FFX Was Finally Broken After 20 Years By Speedrunners

FFX Speedrunning just got crazy, here's why.
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Runners:
Cambosteve: / cambosteve
Camp4r: / camp4r
CaracarnVI: / caracarnvi
CrimsonInferno: / crimsoninferno9
Grayfox: / grayfox1996
Madhyama: / madhyama
Oddmog: / oddmog
Rossy: / rossy__
Tojju: / tojju
Wolverine: / wolverine023

[@phoenixalpha9145]

People beating the game in under 9 hours. Meanwhile I spent 60 hours on Blitzball alone.

[@Lockewave]

Same

[@FewNewReasonss]

I got to max level once. I loved it, Tidus is just so OP.

[@SeanRayRealty]

Hahah same

[@isaniruch]

"I want to play blitzball irl" *Proceed to drown*

[@phoenixalpha9145]

​@@isaniruch same. I used to train to hold my breath, and at one point I could last 2 minutes underwater

[@Kazmahu]

It's so nice of you to highlight all this. The top runners get a lot of the spotlight, but then you have the guys in the background putting in a serious team effort to help everyone out at this chosen challenge. It's really lovely to see how collaborative speedrunning really is.

[@Rossy__]

YOOOOOOO, THIS WAS AMAZING. I'm sitting here with a huge, dumb grin on my face. I'm glad my and the rest of the community's work has been incredibly useful. Thank you for putting this video together!

[@mitchgodman]

I barely understand anything being said in this video but awesome work dude.

[@bgill7475]

Awesome work

[@Josh-cn5yp]

Dude the fact that you're still discovering things 20 years on is crazy!! so cool

[@octaviohernandez937]

Awesome work 👏

[@Sifeus]

You're a hero

[@LilyKazami]

Typical FF speedrun: We've mined out the encounter RNG, here is a step route if you get the right seed FFXHD: by looking at your damage values up to the first boss, we can now plot out _the entire game_

[@jprec5174]

Sounds a bit like ff12. Same thing but to manipulate loot to get the added dev cheat weps

[@ultimamage3]

@@jprec5174 In FF12 they straight up determined the cheat weapon drop rate by the exact HP values in a Cure spell from Reks at the start of the game.

[@jprec5174]

@@ultimamage3 nutty right?

[@ultimamage3]

@@jprec5174 It's wild and takes a lot of work

[@ThanksIfYourReadIt]

jUST really hammer in the LINEAR nails in the coffin lol

[@tomatoanus]

"...the real run killer at the top level comes from just under eight hours into the run." man fuck

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

You are going to do a speedrun explained for this one, right? :P "I would like to remind everyone for the 26th time this run that no feeling is final...."

[@omnisel]

Well over half is cutscenes. Even in HD you can't skip them for some reason.

[@grandparicksfirstassistant3386]

@@omnisel bro I'm guessing it's cause they don't want people to realize you can beat the game in under 5 hours of actual gameplay

[@kevinbonin6173]

I am suffering from lack of motivation. how do these guys have the motivation to do this for absolutely nothing.

[@omnisel]

@@grandparicksfirstassistant3386 Be careful with what you're implying here, unless you're trying to imply a casual player playing SMB1 will only ever get 5 minutes of fun out of it.

[@Dansg08]

This is mindblowing stuff, incredible work and dedication from everyone involved!

[@Cross_network]

Only took us 20 years lol

[@Irreverent_bob]

Been seeing you everywhere man. Eager to see what you’ve got coming down the pipe. I’m personally not exactly a fan of final fantasy, but loved your PBirdman mod run for X.

[@itz_premium]

@@Irreverent_bob I got into Dangs08 for FFX help, but I often find myself falling asleep to the 24/7 stream he keeps running. Its oddly... Very calming. Its the perfect amount of commentary and he takes time to appreciate some of the finer things.

[@Irreverent_bob]

@@itz_premium he’s got a great voice for commentary so it’s just easy listening. I also really like watching because he knows the game front to back and it’s always fun to watch someone so knowledgeable of something they enjoy, enjoying that something. I could probably do similar videos about bloodborne and to a lesser extent the entire souls series, but I’m unfortunately too broke to afford any decent recording equipment. But yea, dansg08 is one of the greats in my eyes

[@razorsharp5643]

I knew you'd be here. Where'd you hide Pbirdman? Is he already taking notes? EDIT: Well, I see he already did some of the information digging about the spawn rates of the Ghost in different spots of the caves. Of course.

[@Paulo_Dirac]

succeeding in a speedrun looks more and more like having a phd in applied mathematics

[@geighzollicoffer]

I am getting a PhD in Applied math and I love watching speedruns lol

[@chaseg3670]

@@geighzollicoffer im allergic to math

[@Metal_Horror]

They're reverse engineering the rom. In other words, figuring out how it works without having the source in front of them. If they had the source code available, this video would be half the length - or actually probably wouldn't exist at all. That's not to say it isn't an impressive feat, but it looks a lot less intimidating to a programmer. If anything I wonder how and why the devs arrived at such a strange random number generator (in the video one of the hackers posts the formula at some point in the form of C code).

