This TAS has been done mostly on Bizhawk 2.6.2 but should sync on the latest version of Bizhawk.
It is the any% category of Final Fantasy VII and is the one that was presented at MagWest 2025 on the 9th of August.
It features the recently discovered Disc 1 skip and saves over an hour compared to the latest published TAS. We also don't pick up Cait Sith anymore so there's no distinction between Slots and No Slots left for the any% run.
Like every PSX TASes, I must start by saying that Bizhawk emulates PS1 loading speed. It cannot be compared with runs done on a PS2 with Fast Disc Speed.
A few interesting addresses :
0x62D4C : Joker Value (4 bytes)
0x9D264 : In-Game Time in seconds (4 bytes)
0x51568 : Global Frame counter (4 bytes)
0x7173C : Danger value (2 bytes)
0x9C6D8 : Step Fraction (1 byte)
0x9C540 : StepID (1 byte)
0x9AD2C : Loop Value (1 byte)
0x71C20 : Formation (1 byte)
0x4A630 : Stones (1 byte)
0x95DC8 : List (1 byte)
0xF7DB2 : Escaping Difficulty (1 byte)
0xF5BBC : ATB Character 1 (2 bytes)
0xF5C00 : ATB Character 2 (2 bytes)
0xF5C44 : ATB Character 3 (2 bytes)
Enemies ATB :
0xF5CCC (2 bytes)
0xF5D10 (2 bytes)
0xF5D54 (2 bytes)
0xF5D98 (2 bytes)
0xF5DDC (2 bytes)
0xF5E20 (2 bytes)
0xF85AC : Enemy 1 HP
Battle RNG :
0x62E10 (1 byte)
to
0x62E17 (1 byte)
0x62E18 : Battle RNG Pointer(1 byte)
At the beginning of the game, your Danger value, Step fraction, StepID, Loop value, Formation, List and Joker value are initialised to 0.
Stones is set to 1.
Every frame of movement, your Step fraction increases by 32. When it reaches 256, it rolls back to 0 and if the field is hostile stepID increases by 2 and Danger increases as well.
By how much Danger increases is field dependent but also depends on whether you are running or walking when it does.
If you are walking it increases only by a fourth of the value. But because it only checks if you're running or walking on this specific frame, we can be running all the time and let run go for one frame then start running again when we only want lower danger increases. This is called stutter-step.
When StepID reaches 256, it rolls back to 0 and the Loop value increases by 13.
The game uses this RNG table :
rnlist = [0xB1, 0xCA, 0xEE, 0x6C, 0x5A, 0x71, 0x2E, 0x55, 0xD6, 0x00, 0xCC, 0x99, 0x90, 0x6B, 0x7D, 0xEB, 0x4F, 0xA0, 0x07, 0xAC, 0xDF, 0x8A, 0x56, 0x9E, 0xF1, 0x9A, 0x63, 0x75, 0x11, 0x91, 0xA3, 0xB8, 0x94, 0x73, 0xF7, 0x54, 0xD9, 0x6E, 0x72, 0xC0, 0xF4, 0x80, 0xDE, 0xB9, 0xBB, 0x8D, 0x66, 0x26, 0xD0, 0x36, 0xE1, 0xE9, 0x70, 0xDC, 0xCD, 0x2F, 0x4A, 0x67, 0x5D, 0xD2, 0x60, 0xB5, 0x9D, 0x7F, 0x45, 0x37, 0x50, 0x44, 0x78, 0x04, 0x19, 0x2C, 0xEF, 0xFD, 0x64, 0x81, 0x03, 0xDA, 0x95, 0x4C, 0x7A, 0x0B, 0xAD, 0x1F, 0xBA, 0xDD, 0x3E, 0xF9, 0xD7, 0x1A, 0x29, 0xF8, 0x18, 0xB3, 0x20, 0xF6, 0xD1, 0x5E, 0x34, 0x92, 0x7B, 0x24, 0x43, 0x88, 0x97, 0xD4, 0x0F, 0x35, 0xAA, 0x83, 0x68, 0x27, 0xA8, 0xD5, 0xBE, 0xFA, 0x14, 0x31, 0xAF, 0x10, 0x0D, 0xD8, 0x6A, 0xCE, 0x23, 0x61, 0xF3, 0x3D, 0xA4, 0x08, 0x33, 0xE3, 0xA9, 0x38, 0xE6, 0x93, 0x1D, 0x1C, 0xF0, 0x0E, 0x87, 0x59, 0x65, 0x82, 0xBC, 0xFF, 0xFE, 0x7E, 0x8F, 0xC1, 0x1E, 0xF5, 0xCB, 0x49, 0x02, 0x32, 0x09, 0xC4, 0x8E, 0xC6, 0x2B, 0x40, 0xA7, 0x17, 0x76, 0x3B, 0x16, 0x2A, 0xC8, 0xFB, 0xB2, 0x58, 0xA5, 0x15, 0xAE, 0x25, 0xCF, 0x46, 0xC7, 0x48, 0xB4, 0x0A, 0x3F, 0xC9, 0x06, 0x85, 0x51, 0x89, 0x62, 0x4D, 0x12, 0x8C, 0xEA, 0xA2, 0x98, 0x4B, 0x79, 0x6F, 0x5C, 0x47, 0x30, 0x1B, 0xE7, 0xC5, 0x22, 0x9C, 0xE8, 0x96, 0x3A, 0xE4, 0x7C, 0xE0, 0x69, 0xA1, 0xB7, 0x05, 0x39, 0x74, 0x01, 0x9F, 0xBD, 0xC3, 0x84, 0xFC, 0x77, 0x86, 0x13, 0x4E, 0xBF, 0xF2, 0x53, 0x5B, 0xED, 0x21, 0x8B, 0x6D, 0xC2, 0x41, 0xB6, 0xDB, 0x3C, 0xD3, 0x28, 0xEC, 0x2D, 0xE2, 0x9B, 0xA6, 0x42, 0x52, 0x57, 0x5F, 0xE5, 0xAB, 0xB0, 0x0C]
