The History of FFX's "Impossible" Challenge

[@DoctorSwellman]

Browse the internet the way you want and safely too! Get a huge NordVPN deal + 4 months using my link→ nordvpn.com/drswell It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!

[@disliked1390]

Hey man don't tell your Brazil viewers to use Nord VPN for Twitter. You could put them in extreme legal trouble. if Nord asked you to say this in their script it's completely unnacceptable.

[@NomimizuShinobu]

Do you know what an answer to a "frequently asked question" is called? Thats right!!! A Fact. Game"faQ(ct)s" is just fine.

[@MunchMan]

Why did you blame Elon for something the Brazilian Government did?

[@adelinehaley9428]

1:53 to skip ad

[@Quenlin]

Nord shills are scum.

[@DustMan8vD]

6:26 I never expected to be featured in a video about this 20+ years later lmao. Btw, xharas did 98+% of the work putting that FAQ together, my name really shouldn't even be on there.

[@Tootbook]

Legend

[@StewNWT]

Humble words

[@mkw3980]

I read this walkthrough 20+ years ago! Thanks for the memories, even if you only contributed to 2% of it!

[@Ayban3]

What a fucking legend. Dude doesn’t even want his flowers. Holy shit. What a beast.

[@Oneirics999]

respect

[@Dansg08]

Seeing all those names from what I consider the golden era of FFX challenges was awesome! Really sad that the pre 2008 stuff is almost entirely lost though, those discussions were fascinating. I spent a lot of time lurking and seeing those guys discuss stuff towards the tail end of that era and it really inspired me to try new things with the game. I do think NSGNSNCNONENNENBB is the "perfect" FFX challenge - the way the video presented the incremental build up in difficulty with added restrictions was excellent, the community effort to keep pushing forward with new ideas and strategies and it being *just* possible enough to be made a goal, but unlikely enough that it took years to achieve. Kudos to everyone involved in that entire story, many of their names are unknown to fans of the game who even watch challenge material but they really are legends of the scene. Great video, thank you!

[@JudgeAnnibal]

Ladies and gentlemen Berk THE Dark Anima NSG man himself.

[@brianwhitt5331]

I think you should look at making some content like this on your channel Berk. Ppl love this stuff. I know you're more of doing the challenge yourself lol. Some history would be cool tho.

[@Kwisatz-Chaderach]

BURKE! You're the man!

[@itshololive]

primal liquid is doing the run now excited to watch someone try it

[@TomteeriffNash-zh2vn]

Hey Berk, can we expect to see you doing this at some point? Haha

[@TheNN]

*"I was in a coffee shop, running away from home when I heard the news. Braska's Final Aeon, beaten in the NSGNSNCNONENNENBB challenge! My dad must have been the biggest fan of hearing about those runs. I knew how excited he'd be. Heck, we all were that day. 'TheNN' I says to myself, 'what are you thinking?' I went running straight back home. We sat up talking about Braska's Final Aeon all night. My dad and I never talked so much...* *...Whoa... Didn't mean to reminisce folks!"*

[@EarthPhantomTS]

I read this in Zanar's voice :P

[@TheNN]

@@EarthPhantomTS Thanks, glad you liked the comment. :)

[@MrOrangeonion]

I missed that voice. Wish it was included alot more.

[@jaye4157]

​@@EarthPhantomTSwho?

[@EarthPhantomTS]

@@jaye4157 Zanar's the character in the prologue that says the lines the OP is referencing. He's a very, *very* minor character, so it's not surprising that some people wouldn't recognize him.

[@yukaiyami]

What is it about FFX that makes players want to experience the worst forms of pain and hardship?? It’s was Yuna’s sacrificial pilgrimage, not ours!! 😂

[@beastortiz2313]

Something something, I’m here to fight grief itself 😂

[@SSJ_Derp]

I’m here to kill Chaos

[@7th_Heaven]

:)

[@SSJ_Derp]

I’m here to k!ll chaos

[@SSJ_Derp]

I’m here to keel Chaos! Edit: KZbin wouldn’t let me use the actual word, my comment kept getting deleted so “keel” was the best I could do. 🙄

[@AB-ee5tb]

FULL ACRONYM: No sphere grid No summons No customization No overdrive No escapes No “no encounters” equipment No Blitzball

[@VoltXProductions]

The no blitzball kills me. Not because I do these challenges, but because all I keep doing is playing blitzball and nothing else.

