Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
I'd take up a run of this game myself, but I've already got the Lufia run as an open project and Claymates in the queue. I've played around with it on the emulator and decided that this is perhaps the most easily manipulated game ever created. So long as the hit % displayed is not 0%, you can always get a critical hit out of it, and so long as the hit % isn't 100% you can always get it to miss.
This means it's theoretically possible to do a 0 damage run of the game.
Now, as much as I would normally appreciate the amount of work it takes to fully optimize a "damage saves time" run, in this particular case I think a no damage run would be far more impressive than a faster run.
As for how much time it would take, I think a well done run (ab)using combos and (with the help of accomodating laws) the later summon thingies would be able to clear the game in about an hour and a half. Not exactly sure how long the later battles would take, though, so it could turn out to be worse than that.
Anyone up to the task?
I considered doing this, but it would be pretty time-consuming and I wasn't sure how best to plan equipment/abilities for a fastest time. Doing no sidequests should be fastest, but you can barely learn any abilities without doing sidequests. (I was thinking Animist->Gunner for moogles, pure physical jobs for everyone else, except black mage for Nu Mou.)
I'm not sure about no damage being more impressive, for instance in the first battle letting Montblanc take damage can change his AI routine to do something more damaging and manipulating a miss can take a decent amount of extra time.
BTW, does anyone know if murdering Montblanc could save any time? I can't remember how long the various cut scenes are.
Hmm... Well, we don't actually need to learn any abilities, we just need to get the equipment that teaches the ability. That means heavy manipulation with mission prizes and a good location placement. It sucks the ultima-teaching weapons are so bad...
I'm not sure is it necessary to manipulate level up bonuses, but few stats here and there may help.
Marche should probably be a Fighter. Fighters have Air Render (long-range non-weapon-based attack), Far Fist (Air Render with an area), beatdown (double damage, half accuracy. Means double damage in a speedrun) and the best attack stat for human jobs. Against some enemies Paladin with excalibur and Holy Blade (2x damage, holy element) might be better. The same thing for your other human.
Montblanc sucks... better get some better moogle as a random recruit. Moogle should be either a gunner (deadly range, but worse damage) or a mog knight (mog lance has some range, mog rush is 2x damage half accuracy). Montblanc trained as a black mage may be able to do something with animist's friend ability (random summon).
Nu Mou should be blackmage. Other classes may be better but they require too many abilites. Normal missions don't give hi-level class characters afaik
Viera... requires too many abilities for best classes. At least viera archers get better stats than the human ones. Cupid (charm) and Burial (autokill for undead) are useful, aim: legs and arms may be used to save time in a long battle. Fencers (and snipers with a different name (and range???)) have checkmate, which kills the target in 3 turns. Probably not useful.
Bangaa should be either White Monk (Far Fist, Air Render, Exorcise (autokill for undead) or Gladiator (elemental swords, beatdown))
No idea about montblanc-killing.
I've played through this game about 3 or 4 times and I have it almost all mastered.
The best thing that you can do is get the Cinqueda weapon which allows you to learn Steal Ability. Plus you can get it VERY early in the game and make the game a lot easier. The method is found in the Stealing guide FAQ here.
Getting a Nu Mou with Black Mage & Sage Jobs and Turbo MP is a good idea too.
A Moogle with Gun & Stunt Jobs makes this go smoother and more your way. If you can manipulate the Gadgeteer ability to do what you want, using the Black Ingot & Chroma Gem attacks work best of that job.
Finaly a Bangaa with Dragoon & Templar or Gladiator Jobs with Bonecrusher is great for powerful range attacks with a lance.
Doing the Main Quests and nothing else with a little luck manipulation should allow you to beat the game in about 2-3 hours. The time waster is the storyline, as it takes up a LOT of time at some points. A way to save time is either keep Montablac in Jail or kill him in any of the Lawless zones.
Just adding my thoughts
The best thing that you can do is get the Cinqueda weapon which allows you to learn Steal Ability. Plus you can get it VERY early in the game and make the game a lot easier.
...that takes hours to do though. It's quicker to play through without the abilities than to level to 20-something in whatever to get the weapon.
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster.
I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Getting a Nu Mou with Black Mage & Sage Jobs and Turbo MP is a good idea too.
Sages are useless - slow and no good abilities. Just stay with Black Mage - Thor Rod (or Chill later in the game), Black Robe and thundaga (or whatever it is) is much better.
tackangel wrote:
Finaly a Bangaa with Dragoon & Templar or Gladiator Jobs with Bonecrusher is great for powerful range attacks with a lance.
