Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift is a 2007 tactical RPG for the Nintendo DS. The plot revolves around Luso Clemens, who is transported to the fictional universe of Ivalice via a magical book.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.10
- Aims to complete the game as quickly as possible
- Relies heavily on a (broken) skill combination that can be acquired relatively early
- Manipulates RNG ... somewhat
Comments
Routing credit goes to the current RTA WR holder, KaguyaNicky, and one ancient GameFaqs thread. The major bottleneck in the run is getting 3 specific loot drops from enemies. RNG is manipulated so that these drops are acquired within the first few battles. A team of speedy Seeqs is then built with Item Lore and Mirror Item. This combination makes an X-Potion do 400 damage. There are plenty of other funky builds in FFTA2, but this setup is easy to get going early.
RNG in FFTA2 is a bit of a nightmare to manipulate. The game increments a timer every frame, and this timer is used as a starting seed for each battle. So, you can change the beginning of a battle for a favourable setup by delaying the input to travel to that battle. The trouble is, this RNG value - which is primarily used for battle action rolls, e.g., damage values - is changed only by a battle action. Nothing else. Thus, it's fairly limited in what you can achieve with it, as far as I can tell. In addition, there are (at least) two other RNG values that are not affected in this way. Instead, these values are adjusted by many other kinds of actions, both in and out of battle. These values determine enemy movement, actions, loot drops, and probably more. Selecting and deselecting a unit for placement in battle advances these values. This strategy is used to get the loot drops. Otherwise, much like the first RNG, once a battle is underway, there's nothing you can do to change these values other than take an action, limiting manipulation.
I kept a document with some random notes I made while constructing the TAS, in case anyone finds it useful: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xlhLUBogJ9kCwDaHVAkjjpkeHeB16hJmE4x63Cy36h4/edit?usp=sharing
eien86: Claiming for judging.