DCFFVII Research Thread

[Shademp]

While playing around with the dash command I realized that its deflective/box-crushing ability happens *immediately* as you press the dash button and initiate the action. Compare this to the ground-melee attack which has a delay in its deflective trait due to Vincent spinning around.

Personally, I find that deflecting missiles is easier when there is no delay. This is why using melee for this purpose was so easy in the original Japanese release, where Vincent's first melee strike is instantaneous. The spinning animation was added for the later releases and I struggled with it when deflecting missiles in Missilebreaker Melee 5 1/2 years ago. When I use the dash move instead, the mission *almost* becomes trivial. This strategy did not occur to me before today. I chose to apply my knowledge on the sequel to Missilebreaker Melee...


DCFFVII: EM25 "Missilebreaker Deathmatch" - Only Dash & Melee, No Damage

Make no mistake, it took a few hours of attempts before I cleared the mission without taking damage. Though it would have been easier to just run away from certain missiles I decided that the video would feel incomplete unless I deflected each and every missile.

The dash+melee combo is super effective. Based on Vincent's spinning animation you'd think there would be a huge delay before the melee can deflect anything. Its deflective property is, in fact, *almost* instantaneous due to how quickly Vincent does the spin. That's why it works so well to press dash->melee in rapid succession. I can deflect with dash, then follow up with a melee before barely any frames of the dash animation have had time to play.

The slower-moving missiles of the mission also helps demonstrate how it is possible to gain chain increments from the same target multiple times. In normal gameplay this usually doesn't happen but if the target is slow enough and the player fast enough, you can optimize chain-building by using the same target twice or even thrice.

The weakness of the dash is that its deflective wall is not very tall. I might be missing some important detail, due to not having a visualizer tool for the hitboxes, but my impression is that the dash is poor against missiles coming in from a steep upper angle. This would randomly happen with the last barrage of missiles, as their trajectories would sometimes make them enter in from sharp angles. But it's difficult to tell if they always hit Vincent in these situations, or if perhaps they collided with the surrounding environment and Vincent got caught in the explosion.


DCFFVII: EM25 "Missilebreaker Deathmatch" - Zoom Climb

Motivation to clear this difficult mission can be low for many players. Beating Missilebreaker Deathmatch doesn't unlock any additional missions. What beating it *does* unlock are the Cait Siths inside the red boxes of EM24 "Contra Kalm". ...But the Cait Siths cause way more trouble than they are worth by alerting the enemy, such as the robot Turks ("Turks Training Robot"), so it's just not a good strategy to use the Cait Siths.

Thankfully, if you are confident in your zoom climbs you can just skip past most of Missilebreaker Deathmatch.

 

[Shademp]

On Twitter I share a lot of Dirge facts, most of which I've shared here over the years. I also use it to share environment snapshots using my "photo mode" as it were.

- Happy Vincent Valentine's Day
- Bridge to WRO HQ
- Deepground Sector 4 waterfall (animation)
- Deepground Sector 3
- Jungle
- Tutorial room
- Shinra Manor, coffin room: One | Two

While taking snapshots of the coffin room I realized that two of the supporting columns appear to be missing their bottom support. What has actually happened is that the textures are displayed on the wrong side. This effect is possible to observe even without cheats.

Spoiler

When looking at this pre-release screenshot it seems to me that the texture error has been around since the beginning of the game's development.

Spoiler

For comparison:

 

[Shademp]

Yes, the camera angle in this snapshot was intentional. For Twitter I changed the grey void to be black.






Due to the ugly clipping that is observed when taking a wider shot of the coffin room I did not attempt to replicate the angle from OG FF7 more accurately. The final snapshot may look rough due to clipping artefacts but the other pictures I took were actually worse.

 

[Shademp]

'Seven Five seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps.'

After incrementing your killchain you have 5 seconds to build upon it by destroying another target. After those 5 seconds, your chain will be used up when you attack.

Where does this time interval come from?

Spoiler: Right here

0x00001388 in decimal is 5000. It represents a time length of 5000 milliseconds, or in other words 5 seconds. This instruction is reliably available in memory after your first chain-event. So if you want to increase the duration to 500 seconds, just replace 0x00001388 with 0x0007A120 (as 0x7A120 equals 500000 milliseconds).

When using cheats like these on emulator you must always keep in mind that it will be reset if you use save states. Loading a save state removes this instruction from memory and so you'll have to trigger a new chain-event to make the 0x00001388 value appear inside instruction space. Searching for the matching array of bytes is a good way to find the address: 81 05 30 9B E0 00 88 13 00 00


What happens when you destroy a target and begin building a chain? The game will access a millisecond counter that has been counting upwards ever since you booted up the game. The millisecond counter is an unsigned 4-byte integer and it increases with +16 or +17 every frame, seemingly averaging to an increase of 1000 or 1001 every second. Keep in mind that the game often operates under a 60-frames-per-second paradigm, even though the game plays at interlaced 30fps on console. In DCFFVII International, this ms counter was stored in address 204F5AFC.

