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Final Fantasy XII (Any %) (Segmented)

Verifier Responses

Quote:
Audio/Video both seem good.  There were some sound issues in the commentary (a lot of mispronunciation, too :P), but nothing too terrible.

Everything here is legit, no cheating.

By my estimate, the timer should be at 6:35:19-20 when The Undying goes down.

Now for some more specific comments:

I'm sure there are improvements to the route, but I can really only think of cutting down the number of segments.  Most notably the Basch HP manipulation segment and the two liscense grid segments.  That said, only the second-to-last segment is really bad, but in a 6+ hour run, with two nightmarish segments bookending it, I can understand why he did it.

Regarding saves: while save do contain more information later in the game, the amount of free space on a memory card actually is important.  I filled up one of my memory cards, and after I cleared it out, the saves were more than twice as fast.  Fortunately, the saves for this run took far less space, so the effect is mitigated greatly, but copying saves from old segments to another memory card would have saved time.

I also feel obligated to point out that in some points the running could have been slightly more optimized, usually at switchback-style stairs and ramps.  Probably lost no more than 20 seconds though, and no doubt Youkai was paying attention to enemy locations, traps and other such things.

Some of the times gambits were turned on or off were unnecessary as well, what with fleeing cancelling the spells, but this was a fairly rare occurrence.  In most cases it was justified.

But enough with the negativity...  I didn't notice any other mistakes that Youkai didn't point out himself, and there really weren't that many of them to begin with.

I especially have to give props for the boss strats from Mandys on.  It was obvious that Youkai made a serious effort to squeeze every second out of them. 

Despite its flaws, the audio commentary was well worth it.  As long as this run is, though, not every moment could be relevant and/or entertaining talk.  Even if things aren't explained right away, they are explained eventually, and explained well.  It answered pretty much all of my questions as a verifier (mostly of the "did you try this" variety), and it does a good job of explaining the myriad complexites of speedrunning this game to those who don't know the game that well.  There were a few instances where the commentators had their facts wrong, or couldn't remember something, but in each case the correct information would not have sped up the run (example: Bowline Sashes, which prevent confusion, are first available in Old Archades, at which point they're useless to the run).

This run is not without its flaws, but in my opinion they are easily outweighed by all the good things.  Accept.


Quote:
A/V are good, although, I could hear the sounds getting progressively more desynched (plays slightly too early) throughout each segment, this is always only very slight though and I could only notice it in the menus.
There's no cheating.
The Undying goes down at about 6:35:19.

Having dug into FFXII, FFXIII, FFXIII-2 running myself I'm well aware of the pains of attempting runs with such a variable amount of RNG. It can be discouraging knowing you will always be able to get a better, cleaner, segment but I'm pleased to say Youkai has set an exceedingly high standard of play in this run. With this said; the run is improvable by further RNG manipulation, but not by much. Youkai also consistently made good decisions to compensate for any mistakes that could have ruined segments, such as Ashe dying against Ahriman, Ashe dying at the end of segment 35, Ashe not using Dark Mote early into the soldier fight in segment 4 or something else that Ashe borked.
As for Youkai's execution, there were often hiccups in menu navigation such as entering the wrong menus, shaky gambit selection or sluggish combat menus, but I feel like this was most often the case in the tail end of the most difficult segments or ones that Youkai didn't have to attempt many times so it's somewhat understandable and usually unnoticeable. On the flip side ALL the boss fights were intensely impressive, they were all executed amazingly well with many interesting strategies, and as I said before, a high amount of successful luck manipulation included.

Thanks to Youkai for an admirable run, I hope should I ever get around to submitting an FFXIII/XIII-2 run people are as understanding as they have been with this one considering how unrealistic it is to get perfect.
Accept.


Quote:
No problems with the A/V, although like another verifier mentioned, it's jarring to hear things pronounced differently to how I would say them in the audio commentary Wink no biggie there obviously.

No cheating detected in any way.

This is easily the best run of a 'conga line with monsters' simulation that I've ever seen. Menuing could be better but it's certainly nothing to actually complain about. Some of the boss fights are just frankly ridiculously impressive, cleverly thought out and well executed. It really says something when the first two boss fights are pretty much the longest in the game... Particular props to most of the esper fights, it's incredible to see them beat before even getting their finishers off once when in a casual run that would happen many many times. Mateus was also particularly clever in abusing the targeting system by switching party members in after the battle had started.

I think this run could be improved with fewer segments (although I wouldn't want to be the one to try that) but in general it's an excellent run and a great addition to the site. I agree with the timing of 6:35:19

Accept


Quote:
Sorry for the delay in comments guys.

A/V fine, no complaints here.  Pretty much everything has been said already that I was going to point out.  Loved the abuse of targeting system and boss fights in general.  Some very minor flaws available but as has been mentioned before they aren't ones I'd want to have to go and improved and they are generally outweighed massively by all of the impressive gameplay.  If I had to be picky I'd say the biggest improvement for me would be the menuwork but I'm not sure it's even the biggest time cost (just the most noticeable) and certainly not somehing that would stop me from Accepting the run.

Accept


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to William 'Youkai' Welch!
Thread title:  
Professional Second Banana
Congrats Youkai!  Now we just need some FF13 and FF13-2 runs on the site to complete the suite! Smiley
Visit my profile to see my runs!
Youkai is the man!  Good job dude
Don't know what to speedrun :(
Yeay! Another accept. This was easily my most trying run so far so I'm glad it made the grade. Thanks verifiers!
SDA Speedruns: 1
Congratulations Youkai. Another Final Fantasy run on the site!
I watched through most of the youtube commentary of this; running this game is a triumph of the human spirit.  Excellent work Youkai.
SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)
I forget were we stand on the FF games we have, but I think Puwexil is right.  We pretty much now have all the main FF games (minus the MMOs) on the site or soon to be now, and FFXIII & -2 are the only things left from the series being cleaned out.