And then StepID and Loop Value to calculate the threshold over which, if your Danger value is, triggers a "random" encounter.
Dangerrng = (rnlist[StepID+1]- Loop)%255
Threshold = (Dangerrng+1)*256
When your Danger value is above the threshold, the game uses the Formation value to determine which enemies it's gonna give you and increases it.
Now to deal with the field encounters, there are several possibilities.
Using stutter-steps to get lower danger increases might help going under the threshold of certain StepIDs that would trigger an encounter if just running.
Sometimes though it is too low and we have to hit it.
But then we can use a Menu glitch.
A Menu glitch is the action if calling the menu on the frame a battle would happen. It removes the battle and increases the Formation value but doesn't reset the Danger value.
So unfortunately after doing it a couple of times, the Danger would be too high and it would become inefficient to Menu glitch ten times in a row.
Because using the Menu glitch does increase the Formation value, some are used to specifically manipulate the enemies we want and not because we couldn't avoid them.
The third way is simply accepting a battle and running away.
If a Menu glitch is performed though, one has to accept an encounter after it and BEFORE a forced encounter happens even if it could be skipped because this turns on a flag that causes the double-battle glitch.
The double-battle glitch makes the forced encounter happens twice in a row which we usually don't want.
So some of the fight we're getting could have been Menu glitched, but have to be fought to avoid this glitch.
List is a value that is used to pick a random number in the rnlist above every time the field needs RNG. It is used for several things in the background that most of the time don't affect us, but is also manipulated in our favor in some very important cases like the Shinra elevator or the Final Descent.
Every time it is called the game increases the value by a set number called Stones.
Stones starts at 1. Gets set to 33 in the squat mini-game. Changes again when we press the button in the elevator to stop the elevator in Shinra's HQ. And that's it for this run, it doesn't change after that. (Older TASes had it change again by digging in Bone Village).
Stones value though will always be a multiple of 16, plus 1.
Battle RNG :
I'd recommend watching AceZephyr video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jka1NKzn8o)
it explains it way better than I could.
World Map encounters and movement :
0x11627C : WMEncounterCheck (1 byte)
0x116284 : WMDangerValue (2 bytes)
0x10AE58 : WMRNGIndex (2 bytes)
0x10AE5C : Start of the WMRNGTable
The WMRNGTable is seeded by your In-Game time.
WMEncounterCheck starts at 116 when you enter the World Map and is set to 226 when dismounting a Chocobo or exiting a vehicle. It increases by 1 for every frame of movement. As long as it is above 16, no battle can occur. Once it reaches 256, it loops back to 0. From there, when it reaches 17, WMDangerValue increases by a value depending on where you are and it is reset to 0.