[@Paulo_Dirac]

@@Metal_Horror I'm both(s) Engineer, Phd and dev (in 3D graphics) ^^. yet i find the amount of time/energy/passion pretty hight level (and this is awesome).

[@Metal_Horror]

@@Paulo_Dirac ever look into computer security? Reading "Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit" - and getting my first shellcode to run - changed my life. It's fascinating stuff.

[@sand9577]

Speedrunners are a different breed of humans, we should get more speedrunners into cancer research, we'll have it figured in a decade or so.

[@MrPottsTeaching]

They figured out that curing cancer doesn't make money. Unemploys THOUSANDS of people. And puts more load on the TAX payers that have to pay for food stamps, and Public services etc. The amount of ppl that work for AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY is crazy. But those speed runners could do it lol lmao ha ha ha😅😅😅😅😁😁😁😃👀👀🗑🤯🤯🌈🤔🤔🥇🌍😀😁

[@sanguineel]

I am not a speedrunner, I don't even follow speedrunning, but I happened across this and the seeding aspect is intriguing. Thank you for sharing.

[@RandoomDude]

If you ever grinded for the 99x warp spheres in the Omega Ruins, it's pretty apparent that RNG seed is a large part of being able to pick up all the chests, even if you retry tons of times, it will only be possible if you actually save your game, reset out and load another file to completely reset the seed

[@NoThankYouNext]

I bought ffx like 6 times now. 3 times for myself on ps2, ps3 and pc and to 3 friends. Also talked 2 friends into buying it. That's the only game I have ever done that with, because I'm convinced it's the best one so far and I want my friends to experience how wonderful it is.

[@CC_Reads]

agreed i have so many 😂😂 not including the time i bought it again with the black label so i could do all the bonus content they took out from the greatest hits version

[@Djou-Karl]

It is a solid game after all!

[@TonyBMan]

Just hearing the amazing music again during this video is sucking me back into Spira...gotta finish my HD run.

[@digitalmaijiin6236]

I've only bought FFX and FF12 multiple times. Amazing games.

[@davidsabillon5182]

The ending gets me every single time. It just makes me super sad.

[@BlackEyedJester]

I STILL can't believe FFX came out 20 years ago...

[@Guitar-Dog]

Wow, we are all getting old aren't we? FFIX was one of my first games as a kid, took me 6 months to get ViVi to the show, I couldn't read lol. Edit:must of been about 5, as I learned to read I got further

[@sjacqVO21]

"belee it" naruto uzamaki

[@sparda9060]

Hate to break it to you, 1990 was 34 years ago, 1990s is retro now. Back in 1990s and 2000s we thought 1960,1970,1980 was retro lol

[@BlackEyedJester]

@@sparda9060 I'm almost 30 myself and whenever I think "Retro" it's old Atari games, or PacMan at the arcade...

[@sparda9060]

@@BlackEyedJester Yep.. When i was little in the 90s I also thought Pac Man arcades was retro lol Atari was common too cuz it was way cheaper than the latest consoles.

[@felipejhony6039]

wow, great explanation. Its good to know my favorite game is still being treated with such care and respect by the community. I hope we keep learning more and more about it.

[@Velcreed]

This is why I love the speedrun community. Yes they are competing for top times but in the end everyone pools all their research, tips, and theories on how to save time and generally help each other and congratulate each other when a new time thought impossible is achieved.

[@Hextator]

It's nice when it is like that, but there is a lot of toxic butthurt that results in gatekeeping which directly impedes the collaboration you're talking about. The "speedrun community" is not just one community, and even communities for individual games can become fragmented. Some people just suck at competing in a productive way.

[@TheDirtbaggrif]

Because it's always about execution, not knowledge. The fgc is the same way. Everybody is on an even playing field, so the winner is decided by the grind.

[@PancakeBandit]

@@Hextator RPG speedrunning commuities are *extremely* chill and supportive. I only really see toxicity in some FPS or racing games that draw people with egos.

[@Hextator]

Well shit! Sucks I found the one exception then I guess?? Of COURSE speedrunning communities are toxic: they ALL draw people with egos. That's not an FPS or racing game thing. When it's speedrunning, EVERY game is a racing game.

[@projektlapis5172]

My favourite thing about this is how one runner was doing a run, and other runners were like "Hey, I want to help this dude out!" instead of wishing bad on him or something because 'oh no what if he tops our times' and stuff. It's super cool to see them just work together to get everyone faster runs, instead of keeping things to themselves for records. They're rivals in a sense, but very friendly and chill ones that *want* to help each other get better, and it's just super nice to see that.

[@dramirez2351]

Just set some money for the top 3 runners and see how "friendly competitive community" starts to fall apart. 10k for the winner would be enough?