[@TheStilf]

​@VoltXProductions Same, I know it's memes on and not popular but I always enjoyed Blitzball and played it like crazy once I unlocked playing it.

[@HaphazardDisastard]

Thanks for the full acronym! Blitzball is so underrated. I was terrible at it when I first played this game, but then I grew up. I now find it one of the most fun FF minigames I've ever played!

[@bradtrainer]

thank you. very frustrating start to the video.

[@kosmosXcannon]

@@TheStilf Yeah once you actually learn how to play and have a decent team. Blitzball actually becomes enjoyable.

[@zzanmato123]

Oh wow. This video almost perfectly summarizes every aspect of NSG gaming we've been doing for years, decennia even. After I watched the video, I suddenly remembered that 'someone' asked me for NSG history information on GameFAQs and I totally forgot about it. I kinda regret now that I forgot about your message. Anyway, very nice video!

[@DoctorSwellman]

No worries! I’m always interested in hearing more if you’re willing to sit down one of these days and reply to me 😂

[@manudude02]

Zzanmato! How you been man?

[@BlitzAce469]

Always fun to discuss and reminisce about the "good old" challenge threads days. It's insane just how hard BFA is when compared to the rest of the challenge. You can add many extra restrictions to the "base" NSGNSNCNONENNENBB challenge and still make it all the way up to BFA. Adding No Regular Items (allowing Use but banning Item command) made for one of the most fun challenges I've ever done in FFX. Overall I think people get super overwhelmed by the challenge acronym and don't even realize that the challenge is not actually THAT bad barring a couple of fights, if you try to go in semi-blind. Yunalesca as you said is a big one, Natus is the other, but both can be done with zero grinding (contrary to popular belief). As we learn more and more about enemy behaviour, more and more efficient strats were developed and that made a huge difference compared to, say, what's on DarkLocke's guide -- hell, even compared to zzanmato's guide, which is much more recent.

[@jikGeek]

Great job Blitz! nice work on making it onto the video too - a great FFX veteran & celeb for sure 👍

[@ram_apologist]

My 7yo ass got hardstuck at yunalesca without any challenge parameters 💀 you guys are legends for plumbing the depths of this legendary game

[@InjectTheWaste]

Now you've just got to beat Penance, The Omega Weapon and the Dark Aeons with this restrictions. :)

[@SoundwaveSC]

The use of the Final Fantasy Record Keeper sprites thrown in really makes the video incredibly pleasing and visually interesting. The visuals are obviously secondary to the story you're telling and the info within, but seriously, good job on the visual front.

[@ValVaryncia]

11:59 seeing a forum post I made in early high school was certainly unexpected. I was the top user there, and it is amusing how many of these names I recognize still.

[@lionheart41269]

Appreciate the mention at the end! This challenge was something I've wanted to do since the PS2 days. I've done others like VIII NJNL or XIII NCU and decided to try this one next during covid lockdown. Overall it took me about 2 months to complete the challenge with BFA alone taking 2 weeks.

[@kstreet7438]

Only $10 likes?

[@Sad-Lesbian]

I actually attempted this challenge back in 2014, and got all the way to Sin. Beating Yunalesca on my first try was massive, because I've never been so nervous during a boss fight before. Going on for over an hour and having to make 0 mistakes. The doom grinding after that made me burn out real hard unfortunately, but I have the save on my Vita still!

[@AxelRyman]

Man hearing those initials for all these challenges bring me back to those days. Coming home from school, opening my pc, going to GameFAQs and checking out any updates.

[@dally369]

Same when life was simple. Finish school come back put your PS2 on and follow a gamfaq. Now it's paying mortgage, bills and I am lucky if I get an hour of gaming in 5 6 months.

[@velvetbutterfly]

I call the site "gamefacks" but say "F.A.Q." when referring to the actual FAQ board

[@AlexRiversMusic]

Same 😂

[@mkw3980]

I've been a gamefaqs regular since 2002. I call FAQs "facks" to this day, regardless of where I read them. Lol. One syllable is way easier to say than three.