When WMDangerValue increases the game checks for the value in the WMRNGTable pointed at by the WMRNGIndex, adds one and multiply by 256. If it's lower than WMDangerValue you get a battle.
The WMRNGIndex value increases on every battle checks and depending on which buttons are pressed. Things like the Zolom also called for it.
Left and Right increase both WMEncounterCheck and WMRNGIndex. Up and Down increase WMEncounterCheck only. R1 and L1 increase WMRNGIndex only. Because of this, it is pretty easy to avoid encounter or trigger specific ones.
Long story short, on the World Map, the most efficient way to travel is by moving diagonally due to how speed is calculated when pressing two directions.
Cloud Surfing :
If you want to understand what's going on in the new skip and the world map shenanigans, it is very well explained here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHn6jpKsYCk
Stats :
All the characters always start with their stats and level set in the memory of the game.
When a character joins the party, the game calculates how much experience they should receive to reach the level they're going to join us with and give it to them.
Effectively leveling them up during the naming screen.
Stats can be manipulated on level up, as the game will use the current battle RNG to decide if they should increase and by how much.
Characters outside the current party do also receive a bit of experience even if they didn't participate in the battle, so some can actually level up off screen.
This means we should manipulate on which value of the battle RNG the fight ends on, if somebody relevant levels up after the battle or if the battle is the last one before reaching the naming screen of a character.
Paralysis dodge :
A glitch that is used quite a few times. On certain occasions, we can trigger two actions at the same time, usually by talking to someone at the same time that we go over a trigger zone, but not limited to.
This allows us to keep control of the character and move on way sooner than otherwise by exiting the area or doing two things at the same time.
Renaming characters :
On Fastest, text boxes print 6 characters every 2 frames (60fps). Which means that renaming our heroes to a one letter name will save a couple of frames most of the time their names appear in a dialog.
There is a skip right at the beginning of the game where by positioning Cloud perfectly, we can skip the dialogs with the members of Avalanche and save a bunch of seconds.
However this forbids us to rename Cloud and Barret and Barret joins at level 1 as his naming screen where he'd level up never happens. This would effectively lose too much time to be worth it over the whole run.
On the topic of printing characters in text boxes, for the longest ones, it is possible to slightly speed up the printing by keeping circle pressed. It saves a couple of frames here and there.
ATB Wait tricking :
If one of our character is filling its ATB faster than the enemy (either normally or after getting a limit), we can hold on time after the enemy's turn, while our character does its move, and release time when he's done, so they start filling at the same time and we, being faster, can act twice in a row.
Escaping :
Every fight has a value that I like to call Escaping difficulty. It's a value between 1 and 4 (for escapable battles) that determines the numbers of checks that should be successful before escaping.
Because the game performs check only after some time while we're actively running (not with time on hold), manipulating a successful check is as simple as holding time for a few frames, so it happens on a different RNG value.
Most battle in this run have an escaping difficulty of 1 so they are not too difficult to instant-escape, but with a notable exception for the Midgar Zolom which has a difficulty of 3.
There is a neat little trick that can be done. If we stop running on the exact frame the last check is successful, we are in a weird state where the escaping difficulty is at 0 but we stay in the battle. But then, if we start running again, we instant-escape even if we are holding time.
This effectively allows to escape a battle on any battle rng we want without having to worry about the escaping check at the same time.
This can be used to manipulate the stats of a character joining us after that battle, or for example, get a different joker value (see battle rng video) for more optimal starting atb on the next fight.
Pause/Unpause :
During a battle, by pausing and unpausing on very specific frames it is possible to alter the movement of the battle rng pointer so it reaches slightly earlier value than otherwise.
It is used for example in battles, where the last attacks has to happen on a specific frame (for a critical for example) so we can have two manipulations (one for the crit, and one for the stat increases on level up) instead of one.
It can also be used to change the parity on the field, so the next battle happens on an odd frame instead of even or vice versa as a one frame difference can make an important change on battle rng.
Critical Hits :
Long story short, if our (current level + current luck - enemy level)/4 > 1, we can crit. The higher this value, the more likely it is.
About the run :
Immediately in the first fight, we manipulate on what battle rng value the battle ends, as this will be used for Cloud and Barret stats.
On Guard Scorpion, older TASes used to use Cloud Limit so they could get away with just critical otherwise, but it has been pointed out to me that using the limit on Aps would be more useful.
So we use a combination of critical and magic to make enough damage without wasting too much time and leave with a limit (because there are not a lot of values that results in a critical, sometimes manipulating one takes forever and isn't worth it).
