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EDIT: 3:05 means 3 hours, 5 minutes. Apparently everybody's first instinct is to think 3 minutes, 5 seconds. FF2 isn't one of those PC games that can be glitch warped to hell, although there interestingly enough is this awesome warp exploit to skip doing the cave in the underworld with that evil wall boss. 
Just released is the video recording (click here) of an FF2 US (FF4, the SNES one with Cecil/Kain) speedrun. The final time to complete the game, no cheats, is an astounding 3:05 in 32 segments, beating the previous record by 51 minutes.
EDIT2: just as a matter of a general description: in a speedrun like this you skip getting most chests, including those in your way to the exit. There was only one part where the guy fought regular enemies at all--aside from leveling up right before going to the moon the final time, all his experience comes from just bosses. Oh, and to save time, he's obviously not buying armor. Or equipping much of it at all. Bosses can be beaten without.
I have to say I haven't watched it yet, but I did watch the old run, which was already very very good. This is only that much better.
This time is absolutely phenomenal, an achievement in a high level of gameplay characterized by many optimizations in route planning an awesome display of skill (for an RPG). For example, the runner is reportedly so pro he equips weapons in battle while waiting on attack animations rather than wasting time in the menu outside of battle.
In any case, I know there's some FF fanboys around these forums who could possibly be interested. But I think even if you haven't played the game, or haven't finished it, you'll appreciate the level of planning, the strategies, and such.
This comes in the wake of a 3:34 Chrono Trigger several months back by some talented Japanese guy as well as a very recent 3:24 Lufia II, the three best RPG speedruns out there, in case you're interested at all in watching RPGs get dissected and totally destroyed to the fully extent.
+ Show Spoiler +Okay, not quite related...
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sick....................
I could never come close to a time like that, and it's still one of my all time favorite games.
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Niiiice, will definitely check this out.
I came across discussion/planning for a FF7 speedrun a while back, and ended up reading about 50 pages of it. It's amazing how much work they put into these.
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Yeah I downloaded this thing just before also. Sadly I never played the game so much of what is going on is lost to me 
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I thought 3:05 meant 3 minutes and 5 seconds D:
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downloading them all is a pain :{
impressive tho :s
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There's a torrent for easy downloading. You need that h.mp4501asgh gidger thing to watch them though.
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I love speed runs. I'm gonna skip to the end though, 3 hours is a bit much to watch...
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United States24680 Posts
I did a speed-run for starcraft: 3 minutes 28 seconds vs my last opponent. Poor guy lol.
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WTF, 3:34 chrono trigger??? I've gotta check this out!
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my fastest FF7 run (to the person talking about the speed run) was like 12 hours. kind of slow, but its still fast as hell compared to when i first beat it (like, 60ish hours).
And Chrono trigger in 3:34 is quite insane o.o
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was the CT one the 12th ending? where you fight just with chrono?
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Is there a speed run for FF1? That game was fucking AWESOME <3
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On March 05 2008 11:15 useLess wrote:
I thought 3:05 meant 3 minutes and 5 seconds D:
lol, it probably takes more than 3:05 for the red wings to steal the first crystal
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On March 05 2008 13:44 liosama wrote:
was the CT one the 12th ending? where you fight just with chrono?
CT is first playthrough, so no new game +. IIRC plotwise it goes through the 65000 BC era till the point where the prophet sends Crono and co. back through the time gate. So it skips part of the Zeal stuff, but it's clean--just is blazing fast through the game.
edit: NG+ run is 7 minutes, 50 seconds.
On March 05 2008 13:51 Equinox_kr wrote:
Is there a speed run for FF1? That game was fucking AWESOME <3
Somebody's working on a single segment attempt, while somebody else is working on a separate multi-segment attempt. It's still WIP, so no run published.
The full game list is here. More than just RPGs of course. There's Starcraft single player too.
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I wish he left at least 1 second to read the dialogue, I wanna know what's happening
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On March 05 2008 11:15 useLess wrote:
I thought 3:05 meant 3 minutes and 5 seconds D:
Same here. Then I read where he said he beat the previous record by 50 minutes and I was thinking he must've found a level jump or something, like in Super Mario World (although that's not much of a secret).
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On March 05 2008 14:14 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:I wish he left at least 1 second to read the dialogue, I wanna know what's happening
Play the game! It rocks!
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omg great game, i'm going to DL this while i sleep, then hit it up tomorrow and watch my favorite game unfold in record time.
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i think my time was 16 hours or something? I had to restart the game like 90x because the cartidge kept getting owned and erased, but i think after my 6th time i finally beat it without everything deleting, the result being like 16 hours. What are your guys best?
also i beat Zelda Ocarina of Time in around 8 hours, the world records like 5:30 or something. I beat that game around 20+ times in every way possible, and in a week I'm gonna do both Zelda for n64 again :D Fun stuff.