The current millisecond value of 204F5AFC is then stored inside the unsigned 4-byte variable at 20238EE0. A snapshot of what the millisecond value was when the chain event occurred.

Let's say we destroyed a target when the ms was the decimal value 57852. This value is retrieved and added together with the value 5000, the aforementioned 5-second duration. 57852 + 5000 = 62852. This new value will subsequently be compared with the current millisecond counter value inside 204F5AFC. Once the ms counter value of 204F5AFC has become higher than 62852, the 5-second countdown will officially be over and you can no longer build upon your current chain. The "millisecond snapshot" inside 20238EE0 is reset to 0.

Spoiler: Tracer view

So if you wanted to indefinitely keep the chain-building active, you would freeze the 204F5AFC-millisecond counter or you would make the millisecond snapshot inside 20238EE0 to be insanely high. Definitely easier than changing the values of instruction space. Keep in mind this does not prevent you from losing a chain bonus in Hard and Ex Hard mode when Vincent takes damage.


What about overflow? The highest value of the millisecond counter at 204F5AFC is 4294967295 (0xFFFFFFFF). When you add onto this the counter just rolls back around, so 4294967295 + 17 becomes 16. Nothing strange here.

4294967295 milliseconds is equivalent to 49.7102696 days. Is there any game exploit that could theoretically happen here if you let the game run for over 49 days? No.

Once the millisecond counter reaches value 4294962296 there will be a period of five seconds where you can't build a new chain. The game will act as though your five seconds are always up. This is no coincidence. 4294962296 + 5000 = 4294967296, which is one value higher than what a 4-byte integer can represent. So we loop right back around to 0. The current millisecond counter value is DEFINITELY higher than 0 at this point, so the game treats your normal five-second countdown (or rather, "count-up") as being over.

In other words, don't keep your PS2 running for 49 days. Not worth it.

If you destroyed a target right before reaching the millisecond value 4294962296, the game is kind enough to let you increment the current chain ONCE during the cursed last five seconds of the millisecond counter before it resets. The upper right of the HUD reading "1 Chain!" very quickly fades away and you won't be allowed more chain increments until the counter loops back around to 0.

Spoiler: The ghostly increment

 

[Shademp]

My latest self-torture device is EM21, "Cait Versus the Crimson". I have spent more time on it now than I did with the rhythm game that was EM25 "Missilebreaker Deathmatch". This is due to the massive amount of RNG involved in getting a great record when using Cait Sith to fight Rosso. The mission requires a lot of button mashing and my joints are suffering for it. I am disgruntled.

My current record in EM21 is a 00:26 IGT, 26.36 seconds RTA. By all likelihood, this is the fastest anyone has ever cleared this mission. Took me roughly a hundred tries to get that record. What's annoying is that one flaw cost me 1.3 seconds. Meaning I was one small detail away from a solid 00:25 IGT. After about two hundred more attempts though, the 00:25 still is not happening. The RNG is not aligning well enough. Anger.

 

[Clement Rage]

Just don't break yourself in pursuit of perfection, Shad.

 

[Shademp]

The Every F'n FF podcast has now completed their season about Dirge of Cerberus. I have thoroughly enjoyed this ride and I look forward to the hijinks in the next Final Fantasy game that they will cover.

 

[Shademp]

Extra Mission #21 "Cait Versus the Crimson" in 00:24.724 RTA (00:25 IGT)

After over five hundred attempts total, it is done. By far the mission that I have sunk the most pure madness into. This achievement easily ranks among my Top 5 most emotional victories in Dirge of Cerberus gameplay. By the final fifty attempts I had a revelation about Rosso's AI, wherein standing by her left side (Rosso facing forward) provided the best conditions in the scenario of great RNG. May write a more detailed breakdown later.

I am a legend. I am the God of Dirge.

Spoiler: Meme picture

The meme is from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Thanks to Odysseus for inserting Cait Sith into the final frame!

 

[ForceStealer]

Insanity. Well done.

I couldn't get past Cat Sith vs the World, and upon learning you also have to fight the Tsviets with him, I gave up on the Extra Missions

 

[Clement Rage]

It appears I was wrong. The game broke before you once again. Hail, Shad.

 

[Shademp]

Cait Versus the Crimson, overview

Rosso has 50 HP. The maximum damage you can deal from Cait Sith's full melee combo is 4 + 3 + 8 = 15. The 4 damage is from Cait Sith scratching with his paws, the 3 damage is from the somersault kick, the 8 damage from the tail spin. Positioning is key and it's easy to end up dealing only 6 or 7 damage with the tail spin due to imperfect accuracy.