On the next battle, we use the Escaping delay, to manipulate the battle rng to get good stats on Tifa.
In the train, we get the first exemple of Paralysis Dodge. We talk to Jesse and try to exit the wagon at the same time to trigger. Then we clear the text box, exit and come back to skip a sequence. This saves 11-12 seconds.
Before entering the bar, you will see console runners going out and back in the field so they don't have to wait. While this is faster on a PS2 with Fast Disc Speed, it is slower on Bizhawk than just waiting.
Minor paralysis dodge in the bar basement, which saves about one second.
As usual with FF7 runs, we buy grenades as they are pretty powerful at this point of the game.
We perform Guard Skip to reach Wall Market early. With careful positioning it is possible to skip past the guards and completely skip the whole Sector 5 sections. Saves around 20 minutes.
Aerith cannot be renamed and thus joins at level 1 but it's definitely worth it.
In Wall Market, we perform a bunch of sidequests to have Cloud picked up by Don Corneo. It is faster overall to have him picked rather than the girls by around a minute.
Couple of paralysis dodge as well for good measure.
We happen to fight Aps on an hostile field, which means that it is possible to fight it in Pre-emptive Attack. Though the next StepID that was a Pre-emptive one was pretty far so we had to walk a lot before triggering the fight.
While leaving Guard Scorpion with a limit and setting up a pre-emptive did cost a lot of time, it saves double to start the fight with a Braver critical.
We pick up the Steal Materia and set up fights against 4 Deenglows. They attack the character with the highest HP, so we make sure it's always Cloud to refill his limit gauge while stealing Ethers to mostly sell later, as money will be pretty tight in this run.
Reno fight. We make sure Cloud is targeted by the pyramid as he is the slowest grenade thrower. Tifa gets hit to almost get a limit. Used ATB Wait tricking to get 2 turns with Tifa (fastest thrower).
Before going for Shinra HQ, we sell most of the Ethers and the Assault Gun to buy an awful lot of grenades.
List has been carefully manipulated to enter the Shinra HQ to be at a value which modulo 16 is equal to 13. This will set up a paralysis dodge later.
First fight in the HQ, battle rng is manipulated to drop 2 Grenades. (Only 2 values out of 256 give that)
Every grenade saved is time saved.
List was manipulated for the elevator. Stones is updated every time we push the button to try to stop it and we wanna leave it on a stone value of 65 and List value of 146.
Floor 29, 38, 47 and 56 open up on a Shinra employee and no fight. So we target first floor 17, as it will cost 2 grenades and can drop some (though we only take 1 drop as we have to manipulate stats increases at the same time)
Then floor 29, 38 and 47, at which point we don't have to go for 56, we can jump straight to 59.
Next fight, we drop 2 Tranquilizers as 3 isn't possible. We'll use them so anything we don't have to buy is free money.
After the scene in the vent we perform a paralysis dodge on a Shinra employee, that only leaves if the field rng is lower than 6 at the moment of the check. This is why List and Stones were manipulated. Saves about 4 seconds.
We perform a paralysis dodge again, to pick up Poison faster. We don't need Poison specifically, but we have to waste steps before the next battle and it will boost our magic stat later on, which is also the reason why we'll pick up Summon materias later.
We steal the Hardedge as it does way more damages than the Buster Sword and use Pause/Unpause to manipulate Red stats.
Don't be fooled by the apparent ease with which we steal. From this one to the end of the run, most of the steals we do have very low odds to be successful.
Not much to say about the Sample fight. The minions have a chance to do nothing each turn, so they'll just do that and Sample is manipulated to give Cloud his limit, which we use to wait trick.
Picking up the Enemy Skill materia to learn two important ones later.
Paralysis dodge after exiting our cell, which saves 4-5 seconds.
We use the next Menu glitch, to equip Cloud with the Hardedge as well as Elemental+Lightning on it. Cloud is put in back row, as it doesn't matter for Rufus, but that'll put him in front row for Motor ball since it's a back attack.
Hundred Gunner and Heli Gunner are pretty standard fights except we use Critical Limit to skip an attack from Hundred Gunner and an animation from Heli gunner.
Pause/Unpause to manipulate stats increases after a critical.
Against Rufus, the Hardedge already pays off by being able to one-shot him with a critical. Limits ignore row so this is why it doesn't matter that we're in the back.
