Final Fantasy VIII

2006-09-17 03:49:02 am

10:13 before entering into castle

i follow speedrun guide from gamefaq.com
card mod quistis into 180 triples and junction to attack

in the castle i kill sphinxar and tiamat to release limit break and item

vs future sorcercess just simply use the 2 hero and dodge her shockwave pulsar

does timber mechanic help time saving? any thoughts?

KnifeRun

2006-09-17 03:58:14 am

more keys then pablo escobar

whats the time people are aiming for? or what is the top time so far.

darkwasabi

2006-09-17 04:25:57 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

whats the time people are aiming for? or what is the top time so far.

The top time so far is my fun from a long time ago which was 8:47. Right now I'm trying to make any slight improvements to save as much time as possible. So far I should be able to save a few minutes if all goes well, but it requires insane luck.

annon

2006-09-18 05:20:41 am

From what I've played in FF8, naming Squall or Rinoa a single letter wouldn't save a single line of storyline dialogue. Even if it did, I don't think it would be enough to save the time spent renaming them in the first place.

darkwasabi

2006-09-18 03:29:52 pm

King of hearts

Actually, there's no doubt that it will save some time. It takes little over a second to delete the characters, and their names need to be said a little over 15 times to save a second. And remember that they write out Squall and Rinoa's names at the top whenever Squall or Rinoa say something, it's not only when other characters say their names. But what I'm concerned about is if overall it'll only save 15 to 20 seconds. I'd rather not start completely over just to save that much time since my final time will be counted in minutes, so it won't make a difference.

Lag.Com

2006-09-18 05:21:12 pm

sda loyalist

Don't do it. It somewhat messes up the entertainment value (unless you name them ? and ! or something). Plus this will save a matter of seconds when your run will be 7 hours or more.

Also, if you rename Squall, that joke in FFIX won't make sense anymore.

getter77

2006-09-18 07:58:43 pm

100% runs=great to watch

Lag is right...let the ? and ! and A routine be the inheritance for the TAS folk way down the line.....stick with the names to maintain the flow.

Far as I see it, once your route, gameplay, and luck are tight...you're pretty much set with a run this long and should avoid such superficial tactics...because this isn't a TAS.

darkwasabi

2006-09-18 08:05:02 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

Don't do it. It somewhat messes up the entertainment value (unless you name them ? and ! or something). Plus this will save a matter of seconds when your run will be 7 hours or more.

Also, if you rename Squall, that joke in FFIX won't make sense anymore.

If it saves 50 or more seconds, I will restart. It is a little weird for them to be named S and R, but I can't ignore it just for entertainment purposes. I got 1:10 into the game, but I still haven't gotten into the real annoying stuff yet, so redoing the first 4 segments will be a little annoying, but still manageable. Besides, I might get lucky and get 5 Fish Fins in one battle this time, so it'll save even more time. And since I just did the segments not too long ago, they'll be easier than ever.

The reason why I'm so desparately trying to save time is because of the record on UltimaGarden. The time says 9:01, but it says "at the time of ED end," which means at the "The End" screen. My run was 8:47, but that's counting at the final blow to Ultimecia when you lose control of the game. Adding in the ending makes the run come out to 9:08. I know that the Japanese text scrolls faster than English, but I'm using the Fast Disk Speed option. The site has no information telling you whether they used it or not(which is retarded). So in a way, it's like my pride is on the line(lol, that sounds stupid)....

Basically, I just really want this run to be as close to perfect as I can get it.

And what joke are you talking about?

[quote]Don't do it. It somewhat messes up the entertainment value (unless you name them ? and ! or something). Plus this will save a matter of [b]seconds[/b] when your run will be 7 hours or more.

Also, if you rename Squall, that joke in FFIX won't make sense anymore.[/quote]

If it saves 50 or more seconds, I will restart.  It is a little weird for them to be named S and R, but I can't ignore it just for entertainment purposes.  I got 1:10 into the game, but I still haven't gotten into the real annoying stuff yet, so redoing the first 4 segments will be a little annoying, but still manageable.  Besides, I might get lucky and get 5 Fish Fins in one battle this time, so it'll save even more time.  And since I just did the segments not too long ago, they'll be easier than ever.