Spears, while long-ranged, are weak, at least in the end. Bangaas should use estreledge (from treasure hunt, 77 atk) with warrior (better move than defender)
tackangel wrote:
A Moogle with Gun & Stunt Jobs makes this go smoother and more your way. If you can manipulate the Gadgeteer ability to do what you want, using the Black Ingot & Chroma Gem attacks work best of that job.
Gadgeteers are fine, but dagger is weak (no critical), especially in the end (iirc, it's not based on your weapon), smile is not the best (how about using a char that kills something?) and the rest seem kinda useless. Guns are the weakest weapon in the game, and gunners' attack is baad. Charm- and Stopshot (or whatever) are great, thought, so a good starting job may be able to make gunner a good idea.
What game have you been playing? From what I can remember you can get Bio way earlier than Firaga or Blizzaga, and it does really nice damage, especially with Turbo MP. And, needless to say, Giga Flare owns it all. I found Black Mages pretty useless when compared to Sages when I played the game.
I disagree about the no good abilities, but you might be right that they're useless in a time attack (I'm not sure).
Ego Buff wrote:
Spears, while long-ranged, are weak, at least in the end. Bangaas should use estreledge (from treasure hunt, 77 atk) with warrior (better move than defender)
High move rates are important, and getting good stuff from treasure hunts is definitely important (in fact that's probably one of the most difficult things to plan).
Ego Buff wrote:
Gadgeteers are fine, but dagger is weak (no critical), especially in the end (iirc, it's not based on your weapon), smile is not the best (how about using a char that kills something?) and the rest seem kinda useless.
Uh, gadgeteers are the ones that affect all allies or enemies at once with status effects.
Ego Buff wrote:
Guns are the weakest weapon in the game, and gunners' attack is baad.
Seriously? My gunner did as much damage as everyone else combined, and Charmshot/Stopshot just made him even more ridiculously powerful when coupled with the awesome attack range that meant he never had to waste turns moving. (Oh yeah, and he was Montblanc, who I've heard sucks more than most moogles.) I would make getting gunners (and good guns) among the highest of priorities when aiming for speed. I would put equal emphasis on getting Assassins since they can always kill something every turn they're in range, but unlike gunners they're basically impossible to get in a time attack.
I think the goal in making a time attack of this game should be to minimize the amount of real time above all else. That means: not doing any side missions whatsoever, denying the AI as many turns as possible because the AI takes a long time to think, manipulating the AI to take faster actions, skipping turns that not much can be done with (the intro comes to mind here), and avoiding unnecessary criticals (they take longer to animate than regular attacks). Although, I think no run of this game would be complete without a critical hit that knocks somebody off a cliff to their death.
And, personally I would find a 0-damage run to be considerably less entertaining than a run where it looks like there are a few close calls mixed in with the everyone-misses-all-my-characters that would have to happen most of the time anyway.
What game have you been playing? From what I can remember you can get Bio way earlier than Firaga or Blizzaga, and it does really nice damage, especially with Turbo MP. And, needless to say, Giga Flare owns it all. I found Black Mages pretty useless when compared to Sages when I played the game.
OK, I wrote it in a hurry. Those skills seem nice, bio is power 45 and giga flare is 65 (fire 30, fira 40, firaga 50). However, bio is gotten from mission 11 (third totema), while thor rod can be gotten total of 2 missions later, and black robe should probably be gotten right after that (Does black robe raise damage or lower elemental resistance, btw?). Now, thundaga is clearly more powerful, right? Thor rod multiplies the damage by 1,5x (assuming targety has no elemental resistance or weakness) which means the power (the power is not really multiplied, but it doesn't matter here) is multiplied by 1,5x, making it 75. With black robe, I wonder which one is more powerful, thundaga or giga flare. And chill rod can be obtained later if something resist thunder.
Turbo MP is white mage ability, it doesn't matter whether your main job is sage or black mage. Just get it early enough so that you won't lose damage from thor rod/black robe, if you're gonna use black mage.
About stat growth, both black mage and sage have same matk, while black mage gets 0,1 more speed and 11 more base speed.
nitsuja wrote:
Uh, gadgeteers are the ones that affect all allies or enemies at once with status effects.
I know, I was talking about jugglers (stunt ability)
nitsuja wrote:
Seriously? My gunner did as much damage as everyone else combined, and Charmshot/Stopshot just made him even more ridiculously powerful when coupled with the awesome attack range that meant he never had to waste turns moving. I would put equal emphasis on getting Assassins since they can always kill something every turn they're in range, but unlike gunners they're basically impossible to get in a time attack.
