Final Fantasy IX Speedrun

2006-09-30 09:01:30 pm

Apparently proven by Terrance and Softreset of the FFIX boards on GameFAQs. They are vets there and are IMO perfectly trustworthy.

IIRC was done around the time the "Perfect Game"+ExcaliburII FAQ was being written, by like you said, speeding up the clock.

Essentia

2006-10-03 06:56:05 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Well, I've learned some things from the Ultima Garden run. (Interesting note: Google translates "Freya" as "flyer" ::)) Anyway, the most interesting thing I've found is that they used pausing to somehow skip FMVs faster. When skipping, if you push Start right after you close the PS2 drawer, sometimes it pauses (i.e. "Pause" appears on the screen), and the next scene loads up quicker--but sometimes it doesn't. I tried this out on the FMV of the plant brain in Evil Forest (where originally the idle time for skipping the FMV was so bad that it was faster to watch the FMV than to skip it), and once I was able to get it to skip about 10 seconds faster than normal, but I'm not sure how. I've tried many times to do it again, but it won't work. I was wondering if anyone would be able to try this out and see if they can figure anything out; I think this only applies to the PS2.

Now I'm really wondering if FMV skipping is allowed, since if it is, it will involve a lot more strategy.

darkwasabi

2006-10-03 07:53:11 pm

King of hearts

No results from looking around and asking.

Looks like you're gonna have to personally ask Radix, but I have a good feeling he won't allow FMV skipping.

Lag.Com

2006-10-03 10:11:50 pm

sda loyalist

If you can do it on your first game through, you can do it on your speedrun.

Essentia

2006-10-10 06:43:59 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Sorry it's been quite a while since I've updated--I've had a lot of stuff going on lately (still do, actually...). It took about 20 resets, but I finally beat Gizamaluke by using Limit Glove. I was able to read the newspaper in between resets because of loading times, though, so it wasn't quite so bad.

Another thing I've noticed: it takes about twice as long to load a game that was saved on the world map as opposed to a game saved at a moogle inside a town or other place. The ideal thing would be to avoid saving on the world map, but unfortunately I've been doing that quite a bit in order to avoid random encounters. When I go back and do this again, I might try to avoid saving so much on the world map, especially on the shorter segments, and just hope that I get no encounters.

Right now I'm at South Gate/Bohden Station with time 2:11:22, which is about 20 minutes behind the Ultima Garden time. However, they didn't do the cotton robe trick to get money, which took at least 5 minutes, maybe longer. I'll probably cut that out the next time through, especially since I got the 10,000 gil from the swordfight (which they also didn't get on Ultima Garden).

Sorry it's been quite a while since I've updated--I've had a lot of stuff going on lately (still do, actually...).  It took about 20 resets, but I finally beat Gizamaluke by using Limit Glove.  I was able to read the newspaper in between resets because of loading times, though, so it wasn't quite so bad.

Another thing I've noticed: it takes about twice as long to load a game that was saved on the world map as opposed to a game saved at a moogle inside a town or other place.  The ideal thing would be to avoid saving on the world map, but unfortunately I've been doing that quite a bit in order to avoid random encounters.  When I go back and do this again, I might try to avoid saving so much on the world map, especially on the shorter segments, and just hope that I get no encounters.

Right now I'm at South Gate/Bohden Station with time 2:11:22, which is about 20 minutes behind the Ultima Garden time. However, they didn't do the cotton robe trick to get money, which took at least 5 minutes, maybe longer.  I'll probably cut that out the next time through, especially since I got the 10,000 gil from the swordfight (which they also didn't get on Ultima Garden).

Lag.Com

2006-10-10 11:45:57 pm

sda loyalist

That world map loading time thing is mentioned on Ultima Garden I think.

CubbieBlue66

2006-10-11 06:13:16 am

Drunken Fool

It would probably take a TON of segmenting, but I wonder if using the Gold Chocobo bug would save much time?

How much time are you setting aside to do Desert Palace, Oelivert, and Mt. Gulug? If you can manage to get a gold chocobo and fly to the air garden right after you get the Blue Narciss quicker than those three places would take, it would make for a nifty little timesaver.

But that'd probably involve soft resetting everytime you get less than 2-3 chocographs in the hot/cold game and saving after everytime that you do manage it. Although I could be off... I can't really figure for the life of me what the minimum times for those places is; never did think of speed running the game much.

