Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/FinalFantasy4.html
Final Fantasy IV (Any %) (Single Segment) [Resets, Large-skip glitches]
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to 'nocashnocash'!
Final Fantasy IV (Any %) (Single Segment) [Resets, Large-skip glitches]
Verifier Responses
Quote from CyberBotX:
A/V good, no cheating detected, just a lot of upt Co. Up until the 64 floor glitch, everything is mostly like any other run of the game up to that point. What impressed me the most was that the 64 floors only needed to be done once instead of the 5 times that the previous run did, which decimates the previous run by quite a bit. That alone makes this an easy accept for me!
Quote:
Audio is fine, but I'm not so sure about the video. There are some framerate issues that are pretty apparent in some spots (especially caves).
As for the run, I'd say it's good enough. There is still a fair amount of time to gain, but I can't fault the runner for much of it as the worst parts of the run (like Milon/Milon Z) were because of luck. Of course the run had quite a bit of good luck too (not many back/surprise attacks, good chocobo luck, Valvalis's damage being kind...) so it evens out.
I'll give this one an accept if the video checks out
As for the run, I'd say it's good enough. There is still a fair amount of time to gain, but I can't fault the runner for much of it as the worst parts of the run (like Milon/Milon Z) were because of luck. Of course the run had quite a bit of good luck too (not many back/surprise attacks, good chocobo luck, Valvalis's damage being kind...) so it evens out.
I'll give this one an accept if the video checks out
Quote from Lakonthegreat:
Definite improvement over current glitched run. More improvements could be made, but this is still really really good.
Quote from Brossentia:
Glad to see nocashnocash's submission! Tons of people are getting into the diehard% run these days, so it's good to see a more solid run show up.
Mind you, I blab a lot in decisions. I apologize for the novel coming up.
Beginning goes well. Raven attacks, but that almost always happens. There were a few text boxes that took a little long to skip, especially with Cid. It's extremely difficult to get every one off in a row, though, especially when it's not just one text box. This sounds stupid, but I'd actually suggest practicing the rhythm of pushing A rather than mashing and praying (if that's what the runner did); seconds build up over the run. It's nothing to lose a run over, but it can help.
With the first chocobo, there's a bit of a manipulation you can do. Right when you enter, hold right, then go up. The chocobo will walk right to you. It saves a second or so.
Item duplication goes off without a hitch. The runner enters five battles in the first cave. I know it's possible to get to the boss with one battle, and five is pretty bad luck. This matters because, when resetting the game, the battle RNG changes. As a community, we should try to figure out the exact conditions to get a one-battle cave. This will make the beginning as fast as possible.
Mist Dragon went pretty darn well. Cecil got a crit, and Kain did nice damage. Mist clip had an extra menu, but that's to be expected with something so precise. Text boxes could've been slightly faster.
Officer fight in Kaipo is perfect. As a note, as I'm watching the menuing, it seems really solid. There's some pretty bad battle RNG through the cave. Luckily, the Octomamm fight begins with decent damage from Tellah and great damage from Rydia. There are some low damage rolls, but it's overall a solid fight.
Tellah missed Edward with every single attack. Reject.
We enter random encounter city again. What's lucky, though, is that he's avoiding back attacks or surprise attacks--those are mostly what cost time. Ideally, it'd be good to get few attacks, but the fact that he's not getting bad encounters averages things back out. I'm a bit unsure why he left Edward in the front row. Damage is a bit low on Antlion, but he goes down in four hits. Perhaps getting that fourth dancing dagger off quicker is a result of leaving Edward at the top.
NPC gets in the way in Kaipo. It's just a loss of half a second or so, but it's possible to manipulate how NPCs walk and shave off just a little time. Rydia learns fire. Woo. Mombomb fight has a few snags. Generally, when she's changing, I switch to either Rydia or Edward. That way, I can take out the gray bombs with the dancing daggers. They cause more damage. Getting rid of the front two will put the back red bombs in the front row quicker, allowing Yang and Cecil to have more accurate and damaging shots. Edward dying is unfortunate; not only does it extend the battle, but it also means he'll have less life for the Fabul fights.