[@MadmanAsa]

Facks here. I never had to refer to the site in ages, so I hardly questioned it.

[@RabblesTheBinx]

"Faks" is the official pronunciation, according to their website.

[@lethaldrago0n]

Late to the party, but I never thought I'd make it to an FFX history video. Thanks for documenting everything! It's awesome to see all the titans of the FFX community in one comment thread outside of Gamefaqs.

[@IvoryTurnip]

I'd die on the hill of it being pronounced game-fax because its a homophone with facts.

[@Ouvii]

Straight facts

[@jamesromesburg3733]

Agreed

[@Nerrickk]

@@Ouvii Straight FAQs

[@matthewedwards3094]

Is there any other word in the English language where a Q is used as the last letter of a word and making an -acts/-ax sound?

[@Ouvii]

@@matthewedwards3094 look, if you are trying to make sense of (anything in English really) a Q without a U then there are more important questions about English to answer first, and we'll probably never have those answers. Why "qu" when we could spell it "kw" and simplify the language by a whole letter? Sorry, assuming your question was genuine, the answer is "no".

[@AmazingOwnage]

The pixel art of FFX looks incredible. Big props to whoever worked on it!

[@DoctorSwellman]

The pixel art characters are from a mobile game called Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[@AmazingOwnage]

@@DoctorSwellman good to know! Great video btw, I appreciate the effort you put into it and the way you presented the narrative little by little 👍

[@Horsethe666]

I literally just checked your channel an hour ago cuz I was wondering why it had been so long since you uploaded. Gave me enough time to grab a big glass of water, thx

[@DoctorSwellman]

All great things take time!

[@rcbvgc]

Must have been a pretty big glass of water if it took you an hour

[@Karifean]

It's funny seeing it touted as the "impossible" challenge, when what really allows it to be qualified as such is being the "hardest (known) FFX challenge run that still IS possible", compared to tons of challenge runs that were designed but are actually categorically impossible at some point. Overdrive Sin ends any challenge that doesn't have enough DPS capability, such as NSGNSNCNINTQ. Seymour Omnis puts an end to NSGNCIE. And many challenges just can't beat Braska's Final Aeon - NSGNSNCNO just happened to be the one where he's barely still possible. And so, it earns being called the "impossible challenge" over those others. Just amusing how that works out.

[@BlitzAce469]

It's even funnier when you realize that pretty much every other boss in NSGNSNCNO(NENNENBB) is not even particularly hard, it's really just BFA doing a lot of the heavy lifting with giving it that "impossible" status.

[@Ordoscc]

Sorry, what do those acronyms mean?

[@BlitzAce469]

@@Ordoscc NSGNSNCNONENNENBB is the challenge discussed in the video. For the challenges Karifean mentioned: NSGNSNCNINTQ - No Sphere Grid, No Summons, No Customise, No Items, No Trio of 9999/Quartet of 9 NSGNCIE - No Sphere Grid, No Customise, Initial Equipment -- worth noting that no one actually does this exact challenge, what Karifean meant was that any challenge that includes this particular combination of restrictions is never getting past Seymour Omnis

[@nesoukkefka1741]

​@@BlitzAce469What makes Omnis impossible on NSGNCIE ?

[@Karifean]

@@nesoukkefka1741 He always takes the first turn, and promptly kills everyone with Firagas much too powerful for anyone to survive. Simply nothing you can do about it with those restrictions. I remembered reading someone doing this run decades ago and that's where it ended for them.

[@V.Perez1985]

My dumbass thought this was a video about chocobos and balloons.

[@HHh-ug4oe]

Still impossible

[@wargames-mb2gu]

i thought the same thing

[@guering]

haha, i feel u .. i thought it was beating peanance 🤦‍♂

[@ThewOrldIssqUare]

I thought so too, but i guess not

[@Deadgye]

oh god the fucking PTSD you just triggered

[@frederickbingley6699]

Primal Liquid is doing this challenge right now. The first episode is out rn.

