Self-imposed challenges

[Flintlock]

I thought this thread already existed, but after extensive searching, the closest I found was this, which has been inactive since 2010. So forgive me if this is a duplicate. It ties in with a front page article I'll be publishing soon; I want to have a place to discuss it on the forum.

What do you think of self-imposed challenges in Final Fantasy games? Speed runs, low level games, single character challenges and so on. Do you have any interest in watching them, maybe on Youtube? Have you tried any yourself? If so, what were they, and how did they go?

 

[Lex]

I tend to watch them a lot on YouTube. As far as doing any, the only one I ever did was the VII race, so I suppose that counts as a speedrun (a 2 segment speedrun I might add, high five Flint).

Although I just finished watching "InvincibleGarland"'s Excalibur II perfect game and I'm a bit disappointed. It's not a perfect game until you've maxed everyone out and gone back and done everything, and this dude seems to think it's OK to stop recording the moment he picked up Excalbur II. No pal, that's not how it works. YOUR VIDEO SERIES IS UNFINISHED.

 

[Sprites]

Should have called it Getting Excalibur II instead then he can't classify it as a perfect game on youtube if he's not going to show us the other stuff.

I love speedruns, personally I don't have the patience for a speedrun (oh the irony), especially when you read about the detail that goes into them, I believe the current record for FFVII is around 7 hours or so. I like watching low level challenges too and seeing the effort and strategy that goes into it but again I wouldn't have the patience for it.

 

[Lex]

I felt the same before doing the race, it was actually a lot of fun and challenging. I don't have the patience to do it in segments and repeat and repeat to get the perfect outcomes and stuff, that would just bore me into insanity. I wouldn't mind doing it with an emulator but the whole soft-reset reload thing would kill me.

So the fun I get out of it is doing the game from start to finish as quick as I can, but not making it "perfect" time-wise.

 

[Splintered]

I enjoy speedruns but I'm not consistently watching them, I've seen bits and pieces of different runs. The only challenge I've done is a low crystarium run on XIII-2, but it wasn't anything serious. I tried to speed through VII once many years ago before I knew about speed runs but halfway through I got sucked back into my bad habit of grinding and chocobo breeding. It's compulsive.

That said, there's a streaming event I've watched for the past to years that speed runs for a week (for Cancer Research charity). I think it's by a group called something like Awesome Games Done Quick or whatever, but they are the ones that made me interested in watching speed running.

 

[Flintlock]

I felt the same before doing the race, it was actually a lot of fun and challenging. I don't have the patience to do it in segments and repeat and repeat to get the perfect outcomes and stuff, that would just bore me into insanity. I wouldn't mind doing it with an emulator but the whole soft-reset reload thing would kill me.

So the fun I get out of it is doing the game from start to finish as quick as I can, but not making it "perfect" time-wise.

Rematch?

1whoistornapart has videos on Youtube of the E2PG after actually getting the sword, but they're taken from VHS, so not great quality.

 

[Kuja9001]

My challenge, FFVIII "No GF" Run(picked up from GF)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB47675E10D5A0085&feature=mh_lolz

 

[Dawnbreaker]

I think the only real self-imposed challenge I've ever done (everything else was optional boss and secret dungeons, etc.) was the four white mage challenge. I read in a Nintendo Power and ever since then wanted to do it. A few years back I accomplished it. Sadly never did bump into Warmech so I couldn't complete that particular part, but I did finish the game itself. Eat that, Chaos!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I once played through FFTactics only allowing myself to kill bosses by using Throw Stone. Of course, stuff that didn't damage them was still fair game, so I used Speed Break on them until they were effectively immobilized first.

In Zalmo's case, this was particularly fun. I cornered him on top of the church, kept Delita from getting close to him, and stoned/healed Zalmo until one of the stones finally knocked him off the top of the church to his death.

 

[Abortedj]

Once did a level 1 Ozma run on FF9. It is not as hard as one might thinks, as there are more than a few attacks that can do max damage even without leveling at all.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

oh god I could never defeat Ozma. He was one of the few FF optional bosses that I could never defeat as is, to say nothing of a handicap. xD

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Ozma is a monster, yeah. There are a number of tricks that can make him almost too easy (Thievery, Dragon's Crest, Frog Drop, the Friendly Monsters sidequest, Return Magic, and more besides), but for the player who has not gone out of their way to prepare specifically for him, he's a beast.

Personally, I never enjoyed FFIX's battle system enough to really get my party in a position to abuse those abilities before confronting Ozma. I still beat him a couple of times, though.

 

[SirVival]

I've done pretty much every challenge there is, starting from the simple No Materia to the infamous LLNMIENA. Choose self imposed challenge and you can't go wrong.

 

[Flintlock]

Here's the finished article: ten ways to make Final Fantasy VII more challenging

 

[ForceStealer]

I've never had the patience for most of those. The only one that's ever appealed to me was the single character one.

 

[Flintlock]

The single character challenge was definitely a lot of fun. More enjoyable than the no materia challenge, which is the only other one I've tried. I'm sure I'll take on something else next time I play the game

 

[SirVival]

The single character challenge was definitely a lot of fun. More enjoyable than the no materia challenge, which is the only other one I've tried. I'm sure I'll take on something else next time I play the game

The single character challenges are definitely fun and as for the no materia one, I think that's a good challenge to start with. Before attempting the other ones. Enemy Skill challenge was also on of my personal favourites. I think FF7 was the only game I ever bothered to play like this, but thank god I don't have that kind of freetime anymore.

 

[Drax]

Clearly I haven't played this game until I play low-level, HDINS, blindfolded.

 

[Abortedj]

FF9 is my favorite of the Playstantion1/2 Final Fantasies. Was thinking of another challenge, but not sure if it would work. A run without using any of the passive abilities, might be interesting.

Other ones that I have done, are an FF1 run with only a Red Mage. A natural magic run of FF6, that was a bitch. A no classes run of FF5, by far the worst. That is pretty much all of them (as they relate to Final Fantasy anyway).

 

[AvecAloes]

A natural magic run of FF6

What does that mean?

 

[ForceStealer]

I guess the only magic you can use are Terra and celes? A no-magicite run?

 

[AvecAloes]

Mm, just magic that they gain with level ups, in that case?

 

[Dawnbreaker]

As far as I understand, yes, that's exactly what it means. No magicite. Incidently I didn't even know that they continued to gain spells with levels after I started acquiring magicite. I was shocked when I found that Terra had learned Fire 3 and I hadn't even any fire-related esker on her. roffles @ self

If I wasn't so busy with rl and Skryim I'd try out one of these. Probably a single character run, since I don't care for a lot of those. They're good challenges, but not a lot of fun for me. Maybe FF4 with a Cecil-only? I saw a guy try that on youtube and he actually beat Zeromus. Holy crap!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Here's the finished article: ten ways to make Final Fantasy VII more challenging

I had a moment just now to read the whole article. I'm glad I don't have time to try any of these, as I'm fairly tempted by a couple.

Great work putting this together, by the way. It was thorough, and the wording made it fun to read. =)

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Why did you neglect to include the Tifa date, Low Affection Highwind challenge? It's challenging because you have to keep Tifa's affection rating above everyone else's but below 50 so you can get both the Tifa date and the Low Affection Highwind scene. You generally need a pen(cil) and paper to keep track of what everyone's affection ratings are. I've personally always wanted to try that challenge, but have always been too lazy to.