The reason why I'm so desparately trying to save time is because of the record on UltimaGarden.  The time says 9:01, but it says "at the time of ED end," which means at the "The End" screen.  My run was 8:47, but that's counting at the final blow to Ultimecia when you lose control of the game.  Adding in the ending makes the run come out to 9:08.  I know that the Japanese text scrolls faster than English, but I'm using the Fast Disk Speed option.  The site has no information telling you whether they used it or not(which is retarded).  So in a way, it's like my pride is on the line(lol, that sounds stupid)....

Basically, I just really want this run to be as close to perfect as I can get it.

And what joke are you talking about?

darkwasabi

Edit history:

darkwasabi: 2006-09-18 08:10:20 pm

2006-09-18 08:07:53 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

Lag is right...let the ? and ! and A routine be the inheritance for the TAS folk way down the line.....stick with the names to maintain the flow.

Far as I see it, once your route, gameplay, and luck are tight...you're pretty much set with a run this long and should avoid such superficial tactics...because this isn't a TAS.

Edit: Oops, misinterpreted that statement...

I dunno, I'm still deciding...

Paused

2006-09-18 10:58:32 pm

For what its worth, I would not restart for this. But of course, your run.

Essentia

2006-09-19 12:46:35 am

Everything's better with Magitek

Quote:

And what joke are you talking about?

He's talking about at the end of FFIX, when they say "No cloud, no squall shall hinder us."

KnifeRun

2006-09-19 06:45:25 am

more keys then pablo escobar

your going to ruin a speed run for a little joke... if there is a big time difference with the shortened name...

im sure you can play the game and have your half a second giggle

getter77

2006-09-19 02:45:12 pm

100% runs=great to watch

If anything, I'd say it would be a ruin of a speedrun to discard the run already well underway to start all over again just to replase some character names with little symbols.

Or do you also think Marsh's Chrono Trigger run is "ruined"?

darkwasabi

2006-09-19 04:37:16 pm

King of hearts

I see no reason why the run would be "ruined." First of all, I'm skipping through dialogue like crazy, so if you're a first time player and don't know it, you'll already have a tough time and you're gonna have to pause every 2 seconds to keep up. Secondly, I'm pretty surprised to see people on SDA who love to find new time savers for anything even if it saves a fraction of a second, and now a lot of people are saying this run will be worse by doing this.

Again, I'm not certain that I will start over, I'm still waiting for sdafan to get the results. For it to save considerable time, their names would have to be typed out over 450 times just to save 30 seconds. I will NOT start over for that. I doubt that it will reach that high, but an estimation isn't sufficient.

I just looked back at the old FF VII Speed Run topic, this is the calculation BrutalAl came up with:

Cloud
1153 * 4 * 0,00542 = 25.00

Barret
476 * 5 * 0,00542 = 12.90

Tifa
628 * 3 * 0,00542 = 10.21

Aerith
430 * 4 * 0,00542 = 9.32

Red XIII
128 * 7 * 0,00542 = 4.86

Cait Sith
168 * 8 * 0,00542 = 7.28

Cid
245 * 2 * 0,00542 = 2.66

So totaled up it's only about 70 seconds. VIII's text is slightly slower, so renaming is more beneficial in this game. I'll go and record the game at full framerate to get a better estimation of the time it takes to type out his name, but I'm still waiting to talk to sdafan, I haven't seen him on AIM yesterday or today so far.

I see no reason why the run would be "ruined."  First of all, I'm skipping through dialogue like crazy, so if you're a first time player and don't know it, you'll already have a tough time and you're gonna have to pause every 2 seconds to keep up.  Secondly, I'm pretty surprised to see people on SDA who love to find new time savers for anything even if it saves a fraction of a second, and now a lot of people are saying this run will be worse by doing this.

Again, I'm not certain that I will start over, I'm still waiting for sdafan to get the results.  For it to save considerable time, their names would have to be typed out over 450 times just to save 30 seconds.  I will NOT start over for that.  I doubt that it will reach that high, but an estimation isn't sufficient.