[@FALCONLICK]

It’s because it’s an rpg.

[@Rossy__]

[@vaiyt]

@@dramirez2351 that's more likely to just encourage cheaters.

[@helloofthebeach]

Runners in healthy speedrunning communities tend to organize their priorities as, for example: 1. I want to be the one who breaks the minute barrier. 2. I want that minute barrier broken, period. Personal glory matters, but _community_ glory matters too, and everyone can contribute to that, even if they're not one of the top 1%.

[@MrNorskgamer]

i love the amount of effort the top runners puts in to research at just the mere thought that its possible to manipulate the RNG/seed, and that they share what they find and speculate as possibility between eachother (im assuming to get more run testers to see how consistant and reliable it is), and the fact they all encourage eachother instead of trying to sabotage eachother just to keep their records is just great to hear.

[@crimsoninferno8345]

Man, a crazy amount of effort must have gone into going back through all of the developments into rng tracking. Awesome video dude, well researched.

[@RedPanther2k]

This explains so freaking much. Since this game came out I played it for at least 6-8 times on different Versions. The last Version i played which abolutely baffeled me was the HD Remaster Version on the Switch. While Monster hunting i couldn't for the life of me get some enemies to spawn. Especially in the Forgotten Cave. I did experience similar behavior in the other hd Remaster Versions. But never as obvious as in this one. I quite soon figured out, that i had a RNG issue here an tried to alter it but ultimately could'nt really get rid of this problem. Don't get me wrong ... I do know that certain enounters are really hard to get and my patience was enmormous. But this playthrough was in a different leauge. There have been several occasions where i noticed that the game didn't seem to have many RNG values compared to the original. That its only 256 ... Hell i didn't expect it to be THIS griveous ^^ Thanks for making my suspicions true with this amazing video and a huge shuoutout to the speedrunning community of this gem. On of the best FF ever made

[@theWIIISEguy]

So I just wanted to share. I've always been impressed by the very idea of a FF speedrun. It just seems like it's own kind of task to take on. Much respect to those who do it.

[@JustSomeDinosaurPerson]

As a diehard FFX fan, this is beyond exciting to see!!! Thank you for the coverage on this topic :] I am personally still blown away by the NoSG challenges, which remain the most difficult FF challenges in existence.

[@kristenloader5305]

First of all, this video is actually so in depth and thought through. Your content from what I can tell is HIGHLY under-rated. Thank you for some of the best 20 minutes I have spent in a long while ♥

[@kyledabearsfan]

I'm not a speed runner but I will say I have mad respect for them. It takes a lot of time, dedication, patience, and probably a lot of love to dedicate yourself to speed running

[@rakino4418]

M

[@ItzBigidy]

This is awesome. To see the FFX community help each other and dedicate so much of their time to mastering the game. Props to everyone involved!

[@glenneclipsegsx]

I’m on 69hrs on the original PS2 version. I’ve been mfing all the mini games but after making it through to monster capturing and most of the sigil and crests for all the celestials it feels that much more rewarding. I’ve played this game to the calm lands more than once and just never completed it. Back then the strategy guide was all we had. I thank KZbinrs for some of the help I needed to fully understand parts of the game. It’s not intuitive and I’m still learning new things which is wild.

[@BiggusNickus]

Happy to see Caracarn gain the love he deserves. Solid guy. I always enjoyed his AGDQ commentary for FFIX.

[@Govigian]

Thanks for compiling all of this amazing work these people put in and explaining it in a way that my slow brain can comprehend. Even though i had to pause or rewind to let some of the things you said sink in. I was never interested in speedrunning myself but watching all the crazy stuff these communities come up with is always a sight to behold.

[@Hummeldon]

More than I think any other genre, RPGs demonstrate how collaborative speedrunning can really be. Wonderful efforts by Rossy and the FFX community. ❤️

[@donteddy1858]

It is crazy to see this 20 year old story driven rpg having such a big ,skilled and devoted speedruning community.

[@xgalarion8659]

How is it crazy? they speedrun literally any games these days

[@higueraft571]

@@xgalarion8659 Not any, but a few. Depends on if they find it interesting.

[@mypud4068]

Yeah the hobbit game on the ps1 is still being ran lol, admittedly I had never played it or knew much about it even but watching a video on the speed runs was cool as the game does have some cool of not odd mechanics

[@kevineeveron2693]

I absolutely admire this community. How do they find out all of this and how to manipulate the game. Amazing!!

[@Rossy__]

It took about a year of learning assembly language and reverse engineering to get to the point of knowing when a Ghost would appear. Granted now that I know that base knowledge, applying it to another game wouldn't take as long, but it was a grind, that's for sure! Having tools like Cheat Engine is a huge help so you can watch the game memory in real time to see what's happening. And if you know the type of data you're looking for, you can see what part of the game handles that data and how it handles the data. Then you can continue from there and see if there's a way to manipulate the game to have it handle that data in the way you want it to for a preferred outcome.