[@DoctorSwellman]

It's funny, I just saw that video this morning lol

[@frederickbingley6699]

@@DoctorSwellmanim very intrigued to see it play out. That man can grind but this one seems like a new level of grind haha

[@Singleredpikmi]

I saw that video to and then got this in my recommendations

[@Enigmatic_Soldier]

i was about to say - impossible? primalliquid is such a hard grinder when it comes to the ff games, especially ff X i mean it is to be seen if he can complete it or not but i am pretty certain that he is able to do it

[@TheEtherswornKing21]

I have full faith in Primal doing this. I've never encountered anyone who can grind like that man can.

[@BaalFridge]

Next step in the challenge: no playing FFX allowed 😂

[@EilonwyWanderer]

Better yet, travel back in time and prevent yourself from ever playing FFX! Ultimate difficulty challenge.

[@614GTRjr]

I was literally thinking the same thing before even booting the video up and saw this comment. That's literally the challenge. Don't play the fking game 😂

[@beveryofa2546]

​@@EilonwyWandererjust be careful with that time travel, if you go back too far it'll turn into an FFIX 100% no save speedrun :P

[@OneMoreDesu]

Very easy. You just convince someone else to do it for you.

[@RollsChaotic]

I actually completed that one already Edit: My bad, I had just completed the game and forgotten everything

[@MrMarnel]

FFX is my favourite game ever and I used to be a lurker/infrequent poster in GameFAQs. I don't remember all the details as presented here but I do recognise lots of those names and have read the FAQs. I don't like challenge runs that come down to rolling dice for 20+ minutes though so was never interested in the super hard ones. Cool video, tyvm for it.

[@PhiDX]

Awesome video! 15:15 - for mushroom rock road steals, did runners have to backtrack after getting Rikku?

[@maximilianomorganti7639]

This was such high quality editing, sound and just overall amazing story I never knew it existed as a big fan of the series. Thank you for this friend :)

[@rekenner]

iirc, CJayC said that GameFax was the "canonical" pronunciation, tho I always said Eff Ay Ques

[@pigfish99]

man, CjayC is a name that brings me back. I remember when SBAllen was actually named Sailor bacon, based off of his sailor moon cosplay!

[@rekenner]

@@pigfish99 I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago, when LUE was available to everyone, CJayC was the site owner, and I had a 5 digit account ID, made when I was technically an underage (under 13) user...

[@pigfish99]

@@rekenner I was kinda there too. low 3 million on ID. I wasn't there when LUE was sterLUEized, but I was there during the Random insanity/Current Event rivalries, and PotD/Board 8 rivals... Also, LOL, the gamespot merger was so controversial at the time. imagine the reaction the old boards would've had to fandom buying GameFAQs.

[@DoctorSwellman]

@@pigfish99 We really need a complete history of GameFAQs video. There's so much lore to unpack

[@pigfish99]

@@DoctorSwellman that would be so good!!! Those ASCII arts are like illuminated manuscripts that most gaming Wikis are built on. Remember, G is always other, and Saxon is a joke account/

[@EilonwyWanderer]

Yeah, "eff eh cues" has always sounded super weird to me -- plus, why waste all those extra syllables when you could just say "fax" instead? It's like... when was the last time you heard someone talk about an "animated gee eye eff" file instead of calling it a GIF? That's an acronym too, but nobody spells out each letter.

[@YamiOni]

You had me paused at 20 seconds in, looking at the Jecht fight with... WHAT ARE THOSE STATS??

[@Abyssoft]

*Black Rinoa lies on the internet* Abyssoft: 👀

[@xohhbeatz2372]

Abyssoft FF content when? 😊

[@aliceyuri]

what else was she known to lie about?

[@BlitzAce469]

@@aliceyuri nothing, and for that matter it was never confirmed that she actually lied about her BFA win. It may really have just been an honest mistake in recounting her successful fight. Everything else she posted about her run (and other FFX experiences, even) made it very clear she played through the entire challenge up to BFA. Back then it wasn't uncommon for people to pretend to be playing the challenge and getting to BFA just for "clout" but the way they described fights and so on made it very easy to distinguish between people actually playing and people just making stuff up.