We use the Motorcycle mini-game to lower Red HP. Motor ball will open with attacks that target the character with the highest HP and it's important that it hits Cloud at least once.
Funny thing about back attack is that the enemy doesn't start with full atb. So if its starting ATB is low enough and it triggers a limit we can outspeed it and get first turn.
It might not seem much but it gives me way more control over the fight as I now can skip a throw later if it allows for a quicker critical from Cloud.
Motor ball being weak to Lightning, Cloud does a lot of damages. So much that it is actually possible to jump from over the threshold of 325HP to 0HP and avoid the long standing animation before it dies.
Pause/Unpause for stats manipulation.
And a paralysis dodge to leave Midgar.
LEAVING MIDGAR
By reaching close to the farm on a very specific, pixel perfect coordinate, it is possible to enter from a distance. (Coordinate at 0x10A568 has to be equal to 0x219C9 exactly)
Buying Chocobo Lure and equiping it to go catch a Chocobo.
Unfortunately whether I equiped before or after entering the World Map, both In-Game Time values would not give me a quick first check encounter, so the fastest I could get is a second check encounter.
Chocobos on the farm side of the marsh are not supposed to stay put when we dismount them. But we can do it on the other side. So what we can do is step on the other side and trigger a fight with the Zolom at the same time.
When we escape, it puts us back on the farm side as it considers it was the last side we were on, but we had cross the line where we are able to dismount, and the flag is not turned off by the fight.
So we can now dismount Choco and it will wait for us on this side of the marsh as well.
As mentionned, the Zolom has an escaping difficulty of 3, but if its ATB starts close to the lowest possible, and we're perfect in the escaping checks, we can actually instant-escape. It is super tight though.
Pause/Unpause to manipulate the Joker value and get good starting ATB on the next encounter.
We can now perform some Cloud Surfing to reach the City of the Ancients. (aka Disc 1 skip)
We need to go to Bone Village to do some shopping, however the Game Moment (the value that keeps track of where we are in the plot) is still at "Watched the end of the road cutscene after Motor Ball".
Which means that if we go now, we cannot come back as we don't have the Lunar Harp and at this Game Moment, we're not offered to dig for it.
So we go rest at the Shell Hut, which advances the Game Moment past the "You have used the Lunar Harp".
We perform a paralysis dodge to pick up another Enemy Skill and, since we have to wait before leaving that the game turns to night mode, we even have time for a free menu. We use it to put Cloud back in front row at no cost.
Picked up Kjata for the magic boost.
We sell the All Materia (since it got AP, it's worth a decent amount of Gil), as well as a few item drops, to buy some Phoenix Down, Ether, Hyper, Tranquilizer and Tent.
On the way back we pick up the Water Ring. It will essentially render us invicible against Jenovah-LIFE, which is super important considering how underleveled we are now.
Used the encounter to steal Dazers. They can be used to paralyse an enemy for a short period of time.
We put Ice+Elemental on Red's armor for a later fight. He also equips an Enemy Skill.
Cloud equips the Water Ring and gets the other Enemy Skill, Comet and Kjata to boost Magic without losing Strength.
For Jenovah-LIFE, we want to make it run out of MP as its attacks would easily kill anyone not wearing the Water Ring.
It can start the fight with any of its move, so it's ideal for us that it starts with Aqualung as this cost the most MP.
Then it does 1 or 2 Blue Light, followed by 1 or 2 Blue Light, followed by 1 Blue Flame. After Blue Flame it randomly can do Aqualung or start the sequence again.
Aqualung cost 34 MP, Blue Light 8 MP and Blue Flame 12 MP.
Jenovah-LIFE has 300 MP so we want as many Aqualung as possible. It will also counter the first Comet with Reflect that costs 30 MP, so we wanna cast it before she ran out of MP as well to lower its MP faster.
Once she's out of them, we revive everybody and keep attacking on top of using all the grenades we have left.
In terms of Damage per second, it is slightly better to use an Ether and a Comet than grenades, but we wanna keep some Ether for later.
Because we are so underleveled, it is not possible to critical hit at all.
Fight over, we're out of Disc 1.
We pick up the Bolt Armlet and a Megalixir.
We use the battle to steal another Water Ring. We don't need it but it sells for 5000 Gil.
We pick up a Power Source before leaving.
This is debatable. I use it on Tifa, so she has enough strength at the end of the game to only have to critical Bizarro once instead of twice, but it costs about 100 frames to get.
