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Final Fantasy III (DS)

Routing & Planning


Index
  • Routing Resources
  • Future Work
  • Extras


Routing Resources

So far everything regarding the routing process for this game can be found on the document compiled by Desch, Eltherian and WasabiKnight. There are some speculations to what can/needs to be optimized so future versions will be available as we edit the document further.

Releases

Release Notes 5.0:

Document 5.0 includes, but is not limited to the following changes:
-> Get the Power Bracers in Amur Sewers;
-> Get the Chocobo's Wrath from Bahamut's Lair, grind there to around 1000 HP on the Knights;
-> Beat Titan, get Black Belts to get even more HP;
-> Regular strats but keep the party as 3 Black Belts and 1 Scholar in both the Cave of Shadows and Doga's Grotto;
-> Pick up Protect Ring with 3 Scholars, 1 Black Belt;
-> Go to Eureka and beat every boss, except for the one guarding Rangarok;
-> Buy the Apollo Harp, Arise and Crystal Armor here;
-> RNG manipulation notes;

  • Final Fantasy III DS Speedrun Route Revision 5.0

    Relase Notes 4.0:
    In revision 4.0 we've recently updated the document to be more visually appealing and to adapt to new strategies (we switch to White Mage right from the start instead of 4 x Red Mages for example). In the future we hope to implement the Nautilus dive glitch as well, so there are new revisions to come.



    The above versions of the documents are view only, for an editable version use this one:
    Final Fantasy III DS Speedrun Route Revision 4.0 (editable version)

    Recorded Times

    Regarding the category times:
    Any% race starts when you click New Game and ends at the first flash when you kill Cloud of Darkness.
    Kraken% race starts when you click New Game and ends at the first flash when you kill Kraken.

    Any%
    07:45:25 by WasabiKnight

    Kraken%
    02:09:28 by Desch

    Future Work

    There are a couple of things in exploration that can greatly increase the time we are taking at speedrunning the game.

    Nautilus Dive Glitch

    Right now we stipulate that it is possible to skip the Ancient's Ruins by using the Nautilus dive glitch to emerge out of bounds on where the maze is, park the Nautilus there, enter the maze, fight Titan, leave, enter the Nautilus again and park at the entrance of the Crystal Tower. This can be a possible time save because we can pick up the Crystal gear on the Crystal Tower ahead, avoiding the maze dungeon altogether.

    How to do the Nautilus Dive glitch to avoid the Ancient's Maze dungeon.

    RNG Manipulation

    soloman is trying to figure out how to RNG manipulate the game. From my experience, this can be an amazing time saver BUT we actually need to learn how to manipulate the bosses as well. From my runs, we're getting to Cloud of Darkness with just the right amount of HP to be able to do it, so if we end up skipping too many dungeons we'll die too quickly to early bosses and we won't even be able to beat Cloud of Darkness. I do want to mention again, this can cut the run time in at least an hour if we get to pull it off.

    Extras

    Thanks to Desch, Eltherian, WasabiKnight, FF3_DS, soloman and everyone else who is trying to optimize this run as best as possible.

    By Vulajin: First post reassigned to WasabiKnight for future use.

    Original first post by Lilfut:

    (Does DS count as a newer console? I guess...)

    I love the hell out of this game, and I've been thinking about running it recently. I haven't done a whole lot of planning yet, but some stuff I do know just from my experience with the thing is that a run would probably avoid dual wielding (since that means animations take twice as long), and possibly abuse the item duplication glitch, though the fact that it only allows you to duplicate usable items may limit its applications. Maybe you could duplicate Elixirs to give yourself practically infinite magic charges?

    Anyone done any work on this?
  • Thread title:  
    I'm doing some research on routes and effective strategies to abuse when speedrunning this game. I'll link some videos and guides that can help anyone with finding a good strat for the game.




    http://www.trueachievements.com/a183610/nose-for-treasure-achievement.htm
    Hi, I had this game in the back of my head at some point. I don't have anything to contribute right now considering I didn't even finish the game (but don't worry it's on my list of game to finish!). I'd be interested in helping with this, though I don't know of how much help I will end up being.

    Off the bat is there any sort of RNG abuse available?

