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The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989)
Posted on July 6th, 2009 21 commentsNote 7/7/09: Some people have linked to this page, which I appreciate a great deal, but some link sources suggest that the run is the product of hacking up emulator save states or save files. This isn’t true; those files don’t get touched, although they’re certainly observed intently.
This tool-assisted speedrun takes advantage of a bug in the original game to get its results. In terms of execution, you could do everything in this video on a real Game Boy, although not this quickly.
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It has been said that the tower in the center of the World is connected to Paradise. Dreaming of a life in Paradise, many have challenged the secret of the tower, but no one knows what became of them. Now, there is another who will brave the adventure. He is kind of in a hurry.
What is happening in this video? Let’s work it out in timeline fashion, as revealed in the author’s very long and technically dense explanation.
Makai Tōshi SaGa (called The Final Fantasy Legend in the US) features three “ethnic groups” among playable characters: humans, mutants and monsters. Humans power up via items and mutants by fighting battles, but monsters grow stronger only by transforming into other monsters. You do this by having them eat the “monster meat” that some enemies drop when you kill them. The creature you get after nomming on a monster corpse depends on both the eat-er and the eat-ee and is determined by complicated voodoo.
In the original release of SaGa, there is a bug that, at the time, was described like this: “Go to the inventory screen for any party member, bash all the buttons for a while, and when you go back to the field map, the game will be all messed up.” All messed up meant that your party, their items, the gold you carried, the graphics, and even the world you were in were all mixed up and usually corrupted. It was the first major bug in a series that became known for humorous game-stopping bugs (especially Romancing SaGa 1 and 2).
Essentially this TAS is all about empirically determining the exact behavior of this memory corruption and using it to its greatest advantage. The author’s explanation is hopelessly complex, but here is essentially what’s happening in the video:
0:00-0:42 – Begin a game with the dreaded “four monster” party — Wererat (“ghoul” type), Redbull (“lizard” type), and two Zombies (“skeleton” type). Go out of town, return at once to avoid map-name corruption, and execute the inventory bug on character #3. This warps the party into the version of the town you visit after completing the world’s quests and also kills a few of your characters, letting you exchange them for a Dragon and an Albatros in the guild.
Reset the game (this resets the “seed,” so to speak, for the behavior that happens when you trigger the bug), do the bug on the Albatross in slot #3, then do it on the character in slot #2. This turns the Warrior into a Goblin. Do the bug on the Dragon, turning it into a Warrior (“skeleton” type). This Warrior has a Chainsaw, which, thanks to another one of Square’s famous SaGa bugs, can one-hit kill boss enemies.
0:42-1:13 – Now that we have a Chainsaw character, switch the party order so the Warrior is in front and the Albatross is #2. Reset the game and the seed, then do the bug on the Albatross. This puts you in a bugged version of the tower, with all the spheres you need to reach the tower’s apex, riding a bugged version of the motorcycle you pick up at one point in the game; this one lets you travel one tile per frame, 16 times your normal speed. This causes the background to largely be destroyed while you’re moving around.
Storm your way up the tower on your rad bugged bike. (You have a couple of random encounters along the way, but having a buffed-out Warrior leading your party makes it easy to run away.)
1:13-1:24 — In front of the door leading to the final boss, get off your bug-bike for a little housekeeping. Save and reset, then do the bug on the worryingly corrupted character taking up slot #4, turning him into a Demon. Do the bug on slot #2 to turn the character into a skeleton, then one more time to turn it into a Goblin. This process puts assorted in-game parameters back to normal and ensures the final boss battle actually works.
1:24-1:58 — Fight the Creator. (Note that SaGa is the only game I’m aware of that lets you kill God with a chainsaw in a single hit.)
1:58-4:46 — Marvel as the ending completely fabricates your previous adventures.
4 responses to “The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989)”
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Coeds.cc! You’re in the big time now!
Thanks for this – glitch exploiting speed runs can be really fascinating, especially when they appear to tear the very game world asunder. If you ever feel like posting about those Romancing SaGa bugs, I’ll be really grateful.
