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doping-panda · 14 hours ago

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Infodump on Final Fantasy 2 speedruns

Recently, I watched this three-year-old video by DoctorSwellman where he goes over the fastest Any% speedrun for every version of Final Fantasy 1. I wanted to see this for other FFs, but that doesn't exist. Be the change you wanna see, I guess. I'm too lazy to make videos, so this will be in text. Here's Final Fantasy 2:

Famicom

WR: 5m 05s (baku_zero)

This uses arbitrary code execution (ACE) to skip to the credits. This is done by swapping the cartridge with Dr. Mario mid-game, before switching back, causing the game to shit itself. This kinda gatekeeps other runners, as there's no Famicom emulator that can properly simulate real-time cartridge swapping, so you can only challenge this record on real hardware.

There's worse things to spend ~$60 on, I guess.

The fastest run that doesn't do Stop n Swop is 11m 12s (Bison_H), using the Spellbook glitch to do ACE. This is a glitch so obscure that it's not even on the FF Wiki. Basically, you can equip spellbooks (normally used for learning spells, or can be used in battle as items) as weapons, which causes shenanigans depending on the equipped spellbook. And one of these shenanigans is ACE.

Bison_H recruits Minwu, the first guest party member. He then uses ACE to summon the final boss, like it's a satanic ritual. When the fourth party member attacks an enemy with the Fire spellbook equipped, it'll underflow and do damage so high it one-shots everything in the game. Minwu essentially beats the Emperor to death with a book, whose defeat activates the credits.

Hitting someone with a book, huh. I wonder if Square knew about this glitch and used it as inspiration for the Scholar in FF3?

WonderSwan

WR: 4h 19m 33s (maelstrom1001)

This wasn't released in English, this run is done on a fan translation.

This port was done when Square was no longer just a few guys in a basement, which is a double-edged sword. There's modernizations helpful for runners such as auto-run, but the coding is sanctified against ACE and other such witchcraft. You have to actually play the game, now.

Here's the main party's builds:

Firion = Starts off Unarmed, then pivots into sword & shield. Also learns white magic Maria = pack mule Guy = pack mule

Evasion is a strong stat, as dodgetanking is viable. Furthermore, Firion's Evasion specifically is used to determine a lot of party-wide things, like who goes first or the chances of running from battles.

Leveling Evasion is up to RNG, so the best way to hedge your bets is to only train Firion. Unarmed is trained early game since its poverty-friendly, but its phased out since it can't be used with shields, which boosts Evasion.

You might wonder about the lack of black magic, but anything resistant to physical damage is vulnerable to status effects, and there's magic swords that apply status effects upon hitting. The most important magic sword is the Blood Sword, which drains enemy HP upon hitting and is super effective against the final boss.

This game is punishing and dependent on RNG, so maelstrom1001 spends a good while grinding up Firion near an inn so his stats will be high enough to handle the worst-case scenarios. There's a glitch inherited from the Famicom to help: select-cancel. You're supposed to only gain EXP when you do a thing, but when it comes to weapons/spells, you still get EXP even if you cancel the thing.

He also sandbags, as there's a memory puzzle mini-game that can get a lot of gil early on, but he didn't do that since he thought that was boring. Fair enough, the competition for this speedrun isn't exactly fierce:

PlayStation 1

WR: 3h 49m 07s (msk170526)

The WonderSwan and PS1 versions are similar, so the strategy is similar.

The main difference is PS1 has built-in savestates, making the game less punishing and allowing for faster strategies that have a higher chance of dying. eg msk170526 trains more efficiently by doing it as he crawls dungeons, instead of doing it near an inn. Since he gets gear and gil faster, he doesn't bother training Unarmed. He also uses the memory puzzle.

GameBoy Advance

WR: 2h 20m 13s (KaguyaNicky)

GBA is a major rebalance, and there are two relevant design choices changed:

Weapons and shields penalized magic. GBA removed this

You couldn't access your inventory in-battle. Characters had to pick up to 2 items to equip in a "spare item" slot before the fight started. GBA changes this to a more normal "anyone can access the inventory at all times" system

Turns out, the game might not be balanced for this. Here's the new builds:

Firion - Dual-wield shields Maria - Dual-wield shields Guy - Unarmed

No weapons for most of the party. Guy and Minwu handle the fighting until the party gets rich off the memory puzzle. They liquidate their prize winnings into Teleport spellbooks, which is a group-wide instant-kill. Only two mandatory bosses are immune to this:

Red Soul - Guy punches it The Emperor (2nd phase) - Leon kills him with the Blood Sword. Since FF2 is a Star Wars homage, I suppose that's only fitting.

