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d: final fantasy ix tas in 7:37:12.28 - commentary by lil_gecko and dada d: lines by dada are indicated with d: prefix. lines by the author of the run, lil_gecko, are not. keeping up and x pressed after selecting new game modifies the random number table. it's done there to have the perfect setup for the upcoming battle. d: people on the forum requested that the here icon be turned off, even though it cost a few frames. masked man : 188 hp cinna needs to steal the mage masher as he's the only one that can be killed in 1 hit. the others suicide themselves as it's faster than killing the masked man. d: the background noise is loud here due to an emulation error. it goes away after a while. triggering the conversation on the same frame puck hits you avoid the fall cutscene and saves a few seconds. unfortunately vivi's got a fake ticket for the show :/
if he agrees to be puck's slave he can watch the show from the rooftops. d: none of this text can be skipped quickly. it's all timed to the duration of the music. king leo : 186 hp / benero : 32 hp / zenero : 32 hp this fight is manipulated in order to have king leo use a physical attack which is faster than him using fake magic. a perfect sword fight rewards you with 10 000 gils well needed later on. d: the buttons are pressed so quickly that you can't see the dialogue windows. equipping the mage masher in order to deal twice more damage. uhm this face looks familiar. it's the princess!!!! zorn and thorn informed the queen that garnet is missing. so steiner will look for her.
steiner : 169 hp if every characters deals maximum damage it's a total of 170 damage. as the fight ends with 169 damage done, this fight is manipulate to deal maximum each attack and save a turn. killing yourself avoids zenero and benero's sentences which makes the fight overall faster than attacking steiner. by killing yourself you avoid steiner's commentaries on your characters. the rest of the fight is just waiting for the bomb to explode. the queen decides to get her little experiment go and bring back garnet to the castle. random encounters are decided with distance and rng. to avoid them you can stop walking for a frame to change the rng, or walking or hiting walls to change the distance. prison cage : 513 hp d: characters have the ability to use trance from this moment on. since the animation takes a lot of time, it's rarely used in the run. prison cage : 533 hp
a character can't do critical hits with a spirit under 24. the leather wrist boost zidane's spirit just right there. that's why he stole it. d: zidane manages to evade poison by doing a backflip. zidane wants to go looking for garnet. but to be allowed to do that, he'll have to fight with his boss : baku. equiping the leather wrist to boost zidane's spirit. baku : 202 hp trance : 41/255 recieved blank's medicine. this fight is in 2 parts. you can reach the second part by either doing more than 916 damage, or killing zidane. the latter is obviously faster. plant brain : 458 hp
i need to boost zidane's trance. so the fight is manipulated so every enemy targets him. that'll make black waltz 1 fight faster. trance : 215/255. just 2 hits away. vivi finishes the job. d: this fmv is supposed to have sound, but an emulation error somehow causes it to be silent. d: turns out garnet planned to escape the castle to begin with, and her kidnapping just made things easier. d: now comes the explanation of how to save while on the overworld, which is used exactly zero times. recieved moogle flute welcome to... the storm is supposed to trigger a fight. however by going into the wall for one frame, we're out of reach of the trigger zone. d: now the mage masher comes in handy due to the special ability it gives during trance.
black waltz 1 : 229 hp / sealion : 472 hp the sealion's 3 first attacks are manipulated to be wings. in addition to have a shorter animation it allows me to survive without restoring. the mythril dagger is for better power of attack. d: nice planning to end up on 1 hp. the snow storm is over. we're ready to move on. d: on to dali next. d: since garnet is well known, she has to have a new name to avoid raising suspicion. dagger it is entering/exiting a forest resets the encounter check.
d: this village seems peaceful enough. there's probably nothing secret and sinister going on underground... d: in traditional final fantasy style, hotels only have dorm rooms to accommodate parties of four. in order to make dagger appears in the weapon shop, you're supposed to visit 3 differents location. however there's a little trick where you can go twice in the pub and it still count as 2 different places. buying 2 mage masher + 2 leather wrist for synthesis purposes later. feather hat is for dagger's power. bronze gloves to raise steiner's spirit, iron sword to raise his power where's vivi ? d: turns out there *is* something dark and sinister going on underground. equipping the mythril dagger. d: meanwhile, steiner is trying to hitch a ride back to alexandria. it's not necessary to pick up thoses gils and the hi-potion but we have to wait for morrid to go down the stairs so...
