Happy holidays, everyone! Hope my fellow Americandernoids had a satisfying quantity of turkey and shopping and football last weekend. We’re back here at perfectpacman.com to talk TG challenges again. On September 7th, Twin Galaxies mainstay Matthew Felix (“starcrytas” to his buddies) defeated my then-recently posted Cane of Byrna challenge on SNES Link to the Past. Basically, the challenge was to acquire the blue cane without ever taking any damage. The game has been defeated damageless all the way through by others, but every instance I found skipped this troublesome blue cane, stashed at the ass end of a long spiky cave, just like your aunt’s mystery casserole that sits on the far end of the Thanksgiving table for a reason.
Now you may ask… Why did it take me three months to write about this? Well, part of me was hoping maybe another challenge would be met, and I could write about both as a two-for-one. (And we do in fact have a bonus feature today.) Back when these challenges were done on limited schedules, I always had multiple runs to cover. But the real reason, is, I was Mega Away From Keyboard for a bit. Don’t worry, everything’s fine, but that’ll be a story for next time. Either way, as my favorite adage goes, “If a man says he’ll do something, he’ll do it. You don’t have to remind him every year.”
THE NAME IS FELIX
Not gonna lie, I’m not jealous of many names, but Felix is one of them. It’s just so cool, either as a first or last name. I mean, look at this pantheon of great Felices of human history:
And as a newly crowned Video Game Player of the Century, our friend starcrytas may now be counted among them.
We’ll get to Matthew’s excellent run in a little bit, but first, let’s talk some basic strategy. The objective is to proceed through each requisite obstacle in the game without ever taking damage. For one thing, this means you don’t have to worry about your normally precious bottles, as the only relevant thing they’ll be slinging around is plain green potions for magic refills. The Bug-Catching Net is also pointless. (Okay, I guess you could catch and store bees, if that’s your idea of fun.) You want to attack enemies from a range as much as possible. This makes the bow and arrow of import, which may have you watching your arrow count a little closer than usual. The boomerang is of course a huge help to stun guys – and as I had forgotten, you can literally walk through stunned guards with no damage. When you do have to get in close, it’s safer to clear guys out by just holding the button and leaving your sword extended out. The best way I could describe it is like a bunt in baseball, although that’s a bit ironic since that’s usually a way to break up a no-hitter, and this is about preserving one.
The submission video starts with Link, visiting the old man on the mountain, down one heart:
Obviously, the recording cut in following a failed attempt. Okay, so he didn’t get it in his first shot. Who does? That just means this was a worthy challenge, right?
Matty fires up another attempt, using the same beginning-of-game file appropriately named “NO HIT”. (lol How many of you first read that as “NO SHIT”?) Mr. Felix starts by skipping the lantern in Link’s house, which I thought was fucking wild, until I was reminded that if you pass up that first Lantern it appears later in place of a rupee treasure.
Matthew took a careful posture in the confines of the castle courtyard. While an early obstacle may benefit from easy resets, I would guess this first hurdle was the site of enough restarts to be worth taking slow and steady. Through the castle basement, Felix skips more treasure, while slinging around that blue boomerang, and knocking dudes off into bottomless pits. But even with ‘rang strats, Matthew still went to the classic “Throw pottery at people you don’t like” well versus the guy guarding Zelda.
With late lantern in hand, Matthew employed some expert navigation through the darkened sewers, clearly owing to a fair amount of practice. Upon emerging from the far end, he didn’t bother getting the free Heart Container, because in a no-damage run, why would you?
Felix turned east from the Sanctuary, and took a very careful route out to Eastern Palace. Again, I guess there’s no reason to visit Kakariko Village first when you don’t need Pieces of Heart, or bottles for faeries or medicine, or rupees, or Arby’s take-out.
In the Eastern Palace, Matthew eluded cannonballs, and swung careful word slashes at leaping skeletons, as one does. There was a tricky part in that dark room with those red anti-faerie skull things, which I’m just learning now are apparently called “Bubbles”. You have to hit that switch, then backtrack to the door, then usually you hit the switch on your way back out. Personally, I love to get the Magic Powder ASAP and sprinkle that shit on everything, but Matthew simply avoided the delaying floor switch on the second go. He even had a moment to catch a fallen rupee with his Boomerang on the way out.
