ GameFAQs by newmansage).

- Bowser's terrorize attack works on many bosses, including Grate + Knife Guy, the tentacles of King Calamari, Johnny Jones, the Czar Dragon, some of the Axem Rangers, and all the bosses in the factory except Smithy himself! If you didn't know, a "feared" opponent takes 50% more damage and inflicts 50% less.

- A timed Geno Boost also upgrades your magic/normal defense.

- A timed Geno Whirl does 9999 damage to all enemies except bosses, with one exception.

- Exor can be killed in less than a turn as long as Geno doesn't go first. This is the exception. :o

I'm sure there's a lot more I'm missing that will catch your eye.

FIRST STAR:

Early on I go out of my way to get flower points because they are needed because my attack power is too low to be of much help and I need as much magic as possible (for example, against the hammer brothers - 3fp per jump, need 4 jumps total...why I got the fps before them to get 12). I also go out of my way to get frog coins so I can get the experience booster from the frog in Sea Side town later (22 coins is the price).

I get the jump shoes early on for Mario because they add a lot of magic attack (about +10 damage to Croco each turn).

In the Mack fight I need to have Mallow clear the Shysters in a single lightning because otherwise each one will perform an attack, which takes a lot of time and could be painful.

SECOND STAR:

The Bowyer fight is one of the more difficult aspects of this run because it takes a long time to kill him and his attacks are somewhat random and can have devastating effects (I remember one failed run where he insisted on using "good night" over and over again).

THIRD STAR:

I use "Work Pants" as my armor for my characters throughout the game because they are the only buyable armor that boosts your attack ratings (more damage = shorter battles).

Another key component of this run is obtaining the SUPER SUIT and ATTACK SCARF from the Chow in Monstro Town, which when both put on Mario basically makes him unstoppable even at low levels (+70 to both norm/magic attack and defense). Even seasoned Mario RPG vets rarely have ever obtained the Hero Suit due to the difficulty of 100 super jumps, so I'm sure many will be interested in that part of the run. I do 100 super jumps twice -- once on Punchinello, once on Belome 2. Apparently the game doesn't count jumps when Mario has the "jump shoes" on, which is why I HAD to do 100 jumps on Belome 2 (I found this fact out during this run).

When I do 100 jumps on Punchinello I actually did more damage than Punchinello has health up to that point, but he has to go through all the bomb stages (micro, regular, mezzo), presumably with 1 hp keeping him alive.

I kinda sucked on the mine cart ride...

FOURTH STAR:

Bundt doesn't have health; it has candles that go out in an attack. One will regenerate every turn, so it's more important to attack than heal.

FIFTH STAR:

I buy a lot of fire bombs in Sea Side town - they are a great asset against the tentacles and Johnny's cronies.

I put the experience booster on Geno so I can get "Geno Whirl" early.

I avoid Johnny's 1v1 fight with Mario by leaving one of his minions alive.

When Yaridovich splits the cursor will automatically appear on the correct one. It's also nice when he clones because he stops using the powerful water blast.

SIXTH STAR:

LOL, I'm sorry about keeping the clip for Land's End - I screw up on the flowers really bad.

100 jumps on Belome, of course.

I keep the Safety Badge on Bowser so my entire party is invulnerable to status effects (a biggie against Smilax, as well).

Valentina's fight is rated M!

Against the Czar Dragon: poor Bowser. =(

SEVENTH STAR:

In Bowser's Keep, the six doors are set in stone once you save before them. Doing the puzzles and action courses is the fastest way through.

I jump on the left eye because I couldn't do enough damage with Mario's regular attack to take it out in one shot.

The Cloaker and Domino fight is a pretty big event. Here's the basis of the strategy: Cloaker = physical theme, has only regular attacks, is strong against regular attacks, weak to magic. Domino is the opposite and uses magic, strong against magic, etc. If you kill Domino first (which is what I was accustomed to) then Cloaker would team up with EarthLink, which seemingly has the strongest regular attacks in the game except for possibly Jinx's "bomb's away" attack. It's impossible to keep Geno and Bowser alive because they get 1-hit KOed every time from attacks like carni kiss, poison, and cloaker's coal toss. Plus, EarthLink has 2000hp and high defense. On the other hand, if you kill Cloaker first then Domino will link up with Mad Adder, which only has 1200hp and VERY low physical defense. The only problem is that he is the third most powerful magic user (behind Culex's crystals and Smithy himself). However, Mario does up to 600 damage at a time, so it's all good. I'm just glad in this run he didn't use boulder.

After that, the game is fairly easy because I have a handful of red essences for the final Smithy fight. The only fault in this otherwise perfect final segment is that Smithy doesn't spend very long in his wizard head (which is where I can do 1000hp of damage in a single turn - as long as I have my precious red essences, heh) but he still dies quickly. If you're curious, "Shredder" takes off all defensive and offensive boosts, which is why I used power up immediately after.

Enjoy the run!