[@BlackAxe101]

14:00 That's about 4.3 billion vs 256. Crazy difference. Totally understand using to the power of, once we've left the realm of easily identifiable numbers. Most people know that billion comes after million though you can probably just say 4.3 billion instead of 2 to the 32.

[@tiamagus6641]

68 RNG values?! With one seed?! WTH, Squenix?! No wonder save scumming was so hard. lol Also interesting that the HD port broke the seed generator. There's an allegory in here about changing things you don't understand, I'm sure of it.

[@Sorain1]

I think it's worth saying that the 'frames since boot of system' _would_ need replacement with something when moving to PC... but it wouldn't have been hard to preserve a decent amount of randomness with even a basic RNG call to the OS.

[@jcd_1991]

If you're playing on an emulator, you'll definitely notice that the enemy encounters are somewhat "scripted", because using a save state you'll discover that the next encounter is always 100% the same. Now, I've learned that this is true thanks to this video! So it's seeded then, and to top it all, it's not just one but that many?? This is mind blowing stuff.

[@Klorophyte]

Fire emblem uses very similar rng to prevent save scumming, kind of. Every tile you move changes rng.

[@jadermiani]

That happened to me in SNES or GENESIS RPGs before.

[@willrobinson9767]

It's called a pseudo random number for a reason........ All games use seeds.... There is no other way to do it.... All lost count of the the games I broke with seeds.....

[@willrobinson9767]

In Civilization you can manipulate the seeds and make sure you get good things from the villages...... You can also use the seeds and always win battles when you fight...... You will always win.......... Lots of other games like that.......

[@willrobinson9767]

The Nintendo switch version of Civilization 6 also does this......

[@Gamingnerd15]

I didn’t understand much of this, but this is my favorite game of all time and I think this is such a cool communal effort.

[@thomasharris7558]

Some of us played video games to avoid doing homework. These people did insane amounts of homework because they loved playing video games

[@Celticers]

didn't expect a FFX video, really interesting. They should have added another RNG value. that would have been nice.

[@drunkenprayer8390]

I am equally terrified and in awe of the commitment of speed runners. The sheer amount of research put into stuff like this is borderline insane.

[@Real-Name..Maqavoy]

Datamining, Looking at Source code and breaking down data in bits helps :P

[@southofheck]

And it’s all just to finish a game a little bit faster. It’s a bit goofy if you step back and look at it, but I still got mad respect for these guys. Some of these guys are gonna end up in NASA or something, mark my words.

[@DonYagamoth]

A more recent version of stepcounting This is a really neat overview, and well presented, thank you :)

[@docmitchphd]

See this is why speed running is so impressive and incredible to witness. Hats off to the people who put in the work!

[@KyudoKun]

I'm a FF gamer and honestly I don't understand most of these technical aspect of the game. But still I watched the video til the end because I love watching speedrun videos.

[@GraniteFaun]

I'm actually impressed that this game seems to be solid enough to have no exploitable glitches to use in speedruns ^^"

[@Krieghandt]

back when programmers took pride in releasing bug free games.

[@KoyasuNoBara]

@@Krieghandt Taking pride in releasing bug-free games doesn't prevent, say, Super Mario 64 from being completely _broken_ when doing speedruns or challenges. A casual player probably won't encounter many (or any) bugs. But when you're explicitly looking for bugs in a long, complicated program, you're gonna find some eventually. It just comes down to whether or not they're useful. And, honestly, I'm kind of impressed, too, that they apparently haven't found a way to skip large portions of the game.

[@higueraft571]

@@Krieghandt >SM64 exists

[@adventures_w_otto1370]

i like to think somewhere in the world one of the programmers for ffx has a ''gameshark'' cheater program full of work they did coding the game. if you know what a gameshark is.

[@avistryfe4534]

Doesnt need glitches. Can give urself max cash from the menu and invincibility. And jack up the speed. Basically enabling these so called "fastest cheated run" videos you see that are worded differently.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

Community Discord: Listen to our story...this RNG may be our last chance.

[@finalblueproductions]

underrated comment

[@DoctorSwellman]

@@finalblueproductions no longer underrated 👌

[@GamingDualities]