The room with the four demon Bubbles guarding the big switch is another challenge. Matthew conquered it by killing everything but one critter up by the door, then escaping and re-entering to get a safer enemy pattern:
After more expert dark room navigation, more precise cannonball evasion, and a close call with a red cyclops guy, Armos was handily defeated. This time, the game forced him to grab a Heart Container. Back on the overworld, Matthew clearly knew the terrain well, as he was Hawkeye-sniping dudes who weren’t even visible on screen, while ambushing trained soldiers who apparently couldn’t see at right angles. With speedy boots and green book acquired, Matthew was off to…
…the Ice Rod?
That’s what I love about these challenges – I never know what to expect! We’ll see why the Rod is so important in a bit, but this did involve a precarious journey along a prominently perilous coastway. But our guy Felix was up to the challenge! Curiously, Matt did open the Ice Rod cave by picking up and throwing a bomb from a distance, rather than laying one at the cave and bolting. I felt like doing it that way would add an additional point of potential failure? I’ve definitely gotten screwed up trying to throw a bomb in an intended direction in this game. But I am not the no-hit expert, and given all the other strats observed, Matt clearly knew what he was doing.
In the Desert Palace, Matthew evaded more cannonballs and enemy lasers, just as expertly as he’d been avoiding all those little Pieces of Heart and knickknack treasures I collect so obsessively in my playthroughs. He dashed right through emerging sand critters like it was nothing, whereas I’m always way more cautious playing for any sort of no-hit achievement. The Power Glove opened up the second half of the dungeon, consisting of deceptively easy tile rooms and a single deceptively dodgy hallway. And finally, we get to our first true run-killer: Lanmolas.
I call them “run-killers” as if I know anything, but this fight did look especially dangerous. And here’s where we see these keen Ice Rod strats come into play. I double-checked, and Slackanater used the same strategy in his full-game sans-Byrna run. The Rod gives high damage at a long range, which is immensely helpful here. Granted, basic arrows also work as range weapons, but those are also limited. Either way, dispatching even one of the three worms early is an obvious advantage. Note that each worm shoots out projectiles at diagonals when they emerge, until a final worm remains, at which point that worm will shoot projectiles in eight directions. But Matthew was able to keep his distance, and eliminate the final two in succession, avoiding the need to hide within those 1/8 angles.
It’s at this point in the game that I usually run for Zora’s Flippers. But Matthew went straight to Death Mountain, and upon watching his game, I could see why. After emerging from the cave with the old man, this happened:
What!?!? He got hit by one of those little stone critters!? THIS WAS ALL A LIE!?!?!?
No fault of Mr. Felix, though. His submission message told me the successful attempt began about an hour into this recording. I was too excited to watch the tape that I didn’t bother reading the note first, lol.
On Matthew’s webcam, when he took that damage on the mountain, you could see him angrily shouting and raging and breaking things around his bedroom… No, just kidding. He calmly reached up, flicked the reset like it was nothing, and started over from the beginning. A true cold-blooded boss.
I’m not going to fully recap the other two failed attempts. After a treacherous Armos fight, Matt’s second attempt died at nearly the exact same spot on Death Mountain to a different little rock dude. His next try ended early to a sword in the back in the castle courtyard.
ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
Okay, now we’re gonna cover the realy real run. I promise.
Same strategies, for the most part. On the way to rescue Zelda, Matt executed a sweetly timed swordspin to kill two green guards at once, who in his prior runs had to be taken out one by one:
More flung pottery, more boomeranged guards and statues. As he did in the previous runs, Matt took a wide path around the treacherous area with the little rock-shooting critters on his way to Eastern Palace:
Same cannonball evasion. Same Bubble room strat. Swordspin flairs on each Pendant. Matty took wide berths on several overworld screen transitions. This didn’t stop him from having an extremely close call with a blue soldier while passing by his front lawn:
Another narrow escape came outside the Ice Rod cave, when Matthew approached a stunned crab, and another swooped in and tried to pincer him from behind:
Back over in what I was about to call “Kakariko Desert”, but which I am only now discovering is actually called the “Desert of Mystery”, Felix faced a rematch against the Lanmolas. I have to imagine this fight is an occasional run-stopper, but it didn’t cause any resets in Matt’s submitted attempts. He immediately took out the first worm with two Ice Rod shots, stretched the magic to kill another, and finished off the last one with a couple arrows from a safe distance.