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I was just packing up my old SNES games last night (moving in a few weeks) and was planning on pulling out CT, FF2, 3(US) when I got to the new house.I like playing old school rpgs while I grind poker sessions.
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On March 05 2008 12:01 micronesia wrote:
I did a speed-run for starcraft: 3 minutes 28 seconds vs my last opponent. Poor guy lol.
There have actually been some speed runs done of the campaign, some of which are honestly pretty impressive. Speed Demos Archive has a listing of it on a mission by mission basis. I'd suggest downloading the video of Protoss 7 - truly pimp move results in Aldaris dead in just over a minute. They do use a semi-exploit in my opinion, as they use the game clock displayed in the end of mission screen, and abuse the fact that time is not added to it while the menu is open, but some transmissions continue to play. This isn't a big deal though, as all the runs use it and all it does is shave a static amount of time off the attempt, so if you feel like it you can just add that time back in in your head.
Oh, T05 Emperor's Fall (Ground Zero) is pretty sweet too, and worth a look if you don't know the trick for the beginning of it. + Show Spoiler +It's possible to get mines researched before the ghosts make it to your main, and good mine placement will take out 9 of them before they nuke your base, saving most of your reinforcements and giving you a huge force to start the mission.
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FF2 is my fav RPG ever. I don't think I've ever beaten it in less than 15 hours though... this is sick.
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Oh man thanks for showing me the starcraft one Macavenger. His move at the beginning of Terran 5 is also really pimp.
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On March 05 2008 14:40 MoNKeYSpanKeR wrote:
i think my time was 16 hours or something? I had to restart the game like 90x because the cartidge kept getting owned and erased, but i think after my 6th time i finally beat it without everything deleting, the result being like 16 hours. What are your guys best?
also i beat Zelda Ocarina of Time in around 8 hours, the world records like 5:30 or something. I beat that game around 20+ times in every way possible, and in a week I'm gonna do both Zelda for n64 again :D Fun stuff.
5:30 you say? How about 2:26?
http://speeddemosarchive.com/OcarinaOfTime.html
This run is sick, they simply rape the game so brutally it's mind bending. EVERYONE should watch this run, especially fans of starcraft who usually appreciate impressive play.
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Every time i think of this game i cry for the twins.. They were kickin.
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I've had almost those times....
He goes with emulator folks, i can do that too..
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Well, i want to see them own on FF6/3 too, see if it's that easy so fast.
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On March 05 2008 15:47 Luddite wrote:
Oh man thanks for showing me the starcraft one Macavenger. His move at the beginning of Terran 5 is also really pimp.
is terran 5 the one where you're supposed to send the psi emitter to the beacon? that was pretty good.
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On March 05 2008 17:29 pangshai wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2008 15:47 Luddite wrote:
Oh man thanks for showing me the starcraft one Macavenger. His move at the beginning of Terran 5 is also really pimp. is terran 5 the one where you're supposed to send the psi emitter to the beacon? that was pretty good.
No, we're looking at the Brood War campaign here - Terran 5 is the one where your base gets flattened by nukes (or BCs, but we're dealing with the nukes version here) at the start.
I want to say the psi emitter one is Terran 7, but I haven't played the vanilla campaign in ages and lost my vanilla CD a while back so I can't now.
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Emperor's Flight can be finished in two minutes or so, just load up Siege Tanks in the Dropships once you gain control of them and bring your Science Vessels along and Defensive Matrix your Dropships and unload and Siege and take down the Command Center. Pretty funny
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oh man, zeromus fight with 1000 hp cecil, one big bang and he's completely dead
it may have taken 3 hours to do, but i wonder how much REAL time it took to finish some of these fights without cecil getting smoked immediately
kain has 4x his hp hahaha that's so great
he's lucky in the fact that when kain, edge, rosa, rydia, etc rejoin the party they're leveled up to a certain number, rather than in FF3 where the game gives you the character at the average of your current characters
holy shit i just looked at some of the screen shots, i distinctly remember edge starting out with around 700 hp when you get him, that means he leveled up only like once or twice at MOST that's insane
guess i'll have to watch this now
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On March 05 2008 17:04 NiGoL-X17 wrote:
I've had almost those times....
He goes with emulator folks, i can do that too..
All runs on that site are played on the original systems, no cheats. -_-;;
TAS (or tool-assisted) videos emu abuse each frame to get perfect luck and glitch exploits. I don't think you could do all the planning involved there with an emulator run offhand, in any case, as that requires a lot of good strategy as well to do well. But these runs including the FF2 just released are completely "legit".
FF3/6 is up there on SDA, single segment in 4:48 no less. Meaning the speedrunner didn't save through playing the game once. Obviously it took many attempts before she got lucky enough to get through the game, and it of course abuses many instant death moves like Setzer's slots, the Vanish-Doom combo, etc.
