- Execute Arbitrary Code/Use a password
- Aim for fastest completion
- Manipulation of Luck
Breath of Fire was Capcom's first traditional RPG. It follows a boy named Ryu, one of the last surviving members of an ancient race with the ability to transform into mighty dragons, as he searches the world for his sister. Along the way, Ryu meets other warriors who share his quest and comes into conflict with the Dark Dragon Clan, a militaristic empire who seeks to take over the world by reviving a mad goddess.
But since he has better things to do, he uses a strategic name to skip 3/4 of the game, right before first entering Scande. The game therefore ends after a mere 50 minutes.
After "cleaning up" my act with PS IV, for which significant improvements were found, I decided to look back at old games I made. In the early 2010s, someone found a code, probably used when testing the game, where you could start the game at 5 different stages of the game (more details here). Youtube has several videos showing people using the code on actual SNES! I obviously chose DeeJ, which put everyone on my team at level 29 - higher that what I achieved with the regular speedrun - right before Scande, i.e. the fight before Zog.
However, everyone was wearing their original equipment and no sidequests (including the dragon and Karn's spells) had been done. Therefore, I carefully planned my route to minimize actions and focus on the main story. I only got the rod5 in Tunlan, 2 worms in Auria (yes, the same bait can be used more than once) and then went on the full dragon quest (!!). Karn's Puka spell would have taken a while since I needed the second-to-last one where he merges with Ox in order to push the crates leading to Puka.
As a result, all bosses but Sarah (I still use Dragon Heart + a regular attack) are defeated using Agni, which greatly reduces the number of actions and speeds up the fights. I even made sure that the bosses used their quickest attacks: Zog's nose attack, Jade's "balls" attack and Tyr's "black beads" attack.
Many thanks to ars4326, who first mentioned this code in the BOF thread 5.5 years ago
FractalFusion: Added encode.
Memory: Judging
Memory: Changing branch name since no arbitrary code execution is actually performed.
Memory: This submission uses a password that advances you further into the game. It appears that the party is level appropriate from this password as well, meaning there is no real unique challenges that one can get into here, like with [2059] SNES Mega Man X "password glitch" by FractalFusion in 16:56.88. Given poor reception and the rules regarding password usage, I cannot accept this tas.
Rejecting.