And thus, finally, we got to the big moment…
The Death Mountain gauntlet. The true run killer. Thankfully, on this occasion, those first two little stone bastards gave Felix a clear pathway along the right. The third one was frozen with a bunt.
You know what that means!
Of course, it’s still called Death Mountain for a reason. Lots of stone critters and falling boulders and rabid dogs and infectious diseases and handguns everywhere waiting to kill you. Death Mountain is basically like the United States, but with less football on Sundays. On the way to the tall ladder, Matt ran under one giant ball of screaming death before being greeted by a second identical end-sphere which seemed to have an affinity for wherever he was standing.
Felix ducked into the cave by the ladder to make the deceasement orbs despawn. Up past Spectacle Rock, he had to play a bit of cat-and-mouse with one final stone critter before entering the Tower of Hera.
Oh, you know what’s coming here. But as all LttP speedrunners know, before Matt’s run can die disappointingly to Trolldorm, he first has to get to Trolldorm. In the Desert Palace, he could just skip the flying tile traps by snagging the key under a pot and dashing through, but now he has to actually survive an entire room full of murderous linoleum. Fortunately, he was able to carefully dispatch each tile using the bunt maneuver. On the way up the Tower, he left the blue changing tiles down and the orange tiles up, which usually is a major no-no because it locks away all your recovery hearts on the penultimate floor, but this is an odd case where he won’t need life recovery. Oh, and thankfully, dropping down a ledge to a previous floor doesn’t cause any loss of life, as Matt will be doing this many times. (That would have also made acquisition of items like Moon Pearl prohibitive for any no-damage runs.)
It is very tricky to hit Moldorm at all while consistently avoiding damage. You have to keep your distance at most times, but you can’t stay too far away, because then you’ll miss his key openings where he does a curl move that leaves his vulnerable tail exposed. Your dumb little shield is about as useless as the on-switch on that treadmill you bought ten years ago, but you do get some defense by holding the attack button, thereby leaving your sword drawn – the aforementioned bunt maneuver – which can result in you safely clanking away from Moldorm’s unexpected approach. When all else fails, and you can’t reach the jump ledge in time, you can keep your mirror armed and ready. This is your last resort, as it forces you to have to redo the Tower (minus the basements), but that’s better than the alternative. As a reminder, it takes six hits in total to kill Moldorm; once you’ve lodged five of those, he speeds up, making the final blow the most difficult of all.
On Felix’s first trip to the top floor, he observed Moldorm’s unfavorable position, then fixed it with a U-turn right back down the stairs. I would guess it has something to do with Moldorm staying away from the ledge where you drop onto his platform, which is necessary for you to begin the battle without taking damage. Once he did get the starting position he wanted, Matthew took the battle very carefully. If anything looked sketchy, he was happy to walk off the outer ledge to the previous floor and try again. And he wasn’t shy about firing off the mirror and restarting the Tower, either.
This is not to say he didn’t take any risks, though…
On his first attempt, Matthew lodged three hits before mirroring out. On the next, he used the mirror without scoring a single hit. On six different occasions, Felix hit Moldorm five times, triggering its fastest attack mode, before being forced into either mirroring away or dropping to safety. Once again, super-careful. Failing here would mean replaying the first two pendants and landing the good Death Mountain luck again. On attempt number ten, Matthew had a charged swordspin within reach of the kill, but was understandably cautious, and ended up having to drop and reset the fight.
Felix spent almost twenty minutes attempting this fight over and over. Finally, on attempt number twelve, with five hits lodged, Matthew was backed up to the ledge. He had his sword out for defense, but as they say, the best defense is a good offense. Moldorm curled, giving just the right opening for the final blow via bunt.
