Hey peoples! Last month I took part in the awesome GB Community Endurance run and during the event I ran through FF8 as quickly as I could. The experience has gotten me thinking about FF8 in some new ways and it has led me to think about playing games a little differently as well. So I figured I would write a little bit about my experience. This blog post isn’t going to be about the tips and minutia involved with speed running FF8 in particular (I’ve already doneafewvideos on speed running tips and the archive of the stream is up on my Youtube and Hitbox channels), but rather it is going to be about how speed running this game changed how I perceive games in general. Believe it or not I still had something to learn from a 15 year old game that I’ve beaten about 10 times.

First off, I learned that running from a battle in a JRPG is a big time saver and that there is no boogie man that punishes you for your cowardice! In most JRPGs and role playing games in general I feel compelled to defeat every enemy possible with the expectation that the money, exp, and items that you get from battle will be necessary at some point. Battles seem so fast when they go well and it feels like progress every time you win. As a result, I always looked at battles as an opportunity for progress and reward, rather than as an unnecessary time sink. I would think, “Well I’m in a battle anyway so I might as well win.” It turns out that FF8 and a bunch of other games can be beaten pretty easily without engaging with the grind, so long as you know what you’re doing. That extra stuff you get from random battles is often extraneous as long as you make smart use of the bare necessities that the game gives you by default. Therefore, I’ve learned that cutting out all of those little attack and magic animations can add up to hours of time saved with little to no impact on your ability to finish the game. I would argue that skipping battles entirely can lead to a lesser experience overall if the battles are well designed, but in most cases you can safely skip the 10^th goblin battle in a dungeon without missing much.

I also learned that turning off random encounters is freaking amazing in story based games. In FF8 there is an ability that lets you turn off ALL RANDOM ENCOUNTERS (except in a few select optional areas) and that ability can come online as soon as halfway through disc 1. This is a bit of a corollary to my point on running away, but the option to not even see a random battle screen for hours is incredible. It is incredibly liberating to just focus on the story and exploration after years of worrying about whether doubling back in a dungeon for an item is worth the 3-5 extra encounters that come with it. Honestly, my FF8-minus-the-fat experience was so positive that I think all games with a strong narrative draw should have an option to turn off the combat padding. Most games (especially story focused games) come with a few key battles or moments that are worth experiencing surrounded by padding and repetition, and experiencing FF8 with only the boss battles was much more fun than fighting the generic grunts over and over. I would love to see a game admit that fact and allow you to cut out the fat. Maybe the story only option should only be unlocked by beating the game first or maybe that option should be unlocked midway through the game; but, goodness do I want to try Mass Effect 2 without shooting my way through the endless hallways all over again. I guess I want a kind of boss rush mode for modern games.

Another revelation I had was that using all of your items in an RPG makes the game way easier and more fun. Who knew! I used to be an item hoarder, but no more. I used to listen to the voice in my head that said, “You might need that elixir later,” but from now on I’m telling that voice to shut up. Game designers give you powerful consumable items for a reason and hoarding those items for as long as possible usually results in a more frustrating experience than liberally using items when you need them. I’m at the point in my life where I have limited gaming time and I really don’t need to hit myself with extra psychological barriers to finishing a game as quickly as possible.

Speed running FF8 gave me a newfound appreciation for the flexibility and utility of FF8’s controversial Junction System. I always liked how the junction system allowed you to break the game and completely customize your characters, but I never fully appreciated how the game’s scaling enemies also keep the game fun regardless of your level. The scaled enemies in FF8 are really well done and they keep the difficulty of the game about the same regardless of how much grinding you do. That is a potentially huge innovation, doubly so if it were included in a game that has a more balanced combat system overall. In FF8 Ruby Dragons are always scary and Bite Bugs are never threatening, regardless of where and when you encounter each enemy. By making the enemy type matter, instead of the enemy level, FF8 avoids the incongruity of a game like Destiny where a level 10 grunt suddenly wipes you because you’re level 8 while a level 1 grunt with the same model, AI, and name dies in one hit. Also since FF8 enemies gain abilities as they gain levels as well as health and strength they present different challenges as the game progresses, rather than the same challenge with a bigger health bar.

My speed run taught me a bunch about FF8, but more than that it taught me that the way I define the parameters of how I play a game is a game in and of itself. By setting up my own playstyles and codes of gaming honor I fundamentally change the way I experience a given game. Finding a new way to play an old game transformed FF8 in a way I never expected and it gave me even more appreciation for its weird quirks.

I think this is going to be my last piece of FF8 coverage for the foreseeable future. I'm a little FF8 fatigued. Also I didn't mention it above, but the story of FF8 does keep speed runs interesting because some parts are endlessly funny.

Thoroughly enjoyed your speed run and it brought home just how much those systems come into play. When I was a kid, the only way I played Final Fantasy was to grind til the numbers won out. I knew about enemies scaling with you but barely remember how I used the junction system. There's no real skips in that game, is there? Its all about efficiency which are probably my favourite kind of runs.

