Metal Gear Acid 2 NG Speedrun RNG Manipulation (36:19)

This is a demonstration of the manipulation up to the first boss, Harab Serap. What do I mean by "manipulation?" It means I know every card I get, on every stage. I can plan out all my movements, card use, etc. You just need to upgrade the correct cards at the correct time, and change cards out of the deck at the correct time. Maintaining the manipulation to Harab Serap (HS) means you gain a pretty good starting hand against him, though you can break it off there if you get some fantastic card drops that you want to include for HS. Think William Tell, H.F. Blade, Survival Knife, etc. On average, you'll have a decent fight against HS. Maintaining the RNG manipulation past the first boss isn't realistic, as the fight can play out many ways, and affect the next stage's card order in all sorts of ways. What are the issues with this strategy? As far as I can tell, Cyborg Ninja is a wildcard, with Roy Campbell potentially replacing it. If I get Roy Campbell in my starting hand, I reset, losing 6 minutes. If you get a Fury card early, and try to upgrade from the upgrade menu, it will upgrade that Fury card instead of the one in your inventory. We cannot sell The Fury until we finish the stage where we use it (Comm Tower 2), this becomes a problem. If you do this portion of the game without the manipulation, you'll likely lose a few minutes. The stage that will particularly waste time is Security Section, as the manipulation sets up a perfect starting hand. You lose 3 minutes and 32 seconds over NG+ due to additional cutscenes and tutorials that are unskippable. I didn't pick up Boosters in Research Block 1, but it is entirely possible within the manipulation route to pick these up. These packs could give you useful cards, or at least cards to sell. Played on PPSSPP v1.9.3, US version of Acid 2