Once again, our silent assassin was ice cold in his webcam. The mission was not yet complete. Upon exiting the Tower, Felix made his return trip by way of the tiny ledge west of Spectacle Rock – a ledge I’m not sure I’ve ever used in my entire life. After boomeranging some cave bats in the dark, Matthew was back at sea-ish level, and knee-deep in the sinister shrubbery guarding the pedestal. As I noticed earlier in the southern swamp, Felix knows all the bushes hiding enemies, and knows to boomerang them from a safe distance.
The Master Sword is quite an upgrade for this challenge, as consistent full life gives Felix the permanent shooty ability. Curiously, he grabbed the mushroom on the way in toward the pedestal, and then regrabbed that same mushroom again on the way out. I had no idea double-mushroom was a thing. As I said before, in casual plays, I always get it and trade it for the Magic Powder basically as soon as possible – after all, there’s a Piece of Heart nearby, and I certainly wouldn’t want to wait on that! But while the Powder will be required in a moment, Felix obviously didn’t need it to clear the Light World, so picking up the ingredients on the way to (and incidentally from) the pedestal makes sense. Come to think of it, I bet some kid back in the day thought that trading in multiple mushrooms made your Magic Powder more powerful.
In Agahnim’s Tower, Matthew does a well-placed swordspin to take out two hardy mace-wielders at once. Further up the Tower, he engages in a risky long-range battle with a bow-and-arrow guard in a dark room. Then in another room, he does a crafty duck-and-retreat to take down two bats and two guards on two consecutive entrances. He’s then veeeerrrry careful walking along the narrow ledge on the way to the big “A”.
Compared to Trolldorm, the showdown with Agahnim felt like an afterthought. Matthew got the perfect pattern from the archwizard – six basic attacks, one lightning, and no blue balls. In speedrunner fashion, Felix turned his back to Agahnim and did a spin move from the side to repel each attack. I’d assume this position reduces the chance of taking damage from a blue ball attack, as standing from a distance would have the same effect of avoiding damage, and would not require perfect blue ball luck.
At any rate, now in the Dark World, Matthew gained an additional evasion tool:
Okay, it’s the same one he had in Tower of Hera, but now it works in the overworld too. Don’t like the enemy formation closing in on you? Gaze into our patented magic mirror, and watch those monster stains disappear! And if you order in the next twenty minutes, we’ll send you another get-out-of-dogshit ticket absolutely free!
On the way to Palace of Darkness, Matthew spent his first rupees of the entire run on Kiki the Monkey. Also, he very subtly despawned a big burly bomb-thrower blocking his path. I don’t know if anyone else caught that, but I saw it.
In PoD, Felix made liberal use of the mirror, snagging one key at a time. It also helped him evade some uncooperative shell guys:
The bow and arrow helped Matt cross the break-away floor with the mini Helmasaurs. He evaded the bouncing Bubble in the dark basement to acquire the final key of this half-quest. After securing the hammer, Felix immediately mirrored out.
This is where a casual playthrough of the game opens up. Judging by the number “2” on the map, you’re intended to go to Swamp Palace where you can claim the Hookshot. Or you can explore this wide open Dark World for all the little treasures and Heart Pieces hidden everywhere. Dedicated players know you can even skip ahead to dungeons three and four. But Felix’s first priority was to acquire and activate the Flute, cutting down on fetch quest travel time. Note that this wouldn’t make the return trip to Death Mountain particularly less precarious, but Matthew had a different answer for that…
Of course, I knew about the hidden Dark World portal that allows you to reach Thieves’ Town without the Hookshot. And I also knew you could get all the necessary gear without the Titan’s Mitt… or I thought I knew that! Apparently I had a massive brain fart when I wrote the preview of this challenge, lol. Either way, after a trip to the tavern and a short Flute flight to the magic shop and back, Matthew now had a bottle of green Gatorade, some Magic Powder, and the 1/2 magic upgrade. A bit of mirror craftwork later, and Matthew had snuck behind the heavy rocks at the graveyard, and the final piece of this jigsaw puzzle had been secured:
The Flute dropped Mr. Felix at the start of the Death Mountain gauntlet with the little stone guys that kept killing him. But now, he could easily Cape his way through all the dangers unharmed. Upon warping to the Dark World and entering the Byrna cave, Felix downed his magic medicine – his only magic medicine – as he approached the final hallway.
