Final Fantasy 1 Single Segment

2005-07-25 03:27:38 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

I think this run is insane and would only be possible if someone finds some crazy gamebreaking or levelling bugs. Anyone got any? Grin

Thread title:

Ifrit

Edit history:

Ifrit: 2005-07-25 04:29:24 pm

2005-07-25 04:28:21 pm

Weird. I was just thinking of this a week ago. I doubt a Single Segment would be done (you never know though) and I do not believe their are any sequence breaks of leveling bugs. Of course I do not know.

The run could be done is 2-3 hours. Maybe less. Depends on the number of battles. I might try it once I get some other runs I been wanting to do completed.

Siyko

2005-07-25 04:44:10 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Maybe there's some way to easily kill those harder enemies up northeast of pravoka (the ones that belong to the northern continent).

Looking into this, that area has the following monsters: (ZomBULL,TROLL), (FrGIANT,FrWOLF), GIANT, TYRO

To compare, an imp or wolf give 6 XP, while these give closer to a thousand! Killing them would seem to be impossible though, unless with some crazy exploit, luck, or maybe sacrificing your entire team to allow one guy to get the XP (not a bad idea if possible).

Monsters here have about 300-400 hp, compared to the 20 wolves have (and they dont go down very easily), but even if you have to prepare harshly for each battle, the leveling would be insane.

Any thoughts?

Ifrit

2005-07-25 05:01:11 pm

I agree with that.

I think it depends on the party. For a speed run I think power would be the best choice. Probably 2 Fighters and 2 Red Mages or 3 Fighters and a Red Mage. Since they have good strength and can do a good amount of damage with weapons they might not need power leveling. Of course, later in the game it would probably depend on luck the amount of damage done to bosses and regular enemies (if you do battle them).

The 3 Fighters and 1 Red Mage party would probably be more ideal. They can use different weapons so you wouldn't have to buy all of the expensive stuff. Well, except for maybe one Fighter and the other weapons would be found in the dungeons. Red Mage would help with the Magic weakness for certain bosses.

Im not sure. I might test some stuff out tonight.

Siyko

2005-07-25 05:55:38 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

i think that crazy peninsula would be a real important hurdle to get over. 3 or 4 fights there would bring all your members up to level 10 or so.

I'm not sure about all the fighters, equipping them would be tough at the begnning. Chain mail = 80, rapier = 10 IIRC, and you start with 200 gold? (or is it 400?) I can't remember, but the later weapons would be just as tough. Of course, the peninsula hax would make up for this (thousands of gold per battle is most likely).

I'll also experiment with some combinations to try to beat this place.

Emptyeye on Break

2005-07-25 06:06:31 pm

Yeah, there's the already-mentioned Power Peninsula for leveling, but in a single-segment run I think it would be too impractical from a survival standpoint.

Either way, the Elfland/Marsh Cave segment of the game is the big hang-up; get past that and you should be okay for awhile.

Yes, power is the best choice, speedrun or no. I'd recommend a Black Belt or two in place of one (Or two) of the Fighters, though. Once they hit level 10, they become ultra-cheap to maintain (As well as dealing out 3-4 hit attacks), and in terms of pure damage, they actually rank ahead of fighters for most of the game as I recall. Their main weakness is a lack of decent armor for them, though there's a bug you can use to overcome that I think.

I'd also recommend a Red Mage or Black Mage, though not for the reason you may think. You want them as fighting support--yes, I'm serious--via Fast. I think the RM can also use lower-level cure spells, which can also help a bit. When the mages aren't doing support duty with spells late-game, they can back you up via using items like the Heal Staff or Zeus Gauntlet or what-have-you.

As far as the sequence goes, there aren't "breaks" per se, but the sequence itself is non-linear enough to allow you to do Kraken before Kary (And possibly Tiamat before either of them, though I'd have to check on that). Note that I'm not sure if it's actually faster to do the sequence out-of-order or just follow it normally, but it is possible to go to the Ice Cave before Gurgu Volcano (Which gets you the Floater, which gets you the Airship, which opens up most of the rest of the game) if you so choose.