At any rate, something to think about.

Essentia

2006-10-11 06:54:48 am

Everything's better with Magitek

I did think about using the gold chocobo bug a while ago, but then decided it would be too much work. But now I'm wondering again...

Here's what I'll do: I'll keep a save right after I get the Blue Narciss, and then see how long it takes to do Oeilvert - Mt. Gulug. Then I'll go back and see if it seems likely that I can get a gold chocobo any faster than that.

The bad stuff about gold chocobo bug: I'll miss the items in the Desert Palace, and Dagger will be stuck in depressed mode. I don't think either of these should be a big deal, though; I probably won't use Dagger very much after that anyway.

Essentia

2006-10-13 06:13:36 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Another update: I'm having trouble with Ralvurahva (the snake thingy in Gargan Roo) right now. Steiner is on level 2, and Dagger and Marcus are on level 1, and at these levels I can't ever survive long enough to kill it. However, if I get into a battle with one crawler beforehand and defeat it with everyone alive, they all get to level 4, and then the boss is a lot easier. I'm wondering if this would be worth it, especially since I'm having a hard time getting through Gargan Roo without any random encounters (the encounter rate seems to be higher there). Doesn't Marcus's level affect Eiko's or Amarant's level when they join? I seem to remember something about that.

darkwasabi

2006-10-13 06:50:54 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

Doesn't Marcus's level affect Eiko's or Amarant's level when they join? I seem to remember something about that.

Yes, Amarant's level.

What does the guy that did the run on Ultimagarden do at that point? I guess if you have no other choice, then you should face that battle.

Essentia

2006-10-13 11:24:43 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Quote:

What does the guy that did the run on Ultimagarden do at that point?

They didn't level up at all. They equipped Steiner optimum and activated counter, MP attack, and man-eater. (I've done this, except that I have better armor than they had.) They equipped Dagger with the multina racket (which I did), but I also equipped Marcus with a mythril sword (which they didn't) so he could do more damage. Then they had everyone attack from the front row to kill it quickly. It seems that they got lucky, because everyone got to attack once before the boss attacked, and it only got to attack twice. Maybe I'll just have to keep trying until I get lucky.

Lag.Com

2006-10-14 02:51:50 pm

sda loyalist

I suggest you follow that strategy, it's very cool. Smiley

gmacd

2006-10-15 04:58:09 am

Marcus is suppose to affect Eiko's level, but a glitch in the game results in her getting his bonuses, but not his actual level.

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2006-10-20 03:42:38 am

2006-10-20 03:42:17 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Well, I finally got past Ralvurahva without leveling up at all. I finally got lucky and got and got a preemptive battle with him. I still was never able to get completely through Gargan Roo without any encounters, so I ended up doing part, saving again, and then doing the rest to avoid any encounters. When I do this run next time, I'll put the first part at the end of the previous segment.

I've been having trouble avoiding encounters in Cleyra's trunk, though. I guess I'll just have to keep trying until I'm lucky.

darkwasabi

2006-10-20 06:26:06 am

King of hearts

Quote:

Well, I finally got past Ralvurahva without leveling up at all. I finally got lucky and got and got a preemptive battle with him. I still was never able to get completely through Gargan Roo without any encounters, so I ended up doing part, saving again, and then doing the rest to avoid any encounters. When I do this run next time, I'll put the first part at the end of the previous segment.

I've been having trouble avoiding encounters in Cleyra's trunk, though. I guess I'll just have to keep trying until I'm lucky.

Keep it up, I know personally how hard it is doing segments over and over again. Just letting you know that lots of people really look forward to this run, and once you get it done it'll be great.

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2006-11-07 08:10:26 pm

2006-11-07 07:56:21 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated! I took a little break from this run and completed some runs for Dr. Mario 64, which is on the verifiers list right now, so if you want to verify... [/shameless plug]

Anyway, on topic, I've gotten to Cleyra, but I was still having a hard time avoiding encounters inside the trunk. Ironically, the first time I went through the trunk for practice, taking my time and figuring out where to go, was the only time that I didn't get any encounters. I'm wondering if it's because I was doing the the "stop-run" method on accident: you run for a while, then stop for a while, then repeat, and it's supposed keep you from getting into random encounters. But whenever I've actually tried to do this, it doesn't seem to work. Does anyone know much about using stop-run to avoid encounters? Has anyone ever really gotten it to work? Thanks in advance.

