1-Up!
Game Page: Doesn't exist yet
Segmented, any% run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Most of the verifiers feel that the quality is good and the errors are insignificant for a run of this length.
Congratulations to Dave 'Sush' Rochefort!
Segmented, any% run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Audio is good... The recording of it anyways. Since this is the PC port, we get to listen to atrocious MIDI tracks. Goodie 
.
Visuals are decent. The image quality is very nice, outside of the little bars on top of the screen and the occasional horizontal bar on the bottom of the screen. FMVs are a problem, however. The video skips quite frequently during FMVs (the sound never jumps, just the image). The fights run fine for the most part, with the exception of the Elvoret fight, which skips very noticeably.
Does not appear to be any cheating.
Ahhhh Final Fantasy 8. Haters gonna hate, but I love this game. Sure, the battle mechanics are incredibly broken, but its just so much fun!
Now then, let's look at this segment by segment!
1: Opening FMV and Balamb Garden
We start this epic run of this epic game with an epic FMV that... Skips rather noticeably! Anyways, we meet our young hero Squa-... S, a SeeD candidate at Balamb Garden where... Sorry, I lost my train of thought, the background music distracted me. Something seems kind of off about it...
2: Ifrits Cave
The Ifrit fight goes well enough. After this fight, we get to hear the victory fanfare for the first time, which caused me to laugh hysterically when I first heard it. I'll say this is the point where the crappy PC music really starts becoming noticeable.
3: Travel
This segment is... Weird. It's very short and little is accomplished. I understand the rationale behind it, but it still stands out. I would have preferred just taking a random encounter on the way to the beach, but whatever, this is the only time Sush had such a short segment, so I'll let it slide.
4: Fish.
Not getting 5 fish fins in one fight makes me sad. This is the first noticeable error in the run.
5: Preparing for Dollet
Zell joins up, rocking his Mike Tyson tattoo before Mike Tyson even thought to get it. The FMV of the ship arriving to Dollet is unintentionally hilarious, because its trying so hard to be serious while the most awful MIDI music is playing in the background.
6: Dollet
This part of the game sticks out to me, because I remember that this was the part that the demo for the game went through. However, in the demo, the dialogue was different and had a bunch of cursing, which my 11 year old mind found amusing. Thankfully, they decided to be more mature with the actual release. I also found Selphie's introduction rather weird, it would make sense if she was coming up over a tall rock from behind them, but once the FMV is over, she appears to have arrived via the cliff in front of them that goes straight down and does not have high rocks... Whatever.
Anyways, this is a difficult segment that goes fairly well from a luck perspective, but overall this is the weakest part of the entire run. The main reason for this is that the actual recording is really bad. The Elvoret fight, as well as the Biggs and Wedge fight before it, skips constantly. Thankfully, this seems to be the only part of the run where skipping during a fight occurs (at least, its the only one that is really obvious). In addition, this is the first fight where it becomes apparent that the runner was not aware that you could skip the "getting up" animation prior to a limit break by running away.
7: Dance
Throughout the entire time between the mission ending, passing the SeeD exams, and everyone going to the dance, Squall manages to not say a single word to Zell and Selphie, who are trying really hard to be his friend. He doesn't even give Selphie a "Why are you in my room?", he just walks by her and gets dressed as if she isn't there. The "..." in response to helping with the Garden Festival, followed by Selphie immediately turning to someone else was pretty funny. Interestingly, by taking the fastest route, the dance scene is actually more meaningful, since its more obvious how much of a loner Squall is and how much of a turning point in his life the dance is. This is also the first example we see of how Squall is super competent and able to figure anything out on the spot, it only took him like 10 seconds to learn how to dance. After that, Quistis demonstrates how incompetent of an instructor she is by taking her student to a make out spot to bitch about how her bosses are firing her for being an incompetent instructor. Also, lol Seifer cried.
8: Granaldos Raldos
Not killing all three Raldos with one summon makes me sad.
9: Quisits Card
Winning this card with such a crappy hand is hype.
10: Diablos
Good fight. Missed one of the Triggers during Squall's limit break though. SHAME.
11: Zell Card and Laguna 1
Oh Zell Card, why must you be played so rarely? Anyways, we meet Laguna! He sure is different from Squall, I bet they have nothing in common at all, nope. Laguna also treats us to perhaps the most awkward romance scene in video game history, made even more awkward when we learn more about Squall and Rinoa.
12: Train and Timber
No train skip. This makes me REALLY sad. If what Sush says is true, then this is yet another strike against the PC port :(.
13: Laguna 2
Ward is junctioned instead of Kiros, who attacks faster.
14: Galbadia Garden
Finally, the REAL star of the game joins the party! A little time could have been saved by choosing to change the party, but keeping the parties the same, resulting in less dialogue.
Also, this is the part where the party becomes officially broken for the rest of the game. Yay!
15: Deling 1
Squall leaves Quistis in charge of a team, and she proves to be incompetent at that as well by choosing to run back to the mansion to apologize to Rinoa DURING the mission and almost ruining the entire thing.
16: Deling 2 and End of Disk 1
Oh no, Squall got severely injured!... Nah, they just wanted a cool looking FMV.
17: Laguna 3
Laguna proudly reporting how he slew 0 monsters actually seems rather in character.
18: Prison 1
Our heroes have some amusing banter and strike action poses, except for Squall, who gets tortured. Thankfully the moombas seem to think he's Laguna for some odd reason, why ever could that be?
19: Prison 2
All the yappiest party members are sent off to a mission at a heavily armed military missile base, under Selphie's command. Squall knows what's up. No long FMVs or relationship development for you, Rinoa.
20: Galbadia Missile base and Balamb 1
Wow, this is a long segment. I can only imagine the amount of attempts this had to take to not only have the tank battle go properly, but to get the damn wheel in one go as well. I would have had to reject this run out of principle if Sush didn't get the wheel down, so well done Sush.
Despite stupid amounts of luck, Selphie still manages to screw up the mission and gets everyone blown up.
21: Balamb 2
Irvine goes "pew pew" and then we have ourselves a flying garden! If you didn't notice the reference to the Hanging Garden of Babylon before, the game basically just hit you in the face with it. Afterwards, noone knows how to control the damn thing, so naturally Squall's superior officers all beg for him to do something, and of course he does.
22: Balamb 3
Squall and crew
23: FH
Everyone survived the missile base! And they are apparently good enough to drive a busted up tank all the way to FH while still being bad enough to accidentally fire everything against their allies. Afterwards, Cid rewards Squall for killing the Garden Master and failing his first two missions by naming him supreme leader of the entire Garden. Irvine then cements his bro status by setting up a concert and planting a porno for the purpose of congratulating Squall by getting him laid.
24: Balamb Town
This is the first time I noticed Sush using the "run away" trick to make attacks come out faster. Challenging Nida to a game of cards was pretty lulz though.
25: Trabia
Sush mashes as hard as humanly possible through the dumbest scene in the game, as well he should.
26: Galbadia Fight 1
Correct orders are given and time is saved. Zell is left in charge of a team, and immediately runs up to a cliff for no reason, leading to Rinoa falling and having to hold on for dear life.
27: Galbadia Fight 2
Zell naturally fails to save Rinoa. Squall immediately learns how to give an inspirational speech, beats up a dude while they fly on some jetpack segway that Squall learns to operate whilst fighting, and then he saves Rinoa who was dangling from a cliff for like 20 minutes while the gardens rammed into each other at least three times. Her arms are much stronger than anticipated.
Stay free Seifer.
28: Galbadia Fight 3 and End of Disk 2
Stay free Seifer. Also, Edea evidently forgot how to barrier against bullets like she did before, because Irvine shoots her down easily.
29: Laguna 4 and Travel
Cid can be skipped over in Edea's house.
Laguna antics... Hmmm so he has natural gunblade abilities... Anyways, limit break takes way too long to get.
Despite Squall blowing her off the whole game, he still decides he can't live without Rinoa. How sweet.
30: Laguna 5 and Esther
Squall responds to being told on the spot that he needs to go into space with a shrug, and takes along Irvine, since he's the only other one that is remotely competent. Zell is left in charge of the ground team, because why not. Selphie is left in charge of the dog, because screw Selphie.
31: Uber Junction and Space 1
Lunatic Pandora is attacking Esther, and Zell decides that this is the best time to go on a shopping spree. Junctioning Death to attack is a cool idea, I approve. Wishing Star is bought, can't wait to see what is done with this! ( ) Lots of strength boosting, can never have enough strength.
The one fight that Zell's team fights could be optimized (nitpicking ftw). The run away trick was not used, and I believe Selphie's attack is slightly faster than Quistis's.
Zell's team fails to stop Lunatic Pandora. Oh well.
Wow, the space dialogue is LONG. Door skip is cool at least. Speeding up Rinoa's walk is cool.
Squall's so competent, he can float out in space and not only find Rinoa, but also find them an abandoned ship.
32: Space 2
Very nicely done. One shot everything without getting hit. I especially liked the one that was fought right as the transition to the next room was happening.
I was honestly hyped for the "Eyes on Me" love scene. The PC soundtrack had been so horrendous up to this point, that I could not wait to see how they would handle the vocal track that was so important to this game. What manner of remix do we get?.... Nothing! No music whatsoever! Just Rinoa throwing herself at Squall and Squall continuing to be coy despite just jettisoning himself off into SPACE for her, all in silence. PC port, why must you make me sad?
33: Travel
Never get to hear the Ragnarok theme, but the PC music would ruin it so it's all for the best.
Speed is junctioned! And the best thing available to junction to it is... Stop. That is pretty awesome if you ask me.
Squall takes Rinoa to a flower field for no real reason other than so they can use it for a cool FMV.
Laguna is the president of Esther! Sadly, for speed purposes, we cannot see the flashback of Laguna's brilliant plan that was so mind blowing he not only defeated the all mighty Sorceress Adel, he also became president of a highly advanced civilization. It's incredible, really. Oh, we also don't get the little "Yeah, Laguna's your dad... Sorry" dialogue.
34: Lunatic 1 and end of Disk 3
Well done. The Holy War drop was very nice.
35: Lunatic 2 and Sorc Orgy
Irvine just h bombing both Adel and Rinoa was pretty funny. So much for "only aim for Adel."
The Sorc fight was awesome. They went down FAST. Getting death to work with Zell's attack as well as a stone was very cool. The boss was a bit of a pain, but still, very good overall.