So it may or may not save time at the end of the game depending on battle rng against Bizarro.
If I had to redo, I think I'll skip it though.
Use a tent to refill everybody's HP/MP, then unequip Hardedge, Mythril Armlet and Water Ring.
We then sell a Mythril Armlet, the Water Rings and the Hardedge to buy the Organics and a tent.
We pick up the Hero Drink and perform a paralysis dodge with the door, so we can dodge Elena's punch before she even throws it.
Next battle, we steal a Circlet. It greatly improves the Magic stat of the wearer (+30)
Once again the odds of stealing it are very low.
Pause/Unpause to manipulate the Joker value for good starting ATB on the next battle.
On the snowy field like we want to go North, but as the World Map it is faster to run diagonally, so we try to manipulate the rotations so the north is diagonally from us the most possible.
We equip the Organics (more powerful and gives nice magic increase), the Bolt Armlet (to absorb Lightning) and Circlet on Cloud.
Wizard Bracelet on Red.
Tifa gets the Steal materia, Cloud takes all the magic materia to boost his stat and Added Cut linked to Comet.
Pick up the Javelin to sell later.
Manipulating 3 X-Potions drop plus really nice stats increases from the next battle. 2 X-Potions would have been enough but it didn't cost more time.
On the second climbing section, your temperature starts dropping faster under 32°, so it would have actually saved about 20 frames to start shivering at the beginning instead of at the end to stay above 32° longer.
Little timesave for another run.
We fight a Stilva to learn Magic Breath that Cloud can survive thanks to the Bolt Armlet.
Not much to say about the Icicles. They are manipulated for good stat increases, especially Cloud Dexterity so he can ATB Wait trick Schizo.
Pick up the Enhance Sword to sell later.
We use a tent on the save point instead of the well of light because the latter unfortunately removes the Sadness status.
And we need Sadness for the next fight. Because it reduces the damages taken by 30% in exchange for slower Limit increase.
Red takes the Fire Armlet and Circlet to absorb Fire damage and increase his magic. Cloud gets the Wizard Bracelet to increase his magic as well and Tifa gets Bolt Armlet to absorb Lightning damages.
Then the Schizo fight is pretty simple. Since Red takes half damage from Ice (Ice+Elemental materias) and absorbs Fire, we make Schizo attack him and him only.
We ATB Wait trick with Cloud and have Tifa healing as each head counters with a Earth attack on all after having had actions on them respectively 5 and 6 times.
Tifa steals the Protect Ring as well, which counts as an action but since it's on the head that requires 5 action, it doesn't give us an additional counter which would have been the case if it was on the other head.
Because action number 12 is the one that kills it doesn't trigger the 4th Earth counter, but both death counter which are Lightning so that Tifa absorbs.
We encounter a Gigas aka Big Shoes, to steal a Gigas Armlet. It gives +30 Strength and was dropped by Demons Gate, but since that was skipped, this is the backup.
Picked up Neo Bahamuth to increase Magic.
Cloud gets the Gigas Armlet and Circlet for stats, Red get the Wizard Bracelet for better magic, and Tifa gets the Fire Armlet to absorb Fire damages.
The magic and summon materias are set up in such way that Cloud still has enough HP to tank two Fire attacks from the next boss with Fire+Elemental on, while getting a Limit from one.
For Jenovah-DEATH, we use the Hero Drink now as we'll use both Strength and Magic.
It has a 50/50 chance to start either with Silence or with Red Light.
We chose Red Light as we want damages done on Cloud as soon as possible.
As long as it is above 25% of its max HP, every time it does Red Light, it can do it 1,2 or 3 times in a row.
So every instance is manipulated to be 1 time on Cloud, so he can attack and wait trick a Braver.
Once it has done it for two turns, it uses Tropic Wind. Tifa can absorb it, it wouldn't do enough damages to Cloud to trigger a limit.
Then if nobody is Silenced yet, it does Silence. We've make it miss the first time so it'd try again on the next sequence
It skips then 2 turns and start again. In those instances we use Comet+Added Cut to deal damages.
Once we arrive slightly above the 25% threshold, we use Magic Breath once to stay above.
It uses Red Light once.
Under 25% Red Light would be used 2 or 3 times in a row and not once anymore, so we use Dazers to paralyse and finish the job.
We pick up MP Turbo to boost our Comet spells and the Poison Ring to sell later.