FF 16 is your last chance about Final Fantasy franchise.. and what I saw is single-player and moderating.. they are going totally in the wrong direction. the game has some really good PvE elements, music, zones bosses, story.. but its not a complete game lack of social features like chat bubbles, smaller nameplates aka small text font size option (last time I checked there was only normal and big option=) and no vocie chat. you have an outdated combat and subscription model with convoluted login/register/buy game systems. u lack social and PvP updates. u lack innovation. u don't even wanna complete game. u don't combine PvE elements with PvP. like open world raid bosses where players and guilds would fight to contest them. they could drop epic mounts. or exp/gear tokens that could be 1 alternative to story progression. or the ability to tame open world monsters as your mount. but most good mounts are locked behind a paywall or insane grind. u don't have Frontline sound or graphic notification. the lack of PvP mounts/events/quests. u only care about PvE and story players.u focus on shemale model instead of updating your game lol. also no blue mage in PVP (most good MMORPG animations main character is classless class. from Kirito to the main character in the Kings avatar animation. u don't have a single good 4v4 map like Heavens Arena from the King's avatar. FFXIV community could learn a lot from the Kings Avatar animation from Tencent. your combat too. 20 years behind. no skillshots or dodges, not even hybrid action combat like gw2, let alone true action combat like smite or Vindictus...2.5s global cooldown time with tab target combat in 2021... and they thought they are gonna solve the issues of combat by just adding crazy animations...but that cluttered the game and now they cannot even lower global cd time because of that. lack of social interaction. because u only have chat box that gets spammed whole day and emotes. emotes are nice but feel like u also need chat bubbles or voice chat. games 15 years ago successfully implemented chat bubbles. also new players cannot their content on ffxiv reddit, u have blocked comments on your FFXIV promotion videos so people cannot discuss it.... you take people that care for the game and complain as "toxic"... the game lack social and PVP updates? doesn't have chat bubbles (you only look at chat box whole day which sux), smaller nameplates aka text font size option, voice chat, good 4v4 Arena style map like Heavens Arena from the King's Avatar animation, no frontline popout sound notification, outdated combat and subscription model, convoluted login/register system (cant even use afna at launcher reset password confirm email box), no blue mage in PVP, lack of innovations such combining already good PvE elements with PVP such as open-world raid bosses where players and guild fight to contest said bosses? compete for the boss. they could drop epic mounts o exp/gear tokens which could be a great alternative to story leveling. new players cannot share their content on ffxiv reddit... doesn't change the fac the game has 500 ms animation lock + 2.5s global cd tab targeting combat. 20 years behind. they thought they will fix the combat by adding crazy animations, but that also just cluttered the game. mybe they could lower global cd to 2 second but anything lower hard because crazy animations. but the core problem si still there. tab targeting combat. not even hybrid action combat with skillshots and dodges. elt alone true action combat like Smite, Vindictus r the Kings Avatar animation. WoW TBC, for example, ahs bunch of instant casts too but only 1 second global cd. also wow tbc has chat bubbles and voice chat... ffxiv only has emotes and chat box. and it sux watching into chat bo whole day that get spammed. it is not socially interactive. or actually good 4v4 map like heavens Arena from the Kings Avatar or open-world raid bosses where players and guild could fight to contest them....or ability to tame open world monsters as your mount....innovate....more PVP events/rewards/mounts, combine PvE and PVP elements... and ffxiv community often mix competitive spirit and rivallry with toxicity

[@renektonftw]

@@GamingDualities Upvote just from the fact that you reference "The King's Avatar." Also the ending fight of the novel was so epic!

[@GamingDualities]

@@renektonftw The Kings Avatar animation is probablly one of the best MMORPG/OBA animation out there. veryy cool to watch if u like gaming

[@jesusboti9801]

FFX was my first on the series. It's amazing to see that kind of stuff about the game 20 years later. Congrats to the community of speedrunners for making that amazing job and Keep the grind!

[@antitheist3206]

Personally I started with 8, but X is still my favorite. I didn't know speedrunning a final fantasy game could be so complex, it's pretty cool to see.

[@AmelsPlayground]

The speed running community are a universal treasure

[@zanyu]

That's awesome people are so passionate and still trying to figure out the minute details of how something works.

[@maillardsbearcat]

I didn't understand a word you said but I'm happy to see X feel fresh again in some way

[@Princess_Ruto]

tl;dr: By tracking numbers at the start of the game, runners can predict ghost encounters, item drops, and critical hits much later.

[@FrosHandle]

still insane this video went this crazy! swellScream!

[@uba754]

Bro is wearing a Children of Bodom shirt he gets my love. RIP Alexi \m/

[@danyboisvert4176]

I feel like 80s-style synthwave music has become the official music of explaining speedruns

[@Unforgiven11]

Isn't this all just FFX music?

[@Hateious]

@@Unforgiven11 At 4:45 is some synthwave but rest of it ff10 music lol

[@thetrueyuiop]

@@Hateious is the song at 10:23 from FFX too? I didn’t recognize it, but I’m no expert.

[@Hateious]

@@thetrueyuiop yeah that ones called pursuit love that theme lol

[@thetrueyuiop]

@@Hateious WOW!!! THANK YOU! This song is amazing! (It sounds like something out of Towerclimb)

[@ZombieKnight13]

Jeez I've been a play through once a year for like 7 years these speed-up peeps are on another level.

[@kamilbednarski4653]

The nostalgia! I was in the US for 2 years when ffx released and I never played a jrpg + my English was shaky. I got the game and strategy guide with the sphere grid "Poster" that I used to divide up grids/spheres to get max stats and rest for HP....good times.