36: Ultimecias Castle
Squall proves that maybe he IS a lion while "Maybe I'm a Lion" is butchered by this PC port.
Last boss is random. Luck was had. Some time was wasted on Rinoa's slow, weak attack. Overall, well done.
Final Thoughts: This run can be improved. The "run away" trick, for example, was not used during the first half of the run. The runner clearly did not know about it until later, and incorporated it to his run while it was in progress. Some dialogue options here and there could save some time. Several skips, most notably the Train skip, are not utilized, though this may just be the fault of the PC port. In general, most of the problems with the run occur during the first half, such as fighting more fish than necessary, failing to kill all the Raldos in one summon, and having visual problems during the Dollet Mission. The recording quality of the run seems to improve as it goes along, as well as the level of play itself, likely a result of the runner becoming more comfortable with not only the game but speed running in general.
The next thing I'd like to touch on is the actual platform that was chosen for this run: PC. I will list the pros and cons that I see with this version of the game.
Pros:
Since it is on the PC, it is likely cheaper and easier to record it.
The visual quality is very clear.
The transitions are much faster.
Cons:
The train skip, which works on PSX, does not work on PC. I doubt that this is the only trick/skip that does not work on the PC.
The music is atrocious.
This is not the version of the game that the vast majority of people are familiar with.
There are a number of graphical glitches, such as the bars that are apparent throughout the run, and the troublesome Ultimecia fight.
While the PC is a more powerful machine and therefore has faster load times, I personally feel the cons outweigh the pros, and I encourage future speed runners to use the PSX or PSN version of the game.
Decision: While there can clearly be improvement, the route was solid. There are still things to be discovered, and I think this run is a solid foundation for future attempts.
Accept.
Visuals are decent. The image quality is very nice, outside of the little bars on top of the screen and the occasional horizontal bar on the bottom of the screen. FMVs are a problem, however. The video skips quite frequently during FMVs (the sound never jumps, just the image). The fights run fine for the most part, with the exception of the Elvoret fight, which skips very noticeably.
Does not appear to be any cheating.
Ahhhh Final Fantasy 8. Haters gonna hate, but I love this game. Sure, the battle mechanics are incredibly broken, but its just so much fun!
Now then, let's look at this segment by segment!
1: Opening FMV and Balamb Garden
We start this epic run of this epic game with an epic FMV that... Skips rather noticeably! Anyways, we meet our young hero Squa-... S, a SeeD candidate at Balamb Garden where... Sorry, I lost my train of thought, the background music distracted me. Something seems kind of off about it...
2: Ifrits Cave
The Ifrit fight goes well enough. After this fight, we get to hear the victory fanfare for the first time, which caused me to laugh hysterically when I first heard it. I'll say this is the point where the crappy PC music really starts becoming noticeable.
3: Travel
This segment is... Weird. It's very short and little is accomplished. I understand the rationale behind it, but it still stands out. I would have preferred just taking a random encounter on the way to the beach, but whatever, this is the only time Sush had such a short segment, so I'll let it slide.
4: Fish.
Not getting 5 fish fins in one fight makes me sad. This is the first noticeable error in the run.
5: Preparing for Dollet
Zell joins up, rocking his Mike Tyson tattoo before Mike Tyson even thought to get it. The FMV of the ship arriving to Dollet is unintentionally hilarious, because its trying so hard to be serious while the most awful MIDI music is playing in the background.
6: Dollet
This part of the game sticks out to me, because I remember that this was the part that the demo for the game went through. However, in the demo, the dialogue was different and had a bunch of cursing, which my 11 year old mind found amusing. Thankfully, they decided to be more mature with the actual release. I also found Selphie's introduction rather weird, it would make sense if she was coming up over a tall rock from behind them, but once the FMV is over, she appears to have arrived via the cliff in front of them that goes straight down and does not have high rocks... Whatever.
Anyways, this is a difficult segment that goes fairly well from a luck perspective, but overall this is the weakest part of the entire run. The main reason for this is that the actual recording is really bad. The Elvoret fight, as well as the Biggs and Wedge fight before it, skips constantly. Thankfully, this seems to be the only part of the run where skipping during a fight occurs (at least, its the only one that is really obvious). In addition, this is the first fight where it becomes apparent that the runner was not aware that you could skip the "getting up" animation prior to a limit break by running away.
7: Dance
Throughout the entire time between the mission ending, passing the SeeD exams, and everyone going to the dance, Squall manages to not say a single word to Zell and Selphie, who are trying really hard to be his friend. He doesn't even give Selphie a "Why are you in my room?", he just walks by her and gets dressed as if she isn't there. The "..." in response to helping with the Garden Festival, followed by Selphie immediately turning to someone else was pretty funny. Interestingly, by taking the fastest route, the dance scene is actually more meaningful, since its more obvious how much of a loner Squall is and how much of a turning point in his life the dance is. This is also the first example we see of how Squall is super competent and able to figure anything out on the spot, it only took him like 10 seconds to learn how to dance. After that, Quistis demonstrates how incompetent of an instructor she is by taking her student to a make out spot to bitch about how her bosses are firing her for being an incompetent instructor. Also, lol Seifer cried.
8: Granaldos Raldos
Not killing all three Raldos with one summon makes me sad.
9: Quisits Card
Winning this card with such a crappy hand is hype.
10: Diablos
Good fight. Missed one of the Triggers during Squall's limit break though. SHAME.
11: Zell Card and Laguna 1
Oh Zell Card, why must you be played so rarely? Anyways, we meet Laguna! He sure is different from Squall, I bet they have nothing in common at all, nope. Laguna also treats us to perhaps the most awkward romance scene in video game history, made even more awkward when we learn more about Squall and Rinoa.
12: Train and Timber
No train skip. This makes me REALLY sad. If what Sush says is true, then this is yet another strike against the PC port :(.
13: Laguna 2
Ward is junctioned instead of Kiros, who attacks faster.
14: Galbadia Garden
Finally, the REAL star of the game joins the party! A little time could have been saved by choosing to change the party, but keeping the parties the same, resulting in less dialogue.
Also, this is the part where the party becomes officially broken for the rest of the game. Yay!
15: Deling 1
Squall leaves Quistis in charge of a team, and she proves to be incompetent at that as well by choosing to run back to the mansion to apologize to Rinoa DURING the mission and almost ruining the entire thing.
16: Deling 2 and End of Disk 1
Oh no, Squall got severely injured!... Nah, they just wanted a cool looking FMV.
17: Laguna 3
Laguna proudly reporting how he slew 0 monsters actually seems rather in character.
18: Prison 1
Our heroes have some amusing banter and strike action poses, except for Squall, who gets tortured. Thankfully the moombas seem to think he's Laguna for some odd reason, why ever could that be?
19: Prison 2
All the yappiest party members are sent off to a mission at a heavily armed military missile base, under Selphie's command. Squall knows what's up. No long FMVs or relationship development for you, Rinoa.
20: Galbadia Missile base and Balamb 1
Wow, this is a long segment. I can only imagine the amount of attempts this had to take to not only have the tank battle go properly, but to get the damn wheel in one go as well. I would have had to reject this run out of principle if Sush didn't get the wheel down, so well done Sush.
Despite stupid amounts of luck, Selphie still manages to screw up the mission and gets everyone blown up.
21: Balamb 2
Irvine goes "pew pew" and then we have ourselves a flying garden! If you didn't notice the reference to the Hanging Garden of Babylon before, the game basically just hit you in the face with it. Afterwards, noone knows how to control the damn thing, so naturally Squall's superior officers all beg for him to do something, and of course he does.
22: Balamb 3
23: FH
Everyone survived the missile base! And they are apparently good enough to drive a busted up tank all the way to FH while still being bad enough to accidentally fire everything against their allies. Afterwards, Cid rewards Squall for killing the Garden Master and failing his first two missions by naming him supreme leader of the entire Garden. Irvine then cements his bro status by setting up a concert and planting a porno for the purpose of congratulating Squall by getting him laid.
24: Balamb Town
This is the first time I noticed Sush using the "run away" trick to make attacks come out faster. Challenging Nida to a game of cards was pretty lulz though.
25: Trabia
Sush mashes as hard as humanly possible through the dumbest scene in the game, as well he should.
26: Galbadia Fight 1
Correct orders are given and time is saved. Zell is left in charge of a team, and immediately runs up to a cliff for no reason, leading to Rinoa falling and having to hold on for dear life.
27: Galbadia Fight 2
Zell naturally fails to save Rinoa. Squall immediately learns how to give an inspirational speech, beats up a dude while they fly on some jetpack segway that Squall learns to operate whilst fighting, and then he saves Rinoa who was dangling from a cliff for like 20 minutes while the gardens rammed into each other at least three times. Her arms are much stronger than anticipated.
Stay free Seifer.
28: Galbadia Fight 3 and End of Disk 2
Stay free Seifer. Also, Edea evidently forgot how to barrier against bullets like she did before, because Irvine shoots her down easily.
29: Laguna 4 and Travel
Cid can be skipped over in Edea's house.
Laguna antics... Hmmm so he has natural gunblade abilities... Anyways, limit break takes way too long to get.
Despite Squall blowing her off the whole game, he still decides he can't live without Rinoa. How sweet.
30: Laguna 5 and Esther
Squall responds to being told on the spot that he needs to go into space with a shrug, and takes along Irvine, since he's the only other one that is remotely competent. Zell is left in charge of the ground team, because why not. Selphie is left in charge of the dog, because screw Selphie.
31: Uber Junction and Space 1
Lunatic Pandora is attacking Esther, and Zell decides that this is the best time to go on a shopping spree. Junctioning Death to attack is a cool idea, I approve. Wishing Star is bought, can't wait to see what is done with this! (
The one fight that Zell's team fights could be optimized (nitpicking ftw). The run away trick was not used, and I believe Selphie's attack is slightly faster than Quistis's.
Zell's team fails to stop Lunatic Pandora. Oh well.
Wow, the space dialogue is LONG. Door skip is cool at least. Speeding up Rinoa's walk is cool.
Squall's so competent, he can float out in space and not only find Rinoa, but also find them an abandoned ship.
32: Space 2
Very nicely done. One shot everything without getting hit. I especially liked the one that was fought right as the transition to the next room was happening.
I was honestly hyped for the "Eyes on Me" love scene. The PC soundtrack had been so horrendous up to this point, that I could not wait to see how they would handle the vocal track that was so important to this game. What manner of remix do we get?.... Nothing! No music whatsoever! Just Rinoa throwing herself at Squall and Squall continuing to be coy despite just jettisoning himself off into SPACE for her, all in silence. PC port, why must you make me sad?