Because we never recruited Cait Sith, he is still Young Cloud in the memory. We can take his Preemptive materia and equipment but it's not worth it.
Though he doesn't appear in battle and Barret is to fight solo.
Junon FMV Skip : Despite his model being invisible, Barret is present in the room and can be controled. So we make him exit the room and skip a good chunk of FMV. This saves around a minute fifteen.
In the gas chamber it's 2 frames faster to start by the right arm instead of the left.
It is unfortunately faster to let Scarlet wins the slap fight, even with perfect RNG for Tifa...
Cait Sith and Red in the team, fastest sequence in Mideel by a few seconds. We're not doing the Curse Ring sidequest, we can do faster later.
Right as Cid becomes the leader we will now take Aerith whenever we can (aka not softlocking). It saves time in places where she's not supposed to be as she doesn't have any dialog.
But also on every loading screen where her model is not supposed to be there the game doesn't load it and as such is 10 frames faster than if we had taken a character that has a model.
(Aerith in Mideel though is softlocking)
Now Game Moment is far enough that we can rent a stable to have our own Chocobo. We have to do that otherwise the Chocobo would still run away when we try to dismount it for Cloud Surfing.
Instead of catching a new one we can just take the one we used for Disc 1 skip.
Fort Condor : We sell all the items we took from chests and the Bolt Armlet and buy Deathblow and Destruct materias as well as a few Hi-Potion, Phoenix Down, Ether, Tranquilizer, Tent and S-Mine.
We need more than 4000 Gil to start the mini-game but then the fastest way of dealing with it is just to lose.
So we put 4 Tristoners that we remove immediately so we don't have any money left and then suicide the party.
Because we never lowered the bridge, we have to enter by Mt. Corel, however if we land the highwind there, when we're done and go out by North Corel, we'd have no transportation.
Not to worry we can park the highwind in front of North Corel, then Cloud Surf (Cid Surf ?) to reach the entrance of Mt.Corel.
We put the Mythril Armlet on Aerith so she has more spots for materia, Red gets the Circlet as he'll be the main caster.
Aerith gets Destruct for later and Enemy Skill, Red gets Steal, MP Turbo+Comet and the rest is just filling to increase Magic.
Red is put in back row since we need for him to take less physical damages later.
We can fight the Attack Squads in Pre-emptive. Doesn't save a ton of time, but we have a Preemptive StepID close so we might as well use it.
The first sequence of the train is an example of Aerith being in the team saving time, by not having a model or dialogs.
First fight : We manipulated Red's stat all along for this. He has just enough magic to one-shot the enemy with about 2% chance.
Second fight : Nothing Special.
Third fight : Red is put in Fury for it. Wolfmeister is weak to Water so we have Red casting Aqualung.
Aerith could too, but it would roughly do the same amount of damages than a S-Mine and the S-Mine has faster animation.
Red gets attacked and thanks to Fury, his limit gauge fills faster and he gets a Limit. We don't use it but it allows for him to wait trick and get an extra Aqualung to kill.
We put Red and Aerith under Sadness and heal them as they will have big damages to tank soon.
Red put the Protect Ring on for the same reason and Aerith takes the Circlet so they both do good magic damages now.
Fourth fight : This is the one we got Magic Breath for. Eagle Gun is weak to Lightning but immune to Water. So Aqualung doesn't work and Magic Breath do lots of damages.
Paralysis dodge in North Corel that saves 28-29 seconds. However we cannot exit Corel by the right immediately. We need to go towards the Gold Saucer first and then come back.
Ultimate Weapon : Thanks to the Protect Ring, Red can survive the fight. He also takes the opportunity to steal the Curse Ring (very low odds steal again).
Nothing interesting happens in the Lifestream as always and we go to Junon.
END OF LIFESTREAM
We take a small detour to buy the Powersoul for Tifa. On the ground floor we wait a little bit as List is changing decently quick to set up the Final Descent encounterless.
We revive and heal Aerith and set up Tifa for the rest of the run.
Powersoul+Gigas Armlet+Curse Ring. She takes Chocobo Lure to increase her luck (helps with Critical hits), and Deathblow+Added Cut.
The Powersoul has an interesting mechanism. Damages are doubled if she's in Critical HP, quadrupled if she's under Death Sentence.
Deathblow makes a critical hits if it lands.
The Curse Ring putting Tifa under immediate Death Sentence at the beginning of the fight, increasing greatly many stats and being able to manipulate Deathblow so they never miss makes Tifa a killing machine.