[@budygogo33]

When the failed ping happened in the Discord, I didn't even realize this was about FFX. I've been watching a tiny bit of FFX Speedruns through Cereth and CaracarnVI. And I've waited few years before watching how the world record progressed. And that is incredibely funny because at the time I was around a lot for Earthbound AC runs and with my exams. I actually watched the any% world record in the middle of my exams instead of preparing for it. He didn't achieved the sub 10 yet but it was his first time he got the peaceful item in a reasonable amount of time (Like 14th or 15th encounter) and also seeing he didn't go for trio of 9999 for bosses like Sin and just go "Bahamut with full strengh runes goes brrrr" just boogled my mind and wanted to see the history of FFX records. This video is almost that and I loved it.

[@ZERO3690]

Tidus is going to question his reality after this

[@BlueserStream]

these are getting better with each new vid man, big cheers for this massive dub bossman

[@steelerfaninperu]

I am glad that we as a society have reached a point where so many people have enough time on their hands to tear apart a video game limb by limb to this most barest of levels and then document the entire process. This is one of my childhood favorites and a game I still replay with fondness. Amazing documentary work about such a niche activity, a light that otherwise would never have been shed. I am grateful.

[@cognitivedisruption5375]

I’m dumbfounded, and so honestly happy, that an in-depth video about FFX has over a million views in just over four months. I’m glad there are so many others that enjoyed this game as much as I did as an adolescent.

[@magnonlight1929]

naw its fucking impossible to win and get attack reels and telaport and return spheres its impossible! you need top score with tidus and wedge !!! impossible! you throw the ball! intercept !! every fucking time!!! fuck ff10

[@CoreEditz]

I'm so fascinated that there is still such a huge community looking for anything and everything to get a speedrun as fast as possible by any means neccessary. I'm also fascinated and even blown off that there is alot of stuff in this game that can lead to a game changer just by how fast you go from bootup into the game f.e. I never thought a ps2 game to have like a million of very different stuff you can get or even manipulate with good knowledge. Awesome video that has been put together here

[@SamoIsKing]

I’ve been lurking on the discord since I learned how to run this. These guys a re legit. The amount of work they put in to saving a second or two from a 9 hour run is incredible. This is a huge discovery.

[@Vartazian360]

The sheer determination of speedrunning communities amazes me.

[@LeonGroff2777]

Man, years later and I'm still learning stuff about my fave Final Fantasy. Didn't know the devs put that much work into the randomization aspects of the game, but it makes sense. If everything was easy or not as random, the game wouldn't function as well, it'd be too linear and very not fun. Also, WOW that's a lotta math

[@LeonGroff2777]

@@bmxscape still took time and effort to create and implement, and I didn't know about it until I watched the video, so it's pretty cool to me

[@grayfox9625]

@@bmxscape the game does have a random number generator, thats how it produces random numbers, believe it or not, i dont think you have any idea on how any of this works

[@grayfox9625]

@@bmxscape yeah as i said, you have no idea how any of this works, results from previous events are not used to generate random values at all

[@Hateandlotus]

Watching my childhood be broken has never been more pleasurable

[@madhyama5016]

Cool vid! That amount of research must have took a lot of time

[@DoctorSwellman]

It took a bit, but the big nerds channel and some folks helped out a lot!

[@monogreen]

RNG Manipulation is so fascinating. The fact that there's no true RNG means that each game has its own set of obscure rules to try and make it look completely random, and I find learning about those rules super interesting.

[@Elsneakakaze]

My favorite game, FFX holds a special place in my heart, and im so glad that 20 years later people still love and talk about it

[@iammaxhailme]

this stuff is super interesting from a "how it's programmed" POV, but man, it makes me really, REALLY not want to speedrun any long games that have RNG

[@TurboNemesis]

What's so crazy is that this is something almost everyone I know who played this as a kid could feel but couldn't explain. The capture quests specifically. It was just kind of known that sometimes you don't get certain encounters and sometimes they happen constantly. Its really cool to see the mechanism laid out like this.

[@jz1443]

I've seen "Professional webpage designers" that couldn't write a single html line without a 3rd party program, but hex values are easy if you're looking for specific information...

[@TonyBMan]

:-) Spira is still as magical as it was in 2001. I'm glad so many love this game too!

[@nezkeys79]

I am not and could never be a speed runner as I'm too distracted when playing games and like to take it all in taking my time, then move onto something else. I realise that for these people to do this though that they have played the game like me the first time then grinded the crap out of it for years. However what I want to say is that this astounds me and is really impressive to me the dedication these guys have put in to this. I respect that even when I'll never be a speed runner I found this video thoroughly enjoying and fascinating at the same time

[@deboozombie23]

I remember that it I used to go elsewhere to find certain monsters in any kind of random encounter rpg when I got the same over and over again - because I wanted to complete my ingame encyclopedia for example - I never realized how deep a mere observation can go - I was simply thinking "They got the stronger enemies deeper in the dungeon" or "This looks like a place where the fire elementals might appear". This "reverse engineering" might actually also apply to other rpgs hunting for similiar important loot.