33: Travel
Never get to hear the Ragnarok theme, but the PC music would ruin it so it's all for the best.
Speed is junctioned! And the best thing available to junction to it is... Stop. That is pretty awesome if you ask me.
Squall takes Rinoa to a flower field for no real reason other than so they can use it for a cool FMV.
Laguna is the president of Esther! Sadly, for speed purposes, we cannot see the flashback of Laguna's brilliant plan that was so mind blowing he not only defeated the all mighty Sorceress Adel, he also became president of a highly advanced civilization. It's incredible, really. Oh, we also don't get the little "Yeah, Laguna's your dad... Sorry" dialogue.
34: Lunatic 1 and end of Disk 3
Well done. The Holy War drop was very nice.
35: Lunatic 2 and Sorc Orgy
Irvine just h bombing both Adel and Rinoa was pretty funny. So much for "only aim for Adel."
The Sorc fight was awesome. They went down FAST. Getting death to work with Zell's attack as well as a stone was very cool. The boss was a bit of a pain, but still, very good overall.
36: Ultimecias Castle
Squall proves that maybe he IS a lion while "Maybe I'm a Lion" is butchered by this PC port.
Last boss is random. Luck was had. Some time was wasted on Rinoa's slow, weak attack. Overall, well done.
Final Thoughts: This run can be improved. The "run away" trick, for example, was not used during the first half of the run. The runner clearly did not know about it until later, and incorporated it to his run while it was in progress. Some dialogue options here and there could save some time. Several skips, most notably the Train skip, are not utilized, though this may just be the fault of the PC port. In general, most of the problems with the run occur during the first half, such as fighting more fish than necessary, failing to kill all the Raldos in one summon, and having visual problems during the Dollet Mission. The recording quality of the run seems to improve as it goes along, as well as the level of play itself, likely a result of the runner becoming more comfortable with not only the game but speed running in general.
The next thing I'd like to touch on is the actual platform that was chosen for this run: PC. I will list the pros and cons that I see with this version of the game.
Pros:
Since it is on the PC, it is likely cheaper and easier to record it.
The visual quality is very clear.
The transitions are much faster.
Cons:
The train skip, which works on PSX, does not work on PC. I doubt that this is the only trick/skip that does not work on the PC.
The music is atrocious.
This is not the version of the game that the vast majority of people are familiar with.
There are a number of graphical glitches, such as the bars that are apparent throughout the run, and the troublesome Ultimecia fight.
While the PC is a more powerful machine and therefore has faster load times, I personally feel the cons outweigh the pros, and I encourage future speed runners to use the PSX or PSN version of the game.
Decision: While there can clearly be improvement, the route was solid. There are still things to be discovered, and I think this run is a solid foundation for future attempts.
Accept.
Quote:
My very long, drawn-out comments for individual segments are given in the hidden box. Underneath is the executive summary if you can't be bothered to read a long, uninteresting essay.
The good: The menus were used very quickly, bosses were very efficient, and Irvine was very well utilised. The depth of planning was amazing, even to the point where menu stuff was done in anticipation of events several segments later to avoid going in there again! Most of the boss fights (heck, fights in general) were fantastic, special mention should go to the propagators and Sorceresses though. The text-skipping (and there was a LOT of that) was very well done, including the times when some conversations were ignored or shortened to save time by the aforementioned excellent planning.
The bad: Segment 3 should not have been its own segment unless Segment 4 was done with only one fish fight. The button-mashing in the Granaldo fight (Segment 8) looked very bad, and for a four-minute segment, I feel that was worth a reset. The runner seemed to hesitate too much on the first card game considering the length of the segment, and I also feel time could have been saved by merging segments 14 and 15 as there are no battles in either segment and it means the runner doesn’t have to waste time leaving the city. The “run away” trick was not used nearly as much as it should have been, which is disappointing and could have saved a couple of seconds in most battles. The End is also not used at all throughout the run. I’m not sure of the specific circumstances that you need to make it appear, but I would have thought it could have been used in a few places where the bosses took a while to get rid of or were near the beginning of the segment. There were also a few times in Irvine's limit where he fired too many times; again we're not talking about anything more than a few seconds, but boss HPs are more or less fixed in this run so the runner should know when to stop really.
The Ugly: The video freezing problems are not present in the runner’s YouTube videos, and therefore, I presume, are not going to be present in the final product, so no issue there. There is occasional blurring, most obviously seen in the infirmary at the beginning of the game where it looks like it’s coming in and out of focus. There are very occasional audio hiccups, the one springing to mind as I’m writing this is during the last few notes of the opening FMV. The vertical lines have already been mentioned. There are some concerns about the quality of the run, but nothing that should stop it getting published.
Overall: A very good run, there are some improvements to be made and a few question marks around the quality, although none of the glitches are so annoying that they can’t be ignored (unlike the game’s MIDI audio), the main errors seem to come early on, with an almost faultless game end! Fantastic luck manipulation (I don’t even want to hazard a guess at the number of restarts this must have taken!) and great planning, I look forward to seeing it on SDA.
Decision: Accept!
The remarkable thing about this video is the amount of lag on videos, in particular in FMV sequences but occasionally in particularly epic fights. However, in the runner’s YouTube video, there is no video lag at all as far as I can tell (the audio lag, rare as it is, occurs in the exact same spots as it does on our verification copy)
This indicates that all of the video lag issues are fixable and in fact only appear to be an issue on the video we are verifying from, if so then no beef there.
Segment 1 (Intro): Wherein our hero has a sword fight with many visions of things to come and there are many video lags and a small but noticeable audio skip towards the end of the opening FMV. We see a prototype of his limit break, which mostly involves summoning large numbers of feathers and passing out. Our hero wakes up in hospital, alert enough to get through a conversation very quickly but is only able to remember the first letter of his name. Video blurs a couple of times during this, both on this version as well as YouTube. Picks up an expensive book in the library to sell later for many moneys, with another slight video blur while picking up the book. This detour takes less than half a minute so well worth the time spent here. Warps to the front gate and names the GFs before leaving and saving. Couldn’t have gone faster, really.
Segment 2 (Ifrit): Wherein our hero demonstrates his total disregard of fire as anything more than a minor annoyance by casually challenging a god of it and massively overestimating the time it will take to actually defeat him. That’s not going to be good for the ol’ SeeD rank! Menu work could possibly be done faster when selecting GF abilities, but less than a second is lost for that if anything at all. Only two random encounters in the Fire Cavern on the way to Ifrit and another two on the way out, which I believe is the minimum possible. Ifrit always attacking the correct character to get S, then Quistis to yellow health, and the fight finishing with 6:40 still left on the clock. Still, by the time S got out of the cavern, the crazy cult examiners have scarpered, presumably to a crazy cult examiner meeting. I am forced to wonder if it would be quicker to use Quistis’ limit break to defeat Ifrit though (4 sets of eye-lasers take less time than 4 renzos and will do similar damage)
Segment 3 (“Travel”): Wherein our hero walks nearly to the beach and junctions Ifrit. I’m presuming that getting there with no encounters was so difficult that this segment was necessary.
Segment 4 (Fish): Wherein our hero takes some time out of his busy schedule of passing exams to fight two pairs of fish. That swim in the land. Until they get bored and go floaties instead. For the five fins required, he only needed to fight one set of fish, and now the previous segment does not really seem justified. Laser Eyes, it seems, are as powerful as a 6-hit Renzo.
Segment 5 (Travel): Wherein our hero travels a lot more than in Segment 3. The runner directory-warps to his room, gets changed, leaves, and then enters the main hall from a strange looking direction. Zell is introduced with an excessive number of backflips, a skill he uses through the run... never. How exciting. Seifer’s a jerk, lots of text-boxes, blah blah blah... wait is that car driving sideways through Balamb? WTF!?!? (Seriously, it happens at 5:41 in the video) MISSION 1: Liberate Dollet from the Galbadians. They make a landing by driving THROUGH the tidal walls, because the pilot understands that this is a speedrun and every second counts here.
Segment 6 (Dollet): Wherein our hero is clearly the strongest fighter and also the closest to death, and nobody bothers to finish him off. The runner says that menu screen on the bridge just moves a random encounter to later although presumably it also costs the few seconds to load and cancel the menu. Seifer leaves, Selphie appears, although for some reason, Seifer doesn’t participate in any of the battles despite being, y’know, right there on the tower! Runner decides not to try for The End for any of these battles (it’s still uncertain as to whether it’s even possible IIRC) and instead plumps for the tried-and-tested method of using gunblade violence to solve his problems. A few seconds wasted from unnecessarily long renzos. Draws Siren. Stabs a giant robot to dea- being stunned for long enough to run away, with excellent stair-walking and bridge work. Everything else is more or less fixed time from there on, though I only found out recently that the Cafe is faster than the FMV – notice that X-ATM092 is lying on the beach, with Quistis looking, if anything, a little bored. Shows what a real SeeD can do! S and the gang successfully flee Dollet. Even though the mission was to LIBERATE Dollet.
Segment 7 (Dance): Wherein our hero speedruns learning to dance, and it turns out that the G-Army got exactly what they wanted out of the Dollet mission. Hmm... MISSION 1: FAILED. Some menu-work could have been smoother, although it doesn’t cost any time. Passes with excellent conduct and a poor attitude, but that’s S for you. Attack apparently wasn’t that good either, though I haven’t seen anything wrong with it! Goes to the ball and doesn’t socialise or dance until he’s more or less forced to. That girl in white really sucks at leading, though it’s possible that they could have been distracted by the awful MIDI music. One encounter in the training centre is nice going, added bonus that it was a back attack so the runner could flee. Quistis tries to get sympathy from the one student she’s NEVER seen any emotion from, except perhaps sulkiness.
Segment 8 (Granaldo & Raldos): Wherein our hero is saved by the woman he JUST scorned about 2 minutes ago. Nice. No attempt to get triggers on the Renzo, which looks a bit sloppy but doesn’t cost any time. Shame about the finisher. Much bigger error in the appalling button mashing, especially given what we see later in the run, and the fact that one of the Raldos is still killed by Shiva. Even taking in the lack of an encounter into account, I still there is a proportionately significant amount of time that could be saved from this 4-minute segment.