equipping the iron sword and bronze gloves observing the barrel is faster than poking him. black waltz 2 : 1030 hp when bw2 has his hp under 50% he counters with fira however if his target is already dead as vivi he won't. slight bug here. if i push x in less than 20 frames the game is stuck d: cut it out, zidane. d: the ship is headed towards alexandria, but zidane has other plans. d: so he turns it around to go to lindblum. black waltz 3 : 1128 hp
d: vivi's trance is storyline-related, he always has it during this fight regardless of the actual trance meter. black waltz 3 first attack is manipulated to be thundara (all). but he can only perform it if he's in the air. so by not attacking him right away, he stays on the ground, his attack fails and his atb is reset. then the atb is put on wait so everybody can attack without bw3 atb to fill. finally zidane critical so vivi can finish him with only 1 magic and avoid his detrance animation. but black waltz 3 won't surrender that easily d: vivi has just about had enough of him. they made it through but the south gate has been damaged in the process. d: now arriving at lindblum terminal. d: lindblum: home of the mid-air collision.
dagger asks to see his uncle cid, who happens to be the regent. however... d: that couldn't have been pleasant for cid. zidane takes some time off and decide to drink some beers d: cid's mustache is amazing, but that bartender's is no joke either. d: zidane meets an old friend: freya the dragon knight. lindblum's beer. you can drink all that you want it's never empty d: i wonder if eiichiro oda got the inspiration for whitebeard's facial hair from cid. meanwhile dagger and cid keep on discussing about queen's brahne plans
d: the background noise is a bit loud here: louder than on a real psx. this is due to an emulation error. same as before. synthetising an ogre using 2x mage masher. recieved a kupo nut. time to visit the place where zidane grew up. d: earlier, freya and zidane were talking about the festival of the hunt. that's about to start as well. d: meanwhile, garnet is cooped up in the castle and unable to leave. d: zidane decides to pay her a visit. but the elevator is "authorized personnel only" d: you need to talk to the guard to "know" you need to steal someone's clothes in order to get into the elevator.
d: apparently, garnet's voice is loud enough to reach several floors down. you need to watch 6 specific places in order to move on. d: the festival of the hunt seems to have gotten an early start. zidane rushes to his starting point freya needs to win the festival of hunt in order to be rewarded with a coral ring. that is achieved by killing zidane which happens to be also the fastest way to end the festival. recieved coral ring. d: a wounded soldier breaks the news about the attack on freya's homeland of burmecia by alexandrian troops. no big deal, though. let's just eat d: garnet poisoned the food so that only she and steiner could escape and return to alexandria.
d: zidane isn't supposed to be completely white during these sequences, but that's, again, an emulation error. but before going to burmecia, we're going to take a little detour to qu's marsh caught a frog giving a frog to quina d: vivi's grandpa was one of the qu, it seems. zidane agrees to take quina in his team so he could explore the world for some exotic food. leaving qu's marsh this way avoids quina asking to catch frogs. equiping the ogre + coral ring and man eater ability mandragora : 662 hp
to eat an enemy, it needs to be under 25% of its max hp. quina learned limit glove. limit glove deals 9999 damage if quina's hp is 1. 1 damage otherwise. d: as you might guess, that will come in handy during a tas, where it's very easy to keep a character at 1 hp with very little risk. recieved gizamaluke bell d: these bells are needed in order to move through the cave. black mage : 398 hp zidane's power + man eater is enough to kill black mages
quina's killed to be revived at 1 hp. d: gave the kupo nut away. recieved holy bell gizamaluke : 3175 hp one limit glove will do the trick d: meanwhile, nearby south gate... d: garnet is hidden in a bag of extremely smelly pickles to prevent the guards from searching him pick up multina racket to enhance dagger's attack. steiner needs to get rid of the boy and the mother so he can reach the alley.