Edward ends up hiding, and the RNG is a bit finnicky. I would've probably reset at this point--with the old route before the runner's changes, this would have cost enough to lose the WR. I think, however, that it's fine to have a run with some faults when it sets a new precedent for the route, especially when the runner has such good execution.
Oh, man. Three round Kain fight. That's brutal. If you unequip the shield in the battle before, you'll almost always get either the fast or slow two-rounder. Re-equipping costs less time than the three round.
Mysidia has some large shopping changes in order to set up the RNG towards the end of the run. I usually suggest buying one of the paladin items instead of ten so that it clears up inventory space--this can make menuing a tad bit quicker.
I swear, selling the stuff in your inventory will make menuing much quicker. By selling them, the items you need are at the top. Without selling, you have tons of scrolling to do.
Interesting change to the Milon fight. I'm wondering, though, if killing the top zombies is necessarily faster. I honestly can't say just watching. Unfortunately got the comet--because of this, Cecil has to attack twice. Generally, a second comet would mean two more attacks, but I'm guessing killing those zombies made flare do more damage to Milon. I'd have to check. Still, good acting in a bad luck situation. Oh man, that poison trolling with MilonZ! And Palom died. That could have been prevented with another Blink. The runner manages to get through it with some quick thinking. Super troll RNG.
Fights in the sewers go great. However, the slow equipping is again because of a failure to sell items in shops. The runner could also equip Yang's claws in battle; there's plenty of wait time there. MP glitch works great. During the battle with Baigan, he chooses to kill Porom; good. Goooooooood. It makes the next battle much safer.
Uh... no changing rows before the battle with Kainazzo? Guess it didn't matter, but you'll consistently get higher damage with Cecil and Yang if they're in the front. This can prevent bad things from happening in the battle. Another thing that this might be useful for, however, is just having Tellah cast magic without Cecil and Yang attacking. He deals enough damage around 70% of the time. It's risky, but it could cut out a few seconds. Is that enough of a gain for a 30% chance of failure? Not sure. Blarg, sorry for blabbing.
Yay! The twins are dead! Has a little trouble with the black chocobo, but those things are annoying as all get out. Here's the risky thing: having Cid in the front, if there's a surprise attack, he could easily die. I'm not sure if they're any more likely than back attacks, though; if they both happen at the same rate, then there's no additional danger having rows this way. He does get two surprise attacks; luckily, no physical attack hits Cid. Runner does get the worst attack in the game, though, costing around 30 or 40 seconds.
Cecil dies in the Dark Elf fight. This can actually change up battle order during the Valvalis fight, so it's something the runner will have to watch coming up. The chocobo ran right, but it was lined up correctly for the glitch to work later on in the run.
The runner doesn't get Cid's hammer in the tower. This has been a topic of debate within the community. I think that it makes the Valvalis battle faster, but yes, there's also a chance of getting some really bad battles while going to it. Again, equipping would be faster if items were sold in Mysidia.
The actual Valvalis fight goes alright. After casting 2 slows, I recommend switching jump up with Kain--jump, attack, jump, attack. Otherwise, Valvalis ends up casting weak on Cecil and possibly killing a run. However, without Cid's new shiny hammer, it's probably better to just keep jumping. Anyway, the battle is pretty much perfect with the runner's route.
The doll fight doesn't quite feel optimized. Yang does almost no damage against him because they're in the back row; he's much better off killing the front guys while Cecil and Kain deal with the back. Also, the back row of dolls does more damage than the front. The fight goes well, though, and this has made me question if the way I do things isn't as good as this way. I'll have to play around with it.
Fine Golbez fight. It's usually best to defend with Rydia, though. Yay stairs. Looks like shopping goes extremely fast. This has been well planned out--in order to do the new route, the runner has to have between 1073152 and 1073407 gold. I hate this route. Freakin' DieHard%. At this point, you have about 1/9 or 1/10 chance of actually getting through the right rooms. It's really, really stupid, but it goes perfectly for the runner. There may be a way to make it more consistent with saving and reloading, but I'd have to try it out before knowing for sure.