Segment 9 (Quistis Card): Wherein our hero is rudely awakened on his first day to meet out front urgently! So naturally, he plays cards. The players at this stage of the game are very easy to predict, given that they aren’t tactically-inclined (e.g. if they can take a card they will almost always do so, regardless of whether or not this puts them in a worse position as a result), you can see all of their cards beforehand, there are no complicated rules, and most of the cards are quite weak. There are no numbers higher than an 8 other than on the rare cards, and only a smattering of 7’s, meaning that Ifrit is invincible from two adjacent sides. The runner really shouldn’t need to hesitate in his play here and for such a short segment, he really is too careful. Magic lamp acquired, mission received. MISSION 2: Assist the Forest Owls
Segment 10 (Diablos): Wherein our hero rubs the magic lamp and wishes for a decent soundtrack... and has to fight a dark God instead. Very fast work there, missed one of the Renzo triggers, but very powerful drawn Demi and a great fight. No use of The End, though?
Segment 11 (Zell Card and Laguna 1): Wherein our hero has a nap on the choo-choo and dreams he’s not a moody teenager. Much faster card games this time round, very fast selling/shopping spree thanks to the earlier prep and only got two random encounters. Other than that, some text-skipping and absolutely no one felt awkward in that dream. Except Laguna. And his friends. And S and crew for having seen it. And us for having to watch them see it.
Segment 12 (Timber): Wherein our hero doesn’t walk through any solid doors. Physics is a cruel mistress. We also get some clarification on the mission. MISSION 2: Capture President Deling. Very fast train work, shame about using the finisher on the Fake Prez. S finally tells us what he thinks and doesn’t bottle it up, but suddenly they don’t want him to share his emotions. That guy just can’t get a break, really! President Deling escapes unharmed. MISSION 2 : FAILED
Segment 13 (Laguna 2): Wherein our hero doesn’t want to be bitched at and instead has a nap. For some reason the runner junctions Ward instead of Kiros even though the latter’s attack is faster. I didn’t know that playing with boulders, etc causes fewer battles at the end, so moving the boulder is definitely a good move.
Segment 14 (Galbadia): Wherein our hero becomes ridiculously strong, and the party is finally complete! I agree with the previous verifier about the teams, especially since it doesn’t actually matter what the teams are IIRC. Having said that, very fast text-skipping, a very efficient segment. The party gets their next mission. MISSION 3: Assassinate the Sorceress. I have to disagree with the end to this segment; if the code is generated once per save file as the runner claims, more time could be saved by saving at Caraway’s mansion, and combining this segment with most, if not all, or Segment 15 (as there are no encounters in either segment)
Segment 15 (Deling 1): Wherein our hero goes through the plan in intricate detail, and we know that the plot cannot possibly fail. R decides to help by assuming that Sorceresses have the cunning of a 3-year-old, and the loser team gets locked in a room and decide not to summon a minor deity to smite the door or something. Clearly the sewer is the better option here...
Segment 16 (Deling 2): Wherein our hero saves the girl, defeats his rival, and slays the evil Sorceress, bringing peace back to a beleaguered- oh. Wait. Well, 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. Great boss fights here and a very fast sewer run. This is a fantastic segment! Quistis and Selphie are somehow still heavily injured from their nap. MISSION 3: FAILED
Segment 17 (Laguna 3): Wherein our hero dreams that he is an environmentalist and successfully runs from one end of the town to the other and back without accidently stepping on any caterpillars.
Segment 18 (Prison 1): Wherein our hero forgets to junction thunder magic to Elem-Def and ends up getting tortured. I approve of saving Moombas for making shortcuts. MISSION 4: Jail-Break! Zell makes short work of the forced battles, and Irvine suffers a little confusion running between floors and activating the save point. I have no idea what causes the save point thing, but it’s very annoying. I’m not sure why Irvine is junctioned here as he isn’t fighting.
Segment 19 (Prison 2): Wherein our hero cunningly escapes from prison using his expert shimmying skills. MISSION 4: SUCCESS! Explosive dogs can be very damaging, although not for the dog. Again, some very speedy fighting at work here. MISSION 5: Stop the Missile Launch and Save Balamb Garden! Excellent choice of Missile base party.
Segment 20 (Missile Base and Balamb 1): Wherein our hero single-handedly turns a wheel! Fastest route through the base taken, and Selphie... does not stop the missiles. At all. As the runner said, Angelo turning up at the wrong time must have been annoying, but still very fast anyway. Zell beats up a tank and a dog rocket is fired at the soldiers. MISSION 5a: FAILED S gets back to Garden to discover the crazy cult guys have gone all crazy, so he has to help out with the battles. Or ignore as many as possible. Especially the kiddies. Nice. Lots of running and climbing, and a far superior button-mash fest!
Segment 21 (Balamb 2): Wherein our hero turns his home into a flying fortress that doesn’t actually fly. Irvine turns the boss into sushi and S is unable to stop the missiles from blowing up the exact spot where the Garden... was. MISSION 5b: SUCCESS! Everybody’s reaction to the steering issue is to yell at S until he fixes it. Luckily he’s a team player.
Segment 22 (Balamb 3): Wherein our hero fights the man. Or tells Irvine to do it, anyway. Which he does in no time flat. Shotgun ammo was possibly unnecessary, but it doesn't cost any time at all so no matter. S goes to see Cid in the infirmary and then leaves the infirmary without seeing Cid. The hunt for Ellone begins, and then ends, and that’s the last we’ll see of her, probably. S still doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Funnily enough, that includes Quistis. Still.
Segment 23 (FH): Wherein our hero becomes the leader of the Garden for some reason, and has a concert in his honour. Not that he particularly wanted either, really, but there you go. Very fast boss fight here, Irvine making short work of both fights. Lots of text-skipping and makes the fastest music choice (getting it wrong)
Segment 24 (Balamb Town): Wherein our hero challenges Nida to a game of cards, before changing his mind. Oh, and he has Irvine single-handedly liberate Balamb. MISSION 6: Liberate Balamb. Again, very fast boss-work there, and fastest route through Balamb taken. MISSION 6: SUCCESS
Segment 25 (Trabia): Wherein our hero discovers something about his past, and all their pasts... except R, nobody cares about her. Button mashing galore on a par with the runner’s earlier wheel-turner, and some preparation junctioning done very well, the fastest route to Galbadia Garden, better get ready for war...
Segment 26 (Galbadia Fight 1): Wherein our hero must take command of a battle. MISSION 7: Defeat Galbadia Garden! The quickest set of orders are given and R falls down a cliff and hangs there precariously for a little while.
Segment 27 (Galbadia Fight 2): Wherein our hero saves the girl and defeats his Rival. Again. He also leads an all-out attack on an almost-deserted Galbadia Garden and can fly a jetpack that he’s only ever seen once in passing. For some reason he doesn’t fly it to the door but instead to a battleground. Wild Sorceress Appeared! Wild Sorceress ran away... through the floor.
Segment 28 (Galbadia Fight 3): Wherein our hero defeats his rival, Irvine has another crack at the Sorceress and does much better this time, and they all lived happily ever after. Except R, who falls into a coma and finally shuts up. MISSION 7: SUCCESS!
Segment 29 (Laguna 4 and Travel): Wherein our hero decides he really DOES want the girl after all. Typical teenager. We learn who the real enemy is here, and she’s from the future, which is going to make it tricky to stab her to death. But the gang have more important things to worry about, now. MISSION 8: Find Ellone, while protecting her from Ultimecia. Cid can actually be skipped, although I think that was discovered post-submission. A bit of time was wasted getting Laguna’s Limit Break ready, though otherwise a speedy dream sequence. S gives R a piggy back to the next continent, with lots of text-skipping.
Segment 30 (Laguna 5 and Esther): Wherein our hero finds the lost metropolis of Esther, and has another nap before going into space. I think there was meant to be a boss there, too, although I blinked on the first two viewings and completely missed it! Very fast work on the Laguna battles, and lots of text skipping and dashing across a huge city in double-quick time. And the Galbadians are attacking. Again. This is starting to get old, now...
Segment 31 (Uber Junction and Space 1): Wherein our hero goes to SPACE! Lots of junctioning, shopping, and a very fast boss batt- oh. Nevermind Zell, maybe another time, eh? Lots and lots and lots of talking in space. So very much dialogue... Some nice cheeky timesavers were in there as well in the form of a door skip, speeding up the possessed R. Nice job keeping Ellone hidden from Ultimecia’s purview, by the way. S plays catch in Space, and catches both R and a spaceship with teeth.
Segment 32 (Space 2): Wherein our hero does some hardcore one-shotting of all the monsters on the ship. R would be there as a meat-shield if S could be bothered to let them attack at all. Very nice and fast segment. Initiative should come in handy now. S finally got R back and then let her get taken away, again. And Ellone is gone, too. MISSION 8: FAILED Luckily, his closest friends show up to tell him what a total moron he is and consequently saves us the trouble of shouting it at the screen.
Segment 33 (Travel): Wherein our hero saves the girl for the last time, he gets the briefing on his final mission. MISSION 9: Defeat Ultimecia! This is done by... allowing her to do exactly what she’s been trying to do for basically the whole game. Huh? No time for explanations, that wouldn’t be very speedrunny, would it? Apparently time travel is possible only through the joint powers of love, courage and friendship. You can say a lot about Laguna, but he sure knows a lot about travelling through compressed time!
Segment 34 (Lunatic 1): Wherein our hero shows Zell how to defeat a boss... by making Irvine nuke the hell out of them. Very fast boss-work there, also liked the faster entrance to the lunatic Pandora. Couple of seconds could have been saved if he didn’t shoot Rajin and Fujin a third time unnecessarily. That Holy War will come in very handy!
Segment 35 (Lunatic 2 and Sorcs): Wherein our hero drops some REALLY bad acid! That time compression scene still freaks me out. I never realised that if you took both Adel and Rinoa out together it still counted as a win! Very fast work there, and some excellent sorceresses, that death strike and death stone really came in handy! Even with Irvine dying, there is very little time that could be saved from those bosses. The obligatory floating castle comes into view, the final dungeon awaits!
Segment 36 (Ultimecia): Wherein our hero comes to the end of his long, long journey across time and space. Good idea switching Selphie in to lower Ultimecia’s level, perhaps Zell should also have been removed to stop him taking so long to get up after the chandelier fell down? Again, very speedy bosses there, although judging from the runners notes, it took a lot of restarts to get it that good. Shame about R not being able to advance the final dialog though. MISSION 9: SUCCESS!
This indicates that all of the video lag issues are fixable and in fact only appear to be an issue on the video we are verifying from, if so then no beef there.