The optimal damage output would happen with three full melee combos and then two more strikes:
(4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3) = 52
Such an optimal scenario never manifests and would be tricky to arrange even in a TAS. If Cait Sith was invincible and Rosso did not move from her starting position, the lowest RTA you could get on emulator would be somewhere between 17 - 17.5 seconds, resulting in an IGT of 00:17. That gives us an idea of just how much time is lost having to move around Rosso, recovering from knockbacks and not being able to deal maximized damage.

On console the game consistently spends 5.339 seconds on her death animation, counting from the moment the final damage lands and up until the memory card icon shows up on the upper right. The first frame that the memory card icon shows up is when the RTA timing stops. Emulator is a few frames faster here.

Pointless fun fact but if it was possible to keep a chain bonus from a previous mission then an 11-chain would be enough to defeat Rosso with a single "four-scratch" melee attack, dealing 13*4=52 damage. The game is diligent about resetting states like these inbetween missions so I doubt we'll ever see an exploit where killchains from a past mission can be preserved.


Embedding my video again for ease of following along with my recap of what happened. Video can also be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

In my 00:25, what were the damage outputs on Rosso?
(4 + 3 + 7) + (3 + 4 + 3) + (3 + 4 + 6) + (3 + 4) + (3 + 4) = 51

Spoiler: First combo

The first melee combo is important and can only happen in about 1/7 runs. Rosso's AI is inclined to counterattack against Cait Sith's first melee. She can be in the middle of doing her roundhouse kicks away from Cait Sith but then immediately ground herself and attack Cait when his first melee attack registers. Thankfully, in 1/7 attempts Rosso will decide to stand perfectly still instead of doing a counter. This allows a full combo if you are fast enough. (4 + 3 + 7) damage is dealt. Fast button mashing can mean the difference between a completed combo or Rosso's blade preventing your tail spin from happening.

Rosso lands her horizontal single-slash and Cait recovers from the knockback. The game still plays the sound effect of Cait spinning and falling on the ground, despite the knockback recovery clearly being successful. This will happen one more time before the run is over.

Spoiler: Second combo

When taking Rosso's sword swings from the front there is no way to avoid knockback. Doesn't matter if she's doing her horizontal single-slash, or her angled double-slash, a direct face-off will cause Cait Sith to be knocked back.

By some unknown quirk of hit detection in this game, you have a chance of resisting knockback by gracing Rosso's blade when standing behind/beside her IF Cait Sith is performing a melee attack. Presumably has something to do with how the hitboxes of the sword slash are segmented and how much of the hitbox Cait Sith gets caught in.

For this reason I circle around Rosso, to stand on her left side and HOPE that she performs a double-slash. This position is optimal for only being graced by either the first swing or the second swing in such a way that your melee attack won't be interrupted. The humor here is that the run ends up NEVER demonstrating Cait Sith resisting knockback this way. By some miracle I positioned myself EXACTLY to avoid both of Rosso's sword swings. This is not necessarily the best outcome. Closer proximity, while still taking a slash strike, might have allowed more damage output from the tail spin. Regardless, it looks really cool. (3 + 4 + 3) damage is dealt. 24 HP has now been depleted.

Spoiler: Dodge and third combo

Rosso follows up with a horizontal slash. I am still astounded that Cait Sith's jump managed to dodge the slash, which no doubt would have sent Cait Sith flying away and made me lose lots of time. Resuming the attack, RNG smiles upon me as Rosso does another double-slash and Cait's melee combo manages to dodge it long enough to perform a full combo. (3 + 4 + 6) damage is dealt. Though Cait is knocked/stunned, it happens late enough that the melee hitboxes of the tail spin still deal damage.

At any point Rosso can choose to perform her lengthy roundhouse kick animation and I've been immensely lucky that this has not happened yet. Less time spent following Rosso around means a better speedrun. If you have bad luck, Rosso can also choose to run to the other side of the stage! That's just how ruthless this challenge can be.

Spoiler: Fourth attack

Continuing the strategy of placing Cait on Rosso's left side, I land a four-paw scratch and the somersault. (3 + 4) damage dealt and Rosso now has 6 HP left. Though the God-RNG is technically on my side, as the Crimson continues doing double-slashes, bad positioning lands Cait inside a too large portion of the sword swing, interrupting any potential for a tail spin attack to end the fight early. Cait is knocked back and this time with hard consequences.

Spoiler: Final attack

Thanks to good button-mashing, and no doubt some RNG, knockback recovery happens even though the sound effect plays of Cait falling on the ground.

...Why is it taking so long for Cait to deal the final blow? Because the game literally will not accept any melee inputs at this stage. The nuances are unknown to me, but sometimes when you perform a knockback recovery the game will still act as though you are stuck in a knockback/stun state. Despite Cait standing firmly on the ground you can sometimes have to wait a full second before the game accepts melee inputs again! Fortune smiles upon me as I am only denied for about 0.3 seconds before the game accepts my input.