d: oh no--has he been found out? d: actually, no, the guard is simply too disgusted by the gysahl pickles to get any closer. and they're boarding direction alexandria d: welcome to burmecia, the city where it always rains. d: burmecia has been under attack by the black mage army and is mostly deserted. same strategy as before. zidane is now looking all around the city to find the final bell. giving away the coral ring found protection bell
finally they can move on as the habitants are going away, freya swears to protect the king. d: dragon knights are good at jumping. vivi and quina, not so much. d: there's the main antagonist up to this point: queen brahne. as freya is lost in her thoughts a new character appears. d: zidane and freya jump into the battle in order to save a burmecian from what's an obvious suicide beatrix : 3630 hp d: beatrix, the strongest of the alexandrian army, turns out to be a pushover with the right ability. d: well, thanks to storyline invulnerability, she still beats the party.
and even insults them. d: cue main antagonist leitmotif. and as the white dragon takes off, we've reached the end of disc 1. d: garnet and steiner are still taking the cable car up the mountain. our heroes reached summit station. we can see alexandria on the horizon. d: they're about to meet an old friend. equiping dagger with multina racket and feather hat. steiner with coral ring + man eater ability. suddenly dagger hears a familiar voice. it's marcus and cinna !
d: cable car stations that aren't too dissimilar from this one exist for real in japan. mountain villages and cities tend to have them. d: minus the steampunk aesthetics. suddenly something stopped the cable car. black waltz 3 : 1292 hp i need my 3 characters alive to finish bw3 in the 2nd turn. luckily i can manipulate a miss and still do a critical hit. d: dagger can actually do some decent damage now. finally the cab reached the south gate and we can move on to our next destination : treno, where marcus hopes to find the supersoft to save blank from the evil forest. d: welcome to treno. the city where it's always night. watching this ate allows steiner to pick up a power belt later on.
lost 500 gils. recieved power belt. buy mythril sword for steiner's attack. ice staff to teach vivi blizzara + magus hat for enhancement of his magic. 3 glass armlet + 3 chain mail for synthesis purposes. 2 bone wrist for the add status ability. 2 mythril gloves for man eater ability. chain plate for devil killer ability. d: and we've reached the base of tantalus. while trying to steal the supersoft, our heroes meet with doctor tot, dagger's old teacher. found supersoft. doctor tot told them they can reach alexandria by an underground way. equip mythril sword, mythril gloves, chain mail, power belt + mp attack, counter - bird killer.
a gargant appears ! looks like our new locomotion. something scared it. d: again, the ride is crudely interrupted by something dangerous. ralvurahva : 2296 hp mp attack multiplies the damage by 1,5. thanks to that and counter, the fight ends in only 2 turns. and they're finally back to alexandria. but... what is going on ??? meanwhile our heroes leave burmecia for cleyra, where the burmecian have retreated themselves.
d: we've moved from an eternal rain into an eternal sandstorm. found magician shoes, to enhance vivi's magic. they're offered a free tour of the place but zidane politely declines. found yellow scarf, for the bird killer ability. a kid is in danger, we gotta help him. it's puck. turns out that he is the prince of burmecia ! d: a rule of thumb in ff9 is that if things are peaceful for longer than two minutes, there's probably a boss battle right around the corner. antlion : 3938 hp vivi's attacking himself to advance the rng.
antlion's sandstorm leaves every character with 1 bought a partisan. equiping ice staff, magus hat, bone wrist and magician shoes on vivi. bone wrist, chain plate and coral ring + man eater on zidane. partisan, mythril gloves and yellow scarf + man eater on freya. alexandrian soldier : 523 hp our heroes are perplexed. would there only be 6 soldiers to lead an attack on cleyra ? hurry ! that was a diversion ! d: turns out the soldiers were just a diversion, and the town further up is being terrorized. d: the oracles seem to be no match for the black mage army. black mage : 526 hp d: what follows is a series of choices regarding who to save and where to go. the shortest path up the trunk is chosen. choosing the right direction avoids a battle. when everything seems lost, a mysterious dragon knight comes to the rescue. it's sir fratley, freya's lost love. but he doesn't remember her. i switch characters order here to switch their rng in the next battle. it will be needed to have the right steal. beatrix : 4736 hp same old strategy. d: again, beatrix is saved by storyline invincibility. d: the black mages' method of transportation seems to have a security flaw. quina's left behind. d: but you thought the worst was over... d: cleyra has been destroyed by the eidolon odin. beatrix