Segment 1 (Intro): Wherein our hero has a sword fight with many visions of things to come and there are many video lags and a small but noticeable audio skip towards the end of the opening FMV. We see a prototype of his limit break, which mostly involves summoning large numbers of feathers and passing out. Our hero wakes up in hospital, alert enough to get through a conversation very quickly but is only able to remember the first letter of his name. Video blurs a couple of times during this, both on this version as well as YouTube. Picks up an expensive book in the library to sell later for many moneys, with another slight video blur while picking up the book. This detour takes less than half a minute so well worth the time spent here. Warps to the front gate and names the GFs before leaving and saving. Couldn’t have gone faster, really.
Segment 2 (Ifrit): Wherein our hero demonstrates his total disregard of fire as anything more than a minor annoyance by casually challenging a god of it and massively overestimating the time it will take to actually defeat him. That’s not going to be good for the ol’ SeeD rank! Menu work could possibly be done faster when selecting GF abilities, but less than a second is lost for that if anything at all. Only two random encounters in the Fire Cavern on the way to Ifrit and another two on the way out, which I believe is the minimum possible. Ifrit always attacking the correct character to get S, then Quistis to yellow health, and the fight finishing with 6:40 still left on the clock. Still, by the time S got out of the cavern, the crazy cult examiners have scarpered, presumably to a crazy cult examiner meeting. I am forced to wonder if it would be quicker to use Quistis’ limit break to defeat Ifrit though (4 sets of eye-lasers take less time than 4 renzos and will do similar damage)
Segment 3 (“Travel”): Wherein our hero walks nearly to the beach and junctions Ifrit. I’m presuming that getting there with no encounters was so difficult that this segment was necessary.
Segment 4 (Fish): Wherein our hero takes some time out of his busy schedule of passing exams to fight two pairs of fish. That swim in the land. Until they get bored and go floaties instead. For the five fins required, he only needed to fight one set of fish, and now the previous segment does not really seem justified. Laser Eyes, it seems, are as powerful as a 6-hit Renzo.
Segment 5 (Travel): Wherein our hero travels a lot more than in Segment 3. The runner directory-warps to his room, gets changed, leaves, and then enters the main hall from a strange looking direction. Zell is introduced with an excessive number of backflips, a skill he uses through the run... never. How exciting. Seifer’s a jerk, lots of text-boxes, blah blah blah... wait is that car driving sideways through Balamb? WTF!?!? (Seriously, it happens at 5:41 in the video) MISSION 1: Liberate Dollet from the Galbadians. They make a landing by driving THROUGH the tidal walls, because the pilot understands that this is a speedrun and every second counts here.
Segment 6 (Dollet): Wherein our hero is clearly the strongest fighter and also the closest to death, and nobody bothers to finish him off. The runner says that menu screen on the bridge just moves a random encounter to later although presumably it also costs the few seconds to load and cancel the menu. Seifer leaves, Selphie appears, although for some reason, Seifer doesn’t participate in any of the battles despite being, y’know, right there on the tower! Runner decides not to try for The End for any of these battles (it’s still uncertain as to whether it’s even possible IIRC) and instead plumps for the tried-and-tested method of using gunblade violence to solve his problems. A few seconds wasted from unnecessarily long renzos. Draws Siren. Stabs a giant robot to dea- being stunned for long enough to run away, with excellent stair-walking and bridge work. Everything else is more or less fixed time from there on, though I only found out recently that the Cafe is faster than the FMV – notice that X-ATM092 is lying on the beach, with Quistis looking, if anything, a little bored. Shows what a real SeeD can do! S and the gang successfully flee Dollet. Even though the mission was to LIBERATE Dollet.
Segment 7 (Dance): Wherein our hero speedruns learning to dance, and it turns out that the G-Army got exactly what they wanted out of the Dollet mission. Hmm... MISSION 1: FAILED. Some menu-work could have been smoother, although it doesn’t cost any time. Passes with excellent conduct and a poor attitude, but that’s S for you. Attack apparently wasn’t that good either, though I haven’t seen anything wrong with it! Goes to the ball and doesn’t socialise or dance until he’s more or less forced to. That girl in white really sucks at leading, though it’s possible that they could have been distracted by the awful MIDI music. One encounter in the training centre is nice going, added bonus that it was a back attack so the runner could flee. Quistis tries to get sympathy from the one student she’s NEVER seen any emotion from, except perhaps sulkiness.
Segment 8 (Granaldo & Raldos): Wherein our hero is saved by the woman he JUST scorned about 2 minutes ago. Nice. No attempt to get triggers on the Renzo, which looks a bit sloppy but doesn’t cost any time. Shame about the finisher. Much bigger error in the appalling button mashing, especially given what we see later in the run, and the fact that one of the Raldos is still killed by Shiva. Even taking in the lack of an encounter into account, I still there is a proportionately significant amount of time that could be saved from this 4-minute segment.
Segment 9 (Quistis Card): Wherein our hero is rudely awakened on his first day to meet out front urgently! So naturally, he plays cards. The players at this stage of the game are very easy to predict, given that they aren’t tactically-inclined (e.g. if they can take a card they will almost always do so, regardless of whether or not this puts them in a worse position as a result), you can see all of their cards beforehand, there are no complicated rules, and most of the cards are quite weak. There are no numbers higher than an 8 other than on the rare cards, and only a smattering of 7’s, meaning that Ifrit is invincible from two adjacent sides. The runner really shouldn’t need to hesitate in his play here and for such a short segment, he really is too careful. Magic lamp acquired, mission received. MISSION 2: Assist the Forest Owls
Segment 10 (Diablos): Wherein our hero rubs the magic lamp and wishes for a decent soundtrack... and has to fight a dark God instead. Very fast work there, missed one of the Renzo triggers, but very powerful drawn Demi and a great fight. No use of The End, though?
Segment 11 (Zell Card and Laguna 1): Wherein our hero has a nap on the choo-choo and dreams he’s not a moody teenager. Much faster card games this time round, very fast selling/shopping spree thanks to the earlier prep and only got two random encounters. Other than that, some text-skipping and absolutely no one felt awkward in that dream. Except Laguna. And his friends. And S and crew for having seen it. And us for having to watch them see it.
Segment 12 (Timber): Wherein our hero doesn’t walk through any solid doors. Physics is a cruel mistress. We also get some clarification on the mission. MISSION 2: Capture President Deling. Very fast train work, shame about using the finisher on the Fake Prez. S finally tells us what he thinks and doesn’t bottle it up, but suddenly they don’t want him to share his emotions. That guy just can’t get a break, really! President Deling escapes unharmed. MISSION 2 : FAILED
Segment 13 (Laguna 2): Wherein our hero doesn’t want to be bitched at and instead has a nap. For some reason the runner junctions Ward instead of Kiros even though the latter’s attack is faster. I didn’t know that playing with boulders, etc causes fewer battles at the end, so moving the boulder is definitely a good move.
Segment 14 (Galbadia): Wherein our hero becomes ridiculously strong, and the party is finally complete! I agree with the previous verifier about the teams, especially since it doesn’t actually matter what the teams are IIRC. Having said that, very fast text-skipping, a very efficient segment. The party gets their next mission. MISSION 3: Assassinate the Sorceress. I have to disagree with the end to this segment; if the code is generated once per save file as the runner claims, more time could be saved by saving at Caraway’s mansion, and combining this segment with most, if not all, or Segment 15 (as there are no encounters in either segment)
Segment 15 (Deling 1): Wherein our hero goes through the plan in intricate detail, and we know that the plot cannot possibly fail. R decides to help by assuming that Sorceresses have the cunning of a 3-year-old, and the loser team gets locked in a room and decide not to summon a minor deity to smite the door or something. Clearly the sewer is the better option here...
Segment 16 (Deling 2): Wherein our hero saves the girl, defeats his rival, and slays the evil Sorceress, bringing peace back to a beleaguered- oh. Wait. Well, 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. Great boss fights here and a very fast sewer run. This is a fantastic segment! Quistis and Selphie are somehow still heavily injured from their nap. MISSION 3: FAILED
Segment 17 (Laguna 3): Wherein our hero dreams that he is an environmentalist and successfully runs from one end of the town to the other and back without accidently stepping on any caterpillars.
Segment 18 (Prison 1): Wherein our hero forgets to junction thunder magic to Elem-Def and ends up getting tortured. I approve of saving Moombas for making shortcuts. MISSION 4: Jail-Break! Zell makes short work of the forced battles, and Irvine suffers a little confusion running between floors and activating the save point. I have no idea what causes the save point thing, but it’s very annoying. I’m not sure why Irvine is junctioned here as he isn’t fighting.
Segment 19 (Prison 2): Wherein our hero cunningly escapes from prison using his expert shimmying skills. MISSION 4: SUCCESS! Explosive dogs can be very damaging, although not for the dog. Again, some very speedy fighting at work here. MISSION 5: Stop the Missile Launch and Save Balamb Garden! Excellent choice of Missile base party.
Segment 20 (Missile Base and Balamb 1): Wherein our hero single-handedly turns a wheel! Fastest route through the base taken, and Selphie... does not stop the missiles. At all. As the runner said, Angelo turning up at the wrong time must have been annoying, but still very fast anyway. Zell beats up a tank and a dog rocket is fired at the soldiers. MISSION 5a: FAILED S gets back to Garden to discover the crazy cult guys have gone all crazy, so he has to help out with the battles. Or ignore as many as possible. Especially the kiddies. Nice. Lots of running and climbing, and a far superior button-mash fest!
Segment 21 (Balamb 2): Wherein our hero turns his home into a flying fortress that doesn’t actually fly. Irvine turns the boss into sushi and S is unable to stop the missiles from blowing up the exact spot where the Garden... was. MISSION 5b: SUCCESS! Everybody’s reaction to the steering issue is to yell at S until he fixes it. Luckily he’s a team player.
Segment 22 (Balamb 3): Wherein our hero fights the man. Or tells Irvine to do it, anyway. Which he does in no time flat. Shotgun ammo was possibly unnecessary, but it doesn't cost any time at all so no matter. S goes to see Cid in the infirmary and then leaves the infirmary without seeing Cid. The hunt for Ellone begins, and then ends, and that’s the last we’ll see of her, probably. S still doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Funnily enough, that includes Quistis. Still.