The odds of Teleport landing aren't high, but when the entire party spams it, you're likely to get at least one through. Fire spellbooks are also bought, as most Teleport-immune random encounters that can't be ran from are weak to Fire. Manipulating RNG through stepcounts and savescumming are used to avoid enemies resistant to both Fire and Teleport.

PSP

WR: 2h 22m 07s (Poorscythe)

From a speedrunning perspective, GBA and PSP are very similar. PSP takes longer to reload saves, so more consistent tactics are preferred. But it's the same general strategy of spamming Teleport.

Pixel Remaster

WR: 1h 09m 41s (sphie)

This has a few boons for speedrunners:

Boost can disable random encounters and increase EXP/gil gain

Auto-Battle

Diagonal movement

Frequent, quick auto-saves

There's a lot of rebalancing, which kills most of the previous strategies. The three big ones are:

The memory puzzle is gone, so no more get-rich-quick schemes

Shields and weapons penalizing magic has been reinstated

Evasion is nerfed. The specifics aren't understood, but it seems like it only impacts dodging attacks instead of being load-bearing like it previously was

Shields are foregone in favor of a more offensive approach:

Firion - Dual-wields magic swords to inflict status effects Maria - spams items Guy - Unarmed. Gotta save gil for Maria's junk!

All the boost features are turned on. Despite 4x EXP, disabling random encounters takes a toll on the main party's leveling. The guest party members, normally underwhelming in casual playthroughs, pull their weight here. Ricard and Leon actually make for better Blood Sword users than Firion/Guy.

And that's that. If I didn't mention a version, it's because I couldn't find any speedruns for it. Don't @ me for not covering Final Fantasy 2 for NTT Docomo Foma mobile phone.

#ff2 #final fantasy #final fantasy ii #speedrun

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doping-panda · 3 days ago

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Wherever abundant consumption is established, one particular spectacular opposition is always in the forefront of illusory roles: the antagonism between youth and adults. But real adults—people who are masters of their own lives—are in fact nowhere to be found. And a youthful transformation of what exists is in no way characteristic of those who are now young; it is present solely in the economic system, in the dynamism of capitalism. It is things that rule and that are young, vying with each other and constantly replacing each other.

guy debord, the society of the spectacle, translated by ken knabb

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doping-panda · 7 days ago

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did it work

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doping-panda · 10 days ago

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The Angry Video Game Nerd Plays Deltarune (real)

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doping-panda · 11 days ago

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The Japanese Version of Deltarune Chapters 3 & 4

last year i made a post covering aspects of deltarune chapter 2’s japanese localization that i hadn’t seen others talk about. people seemed to like it! and i liked making it as well, so now that chapters 3 and 4 are out, i’ve looked at the japanese text for them to see if i could find anything interesting.

and… yep i did.

since i’m one of the first english fans to look at the new japanese text in this manner, there’s a lot that i skimmed over or just straight up didn’t read, as a decent amount of dialogue is jumbled or shoved under “scr_text”. i mainly focused on the lore-important segments, since there aren’t as many character voices or jokes with interesting translations as there were in chapter 2… with two exceptions.

tenna

tenna is generally pretty well localized. i didn’t translate a lot of his dialogue, but 8-4 has done a pretty outstanding job of making tenna sound like a japanese TV host. for example, the narration to his intro video is translated from this:

It's now time for our feature presentation FEACHER Coming straight from your house Coming straight from YOUR house! He's the One He's GROOVY and NEVER glooby! You can't get this from an EGG! The sensation of your screen The show that makes you scream Say it with him, folks!

to this:

大変オマタセいたしました！ (Thank you for waiting so long!) はぢまるヨ！ (Lettuce begin!) アナタの　おうちから　お届け！ (Delivered from your house!) アナタの！　おうちから！　お届け！(Delivered! From! Your! House!) ピカ“１”の (The number “one”) シケシケしてない　トレンディマン！ (trendy man who never goes out of style!) タマゴには　マネできない！ (He could never be imitated by an egg!) アンビリーバボーな (With an unbelievable,) キセキの　サケビを！ (miraculous scream!) さあ～　みなさん　ごいっしょに！ (Now… everyone, all together!)

they didn’t need to intentionally misspell the line that replaced “FEACHER” but they did and i love that.

a lot of lines like these were translated to be more in the style of japanese television, and that’s awesome. i really admire the effort, and the shift is palpable even to me, who isn’t fluent in japanese at all.

jackenstein

others have already been curious about how “YOUR TAKING TOO LONG” and its variations are translated— in fact, this youtube video that i found beat me to the punch with covering it.

jack uses a mixture of hiragana and katakana (no kanji), refers to himself in the third person, misspells things (mostly using ワ for the particle “wa” instead of は), and occasionally uses emoticons. all of these give a strange but fairly childish impression.

and here’s how his iconic phrases were translated:

