In June 2020, I completed my 7th Baten Kaitos 100% Speedrun. The final time was 339:17:19. Yes, 339 HOURS. That's 14 days and 3 hours.

- Why is it so long?

In this game, items evolve over time. There is an item, the Shampoo, that takes literally 2 weeks (= 336 hours) to evolve into Splendid Hair. Don't ask why the creators decided this, they probably love memes.

- But if it takes 336 hours, why is your record a little longer, like 339?

Because the items pause evolving when in the menus. The thing is, because this is a card-based RPG, you are menuing nearly ALL THE TIME: when you want to change your decks, when you select your loot at the end of fights, when you are in a shop... Which can very quickly add tens of hours when you play casually. And I am not exaggerating. That means, I have to minimize absolutely every menus in the whole game, and I have to stay outside of menus while idling. Also, you get the Shampoo at around 50 minutes. Then, when it evolved, you have to fight the Final Bosses, which takes a few more minutes. In the end, it means the theoretical minimum time is a bit above 337 hours. But the time spent in menus is always, ALWAYS, WAY longer than you imagine.

- Does it mean you didn't sleep for 15 days?

No, of course not. That's even the opposite: I slept as much as I want. The thing is, when you get the Shampoo, you need to SPEND 14 days outside of the menus. Which means I have 336 hours to do everything else in the game. But I only need like 50 hours to complete every events besides getting the Splendid Hair. So I just need to play the game around 4 hours per day, then I can do something else. Like sleeping, or working. This is even beneficial because I need to wait for some items to evolve, a ton of them take like 8, 12 24, even 50 or 80 hours to evolve, and so spending time not playing is a good thing. But yes, even if this is a speedrun, I spend 80% of the time not playing.

- Does it mean you just need to get the Shampoo, and then you are done basically?

ABSOLUTELY NOT! As I insisted before, it doesn't mean it is an easy, lazy, inactive speedrun. You REALLY NEED to go fast in your menus. This is absolutely capital. Because you can lose 30, 40, even 50 HOURS in the menus VERY EASILY. For example, in my very first run, I thought I was super fast with my menus, but I still lost 16 hours in them. It made me realize even more how menus were brutal. For the 7th run, I only lost 2 hours in the menus. That's how much I improved. I really insist on this point because a ton of people think I just need to get the Shampoo and then it's done. It is not. When I get the Shampoo, it only begins actually.

- So what was your plan for running this?

It's quite simple actually: Playing at the same time everyday for about 4 hours (at 9 PM Europe Time, so that people get used to that schedule), then letting the game idle for 20 hours. This way, there is daily scheduled content, and there also is the required idle time.

- Can't you just set the console clock ahead two weeks for this?

Nope, you need time to pass for real.

- What are all the requirements for 100%?

Getting the 1022 Magnus, the 141 SP Combos, and the 58 music tracks. Those 3 conditions cover every important sub-events of the whole game. Doing all sidequests and getting every character level 99 don't trigger events, that's why they are not required for 100%.

- How long would it be without the 2 weeks required for the Splendid Hair?

It's a category that exists. It's called 99.92% and it takes about 85 hours because the "Wonder MOMO" item requires 80 hours itself.

Here is its dedicated FAQ: https://pastebin.com/WayTEyVK

- Why did you decide to play only 1 island per day?

Because it fits quite well with how the game is structured. Basically, we can say that there are 13 zones in the game that have more or less all the same size. And I only need to play like 4 hours per day. So, by doing 1 Island per day, I can show an equivalent amount of action per day. For a comparison, in my first 2 runs, I rushed through the game more or less. By doing this, everything was done in 8 days. Which means the last 6 days were absolutely boring, for both the viewers and me, because I was doing nearly nothing. That's mainly why I decided to split the run per days. It's also more sane, as it allows me to have a life next door.

You can check the route, split per days, here https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Qdsb05xIawDoUsxgvkquIHs_C83kqoV1hTpXd9XYtw/

- How do you minimize the menus as much as possible?

I created a tracker for this purpose, so that I don't need to menu all the time to see which items I have. You can see it at https://baffan.com/bk100/

- Is this the longest speedrun ever? Is this even a speedrun?

For the first 2 runs, I had issues calling this a speedrun. Whether on Reddit, Twitter, or anywhere, I never said it was a speedrun. Even if I posted every time on the /r/speedrun subreddit with the [WR] tag, I never wrote the word "speedrun" in the title or the thread itself. I could hardly call that a speedrun because I considered that the fact of not being able to watch it entirely made it not a speedrun. From the point of view of the stream on Twitch, nobody can humanly and physically watch the same thing 340+ hours without dying. And from the point of the recordings, no matter which kind, I would need a full recording of the entirety of the run. Which I didn't. Back then, I used a laptop, it was overheating often, it had a small capacity hard disk. And even if I did have a full recording, I would probably not upload it entirely. Because all the sleeping time is pointless. I would cut the sleep times. Then people could say it's spliced, etc.

But all of that was in the past. Because no matter what you can think, in a pure technical point of view, yes this is a speedrun. And the longest one existing so far. After all, I have a timer, I had to get the Shampoo as fast as possible, I need to do my menus as fast as I can, when it evolves I have to complete the game as fast as possible, and I had to route this entirely without forgetting any of the items you can miss. And there are a ton. And most of all, I improved my time. FOUR TIMES. And there is still more time to save. And other attempts will happen in the future. So yes, if you see things like that, yes it is a speedrun and I consider it this way.

- What happened to the 6th attempt from September 2019?

There is a quest where you have to give items to starving children. You get rewards after 13 and 21 items given. During that run, I learned the hard way that if you give 21 items at once, the NPC that rewards you for your kindness skips the reward for 13 items given and only gives you the reward for 21 items. And of course, because those rewards are unique items, it killed the run because I didn't know that you could lock an item.

- Will you do an 8th run in the future?

(Temporary answer: That is planned in September 2020)

Yes, because there will always be time to save! Also, one day, I would love to do a huge event. Maybe with some company, for a marathon, for charity, for an anniversary of the game, for whatever reason, we would try to get a giant hard disk drive for some local recording the entirety, and doing a very big stream, etc. I would like to do this, it would be very funny. People could make some talk while I sleep, the cam would be funnier... And we could finally have a full local recording and non-stop stream, and nobody could contest the fact it's a speedrun. That would be awesome!

- But in the end, why do you do this?

Because this game is fun! And streaming something for 2 weeks is incredibly funny, people are very supportive. In the end, it's simply that I enjoy this a lot, and that what matters after all. :)

Here is the Playlist for the 7th run (and current WR):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNpDam3KKferSif2GtScVAho6nOrSsN_c

Here is the Playlist for the 6th run (that died on Day 5):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNpDam3KKferQeMCJRKYCzkbFXritdHNn

Here is the Playlist for the 5th run:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNpDam3KKferI0Hn8_4wtB1y-4YfBDMaS

Here are the Highlights for the 4th run:

https://pastebin.com/sVpP2w29

Here are the Highlights for the 3rd run:

https://pastebin.com/uKbjvqvm

Here are the Highlights for the 2nd run:

https://pastebin.com/wWSyeWfZ

All that is remaining from the very first run is a highlight of the last hour:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/41174763

(You should watch at 29:06 because I cry and it's funny)

~ Baffan

https://twitter.com/baffan