Re routing the PC Version
5 years ago
France

Hello there !

So here the thing I am in the process of currently running the PC Version in Normal Any% as the 3D version is my personnal favorite, as you can guess from watching the leaderboard this version isn't run at all since a couple of year.

So I grabbed the notes from mystakin that was write 2 years (and aren't updated compare to his WR run) ago and so I had started to learn the route he wrote back then, however as he said himself there is room from improvment and he advise trying new which is what I ended up doing and end up modifying the route quite a lot so I figure I could share this, so long story short here is a summary of what I have done :

Up to Barbariccia there isn't much change just some tweak here and here (like using the Fire Fang on the intro) most notably is I don't use Comet with the Twins it appear to me that using Comet wasn't really making win time so for the fight it included :

-Scarmiglione 1 : I kill him by throwing Hi-Potions one with Cecil and one with Palom which I give the Item Lore augment (needed to get Dualcast) and finish his minions with Multi-trargetted Cura and Cure it doesn't win a lot of time but he prevent the need to use Silver Silk in order to cast slow on them to make them and so cut the animation from Slow.

-Baigan : Now I kill him by just casting 1 Blizzaga with Tellah and focusing 2 time with Yang and attack which is enough to kill him, however problem is the Tentacles will Explode killing one character each, so I wonder about using Comet for this one since I don't want Cecil dead.

Also modify the strat for Cagnazzo a bit :

-Cagnazzo : Now I use the Silver Silk I save from Scarmiglione 1 here to allow Tellah to directly cast Reflect on Yang (which use Hermes Sandals) this make invulnerable to statut effect, still using the Zeus's Wrath when he raised Water to stop him from that and using Tellah's Blizzaga for damage, Focusing 3 Times with Yang then using a Bacchus Wine with 2 Ice Claws so that he can deal a lot damage and kill him quickly (little RNG as if he raise Water he will then Drain Ice and as always slow is annoying), I also try to kill the twins to get more EXP on Cecil.

Now the biggest change I made is I don't give Tellah any augment and so don't learn Fast Talker, it turns out that Fast Talker isn't giving that much of an advantage, instead what I do is I learn Twincast to both Cecil and Rosa, the reason is Twincast allow Cecil and Rosa to use Ultima which as it turns out speed up the following bosses :

-Barbariccia : Probably the biggest time save possible as it almost cut half of the time for this fight with perfect RNG, the goal being to cast Cry on her, Blinked Rosa and Yang (I don't want Yang to get killed before he can attack which can happen if she use Maelstrom and then attack Yang), using Hermes Sandals on Yang, Kain to Jump if she goes Tornado Mode and Cid on healing with items, after the buff I cast Ultima and Focus 3x with Yang and after Ultima which will deal a lot of damage Yang with Focusx3 and Berserk (Bacchus Wine) can finish her in one hit (however he can miss which is the biggest RNG part of the fight). As a side note in order to use Ultima Cecil needs to be at least LV23 this is the Level when he get 99MP.

-The Calca and Brina fight before Golbez : Turns out with Cry it doesn't matter if Twincast result in Pyroblast or Ultima it will one shot all of them, so I just Cry with Cecil, Blink him and Rosa with Rosa and Defend with Kain and Cid way easier to execute and faster than the old strat.

-Doctor and Barnabas : We can end this fight before they even start to attack (as they will lost their turns doing some nonsense) using Ultima and while Ultima is charging using Bluff and Ramuh with Rydia Ultima + Bluffed Ramuh will directly kill them so that's time win here to.

-Rubicante : Using Ultima it's possible to one cycle him, slow and Cry as always, straling to close his cloak, bluffing with Rydia and Defending with Kain and then the following. -Edge : Steal to open the cloak when Shiva and/or Ultima are almost ready -Kain : Jump -Rydia : Shiva and then cast another Shiva (without bluffing) -Cecil and Rosa : Ultima -Edge : Try to kill Kain when he land (the Fira from Rubicante after Kain land + Normal attack from Edge should be enough to kill Kain) before Rydia finish casting the second Shiva He should die after the second Shiva.

So this are the major change so far, I'm currently trying to implement Ultima in the Fiends fight (still haven't found the best moment I could cast I hesitate between Barbaricca and Rubicante), however my biggest problem is the CPU and especially the Laser Barrage from Attack Node problem is even with Shell and Protect at the moment I got to him nobody can survive it except Fusoya so basically if he cast Laser Barrage right away it's an instant reset so yeah currently CPU is the major run killer with this route (as Zeromus is extremely easy) still haven't found a way to at least the amount of RNG needed for this one, so if anyone have suggestion for CPU.

I also will not do run before a long time as while I pretty much learned the strats for bosses pretty well I still have trouble remember the way to go in some dungeons and needs to improve my menuing (basically the first time I ever try to speedrun a game ^^).

Bargainbin likes this
South Australia, Australia

Howdy, nice routing. There's a FF4 Discord that you may be interested in. Feel free to PM any of us FF4 runners on twitch to get the link to join if you like, cheers

Nesouk likes this
Indiana, USA

Cheers mate and good luck re-routing, glad to see some interest in the PC version even though its been a dead scene for a couple of years :3! Can't wait to see your efforts!