Rosso starts what is, amazingly, her first roundhouse kick of this run. The first two kicks are not strong enough to stun Cait and I am allowed to deal (3 + 4) damage, ending this divinely lucky run.

I learned a lot about Rosso's AI in this battle, moreso than I have shared here (though admittedly a lot of it is qualified guesswork). The mission emphasizes for me how little I know about hitboxes in this game and the exact mechanics of knockbacks and knockback recovery. I sincerely believe that 00:23 on console could happen. You could shave off one second by not having to perform that fifth melee attack, which would have been the case if the tail spin in my fourth attack had not been interrupted.

The only thing that could motivate me to revisit EM21 though is if the battle got completely reverse-engineered first and if there was a calculated TAS video showing exactly the choreography and RNG to aim for.

 

[Clement Rage]

In universe these are WRO VR missions, which raises an interesting question of either Reeve, Vincent, or Shalua deciding 'you know, we really need to train to beat Rosso as Cait Sith, just in case'

 

[Shademp]

Reeve just wants that power fantasy of beating the Tsviets

Speaking of, here is a fun observation from practicing EM26 "Cait Versus the Cerulean". You can stand on Azul's gun.

Spoiler: Cait just chilling

Spoiler: Vincent being Legolas, as always

Vincent can also stand on the gun in EM15 "Red and Blue". In Ch9-5 and in EM44 "Deepground" Azul's tracking of Vincent is too good for the player to ever land on top of the gun. I have not tested standing on Azul's gun in EM45 "Stronghold Impervious".

There is zero benefit from these acrobatics and you'll quickly fall off due to Azul moving around.

 

[Shademp]

There are four Dragonfly boss names in the data.

Dragonfly​

Dragonfly GL​

Dragonfly CT (unused)​

Dragonfly PT​

What do the subtitles GL, CT and PT mean? We do not know. I have not found any source that confirms the meaning. The Dragonfly design appears to be based on military transport aircraft, with some extra offensive capabilities added, but no namesakes here help us pin down what GL/CT/PT stands for.

Spoiler: Character Viewer, Dragonfly

Spoiler: Character Viewer, Dragonfly GL

The only other boss with a similar naming scheme is the "Black Widow TW". These are the two Black Widows you fight in the Shinra Building, Ch9-3, in a checkpoint that is literally called "Twins". TW obviously stands for Twins.

You fight the first Dragonfly boss in Kalm, Ch1-3, midway through the stage. The same Dragonfly then returns for Ch1-6, though it's now been heavily damaged. I used to think that "GL" must *somehow* denote the degree of damage it has suffered, but my current guess is that GL stands for "Glider". This chopper spends most of its time gliding around the stage, rarely being more than a few meters above ground.

There are two major candidates for when the Dragonfly CT boss name might have been planned for use. The last of 15 choppers in Ch6-2, on the edge of the bridge leading to WRO HQ, has a lot more HP than the previous 14 so that could be the Dragonfly CT. The candidate I prefer is the chopper in Ch10-2, the auto-scrolling section where you travel through the Deepground city. In this scenario, CT could stand for "City".

Dragonfly PT is fought inside Mako Reactor 0, Ch11-3, right outside the reactor core. If a boss can be given an arbitrary subtitle based on location, then PT might stand for "Powerplant", since that is indeed where we are. A more exciting guess would be that PT stands for "Pterodactyl", fitting both for the aircraft and the context of the many gargoyles present during the boss fight.

Note that all Dragonfly choppers have the same design, with the exception of the heavily damaged Dragonfly GL, so it's not like the Dragonfly PT stands out in its design. Though the different lighting of Mako Reactor 0, compared to that of Kalm, can easily make the PT aircraft look different from the rest.

 

[Shademp]

There is something pleasing about browsing the game's menu maps. They have this weird blend of simultaneously being polished but also having weird artefacts in the form of dark squares and rectangles that stand out in the crowd.

My favorite is definitely the "Upper Omega" map seen in the game's shortest checkpoint where you traverse the lifestream bridge in front of Omega. The shape of Omega seen from up top is quite cool.



↓ Download link to .png versions of the menu maps of the main game.

 

[Clement Rage]

I always wondered if that was supposed to be the same machine or not. So what's the thing hanging down on the right of the second dragonfly. Doesn't seem to have a counterpart in the original.

 

[Shademp]

I always wondered if that was supposed to be the same machine or not.

I assume the two aircraft are the same. The Event Viewer seems to frame it as a "question-answer". The scene at the end of Ch1-3, when your first battle with the Dragonfly ends, is called "Dragonfly Destroyed?". The scene that starts Ch1-6, fighting the Dragonfly GL near the church, is called "Return of the Dragonfly". (Reminder that the DCFFVII script spreadsheet exists) I wouldn't call it a 100% confirmation, but that's the intention I interpret here. One flaw is that the bullet holes Vincent is seen inflicting at the end of Ch1-3 are nowhere to be seen when the Dragonfly GL appears in Ch1-6.