Lag.Com

2006-11-08 07:11:46 am

sda loyalist

The stop-run thing sort of works. I remember using it occasionally to try and lessen encounters. As far as I can tell, it's entirely random, so if you do stop-run and get an encounter, reset. :p

darkwasabi

2006-11-08 07:27:33 am

King of hearts

I remember hearing about it a while ago. I tried it a little and never noticed a difference, so I just continued like I normally would. If it does work, I think you'd have to stop for a while to have any effect. In that case you might even be spending more time stopping and going rather than just escaping battles. But I dunno...

rms4wwf

2006-11-09 04:05:52 am

secret of mana master.

so i see that you are going to level up a little.... i think you should beat the game at only level one..... since you are going to skip enemy encounters.... right?

darkwasabi

2006-11-09 05:19:14 am

King of hearts

The few levels she will level up probably help a bit, and it wouldn't be acceptable if she went out of her way to avoid leveling up since it's too arbitrary to count it as a separate category for a level 1 game.

Essentia

Edit history:

Essentia: 2006-11-09 06:22:38 am

2006-11-09 06:20:21 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Thanks for the answers about the stop-run method. When I try to do it, I end up getting attacked anyway, so I don't think I'm really going to bother with it.

Quote:

so i see that you are going to level up a little.... i think you should beat the game at only level one..... since you are going to skip enemy encounters.... right?

I'm not going out of my way to level up, but I'm not going out of my way to avoid experience either. Yes, I run away from any random encounters that I get into, but I let people gain the experience in the forced battles. It would take too long to beat the game at level one, since you pretty much have to level up Thievery and Dragon's Crest (which would take an extremely long time for a speedrun). BTW, I just got to the Red Rose (right after Cleyra), and these are my levels:

Zidane 12
Vivi 12
Freya 12
Quina 4
Dagger 1
Steiner 2

It's really not too bad being on lower levels, as long as you have damage-boosting abilities like Man Eater and Devil Killer and good equipment. It also helped quite a bit to get that 10,000 gil from the swordfight! My time right now is 3:24:48.

Thanks for the answers about the stop-run method.  When I try to do it, I end up getting attacked anyway, so I don't think I'm really going to bother with it.

[quote]so i see that you are going to level up a little.... i think you should beat the game at only level one..... since you are going to skip enemy encounters.... right?[/quote]
I'm not going out of my way to level up, but I'm not going out of my way to avoid experience either.  Yes, I run away from any random encounters that I get into, but I let people gain the experience in the forced battles.  It would take too long to beat the game at level one, since you pretty much have to level up Thievery and Dragon's Crest (which would take an extremely long time for a speedrun).  BTW, I just got to the Red Rose (right after Cleyra), and these are my levels:

Zidane 12
Vivi 12
Freya 12
Quina 4
Dagger 1
Steiner 2

It's really not too bad being on lower levels, as long as you have damage-boosting abilities like Man Eater and Devil Killer and good equipment.  It also helped quite a bit to get that 10,000 gil from the swordfight! My time right now is 3:24:48.

rms4wwf

2006-11-10 04:55:42 am

secret of mana master.

nice, now what about stealing items from boss's. do they help make things easier or will it be a waste of time to steal very good items..?

Essentia

2006-11-10 07:38:34 am

Everything's better with Magitek

I hardly ever steal from bosses because Zidane either has a hard time stealing (no Bandit ability), or is doing other stuff and doesn't have time to steal. Some of the stuff that's stolen from bosses can be gotten more quickly later on more quickly anyway. About the only time I steal is if I'm going to beat the boss with Limit Glove and Zidane gets a turn before Quina, but he usually gets only a potion or phoenix down.

rms4wwf

2006-11-12 12:05:29 am

secret of mana master.

been there since the fist post, so yeah of course.

blub

2006-11-12 01:50:02 pm

is there an already recorded and uploaded run anywhere on the web? i've heard so many people saying that they beat the game in like 6 hours, but i've never seen a vid of such a run.
i personally even fail in getting excalibur 2, so i can hardly imagine that there are actually players who can beat ff9 that fast.