    Actually now would probably be a good time to finish my playthrough before I get in over my head about stuff.
    im currently routing/running this game i felt like i should just put that out there
    Edit history:
    Eltherian: 2014-05-11 10:27:38 am
    Eltherian: 2014-05-11 10:26:14 am
    Velocity 2X
    I just wanted to respond to this thread to say that I have been working on routing this game for a little while. I have up through Garuda done and I am working on getting the rest of it done in the next month or two (it shouldn't take that long). Hopefully figuring out Cloud of Darkness isn't going to be too difficult.

    The main strategy you will need to use for this run to be successful is item duping and tons of scholars. If you would like, I can post my most recent version of notes to a paste bin if you'd like to have a look. The only disclaimer is going to be the early is very unoptimized, like the run in general because I am still exploring different options and I am just trying to get a general route for the game down. I plan on going back and revising and improving once I get the route finished, however.
    Truljin @ Twitch
    I would be interested in taking a look at what you have so far even though I plan to run this on PC that was recently released this week.
    Edit history:
    Eltherian: 2014-06-03 08:49:22 pm
    Velocity 2X
    Hello everyone! I thought I would provide an update on my progress. I have now played the game twice using my route, and it seems consistent enough to work, so that's nice. I'm going to attach it as a Word document for those that are interested in looking into it. As a note, this is the fastest way I could come up with that I know of, since there aren't many game breaking glitches that have been discovered (at least documented) for the game. So there is certainly room for improvement should more glitches get discovered. I estimate the runs of the game will be somewhere like 10 hours long maximum, but more realistically around 7-8 hours.

    One thing to note about the route I have made is that there isn't much running away from battles in the game. This is because many of the game's bosses serve as "Stat checks" in that it is impossible to beat them unless you have over a certain amount of HP. To name a few: Garuda and Cloud of Darkness. As such, to try and minimize the amount of grinding required to pass that stat threshold, you shouldn't be running from battles inside of dungeons. The monsters on the overworld, however, give very little xp and should be run from since they will just waste time. The exception to this general rule is in the Dark World, since you don't really need to be gaining anymore levels there.

    As for the last few battles, I pretty much used the strategies in the videos above and they ended up working out beautifully, even at lower job levels. The only class that needed a mid-range Job Level to be effective was the Viking, and I made sure to have one character pretty much permanently stay Viking once you unlock the class to ensure that.

    As a final note, the route will ONLY work on the Nintendo DS version of this game, since it makes heavy use of the item duplication glitch that exists in that version. Attempting this route in the newly released PC version will not work and will essentially result in a regular playthrough of the game.

    Anyways, the word file is attached to this post. As a note, I have restricted editing of the document to kind of protect people from editing out my name from the document. I put a lot of work into this, so I would love at least some credit. Tongue
    OLV
    Just picked up this game on Steam, and am saddened to learn that it's patched and does not have access to the item duplication glitch...  I really wanted to run it, too.  Well, after I beat it I'll dick around and see if I can find some other glitches that may be useful in this version.  In other news, do you know if this route works on an emulated DS?  Also, what's your best time using this route?
    check your pantry
    The route for this looks great, I'm about to try it myself. What's your best time so far, Eltherian?
    Edit history:
    KingdomNerdia: 2014-07-07 03:45:12 pm
    KingdomNerdia: 2014-07-07 03:44:49 pm
    OLV
    Found a glitch in the steam version which might be a bit useful two or three times per run.  [This also exists in the Android version, but I don't think anyone is going to run that...]  If you exit the client during a random encounter (NOT a boss battle), and then reload in using "Continue," you will be at the same place as the encounter, with your health and MP as it was before the fight started, but the encounter will not happen.  You can skip battles this way, but it's not faster than running since you have to restart the client.  However, if you're up against a monster you cannot beat or reasonably escape from at a low level, this can work.

    =Edit=

    Mechanics stuff for all jobs.  It might be useful.
    I'm curious, you said you've run this a few times and it seems consistent, but I'm wondering how long these runs took?
    I know you said that you estimate it to be anywhere between 8 - 10 hours, but I was wondering how long it took you, and also, were you using an actual ds to do this, or did you emulate it? Do we know if the glitches work in an emulated version?
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Ok, nice seeing all this activity on this page (even tho it is a couple of months ago...). Anyways, I can assure you that the only glitch you need to do is the Item-Duplication glitch. I have personally checked every single possible place in every single time and place in the game for glitches, and none could be used to spare time or skip anything at all. I also noticed that you do a coupple of non-optimal stuff early on in the game, like collecting gil, picking up the Leather Shield, picking up the Zeus's Wrath, and going to the storehouse in Ur to get the Phoenix Down (opposed to give a Potion to the old man outside of Topapa's house). In Canaan, I think it is most optimal to pick up the Elixir there, and the Golden Needle and Mallet you can find in Salina (Desch's gf) house, and then duplicate those. You'll see it in my document.