Anyway, upt Co! Zeromus dies. How fantastic.
Now, looking at the run, there could be around 3-4 minutes saved with a lot of grinding. However, those minutes also depend on the end cooperating. I'd say that there was bad luck through most of the run, but the end makes up for it here. Obviously, it's a significant improvement to the site's run. Of course I accept it.
With that said, enough people are entering into this game that I expect a better run to be finished in the next few months. If the runner wants to hold his position on SDA, he'll need to get the god run. I know he's still grinding away, though, so we'll see if he can get something even better!
Video: there was some flickering at the top and bottom at times, but that's the only thing I really saw.
Congrats on the run!
Mind you, I blab a lot in decisions. I apologize for the novel coming up.
Beginning goes well. Raven attacks, but that almost always happens. There were a few text boxes that took a little long to skip, especially with Cid. It's extremely difficult to get every one off in a row, though, especially when it's not just one text box. This sounds stupid, but I'd actually suggest practicing the rhythm of pushing A rather than mashing and praying (if that's what the runner did); seconds build up over the run. It's nothing to lose a run over, but it can help.
With the first chocobo, there's a bit of a manipulation you can do. Right when you enter, hold right, then go up. The chocobo will walk right to you. It saves a second or so.
Item duplication goes off without a hitch. The runner enters five battles in the first cave. I know it's possible to get to the boss with one battle, and five is pretty bad luck. This matters because, when resetting the game, the battle RNG changes. As a community, we should try to figure out the exact conditions to get a one-battle cave. This will make the beginning as fast as possible.
Mist Dragon went pretty darn well. Cecil got a crit, and Kain did nice damage. Mist clip had an extra menu, but that's to be expected with something so precise. Text boxes could've been slightly faster.
Officer fight in Kaipo is perfect. As a note, as I'm watching the menuing, it seems really solid. There's some pretty bad battle RNG through the cave. Luckily, the Octomamm fight begins with decent damage from Tellah and great damage from Rydia. There are some low damage rolls, but it's overall a solid fight.
Tellah missed Edward with every single attack. Reject.
We enter random encounter city again. What's lucky, though, is that he's avoiding back attacks or surprise attacks--those are mostly what cost time. Ideally, it'd be good to get few attacks, but the fact that he's not getting bad encounters averages things back out. I'm a bit unsure why he left Edward in the front row. Damage is a bit low on Antlion, but he goes down in four hits. Perhaps getting that fourth dancing dagger off quicker is a result of leaving Edward at the top.
NPC gets in the way in Kaipo. It's just a loss of half a second or so, but it's possible to manipulate how NPCs walk and shave off just a little time. Rydia learns fire. Woo. Mombomb fight has a few snags. Generally, when she's changing, I switch to either Rydia or Edward. That way, I can take out the gray bombs with the dancing daggers. They cause more damage. Getting rid of the front two will put the back red bombs in the front row quicker, allowing Yang and Cecil to have more accurate and damaging shots. Edward dying is unfortunate; not only does it extend the battle, but it also means he'll have less life for the Fabul fights.
Edward ends up hiding, and the RNG is a bit finnicky. I would've probably reset at this point--with the old route before the runner's changes, this would have cost enough to lose the WR. I think, however, that it's fine to have a run with some faults when it sets a new precedent for the route, especially when the runner has such good execution.
Oh, man. Three round Kain fight. That's brutal. If you unequip the shield in the battle before, you'll almost always get either the fast or slow two-rounder. Re-equipping costs less time than the three round.
Mysidia has some large shopping changes in order to set up the RNG towards the end of the run. I usually suggest buying one of the paladin items instead of ten so that it clears up inventory space--this can make menuing a tad bit quicker.
I swear, selling the stuff in your inventory will make menuing much quicker. By selling them, the items you need are at the top. Without selling, you have tons of scrolling to do.