So what's the thing hanging down on the right of the second dragonfly. Doesn't seem to have a counterpart in the original.

These "legs" are seen briefly folding out on the normal Dragonfly model at the end of the Ch1-3 battle, as it performs a dive. So the Dragonfly and Dragonfly GL have the same components.

 

[Shademp]

Extra Mission #26 "Cait Versus the Cerulean" in 00:20.688 RTA (00:21 IGT)

Neo Azul has 60 HP. By dealing maximum damage with each full melee combo you will only be required to land four full melee combos.

(4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3 + 8) + (4 + 3 + 8) = 60

It is not difficult to run circles around Azul. Evade his kick, attack him while he is kicking, continue evading and you have a reliable loop. What is immensely difficult is to optimize a speedrun and to not have to spend time waiting for Azul to perform a kick. In most circumstances, trying to string together two full melee combos will lead to Azul kicking a second time and thus interrupting your second combo. A kick from Azul is a guaranteed knockback.

Achieving a 00:21 IGT is far from trivial and it required hundreds of tries. Not as difficult as the Rosso mission but still closer in difficulty than you might think. You need good RNG in the form of Azul's kicks never sending Cait across the stage and you need to manipulate Azul's AI perfectly. Though getting Azul to act the way you want to can be so difficult that it might as well be RNG.

Spoiler: First combo

The biggest bottleneck when running the mission over and over. By initiating a melee attack at the perfect distance away from Azul he will spend some extra time taking a step towards Cait Sith. This gives you the extra time necessary to perform the tail spin and complete the melee combo. If you stand too close, Azul will instantly kick you and you have zero chance of doing a tail spin. Stand too far away and the melee will either miss completely or you simply won't deal full damage. More often than not, I would deal 4 + 2 + 8 damage, rather than the 4 + 3 + 8. Quite infuriating.

At worst, I would only get this first full combo in 1/20 attempts. At best, I would get it in 1/8 attempts. Overall far worse luck with this one than the first melee combo on Rosso. This is amusing because in the Azul battle there is actually technique involved, "simply" positioning yourself correctly, but landing on the correct pixel is way difficult and I never managed to perform it consistently.

Spoiler: Second combo

For this combo I have to wait for Azul's kick so I can dodge it and have time for a full melee combo. I found no timing that allowed you to skip this waiting period. Essentially your strategy seems to stand between the choice of waiting for a kick either here or at the very start of the mission. I do not know which method would be faster in the end.

The best place to attack Azul is behind his right leg, ideally having Cait Sith face in the general direction where Azul is looking. This increases the odds of Azul taking extra time to spin around. The optimal scenario is when Azul performs a partial step animation while spinning around, as this will greatly increase the duration of his spin to position himself for a kick. While Cait Sith's positioning does matter, we are once again in a situation where it's pretty much a prayer to get the extended spinning animation from Azul.

If you can't trigger Azul's partial step animation you have zero chance of getting the best possible time records in this mission.

Spoiler: Third combo

Azul kicks Cait Sith and I get good RNG. Cait isn't sent flying across the stage with a powerful knockback and I have quick recovery. What happens next is kind of miraculous. Cait's positioning isn't optimal here, but Azul's time spent spinning around is extended for a few frames by performing a short version of the partial step animation. Somehow this becomes enough for Cait to initiate the tail spin and deal damage even while Azul is kicking.

I don't recall ever seeing such a tight window happening before. One or two frames slower and I'm quite convinced that the tail spin wouldn't have happened. Normally this type of thing only happen when you get an extended step animation from Azul.

Spoiler: Fourth combo

The recovery from Azul's kick is excellent and with minimal momentum to slow down Cait Sith's movement towards Azul's backside. I am in disbelief at this moment and I remember my hands feeling weak, unable to properly button mash. I figured that this late/slow reaction would spell the end of this great run. BUT WAIT! Azul is performing quite the extended step animation while spinning around! In another example of a tight window, this luck is enough to give Cait the time for a tail spin. Full damage is dealt and THE RUN is completed.

I am still amazed that my lack of proper button mashing did not cost me the run. XD

If Cait Sith was invincible you could on emulator get an RTA of around 16.8 seconds, 00:17 IGT. This is not far off from the impossible time against Rosso the Crimson, which lands at 17 - 17.5 seconds RTA if Cait had invincibility turned on.

The game spends 3.304 seconds on Azul's death animation, counting from the moment the last strike lands and when the memory icon appears in the upper right. Compare this to the 5.339 seconds spent on Rosso's death animation. So the Azul mission becomes two IGT seconds faster from the animation alone. Though when taking actual battle gameplay into account, the Azul mission *is* slightly faster.

