Final Fantasy VII Speedrun FAQ

Q: What's the World Record for FFVII?

A: Carnage64 has the No Slots single-segment record at 8:13 (at the final hit on Sephiroth).

エマノン (Emanon) has the Slots single-segment record at 7:46 (at the final hit on Sephiroth, and converted from Japanese to English text speed).

Q: What is Slots and why aren't you using it?

A: The fastest possible FFVII speedrun can be achieved by manipulating Cait Sith's Slots Limit to beat most of the game's bosses in 1 turn - I am not interested in doing this as I feel it makes the run less fun to do and to watch, along with making the run much more difficult to complete (there are 22 battles that would require Slots, and for many of them, failing Slots means the run is over).

Q: How is Tifa doing so much damage?

A: For the 2nd half of the run, Tifa uses a weapon called the Powersoul that multiplies her physical attack damage x2 for being below 25% HP and x4 for being in Death Sentence status. The Deathblow command will further double Tifa's damage if it hits (which is guaranteed if the enemy has Paralysis status or Tifa has the Mystile armor equipped), and when paired with the Added Cut Materia gives her a bonus attack immediately after the Deathblow, thus giving her 1 attack at x16 damage and 1 attack at x8 damage.

Q: Why are you walking strangely in dungeons?

A: To manipulate random battles. Battles in FF7 (where you get them, what the enemy formation is, and whether it's a pre-emptive/back/pincer attack) are primarily based on the # of steps you take in areas with random battles (also known as 'hostile fields'), and walking in special patterns in those areas to manipulate your step count can produce fewer and more favorable battles.

Major thanks to BrutalAl for teaching me how FF7 random encounters work and designing my encounter manipulation route.

Q: Why are your Characters in Sadness status?

A: Sadness status reduces damage taken in battle by 30%, for the relatively minor tradeoff of slowing down Limit gauge growth.

Q: Are you getting Yuffie/Vincent? Are you fighting Emerald/Ruby Weapon? Are you getting any Level 4 Limits?

A: No, for the most part. The goal of a speedrun is to complete the game as quickly as possible. Sidequests and optional dungeons/characters/bosses are mostly a waste of time, unless they have rewards that save time in the main quest (like going to Gongaga in Disc 1 for the Deathblow Materia, doing the short sidequest in Mideel for the Curse Ring, getting Cid's ultimate weapon, etc).

Q: Why do the characters all have 1-letter names?

A: Shorting the characters' names to 1 letter saves a small amount of time over the course of the run, by speeding up dialogue boxes that involve characters' names. Red XIII's name is not shortened as his name is used so few times in the game's script that it's not worth the time spent shortening it.

Q: What do you think of the new PC version of FFVII?

A: I'm used to the PlayStation version both for playing and recording/streaming, so I'm going to stick with it for speedrunning. I'm always glad though to see Square-Enix rerelease classic Final Fantasy games on new platforms, so new generations of gamers can experience them.

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