I just looked back at the old FF VII Speed Run topic, this is the calculation BrutalAl came up with:

Cloud
1153 * 4 * 0,00542 = 25.00

Barret
476 * 5 * 0,00542 = 12.90

Tifa
628 * 3 * 0,00542 = 10.21

Aerith
430 * 4 * 0,00542 = 9.32

Red XIII
128 * 7 * 0,00542 = 4.86

Cait Sith
168 * 8 * 0,00542 = 7.28

Cid
245 * 2 * 0,00542 = 2.66

So totaled up it's only about 70 seconds.  VIII's text is slightly slower, so renaming is more beneficial in this game.  I'll go and record the game at full framerate to get a better estimation of the time it takes to type out his name, but I'm still waiting to talk to sdafan, I haven't seen him on AIM yesterday or today so far.

-Suzaku-

Edit history:

-Suzaku-: 2006-09-19 04:44:06 pm

2006-09-19 04:43:24 pm

Eternal Understudy

Quote:

Secondly, I'm pretty surprised to see people on SDA who love to find new time savers for anything even if it saves a fraction of a second, and now a lot of people are saying this run will be worse by doing this.

I was thinkning the same thing. SDA is about saving time in games, sure it may not be very much time, but it's still time to be saved. And it's not like anyone is going to be readin the story anywya, so it shouldn't annoy anyone. Dark Wasabi, I don't think you should start the run over again for this, but I do think that future runs should do that.

Kyrsimys

2006-09-19 04:59:12 pm

Yay it's alive! I just wanted to say I'm still looking forward to this very much. Especially Omega. Hope you can finally submit your run.

darkwasabi

2006-09-19 06:05:58 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

Yay it's alive! I just wanted to say I'm still looking forward to this very much. Especially Omega. Hope you can finally submit your run.

Happy to oblige.

About the text. I forgot that the entire game runs at 30 fps anyway(except the menu), so there was no reason to test at full framerate. But I found out all characters are typed out in a pattern of 3 and 4 exactly. One frame will type out 3 characters, and the next will type out 4. So it's 3.5 letters/frame on average. This makes the equations easy enough to do in your head unlike VII.

3.5 Let/Fra * 30 Fra/Sec = 52.5 Letters/Second

Squall has 5 extra letters and Rinoa has 4.

52.5/5 = 10.5
52.5/5 = 13.125

So it's less times than I thought. It takes only 10.5 times to say Squall's name and 13.125 times to say Rinoa's name to save a second.

sdafan

Edit history:

sdafan: 2006-09-23 12:37:45 pm

2006-09-23 12:33:52 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Here ya go. The list should be pretty accurate.

1. Squall- 4
2. Squall- 0
3. Squall- 4
4. Squall- 8
5. Squall- 5
6. Squall- 3
7. Squall- 0
8. Squall- 6
9. Squall- 18 Rinoa- 5
10. Squall- 7 Rinoa- 1
11. Squall- 2 Rinoa- 16
12. Squall- 30 Rinoa- 6
13. Squall- 6 Rinoa- 0
14. and 15. Squall- 51 Rinoa- 11

The reason why 14 and 15 are combined is because I lost focus and I counted the names and wrote the numbers on the "14." list. I could recount 14 and 15 separately when I get the chance, as well as counting the rest of the segments. But like I said, the list should be accurate as it is.

Some comments-

- the minimum time of getting into a random battle (from the start until you escape and get control of Squall) is about 17 seconds. There are some battles where you took like 30 seconds or more, so maybe you could improve on those.

- for reference, it took you a total of about 3 minutes to get 5 fishfins.

- it took you around 1:07 minutes to get the Quistis card.

- it took you around 1:23 minutes to get the Zell card.

- on segment 4, I heard somewhere that you could hide at the cafe when you are being chased by the boss. I heard that the FMV of Quistis blasting it on the ground won't get triggered. I dunno, might save time.