Assassin(s) is/are a must, unlike gunners, they have good watk and crazy speed. Gunner attack is base 68/ growth 6,8 (lower than bishop, which has the worst bangaa attack). Using a mog knight as the base class may help, as levels are not gotten that often. The strongest gun you can get is outsider (power 41, very very late in the game, thought there are many almost-as-strong guns) which teaches stopshot.
Starting classes can be gotten by kicking useless party members off your clan and getting the "race wanted" missions.
Not if you're going for speed. There's no way you can possibly get an Assassin fast enough for it to be worth it, AFAIK. There's barely enough battles to learn more than a couple of abilities.
Ego Buff wrote:
Starting classes can be gotten by kicking useless party members off your clan and getting the "race wanted" missions.
Doing "race wanted" missions isn't really an option either, since they're extra missions that are unnecessary to do. (Unless you're saying you can get an Assassin out of it, in which case it still probably wouldn't be optimal.)
Ego Buff wrote:
I know, I was talking about jugglers (stunt ability)
Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you had switched what job you were talking about partway through the sentence I was responding to. Anyway, I'm not sure how useful gadgeteers could be - Red Spring (haste) and Chroma Gem (sleep) are the only two things they can do that would help (Black Ingot's effects are too slow to wait for), but I forget how early those can be obtained, and a gadgeteer wouldn't be able to do much damage himself.
Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you had switched what job you were talking about partway through the sentence I was responding to. Anyway, I'm not sure how useful gadgeteers could be - Red Spring (haste) and Chroma Gem (sleep) are the only two things they can do that would help (Black Ingot's effects are too slow to wait for), but I forget how early those can be obtained, and a gadgeteer wouldn't be able to do much damage himself.
Using Black Ingot & then Red Spring on your opponents allows them to die quicker.
Using an Assasin's Stone ability works well (At least for me) and gets the job done.
My Bangaa Dragoon uses a spear and does over 200 damage, so I'd say a spear does well.
Sage's have the Raise ability that completely revives a partner and does MAJOR damage to a zombie, which helps imensly.
Using Black Ingot & then Red Spring on your opponents allows them to die quicker.
Well, not really, you just get less turns before they die, and spend more time waiting for the Red Spring's fairly long full-screen animation.
tackangel wrote:
Using an Assasin's Stone ability works well (At least for me) and gets the job done.
My Bangaa Dragoon uses a spear and does over 200 damage, so I'd say a spear does well.
Sage's have the Raise ability that completely revives a partner and does MAJOR damage to a zombie, which helps imensly.
We're not (or at least, I'm not) talking about what would be helpful for beating the game normally. The question is, assuming you have perfect luck but can't cheat, what's the fastest way to see the ending from a new game?
Red Spring (from Rising Sun) can be gotten in the beginning. Chroma Gem (Dream Claws?) is after first shop upgrade. Gadgeteers can't deal damage, but we probably save some time when the enemies' turns are skipped. Gadgeteers are also slow, they probably act last.
Dragoon is a good beginning class - really high attack and good speed. However, their strongest spear you can get is 51 (Beastspear, treasure hunt), clearly loses to estreledge (77). Gladiator has the beatdown ability that would be more useful than jump (4-range attack vs. 1-range 2x damage attack with much better weapon?).
The most use for raise would be the last totema, where I'd rather use life than raise (90 vs. 45), or even burial/exorcise. I wonder whether we can use reflect against mateus and reflect his thundagas back to him. I see no reason for why not. We can get mirror mails as mission prizes before that, or even use a time mage with reflect.
About assassins, they waste few minutes in the beginning, but if we get other recruits at the same time, we can probably same enough time by killing enemies faster.
Hmm, yeah, that sounds reasonable, it's just hard to tell whether spending multiple minutes on something will actually save that amount of time later. You're talking about somewhere between 6 and 20 minutes of extra fighting, I think.
(The time it takes to get to the start of the first non-snowball fight is almost 10 minutes, btw, which is less time than I thought, but still a lot considering that there is basically no gameplay at all during that time.)
Joined: 3/19/2005
Posts: 63
Location: SuPeRZzT LaNd
There were no chocobos in the game.. It started with a snowball fight.. which was okay I guess.. but I hated that referee.. Who's he to say How I beat people up? I PICK HOW I BEAT EM UP. I wanted to beat him up... and get on his chocobo.. and find out where he hid all those other chocobos.. because I wanted a chocobo, like in the other FFT where I could play as Wiegraf/Butz's Chocobo. If Delita was around, he'd beat all these people up! I don't wear a WWDD bracelet for nothing! He'd be like "Where's my Chocobo? I'll Lightning stab you for taking my Chocobo, ref!" Why does he know the 6 w's? Because he's king that's why!
I wouldn't object to an actual discussion of this game being revived, but... that was pretty random.