Rosso is a squirrel and Azul is an elephant. EM21 holds greater potential for achieving ludicrous RTA records by achieving ever more godly RNG, due to how absolutely chaotic that battle is. EM26 is more rigid and already closer to its absolute limit because of this, unless a strategy is cooked up where you don't have to wait in time for one of Azul's kicks.

Spoiler: Meme picture

Thanks to Odysseus for the Cait-Saitama (Caitama?) edit!

 

[Shademp]

Currently speedrunning Extra Mission #24, Contra Kalm. I had forgotten how dizzy I become when running missions with a lot of city-dashing (dash-jump-aim-cancel), camera turns and frame skipping/loss. My current record is 02:31 IGT and I will count the mission as finished when I achieve a time below 2m30s.

I like it when the Dirge of Cerberus localization indulges in pop-culture references, even when the reference is not there in the Japanese text. Accordingly, "Contra Kalm" is one of my favorite mission names. At least, I assume it is a reference to the NES game.

The JP name for the mission is リバースカーム [Reverse Kalm]. A possible reason for this name is that you are, roughly speaking, taking the counter-clockwise route all around the map. The translation "Contra Kalm" reflects this counter/contra path.

Spoiler: Contra Kalm, menu map

Spoiler: Menu map with my speedrun route painted in

If you look closely at coordinate J-10 you'll see that the path runs through where the fences are marked out on the map. This is because the actual fences and how they are drawn in the menu map DO NOT MATCH! Some fences are not drawn in at all. I wonder if perhaps the menu map is showing us how the area looked in the Beta Version phase?

Spoiler: Comparing drawn map and actual area

By jumping on top of the stacked boxes you can actually jump over that particular bit of the fence. All other sections have invisible walls infinitely high. I wish the speedrun route included jumping over these boxes but it ends up slower anyway because you have to backtrack slightly so to trigger the next set of enemies to spawn. It is important to defeat every enemy in a given area in order to acquire the cardkey.
*EDIT: I may have spoken too soon. It looks like jumping over the boxes is generally faster, if done right, by about 0.2-0.4 seconds.

 

[Shademp]

Extra Mission #24 "Contra Kalm" in 02:26.213 RTA (02:26 IGT)

Sight Support: Automatic​

​

W1: Ultima Weapon + Nova L Barrel + Power Booster Gamma + S Adjuster Gamma​

W2: Sonic Griffon + Gale S Barrel + Materia Floater Gamma + Manasoul + Thunder Materia (Thunder Lv.3)​

W3: P Hydra Gamma + Guard N Barrel + Materia Floater + Manasoul + Thunder Materia (Thunder Lv.2)​

I enjoy the length of this mission. It's not so short that I end up perfecting it to insanity but also not so long that I become bored quickly. A while ago I actually started running EM20, Deep Tower, but lost interest because I didn't want to run a 5-minute mission over and over.

Timestamp 00:07
The red boxes at the very start contain three Cait Siths that can attack enemies and drop items for Vincent. If you have not beaten EM25, Missilebreaker Deathmatch, then the red boxes will be empty. Destroying the boxes would help in starting a killchain but I don't want the Cait Siths to mess things up for me by attacking enemies early.

Timestamp 00:25
Optimization in the route since yesterday: I now defeat the Turks Training Robot before shooting the DG Sergeant. The last enemy to be defeated will drop the cardkey. By making the TTR your penultimate target in this section, I avoid having to waste time running up to this enemy. The downside is that the 7-chain does not guarantee defeating the robot in one shot, while an 8-chain does have that guarantee. So you either hope for good luck that your 7-chain destroys the robot instantly or you go in with the intent of firing two shots. I went with the safe option.

Timestamp 00:42
To unlock the Turks Training Robot in this area you need to cross one of two borders at the fountain.

Spoiler: Event borders

That is why I make this detour. Originally I took the long way around the fountain, crossing "both" borders (they might be one and the same event box), though this was less time efficient and reliably resulted in getting a temporary disc-read error when progressing. No game crash or softlocks but the game would temporarily freeze.

Spoiler: Disc-read pause

Either my console is getting old (which is quite possible) or this flaw is inherent to the mission when played on original hardware. I can't replicate the disc-read pause on emulator though that in no way leads to definitive conclusions.

Timestamp 00:45
Route optimization in the same vein as at 00:25. I cause the two SOLDIER to spawn but I don't waste time running up to them. Previously I would retrieve a cardkey from either of these two SOLDIERs, which was reliable but slow. Now I let either the TTR or one of the surviving SOLDIER from earlier to drop the cardkey, which introduces some elements of randomness because the final SOLDIER may run around at inconvenient places.

Timestamp 01:12
You have about a 50/50 chance of getting shot by the DG Sergeant up ahead. Their aim is just that good. If you are hit, you lose your chain bonus and you can't defeat the next two Turk Training Robots quickly.

