Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a 2003 gamecube videogame where you take control of a caravan of adventurers traveling the world to collect myrrh and save their village from miasma. Year after year, you fight monsters and beat dungeons, until finally discovering the source of the miasma. This run features the Yuke tribe, a powerful magician, and defeats every dungeon completely at least once before finishing the game.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Dolphin 2409
- Beat all dungeons
- Don't use glitches
- Go fast
My first TAS ever submitted on this site was All Dungeons Glitchless, and we are back! There is multiple reasons to choose this category. First off, All Dungeons feature a lot more variety than simple any%, which tends to repeat dungeons twice, or even thrice. Glitchless is used because it's currently the only gameplay type that is even publisheable on TASvideos.org due to Dolphin limitations. It's also simplier in many ways. Yuke (mage) was chosen because I truly believe that, while their early game is slow, their late game catches up a lot, especially with some dungeons that are not done in any% where magic is utilized. The japanese version of the game is used even in glitchless mainly because fruits bonuses stay up between loading zones, which is a HUGE timesave. It is often considered a bug (because it was patched) but not a glitch as it is absolutely unrealistic to ask japanese players to stop eating food, 'cause it's a normal game mechanic.
There is 14 dungeons in the game, counting the final one, and all of them have the boss beaten, myrrh collected, and letter received. 15 dungeons are actually completed (one is done twice) but that's mandatory to end the game early, because of endgame requirements. We travel the world for 5 years, 3 dungeons per year, and all that without buying a single piece of armor or weapon (making us weak, but TAS can dodge damage if necessary). The route pretty different than my 6 years old TAS, with a higher focus on less detours. It does result in less magic stat, but I still have just enouogh to do everything very quick. New strats are also into play, and some optimization here and there because I am better at this game. New strategies include using a lower level of spell, but does stronger damage when used efficiently, getting more fruits from my mom's grapes tree, and getting most of the money needed for the whole run in the first dungeons. All and all, it is 4 minutes faster than last TAS, which is a huge improvement I'm proud of.
Note that this run was used with the help of GBA, and does sync with GBA, but it will also sync and be encoded without it, for publishing purposes. The extra screen provides a minimap and some stats, and is not required for the gameplay. It is shown in my provided encode.
I had issues early on in the run realizing that some menuing were sub-optimal. I think all and all, only counting mistakes (a mistake is something that would be straight up not done in a future TAS), I lost about 4 seconds. For the rest, it's very complicated. A lot of the run is INSANELY rng heavy, and a lot of optimal strats will tend to have variable durations because of that. However, I can safely say that I truly believe this run had better than average rng, meaning that there's not much else to realistically save. 1h54mins is definitely the best I can achieve right now with my knowledge, as of writing this.
Shoutouts to:
- The FFCC community, for supporting me and enjoying my TASes. Special notes for TRS-Linitaa and 7thArmstrong
- The TASvideos staff for making the publishing of this possible
