How Speedrunners Destroy Every Version of Final Fantasy 1 

A goal all should aspire to.

The real tip, as always, is found in the comments

actually that was super easy, barely an inconvenience!

And the cool thing is that this will only take 1 min and 39 seconds just like in the speedrun! Man, who knew Sakaguchi was such a genius that he was actually making a real-life simulator back in 85?

@@vegamineral207And on the Famicom no less!

Depends on the game and technique of RNG manip - I think that using in-battle inputs to manipulate damage is cool, but constantly resetting the game to manipulate random encounters is BS since soft or hard resetting is little better than segmenting a run and goes against the spirit of what makes a speedrun.

@@TheBlackSeraph That's what 'no-reset' categories are for. Imagine being so smoothbrained as to complain that speedrunners are speedrunning too good.

Yeah, there are categories for everything imaginable. If you don't like a certain category, don't shit on others for it.

I do think things like credits warps are... uninteresting isn't quite the right word. Some of them are technically cool, and exploring *how* it's done is interesting... but if it's not primarily about playing the game then I don't care anymore about how *fast* you can do it. I just see it as a case of "okay cool, now that that's out of the way, can we get back to speedrunning?".

@@a2pabmb2 "Imagine being so smoothbrained as to complain that speedrunners are speedrunning too good." Nobody said that. Some people enjoy watching high-skill "intended" play and don't find the technical details or glitches entertaining. Just think of your favorite speedrun game, and then pretend there's a controller sequence that's very hard to do, but it warps you to the end credits from the title screen. Not fun to watch.

I think Lagoon is also an MSX game, if I'm not mistaken. I played the SNES version, and while the gameplay was pretty good, I absolutely LOVED the soundtrack, and it sounds so much better on the original version.

@@hannukahcelt2027 Nope! Not MSX. Lagoon is an X68000 game. That's a much beefier, much bulkier, much more expensive microcomputer. Apparently the X68000 version of it is VERY good, though!

@@Wyrdwad Yes I remember watching a short playthrough of it. I had forgotten the computer it was played on, but I remember being surprised that you were able to visit previous areas, unlike the SNES version which I myself had played. Not being able to revisit previous areas meant that if you wanted to have the best chance of beating the last boss, you would have to not use any healing items, as some of them were only available earlier in the game.

I am a big La-Mulana fan and it is clear based on your description why they would use MSX for software/games like they did.

@Tom Ffrench I somehow completely missed this comment previously, and didn't recommend you anything. Sorry about that! You're asking a pretty loaded question, as I own hundreds of games for MSX at this point, and there are a ton of them I absolutely love. ;) The answer will also change depending on whether or not you can read Japanese. Safe bets do include a lot of the Konami and Compile stuff, though, like Maze of Galious, Magical Tree, Penguin Adventure, MSX Castlevania/Vampire Hunter (the superior Castlevania in my opinion, though that opinion is the minority!), Space Manbow, the Aleste games, the Golvellius games and Super Cook, etc. But then on top of that there are some outliers that I think almost anyone would enjoy, like Psycho World, Hydefos, Fire Hawk, Jackie Chan's Protector, Yuurei-kun/Mr. Ghost (though that one is expensive as hell!), Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress, A Life M36 Planet, Robo Crush if you can read Japanese, Rune Worth if you can read Japanese, etc. Then there are also dozens upon dozens of indie homebrew games -- mostly from Spain and the Netherlands -- that are 100% worth tracking down and playing, like the Pumpkin Adventure trilogy, Kyokugen and Pleasure Hearts, The Sword of IANNA, Singular Stone, Ghost, Tina's Adventure Island, The Cure, Tales of Popolon, Children of the Night... the list goes on. It is, after all, an entire gaming platform with tens of thousands of offerings from all over the world, with new ones still being developed to this day, so the sky is very much the limit! I'm still constantly discovering new games I never knew existed, and greatly enjoying my time with them.

