Spiritual Warfare Learning new NES route (

Trying out a new route based off of Genesis learnings. Going for a 2 grape final boss instead of the 3 apples in the current WR. I believe this has the potential to be faster with a little more practice. I was able to get just shy of my current PB and there might also be potential to skip collecting the breastplate since the route doesn't go through the Airport. However, I don't know how much time it would save with still needing to collect the required the doves and extra heart containers.

[@flaccoshow0047]

Nice new route! You should be able to crush your existing time with it. That be awesome if you could get away with just using one grape instead of two? I'd imagine it would save time, but definitely more risky. With the other route, I'm thinking of just going with two apples instead of getting the third at the warehouse. Not sure if I'd stand a chance with less apples and not as much health. Was messing with it a little bit. Congrats again!

[@john82blacksheep]

I did a little bit of testing that a while back and I got 7:53 (5 runs ranging from 1:05-2:26) for the the final boss battle with 2 apples, vs 6:56 (5 runs ranging from 0:52-1:34) with 3 apples (to be honest I don't remember if these times were tested on NES or GEN version). At the time it didn't seem to me that skipping the 3rd apple was worth the risk for the time save to get into the Prison. Occasionally I would try skipping it if I was behind or didn't get enough dove drops, but for one reason or another the runs didn't pull through. I recently tried a couple times to get through the Demon's Lair with only 1 grape, but wasn't having any luck getting through the Demons Lair 5 sections and was also frequently dying on the final boss; perhaps it just needs a little more practice. But I also don't know how good that option would be since most of the doves for the second grape are able to be picked up easily while returning from the Breastplate. So I think the benefit might only be seen while skipping the breastplate. The 2 apple option through Houses might be more feasible than 1 grape though if skipping the Breastplate. But that makes the Demons Lair and Final boss quite risky to get through.