Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a videogame where your main goal is to beat several dungeons to collect drops of myrrh, wich makes you advance in the game, year after year. The goal is to reach the final dungeon and beat the final boss, and for that you need several key elements from the world, including waiting for at least the 5th year. This movie uses the Yuke race, the magicians, in order to skip having to buy equipment and beating all the dungeons at least one time each the fastest possible. In contrary to the normal RTA runs, this TAS abuses the use of magic and frame perfect movements to compensate for the low resistance of the main character.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Dolphin 5.0
- Complete all dungeons at least one time (beating the boss)
- Finishing the game as fast as possible
- Blow RTA runners minds by using the sub-optimal race
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is my favorite game of all times. That's why I dedided to honor it with a TAS. I love the community, and the videos, and I personally wanted to study this game deeeper than ever before. I started this project more than 2 years ago, and since then, I learned a lot, about TASing, and about the game. Today, I finished it, and I'm very proud of it, as well as my decision to choose the all dungeon category to show more of the game. At first, I was using the strategies from the current RTA records, but I did some testings, and I saw some big opportunity: Yukes cast magic faster than any other race attacks, even simple triple autoattacks. Here is the chart calculating the time needed from first frame pressing button to first frame where you can control you character again:
Clavat:
Attack:50
Focus Attack:69
Defense:27
Magic:55
Lilty:
Attack:50
Focus Attack:68
Defense:19
Magic:68
Yuke:
Attack:50
Focus Attack:63
Defense:21
Magic:48
Selkie:
Attack:50
Focus Attack:60
Defense:31
Magic:58
With that in mind, I decided to play Yuke. The other reason is simple: I don't need to buy any equipment. It saves time buying and crafting them, but also, since it's an all dungeons, I need a lot of money. So now that I know I'm safer in cash and in damage, I started a first run. This run was routed to make the dungeons as fast as possible, but I soon saw that I wasn't using all my potential. Needing a lot more of money to save time, after my third year, I stopped for a wile. Got demotivated. Worked on other projects, some meme runs. And then, about 3 months ago, I regained the energy. I crafted a newer route, which now made the dungeons longer, but I would gain more magic power and optimise my item drops, and then I would sell everything to my merchant dad at the end of year 3. This was the first complete TAS of the game I made. But after feedbacks, I worked on improvements, and today, I'm very proud to not only show you the result of my hard work, but also honor the game that raised me at loving videogames. The final time is 1:59:00.32. Even if it's TAS timing, it's really close to RTA timing. For the sake of comparison, here is the world records in each category of the game:
- Any%: 2h01m00s by Neviutz
- Any% Glitchless: 2h09m27s by ナナカ
- All Dungeons: 2h23m37s by Neviutz
- All Dungeons Glitchless: 2h36m29s by Littletonbi
As my first submission for this game, and also for this site, I think I did pretty well. It shaves off 37 minutes from its own category, and beats the any% by 2 minute. The glitch used normaly in glitched runs is called the Infinite Gil Glitch, which exists only in the japanese version, and needs a Gameboy Advance. For now, it's not possible to TAS it, that's why I'm sticking with glitchless. I think it's fun to note that, if my precedent run used haste a lot, and it seemed very good, the simple act of menuing makes it worthless. I still suggest any RTA runner who wants to play Yuke to take haste, it's pretty much essential without TAS.
Maybe one day I'll have the patience to fill this section. English is not my first langage and there is so much to describe. But be certain I'll answer any question.
This movie features optimised fights and routings in the dungeons. Furthermore, I manipulated the RNG a lot, so there is a lot of one frame tricks to better run, including some perfect bonus points.
I saved most of my mistakes of the last run, not counting the new route. I have some small mistakes, but they are all linked to RNG, wich I can manipulate, but not as much as I would want some time. One of my blatant mistakes is to take the money from my dad when I didn't need it after I sold my items. Woops. Also, I do not master TAS imputs, so I'm limited to 8 directions.
I hope you enjoy.
Special thanks
- Maelias, my close friend, who was always there for me in my difficult moments
- Leossier, my best friend, for wich this run is dedicated
- The RTA runners, without them I would have no basic idea what to do
- The FAQ of the game I read to help me route everything
- And finally, the TAS community, for always being there entertaining me with motivational videos (wich in this case are TASes)
ThunderAxe31: In order to evaluate the quality of this movie, I took my time understanding the game and making comparisons to RTA runs. Turns out there is a good route planning through this run, as well as a good execution of fights and RNG manipulation.
There is a minor flaw that was pointed out in the submission thread, about the run using D-Pad for movements instead of the Control Stick. While this is easily noticed when watching the movie, it must be noted that it doesn't waste much time overall.
Since both the technical and entertaining value is appreciable, I accept this movie to Moons tier.