is whining... why using black mages when you can use her ? d: even beatrix seems to think that was excessive. d: garnet is going to be beheaded for stealing her jewel, apparently. hmmm. how to escape from here ? the alexandrian soldiers moves are rng dependant. it's manipulate in order to avoid them the fastest way possible. hiting them triggers a fight. luckily they don't know how to climb. d: they're not very good at pursuing prisoners. hurry up rusty, dagger's in danger !!! d: the 30 minute time limit is about to get smashed. d: again the alexandrian soldiers aren't very attentive. you can't catch me. d: a castle has to have secret passageways. equiping ice brand and bronze armor. zorn : 4897 hp / thorn : 2985 hp you just have to bring one of them to 0 hp to end the fight. obviously thorn will be the primary target. making the rng move faster for the next fight. beatrix : 5709 hp d: this time it's an actual fight, without quina. even if an attack misses, a counter can occur. this is really helpful as steiner can't survive a hit. after following blindly queen brahne's orders, beatrix realises that she's helped injuring the princess. so she decides to follow her heart instead and tries to cure her. d: perhaps being implicated in genocide made her realize that following brahne's orders is not the right thing to do. bandersnatch : 899 hp surprisingly, when beatrix fights by your side, she's a lot less powerful than when you fight her. black mage : 623 hp steiner leaves to help freya and beatrix. d: "it's not going to be easy..." yay ! blank isn't petrified anymore ! d: looks like marcus succeeded in using the supersoft. hmm this looks familiar... d: it seems you can't take public transportation in gaia without running into a huge monster. ralvuimago : 3352 hp after the big failure of the black waltzes, queen brahne decides to call some outside contractors. meet ramuh. like all the other eidoleons, he's completely useless. so we skip him. oh no ! lindblum is under attack going to close to the center would trigger a dialogue over the black mage dead body. lots a dialogue about what our heroes should do. recieved 3 000 gils. it's been decided. we're going to the forgotten continent to fight kuja. synthetising an exploda, 3 glass buckles, then 3 power belt. recieved world map. ohoh. quina survived the destruction of cleyra. equiping exploda and power belt + mp attack, devil killer and counter. and s/he discover a secret entrance ! passing the last axe and coming back, triggers the rotating animation of the machine, which allow an earlier jump over the gap. lani : 5708 hp lucky seven : deal 7,77,777 or 7777 damage if zidane's hp end with a 7, 1 damage otherwise. of course we're always going for 7777 who's in for some gargant fun ? they are afraid of water, so we have to puss switches to direct them where we want. and... we're out of here... welcome to condie petie. a place where people have a strange way to talk. d: there we see a familiar face. or rather, hat. what's a black mage doing here. let's follow him. d: evading random battles comes in handy here. d: not quite the feared killing machines anymore. vivi's discussing about death and feelings with his fellow black mages. dagger is worried about him but zidane tells her not to worry and shares a bit of his personnal history. there's supposed to be a sanctuary behind condie petie so our heroes want to go there. d: looks like they have to go through a ritual before they're allowed in. d: not just any ritual--marriage. you can kiss the bride d: you can marry vivi and quina if you want. this is omitted to save time, and perhaps vivi's sanity. that's a shame : / before going to the sanctuary, eiko will lead our heroes to her place, madain sari. hilgigars : 8106 hp meanwhile eiko is preparing some dinner. you're supposed to go to the eidoleon wall before picking up dagger, but zidane decides otherwise and avoid a back and forth trip. this place looks familiar to dagger. time to eat ! eiko joins the party to go to the sanctuary aka the iifa tree. d: fortunately, eiko knows the way through. recieved ruby. d: time for a long trip down... messed up sound again. sorry. d: every form of long-term transportation, from airships to cable cars to trains to giant animals has had some sort of monster along the way, so it seems to go without saying that... zombie : 973 hp vivi killed himself so zidane earn enough exp to reach level 17 by the end of the disc. this is gonna be very helpful later on. d: as usual in final fantasy games, undead monsters are weak against healing items. there's 3 ways to kill undead ennemies in 1 hit. phoenix down, life, elixir in order from the fastest to slowest. however phoenix down has only 1/11 chance to kill when the other have 100% chance, so it's used as much as possible but not all the time. dracozombie : 2179 hp soulcage : 9765 hp quickest boss fight ever ! as soulcage is down, the myst quickly goes away... something was stolen from madain sari, we got to hurry back. "quick, come to the eidoleon wall, lani's