Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is an action role playing game developed by The Game Designers Studio and published by Square Enix in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube. This was the first Final Fantasy game to include real-time fighting, which has since become a staple of Final Fantasy games. It was also the first Final Fantasy game to be published on a Nintendo console since Final Fantasy VI on the SNES.
You play as a caravanner, trying to beat dungeons to collect myrrh drops to be able to sustain your village's crystal energy, which protects the villagers from the mortal effects of the miasma. In this run, you go out as a Yuke, a race of mages, to go explore the world, but only the fastest way possible, skipping longer dungeons and bosses.
Sync Instructions
It's necessary to provide the game with a formatted memory card before being able to play the movie file.
- Set up a memory card in the Dolphin settings;
- Launch the game;
- When this screen appears, select the upper option twice and press X key;
- Now the movie file can be played.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Dolphin 5.0
- Finishing the game as fast as possible
- Don't use any glitch
Comments
This is my fifth TAS of this game, and first time on this category. Any% is not the first category I chose to TAS because I wanted to play all dungeons initially, but since my run got published, I wanted to try to beat the game as fast as possible. This way, Conall Curach and Rebena Te Ra (and the end of Lynari desert) are skipped and replaced by faster cycle 2 dungeons (Mushroom Forest and Goblin Wall).
Final Fantasy is my favorite game of all time, even if it's mostly nostalgia. Here, you go on an epic quest to discover characters and cities, new stories unfold and there is sidequests offered to you along the way. Unfortunately, in this run, I skip most of it. In this game, the fastest way to beat it is to get to the last dungeon, wich is blocked by a miasma wall. The only way to pass it is to get the unknown element in the Lynari Desert, which is only accessable at year 5. You have to collect 3 drops of myrrh to complete a year, wich means I have to beat 12 dungeons before even being able to get to the last boss, 13 if we count reviving the flowers in Veo Lu Sluice to rise up the river to even get there. I do all 11 of the 14 dungeons in this game.
I chose to play the Yukerace, because he is not only the fastest caster, but his casts are even faster than autoattacks. Not only that, but spells are way more flexible and fusions can offer some great gameplay to beat boss easily. Also, with this race, I skip having to buy equipment, instead I focus on getting good artifacts to gain magic power. Since it's a TAS, I dont have to worry that much about my defense either since I can manipulate rngs all I want.
You choose, after each dungeon, an artifact that will give you permanent bonuses. In my case, I obviously choose the ones helpful for my magician. There is 2 ways to get artifacts: with points, or by dropping them inside the dungeon. The game works on a global timer, so each frame dungeons get a different seed wich affects bonus points conditions and ennemy drops (in the first room). The best way to manipulate what you want is to wait frames before entering a dungeon or a zone. It's also the same strategy I do after beating bosses to get the good set of artifacts I want. You also gain bonus points by killing ennemies and picking up things. It is important to know that my magical power only grow each multiple of 5. So most of the time I try to get to the higher one, with fruits and droppable artifacts. We start with 15, and we will be at the last boss with 75.
Money is also something important in this game, to pay the boat's fee. It costs me a total of 1200 gils, 2200 if I want to do a dialogue skip of 1 second. I got just over 1200 with all the money I dropped, and the items I sold to my merchant dad. I also take some detours here and there to change the element of my cristal, to be able to pass miasma streams.
Stage by stage comments
River Belle Path
New strategy on this first dungeon compared to the precedent run, since I decided to make some time sacrifice to gain more magic power, so I need 119 points. Taking 2 Blizzard Magicite and fusing them, plus the fire magicite for the Firaga spell, makes the boss faster than ever. (Kris (magic+3) is won.
Mushroom Forest
The artifact Silver Bracer (+1) is taken from the chest, and I also pick the regular Fire Magicite from the hell plant. Some strategy occured to me to take time eating a carrot and eating a fruit to gain life and magic respectively to be able to beat the boss faster (and not needing to wait for Mog who's slowing at the end).
Cathuriges Mine
I drop a fire magicite, which is still the best element to deal damage to early bosses of the run. The Mage Masher (+1) is dropped from the troll, and, since we beat the boss faster than ever because of better optimizations and also better magic power. We have to note that in the japanese version, fruit effect lasts longer (and does not stop at a loading zone) so it's useful to beat the troll faster.
Goblin Wall
Here I want 110 points, wich is pretty easy since the boss have many minions. I also take advantage of that by picking up a fruit for later. I take the thunder magicite for damage and stun, and finish the level with the Wonder Wand Artifact (+3).
