The Brood, an ancient race of dragons, is all but extinct. Their power was so strong that they had to be killed. A, the last one of the Brood, is awaken after 400 years and he wants to know more about his people.
Well aware of his fearful power, A uses it until he becomes strong enough to rely on his physical power. After which he manipulates luck to an indecent extent, using frame-by-frame advance to pulverize his foes, and even the final boss. It may be a little anti-climactic, but it's much quicker this way

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: PSCX-RR v0.1.3
  • Aim for the best ending
  • Aim for the fastest completion
  • Manipulation of luck
  • Use of glitches
  • Take damage to save time

Comments

So, this is my first PSX submission. This was also the very first PSX RPG I ever played. Although not as interesting as BOF 2, BOF 3 is still a good game, with interesting plot twists, a good soundtrack and customizable characters through masters (although only onw, Bunyan, is shown).
The speedrun can be accelerated through many things :
  • Althought fights can't be totally avoided, they can be greatly delayed. For some reason, walking along the edge of the screen keeps the monsters away. Also, in very narrow corridors, using the defense stance keeps the party from engaging combat (is it a glitch?). Finally, starting to walk one frame before a combat would otherwise occur delays the combat. Sometimes, the party can start running again without fighting. This explains the sometimes weird walking patterns I sometimes take
  • Although A (Ryu) is a dragon, he never uses his power after getting his revenge on Balio and Sunder. Instead, he uses Super Combo, a technic taught by his master Bunyan (who makes A a killing machine with higher attack). Normally, the most skilled players would be able to press 7-10 buttons one after the other in order to attack foes. But thanks to frame-to-frame advance, the skill can be pushed to its limit (32 hits). When the button is pressed influences the amount of damage
  • As mention above, barely any dragon power is ever used. Only one optional gene, thorn, is picked up.
  • Only 3-4 weapons are ever bought. The others are found/stolen
  • Healing is used only once
  • It's minor, but since Peco doesn't speak much, he is used is some occasions (Steel Beach, Angel Tower) to diminish the amount of dialogue
  • Unuseful characters are killed as much as possible, so that Momo can get might and so that A can be as strong as possible. He is helped with ivory dice, which doubles the experience earned in a battle (hence the 60 k experience against dragon lord)

Highlights of the game

  • Nue 1 : for the first fight, I only needed to do about 120 damage. Critical hits from Rei do the trick
  •  Nue 2 : Although Rei dies, I was able to finish the fight in three rounds
  • Pooch : I hate that dog. I was able to finish it in 4 rounds, but with great misery since only Rei does decent damage
  • Rocky : The rooster was much easier. His jump attack can do very little damage, which helped Rei resist the attacks
  • Torast : Teepo is quite strong! Down in 3 rounds and 2 critical attacks
  • Kassen : Ghosts are weak against holy magic - including healing magic
  • Galtel : He only casts weakening spells, so he goes down easily
  • Dosken : I don't know if it's a glitch, but a holy attack against him make him cast heal on our party
  • Amalgam : He had to die before the 5th round, in which he always casts astral warp. A's death was convenient; one more level under Bunyan
Bunyan is the only necessary master in the game. He gives better attack, defense and HP. It's all that A needs.
  • Mutant : plants are weak against fire. Which is why Momo does so much damage (and A barely needs to do any!)
  • Dodai : Momo had to start the fight. Her ice chrysm makes a lot of damage. Also, she learns blind (for later) and double blow to speed up the fight. When the Dodai is almost done, A comes in, uses the Ivory dice from the Tower and doubles his level!
  • Emitai : It was quite a lucky fight. Dragonned A countered a few times against the golems which sped up the fight.
  • Bullies : counters are quite useful
  • Stallion : three dragon strikes and it's out! I was able to do it thanks to Garr's Titan belt (which he traded for the soul gem)
  • Zig : Since it's a speedrun, Beyd only needed HP to survive Zig's lucky strike. When he did, a lucky strike of my own took care of Zig
In the lighthouse, I took advantage of the defense formation. And for ALL after mentionned fight, monsters are down using Super Combo. Without exception
  • Gazer : blinding it doubled the experience yield
  • Dolphin : a lucky fight. In my previous tries, i wasn't able to kill it one the first round
  • Gisshan et al. : since Gisshan defended so much, I took care of the dragons first.
I took advantage of the (apparently) famous Angel Tower glitch. Using a normal formation, the whole party warps on a block leading to the bottom of the tower, saving at least 2-3 minutes
  • Garr : he's quickly history
  • Dragon zombie : undeads are weak against fire (flare sword, bought in Urkan Tapa)
  • Weretiger : unlike what my speedrun FAQ said, Rei can be down with as little as 450 hp
  • Mikba : Since he has some resistance to fire, I had to switch swords. But he's easy nonetheless
  • Huge slug : Another monster weak against fire
  • Shroom : neutral against fire, but still easy
The defense formation is most useful in the Tidal cave. I only fought once!! But for that, I had to walk alongside the walls
  • Gaist : Another sword switch against this fire demon. The torches are annoying, but killing them would have taken time
For the rope pulling mini-game, I think frame-by-frame advance helped
  • Angler : Although it's a fish, tis strong against electricity. And for those who followed the run, using super combo takes about as many frames as with Aura!
Riding the boat can be frustrating. Even when the boat isn't moving - but the screen show it - the engine still heats up. For the shisu, only one sprig of horseradish is necessary. And the length of the fish doesn't matter. In the Black Ship, for some reason, the Booster Counter took 2000 frames more than my tryouts
  • Ammonites : the barbarossa (bought is junk town) is lightning-based, which is useful against fish
  • Elder : he takes care of the other, I take care of him
For the crossing of the desert, I realized that it was a speedrun. So I didn't drink water of rested during the day (don't try this at home, kids).
  • Manmo : If I didn,t kill it on the first try, it would have countered my attack
  • Chimera : I miraculously killed it without using last resort
  • Arwan : To facilitate the next fight, I needed to avoid its attack
  • Dragon Lord : Dragons are weak against the dragon sword. I used my two last ivory dice, boosting me to level 37
  • Nues : I wished I could have countered every time...
  • Mikbas : 3 seconds shorter without the dragon sword (fire based)
  • Myria : I was thanfully lucky to withstand Myria's attack on last resort.
Possible improvement : Better luck during fights, try to get the gooking sword (which would be used for at most 4 fights), improve enemy encounter (try to get the holy mantle)
 