On the topic of the training robots, this is where I could *possibly* imagine a re-route to save time. All you need to one-shot the TTRs is Thunder Lv.3 + Manasoul with a 1-chain. So if you could defeat the TTRs second-to-last, by using a Thunder Lv.3 shot from afar, then defeat a DG Sergeant closeby (to have them drop a cardkey) you could save on the time otherwise spent running up to the TTRs. Setting this up may require a big restructuring of the mission, both due to incredibly high risk of taking damage (thus cancelling your chain bonuses) and the issue of having enough MP both for this- and later segments.

Timestamp 01:33
In order to unlock the eight SOLDIER foes you must first cross any of these borders.

Spoiler: Progression triggers

Touch the second step on the stairs and you'll be good to go.

Timestamp 01:13 and 01:54: The nuanced automatic reload mechanic
Observe that my total number of handgun bullets at 01:13 is 96. 15 bullets in the magazine, 81 bullets on reserve. I fire two shots and end up with 9 bullets in the magazine, 81 bullets on reserve. Surely I will have to manually reload the gun soon? As becomes evident at 01:54, an automatic reload has taken care of that for me, without requiring an animation that slows Vincent down. 90 bullets in the magazine, 0 bullets on reserve.

I have no clear memory of consciously registering this automatic reload mechanic before. Most definitely I must have seen it before but only here in EM24, where I got spared from having to do a manual reload, did I make conscious note of it.

The gist of it is that when your magazine has space for the remaining ammo on reserve, then the reserve ammo is added to your magazine automatically when you switch weapons on the fly. Sort of. This auto-reload will never give you a FULL magazine, oddly enough. With 18/99 bullets in the magazine and 81 on reserve, the game will NOT reload your gun to end up with 99/99 bullets. In this scenario, your gun will only be reloaded if you have 17/99 (or fewer) bullets in your magazine.

Timestamp 02:16
Originally I used handgun bullets on the last robots but I routed this final section to only include Thunder Lv.3 magic. This was the fastest method and I just barely recovered enough MP in time for the last magic shot. A Thunder Lv.2 shot would not have been powerful enough, as you need at least a 4-chain to one-shot TTRs with Thunder Lv.2 + Manasoul. I only had a 3-chain.

 

[ForceStealer]

Very cool

 

[Shademp]

Extra Mission #24 "Contra Kalm" ZCH in 01:13.340 RTA (01:13 IGT)

ZCH = Zoom Climb/Hover

This is quite possibly the most difficult zoom climb that I will ever perform. The victory arc has collision that reaches a good height above where it visually ends. As is the mechanic, you will plummet to the ground if you perform even a single melee attack in midair. After performing a double-jump you may only zoom hover, never gaining new height but only slowing down your descent.

Spoiler: Kalm Victory Arc, concept art

Because the red electromagnetic barrier reaches into a ceiling we have no choice but to climb over the entire structure. The actual collision of the electromagnetic barrier is not nearly as tall as the victory arc.
*EDIT: I should have also specified that when getting over the structure you can only pass through exactly above where the wooden gate is already open. After climbing high enough, you must thusly position yourself as though you were running through the open part of the gate. All other parts of the victory arc have infinitely high collision.

Some favor the keyboard when button-mashing for a zoom climb but I prefer the PS2 controller. Normally I alternate on Triangle (Zoom) and Circle (Cancel) with my middle finger and index finger respectively. These fingers tire too quickly for the EM24 climb, so I ended up using my thumbs instead. I press the controller against my waist, get a tight grip and mash with left thumb on Triangle and my right thumb on Circle.

To motivate myself in keeping a rhythm I had the Ninja Gaiden 4-2 theme playing in the background.

During what became a 50-second zoom climb I am not looking at the screen. I am just looking at my thumbs and maintaining the rhythm, sometimes focusing on my breathing and trying to relax my arms. Eventually I "feel" when might be the right time to double-jump and change my grip. The grip change is challenging, as I need to switch to moving the left analog stick and then doing my normal index-middle-finger zoom hover. In the end I did not overshoot the climb by a whole lot, because that's just how tall the collision is.

The central structure near the goal point has a blue barrier, a half-circle path and then a ladder. The blue barrier is fairly tall and I don't want to waste time climbing the ladder, so you need to navigate yourself to the central structure and hover through it as though you were following the path on the ground. This is tricky and I lose a few seconds by misjudging where I am in relation to the stairs leading up to the blue barrier and the half-circle path.

The memory card icon (top right) shows up pretty early when I fall down onto the goal point that ends the mission. That's neat to see that this event box is fairly tall. With that ends my RTA time and I get my IGT of 01:13. By coincidence this is half the time compared to my "glitchless" EM24 IGT of 02:26. A human could definitely get a time below one minute with the zoom climb method. Despite the flaws in my run I will not aim to pursue a better record. Zoom climbing is very taxing and quite frankly not healthy for your hand(s). I can't recommend the challenge in good conscience.