    Anyways, Eltherian, it seems like you also has made a document explaining exactly what you've done. Good work. I also made something similar, which I will attempt to put here in this reply. You said the run would realistically be around 7-8 hours long, but I am pretty sure that we can get it down to 6 hours. My strategy mainly resolved around running away from most enemies, because they gave very little experience in the long run. I always assumed that the faster you would get to endgame, the faster you could do more efficient grinding. So I guess we'll have to experiment more with that. I would say that the Temple of Time is an extremely good grinding spot, so I think that would be the earliest place for grinding (the enemies there gives you more experience than the ones in the Cave of Shadows). I also noticed that you used a lot of Viking (I eventually dismissed this idea.) instead of a Knight. The Viking needs to get A LOT of equipment to get sturdy enough, which will take a lot of time, but is the Viking strat worth it? Idk, since I haven't beaten the CoD (because it was luck dependent, if it used Particle Beam twice in a row, that would be right after the Devout healed one turn, then hit me before I could heal again) Did you ever run into that problem? Anyways, take a look at my documnet, it has pictures in it as well. I think if we fuse your slow-but-working strategy with mine very-fast-but-risky strat, we'll eventually get the optimal strategy for funning this insane, speedrun-harsh game. I'll try to check this thread every other day until someone replies, and then we'll take it from there.

    With all that being said I have not been able to beat the game speedrun-wise (I have won the game before, but not while trying to speedrun it). So I hope some of you may help me with just that.

    Also as a fun fact, I managed to do the "Castle Hein" thingy in around 7 minutes, iirc. I only encountered 2 monsters on the way up, and in the battle Hein changed his weakness to Ice immediatley on the 1st turn. Favourite moment while I speedran the game :3
    Attachment:
    Velocity 2X
    Sorry for going a bit dormant there everyone! Things came up that have kept me away from this for a while.

    Anyways, in terms of run length, I was around the 8-10 hour mark for the whole time. Also, the route that I posted is pretty unoptimized and could stand to be improved on a TON to fix some issues in it. More specifically:

    - Goldor's fight is currently pretty up to luck in my route so far. I need to find an alternative way to beat him than I have right now since it isn't very consistent.
    - The CoD fight is pretty consistent with the strategy I have outlined so far. In fact, that fight is the entire reason I use Viking over Knight for the majority of the game when Knight would be better in some locations. You need a high job level for provoke to work on CoD, as it helps mitigate the basic attack damage that she occasionally throws outs. I have heard of an alternative strategy, however, that involves the use of 2x Black Belts to beat the everloving snot out of her, which sounds promising. It would completely remove the grinding section for shurikens that I have in my route since you can get high damage from the Black Belt's power up ability. I do need to test this, however.
    - There are definitely lots of places that I could completely skip out on some item pickups and the like since I was mainly thinking about what I would need for the end-game before I actually got there to route it.
    - In terms of random encounters - overworld encounters are never worth it and should be run from except for the initial elixir duplication. Overworld monsters give significantly less EXP than monsters in dungeons, so the over world battles aren't worth wasting time on.
    - More research needs to be done on the efficiency of grinding throughout the game, or just saving it for Temple of Time or Crystal Tower. Currently, I use dungeon encounters to duplicate items and get EXP for the fight against CoD as I need money for shurikens, and you must meet a certain HP threshold to survive particle beams.
    - The Garuda fight is pretty iffy - I need to look into figuring him out again as he's the second source of RIP runs in the game, behind Goldor.