- on segment 12, may I suggest that you use Rinoa's Angelo Cannon on the last boss at Galbadia prison. It might save you some time because I noticed that you took (and gave) a few hits before you defeated them. Angelo Cannon would bring them all down in 1 hit. Try it and see if it saves time.

- I liked what you did on segment 19 in Lunatic Pandora. I didn't think of that. I'll leave it as a surprise for the rest of you.

- Oh, I have a comment regarding your last boss fights. Showoff. Smiley

Anyway, thanks for your speedrun preview.

Here ya go.  The list should be pretty accurate.

1. Squall- 4
2. Squall- 0
3. Squall- 4
4. Squall- 8
5. Squall- 5
6. Squall- 3
7. Squall- 0
8. Squall- 6
9. Squall- 18 Rinoa- 5
10. Squall- 7 Rinoa- 1
11. Squall- 2 Rinoa- 16
12. Squall- 30 Rinoa- 6
13. Squall- 6 Rinoa- 0
14. and 15. Squall- 51 Rinoa- 11

The reason why 14 and 15 are combined is because I lost focus and I counted the names and wrote the numbers on the "14." list.  I could recount 14 and 15 separately when I get the chance, as well as counting the rest of the segments.  But like I said, the list should be accurate as it is.

Some comments-

- the minimum time of getting into a random battle (from the start until you escape and get control of Squall) is about 17 seconds.  There are some battles where you took like 30 seconds or more, so maybe you could improve on those.

- for reference, it took you a total of about 3 minutes to get 5 fishfins.

- it took you around 1:07 minutes to get the Quistis card.

- it took you around 1:23 minutes to get the Zell card.

- on segment 4, I heard somewhere that you could hide at the cafe when you are being chased by the boss.  I heard that the FMV of Quistis blasting it on the ground won't get triggered.  I dunno, might save time.

- on segment 12, may I suggest that you use Rinoa's Angelo Cannon on the last boss at Galbadia prison.  It might save you some time because I noticed that you took (and gave) a few hits before you defeated them.  Angelo Cannon would bring them all down in 1 hit.  Try it and see if it saves time.

- I liked what you did on segment 19 in Lunatic Pandora.  I didn't think of that.  I'll leave it as a surprise for the rest of you.

- Oh, I have a comment regarding your last boss fights.  Showoff.  :)

Anyway, thanks for your speedrun preview.

darkwasabi

2006-09-23 05:36:53 pm

King of hearts

Quote:

- on segment 4, I heard somewhere that you could hide at the cafe when you are being chased by the boss. I heard that the FMV of Quistis blasting it on the ground won't get triggered. I dunno, might save time.

Oh wow, I'll definitely see if that works.

Quote:

- on segment 12, may I suggest that you use Rinoa's Angelo Cannon on the last boss at Galbadia prison. It might save you some time because I noticed that you took (and gave) a few hits before you defeated them. Angelo Cannon would bring them all down in 1 hit. Try it and see if it saves time.

Yeah, the battle lasted a bit longer than I anticipated. I forgot that Angelo Cannon hits all targets since I never use it. I'll make sure I use it this time.

Quote:

- I liked what you did on segment 19 in Lunatic Pandora. I didn't think of that. I'll leave it as a surprise for the rest of you.

Quote:

- Oh, I have a comment regarding your last boss fights. Showoff. Smiley

Anyway, thanks for your speedrun preview.

So totaled up Squalls from 1-15 is 108 and Rinoas is 39, but I'm pretty sure you forgot an important thing. They type out Squall and Rinoa's names whenever dialogue is spoken by them. I completely forgot to mention that. I was surprised that there were so little names typed, especially in segment 9 for Rinoa because I remember a lot of dialogue was spoken by her.

Either way, I don't really need much more because my results totaled up from segment 19-23 is 149 Squalls and 124 Rinoas. Another thing about this game is that sometimes the next animation or dialogue isn't triggered until the dialogue ends, but when the character's animation ends. There are many times when the length of the name has no effect on the time it takes. I was careful to not count times where I thought it wouldn't count, but it's sometimes hard to tell. It's almost impossible to tell exactlly if it's based on time, dialogue, or when the character's animation ends at certain times. I wanted to tell you about this, but I couldn't get in contact with you.