Congrats on another victory Youkai, can't wait to watch it in full.
12 is by far my most favorite FF to play so I really can't wait to download this and give it a good watch, with popcorn that is. Grats Youkai!
Fucking Weeaboo
Quote from MAS8705:
I forget were we stand on the FF games we have, but I think Puwexil is right.  We pretty much now have all the main FF games (minus the MMOs) on the site or soon to be now, and FFXIII & -2 are the only things left from the series being cleaned out.

Congrats on another victory Youkai, can't wait to watch it in full.


Depends on if you count Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus as part of the main games.
SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)
Quote from Sir VG:
Quote from MAS8705:
I forget were we stand on the FF games we have, but I think Puwexil is right.  We pretty much now have all the main FF games (minus the MMOs) on the site or soon to be now, and FFXIII & -2 are the only things left from the series being cleaned out.

Congrats on another victory Youkai, can't wait to watch it in full.


Depends on if you count Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus as part of the main games.


In all honesty, I don't.  Don't get me wrong, they are good games, but I'm only looking towards the main games of the series first before looking at the side story games.  Don't know if anyone is working on Dirge of Cerberus, but I could have sworn that people were working on Crisis Core, while it seems to be an on again, off again thing with both XIII and XIII-2.
Edit history:
rinimt: 2012-11-12 02:44:42 pm
Kupo!
Quote from MAS8705:
Quote from Sir VG:
Quote from MAS8705:
I forget were we stand on the FF games we have, but I think Puwexil is right.  We pretty much now have all the main FF games (minus the MMOs) on the site or soon to be now, and FFXIII & -2 are the only things left from the series being cleaned out.

Congrats on another victory Youkai, can't wait to watch it in full.


Depends on if you count Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus as part of the main games.


In all honesty, I don't.  Don't get me wrong, they are good games, but I'm only looking towards the main games of the series first before looking at the side story games.  Don't know if anyone is working on Dirge of Cerberus, but I could have sworn that people were working on Crisis Core, while it seems to be an on again, off again thing with both XIII and XIII-2.


I've definitely been working on Crisis Core myself, though it's not an on/off again thing (it's more when I can find 7 hours to do a SS run of it).

Anyways, grats Youkai!
Make it so.
XIII is by all accounts surprisingly fun to run, I would try it myself if I had a PS3 and/or recording equipment. Dylan and Neviutz need to get back on it.
Edit history:
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:15:59 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:15:36 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:11:20 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:09:24 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:08:32 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:08:06 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:07:47 pm
DRsynj: 2012-11-13 02:07:26 pm
Reverse Death Valley Bomb
Unfortunately the progress of the FFXIII run is never particularly public due to there being only 1.5 English speaking runners (Zoning and myself) and X number of Japanese runners who are both secretive and kind of aggressive (note the youtube video in which several jp FFXIII/2 runners claim that western players stole all their strats including ATB cancelling, which is a game mechanic.) So yeah, a good amount of drama if you include all the gamefaqs guys who are still squabbling over Black Belts.

I'm happy to say there is always progress going on though, mostly credit to Zoning who is doing a fantastic job re-routing to bring us ever closer to the mysterious jp 5:56 run (which has no video proof.) We'll have the new route finished soon and Zoning is planning to record a run for us to see, submittable or not. I'll be taking notes too so I can enjoy running the game some more.

I haven't been streaming the game because it doesn't really feel like I can make any progress with this going on, I've been learning FFX in the meantime. Zoning is often streaming odd FFXIII stuff though, I wish we had more guys coming to see him for motivation! His stream is http://www.twitch.tv/zoning1138

Tiberius is right, FFXIII IS amazingly fun to run, but it's also extraordinarily stressful xD All the encounter dodging and tight execution on a run so long, with no breaks, especially with little experience with the game's *meta* it requires A LOT of patience.

I did have a submittable FFXIII-2 run but I lost the raw video last week when my hard drive crashed, the run is up on YouTube at /watch?v=QPSWA0ZB8lU but it's a shame the WR by 15~minutes is now unsubmittable Sad I'll work on it another time.

Anyway, congrats again, Youkai, for the FFXII run getting accepted Cheesy
Don't know what to speedrun :(
Thanks DRsynj. Sorry to hear about your computer issues. Hopefully that doesn't kill your motivation.
Edit history:
AlecK47: 2012-11-13 06:53:42 pm
DRsynj: If it's the motor that's dead, you may be able to take it somewhere and get the data extracted.  Generally costs a bit (I think it cost my dad about $80 at Best Buy), but if that's the problem you may be able to get that run back.  If it's totally fried, or you reformatted, then that's too bad. Sad

Edit: Also, mad props to Youkai for basically figuring out how to run this game based on videos with little to no (English) explanation.  I'm glad I don't have to do it. Smiley
Hey, I'm wondering if this is ready to be upped here?  I'd love to see this run, considering FFXII is the last game of the series Ive yet to beat, coming down to the end now but probably will end up around 60 hours...lol.  Wondering where I can see this
Don't know what to speedrun :(
Hey theworldissquare. Sorry I didn't notice this earlier. If you are still noticing this thread you can view the run on my youtube the playlist with the run is:
FWIW, I've already watched it like 4 times on YouTube, but am looking forward for it to go up "officially". I can wait, though; it seems likely that there's a good reason for the delay (most likely trying to encode it properly, if my experience with TASvideos is any guide; >6 hour runs of 3D games are far from trivial to encode even if you're good at it).