got eiko". recieved exploda and elixir. d: looks like the other mercenary disapproves of lani's methods. d: he challenges zidane to a duel. d: not one to shy away from a chance to impress dagger, he accepts. amarant : 8985 hp amarant asks zidane to finish him, but he lets him go instead. recieved memory earings. zidane tries to explain why he decides to follow dagger she hears a song coming from the eidoleon wall, that triggers her some old memories. dagger finally understand that she's from here that place is her home... amarant still doesn't understand why zidane let him live. so zidane tells him that if he wants to understand he'll just have to come with them. dagger is now useless so amarant take her place. d: back to the iifa tree once more. and kuja is here... d: by now his theme music should be familiar. this time, we're going up... equiping oak staff and unequiping magician shoes, leather shirt and bone wrist on vivi. bone wrist, chain plate and power belt on amarant. adaman vest on zidane. d: looks like queen brahne is here too. mistodon : 1473 hp d: looks like the alliance between kuja and brahne has come to an end. whether you'll have one or two fights against one or two mistodons is decide by the rng when you enter the screen. it's manipulated here to have only one fight against only one mistodon. a long long way down... recieved aquamarine. d: alexandria is still fighting kuja. d: queen brahne still has an ace up her sleeve: the bahamut eidolon. queen brahne is now dying and is asking for dagger forgiveness. d: the townspeople offered some roses for brahne's grave. and as dagger is about to become the new queen of alexandria, we've reached the end of disc 2. doctor tot, beatrix, steiner and dagger arrive to alexandria castle. the crowning of the new queen will happen in 3 days. meanwhile zidane gives the silent treatment to his former partners. the idea of not seeing dagger as much as before leaves him speechless. d: as usual, background sound here is louder than it should be due to an emulation error. and... vivi trips again... how about seeing ruby play a little ? dagger would like to talk to zidane, but she's reminded that she has more important things to do now. like trying a new dress. recieved opal, topaz and amethyst. d: you have to get out now, steiner. in the same time, eiko is trying to find a way to tell her feelings to zidane. she's gonna write him a love letter with the help of doctor tot. but seeing eiko's horn triggers tot some memories. dagger's fashion show is over. this is what she's going to wear. meanwhile the love letter is done. oh no she's lost the letter, please give it to zidane. and so... the letter stays here for whoever wants to pick it up. meanwhile zidane is still whining... he needs to change his mind. so he asks baku if he can rejoin the tantalus. but the rule is pretty clear. once you leave there's no comeback. d: even though he already left once before. the first meeting between freya and amarant turns close to a fight. recieved 3927 gils. calm down steiner we're here to see dagger. zidane is speechless again. eiko and dagger trade jewels as the symbol of their friendship. the night has fallen. will zidane be there at the rendez-vous of the love letter ? ohoh. it's marcus who got the letter. d: baku ruins the scene. there's a tetra master tournament in treno. that would change zidane's mind. let's go ! d: our heroes have arrived in treno. d: this is the only time we'll play tetra master in the game. there's a lot of luck manipulation going on there in order to have the fastest match possible. a fight between 2 cards is extremely time consuming so none of that should happen. flipping an opponent's card costs time too, so it happens only once per game to win it. d: all things considered, this is not very representative of what tetra master looks like when you're normally playing. also having only one card of your opponent's desk flipped avoid to choose which card you want to win at the end and saves time. wining the last game is not mandatory but it rewards you with a rebirth ring which will be needed later on. recieved rebirth ring. hurry up ! something horrible happens to alexandria !!! d: bahamut is attacking alexandria. d: clearly, this calls for a summoner. giving the correct orders rewards you with... recieved angel earings. (good to sell for 10000 gils) this mistodon has a really large trigger zone, but it's possible to lure him there to avoid the first fight. there's a mandatory fight in this place. however, the trigger zone of the fight is one pixel away from the exit zone. d: one of the more famous parts of the ffix soundtrack, and the only time in the game where you hear it: protecting my devotion. mistodon : 1473 hp. d: trance here is storyline-based, so it always occurs no matter what the meter status is. meanwhile dagger hears a music coming from above. she discovered a secret place of the castle. and as our heroes are flying back to alexandria... eiko's jewel starts to shine and she's hearing dagger's voice in her head. together