No unwanted surprises here. With his ship cloaked in enemy territory, Matty navigated the corridor of spikes, arriving at the far end with about 1/4 of his 1/2 magic remaining:
I’m sure, in-universe, Link is very relieved to now have yet another method of not taking the damage he was never taking in the first place.
After a modest celebration on camera, our man Mr. Felix turned on his mic to say:
That’s it! That’s the challenge. It’s over. Finally! Finally got it. That perfect Agahnim’s what did it. Took it super-safe at the end there, I just had to.
The video rounds out with some on-screen console and controller checks and such, and an admission that he misspelled “Byrna” on his stream layout, which I’m not sure I had even noticed, lol.
Matthew was very gracious to offer the following thoughts on his own winning run for this write-up:
So here are my thoughts on the Cane of Byrna run:
-Gotta pay attention throughout the run. Some screens that seem easy are not if you don’t pay attention. Also, the boomerang is very helpful in stunning enemies to walk through them.
-The fight against the Lanmolas is very difficult since they dig at random times and they fire rocks when they dig out. I went out of the way to get the Ice Rod to deal more damage. This still meant I had to dodge the rocks, but the Ice Rod dealing more damage meant the fight can be done quicker.
-One major run killer point is the part going to the old man’s cave on Death Mountain. The boulders are random, and I lost so many attempts at this part. Even when getting the mirror, the boulders can still hit you during the little pause to let the old man into his cave. Lost runs from that, too.
-Moldorm in the Tower of Hera was the hardest boss in the run! This fight has ruined so many potential runs due to the randomness in its pattern. I had to bail out of the fight many times to prevent myself from getting hit on my successful attempt.
-Hyrule Castle Tower isn’t that difficult with the sword beams. Once I memorized some of the more difficult enemy patterns in advance, the actual dungeon itself wasn’t so difficult.
-Agahnim is random with his magic beams. However, I got the perfect fight in the successful attempt! I did have a strategy to deal with the blue beams that cannot be reflected back, though.
-The Dark World navigation was very easy. Sword beams knocked some things back, and carefully transitioning screens in the overworld helped reset some enemy patterns to get by them.
-All I needed in Dark Palace was the hammer. The actual navigation here isn’t hard at all. Just take things slow and steady!
-The end part after the hammer is also pretty easy. Once I got the magic cape, I knew the run was guaranteed. Needed some extra magic from a potion and the 1/2 magic to even make it through the Cane of Byrna cave.
I felt that this challenge was going to be somewhat easy at first since I have messed around with A Link to the Past speedrunning years ago, so I at least knew the enemy layouts. What I did not expect, though, were the random parts of the run, such as the bosses and some rooms in dungeons. I had to come up with some safety strats that differ from the speedrun strats, such as how I went through Eastern Palace.
To emphasize again what Matt said, yes, that lengthy pause on Death Mountain where the old man wanders into the next cave can be your no-hit death, through no fault of your own. Thank you so much for playing, Matthew!
Every time I see one of these great challenge runs, I’m always itching to try it myself. Maybe some day. The long spiky closet of death is an obvious choke point, but I kinda wonder what, if anything, getting a 100% completion (all items, all treasures, etc.) hitless would require beyond this and other existing full game damageless runs. As with many challenges, it could just be tried, and tried again, getting the hit counter down further and further each time until you finally get zero.
Six open challenges was more than my usual number, so I’m not issuing a new challenge this time to replace the completed one. And yes, this means there won’t be an open SNES bounty until next time. But there are still fun challenges open on Galaga, Missile Command, Super Mario 3, Dragon Warrior 2, and Oregon Trail. Check them out!
https://www.twingalaxies.com/challenges/The-Oregon-Trail-1985-Reach-Oregon-with-1560-remaining-PPMDC
IF A MAN SAYS HE’LL DO SOMETHING…
Ah, but we have some bonus content for you all! I received a surprise submission from a man after my own heart – someone who truly lives up to my favorite adage.