The +10 Luck on it will also make some of the next battle, like Carry Armor, possible to critical with regular attacks.
It is around 100 frames faster to Deathblow+Added Cut rather than Aqualung. And it doesn't need refill.
We use the pincer fight where we have to take a hit, to put Tifa in critical HP, and use wait tricking so Tifa can act twice in a row.
Every part of Carry Armour has a chance to do nothing when it's their turn. We manipulate them to do so, make Deathblow hit and the Added Cut Crit.
He never stood a chance.
With optimized movement on the submarine mini-game it is possible to end up with 09:50 left.
We need to buy the Time materia in Rocket Town, because we don't get Big Guard, it's our way to be on Haste. It will save a bit of time in the latest fights but is very important so we can wait trick Safer Sephiroth.
In the fight against 3 enemies, Magic Breath is faster than having Tifa take two turns.
List is used in the sequence where Cid is under the debris to determine how fast the dialogs are coming. It was manipulated to get a fast sequence while still getting Final Descent as we want it.
We don't have to wait anymore for Diamond Weapon to reach the beach, we can just Cloud Surf to fight it in the middle of the ocean :)
We equip Time on Cloud, and heal Cid and Tifa. Tifa isn't healed fully so she can get back to critical HP with a hit.
Diamond Weapon requires 2 Limit or Summons to open up before we can do some real damages.
Tifa is targetted first to trigger a limit so she can wait trick. Both Added Cut are manipulated to crit. Cid can tank a hit.
Midgar skip : On the sequence right after Reeve is calling, our characters models are invisible but can move for a frame. This is all we need. By keeping Down, Right and Run pressed, we jump straight into the sequence with the Hojo fight. This skips the whole return to Midgar and saves a lot of time. However this glitches the music until the end...
Hojo : Not much to say. Tifa powers through. It is possible to critical hit on the second phase to save an attack which will carry on to the third phase.
Which we don't want.
Because on the third phase Hojo has a chance to "do nothing" if he's HP=Max HP when it's his turn.
So we wait for him to do nothing, THEN get 3*9999 with Tifa thanks to Haste and wait tricking, and Cloud's attack is just for the 3HP left...
END OF DISC 2
We perform a paralysis dodge by opening the chest and triggering the fall of the platform at the same time.
Then manipulate Formation by using Menu Glitches, to encounter a Dark Dragon. It can quickly put Tifa back on Critical HP.
Then we can perform another paralysis dodge by using the save crystal at the same time that we climb down the stalactite.
We choose for Cloud to go right and we can leave the screen.
If done optimally it's pretty close whether the left path or the right path is faster. It may vary depending on what battle you get, how many Menu glitch need to be performed...
But there's one big difference. List doesn't change on the right path, whereas it still does on the left path. So depending on where you are on the field rng table, one path may be better than the other.
So for me it was way better to use the right path.
For the Final Descent, you can get a battle every step of the way depending on the List value. Of course here, it was manipulated so we don't get any.
Jenova-SYNTHESIS : Thanks to Haste we can wait trick and let Tifa do her magic. If you have good battle rng, it is possible to crit with the Added Cut 3 times in a row to save a little bit of time, but unfortunately it wasn't possible here as the second one would take too much time.
Bizarro Sephiroth : Tifa has just enough Strength, so she can get away with having to crit only once. Then Haste and wait trick.
Pause/Unpause to manipulate the starting ATB on the final fight.
Safer Sephiroth : You thought Aerith survived Sephiroth ? Well... Sorry.
She uses DeBarrier to remove Safer Wall to save Tifa a few turns of attack. Then she says her goodbye, while Tifa relentlessly attacks and Cloud Wait trick.
No Critical is possible on this fight.
And that's it !
Hope you enjoyed :)
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Even though the loading times on this TAS are slower, it is still impressive that you beat the any% WR by almost 31 minutes. It was interesting to see how you would get ahead on scenes, only to get eaten up by the faster loading times of the human run. So I would say that this is really good work. Just like many other RPG game-play, you certainly take advantage of the most common RNG irritations. Really nice to see the discovery of a skip that saves roughly an hour. I think that is the biggest cut I have ever heard of, over any game. Anyway, really nice TAS. Congratulations on the furthered improvements!
Accepting over [5451] PSX Final Fantasy VII by Lil_Gecko in 6:05:29.42.
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