I don't think I could ever do this. I'm a slow gamer to begin with and trying to go through an RPG at full speed seems horrible.

I did try a min/maxed run of FFVIII once and I would to say to everyone who wants to hear it:

DO NOT DO A MIN/MAX RUN OF FFVIII

Because of how leveling and getting stronger works in that game, it's an absolute drag. It will just make you hate the game.

@hassun: Yeah min/max runs of FF8 are the damn worst. It is especially true because maxing your stats in FF8 is so far beyond unnecessary. I beat Ultimecia with a party who's highest level was 17 and highest stat was 100 strength. A fun challenge I've tried was a "make everyone useful" run where I split all of the GFs among all of the characters evenly. That lead to all of the characters having real identities and uses, rather than just having three super heroes and 3 useless husks.

@shindig: There are only a few small "skips" though I'm not sure you can call them skips. They don't involve glitches in the game at the least. In the Garden Master segment, where you warn Cid about the Galbadian missiles, you only have to go to 3 areas to trigger Xu showing up. That saves a few trips and some running. Also you can talk to Rinoa to warp to FH when you carry her to Esthar, rather than pilot the Garden to FH. You can also jump the Garden from Balamb to Trabia, but that only saves a few seconds. The biggest skip I know of can only be done in a run where restarts are allowed. You can run to the Tomb of the Unknown King, find the student's id number, then restart the game (picking up at a save in Deling City) and give the id to the guard at Caraway's mansion. That saves some time. But most of the time saving stuff in an FF8 run is just brutal efficiency.

I did another run on my Vita just to see how fast I could go if I grabbed the bare minimum of stuff and I finished in 12 hours and 20 minutes. So I still have room for improvement.

I think you've now seen things @thatpinguino that can't be unseen.

At least for me and my friends, once you've let yourself how much time those animations etc take up, it becomes hard to not get impatient in JRPGs were you can't skip them

For me I just went back to my old style of play of item hoarding, grinding etc. I'm a completionist and collector at heart, somewhat in real life too. But most of my friends turned their backs on JRPGs and didn't look back. The ones that still play RPGs tend to stick to Elder Scrolls/Dragon Age like WRPG stuff where you can more explicitly mainline the games.

pretty impressed by what you did dude, speed running a platformer is one thing. A JPRG though man that takes some serious time.

@slag: I actually have avoided long animations in JRPGs since I was little because of how unnecessarily long they are. So speed running really didn't change my perspective there. If anything, seeing how I could cut all of the repetitive combat out made me more likely to finish games like FF3 and 4 via speed run tactics. I abhor grinding and there is nothing that irks be from a design perspective like forcing a player to repeat the same content over and over again just to pad the game length. Thanks to this run I learned that breaking out of the grind can only require you to mentally break yourself out of the positive feedback loop that RPG combat imposes. Honestly I might play more RPGs now that I know that they can be cut down from 40 hours to 10 with some clever play.

As far as finishing the run goes, it wasn't that bad thanks to the Community Endurance Run duders (shoutout to @vash10, @jeffrud, @amlabella, @bollard,@blzzzrrttt and @corevi) and my buddy @rothgar keeping me sane. It is a lot better to speed run with people to cheer you on and talk to you. I'm really looking forward to running FF9 at the next Community Endurance Run. I like FF8's mechanics and absurdity, but I love everything about 9. Also 9 is a bit more interesting from a speed running perspective. Running FF8 is a matter of breaking the game 2 hours in and then mopping up for 10 hours, whereas 9 is more about staying half a step ahead of your enemies for the entire game by scrapping around the margins. You never realize how much text there is in an FF game until that text is all that stops you from progressing.

@thatpinguino: You forgot late addition @blzzzrrttt

@corevi: Thanks for the reminder. I edited my previous post to correct my mistake.

fair enough! That's very cool you can do that

not me I don't think I'll ever stop playing that way, too many formative experiences on the NES where I was punished harshly for not being prepared for any eventuality. Games are more fair about that kind of things these days. Plus I like my shiny stuff.

I'd be curious to see you try that approach with something you've never beaten before and to read/listen to your thoughts about it.

Maybe Suikoden 2 since it just released on PSN would be a good candidate?

Yeah I bet having that kind of reinforcement and company absolutely helped tremendously with what you did. fwiw You have my respect for doing it!

@slag: Looks like I'm going to be putting up some stuff about Threads of Fate and The Witcher 2 soon. I plan on covering how I approached the combat of the Witcher 2 and how my new attitude went into that run (preview: my go-fast tactics worked for 90% of the game, but ranged enemies broke my dang spirit).

Your idea to play through a JRPG that I haven't messed with before is a good one. It would be fun to do a full run going in cold and talking my way through it. That would make for some good steady content as well. I bought Suikoden, Suikoden II, and Legend of Dragoon so expect some full runs soon!