they'll summon alexander. alexander can protect the city from bahamut it seems... but there's a greater power over their heads. seems like everybody is looking for dagger. i'll go alone. don't worry about me. d: alexander is disintegrating. let's get out of here, quick... a little bit later, in lindblum... zidane is finally awake. choosing "how did i get there ?" allows you to go directly to cid's room and saves time. dagger is still not there so eiko will look for her. meanwhile dagger is blaming herself for everything. cid says he saw kuja leaves taking black mages with him, which put vivi in a deep anger. but he's not the only one angry... our heroes are now calling for the help of doctor tot, to change cid back to human. oh no ! dagger has lost her voice !!! let's postpone the meeting. doctor tot has an idea to change cid back. we need to find 3 specific potions. d: meanwhile, lindblum is still in the middle of reconstruction. bought a coral sword and a mantra band. recieved beautiful potion. looks like the burmecian we saved are still alive and well ^^ d: tantalus is also still rebuilding. recieved unusual potion. found strange potion. that's it. back to the castle. well. the effect is not what it was supposed to be ! so, we now have a boat from alexandria. let's use it to go to the black mage village and find why black mages are with kuja. d: finally, we'll have some freedom of movement again. en route, for the black mage village ! d: the village is nearly empty. kuja told the black mages he can expand their lifetimes. that's why they went with him. d: however, a few stayed behind... d: they looked after this chocobo egg that just hatched. d: they don't know why, but they felt obligated to stay behind and look after it, and they feel good for having done it. and we learn where kuja secret palace is. but we fall into a trap. d: thankfully, they can just walk out. cid is left behind to help the others escape. kuja said that if we want to keep everybody alive we need to get him the gulug stone from oeilvert. steiner is choosen because he'll be needed for a quick upcoming fight. eiko and amarant are just choosen because they're faster to go out of their cell. this is hilda garde 2. our new locomotion to oeilvert. this is the longest distance we have to go on foot from all the game. d: manipulation to avoid battle really comes in handy here. as distance plays a part in the random encounter formula, the odds of a fight are now more than 50% every 9 steps, and a lot of stop and go is needed. d: finally, we've arrived at oeilvert. bought a trident. equiping mantra band + hp+20% on zidane. coral sword and bronze armor + bird killer and devil killer on steiner. surprisingly zidane can read all the strange inscriptions. all is about the story of gaia and a planet called terra. ark : 20002 hp. equiping plate mail and desequiping cross helm on steiner. recieved gulug stone. meanwhile... the monster's movement are rng dependant. this is the fastest i could get without losing more time manipulating rng than it saves. and the cells open themselves ! this is the only bloodstone we need to take. without it active, the boss' defense enhancement will fail and freya will be able to deal a lot of damage. recieved shield armor. equiping trident, cross helm, bronze armor and power belt + mp attack, bird killer, devil killer and counter on freya. rebirth ring + auto life on quina. valia pira : 12120 hp. meanwhile our heroes come back from oeilvert. d: this could have all gone a lot easier if cid had decided to open up the jail cells sooner. the party is reunited... but not for long... eiko wasn't fast enough. d: kuja took the gulug stone. kuja is fleeing with hilde garde, so, quick we follow him with the blue narcisse. we reached esto gaza ! it appears that kuja retreat himself in the mont gulug. bought a flame saber, a scissor fang, 2 venetia shield and a cross helm. d: the background music for this location is a remake of the old theme from ff1. equiping scissor fang and coral ring + devil killer, man eater, add status and counter on amarant. cross helm, mythril gloves and shield armor + man eater on steiner. red dragon : 8000 hp. red dragon are vulnerable to stop so vivi takes care of the first one, but also to venom which is the added effect of amarant's scissor fang. when both of them are stopped the battle end. this is the last time vivi's gonna be useful. desequiping the adaman vest on zidane to equip it on amarant + bird killer ability. a familiar scene is happening... d: the last time this happened, it nearly killed garnet. but the extraction failed. how come ? because of mog ^^ nothing to do in this fight... just wait and see... the trance of mog is pretty impressive. recieved ribbon. d: looks like they're not ready to kick the bucket yet. meltigemini : 24348 hp. eiko attacking herself is to boost the rng in the proper position for lucky seven. turns out lady hilda was held captive by kuja. she accepts to turn cid back to human as long as he doesn't cheat on her anymore. et voilã ! d: once again, we're back in lindblum. lady hilda called a meeting to tell everybody what she learned from kuja during her captivity. meanwhile, steiner is looking for dagger. as he can't find her, the tantalus offer their help. from what lady hilda heard, kuja seems to be headed to ipsen's castle. still looking for dagger... d: alexandria is in shambles too, after garland's attack. d: the sound effect of the water is a lot less loud on a real psx. this is due to an emulation error. recieved garnet. then we finally found her. and her voice is back ! but her hair is gone... now that cid is back to human we have a better way of travelling. headed to ipsen's castle to catch kuja ! d: this airship is a great deal faster than the other ones. amarant decides to split up from the party and go by himself. equiping flame saber and thunder gloves + add status on steiner. recieved earth mirror, wind mirror, fire mirror and water mirror. taharka : 29186 hp. taharka is vulnerable to heat which is the added effect of steiner's flame saber. once inflicted with heat, every single move kills yourself. that's it for a quick death ! apparently, amarant didn't make it back. zidane and his big heart will go back inside for him. surprisingly here, using a trap to fall down or using the pole takes the exact same amount of time down to the frame. d: a quick overview of what we just pilfered. we'll split up in 4 teams. one team for each shrine. eiko and dagger for the first one. freya and amarant for the second one. vivi and steiner for the third one. and... we're stuck with quina... delaying a little bit the frame on which i close the dialogue box here will shorten the boss animation later on. earth guardian : 20756 hp. if i get the earth guardian hp below 25% (5189 hp), quina will be able to eat him. so it takes 2 lucky seven and 13hp damage to do that. it's obviously way faster than a limit glove. surprisingly nobody seems to have encounter a big problem defeating their own guardian. off to the shimmering islands to reach terra. we finally meet garland in person. hey ! she has a tail like zidane ! stop running away ! found demon's vest. desequiping rebirth ring on quina. equiping coral sword, venetia shield and ribbon + ability up on steiner. orichalcon, demon vest, rebirth ring + auto-life, bird killer - hp+20%, counter on zidane. welcome to bran bal, zidane's home, the place he was looking for for so long. d: it's sort of unsurprising he wasn't able to find his home even after searching for it for so long, though, given that it's on another planet. meanwhile eiko is looking for some medicine to wake up dagger. but she wakes up by herself. zidane is learning a little bit more about himself, his purpose... he's supposed to help garland make terra absorb gaia. you're supposed to visit every outside places before moving on. so going back and forth there avoid taking the grand detour. let's go see garland. meanwhile kuja is preparing his revenge... time for the famous "you're not alone" ! d: zidane's not very pleased to hear that he was designed to harvest the souls of gaia for use on terra, and temporarily goes into shock. amdusias (1st phase) : starts with bio then take off. thanks to auto-life, i can survive this phase. amdusias (2nd phase) : end after a 5463 hp loss. amdusias (3rd phase) : 5463 hp. abadon (1st phase) : attack twice. abadon (2nd phase) : 10926 hp. even if it takes one more turn, physically attacking abadon is faster than a limit glove. shell dragon (1st phase) : ends when zidane is in critical hp. shell dragon (2nd phase) : 10921 hp. it takes 3 battles for zidane to finally understand he's not alone ! last time we go shopping. bought a defender, a holy lance, an avenger, a coronet and some phoenix down. those phoenix down are actually not "needed" to revive characters as i have just the right amount of it, but to save almost a second of lag during kuja's monolog. going near a blue light is supposed to trigger a fight, but there's a few pixels were you can go to avoid the trigger zone and not waste time waiting. equiping power belt + counter on zidane. avenger, coronet and power belt + mp attack on amarant. defender, linen cuirass and power belt on steiner. holy lance, venetia shield and rebirth ring + auto-life - counter on freya. silver dragon : 24056 hp. d: time to settle the score with garland... garland : 40729 hp. charge ! makes all the characters in critical hp attack. in addition, the ennemy doesn't counter when attack by it. kuja : 42383 hp. d: but, kuja's intention was to get himself beat up a little so he could activate... trance. and as kuja is growing stronger and stronger, he learned that he is mortal like everybody else. and if is going to die... the world should die too... hurry up, we must save everybody ! and i mean... everybody. d: and with that, we've reached the end of disc 3. all the population of bran bal has arrived to the black mage village. but our heroes are not done yet with kuja. equiping shield armor on steiner. plate mail on freya. ability hp+20% on