[@ΦιλήσυχοςΠολίτης]

@@BlitzAce469 The legend is here!!

[@jruler93]

I always said "Game F-A-Qs", but "Game Fax" is acceptable too.

[@Eckythumpmaster]

NSGNSNCNONENNENBBB, where the last B means 'blindfolded'.

[@TonberryMishima]

rofl.. noiiice!

[@CobaltContrast]

Ok but what if we did community imput on top of that?

[@jleffel6969]

The first 'B' is "Bring Your Own Beer."

[@TonberryMishima]

NSGNSNCNONENNENBBBBYOBBBQ

[@Ouvii]

NSGNSNCNONENNENBBBD the last two letters are "Blind and Deaf"

[@Tom_Tom_Club]

9:40 one of the hardest challenges in FFX: actually playing blitzball

[@jikGeek]

As someone who's channel is mostly FFX NSG, I love this video. Great job Doc and community 👌🔥

[@BSENKevin]

Started watching the Tanctacles FFX NSG stream when this came out. So much content for this game now.

[@SabreFang121]

This popping up after primal liquid starts streaming this challenge can’t be a coincidence

[@0rthogonal]

I was active on the GameFAQs back in those days and did an NSGNSNC run myself. Thought everyone was off their rocker trying the more difficult one’s. It was quite the active topic though. I thought it would forever remain unfinished. Glad to see someone got it.

[@Folsomdsf2]

missing some info, this was actually heavily contributed to by an old gamefaqs user known as madmaxim who is one of the OG's of gamefaqs.

[@Decade-c9k]

"IHateBFA"... a perfect description of how so many FFX players have felt over the years.

[@squeethemog213]

This randomly popped into my feed but wow I'm so glad I watched. God I love FFX and didn't even think it had a dedicated challenge community. Thank you so much for making this vid :D

[@Ouvii]

See, my challenge run back in the day was always no-items I didn't explicitly try to do this challenge, but what if I need my items later? I can't use them now! On a more serious note, I love how removing all the other mechanics in the game makes it a game based around items, while casual players barely ever use items.

[@mhmmmmmmm]

Videos of FFX playthoughs in 2024 with BG3 music, this is the future I asked for.

[@gandido]

... You gave me nostalgia, not because of the FFX content, but due to your use of FFRK sprites. I miss FFRK :(

[@shadowthephoenix1]

Final Fantasy challenge runs will always have a special place in my heart, i remember spending so long in so many classic ff games just coming up with new challenges to try and beat the game with (normally level 1/low level runs). These videos cataloging the other challenges (especially ones this hard) always bring a smile to my face, big kudos to everyone who has attempted this challenge and honestly any video game challenge run, challenge runs are a big part of what keeps these classic games alive. Recently with ff16 coming to pc, ultimania arcade mode has been giving me thoughts of getting back on the horse and trying to go for all s rank on each stage, between that and doing ults/savage for the past 5 or 6 years in ff14 i'd say even all these years later for me doing challenges in these games is still and always will be a passion, and something im glad it seems SE themselves embrace.

[@Oblivion776]

Glad I requested this video on the NSG speedrun vid, you did a great job! Hearing about the progression of tacking on more and more stipulations was really fun.

[@VoltXProductions]

It's "gamefacks" as in double reference to "game facts". Well, at least, that is what I tell myself. GameFAQs is just an awkward name to say

[@MyNameIsBucket]

The term FAQ predates the site by quite a few years

[@maximillionpegasus5160]

15:38 wow, I knew you could poison Seymour Flux as that was the only way I could defeat him as a kid, but giving him haste to speed up the poison damage ticks is such a smart strat

[@dr4gonblitz]

Impossible challenge in Final Fintasy? I GOT TO SEE THIS!

[@DeadFishGaming]

I enjoy your SoTN speedruns.

[@Xavril8]

I came a bit when the Legend of Dragoon Soundtrack hit.

[@477sierra]

I used to do the opposite and say "F.A.Q" until I heard it referred to as "facks". Now "facks" is what I always say. It's just a nice time saver.