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tramps July 7th, 2009 at 20:35
I knew SaGa 1 was buggy, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. Hahaha.
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tennin July 10th, 2009 at 12:54
I thought being able to kill bosses with the chainsaw was intentional?
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I remember Kawazu admitting up to this once in an interview, actually. The chainsaw was meant to be effective only against non-boss enemies, but wound up working against only boss enemies (or all enemies, I forget).
17 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
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How To Beat A Final Fantasy Game In Under 2 Minutes [Speed Runs] | TechDozer.Com July 7th, 2009 at 15:02
[...] The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989) [Magweasel via Tiny Cartridge] [...]
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How To Beat A Final Fantasy Game In Under 2 Minutes [Speed Runs]| Latest breaking News on Video Games Hardware and Software.| BadPower.com Blog July 7th, 2009 at 16:33
[...] The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989) [Magweasel via Tiny Cartridge] [...]
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How To Beat A Final Fantasy Game In Under 2 Minutes [Speed Runs]| The Game Blog | Daily Fresh News of the Latest Games on Playstation, Xbox, Wii and PC| Coeds.cc July 7th, 2009 at 16:47
[...] The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989) [Magweasel via Tiny Cartridge] [...]
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[...] The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989) [Magweasel via Tiny Cartridge] Tagged:clipsgame boyspeed runsthe final fantasy legend [...]
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[...] The Final Fantasy Legend (Square, 1989) [Magweasel via Tiny Cartridge] [...]
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Glitchy Speedruns, ASCII Portal, and More Crazy Videos| Latest breaking News on Video Games Hardware and Software.| BadPower.com Blog July 7th, 2009 at 18:57
[...] in which used games are outlawed, brings us this video of a tool-assisted SaGa speedrun and an explanation of what in the hell is going on at any given moment. At the end of the demo, the player kills God. In one [...]
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Glitchy Speedruns, ASCII Portal, and More Crazy Videos| The Game Blog | Daily Fresh News of the Latest Games on Playstation, Xbox, Wii and PC| Coeds.cc July 7th, 2009 at 20:37
[...] in which used games are outlawed, brings us this video of a tool-assisted SaGa speedrun and an explanation of what in the hell is going on at any given moment. At the end of the demo, the player kills God. In one [...]
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Gaming Insiders - console games, console movies and trailers, console reviews, cheats and news. July 8th, 2009 at 00:01
[...] in which used games are outlawed, brings us this video of a tool-assisted SaGa speedrun and an explanation of what in the hell is going on at any given moment. At the end of the demo, the player kills God. In one [...]
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Top Gamer Blog » Archive » This is how you beat Final Fantasy Legend in two minutes July 8th, 2009 at 01:02
[...] Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access [...]
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This is how you beat Final Fantasy Legend in two minutes| The Game Blog | Daily Fresh News of the Latest Games on Playstation, Xbox, Wii and PC| Coeds.cc July 8th, 2009 at 01:10
[...] Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access [...]
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This is how you beat Final Fantasy Legend in two minutes | Video Gamer Now-The Ultimate Gaming and Entertainment Site July 8th, 2009 at 01:30
[...] Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access [...]
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This is how you beat Final Fantasy Legend in two minutes| Latest breaking News on Video Games Hardware and Software.| BadPower.com Blog July 8th, 2009 at 02:16
[...] Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access [...]
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[...] Japan) for the Game Boy. Now although this may have been recorded using an emulator, the writer on the site for this video was recorded for has assured that this is simply taking an advantage of a bug in the [...]
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Final Fantasy w dwie minuty? | - Front Gracza - Niezależny portal graczy konsolowych July 8th, 2009 at 12:27
[...] filmik prezentuje ten fakt zaś dla niedowiarków mam wytłumaczenie napisane przez speca. Ładna robota – takiego speedrun świat jeszcze nie [...]
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[...] Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access [...]
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[...] in which used games are outlawed, brings us this video of a tool-assisted SaGa speedrun and an explanation of what in the hell is going on at any given moment. At the end of the demo, the player kills God. In one [...]
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Dais July 7th, 2009 at 20:21