And the law system is ridiculously easy to get around. You can just pick what laws don't bother you before starting the battle.
Do you remember how disgusted Gamedirector was that someone made a topic for Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and bashed it in the first post? Well, he was telling me on AOLIM that he should do the same for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, except the topic was already made.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 3/19/2005
Posts: 63
Location: SuPeRZzT LaNd
I coulda spent that 35 dollars on a good pair of sunglasses, but instead i supported this company named after a sneeze that doesn't know how to put chocobos in a game, or the chocobo cannon.. or the chocobo roast.. You can't ruin a good thing..
You can't replace a chocobo with a moogle either, because the chocobo can fly!
As for the jobs, it involved me fighting people.. It was much better in the first FFT where i just dillydallied for 15 days while my team did all the work and I came back with "This job is a gift from god." or "I got a good feeling". I also was sad that the music wasn't amazing either.
They could have made the game rule, but instead they made a dodgy game that consisted on nothing but sidequests and bandits trying to kill you.. and that damn ref.. Sneezekleenex should make a game where the whole point is to kill that ref.. He thinks he knows something!
Here's an example of a summary from an FFTNOTADVANCE job result.
Regained Ability! wrote:
Mameko, the traveling artist, restarted his act. Years back, he won a talent contest many praise his originality. But, he's been in a slump for a long time. We drank together all night, thinking about his new job. We suggested things to him like, "Why don't you change your hair style?" we were glad since he's started acting again.
Brilliant stuff! Squarenix (bless you) is a hit or miss affair these days sadly.
To continue the discussion of the game itself...
The "ohko"-abilities, which are the fastest way to clear normal battles, are the following:
-Rockseal and Last Breath... range 1. Rockseal can be gotten after mission 4, being the earliest ohko-ability.
-Burial, thought it works only against the very rare undead
-Oust, Parley, Wyrmtamer... may have some use.
-Aim: Vitals - Not really ohko, but the skill has about 5% chance to inflict low hp, which means 2hko.
-Acid & Bad Breath - Not sure whether these can actually ohko. These abilities are not that easy to get.
-Roulette - No way you're getting this ability.
-Exorcise - Like burial
-Break - Range 3, 20 MP.
-Death - 36 MP, but nu mous should have enough MP.
The useful abilities are Rockseal, Aim: Vitals, Break and Death. The most useful is probably Aim: Vitals, with Fey Bow having the range of 6. Having an illusionist finishing the enemies can't be a bad idea. They can also get Weapon Attack +, have good speed & attack growths so they can also be used against the final boss. Sadly, we can only get 2 Nike Bows without dispatches or good luck. The game is not nice for speedrunners ._.
Smile has use, actually. Take two moogles with smile:
They can smile back and forth, moving each time to position themselves before attacking.
They can smile back and forth to regenerate MP (HP, too, with Auto-Regen. Or you could go with Damage > MP)
Probably won't help too much with a time attack, given moogles will probably be Gunners primarily and they already have awesome ranges.
If you wanna go for impressiveness theres a couple things I can think of.
Make a 100% archer class party (or gunner) and get one to use the combo. Since they're all in range they all combo the same guy. Not sure if it works but it'd be cool.
Also, you can have morphers do HUGE damage by catching a flan and feeding it curealls untill its MATK is 999. Then you take out a handy morpher and kill anyone you wish with a 999 MATK -aga spell. You can also add MP turbo to this and simply flatten anything (even the last boss)
you could also beat the game using only marche.
Beat hard bosses without taking a turn (return magic, counter)
with luck manipulation you can do so many crazy things with this game.
for really fast speed you could use an ilusionist spell to hurt everything then use capture (very short animation) to ohko them
a movie of this game would be crazy
Joined: 3/19/2005
Posts: 63
Location: SuPeRZzT LaNd
Hi yes I wanted to apologize about the bad things I've said about the game, for it was like gender discrimination or something.. or making fun of that girl because she had white hair even though she dyed it red and it clearly wasn't white. I felt like I couldn't criticise it really unless I played it through all the way, so I did (aside from the unrequired jobs after the gameover that required alotta stuff).. I made a crack about the game's music, and I'd like to retract that statement. This is by far the best music I've heard in any gameboy advance game, even on a system that generates crap chippyish tunes, the stuff here was plentiful and beautiful. If the game as a whole made an attempt to be less weird than Saga Frontier or Legend of Mana, or had in-fighting soap operas aside from a one liner before/after the fight, it would've had a force to reckon with that would be comparable to the prior styled game .. for that other system. I just hope they don't give up on the idea all together and some day make a Nintendo DS one that doesn't rip on the Neverending Story.