YOUR TAKING TOO LONG -> ナガイ　シすぎ (nagai shisugi / you’re taking too long)

YOUR TOO BRIGHT -> マブシイ　すぎ (mabushii sugi / you’re too bright)

YOUR LONG -> ナガ　イ (nagai / long)

YOUR TAKING TOO LONG IS TAKING TOO LONG -> ナガイ　シすぎ　ニ　ナガイ　シすぎ (nagai shisugi ni nagai shisugi / you’re taking too long with “you’re taking too long”)

YOUR TAKING TOO TOO -> カワイ　すぎ (kawai sugi / you’re too cute)

YOUR TOO TOO -> すきすき (sukisuki / you look cute, I like you)

raise up your bat

i looked at raise up your bat’s lyrics to see if there was any extra lore behind them. there wasn’t, but… ralsei’s replacement lyrics are pretty funny in this version. here are the full lyrics

鮮血流れる悪魔の心 (Senketsu nagareru akuma no kokoro / The devil’s heart flows with fresh blood) -> 先月出会ったあのコと今日も (Sengetsu deatta ano ko to kyou mo / Today, that kid I met last month) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> チャットをするからね (chatto o suru kara ne / will have a chat with me) 希望は　ついえた (Kibou wa tsuieta / Hope has died out) -> 昨日は　ついつい (Kinou wa tsuitsui / Yesterday we ended up) 明日は見えない (ashita wa mienai / and tomorrow’s not in sight) -> 朝まで電話 (asa made denwa / talking on the phone until morning) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> やっぱり楽しいね (Yappari tanoshii ne / It sure is fun) 夜をブチのめせ (Yoru o buchi-nomese / Do it all through the night) -> 今日もウキウキね (Kyou mo ukiuki ne / I’m excited today too) 闇の中へこぎ出そう (Yami no naka e kogidasou / Let’s row into the darkness) 心の箱船で (Kokoro no hakofune de / With the ark of the heart) 闇の中でも　そばにいる (Yami no naka de mo soba ni iru / I’m by your side even in the dark) その心に導かれ (Sono kokoro ni michibikare / Guided by that heart) 鮮血流れる悪魔の心 ( Senketsu nagareru akuma no kokoro / The devil’s heart flows with fresh blood) -> 先月なかよくなった友だち (Sengetsu nakayoku natta tomodachi / The friends I made last month) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> パットと　ブリトニー (Patto to Buritonī / Pat and Britney) 希望は　ついえた明日は見えない (Kibou wa tsuieta ashita wa mienai / Hope has died out and tomorrow’s not in sight) -> 気取った　ポーズでダンスがしたい (Kitotta pōzu de dansu ga shitai / They want to do a silly dance) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> ハットをかぶってね (Hatto o kabutte ne / Put on a hat) 夜をブチのめせ (Yoru o buchi-nomese / Do it all through the night) -> スーツを着こなして (Sūtsu o kikonashite / Wear a suit fashionably)

who are pat and britney? are they the secret key to all the mysteries of the story? who knows!

UNUSED

i didn’t find many changes in the text of the chapter 3 and 4 “unused” text (otherwise known as “the voice in the code”), but i noticed that their dialogue sounds a little less feminine/childish compared to in chapter 1. maybe. it does seem like a lot of time has passed. idk

prophecy

a few changes to the prophecy lines stood out to me.

THE THIRD HERO. A PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK. (eng) The third hero / A lonely prince living in the depths of darkness (jp)

reference to “depths”. nothing of note besides that

THE FLOWER MAN, TRAPPED IN ASYLUM. (eng) The flower man is captive in a facility (jp)

this is the word used to replace “asylum” here. take it as you will:

and the one i found by far the most interesting…

LOVE WILL FIND THE GIRL. (eng) The girl will learn the true meaning of love. (jp)

huh????? what the fuck does that mean??

also, the word for “love” used in japanese is 愛, which refers to any kind of love. so no double meaning here, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of an intended double meaning in english, as the japanese translation of undertale has often had to erase intended double meanings that were not translatable, like “determination”.

addendum: As you know,

i’m editing the post to add this in because i forgot that it’s important.

you know the carol line where she says YOU in bright red text and no one knows whether she’s talking to kris or the player? well, luckily, japanese usually omits the word “you” in place of a person’s actual name, so hopefully looking at the japanese version of the line should—

she just uses the word for “you”.

this just makes it more evident that it is meant to be unclear who she’s speaking to.

CONCLUSION

wow that’s it. that’s a lot less than i expected there to be, but again, the game is translated pretty faithfully and there aren’t as many jokes that had to be localized in these two chapters. if you notice anything or want me to translate specific text, don’t be afraid to ask! i’ll be happy to answer any questions and help people out.

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doping-panda · 19 days ago

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