For the most part, it's not a hot topic as much as it's trolls in RU-vid comments who are offended in some way have to loudly make their opinions known. Either people with somewhat unusual morality who feel that RNG is inherent to RPGs and therefore manipulating it is straying too far from what makes it an RPG speedrun to begin with, or lazy people, like me as a minor example, who would like to speedrun a game but look at the daunting prospect of trying to manipulate RNG to ensure a good run and get frustrated by it and have to ruin the fun of others. (Not that I want to ruin others' fun, but, for example, FF4 and FF6 are far and way my favorite FFs and I've thought of speedrunning them, but the idea of needing to reset for a step route and such to get a competitive time seems tedious and deflating. But I love watching others speedrun these regardless, and some speedruns being totally broken by RNG manip--like Chronotrigger--is delightful. Some of the RNG complainers are people like me who can't be bothered to try any kind of manip like that and have to let their frustration out on others)

It's absolutely legitimate, it's just one of those things some rpg speedrunners don't find enjoyable. It makes it a lot less about response to circumstances and more about memorization, and for many that's not what attracted them to the run in the first place.

Aren't there are no RNG manipulation categories for all those games you mentioned? Most of the biggest RPGs have it.

@@inthefade Key word is 'biggest'. Neither FF4 or FF6 are actually very big, and most of the attention is payed to specialized glitched categories like the 64-floor glitch and the Sketch glitch. The glitchless categories don't receive a lot of attention, and even in the glitchless categories those that do run it use a step route. Chronotrigger's RNG manip is much stronger, capable of dictating almost the entire run, so it IS banned in glitchless. But the 'step routes' of FF4 and 6, by comparison, are minor things that just optimize encounters rather than dictating the game, so even if the glitchless runs were more popular it's unlikely most serious runners would consider it worthy of 'banning'

Yeah, it honestly shouldn't even be a debate. Why prioritize getting lucky and dedicating yourself to a stupid "grind" when you could utilize tricks (most of which require actual skill and knowledge to do in games!) To minimize the amount of grind and RNG and make it all about the skill of the runner as much as possible.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CTOUOeec4Qc.html That's not a deep dive or anything. Just a TAS run but it talks about it a little and it's super interesting to watch.

different strokes for different folks - speedrunning does often spoil the whole point of a game though

@@danteshydratshirt2360 and no one is forcing you to partake in it, or to even watch it. Therefore, you're the one taking the fun out of other people's enjoyment if you come just to complain

some people see wavedashing in melee as cheating. complaints about what's "taking the fun out of the game" should never be taken seriously

I think it was intended to be facetious...

@@eckitronix Oh of course, I actually love how irreverent he can be. But those comments were real and I just wanted to express my opinions on it; because it's just so strange to me. These are the kind of people that whine if a house rule is introduced during a board game. Just total melvins.

Honestly, people who whine about RNG manipulation and call it cheating are people who don't understand speedrunning, but desperately want to be speedrunners. They don't know how to pull off the insane tricks that can be pulled in their favorite games because god forbid, they don't actually know it inside and out like they think they do. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame people for not wanting to sink time into speedrunning, it's a very time-consuming thing to do. However, people who don't put time into it will never be able to do what top-level runners can do, that is a sheer fact of speedrunning. Some people just don't like that they can't be the best at a game they like because they haven't put the time to learn it inside and out, and feel entitled enough to say anything above their paygrade is cheating.

@@odditykid7898 I actually don't agree at all. I don't think jealously plays any part of it at all. In fact, ironically most people don't know how hard the tricks are and most assume they are very easy to perform. It comes down more to a persons principles. Most people play games as they were intended because thats the experience presented to them. They (and myself) love the wonderful relationship of developer and player; immersing themselves in the world and systems they created. But unlike them, I understand that others love breaking those systems and playing completely in a way that was unintended. I love hearing that perspective because I try to remain open minded. It's the same as watching console hacking videos. I love seeing the ingenuity of people even if I don't pursue it myself. Problem is, most people see this as an insult to the game developers. Imagine it like a lego set. 99% of people will turn it into the millennium falcon. Whilst 1% will turn it into the Starship Enterprise. They will call foul and say "but this is a starwars set!" I don't blame them for not understanding how other people think, I just hate that they try to call it out and invalidate it.