Screenshot suggestion : frame 694 530, the famous Angel Tower glitch frame 1027681, which would be dubbed "Naked women are very susceptible"

FractalFusion: Judging.
FractalFusion: Well done. Accepting for publication.

GabCM: I'll upload FerretFaucet's 512kb encode in a single part to YouTube, and then I'll use his stuff for publication.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3117: janus's PSX Breath of Fire III "best ending" in 7:45:01.17
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Welp. Starting SD & HD encode.
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FerretFaucet wrote:
Welp. Starting SD & HD encode.
7+ hour long TAS? Sounds like damn near an all day encode to me. I can't help but think that turn based RPGs are a poor medium for TAS... and I can't help but find a TAS over 7hrs (check that, nearly 8hrs) long as being just a little absurd. Having said that, because I'm unaware of the content, and am entirely unwilling to watch something that would literally take half of a normal human day to watch, I'm giving this an auto-Meh based on that.
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You give it meh because you don't want to watch it? That's a weird reason so you would give a meh to Final Fantasy 7-8, which will probably be as long? to others : don't be fooled by the duration. You can watch it under 2 hours by fast-forwarding dialogues and slowing it down during fights
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janus wrote:
You give it meh because you don't want to watch it? That's a weird reason so you would give a meh to Final Fantasy 7-8, which will probably be as long? to others : don't be fooled by the duration. You can watch it under 2 hours by fast-forwarding dialogues and slowing it down during fights
Janus: Once somebody posts it on Youtube, I suggest you use the #t=0m00s to link people to the important fights. That is what I plan to do with Final Fantasy 8.
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I've been watching the WIPs and just saw the last part of this run, so I'll go ahead and vote yes. I have played the game, and I did in fact enjoy this TAS. I know that there's been a lot of work put into the planning for this TAS and many revisions, as is usual for Janus's TASes.
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Managed to watch the whole thing. I mean....wow. That was well played strategizing TASing! Yes Vote. (#1000th post)
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I'd love to watch this! Hope FerretFaucet is encoding on a fast computer :) EDIT: Gratz on 1000th post Sonik :D
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Undie wrote:
I'd love to watch this! Hope FerretFaucet is encoding on a fast computer :)
Damn fast. Still, the dedup on this alone is taking over 2 hours. Crazy.
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I think that the main target audience for a 7+ hour run is people who have played the game. I doubt anybody else would be willing to sit through it. Fortunately, I have this game for the PSP (I'm assuming it's pretty similar to the PSX version). In fact, I'm still playing it, so I'll have to wait to finish it before I watch.
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FerretFaucet wrote:
Undie wrote:
I'd love to watch this! Hope FerretFaucet is encoding on a fast computer :)
Damn fast. Still, the dedup on this alone is taking over 2 hours. Crazy.
Out of curiosity, what are your specs.?
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ZanasoBayncuh wrote:
FerretFaucet wrote:
Welp. Starting SD & HD encode.
7+ hour long TAS? Sounds like damn near an all day encode to me. I can't help but think that turn based RPGs are a poor medium for TAS... and I can't help but find a TAS over 7hrs (check that, nearly 8hrs) long as being just a little absurd. Having said that, because I'm unaware of the content, and am entirely unwilling to watch something that would literally take half of a normal human day to watch, I'm giving this an auto-Meh based on that.
If you haven't watched it, don't bother voting. Stupidest thing I've seen posted on this site to date. I can't seem to watch it, I tried playing it, the SLUS on the cd matched, I used pcsx-rr 1.3, but right at the beginning it desyncs after frying the two guys after ryu breaks out of the crystal =/.
I think.....therefore I am not Barry Burton
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Can't think of anything else to add off the top of my head. Everything just dies D:
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ZanasoBayncuh wrote:
I'm giving this an auto-Meh based on [its length].