Tida
I take the bomb's key because it's faster than killing the worm. Also, as long as you have no fire magicite in you inventory, you can manipulate fire magicite to drop from the containers in the second part of the dungeon. Contrarily to the precedent TAS, I only take 2 magicites to make Fira since I did't take another command slot yet. Still, my magic is so high I beat the boss faster. I take the Dragon's Wisker artifact (magic+1).
Moschet Manor
I need 84 points at least to be able to manipulate the needed artifact, Red Slippers (magic+3). In the dungeon, I manipulate the switch to always have the Yuke tribe logo when needed, and since the fruit effet lasts, I don't have to take the bonus artifact in the chest to get to 25 magic. It decays at the 3/4 of the boss tho. Fire magicite is used.
River Belle Path
In cycle 2, every ennemy is way more powerful than before. I need 119 points again to get the Mage's Staff (+5), and I take in my way 2 blizzard magicites and a fruit. Blizzara proves hitself very fast again to beat the Giant Crab.
Selepation Cave
I take the fast thunder magicite here, and go take the artifact Cat's Bell (magic+1) in the chest. I manipulate the bos to always do it's inhaling ability, until he's scripted to jump, and there I fuse Thundaga with Mog. A fruit is eaten for more damage.
Daemon's Court
We need to manipulate the content of the chest to get a blizzard magicite (1/4), then manipulate the position of the 2 golden lizards (1/12), and finally manipulate a mythril from the nearest mace lizardman (1/2). We don't need bonus points because we will get the Chocobo Pocket for 0 point, wich gives our third command slot. Mythril is our main source of money, giving 875 gils when sold to you father.
Goblin Wall
110 points is easily attainable here. The strategy is almost the same as with our first visit, except that we eat a fruit. We are finally awarded the Mage's Staff (+5) for our efforts.
Mushroom Forest
The game developpers put 3 easily accessible Blzzard Magicite in this dungeon. I benefit greatly from that, gaining Blizzaga, and more than easily destroying the Malboro, manipulating it's inhaling attack. The Sage's Staff (+3) is then taken.
Kilanda
A blizzard magicite is manipulated on the first chest. Then, I kill the Coeurl for a second magicite, that I fusion to kill the troll faster. It drops the Noah's Lute (magic+5). I also hit the goblin with the giant sword to open the way to the boss faster.
Lynari Desert
I do all the complex steps of getting the unknown element as fast as possible, including skipping a menuing by making gravity with Mog. As soon as we have the element, we teleport out of the dungeon. No artifact is taken here.
Veo Lu Sluice
Heal a flower, pick a key, run away. Repeat 3 times. I can get 2 fire magicites wich are super effective against the boss. The Blizzard Ring artifact (magic+1) gives you the equivalent of a free magicite of blizzard, wich is useful at the last dungeon.
Mount Vellenge
I need a final amount of 75 magic power. So I drop +9, +9, +5 and +5. I also get 2 other ice magicites, because the wide fusion is very important against the last boss (all that combined have a chance of 1/128 happening, hard rng manipulations were done) You have to wait for meteor parasite to get vulnerable, so I make some shenanigans in between cycles. Raem and Memiroa are manipulated to be as fast as possible.
Other comments
Funny thing is that the any% route and the all dungeons route are the exact same for the 3 first years. So for my next TAS, it'll be technically already started. Concerning the mistakes of the run, I must say that I have very few, and some that are not even mistakes at all. A mistake in Deamon's Court cost me like 5 frames, and I lost some little frames here and there (most notably up to 15 frames in the Mushroom Forest cycle 2) because of RNG.
Japanese was hard to TAS also. I mean, I don't understand Japanese ^^ You know, I'm sorry for all the bad mistakes I can make in english since it's not my native langage, but Japanese is out of my league. I don't even know how I named my character :P To manipulate artifacts and bonus points, I've used the awesome technique of try and retry :3
Special thanks
- Leossier, my best friend, this run is dedicated to him
- The speedrunning community of FFCC. This game is for their enjoyment after all. It is worth noting the any% record became recently less than 2 hours, congrats to Neviutz!
- The TAS community, wich is the reason this beautiful video can be made and published for others to see in the first place
ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 228 blank frames trimmed version.
ThunderAxe31: Setting to delayed, in view of a potential improvement.
Nach: A better submission has been made by the author.