@@novelezra Personally I think that scrubs who have no idea what goes into Any% speedrunning should not be allowed to hold an opinion on Any% speedrunning. Like, what are the morons who come to the comments sections of videos like this to complain even doing here? Wasting 15 minutes of their lives so they can whine about something that isn't even meant for them?

Yep, I'm a big fan of the game and OST!

Also my favorite till I just recently started the Pixel Remaster is the PSP version, it just looks so good, however the music on the Pixel Remaster is top tier.

No kidding. In Dawn of Souls, a Monk who is hasted and tempered can beat most bosses in less than 4 rounds, including Chaos.

I literally came to the comments just to see if anyone else recognized it lol. I played through it a few years ago and it still holds up!

This comment is sorely underappreciated.

I have so much fun beating a game faster. It's why I play lots of game twice Like how I beat Dragonquest 8 with so much overlevlling and equipment I want to play again to see how fast I can do it

"you're having fun wrong!"

Go watch some goldeneye speedruns of them staring at the ground and tell me its fun. Most speedrunners seem to just have ocd and rarely even look like theyre having fun on their streams

@@serv-on The fun of it may or may not be the actual gameplay, you know. For a lot speedrunners, it's the little optimizations and tweaks, and the thrill of chasing that dopamine hit when that 0:49 finally pops up on their screen at the end of Dam. You can sit here and say how much you hate paint drying and how boring it is, but there will be people who will tell ypu they have the most amazing time staring at it and watching the latex solidify. You can't truly tell someone else how to have fun because you aren't them.

Thank you for your contributions!

Never been anything wrong with over-leveling a tad.

@@sarcasticguy4311 Nope. I did it for fun when I DL'ed it for my Wii. I didn't know how high they could go and never did it when I played on the NES.

Maybe your choice was only pseudorandom. 🤭

Because if RNG is the only thing left for you to improve your times you've already won IMO. I think these things are cool because they're a technological challenge, just like TAS are their own special kind of challenge. But I enjoy having to cope with whatever the game throws at me each run and putting up consistent times, then watching those times improve as I become more knowledgeable and adept. Removing that makes the game less of a decision skill check, and I don't like that. Can I afford to do X or can't I risk it this run, my HPs are too low what if I grab NulIce before Lich, when I get better at combat in Zelda I can do 3 first instead of 2, etc. When I'm at the point that RNG is the only thing that can improve my times I'm already very, very good at the game and it's time to move on to a new title. This is why @fcoughlin's Z1 randomizer is literally the top NES game all time IMO.

@@misterschifano Would you grind for a record if you knew already that the only thing that would dictate whether you beat the guy or not was a luck factor neither could control?

@@Nocturne989 No, for two reasons. For one, because my opponent is always past me, not the other guy. Like Lack does. And for two, the only thing I show by doing that is that I had the patience and time to do it and maybe he didn’t. That’s actually one of the reasons I compete with myself; current me is a busy guy, and pats me was too, so it’s “fairer” that way.

@@misterschifano Thanks for answering. Was genuinely curious to hear different people's perspectives on this.

I choose the music myself!

real talk, all of these are gaming wonders for their time

@@DoctorSwellman I Knowww, but only one of them has Wonder in its name 😰

This is the worst take i’ve ever heard in a comments section

You can speedrun without glitches and manips. You don't have to enjoy all the speedrun categories. A better version of your analogy is like saying "how can you claim to like baking if you don't like oatmeal raisen cookies...?" Absolutely ridiculous.

I think the reason for a stack is to be able to easily store the state of the previous floor

@@chair547 I wonder what state it would be, though. Other than room number and your location within the room, what is being saved? Positions of wandering NPCs, maybe? This just seems like such a weird solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

@@TheMisterGuy It has to store which chests on that floor you've opened or not opened.

@@alexandersears8538 "It has to store which chests on that floor you've opened or not opened." OK but if I leave the whole dungeon, popping all the floors I visited off the stack, it still has to know that information. I need to google this. Hopefully somebody has explained why it's programmed this way.

Those who complain don't care, they still yell that you're a no good cheating basement dweller even though you did nothing wrong nor did you directly do anything to ruin their enjoyment of the game.