In October 2023 – for those keeping score, that was two years ago – TG user LAH16 completed a previous one of my PPMDC challenges. That would be the one for escaping Midgar on Final Fantasy 7 without the use of materia. If you read these silly write-ups I put out, you may recall that lots and lots of grenades were thrown in that one.
Again, these were back when our site challenges ran on set schedules, so I absolutely had to fill the write-up requirement by the end of February, because that was what I’d promised in the bounty description. I sent LAH16 my usual friendly offer to publish his remarks, but I would have to fulfill the bounty terms by the deadline either way:
Howdy, LAH16!! Thank you so much for submitting a run! Sorry, for the moment I’m focused on finishing a big end-of-lawsuit write-up on all the Billy Mitchell stuff. But yes, probably at the end of the month, I’ll be doing a write-up covering the four challenges.
Obviously there’s no obligation for you to say anything, but I would love if you were willing to jot down your thoughts on the FF7 challenge (special strategies, difficult spots, entertaining musings, etc), or any other appropriate gaming-related topic you want. And it can be basically as long as you want, too. It’s all pretty laid back. I hope to keep the focus on yourself and other gamers, since I get to take up so much site space writing my own thoughts.
LAH16 replied to tell me he’d get the comments in “ASAP”, which as you all know stands for “As Soon As Possible”. Of course, this can be a quite malleable threshold. Hey, listen. I mean this 100% sincerely. You never know what’s going on in people’s lives. You never know what they’re struggling with. Things that are easy for one person are difficult for another. I don’t judge if something takes longer than expected. It ain’t my business. There’s shit I’ve wanted to have done years ago that I’m still working on. I totally understand. Hence the adage.
The write-up had to go live either way. Not everyone writes comments for these challenges. I just left it unresolved as to whether LAH16 would do so, or whether he had declined, as I was unsure.
Flash forward to that December – again, a year ago as I write this. And I received a proactive follow-up from LAH16:
Hello. Hope all’s been well. It’s been a while. If you’d like for me to still you a written piece on the bounty I did for Final Fantasy VII, I’d be glad to do so.
I basically told him “Hell yeah!” I can just plug it in at any time. Honestly, even if someone outright declined the prize when it was offered, there’s nothing stopping me from editing it into an old write-up after the fact.
But once again, no traction for months. Again, I don’t judge. I myself am months behind what I want to be writing, or games I want to be playing. There’s not enough time in the day for everything I want to be doing.
But finally, at long last, my patience paid off. Shortly after Matthew Felix crushed the Cane of Byrna challenge, and as I was penning my first drafts of “fallout roundup”, I received the following direct message at Twin Galaxies:
LAH16 came through, and did he ever. Let me stop yammering and get you the man’s own words:
Hello all. LAH16 here. I hope all’s going well. Wow, it’s been almost two years since I did this challenge. Where did the time go? I remember scrolling through the bounties section on Twin Galaxies, looking at all of the challenges that I and others could go for. All of them were quite the challenges and many of them were on games I didn’t own…sad. And on that note, the consoles that I would need to play them on, I also didn’t have…sad. And admittedly, a lot of games are far beyond my skill…sad. As I continued to scroll, I happened across the “Final Fantasy 7: Escape Midgar Without Using Materia” bounty and my eyes lit up. Finally, a bounty that I could not only try and go for, but one that I could possibly win. Final Fantasy VII is one of my all-time favorite RPGs and I’ve lost count how many times I’ve played it over the years. But if there’s one thing I’ve never done, its play the game without using Materia. But as I sat and thought about it, I was pretty familiar with the introduction of the game and felt I could pull off the challenge so I decided to go for it. And two hours, seven minutes, and forty-four seconds later, I completed the challenge. I was so proud as it was the first, and to this day (September 13, 2025) the only bounty I’ve claimed. And I decided to go a little bit more in-depth talking about certain parts of my run and the strategies I used.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank ersatz_cats for creating the challenge. It was so much fun to do and a great idea. I look forward to seeing what other challenges you come up with. Second of all, I’m by no means a pro speedrunner nor do I know the ins and outs of how the inner workings of the game work. I simply know what I know from all the times I’ve played the game and looked to accomplish the challenge in front of me as quickly as I could with the knowledge I had. With that being said, let me stop boring you and get to the good stuff. I’ll leave timestamps from my run alongside my explanations so that if anyone wants to check out my run you can easily find the spot I’m talking about. Now then…let’s do this!