Yeah, there's the already-mentioned Power Peninsula for leveling, but in a single-segment run I think it would be too impractical from a survival standpoint.

Either way, the Elfland/Marsh Cave segment of the game is the big hang-up; get past that and you should be okay for awhile.

Yes, power is the best choice, speedrun or no. I'd recommend a Black Belt or two in place of one (Or two) of the Fighters, though. Once they hit level 10, they become ultra-cheap to maintain (As well as dealing out 3-4 hit attacks), and in terms of pure damage, they actually rank ahead of fighters for most of the game as I recall. Their main weakness is a lack of decent armor for them, though there's a bug you can use to overcome that I think.

I'd also recommend a Red Mage or Black Mage, though not for the reason you may think. You want them as fighting support--yes, I'm serious--via Fast. I think the RM can also use lower-level cure spells, which can also help a bit. When the mages aren't doing support duty with spells late-game, they can back you up via using items like the Heal Staff or Zeus Gauntlet or what-have-you.

As far as the sequence goes, there aren't "breaks" per se, but the sequence itself is non-linear enough to allow you to do Kraken before Kary (And possibly Tiamat before either of them, though I'd have to check on that). Note that I'm not sure if it's actually faster to do the sequence out-of-order or just follow it normally, but it is possible to go to the Ice Cave before Gurgu Volcano (Which gets you the Floater, which gets you the Airship, which opens up most of the rest of the game) if you so choose.

Siyko

2005-07-25 06:22:46 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Thanks emptyeye. I looked into the bug for black belts, and it seems not to be very useful. From what I see there are two bugs:

On level up, a BB/MA will have Armor equal to character level, ignoring armor being worn. This seems impossible to abuse, unless I am missing something. It looks like getting the Armor rating of being naked, while having the evade rating of having armor, worst of both worlds.

On level up, an armed BB/MA will have Damage equal to [S/2] +1 instead of [S+1]/2. Whoop de do.

Can you explain the Fast thing you are talking about? I don't know much about status effects in the game.

Also, when with a BB/MA is it better to go unarmed?

http://blake.prohosting.com/coleco/goodies/techfaq.txt has a lot of info as well.

Emptyeye Is Back to Work

2005-07-25 07:22:19 pm

Okay, for some reason I thought Level X 2 was greater than most of the armor the BB could wear at various points in the game, but I could be wrong.

As for Fast, you may have read that a lot of the status boosting effects in Final Fantasy simply don't work for whatever reason. Fast is one that does, and it's really the only one worth picking up IMO (Again, this regardless of whether you're speedrunning). It doubles the number of hits you do per attack, effectively doubling your damage as well (Like Haste in the newer FFs). Combine it with the Black Belt's propensity to score critical hits, and you can see why it's a very nice spell indeed for boss battles. Its one drawback is it's a level 4 spell, meaning that's an extra 4K gold you'll have to grind out at an already slow point in the game. For some reason, I can't remember if you have to upgrade classes to use it or not either, but a quick check of GameFAQs should solve that mystery.

And a BB's attack power unarmed goes up at a set rate per level. I don't think it truly becomes advantageous to disarm until level 10 (Because you ONLY deal the 3-4 hits per attack unarmed), but if memory serves, armed with Iron Nunchuks (If you decide to buy them) and unarmed were roughly equal from level 7-9. Keep in midn I haven't actually played it in awhile though.

Okay, for some reason I thought Level X 2 was greater than most of the armor the BB could wear at various points in the game, but I could be wrong.