    I think that was the main list of stuff that I can remember needing to improve on, but I am certainly open to suggestions for more jobs optimizations and overall better routing. As for my ability to do runs for this game, I don't really have the time to do runs anymore, but I do have the resources available to test just about anything you guys need me to look into - I have savefiles for just about every single important point in the game and a savefile editor to alter character stats to simulate savefiles that everyone might have. I'll be keeping a better eye on this thread now that I have the time, so feel free to shoot me a message privately, reply to this thread, or hit me up via Twitch.tv if you have some stuff you want me to look into. Thanks for all the interest so far, I'm looking forward to seeing more people get into running this game!
    i've been messing around with this game since i found this thread a couple of days ago and i plan on speedrunning it
    i made a bunch of notes about both of the routes that i've been looking at (desch's and eltherian's), but mostly it is just editing to make it more clear. eltherian told me that him and desch have been talking about the route and stuff, so these edits might not even be needed anymore, but i'll link the file anyway

    i should say, that i've been following eltherian's route more. i basically ran from every dungeon and overworld encounter until tower of omens, then i started doing only dungeon encounters, this set me up so that i was around level 21/22 at Garuda so i didn't get destroyed by him. i'm at temple of time right now with a party of Viking/Thief/Scholar/Knight, i'm around 10 hours in but that includes leaving my 3DS on sleep mode or keeping the game open and not playing it. i really feel like this run can be 7/6 hours if it's a good run without big death setbacks
    Attachment:
    Edit history:
    Desch: 2014-11-12 11:28:37 am
    Desch: 2014-11-12 11:28:21 am
    Desch: 2014-11-12 11:26:41 am
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Glad to see yet another curios speedrunner who wants to give this run a shot. As you said, me and Eltherian has been working on this run and it is now complete. I gave my document to him so he could go through it and make it look nice, but I'll just attach my newest version here for you (and others), for the time being.

    I see that you've tried ultilizing Thieves. While it seems good on paper, I have personally come to a conclusion that they are ironicly slower than, say, Red Mages. Apperently their Flee ability is Job Level dependent as far as I see and is basically the same as a regular run away. Additionally, those "blue-things" that come out of your character everytime they use abilities (like Steal and Flee) use a "a lot" more time than just doing most other commands. So because of that, it becomes a really slow method of doing stuff, due to the amount of times you'll probably do it in the run. Finally, Thieves has much lower Magic Attack (Intellect, I think) than Red Mages, and worse Vitality (which affects the precious HP growth), iirc.

    Also, when you close your 3DS/DSI/DS, the inn-game timer will stop, so do that, and you'll have a much more accurate way of measuring your time. Don't get me wrong, but "10 hours and I am at the ToT, but you can reduce a lot of time because of stuff", it is just innaccurate, so I have like no idea what time you really have. (I think I usually have like 3:10 at that point, but I can't remember the exact numbers.

    The last time I saved outside of the Crystal Tower the one and only time I did this full run, was at 4:48, and when I beat the game and could save I was at 8:08, which is horrible, but it was my first time and all, so I finally did the testing I needed to do there, and next time I'll know what to do. Anyways, take a look at the improved run and test whatever you feel like testing. Who knows, maybe you'll come up with something we haven't (even tho I doubt it :P).

    Lastly, if you are ever gonna livestream this run, then give me a word, and I'll look at it! If there is something else, feel free to PM me. Happy running!

    P.S. You cannot dupe Ottershrooms Sad
    yeah, i meant that this is more like my first casual run while following what the route says. i'll be doing my first actual speedrun attempt this weekend hopefully, which day depends on if i am able to finish the game before then. my twitch is the same as my username, and so is my twitter, i'll be updating when i'm streaming there

    i got lucky that only the second half of the run is really different, besides the lamia scale at tokkul and all of the money strats, but that leads me to one of the problems i am having in ToT. my party is x3 knight and x1 scholar, but king seahorse and king lizard is a death combo basically. if i'm able to get off a zeus's wrath on king seahorse, but if they get a blizzaga off it's a OHKO on your party, is there any better way to get through this besides running? even with knights with double shields i'm having trouble
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Yes, there is a much better strategy here. By "duplicating Earthen Drums" we mean that you put these on top of your inventory and use that against the enemies. It should oneshot all the "grounded enemies" (Chimera Mages and Lizard + the king seahorse.) So basically this is a semi-grinding spot, because you get a lot of experience from the enemies here, but just run away when facing flying enemies/super OP monsters
    oh, i didn't realize that's what that meant. last night i got through it my first try by doing that, i also switched one of my knights to a bard since i already have mardhura harp. this kept me from getting OHKO'd by a cerberus or a dragon while running from them as the route guide says.
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Cool, glad to see you are enjoying the run. Just keep trying the stuff you'll think works best for you. As I said before, just PM me if you are unsure what to do, or just want some general advice about running this. I'd be happy to help.