[@vincentstuart9562]

I unintentionally cheesed my game with an exploit that causes Auron to do automatic max damage on his Celestial Weapon (wasn't speed running, but I'm a filthy grinder) It has a function where if he's low on HP, his damage increases. I had filled out most of his sphere grid which means his total HP was actually much higher than the default cap of 9999, but I couldn't find an item for him with an HP Limit Break stat, so his HP was stuck at 9999 and the game registered him as constantly being low on HP, resulting in his damage always being at 99999 on his Celestial Weapon. (this made every boss fight from Yunalesca onward extremely simple, some were one shot) [I did this on the remastered version on the PS3, not sure if it's the same on PS4]

[@mrman6035]

Interesting!

[@notcataclysmic]

So he’s like Tifa with Powersoul and Death Sentence!

[@malte3756]

I mean if you grind enough to have maxed celestial weapons and >9999 hp before Yunalesca, it's gonna be pretty simple either way

[@Skybreaker1337]

Then you start hunting Dark Aeons and realize you have the standard power level for them. 8 Million HP with a party that doesn't have multihits still gives me PTSD. And then comes Penance with 12 mil HP...

[@ryanbothwell9322]

@@Skybreaker1337 Thats mad, I couldnt even beat the Dark Magus sisters when they ambushed me :L

[@ThaRixer]

Being able to figure out RNG with 68 different values is wild..

[@avioracrown6967]

I suspect they're AI lol

[@Sorain1]

It's a reminder that the most powerful calculation tool we have right now... is human brains. (You know, by working with others, not by some kind of mad science nonsense.)

[@DoctorSwellman]

Edit: Woah, thanks a ton for 17k subs and a MASSIVE 1 mil on this vid 😭 Thank you all so much for the support these last few months! Let's hit 10k Subs by the end of the year!

[@thebootknifer]

Throwing a sub your way :)

[@helloofthebeach]

IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN (as of this writing, it has already happened)

[@Mythraen]

Reminder that subs don't matter. Concentrate on metrics and views. Don't worry about subs. KZbin sure doesn't. (Except for those buttons they send you, I guess.)

[@jessl1934]

Dang bro, nearly 1M views!

[@davidlilley2736]

Yeah I double checked before commenting but I tend to get those ghost appearing quite a lot and they drop that item straight off most times maybe I've got a bugged game I mean I've had over like 18 of them apper some 3 times in a row once but I was actually playing the game of properly though i was not speed-running or anything so I took every encounter maybe that has some kind of luck related thing Ahh ok it's seeded nvm Squall will be happy to hear that

[@Delsoonbye02]

I thought it was already known that the PC HD remaster version had a problem with the RNG. Ive seen alot of videos a couple years ago of people who have shown that they'll get the same monster set over and over again at the same location after turning the game off and on. A youtuber by the name of Darkkefka was one of the first videos ive seen of this problem

[@stephenh9483]

THIS IS WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!! please make more, we love this stuff. Your voice is so clear and crisp

[@thomaswiegele9802]

While finding all these is amazing, the fact that a team at Square Enix went to such an extent to make the game as random as possible is a testament to their dedication to make a great game at the time.

[@FewNewReasonss]

Honestly I'd buy a Ps5 upgraded version just to play it again for a reason.

[@nakoskyranos4080]

I'm a total outsider, but I love watching these speedruners. They are the greatest reminders in my opinion that meaning in life is up for you to decide.

[@TheOnlyThrasher]

Man i'm so happy so many people are making speedrun history videos now, summoning salt started the trend but there's so much ultra high quality stuff like this getting made now. Great video keep up the fantastic work you got a new subscriber today

[@jonetgames]

Wow I played through FFX twice and never knew about that Ghost enemy.

[@azurebalmung4520]

Can't wait for 35ish years from now for "A new skip in an old game - FF7 Remake, Chapter 2"

[@malta071]

Omfg, ghosts and tonberries. Sometimes they spawn every second, sometimes it takes hours...Now it makes sense, not that I didn't know FF is all about RNG

[@RockLee123321]

FFX is one of my favorite games of all-time, and there are people out there that I can't compare to when it comes to the love for this game. 😝 Not to nitpick, but the thumbnail should be .38%.

[@tehf00n]

This game is so good, I wouldn't speedrun it ever. I still have it installed, both the PS2 version and PC HD remaster.

[@mondaypewpew2833]

If speedrunning community contributes in astrophysics I’m sure now we’d have discovered how to do interstellar travel

[@BoleDaPole]

Most of the speed running community haven't even finished high school 😅🤣

[@sabbathjackal]

@@BoleDaPole well that's just a false statement

[@higueraft571]

@@BoleDaPole Now that's just a smoothbrain argument, got any proof? :V (though honestly, that'd technically only credit highschoolers more, not detract from said speedrunners. Especially the top ones...)