As for Fast, you may have read that a lot of the status boosting effects in Final Fantasy simply don't work for whatever reason. Fast is one that does, and it's really the only one worth picking up IMO (Again, this regardless of whether you're speedrunning). It doubles the number of hits you do per attack, effectively doubling your damage as well (Like Haste in the newer FFs). Combine it with the Black Belt's propensity to score critical hits, and you can see why it's a very nice spell indeed for boss battles. Its one drawback is it's a level 4 spell, meaning that's an extra 4K gold you'll have to grind out at an already slow point in the game. For some reason, I can't remember if you have to upgrade classes to use it or not either, but a quick check of GameFAQs should solve that mystery.

And a BB's attack power unarmed goes up at a set rate per level. I don't think it truly becomes advantageous to disarm until level 10 (Because you ONLY deal the 3-4 hits per attack unarmed), but if memory serves, armed with Iron Nunchuks (If you decide to buy them) and unarmed were roughly equal from level 7-9. Keep in midn I haven't actually played it in awhile though.

Josh the Funkdoc

2005-07-25 08:17:47 pm

spread the dirt to the populace

Yep, Emptyeye nailed it.

Sikyo, most magic is utterly worthless in this game. The attack spells are good early on, but not at all later. The Red Mage makes the other two completely unnecessary because he can use FAST (don't even need the class change for it, BTW), and also equip some actual decent weapons and armor.

If someone is truly insane enough to try a single-segment run, a Thief might actually be worth considering. Horrible character, true, but he greatly increases your chances of running away. Plus the class change makes him damn good; better than the Red Wizard, IMO, as he also has FAST and gets better weapons and armor.

Just throwing out some ideas...

-Josh

Siyko

2005-07-25 08:23:01 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Thanks. Spells seem good during the Elf place though, when you first get Fire 2 and can powerlevel at light speed, can red mage learn these? It seems if a red mage can learn life, fir2, slep, and fast, there's not much more he needs until items start popping up. Would fighter -> BB -> RM -> RM be good I wonder? I was just experimenting with FI FI FI RM and i was so surprised by how good the fighters were. I took down garland at level one, and all the damage i took was like 1/4 of one guy's life. I tried hitting up the peninsula, but I couldn't kill a single guy. They kept coming up in packs of 4 or more, and the frost wolves casted a spell that does 70+ damage to everyone. Maybe slep can be abused?

Cygnus

2005-07-25 08:42:16 pm

Ben Goldberg

You might need to make the peninsula it's own segment, just because it's so hard. I'm sure you can get a lucky fight, but it would take a while. Sleep seems like it could work, but again, you would have to get lucky for it to work. Hence why the peninsula would need it's own segment.

Brightstar

2005-07-25 11:30:00 pm

I did an easy run on the PSone version. Think my time was 4 hours something.

Ifrit

2005-07-26 02:18:52 am

Wow. Lots of discussion since I left to see Tankman....I mean Batman.

Quote:

I was just experimenting with FI FI FI RM and i was so surprised by how good the fighters were. I took down garland at level one, and all the damage i took was like 1/4 of one guy's life.

Yeah. Thats why I was considering that party because you can do what you need in the city and head straight to Garland and just leave.

Quote:

Either way, the Elfland/Marsh Cave segment of the game is the big hang-up; get past that and you should be okay for awhile.

I agree.

Quote:

You want them as fighting support--yes, I'm serious--via Fast.

Fast will really help in those later battles.

Quote:

Maybe slep can be abused?

I doubt it. Like a previous poster stated earlier, most support magic like Slep is horrible and is random if it works.

Im going to play tonight and see how far I can get with the F/F/F/RM party.

Emptyeye

2005-07-26 02:52:10 am

Talk to the Hand

I thought I read somewhere that one of the sleep spells (Maybe Slep, maybe Slp2, or maybe I have so much useless bug knowledge from various games that I'm getting them confused. :P) was bugged such that whoever was put to sleep would immediately wake up upon taking their next turn. I could be wrong though.

Just as a random aside, I think Zombulls, Trolls, and Giants are the "easiest" of the Power Peninsula enemies, though at that point I would hardly call them easy.