[@GarlandTheGreat]

I did this challenge in 2007, but I never even attempted the final boss. The 90 minute battle with the 7% drop was just too much for me, and the thought of playing the part from the final save point to the final boss over and over again was extremely off putting as well, as it took like ten minutes. I already had enough of that with Yunalesca and Seymour Flux. Btw, if you ever think about making a similar video about FFVII challenges, I have GameFAQs threads from as far back as 2004 saved.

[@jacobhholt]

Passing on the Final Fantasy torch for the next speed runner in 2024.

[@DonkeyDoormatDrive]

Thank you for this. As a game designer, games history documentaries are so helpful in immersing myself in the context of games in the genre of my current project

[@tlozfreak888]

I saw the Primal video on this show up in recommended (haven't had time to watch it yet) and my immediate thought was "oh no what's he gotten himself into this time"

[@makeitthrough_]

People don't call S.W.A.T. teams "Ess Double-U Ayy Tee" teams, they just say "Swat" even though the acronym stands for something. Like that other poster I too will die on the hill of calling it Game "Fax" even though FAQs stands for something. It's so much less clunky

[@davelovegamestv]

Final Fantasy X remains as my favourite game ! Was such as joy being able to play through my wife, showing her the reason I fell in love with JRPGs and these characters

[@Yurikon3]

"It took XIII years." Nomura: *Feeling silent tingles of satisfaction*

[@7th_Heaven]

:)

[@jewellui]

This is awesome to see so many years later, never thought I'd see a video of this. Kind of crazy how it came up randomly on my recommended videos too. Always thought it was rather niche but looking at the comments it seems plenty of people have tried it. I remember being surprised just how playable it was despite all the restrictions and being in awe of the dedication and time people put in especially the first people who figured things out. To this day I still don't know how people had the time.

[@drascia]

I hear Legend of Dragoon music. Instant subscribe.

[@TheLegionDragon]

I came to post the same comment!

[@willmccutcheon218]

Is that Legend of Dragoon music in the background?

[@FloodclawKupo]

Bizarrely enough, I call it 'Game-Faks' but call the guides 'F.A.Q.s'. Weird how language works like that and you don't even notice it.

[@zacharycampbell9607]

Awesome stuff, dude. It's so great that you highlight all the cool GameFAQs guides. Such a cool literacy practice.

[@coolasskid6969]

When you see GarlandtheGreat footage, you know it's a classic FF challenge run.

[@GurenKitsune]

The whole FAQs thing is the same as asap vs A.S.A.P

[@marquiseMindfang]

Using the Record Keeper sprites for bosses just made me sad :(

[@joncliffmckinley5868]

we still chuggin on JP server 👀

[@marquiseMindfang]

@@joncliffmckinley5868 i couldn't face starting over :( the thought of realm dungeons alone...

[@joncliffmckinley5868]

@@marquiseMindfang it was a slog, for sure! I just love RK so much, and it was a chance to grind my Japanese reading comp so I made the jump after global shuttered

[@jakubhusi258]

Your best video.. explaining each update step by step with detail was super addicting to listen to. Great work

[@jackrippon1604]

The creativity of the community to beat these challenges is amazing

[@Biffo316]

Probably the best video I've watched on KZbin in quite some time.

[@pyroprince90]

I used to post with user Gestahl on the legend of dragoon board on gamefaqs so it was pretty surreal hearing the music from that game when you’re talking about him in the video. An Easter egg only a small number of people could possibly get

[@DonYagamoth]

Up until now I've never heard FAQ being pronounced like "facts". Curious For clarity purposes I personally prefer it being said like the individual letters F.A.Q. My non-native-English brain will probably keep hearing "facts" I don't think either pronunciation is wrong. Like with so many made-up words, it just depends on what you're used to in the grand scheme of things. But kind of like I say "soccer" because there is no ambiguity in what I mean, I like to stick to the terms and pronunciations that are hard to misunderstand Anyways, thanks for another great video :)

[@didiercollard]

"What comes to mind when you think of the hardest challenge in FFX?" My first thought was finishing the chocobo race in 0 seconds, but this is on another level!

[@PerseusisRad]

I remember reading the FAQ about this challenge back in HS, maybe even MS. It was just super interesting to me just how precise you had to be to do these challenges, even if I didn't have much interest in trying them myself.