[@JamisonMichael]

Gray Fox really did help the entire FFX speed run community....He was also Big Boss's best soldier.

[@dolphinboi-playmonsterranc9668]

Wow, that's crazy *dies to anima in Macalania Temple again*

[@Zanathal]

[@wesleyleigh4063]

but you gotta respect the true valor achieved by these speedrunners having to sit through all those cutscenes. Really makes you think, if only they'd made them skippable, you could literally complete twice as many runs. They didn't even make them skippable in the remaster!!!! The humanity!

[@yorshka6955]

If you play on Emulator you could skip trough them, but i dont know if this would be legal

[@skyleite3016]

I wonder how the community would feel if there were a mod to make the cutscene skippable like the one for Resident Evil Remake

[@wesleyleigh4063]

​@@yorshka6955 true! they could just add the time for cutscenes back in after is that crazy or?

[@mageius]

WOW I'm not going to sound sarcastic as a fellow RPG runner myself I completely understand this and the thing is I've pointed out on on other games about how the system clock it's important to the game and how it can affect things. I'm just glad that FF X finally found! the ability to get it to work to help the run. (You notice it a bit more when trying to figure out things for different speed runs especially if you're trying to route games that don't have them but I'm just happy that something was finally found to help with the length of the run.) As a follow up I figured out some of this type of stuff thanks to speedrunning Smash Bros ultimate's World of light since having to try to manipulate what you're starting Spirit is dramatically helps the early game of the run. But it's also something that was helped along by talking with fellow runners from different games. (Again I'm just proud that others manage to put in the work to help make FF X since I know although it takes time the reward is worth it.) (Edit added more).

[@Guardian-of-Light137]

Speedrunners continue to intimidate me with the absolute depth of research they will go into to save even a single frame. Nevermind BEYOND that. And their ability to notice the tiniest inconsistency in a cheating speedrun, or little details that might have massive implications for completely different things. I have nothing but respect for all of you who take this hobby so seriously. It's truly a thing to behold.

[@offtherecord912]

What will they discover after another 10 years??? It's like we are all in a matrix and uncovering hidden knowledge swept under the rug no one knew was there. Crazy... Great video and info!! Cheers!

[@txotidus1982]

This is more complicated than every math test i've ever had... Duuude this is insane. Never thought Speedrunners work that hard for a game record. 👍😳

[@LiquidSnake1988]

Than*😉

[@KrazyEngima]

I beat it in about 30 hours once and even that felt like an achievement. Being able to beat it in half a day is insane

[@Cragsand]

I don't watch any speed-running videos but this was interesting anyway! Very thorough! Also I think you got somehow favored by KZbin's suggestion algorithm! congrats haha

[@lemonybiscuits4824]

I'm going to enjoy watching your channel grow! You have inspired me to check my speed game for seeding. Thanks, doc. 🐰

[@clydegrey5061]

Me: finally figures out yojimbo mechanics Ffx Speedrun community: that's cute.

[@Guitar-Dog]

Is yojimbo hip hop kojima? Probably a FF thing, I'm a casual in the FF community, just played them as a kid and liked them.

[@Wearywastrel]

@@Guitar-Dog yojimbo is an aeon that does actions based on how much you pay him. It's interesting to say the least.

[@pedrojofre8289]

My mind blow when I found there is a equation for yojimbo attacks

[@zparkplug2788]

ff10 best final fantasy....my mind cant be changed (honorable mention to tactics)

[@Escobamos]

"My favorite game is about ending an eternal cycle of suffering and torment!" "...so i decided to speedrun the game with a choke point 8 hours into the run day after day after day for years and years"

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

Irony

[@paveesfox375]

@@mimszanadunstedt441 it's not even irony but straight on mental illness. This level of obsession for no viable reason for no pay off it contrary to healthy thinking

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

@@paveesfox375 theres no reason for hobbies art sports n war either

[@higueraft571]

@@paveesfox375 Ok, explain gaming, woodworking, metalworking, chemistry, writing, music, general arts and crafts, and so on. Even just forum crawling and the sort. Are those also pointless/a mental illness to "obsess" over? What is a valid "pay off"? What's the end goal? What's "healthy thinking"? I'd *really* like to see what your response would be to all those other "pointless" non-productive activities... most of which unless you dedicate entirely, will never make you money. And often are a varying level of drain on your money at best. And at worst can harm or kill you.

[@Isabelleadshead6917]

Really happy to see you finally get some more views!! Really cant wait for you to grow man good job

[@bearscaveofminiatures6396]

Half of the viewers like myself grossly underestimate precisely the level of homework these guys have done lol Thanks for this great video :D

[@disfiguringthegoddess1102]

nice video. Loved seeing my name for a couple secs near the end when you showed that leaderboard. very well researched.