Interesting change to the Milon fight. I'm wondering, though, if killing the top zombies is necessarily faster. I honestly can't say just watching. Unfortunately got the comet--because of this, Cecil has to attack twice. Generally, a second comet would mean two more attacks, but I'm guessing killing those zombies made flare do more damage to Milon. I'd have to check. Still, good acting in a bad luck situation. Oh man, that poison trolling with MilonZ! And Palom died. That could have been prevented with another Blink. The runner manages to get through it with some quick thinking. Super troll RNG.
Fights in the sewers go great. However, the slow equipping is again because of a failure to sell items in shops. The runner could also equip Yang's claws in battle; there's plenty of wait time there. MP glitch works great. During the battle with Baigan, he chooses to kill Porom; good. Goooooooood. It makes the next battle much safer.
Uh... no changing rows before the battle with Kainazzo? Guess it didn't matter, but you'll consistently get higher damage with Cecil and Yang if they're in the front. This can prevent bad things from happening in the battle. Another thing that this might be useful for, however, is just having Tellah cast magic without Cecil and Yang attacking. He deals enough damage around 70% of the time. It's risky, but it could cut out a few seconds. Is that enough of a gain for a 30% chance of failure? Not sure. Blarg, sorry for blabbing.
Yay! The twins are dead! Has a little trouble with the black chocobo, but those things are annoying as all get out. Here's the risky thing: having Cid in the front, if there's a surprise attack, he could easily die. I'm not sure if they're any more likely than back attacks, though; if they both happen at the same rate, then there's no additional danger having rows this way. He does get two surprise attacks; luckily, no physical attack hits Cid. Runner does get the worst attack in the game, though, costing around 30 or 40 seconds.
Cecil dies in the Dark Elf fight. This can actually change up battle order during the Valvalis fight, so it's something the runner will have to watch coming up. The chocobo ran right, but it was lined up correctly for the glitch to work later on in the run.
The runner doesn't get Cid's hammer in the tower. This has been a topic of debate within the community. I think that it makes the Valvalis battle faster, but yes, there's also a chance of getting some really bad battles while going to it. Again, equipping would be faster if items were sold in Mysidia.
The actual Valvalis fight goes alright. After casting 2 slows, I recommend switching jump up with Kain--jump, attack, jump, attack. Otherwise, Valvalis ends up casting weak on Cecil and possibly killing a run. However, without Cid's new shiny hammer, it's probably better to just keep jumping. Anyway, the battle is pretty much perfect with the runner's route.
The doll fight doesn't quite feel optimized. Yang does almost no damage against him because they're in the back row; he's much better off killing the front guys while Cecil and Kain deal with the back. Also, the back row of dolls does more damage than the front. The fight goes well, though, and this has made me question if the way I do things isn't as good as this way. I'll have to play around with it.
Fine Golbez fight. It's usually best to defend with Rydia, though. Yay stairs. Looks like shopping goes extremely fast. This has been well planned out--in order to do the new route, the runner has to have between 1073152 and 1073407 gold. I hate this route. Freakin' DieHard%. At this point, you have about 1/9 or 1/10 chance of actually getting through the right rooms. It's really, really stupid, but it goes perfectly for the runner. There may be a way to make it more consistent with saving and reloading, but I'd have to try it out before knowing for sure.
Anyway, upt Co! Zeromus dies. How fantastic.
Now, looking at the run, there could be around 3-4 minutes saved with a lot of grinding. However, those minutes also depend on the end cooperating. I'd say that there was bad luck through most of the run, but the end makes up for it here. Obviously, it's a significant improvement to the site's run. Of course I accept it.
With that said, enough people are entering into this game that I expect a better run to be finished in the next few months. If the runner wants to hold his position on SDA, he'll need to get the god run. I know he's still grinding away, though, so we'll see if he can get something even better!
Video: there was some flickering at the top and bottom at times, but that's the only thing I really saw.
Congrats on the run!
Decision: Accept
Congratulations to 'nocashnocash'!
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