Brightstar

2005-07-26 07:54:26 am

my strategy was to level up to fir2 and then go after snow wolves and saving after each one.

Siyko

2005-07-26 12:49:30 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

That soudns like a good plan Brightstar. Maybe the team

FI / BB / RM / RM

could be suited well towards a speedrun like this. You'd have good fighting power early on as well as later, 2 FIR2's to level up fast, and still keep the important white magic.

Ifrit

2005-07-26 12:56:53 pm

Quote:

I thought I read somewhere that one of the sleep spells (Maybe Slep, maybe Slp2, or maybe I have so much useless bug knowledge from various games that I'm getting them confused. Tongue) was bugged such that whoever was put to sleep would immediately wake up upon taking their next turn. I could be wrong though.

Thats correct. If Slep does hit usually next turn its effects wear off. Im not sure about Slp2.

I tried the F/F/F/RM party. Destroyed Garland quickly of course. On my way to Pravoka I was attack by a gang of 4 Mad Ponies. >:(. This happened 3 or 4 times that I tried.

Siyko

2005-07-26 04:14:49 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Using deaths as abuse seems really good... I just expirmented with taking out almost all of a big pack of ogre/creeps, and then leaving one red mage alive before i start attacking again, hopefully to abuse fir2 more

Emptyeye

2005-07-26 11:06:56 pm

Talk to the Hand

Quote:

On my way to Pravoka I was attack by a gang of 4 Mad Ponies. >:(. This happened 3 or 4 times that I tried.

It'll happen every time unless you modify your route.

Without getting overly technical, the game will always load Battle 1 (A fixed battle), then Battle 2 (Also fixed), Battle 3 (Again), and so forth. Now it's not TOTALLY fixed, as the game will always go in the 1-2-3 etc. sequence, but what corresponds to 1 (Or 2, or 3, or etc.) changes depending on the region you're in.

Hope that made sense.

Siyko

Edit history:

Siyko: 2007-07-22 06:00:48 pm

2005-07-26 11:12:07 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

I don't think its a set path... I think that site explains it here:

at the beginning of the previous combat, a random number x is generated where
x = (50..255). for each step taken

-outside on desert,plains,forest,marsh,river decrement x by 6
-inside of a cave,or other monster lair decrement x by 5
-outside on a ship decrement x by 2
-on a damage square in a monster lair, in
the airship, in a seaport, or inside leave x alone

when x<0, battle begins. There are also certain map squares for which battle
always occurs. Entering a battle automatically in this way does not reset the
value of x. In general, x is reset whenever x becomes negative or when a game
is begun or reloaded. x is not reset by entering a town or other inside-type
area

So i guess saving + loading the game (through game save, not emulator), but a game always knows waht your 'next' battle will be.

edit: misunderstood you emptyeye, ignore this

tmont

2005-07-27 06:59:54 am

Not going to school today

I was over at Bisqwit's forum a couple months ago, and one of the guys over there was planning a run of this. Basically, it was a lot of insane luck manipulation. But they also found out, and this probably won't be very helpful, but it is interesting, that every spell has at least some probability of working (usually out of 255, I think). This means that BANE will kill anything in the game, including Chaos. Kind of like Lev. 5 Death in FFV. Actually, I think some enemies are immune to some spells, now that I think about it (i.e. anything that's not undead will not be affected by HARM), but I don't think anything in the game is immune to BANE. Just an interesting piece of trivia about the game, but it's probably useless in an un-tool-assisted run.

And I think a Black Belt would be a huge time saver in that you wouldn't have to kill stuff to get gold, since they don't need weapons or armor (or spells, for that matter).

As for sequence breaks, someone might have mentioned this already since I just kind of skimmed through the thread, but the class change (Fighter to Knight, etc.) is unnecessary for game completion, I believe. So you could skip the Castle of Ordeals. I don't recall it being very difficult, though, and you do get some cool stuff in there, like the Zeus Gauntlet, and maybe a Heal Staff if I remember correctly. I'd love to see this!