(3:35) First things first, I went into the configuration and set the Cursor to Memory, ATB to Active, and the Battle Speed, Battle Message, and Field Message to Fast. Setting all these options as I did helped practically every part of the game that dealt with text boxes and the battles go by faster as the messages would go by quicker and the ATB bars in battles would fill up quicker, allowing for battles where I had to fight to go by faster as well as up my chances of escaping from battles faster.
(4:33) This is actually something I didn’t do which isn’t too detrimental but if I had done, I could’ve finished the run slightly faster. When naming the characters, I opted for leaving their names as they are. However, if I had erased all letters in the name save for the first initial, it would’ve saved on time for when the characters’ names are said in text boxes because the full names aren’t said which would make the text boxes go by much faster. A small pro-tip that I didn’t do that if anyone else would like to give this a go, try it and the time you save will show in the end.
(5:20) This is the first battle where the main strategy of my run was implemented – running away from every single battle possible. In a challenge where getting through it as quickly as possible is the whole point, especially in a RPG, this is pretty much essential, right? But in doing so, I’ll be missing out on experience that’ll level up my characters and make them stronger. But by playing my cards right, this little handicap won’t be too much of a problem at all.
(25:40) Here’s where the main part of the challenge comes into play – removing the Materia from Cloud as soon as I was able to. Next, I also moved my characters all to the back row. By having the characters in the back row physical damage to them is halved. So any time I happened upon enemies that had physical attacks they became easier to handle. But a disadvantage to putting my characters in the back row is that they themselves do less physical damage to the enemies. And since I’m prohibited from using Materia, physical damage was the main way I was going to be attacking. But I also knew of another strategy of getting past the damage disadvantage by coming up with a way of doing overall better damage than normal attacks could do.
(26:30) I sold my items that I wouldn’t need for extra gil and all of that gil went into buying Grenades. Grenades took care of my problem of not being able to inflict a lot of damage from the back row as they are Battle Items that when used inflict the same amount of damage regardless of which row your characters are in. And the damage inflicted by them are far more powerful than the normal attacks your characters would do at this point in the game. So, for the rest of the game when it came to battles I couldn’t escape and bosses, Grenades were my main way of doing damage.
(56:00) For the mission where I had to get items to dress Cloud up like a woman to sneak into Don Corneo’s mansion, I opted for just getting a dress and wig for him. These are the only two items that are mandatory to proceed.
(1:11:30) Sold more of my extra items so I could stock up on some more Grenades for the upcoming battles. I was going to need every single one I could get, and then some.
(1:24:30) Bought more Grenades. Can never have too many of them, LOL. But most importantly I made sure to sell my Ether to make sure I had enough Gil to buy the Batteries I would need to continue forward.
(1:29:20) After arriving at the Shinra Building I had two choices – either go in guns blazing and bust in through the front door or sneak inside by taking the long stairway. I opted for the stairway as it’s a guarantee that I won’t encounter any battles. Granted, it’s possible to reach your destination if you take the front door and go up the elevator but the RNG in doing so makes it very risky to do as there’s no telling what floor the elevator will stop on and more often than not, the stop will throw you into a battle. So, I went with the safer option of taking the stairs to avoid battles.
(1:49:00) After making progress through the Shinra Building and getting Red XIII, I went in and removed the Materia that came with him as well as moving him to the back row for the reasons I gave above. And with that, the party is complete for the rest of the challenge ahead of me.
(1:57:57) The boss fight against Hundred Gunner/Heli Gunner. This particular run against this boss stood out to me because I didn’t have to heal once during it. On previous runs there were a few times where despite having my characters in the back row, they would take some big damage. This run was no different – Aeris and Red XIII both lost nearly half of their HP. If I had to heal, I had Aeris’s Healing Wind Limit Break ready to go, but I never had to use it. Just kept on the offense with Grenades and managed to take the Bosses down pretty quickly. Overall, a great fight.