Performing ZCH for faster record times is only viable in about a dozen of the Extra Missions. Generally speaking, they make the runs less "interesting" in my opinion. The primary examples of what I mean:

EM24, Contra Kalm: The zoom climb is painful and way less interesting to watch than the glitchless run.​

EM25, Missilebreaker Deathmatch: You get to sit and wait for two and a half minutes while the mission timer runs out.​

EM27, Vincent the Beast: You wait for almost five minutes while the mission timer runs out.​

EM34, Spiral: You repeatedly fool the game into believing that you've completed the required laps around the map.​

EM45, Stronghold Impervious: You jump over two barriers, spend over a minute city-dashing, then defeat an invisible Chaos. Mission end.​

When pondering a potential speedrun marathon of the 46 Extra Missions, I am leaning towards doing one without zoom climbs. Less content being skipped while still being more healthy on your hands. In defense of a marathon that includes ZCH, at least EM27 guarantees a huge midway pause for the runner to recover from what in the end would be a marathon at around 3 hours.

It's also looking like skipping most of EM23, Rampart Rumble, with zoom climbing is going to be absolutely hilarious.

 

[Shademp]

Animation Bug: No Victory Animation in the Extra Missions

When clearing a mission Vincent will normally spin around his gun and rest it in his holster. This victory animation is probably inspired by the one he used in the original FFVII.

However, if at any point in the mission you transformed into Galian Beast you will not have a victory animation play out when the mission is cleared. This has no impact on your mission clear time.

Somehow, Vincent's state is not properly reset when exiting out of beast form. It may or may not be a coincidence that Galian Beast itself has no victory animation. The bug manifests even in EM27, Vincent the Beast, where the entire point of the mission is to go beast mode. Of course in a speedrun you will ideally avoid going into beast form due to the massive timeloss it means to transform.

The game still tries to call a character animation even in this glitched state when you have completed a mission. Usually it will just show an idle animation, showing nothing more than Vincent's cape resetting oddly due to the idle animation loop being interrupted. However, if for example an enemy launches Vincent into a goal point, then the animation of Vincent picking himself up will play out one extra time. It seems the game is accessing the most recent animation state rather than the victory animation.

If you are in the glitched state when landing on a goal point (or when the timer runs out in EM27), after a jump, the animation of Vincent landing will play two extra times while the "Mission Complete" screen plays out.

Similarly, if you "Game Over" at the same time as you clear a mission with a countdown (<-- old video not centered on the animation glitch), Vincent's KO'd animation will play out again in one half loop and then reset to be fully played out again.


There is no equivalent in the main game of Vincent's victory animation being skipped by having transformed into Galian Beast earlier. Even if you are in Galian Beast form when the Black Widow in Shinra Manor is defeated, the game will fade out, fade back in and show human Vincent doing the victory pose.

 

[ForceStealer]

Very interesting. Crazy all the code oddities you can find in any game if you spend enough time with it.

 

[Shademp]

The Any% speedrun of the main game includes the "Short Basement" zoom climb. Near the elevator that brought Vincent from the sewers and up to the manor basement, the developers forgot/neglected to add collision to the underside of the ceiling. By climbing above the ceiling you can then navigate Vincent past the locked door. Thanks to this you skip most of the underground caverns, cutting 30 seconds from the speedrun.



"Short Basement" is considered to be one of the trickiest zoom climbs due to the horizontal navigation required once you get above the ceiling. The doors are not wide and the same is true for when you hover the space above them. It's easy to end up hovering against a wall and not finding where the door is supposed to be.

For this reason I am amused by how the Shinra Manor is set up in the Extra Missions. In there, the room with the metal gate has NO underside ceiling collision. Meanwhile the room connected to the elevator is completely solid in its corresponding collision.



Keep in mind there is one error in this snapshot due to it being taken in the main game. The metal gate is actually open at all times during the Extra Missions, though it is blocked by a red barrier in the mission Shinra Manor Prime. By zoom climbing above the red barrier, and the next barrier a bit further ahead, you can achieve the Extra Mission equivalent of "Short Basement", thus clearing the mission faster. The intermediate corridor has some boxes you need to navigate around (boxes that are not present in the "single player" map) but other than that it's a pretty easy zoom climb/hover.


While hovering above the ceiling in EM19, Chamber of Ghosts, I learned that the teleporting ghost will hide in the adjacent room, beyond the metal gate, when the ghost is not present in your designated area.

Spoiler: Hiding ghost

Within the confines of the library you can angle a precise Fire Lv.3 shot to travel through the red barrier and the open metal gate, exploding wide enough to hit the hiding ghost. No cheats required. This is not at all an efficient strategy but it's fun to know that you can damage the target even when they are not in the room with you.