I was over at Bisqwit's forum a couple months ago, and one of the guys over there was planning a run of this.  Basically, it was a lot of insane luck manipulation.  But they also found out, and this probably won't be very helpful, but it is interesting, that every spell has at least some probability of working (usually out of 255, I think).  This means that BANE will kill anything in the game, including Chaos.  Kind of like Lev. 5 Death in FFV.  Actually, I think some enemies are immune to some spells, now that I think about it (i.e. anything that's not undead will not be affected by HARM), but I don't think anything in the game is immune to BANE.  Just an interesting piece of trivia about the game, but it's probably useless in an un-tool-assisted run.

And I think a Black Belt would be a huge time saver in that you wouldn't have to kill stuff to get gold, since they don't need weapons or armor (or spells, for that matter).

As for sequence breaks, someone might have mentioned this already since I just kind of skimmed through the thread, but the class change (Fighter to Knight, etc.) is unnecessary for game completion, I believe.  So you could skip the Castle of Ordeals.  I don't recall it being very difficult, though, and you do get some cool stuff in there, like the Zeus Gauntlet, and maybe a Heal Staff if I remember correctly.  I'd love to see this!

transience

2005-07-27 10:59:56 am

trust the fungus

I'm pretty knowledgable on FF1, so if you guys need any suggestions, I can offer. what version are you planning on doing? if you do the GBA one, it should be cake, maybe two hours. if you do the NES, you're looking at a much longer run due to slower battles and higher experience tables. I had thought about doing the GBA one a few weeks ago (not a recorded one, just a test out of curiosity), so if someone wants me to do so I can do that.

3F/RM is probably the way to go. I'd suggest doing the dungeons out of order, with the fire dungeon the last thing you do before the temple of fiends. I'm not sure on classchange; on the one hand, you get the gauntlets and can level fast on the zombie dragons guarding the tail, while on the other hand it's slower. it's probably faster to skip it, but harder.

Siyko

Edit history:

Siyko: 2005-07-27 01:40:47 pm

2005-07-27 12:53:50 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

I don't own the GBA version, only the NES, so that's really my only option. That's a cool dealie about BANE, but like you said, I can't think of any good implications it'd have in a regular run, unless you're REALLY patient.

I tried yesterday to get FIR2 to kill those frost wolves, but I was too impatient and my guys kept dying. I went to elfland with like 1100 gold, and about 30 minutes later, had 600 Lips Sealed

The ridiculously low cost of supporting a BB makes me think that maybe FI/BB/BB/RM would work well. Theives I have always hated, and nobody seems to cheer for them as a good warrior. FI is great through the whole game, and BB is great later on, and you'll never have to farm gold with them. I figure the path would go:

-purchase equip (chain/rap, wood/nun, wood/nun, chain/rap, which leaves 100 gold to learn FIRE or CURE )
-run to temple of fiends, Knock garland down
-Run to pravoka, killing anything on the way.
-Kill pirates (would it be worth it to buy anything here?)
-Go sail outside corneria, grind until FIR2 is buyable
-Buy some tents and heals and a couple pures
-Go to the power peninsula, and FIR2 those fools up (remember to pray)

I don't own the GBA version, only the NES, so that's really my only option.  That's a cool dealie about BANE, but like you said, I can't think of any good implications it'd have in a regular run, unless you're REALLY patient.