(2:03:55) Right before the motorcycle mini-game I went in and changed my characters positions to the front row. Reason for this is because the upcoming Boss Battle against the Motor Ball, it starts off with your characters being attacked from behind, which changes the characters positions in battle. And when the battle begins, I try to escape, which I can’t do because it’s a Boss Battle, but what it does do is instantly turn my characters around to face the Boss while also instantly putting them back in the back row. So I avoid the Boss’s attack from behind, reducing the damage it would’ve inflicted, and put all my characters in the proper position for the fight.
(2:06:30) The final fight of the run against the Motor Ball. This was personally my favorite Boss fight in the run because despite being prepared and knowing how to go about the fight, Motor Ball still gave me an actual fight and kept me on my toes. Its physical attack does quite a bit of damage that can add up quicker than you’d think and its Twin Burner attack hits all characters for huge damage. By the time the fight was over, Cloud and Barret were under 100 HP. Looking back on it, I should’ve switched Tifa out for Aeris in case I needed to use an emergency Healing Wind because this could’ve gone south so quickly, but to save time from having to go in and switch characters I just went with the default three characters the game gave me. As with the rest of the run, I kept on the offense with Grenades and eventually I was able to beat the Motor Ball and complete the run at 2:07:44.
This was such a fun challenge I enjoyed doing. Perhaps one day I’ll do it again to see if I could do it faster. I’d also like to explain a couple small things I did throughout the run. During boss fights when they became available, I’d almost always use Cloud and Barret’s Limit Breaks, holding onto Aeris’s Limit Break in case I got that feeling and needed sexual heal…erm cough, cough Uh anyways, getting back in topic here, uh…there’s a mechanic in this game where when you have a character use their Limit Break, it takes priority over all other actions and will happen the next move as soon as its selected. Comes in handy for the Boss fights where I can basically override the Boss’s AI and deal massive damage to them while stopping them from attacking. I use Cloud and Barret’s Limit’s as much as I could and had Aeris for back up. When it comes to Tifa, her Limit Break does the most damage if you can manage to land her reel on “YEAH”. Not only did that take a bit too long for my liking to execute, I’m not too good at landing the reels consistently. And also, the damage output from her “YEAH” Limits is less than the damage you can get from using Grenades. So when it came to Tifa, I focused on her using solely Grenades whenever she was in the party and not using her Limit at all.
All in all, this was so much fun and one of my favorite accomplishments I’ve done in a video game. If it’s within my power, I’d love to do more challenges like this in the future and show what’s possible. Once again, a huge thank you to ersatz_cats for creating the challenge and making opportunities for video game players to showcase their skill in their craft. I can’t wait to see what else you create in the future and wish you nothing but the best. And to anyone else who would like to give these challenges a go in the future, by all means. Give some of these a try. You may end up surprising yourself and finding out that you got skills in video games you never knew you had and accomplish video game challenges that could earn you the title of “Video Game Player of the Century.”
This is AMAZING! And absolutely genuinely worth the wait. I think this is the most comprehensive overview I’ve ever received from a challenge winner. Some stuff I had caught from watching the run, such as Shinra’s stairs being the safer option versus the elevator. But things like Tifa’s limit break doing less damage than basic grenades, I’d never have noticed. I also totally missed that grenades enable a defensive back row posture, and that Motor Ball required some manipulation to maintain that stance. Oh, and LAH16 was as surprised as I was that he didn’t have to use Aeris’ healing limit break, but he did at least have it ready.
Congratulations again on completing the run, and on getting your name on our inaugural “Video Game Players of the Century” list I began with my subsequent round of TG challenges. I also appreciate the kind words about my silly challenge-blogging, of course. And on a personal note… Thank you LAH16. Thank you for restoring my faith in my favorite adage.
And thank you all for reading. We’ll see you all back here again next time.
Hey, what’s up with Part 2 of the “Karl vs Billy: the Fallout” piece? How far along is it?
Great question! Aside from notes and ideas, I’m just starting out on it. And there’s another thing I’ve gotta write (unrelated to Billy), which I’ll probably work on concurrently. Sorry, hate to keep people waiting.