As others have already said, that's really unfair. I don't think that "meh" = "abstain"; if you want to abstain, then it'd be better to just abstain. =^P Anyway. I quite like having these ultra-long runs of games I've never played going in the background whilst working, to sort of keep me company and give me something to listen to if I'm not in the mood for music. I've never played BOF-3, but I'll try to pay enough attention to offer a reasonably informed vote. EDIT: I know it'd probably be a ton of work, but is there any chance of the author making an audio commentary? It'd certainly aid the viewers - especially those who've never played the game - in appreciating such a complex run.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
BigBoct
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IIRC, Janus said when FreshFeeling did commentary for his (currently) published Phantasy Star IV run that he wasn't going to do his own commentary because English is not his first language. EDIT:
ZanasoBayncuh wrote:
(Stupid stuff)
No need to be rude about it. I agree, you should have just not voted if you weren't going to watch it.
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Oh wow, so FF7 is shorter like I thought. Looking forward to the encode!
Working on a mod of an old favorite in my spare time. PM for updates!
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IIRC, Janus said when FreshFeeling did commentary for his (currently) published Phantasy Star IV run that he wasn't going to do his own commentary because English is not his first language.
true. If anyone wants to comment my run, go ahead
Patryk1023
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janus, I see, this is the longest movie on TASVideos.org EVAR! For now waiting for tha encode.
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mklip2001
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Patryk1023 wrote:
janus, I see, this is the longest movie on TASVideos.org EVAR!
No, it's not ;-) Anyway, I also will have to wait for some form of encode (multipart encodes would be just fine). However, congratulations, Janus, for what must have been a herculanean effort! I'm really looking forward to watching this.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
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DarkKobold wrote:
janus wrote:
You give it meh because you don't want to watch it? That's a weird reason so you would give a meh to Final Fantasy 7-8, which will probably be as long? to others : don't be fooled by the duration. You can watch it under 2 hours by fast-forwarding dialogues and slowing it down during fights
Janus: Once somebody posts it on Youtube, I suggest you use the #t=0m00s to link people to the important fights. That is what I plan to do with Final Fantasy 8.
You don't even need to, you can just type time codes in the description (on Youtube itself) and they'll automatically turn into time links, like here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qoisyl8Om8Y
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It wouldnt be possible to get commentary translated? There are bound to be countless nuances lost to many viewers who don't know the game in and out. And even more to people who have yet to play/finish the game.
Patryk1023
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mklip2001: Without this :P
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honorableJay
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Pasky13 wrote:
I can't seem to watch it, I tried playing it, the SLUS on the cd matched, I used pcsx-rr 1.3, but right at the beginning it desyncs after frying the two guys after ryu breaks out of the crystal =/.
I had the same problem initially. It's the MD5 you need to check for, not the SLUS. You'll need to find another copy to watch it properly. This run is definitely getting a yes vote from me. Very well planned. For those that think 7h is a long time for this game, the last official speedrun of this that I know of clocked in over the 9 hour mark.
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OMG WHY ISN'T THE ENCODE DONE YET ARRRRGHH%^#&$RRGAGAHG#($*#*&#$^RGHBD???? Cmon, it's only an eight hour TAS! My nuclear-powered quantum supercomputer totally could have finished it by now.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
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Congrats on finishing it. I haven't watched it yet, but I'll do so over the next few days. Should be pretty good from what I've seen from the WIPs. I'd be glad to help out with commentary, but 7 hours is too much for one man. (And sadly, it isn't BoF IV, where I'd get to say, 'He's not a normal person, Nina, you met him when he fell from the sky.')