zidane. d: now entering... memoria. but getting inside isn't going to be so easy. d: thankfully, they're getting some help from the lindblum air force. d: i hope that clears up any misconceptions about why dragons are extinct these days. nova dragon : 54941 hp. this attack put our heroes in critical hp so they can charge ! later on. finally reached memoria, a strange place full of memories... where zidane can hear garland in his head. and he's the only one. found the tower. equiping the tower on zidane. maliris : 59497 hp. nobody can survive this final attack. luckily freya's got auto-life on. while we're moving on, we're still in the middle of memories... found rune claws. equiping rune claws on amarant. tiamat : 59494 hp. zidane has been revived with 7 hp on purpose. d: that's two of the four chaos guardians down. d: quina thinks he's drowning, but it's not really happening. zidane helps him snap out of it. d: a parallel can be drawn between memoria and the void in ff5, which had similar imagery and nonsensical areas. kraken : 55536 hp. you can't attack kraken physically without getting a counter from his tentacles. however charge ! doesn't trigger a counter. both tentacle have 10001 hp but can't be killed by charge ! so the fastest way to kill it is to have charge ! attack each tentacle once, then finish them physically. d: only one more chaos guardian to go. lich : 58554 hp. d: lich went down rather quickly. that's all four chaos guardians down. found excalibur ii. d: the excalibur ii can only be picked up if the game timer is under 12 hours. at this point, we've got about 4 and a half hours of spare time. and we reached the crystal world. equiping excalibur ii on steiner. deathguise : 55536 hp. deathguise always start with meteor, so it's manipulate to make our heroes end up in critical hp so they can charge ! thanks to excalibur ii steiner does +3000 hp damage here. d: as deathguise goes down screaming, the only one left to beat is kuja. trance kuja : 55536 hp. trance kuja counter as soon as attacked physically. this is bypass by using charge ! twice in a row, so he doesn't even attack. d: kuja's trying to take everybody down with him by casting ultima again. d: it's very effective. d: except... kuja wasn't the final boss after all. there's someone else out there... unequiping plate mail on freya. equiping plate mail and yellow scarf on steiner. necron : 54100 hp. necron got 4 atb and can attack with the 2 fastest. once again we use that to go in critical hp as soon as possible. final hit on necron at 7h28m01s in-game time. d: just a little bit more interaction is required to pass some dialogue boxes (so the timer keeps running), but other than that, the game is finished. d: looks like we're back at the iifa tree. word is everybody survive the explosion so the hilda garde 3 is gonna get them. but zidane hears kuja's voice in his head. d: being the more moral of the two siblings, he can't just leave kuja behind. he's in the iifa tree somewhere. d: zidane promises to come back safely. "here goes nothing" ! d: somehow, he survived a fall from that high with no injuries. final input, enjoy... d: from here on, it's just the ending automatically playing back. no more input needed, not even for dialogue boxes. we can sit back and watch the ending. d: now, as a special feature, a mini interview with the author of the run, lil_gecko. d: lots of tas runs get made all the time of all sorts of games. why did you decide to make a run for ff9? well it was one of my favourite game on playstation 1. plus i wanted a tas that could keep me busy for a while. so this game was perfect for that. d: this is listed as your first tas submission ever. did you ever work on tas projects before? not really. i tried a little bit of crash bandicoot xs before but never going very far with it. d: making a tas for an rpg requires a great deal of planning and research, perhaps more so than other game genres. what were the major obstacles or difficulties that you encountered? definitely planning what to buy or what treasure to pick. some things on disc 3 needed to be planned as soon as disc 1. also the rng was definitely not nice with me. like if i needed it to be 50, be sure i'll only have 49 or 51. d: do you think there are potential improvements in the run as it currently is? yeah, a bronze armor bought in dali would avoid some unequiping in disc 3. counter didn't need to be activate on freya and amarant. plus having an analog controller would shave some frame in the movement. maybe some other minor stuff d: are there any other projects that you'd like to embark on sometime? other rpg/psx games, maybe? definitely. even though i don't know which one yet. probably a psx game. d: finally, anything you'd like to say or anyone you'd like to thank? i would like to thanks essentiafour for her ff9 speedrun, which helps me planning, everybody from tasvideo for supporting all along the way, dada for his help on the subtitles and everybody for watching the run in full.
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