Counting the names like this is a real pain, so I'd rather not check or ask you to check the other segments because it's obvious that it saves much more than a minute total from what we have so far.

Thanks for the help.

[quote]- on segment 4, I heard somewhere that you could hide at the cafe when you are being chased by the boss.  I heard that the FMV of Quistis blasting it on the ground won't get triggered.  I dunno, might save time.[/quote]
Oh wow, I'll definitely see if that works.

[quote]- on segment 12, may I suggest that you use Rinoa's Angelo Cannon on the last boss at Galbadia prison.  It might save you some time because I noticed that you took (and gave) a few hits before you defeated them.  Angelo Cannon would bring them all down in 1 hit.  Try it and see if it saves time.[/quote]
Yeah, the battle lasted a bit longer than I anticipated.  I forgot that Angelo Cannon hits all targets since I never use it.  I'll make sure I use it this time.

[quote]- I liked what you did on segment 19 in Lunatic Pandora.  I didn't think of that.  I'll leave it as a surprise for the rest of you.[/quote]
:)

[quote]- Oh, I have a comment regarding your last boss fights.  Showoff.  :)

Anyway, thanks for your speedrun preview.[/quote]
;D

So totaled up Squalls from 1-15 is 108 and Rinoas is 39, but I'm pretty sure you forgot an important thing.  They type out Squall and Rinoa's names whenever dialogue is spoken by them.  I completely forgot to mention that.  I was surprised that there were so little names typed, especially in segment 9 for Rinoa because I remember a lot of dialogue was spoken by her.

Either way, I don't really need much more because my results totaled up from segment 19-23 is 149 Squalls and 124 Rinoas.  Another thing about this game is that sometimes the next animation or dialogue isn't triggered until the dialogue ends, but when the character's animation ends.  There are many times when the length of the name has no effect on the time it takes.  I was careful to not count times where I thought it wouldn't count, but it's sometimes hard to tell.  It's almost impossible to tell exactlly if it's based on time, dialogue, or when the character's animation ends at certain times.  I wanted to tell you about this, but I couldn't get in contact with you.

Counting the names like this is a real pain, so I'd rather not check or ask you to check the other segments because it's obvious that it saves much more than a minute total from what we have so far.

Thanks for the help.

sdafan

2006-09-25 03:09:23 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Quote:

...it's obvious that it saves much more than a minute total from what we have so far.

Well if that's the case, then great. S and R all the way then.

Oh, another thing I just thought about. In the paratrooper minigame segment, I suggest that you save inside Balamb Garden (the one near the quad), instead of outside Balamb Garden. That would save you at least 5 minutes of cutscenes in case you have to redo the paratrooper minigame. I find it easy to mess up in that minigame, so if you save inside instead of outside, it only takes about 12 minutes before the minigame instead of 17.

Good luck on redoing your run, and breaking your own record (and hopefully it breaks the japanese record as well). Make sure that I'd be part of the first ones to see it. Smiley

darkwasabi

2006-09-25 08:09:31 pm

King of hearts

Yeah, I was thinking that. I won't save at the last possible chance, when you have Zell's party going to ask for help for Rinoa, but when you first see that save point. There's menu stuff I need to do before getting Zell's party, and it's really easy to mess those up at the end of a long segment.

I haven't started the run again yet... I started playing KH2 and I'm just too addicted to stop...

wow

2006-09-26 05:39:58 pm

darkwasabi would you mind telling me where can i download your video? i really appreciate it

darkwasabi

2006-09-26 09:54:09 pm

King of hearts

Do you mean my VIII run? I just directly gave it to sdafan because he was willing to help count the names. It's my old run that has an inconsistent segment which isn't acceptable on SDA. Plus there's no audio for almost all of them.

jakefirebrand

2006-09-27 04:31:43 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

wouldnt it be difficult to sit throught and watch the same FMV over and over again? lol

wow

2006-09-28 01:48:56 am

timber mechanic help time saving yah?