Segment 23 (FH): Wherein our hero becomes the leader of the Garden for some reason, and has a concert in his honour. Not that he particularly wanted either, really, but there you go. Very fast boss fight here, Irvine making short work of both fights. Lots of text-skipping and makes the fastest music choice (getting it wrong)
Segment 24 (Balamb Town): Wherein our hero challenges Nida to a game of cards, before changing his mind. Oh, and he has Irvine single-handedly liberate Balamb. MISSION 6: Liberate Balamb. Again, very fast boss-work there, and fastest route through Balamb taken. MISSION 6: SUCCESS
Segment 25 (Trabia): Wherein our hero discovers something about his past, and all their pasts... except R, nobody cares about her. Button mashing galore on a par with the runner’s earlier wheel-turner, and some preparation junctioning done very well, the fastest route to Galbadia Garden, better get ready for war...
Segment 26 (Galbadia Fight 1): Wherein our hero must take command of a battle. MISSION 7: Defeat Galbadia Garden! The quickest set of orders are given and R falls down a cliff and hangs there precariously for a little while.
Segment 27 (Galbadia Fight 2): Wherein our hero saves the girl and defeats his Rival. Again. He also leads an all-out attack on an almost-deserted Galbadia Garden and can fly a jetpack that he’s only ever seen once in passing. For some reason he doesn’t fly it to the door but instead to a battleground. Wild Sorceress Appeared! Wild Sorceress ran away... through the floor.
Segment 28 (Galbadia Fight 3): Wherein our hero defeats his rival, Irvine has another crack at the Sorceress and does much better this time, and they all lived happily ever after. Except R, who falls into a coma and finally shuts up. MISSION 7: SUCCESS!
Segment 29 (Laguna 4 and Travel): Wherein our hero decides he really DOES want the girl after all. Typical teenager. We learn who the real enemy is here, and she’s from the future, which is going to make it tricky to stab her to death. But the gang have more important things to worry about, now. MISSION 8: Find Ellone, while protecting her from Ultimecia. Cid can actually be skipped, although I think that was discovered post-submission. A bit of time was wasted getting Laguna’s Limit Break ready, though otherwise a speedy dream sequence. S gives R a piggy back to the next continent, with lots of text-skipping.
Segment 30 (Laguna 5 and Esther): Wherein our hero finds the lost metropolis of Esther, and has another nap before going into space. I think there was meant to be a boss there, too, although I blinked on the first two viewings and completely missed it! Very fast work on the Laguna battles, and lots of text skipping and dashing across a huge city in double-quick time. And the Galbadians are attacking. Again. This is starting to get old, now...
Segment 31 (Uber Junction and Space 1): Wherein our hero goes to SPACE! Lots of junctioning, shopping, and a very fast boss batt- oh. Nevermind Zell, maybe another time, eh? Lots and lots and lots of talking in space. So very much dialogue... Some nice cheeky timesavers were in there as well in the form of a door skip, speeding up the possessed R. Nice job keeping Ellone hidden from Ultimecia’s purview, by the way. S plays catch in Space, and catches both R and a spaceship with teeth.
Segment 32 (Space 2): Wherein our hero does some hardcore one-shotting of all the monsters on the ship. R would be there as a meat-shield if S could be bothered to let them attack at all. Very nice and fast segment. Initiative should come in handy now. S finally got R back and then let her get taken away, again. And Ellone is gone, too. MISSION 8: FAILED Luckily, his closest friends show up to tell him what a total moron he is and consequently saves us the trouble of shouting it at the screen.
Segment 33 (Travel): Wherein our hero saves the girl for the last time, he gets the briefing on his final mission. MISSION 9: Defeat Ultimecia! This is done by... allowing her to do exactly what she’s been trying to do for basically the whole game. Huh? No time for explanations, that wouldn’t be very speedrunny, would it? Apparently time travel is possible only through the joint powers of love, courage and friendship. You can say a lot about Laguna, but he sure knows a lot about travelling through compressed time!
Segment 34 (Lunatic 1): Wherein our hero shows Zell how to defeat a boss... by making Irvine nuke the hell out of them. Very fast boss-work there, also liked the faster entrance to the lunatic Pandora. Couple of seconds could have been saved if he didn’t shoot Rajin and Fujin a third time unnecessarily. That Holy War will come in very handy!
Segment 35 (Lunatic 2 and Sorcs): Wherein our hero drops some REALLY bad acid! That time compression scene still freaks me out. I never realised that if you took both Adel and Rinoa out together it still counted as a win! Very fast work there, and some excellent sorceresses, that death strike and death stone really came in handy! Even with Irvine dying, there is very little time that could be saved from those bosses. The obligatory floating castle comes into view, the final dungeon awaits!
Segment 36 (Ultimecia): Wherein our hero comes to the end of his long, long journey across time and space. Good idea switching Selphie in to lower Ultimecia’s level, perhaps Zell should also have been removed to stop him taking so long to get up after the chandelier fell down? Again, very speedy bosses there, although judging from the runners notes, it took a lot of restarts to get it that good. Shame about R not being able to advance the final dialog though. MISSION 9: SUCCESS!
The good: The menus were used very quickly, bosses were very efficient, and Irvine was very well utilised. The depth of planning was amazing, even to the point where menu stuff was done in anticipation of events several segments later to avoid going in there again! Most of the boss fights (heck, fights in general) were fantastic, special mention should go to the propagators and Sorceresses though. The text-skipping (and there was a LOT of that) was very well done, including the times when some conversations were ignored or shortened to save time by the aforementioned excellent planning.
The bad: Segment 3 should not have been its own segment unless Segment 4 was done with only one fish fight. The button-mashing in the Granaldo fight (Segment 8) looked very bad, and for a four-minute segment, I feel that was worth a reset. The runner seemed to hesitate too much on the first card game considering the length of the segment, and I also feel time could have been saved by merging segments 14 and 15 as there are no battles in either segment and it means the runner doesn’t have to waste time leaving the city. The “run away” trick was not used nearly as much as it should have been, which is disappointing and could have saved a couple of seconds in most battles. The End is also not used at all throughout the run. I’m not sure of the specific circumstances that you need to make it appear, but I would have thought it could have been used in a few places where the bosses took a while to get rid of or were near the beginning of the segment. There were also a few times in Irvine's limit where he fired too many times; again we're not talking about anything more than a few seconds, but boss HPs are more or less fixed in this run so the runner should know when to stop really.
The Ugly: The video freezing problems are not present in the runner’s YouTube videos, and therefore, I presume, are not going to be present in the final product, so no issue there. There is occasional blurring, most obviously seen in the infirmary at the beginning of the game where it looks like it’s coming in and out of focus. There are very occasional audio hiccups, the one springing to mind as I’m writing this is during the last few notes of the opening FMV. The vertical lines have already been mentioned. There are some concerns about the quality of the run, but nothing that should stop it getting published.
Overall: A very good run, there are some improvements to be made and a few question marks around the quality, although none of the glitches are so annoying that they can’t be ignored (unlike the game’s MIDI audio), the main errors seem to come early on, with an almost faultless game end! Fantastic luck manipulation (I don’t even want to hazard a guess at the number of restarts this must have taken!) and great planning, I look forward to seeing it on SDA.
Decision: Accept!
Quote:
Given the runner's comments, I accept the run as long as the video issue is taken care of. Not getting 5 fish fins in one fight and the poor GF boosting in segment 8 are minor enough for me to overlook.
Quote:
The novel is below, I'll summarize here,
Audio: Other than being made of ear-shatteringly bad MIDIs and some minor things early on, its fine.
Video: Notable skipping in some FMVs, during one battle (Dollet Comms Tower), and a few things here and there. Given the focus in our verification thread on said issues, it appears to be an issue with encoding, rather than the video itself. I hope this will be straightened out, but I have been assured it is not a sign of tampering.
Play: Seems legit to me.
The good stuff:
The runner takes time early on to make sure he can skip, optimize and equip without delay, often laying groundwork for future segments far before they come to pass. Most battles are masterful, and I approve of his Irvine abuse.
The bad stuff: Like the others, I question Segment 3 and 4, the learning curve of the "Running Limit" and the mash inefficiency, especially since it got better over time. Some simple math may have saved some seconds by no overshooting with Irvine. The video stuff might be fixed by the time we get a real video on the site, but if not, people may doubt its legitimacy.
The 'meh' stuff: I can't get on the runner for not using "The End," because if he used it once, he'd have to use it every time. The runner manipulates enough luck (except for the Fish Fins) as it is, and if you want to see Selphie repeatedly erase the world, that's more in the realm of TAS than in play.
I recommend this run be ACCEPTED, bad MIDIs and all. Now excuse me, I'm going to listen to the REAL soundtrack, and remind myself why I tolerated derpy storyline and the Draw system.
Audio: Other than being made of ear-shatteringly bad MIDIs and some minor things early on, its fine.
Video: Notable skipping in some FMVs, during one battle (Dollet Comms Tower), and a few things here and there. Given the focus in our verification thread on said issues, it appears to be an issue with encoding, rather than the video itself. I hope this will be straightened out, but I have been assured it is not a sign of tampering.
Play: Seems legit to me.
The good stuff:
The runner takes time early on to make sure he can skip, optimize and equip without delay, often laying groundwork for future segments far before they come to pass. Most battles are masterful, and I approve of his Irvine abuse.
The bad stuff: Like the others, I question Segment 3 and 4, the learning curve of the "Running Limit" and the mash inefficiency, especially since it got better over time. Some simple math may have saved some seconds by no overshooting with Irvine. The video stuff might be fixed by the time we get a real video on the site, but if not, people may doubt its legitimacy.
The 'meh' stuff: I can't get on the runner for not using "The End," because if he used it once, he'd have to use it every time. The runner manipulates enough luck (except for the Fish Fins) as it is, and if you want to see Selphie repeatedly erase the world, that's more in the realm of TAS than in play.
Video 1: They had the decency to leave the intro in MP3 format, thank all that’s still holy. S begins his personal quest to be a dick to everyone he meets.
Video 2: Clearly the best way to prove your worth as an amateur combatant is to fight a GOD OF FIRE ON HIS OWN TURF. Really looking out there, Cid.
Video 3: Wow! You have done it! Back to Balambacola!
Video 4: Two fights, eh? Ok then, I’ll think about this one.
Video 5: Here’s the game trying to create character development, but instead creates the phrase “chicken wuss.” This is now an illegal reference to poultry, and should be instead described as a “chikin sammich.”
Video 6: Seifer gets ADD, Selphie gets an appearance, and Zell gets a GF. Video skipping in the Biggs/Wedge and Elvoret Fight makes me sad.