[@TheYoshimitsu27]

Love hearing that Legend of Dragoon music! Also, nice video!

[@basurama555]

That SMT V and YGO Forbidden Memories BGM tho.

[@Galanthos]

Man, everyone in the comments commenting about the pronunciation of GameFAQs, and no one pointing out that Tidus is pronounced Tee-dus.

[@montgomeryfortenberry]

Dont they pronounce his name in game?

[@Galanthos]

@@montgomeryfortenberry Not in FFX, because you can rename him. Maybe in X-2, or Dissidia or Kingdom Hearts? I think at some point the English vocal localization won out with Tie-dus, but the original intention was Tee-dus.

[@itsthedude6155]

6:52 that background music is from Legend of Dragoon. Damn just hearing music from that game makes me want to play it. Lol i just saw the credit afterwards. Had the video playing in the background when the music caught my attention.

[@Assaultwatertaffy]

With all the tracks in X I'm a bit baffled that Royal Castle Bale's theme from Legend of Dragoon was used but I'm not complaining!

[@saucydoodles9604]

I ADORE those FFVI style sprites of the FFX cast! Simply delightful. Makes me want to see more fan made demakes of games. There's something somewhat magical to the character illustrator in me about seeing designs rolled back to the limitations of earlier console generations.

[@disruptor6550]

You snuck in some Forbidden Memories music in there, that's crazy! 11/10 vid just for that haha

[@thesuntitan]

Happy to be able to say that I was there, a young lurker watching the progress and strategies unfold, while I tried to replicate them unsuccesfully.

[@manudude02]

God damn this was a throwback. I remember all the interactions with the likes of zzanmato and BlitzAce420. I made it to BFA but gave up on it when I couldn't get Auto-phoenix to drop for Auron. I was also splitting my time between that and the other "impossible" task of NSGNZ Dark Anima (and the grind for that while easy, was painful)

[@fatbap]

I accidentally did a NSG run the first time I ever played FFX. Made it all the way to Seymour flux before I just couldnt get any further. Was only when I went onto cheatcc and got a walkthrough that I finally found out about the sphere grid. Good times.

[@draculactica]

Been psyched for this since it was hinted in the community post!

[@MadmanAsa]

I always admired FFX as a game despite the initial flak it got for not being as edgy of a story as most of the other FFs at the time. But I also found the the base game incredibly challenging for RPG beginners. Seeing the dedicated community to push the hard game even further is endearing to me. It's hard to explain, but it's like a lost art I had no idea about and wish I did.

[@fooff1]

That ffrk pixel art just brought back allll the longing.

[@AI-mazingTrueTales]

I have always called it game "facts" because it still makes sense and I knew what it meant as a kid too. The guides are facts, for what you need. The answers to the frequently asked questions are facts. So it will always be "game facts" as the pronunciation to me. I hope others feel the same :)

[@BraveryWing26]

Wow that was amazing. I wish there was a whole walkthrough of people doing these challenges.

[@Thatonesmartdude]

The sprite work in this documentary was phenomenal.

[@major_trenton]

These videos are so good, I can't imagine the effort that goes in to making these.

[@LaLiLuLeLo1293]

I saw the video recommended and was thinking maybe someone FINALLY found a way to beat Penance without the Sphere Grid, since to my knowledge that's the only enemy that has never been beaten without it. This is also wild though!

[@Alessandro-Lopes]

You got me with your sponsor ad 😂 I'm the Brazilian viewer.

[@MechaOracle]

For anyone wanting to replay FF X but want a good balance of hard and fun, use the sphere grid but you aren't allowed to raise your stats. This way you get a bunch of abilities and options but you can't just "level" to win. Makes some easy bosses a lot harder but you have to strategize to beat them.

[@QuixoteX]

I say "Game F. A. Qs", but "facks" was a common pronunciation of FAQs that predates that site. It was common in the early web to have an FAQs section or page. The punny expression "Just the FAQs" was common. That expression is a reference to the TV show 'Dragnet' where on of the main chacters is know for saying "Just the facts."

[@jewellui]

Does anyone know if it is possible to do these challenges on the remastered version? I assume little to nothing has changed.