    As for me, I have tested some things. Including only grinding to level 27 at the Sunken Cave, because I didn't want to waste more time in the cave, I'll just see how it goes. It is also my first run with equip-able Books, and I gotta say, it does increase the magic attack quite a bit, seeing how Earthen Drums KO's the monsters in the Ancient Ruins (I use Arctic Wind against Vulcan, the Salamander like monster, tho), compared to being a damage-range, like it was earlier.
    so i got all the way to cloud of darkness, but i switched my setup around a bit. the route suggests that you use a black belt for crystal tower, and maybe even two for 2-HD, but i switched to scholar/scholar/devout/bard and got through crystal tower and all the way to CoD really easily. i still followed the same boss setup that the route outlined.

    also, i might be doing a run today at around 10:30 AM EST just to get some splits and see how far i get, don't expect me to finish it because CoD is hard even with ribbons and 2k+ curajas. i'll be streaming it here - http://www.twitch.tv/westernlemonade
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Now that we have a sort of consistent strategy for the game, when is the last split? Like when do we stop the time?

    1. When the screen flashes white after beating CoD?
    2. After the last action before the credits appear?
    3. When you save the last time after the credits?

    I think the first option is the best one. But in a lot of other games the time stops after your final input as a player, so idk when to have it. Any ideas/preferences?
    Edit history:
    Desch: 2014-11-15 02:53:54 pm
    Speedrunning Final Fantasy III DS
    Sorry for doubble posting, but I think I will put this here
    http://pastebin.com/YUvKQrZf

    It's a link to all of the sites I've been using to get information regarding this run. The last one is only about where to find treasures with very helpful maps in it. The 3 first links is all links to the Final Fantasy Wiki. I specified it with the lists of both Armour and Weapons, as both can be helpful. You can check there why we need to pick up certain weapons, or Armor or whatever. Lastly, the other link shows the bestiarity. I've checked all of the relevant monsters there on info, and I suggest everyone who wants to speedrun this to do something similar to have an idea of what to expect. Like HP, experience, item drops, abilities and other stuff.

    In the Final Fantasy Wiki, you can also directly search for anything you'd like, like jobs, bosses and more. Just be sure that you find the article regarding Final Fantasy III. Otherwise just look at mine and Eltherian's new guide, which he will probably modify even further, and then I might modify it further again, but just look at it for the route.
    I hope this helps.

    Also, I suggest that we stop the time when the CoD dies (specifically when the screen flashes white right after landing the last hit on the boss). If anybody adamantly disagrees with me, tell me. Because I don't think I can make a decision like that alone, or maybe I can Tongue
    i agree that we should stop time when CoD flashes, that's how i time the rest of the bosses and i am guessing that others do it like that too. unless there is an overwhelming opinion that we should call time at another one of the options
    Edit history:
    Eltherian: 2014-12-10 08:43:56 pm
    Velocity 2X
    I bet everyone thought I was dead!

    Anyways, I finally am going to get the chance to sit down and give this game the running and work it deserves now that my last semester of college courses are out of the way. Funny how a ~8 hour run has to take the backseat to that, huh? As an update, Desch and I have been passing route changes and updates back and forth to each other for the past few months now, and I got the time to sit down and get the document updated and put together tonight. So without further ado - here's version 3.0 of the route we've been working on! There have been quite a few changed strategies and much less unnecessary items since the previous versions, so there should be some good time savings.

    There are a few things to note, however:

    1. Goldor and Garuda are still very shakey fights. For now, we have strats in place that are pretty risky, but work 80% of the time on Goldor, and 50% of the time for Garuda (he's a dick). I'm planning on looking into some alternative strategies for these two fights when I get the chance.
    2. End-game - specifically the grinding sections that were in my previous route. You'll notice that I'm no longer so gung-ho about getting shurikens, and that is due to the fact that Black Belts can out damage the HELL out of thrown shurikens just by using Boost. However, I haven't had the chance to thoroughly test this on non-emulator, so I'm not yet 100% certain that they are the way to go yet. As such, the end-game strategies that are currently in place have been developed by Desch and are pretty solid.
    3. We've eliminated the trip back to the Floating Continent for the Chocobo's Wrath to save time.  However, this makes a few more of the boss fights riskier, so I'm curious to test and see if the time lost on getting the Chocobo's Wrath from Bahamut's Lair is greater than the time lost by going into those boss fights without having free flares. I'm inclined to say that going back to the Floating Continent is slower, however.

    Other than those notes, I'm planning on doing some runs in the upcoming days after I do an initial route test to make sure everything is going to work out properly.