Video 7: Squall, shows he’d trained to be as stiff as a log and as dancy as Fred Astaire. Quistis tries to make her move after he is unceremoniously dumped by the dancing girl, only to be shut down like an American manufacturing plant.
Video 8: I’m with the others in wondering about the subpar boosting of Shiva. Still, Ellone is saved to torment S’s brain case for a later day. S continues to treat Quistis like a plague carrier.
Video 9: Do those cards bite? You were very hesitant about using them. Or perhaps the Treipie has leprosy, I’d be danty around him too then. Zell later learns that Raiden, god of thunder and “AIYEEABUBBAHEYYY!” dive attacks, frowns upon hoverboards.
Video 11: Diablos falls quickly, but how do you miss a Renzo trigger? This won’t be the last time S invokes forbidden magics in this little adventure…
Video 11: They even ruined “Man With the Machine Gun!” I’ll never forgive them! Oh, and Ward’s harpoon clipping while he runs away is pretty funny. Also, the leg cramp of unmanliness is likely the best character gag in FF.
Video 14: “Wah! I’m mortal! Waaaah!!!” goes into “The Ladies Man.” Who writes this crap?
Video 15: Convoluted plans to execute a witch with more plot armor than Heero Yui, what could possibly go wrong? I’m also glad they junctioned Triples and Str +60% and can’t open a freaking door.
Video 16: Wow, I guess Lady Gaga didn’t think of this first, huh? SeeD stealth running past the dancers is also a nice touch. What do Irvine Kinneas, the Dallas Cowboys and a gas-powered mower have in common? They all choke! Bwahaha, I slay me…Oh God, the MIDI for Wounded make me want to punch a kitten.
Video 17: I wish I had an Uncle Laguna, all my uncles are pricks. Still, Uncle Laguna wouldn’t be good at saving my town with his average of killing 0 monsters per day.
Video 18: I like Laguna’s character, he hits a chord with me. Zell has trouble remembering his recent memories as well as his raison d'être. He compensates by having his SeeD unit do a Power Rangers dance. Combined with Irvine getting kicked down some stairs, I love this segment. And to answer Bigg’s question, it’s Chief Warrant Officer.
Video 19: Who doesn’t love the hidden Miss Isles? Selphie, that’s who.
Video 20: The loudmouth trio try to stealthily stop a missile launch to porn music. God I love FF8. My first tip off is that all the soldiers in the base work in pairs, so the trio is reeeeeeally suspicious. That and the Galbadian army doesn’t use the Hyper Puppy Blaster as a standard sidearm. And if the world’s nukes have an “error ratio” built into them, we’ve been doomed since the 50s.
Meanwhile, S and crew deal with the Raiden Brigade, swear themselves to ORNG, or NROG or DONG or someone, and get Raijin kicked in the shins by a cyborg. Elite SeeDs fall for the oldest trick in the book, looking everywhere but the damn office for Robin Will..err, Cid. After Cid and Quistis give S the psychoanalytical equivalent of an Eiffel Tower, he heads off to open a legendary shelter mechanism. Despite having the relative strength of a demigod, S struggles with an old wheel. Also, “Face the wrath of this monster” is up for Overstatement of the Year.
Video 21: Wow! Balamb Garden is evolving! It is now an Up Yours, Missiles! Type: Flying/WTF. S also evolves into a Headcase, Type: Psychic/Emo
Video 22: S has a discussion with a mind flayer, and fails utterly. Irvine has a discussion using a bit more offensive language via a shotgun and makes a very persuasive argument. S debates in his twisted mind about life, dreams, hope, their origins and their end games. S also avoids talking to Cid at any cost and flees the Garden.
Video 23: Fisherman’s Horizon must have some terrible dog fighting ring or a slave trade or something. How else can you explain their terrible karmic retribution at the hands of a titanic drifting military base? Mayor Toker gives the team a philosophical beat down, only to be on the wrong side of a Wiegraf/Gustav discussion. Irvine grows ever more impatient, ending fights, concert practices, date location selection and playing tunes like a speedrunner.
Video 24: You can’t play cards, you’ve got to save the world! Silly boy…At least you began to run/limit starting from this point. Wait, did Raijin just say “ya?” DAMN YOU WAKKA!!!!!
Video 25: Hurrrr da GF is eating our brains and we are all good friends from way back and we all grew up together and no one remembers except da pimpin Irvine and the sorceru…sorcero …the bad lady is our old matron. Herp derp derrrrp. And so it continues for like 100 years, all this storyboard diarrhea that passes for a plot in this game. Damn, I love this game except for two huge honkin things, the story and the GF/junction system.
Video 26: Here R, have a too large ring, its not like you’ll need to hold onto a rocky cliff anytime soon or something…oh shi…! It seems making effective plans for battle is faster than not doing it, so S plots a clever strategy that does not involve saving any hot dogs.
Video 27: Irvine takes care of the SOLDIERS trying to kill the little SeeDlings, and S grapples with the responsibility of managing a team of feebleminded mercs. Despite about 7 Ben-Hur style rammings, R managed to hold on long enough for S to play a stupid minigame. Irvine vents his frustration by lighting up Seifer.
Video 28: Seifer lets out an “Uboar!” and falls, Edea does the same, and then in another display of remarkable story telling, Rinoa raises Seifer from the dead to serve a truer, more evil master. Meanwhile, R goes into a coma and Matron comes to. Joyous celebrations are put on hold.
Video 29: Emo S gets disturbingly attracted to a dead body, and Laguna plays the greatest minigame ever! But he shanked the Limit in the fight. Yeeech! Later, a wuss with IBS tries to attack S in a duel for a corpse’s love. I hate this story.
Video 30: MIDI music makes me RAGE! Why does Zell attack Abbadon? Why does the party not plummet to their deaths by riding unsecured on a mechanical lift? Why does Ellone want to do horrible things to their minds? And how can they make “Sound and Motion” sound WORSE and release the game to an unwitting public?! GAAAAAH! No matter, fire the Space Revolver!!
Video 31: In space, no one can hear you scream, but I’ll be damned if they don’t talk a lot. Zell uses Edea’s dark power to create magic from mundane items and to remove any wrinkles from his visage. We also learn Edea has no feet as she is flung bodily from Lunatic Pandora.
Meanwhile, in the not-so-silent void, S uses forbidden rites to raise his supposed girlfriend from death, but with the WRONG SOUL! OH NOES! (Nice work on door skips) Since the Estharians were stupid enough to build an off switch for their tyrant’s cage, she is obviously freed as a freaking meat comet made of monsters (!) hits the world. S hops in a space suit with no training at all and leaps into the silent beyond to save his possessed zombie girlfriend. R learns to breathe space dust just in time to be saved. What kind of person makes a life support system that happily announces “You’re dead now! Have fun!” any ways? Ever miss Rinoa in this minigame? Its kinda depressing…oh look, it’s a drifting space ship, maybe it still has air somehow! God…this story is so stupid. Touching, but stupid.
Video 32: Finally, fighting again! FF8 borrows monsters from PSO’s ruins and uses a stupid revival gimmick to try and challenge S’s incredible STR stat. But they are stricken, and they fall down to the ground. R falls victim to the mindless fear of Estharians and is put in stasis. S decides to finally be a man and breaks her out. And the world’s fears are realized as Adel is free, R is sealed, Zell tells off S, and Selphie gets the controls of a warship named for the end of the world.
Video 33: D’aaaaaaaaaw! Its so cute! The dream world party begins to influence that actual game, but the ideas they present are just as bonkers as the rest of the dialogue.
Video 34: Irvine goes all Contra and destroys everything in Lunatic Pandora. Also, HOLY WAR!!!! WOOOOOOO!
Video 35: Correction, NOW Irvine destroys everything in Lunatic Pandora. Adel thinks Irvine won’t shoot a lady, a grave miscalculation. This follows suit for the Sorceress Brigade, along with Zell showing his mastery of the "bad touch."
Video 36: GAH! AKKURST MidIs!! The concept of Ultimecia is that she can imagine anything and create it. Greiver is S’s idea of ultimate strength, Hell’s Judgement and Apocalypse are her own visions of total destruction, drawn from her own mind. Love the idea…too bad you don’t see her until the very end. R proves useless even in the end, by wasting time on the last boss.
Video 2: Clearly the best way to prove your worth as an amateur combatant is to fight a GOD OF FIRE ON HIS OWN TURF. Really looking out there, Cid.
Video 3: Wow! You have done it! Back to Balambacola!
Video 4: Two fights, eh? Ok then, I’ll think about this one.
Video 5: Here’s the game trying to create character development, but instead creates the phrase “chicken wuss.” This is now an illegal reference to poultry, and should be instead described as a “chikin sammich.”
Video 6: Seifer gets ADD, Selphie gets an appearance, and Zell gets a GF. Video skipping in the Biggs/Wedge and Elvoret Fight makes me sad.
Video 7: Squall, shows he’d trained to be as stiff as a log and as dancy as Fred Astaire. Quistis tries to make her move after he is unceremoniously dumped by the dancing girl, only to be shut down like an American manufacturing plant.
Video 8: I’m with the others in wondering about the subpar boosting of Shiva. Still, Ellone is saved to torment S’s brain case for a later day. S continues to treat Quistis like a plague carrier.
Video 9: Do those cards bite? You were very hesitant about using them. Or perhaps the Treipie has leprosy, I’d be danty around him too then. Zell later learns that Raiden, god of thunder and “AIYEEABUBBAHEYYY!” dive attacks, frowns upon hoverboards.
Video 11: Diablos falls quickly, but how do you miss a Renzo trigger? This won’t be the last time S invokes forbidden magics in this little adventure…
Video 11: They even ruined “Man With the Machine Gun!” I’ll never forgive them! Oh, and Ward’s harpoon clipping while he runs away is pretty funny. Also, the leg cramp of unmanliness is likely the best character gag in FF.
Video 14: “Wah! I’m mortal! Waaaah!!!” goes into “The Ladies Man.” Who writes this crap?
Video 15: Convoluted plans to execute a witch with more plot armor than Heero Yui, what could possibly go wrong? I’m also glad they junctioned Triples and Str +60% and can’t open a freaking door.
Video 16: Wow, I guess Lady Gaga didn’t think of this first, huh? SeeD stealth running past the dancers is also a nice touch. What do Irvine Kinneas, the Dallas Cowboys and a gas-powered mower have in common? They all choke! Bwahaha, I slay me…Oh God, the MIDI for Wounded make me want to punch a kitten.