[@DanteCats98]

4:10 honest to god, I knew nothing about those abilities or the armor mods when I played through ffX. I played and beat it without it, which isn't crazy sounding but I'm just shocked I missed something so incredibly helpful lol It's also worth mentioning that ffX is the only ff I've completely beaten the story on. Everything else I end up finding something else to play and never completing it lol

[@Cheesedjelly]

Neat video! I've never heard of these challenges before so it was cool to watch. Who is the artist for the pixel art? 😀

[@DoctorSwellman]

Thank you! The pixel art is from a gatcha game called Final Fantasy Record Keeper, they can be found here. As for the actual pixel artist from the dev team, I unfortunately don't know who works on those www.spriters-resource.com/mobile/finalfantasyrecordkeeper/

[@Cheesedjelly]

@@DoctorSwellman Thanks a lot for sharing! I actually didn't know about this game.

[@TheUltimaGhost]

Legend of Dragoon Royal castle ost caught me of guard. Love that game

[@chrisgonzales5403]

Loved the "Legend of Dragoon" music in the background lol

[@nickpatrick7021]

The actual impossible FFX challenge is getting through the remaster with Tidus' horrifying plastic face and painted-on eyes.

[@IngwiePhoenix_nb]

Dude this letter soup just about made my eyes go cross XD. Played FFX a lot on ps2 and later on PC and it was a fun game! But I got walled by just the first dark aeon because I forgot to pick up the equipments in the backrooms... Seing people beat this game like that is nothing short of incredible!

[@riskit4biscuit381]

Hearing Legend of the Dragoon music in the background just brought me back to my childhood

[@Vanaema153]

Seeing those 8-bit sprites makes me want a fan made recreation of FF10, which idk how possible that is, but that would be amazing to think about.

[@velvetbutterfly]

They're actually 32bit

[@Veylon]

Cartridges have unlimited space and it's a turn based game, so I don't see why a pretty high-fidelity NES version couldn't be made.

[@velvetbutterfly]

@@Veylon even if you implanted 1TB storage onto a snes game cart, which you couldn't because of how they work but lets in theory say you could which would give us essentially unlimited space since no 2D game would ever take more than that, even most 3D games aren't quite hitting that yet. The NES still has many limitations. The biggest factor is it's colour pallet. It has like 16 or 32 colours available, most of which are shades of blue. You can't expand this since it's on the hardware. So this alone limits any depth you could have. You also have the fact that any singular sprite is limited to having 4 colours to it. RetroGameMechanics (IIRC) has a video where he goes in depth about this to explain how Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) used a trick to give Mario's sprite 5 colours. So let's say "well let's just use all the tricks we can to make it seem like one big sprite, games like FF do that for bosses" You'd run into a problem with memory. The games could only handle one tileset of rather small tile selection, and have room for maybe 10 sprites that are animated. Math doesn't quite work out. Okay, let's go back to FF. They put unmoving sprites and removed a background to have larger or higher fidelity monsters compared to the players. This is less taxing on the ram, and functions kind of like Pokemon in a way where data is decompressed and drawn. It still has its limits. Let's say it was a turn based RPG with no animations or effects of any kind. Kind of like DragonQuest 2. No player is drawn, first person, everything put into the monster and running combat calculations. The maximum sprite resolution is 256x224 if you take up literally the full screen. A fair chunk is cut off when viewed properly so reduce that by a fair margin, I forget how much exactly. Not enough to be considered "high fidelity" even here but let's continue. The monster is not a sprite and instead a tileset. You could have at most 48 tiles, drawn using 16 of the full available colours. (Maybe 17 if you use "nothing" as "black") This would look pretty good I suppose, but still not High Fidelity. The biggest issue is title size and colour pallet. A single tile is rather tiny on the NES. So even if you went in this hard, you would barely look better than early SNES games like Golbez in FF4 or the environments in DKC. And it would be a far cry from games like ChronoTrigger or FF6's enemies like Kefka and Behemoth. A truly HD sprite like BlazBlue simply is too detailed for the NES to handle.

[@thelastfantasy]

A bit like how they made DQ11 2D in the definitive version. That would be awesome