I tried yesterday to get FIR2 to kill those frost wolves, but I was too impatient and my guys kept dying. I went to elfland with like 1100 gold, and about 30 minutes later, had 600  :-X :-X

The ridiculously low cost of supporting a BB makes me think that maybe FI/BB/BB/RM would work well. Theives I have always hated, and nobody seems to cheer for them as a good warrior. FI is great through the whole game, and BB is great later on, and you'll never have to farm gold with them. I figure the path would go:

-purchase equip (chain/rap, wood/nun, wood/nun, chain/rap, which leaves 100 gold to learn FIRE or CURE )
-run to temple of fiends, Knock garland down
-Run to pravoka, killing anything on the way.
-Kill pirates (would it be worth it to buy anything here?)
-Go sail outside corneria, grind until FIR2 is buyable
-Buy some tents and heals and a couple pures 
-Go to the power peninsula, and FIR2 those fools up (remember to pray)

transience

2005-07-27 07:47:56 pm

trust the fungus

the problem with black belts is that they don't get really powerful until the end, and by then you'll have beaten it. plus, you don't really need to farm gold after the opening. there's a ton of gold you can get in the ice cave that will hold you over for a good while. once you get the airship, you really only need to buy the fairy and some protect rings. everything else you find.

as for provoka, buy a short sword for your fighter, that'll help a lot. ideally you could buy four, but that's a lot of money. the kyzokus in the water gives out 120g per enemy, so you could save and reload until you got a couple nice groups of them.

Siyko

Edit history:

Siyko: 2005-07-27 08:03:01 pm

2005-07-27 07:56:56 pm

I used to be athiest until I realized I was God.

Ok, I just played through to the Earth cave with FI/BB/BB/RM, and as it ended up, getting the money for FIR2 was really minor compared to getting my RM high enough level to be able to use it. Once I got it though, I could take pretty much any group at the power peninsula (unless they attacked first). But I did spend quite a while patrolling the waters for money (i found it more effective because resupplying/healing at Corneria is much faster and cheaper). Once I started fighting at the PoP, I gained about a level per fight, as well as over a thousand gold (which is a lot at that time - well worth the long walk to get there). There are a couple ways I can imagine beating this 'grinding' time in the water though:

1) replace the RM with a BM who will learn fir2 faster. 2) 2) get 2 RM's who would allow faster leveling once you get FIR2, but until then, it's just as slow.

It's a tough call. I think the party boils down to:

FI - absolute neccesity. Does about as much damage as 3 of anything else for a long part of the game. Expensive to maintain.
BB - Crappy early, almost as good as fighter midgame, better lategame. Cheap to maintain.
TH - Crappy.
RM - Can use all the important spells, decent damage during early game (about BB), but gets overshadowed quickly.
WM - Almost no melee dmg, good at healing. Can be replaced by RM very easily IMO.
BM - No melee dmg, good powerful spells. Fastest way to FIR2, which is fastest leveling method AFIAK.

I think I'm gonna try FI-FI-RM-BM right now.

Ok, I just played through to the Earth cave with FI/BB/BB/RM, and as it ended up, getting the money for FIR2 was really minor compared to getting my RM high enough level to be able to use it. Once I got it though, I could take pretty much any group at the power peninsula (unless they attacked first). But I did spend quite a while patrolling the waters for money (i found it more effective because resupplying/healing at Corneria is much faster and cheaper). Once I started fighting at the PoP, I gained about a level per fight, as well as over a thousand gold (which is a lot at that time - well worth the long walk to get there). There are a couple ways I can imagine beating this 'grinding' time in the water though:

1) replace the RM with a BM who will learn fir2 faster. 2) 2) get 2 RM's who would allow faster leveling once you get FIR2, but until then, it's just as slow.

It's a tough call. I think the party boils down to:

FI - absolute neccesity. Does about as much damage as 3 of anything else for a long part of the game. Expensive to maintain.
BB - Crappy early, almost as good as fighter midgame, better lategame. Cheap to maintain.
TH - Crappy. 
RM - Can use all the important spells, decent damage during early game (about BB), but gets overshadowed quickly.
WM - Almost no melee dmg, good at healing. Can be replaced by RM very easily IMO. 
BM - No melee dmg, good powerful spells. Fastest way to FIR2, which is fastest leveling method AFIAK.

I think I'm gonna try FI-FI-RM-BM right now.