Video 17: I wish I had an Uncle Laguna, all my uncles are pricks. Still, Uncle Laguna wouldn’t be good at saving my town with his average of killing 0 monsters per day.
Video 18: I like Laguna’s character, he hits a chord with me. Zell has trouble remembering his recent memories as well as his raison d'être. He compensates by having his SeeD unit do a Power Rangers dance. Combined with Irvine getting kicked down some stairs, I love this segment. And to answer Bigg’s question, it’s Chief Warrant Officer.
Video 19: Who doesn’t love the hidden Miss Isles? Selphie, that’s who.
Video 20: The loudmouth trio try to stealthily stop a missile launch to porn music. God I love FF8. My first tip off is that all the soldiers in the base work in pairs, so the trio is reeeeeeally suspicious. That and the Galbadian army doesn’t use the Hyper Puppy Blaster as a standard sidearm. And if the world’s nukes have an “error ratio” built into them, we’ve been doomed since the 50s.
Meanwhile, S and crew deal with the Raiden Brigade, swear themselves to ORNG, or NROG or DONG or someone, and get Raijin kicked in the shins by a cyborg. Elite SeeDs fall for the oldest trick in the book, looking everywhere but the damn office for Robin Will..err, Cid. After Cid and Quistis give S the psychoanalytical equivalent of an Eiffel Tower, he heads off to open a legendary shelter mechanism. Despite having the relative strength of a demigod, S struggles with an old wheel. Also, “Face the wrath of this monster” is up for Overstatement of the Year.
Video 21: Wow! Balamb Garden is evolving! It is now an Up Yours, Missiles! Type: Flying/WTF. S also evolves into a Headcase, Type: Psychic/Emo
Video 22: S has a discussion with a mind flayer, and fails utterly. Irvine has a discussion using a bit more offensive language via a shotgun and makes a very persuasive argument. S debates in his twisted mind about life, dreams, hope, their origins and their end games. S also avoids talking to Cid at any cost and flees the Garden.
Video 23: Fisherman’s Horizon must have some terrible dog fighting ring or a slave trade or something. How else can you explain their terrible karmic retribution at the hands of a titanic drifting military base? Mayor Toker gives the team a philosophical beat down, only to be on the wrong side of a Wiegraf/Gustav discussion. Irvine grows ever more impatient, ending fights, concert practices, date location selection and playing tunes like a speedrunner.
Video 24: You can’t play cards, you’ve got to save the world! Silly boy…At least you began to run/limit starting from this point. Wait, did Raijin just say “ya?” DAMN YOU WAKKA!!!!!
Video 25: Hurrrr da GF is eating our brains and we are all good friends from way back and we all grew up together and no one remembers except da pimpin Irvine and the sorceru…sorcero …the bad lady is our old matron. Herp derp derrrrp. And so it continues for like 100 years, all this storyboard diarrhea that passes for a plot in this game. Damn, I love this game except for two huge honkin things, the story and the GF/junction system.
Video 26: Here R, have a too large ring, its not like you’ll need to hold onto a rocky cliff anytime soon or something…oh shi…! It seems making effective plans for battle is faster than not doing it, so S plots a clever strategy that does not involve saving any hot dogs.
Video 27: Irvine takes care of the SOLDIERS trying to kill the little SeeDlings, and S grapples with the responsibility of managing a team of feebleminded mercs. Despite about 7 Ben-Hur style rammings, R managed to hold on long enough for S to play a stupid minigame. Irvine vents his frustration by lighting up Seifer.
Video 28: Seifer lets out an “Uboar!” and falls, Edea does the same, and then in another display of remarkable story telling, Rinoa raises Seifer from the dead to serve a truer, more evil master. Meanwhile, R goes into a coma and Matron comes to. Joyous celebrations are put on hold.
Video 29: Emo S gets disturbingly attracted to a dead body, and Laguna plays the greatest minigame ever! But he shanked the Limit in the fight. Yeeech! Later, a wuss with IBS tries to attack S in a duel for a corpse’s love. I hate this story.
Video 30: MIDI music makes me RAGE! Why does Zell attack Abbadon? Why does the party not plummet to their deaths by riding unsecured on a mechanical lift? Why does Ellone want to do horrible things to their minds? And how can they make “Sound and Motion” sound WORSE and release the game to an unwitting public?! GAAAAAH! No matter, fire the Space Revolver!!
Video 31: In space, no one can hear you scream, but I’ll be damned if they don’t talk a lot. Zell uses Edea’s dark power to create magic from mundane items and to remove any wrinkles from his visage. We also learn Edea has no feet as she is flung bodily from Lunatic Pandora.
Meanwhile, in the not-so-silent void, S uses forbidden rites to raise his supposed girlfriend from death, but with the WRONG SOUL! OH NOES! (Nice work on door skips) Since the Estharians were stupid enough to build an off switch for their tyrant’s cage, she is obviously freed as a freaking meat comet made of monsters (!) hits the world. S hops in a space suit with no training at all and leaps into the silent beyond to save his possessed zombie girlfriend. R learns to breathe space dust just in time to be saved. What kind of person makes a life support system that happily announces “You’re dead now! Have fun!” any ways? Ever miss Rinoa in this minigame? Its kinda depressing…oh look, it’s a drifting space ship, maybe it still has air somehow! God…this story is so stupid. Touching, but stupid.
Video 32: Finally, fighting again! FF8 borrows monsters from PSO’s ruins and uses a stupid revival gimmick to try and challenge S’s incredible STR stat. But they are stricken, and they fall down to the ground. R falls victim to the mindless fear of Estharians and is put in stasis. S decides to finally be a man and breaks her out. And the world’s fears are realized as Adel is free, R is sealed, Zell tells off S, and Selphie gets the controls of a warship named for the end of the world.
Video 33: D’aaaaaaaaaw! Its so cute! The dream world party begins to influence that actual game, but the ideas they present are just as bonkers as the rest of the dialogue.
Video 34: Irvine goes all Contra and destroys everything in Lunatic Pandora. Also, HOLY WAR!!!! WOOOOOOO!
Video 35: Correction, NOW Irvine destroys everything in Lunatic Pandora. Adel thinks Irvine won’t shoot a lady, a grave miscalculation. This follows suit for the Sorceress Brigade, along with Zell showing his mastery of the "bad touch."
Video 36: GAH! AKKURST MidIs!! The concept of Ultimecia is that she can imagine anything and create it. Greiver is S’s idea of ultimate strength, Hell’s Judgement and Apocalypse are her own visions of total destruction, drawn from her own mind. Love the idea…too bad you don’t see her until the very end. R proves useless even in the end, by wasting time on the last boss.
I recommend this run be ACCEPTED, bad MIDIs and all. Now excuse me, I'm going to listen to the REAL soundtrack, and remind myself why I tolerated derpy storyline and the Draw system.
Quote:
Audio
When I watched the run for the first time, I was like "What the f is wrong with the music", but after some research I found out that the music always sounds this crappy on the PC version. So nothing to complain here.
Video
The video lags in some segments, but I heard that this problem is only present in the version us verifiers got. If the runner can eliminate this problem in the final version it'll be fine.
Cheating
As far as I can tell no cheating is involved in the run.
I really had huge problems verifying this run. I originally planned to comment on each segment individually, but as I watched the run numerous times I came to one short conclusion: I would not accept the run as it is. Menu work is great in most places, also the biggest part of the tactics for the fights are solid. But I really have problems concerning the luck manipulation, segmentation ("fish segment") and also the execution in some segments. What comes to mind here is the really slow triple triad, I would've expected way more speed here, especially in a segmented run.
I know that my verdict may seem a bit harsh, but FF8 is one of my favorite games ever, I've completed it numerous times and was working on a SS myself and I think that the run could've been more polished.
When I watched the run for the first time, I was like "What the f is wrong with the music", but after some research I found out that the music always sounds this crappy on the PC version. So nothing to complain here.
Video
The video lags in some segments, but I heard that this problem is only present in the version us verifiers got. If the runner can eliminate this problem in the final version it'll be fine.
Cheating
As far as I can tell no cheating is involved in the run.
I really had huge problems verifying this run. I originally planned to comment on each segment individually, but as I watched the run numerous times I came to one short conclusion: I would not accept the run as it is. Menu work is great in most places, also the biggest part of the tactics for the fights are solid. But I really have problems concerning the luck manipulation, segmentation ("fish segment") and also the execution in some segments. What comes to mind here is the really slow triple triad, I would've expected way more speed here, especially in a segmented run.
I know that my verdict may seem a bit harsh, but FF8 is one of my favorite games ever, I've completed it numerous times and was working on a SS myself and I think that the run could've been more polished.
Quote:
i didn't see anything that anyone else hasn't already mentioned, but the things I would note that are relevant to the quality of the run
cheating: when i saw the time for this run, and that it was the pc version i thought there had to be something underhanded (sorry guy) but after watching and playing with my own copy, i'm confident that what I saw was legit and hasn't been manipulated
audio: midi sucks, can't be helped without a 3rd party mod for playing mp3's, if that is even permitted
video he will be re encoding it in a higher quality for the actual release, or no? the choppiness in some sections makes it a bit frustrating to watch.
I couldn't ever go through my menus that quick, my ADD won't allow it
like everyone else has already mentioned, i don't understand why the card games went so slow, it can be a lot to think of, but there are few random variables and if this run is accepted, the first thing people will notice are slow card games.
Although I feel this would be an easy run to challenge and beat, i recommend it be Accepted
cheating: when i saw the time for this run, and that it was the pc version i thought there had to be something underhanded (sorry guy) but after watching and playing with my own copy, i'm confident that what I saw was legit and hasn't been manipulated
audio: midi sucks, can't be helped without a 3rd party mod for playing mp3's, if that is even permitted
video he will be re encoding it in a higher quality for the actual release, or no? the choppiness in some sections makes it a bit frustrating to watch.
I couldn't ever go through my menus that quick, my ADD won't allow it
like everyone else has already mentioned, i don't understand why the card games went so slow, it can be a lot to think of, but there are few random variables and if this run is accepted, the first thing people will notice are slow card games.
Although I feel this would be an easy run to challenge and beat, i recommend it be Accepted
Decision: Accept
Reason: Most of the verifiers feel that the quality is good and the errors are insignificant for a run of this length.
Congratulations to Dave 'Sush' Rochefort!
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