One thing that people don't seem to understand is that obviously it takes way more than 3:05 real time to beat. When you're improving somebody else's time, you probably need to take 1-2 entire playthroughs just to test out your route planning, such as how much gold to get, which treasure chests to pick up, boss strategies at your exact levels, etc. You need to plan everything, which takes forever. And then, many segments (each part between saves) must be reloaded many many times to get a favorable outcome -- for example, you want a segment with less random encounters. Also, your really fast boss strategy may involve X character being alive to cast Y spell Z times, so if you need to revive X in the middle of the fight, that might be unacceptable. Part of a good run's awesome factor is dedication involved in trying and trying again to get times that fast. 50 hours might be more like what a 3:05 speedrun took, not counting the work done previously by other people.
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good old memories 
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On March 05 2008 22:39 KOFgokuon wrote:
oh man, zeromus fight with 1000 hp cecil, one big bang and he's completely dead
it may have taken 3 hours to do, but i wonder how much REAL time it took to finish some of these fights without cecil getting smoked immediately
kain has 4x his hp hahaha that's so great
he's lucky in the fact that when kain, edge, rosa, rydia, etc rejoin the party they're leveled up to a certain number, rather than in FF3 where the game gives you the character at the average of your current characters
holy shit i just looked at some of the screen shots, i distinctly remember edge starting out with around 700 hp when you get him, that means he leveled up only like once or twice at MOST that's insane
guess i'll have to watch this now
He power leveled Rosa and Rydia right before the fight with all the elements. I think its in segment 26/27 (I watched way too much of this).
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How do they do each segment? I mean if he goes through the game up to like segment 15, then decides he didn't like his progress in like segment 2, does he have to start over? There's only 3 save slots in the original cartridge, I guess he has to do each segment to his complete satisfaction before moving ahead
it almost seemed from the paragraph he wrote about his speedrun that he was capable of going back at any time, perhaps I need to reread it again
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It looks like he rotates his saves. Each segment is a save.
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yeah but if there are only 3 spots, he can only have 3 segments to work on at a time. i guess you really have to get it perfect and be satisfied before moving on
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Probably just a lot of work... I'm surprised his save battery didn't die. My FF3 battery is dead tt.
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Guys another one I REALLY recommend on SDA (speed demos archive, which has been on my top 10 websites forever) is deus ex speedrun!
You can download it all in one go and omg it's the most unbelievably streamlined, perfected performance of a game I've ever seen. The Doom 3 speedrun was very good too, but the deus ex one was done in segments and one of the segments took 4000 goes to get right and believe me the stuff he does is actually like beyond remarkable. Maybe important to first play the game though.
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I thought the Metroid Prime speed runs were pretty impressive too.
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1 segment is a save. The way it works is this:
The guy makes many attempts on segment 1. At the end of each attempt he'll save on a different slot, so he can compare which time is better, etc. When he's satisfied with segment 1, he's done with it forever. Then he loads the save for the real segment 1, and begins segment 2, whereupon he saves on different slots until he's satisfied with segment 2, etc.
If you're on segment 13 and you realize there's a mistake in segment 3...you have to start over. In a better run, you've already thought of everything, and you've already made test runs to plan everything ahead so you won't run into problems like that.
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On March 05 2008 15:53 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2008 14:40 MoNKeYSpanKeR wrote:
i think my time was 16 hours or something? I had to restart the game like 90x because the cartidge kept getting owned and erased, but i think after my 6th time i finally beat it without everything deleting, the result being like 16 hours. What are your guys best?
also i beat Zelda Ocarina of Time in around 8 hours, the world records like 5:30 or something. I beat that game around 20+ times in every way possible, and in a week I'm gonna do both Zelda for n64 again :D Fun stuff. 5:30 you say? How about 2:26? http://speeddemosarchive.com/OcarinaOfTime.htmlThis run is sick, they simply rape the game so brutally it's mind bending. EVERYONE should watch this run, especially fans of starcraft who usually appreciate impressive play.
I was referring to the one without save warping, which i saw like 5 months ago, this must be a newer one, but i must confess even with the insane amount of time i put into playing zelda i only discovered a few bugs I wouldn't mind trying a speed run, but yeah i re looked up the zelda one after i posted that.
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Wow, parts 27 and 28 are crazy.
+ Show Spoiler +Rosa and Rydia get leveled from 20 to 48/50 (getting all their spells) in two 5-minute battles. Nice glitch using life potions on high-XP monsters.
I'm not entirely sure how the glitch in 29 works.
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On March 06 2008 07:06 SonuvBob wrote:Wow, parts 27 and 28 are crazy. + Show Spoiler +Rosa and Rydia get leveled from 20 to 48/50 (getting all their spells) in two 5-minute battles. Nice glitch using life potions on high-XP monsters. I'm not entirely sure how the glitch in 29 works.
What's the glitch in 29? Not having the elements change? I think its just because he rapes them so hard and fast.
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He mentions in his description that there's a glitch used in 29 and 32. Something to do with Wall I guess?
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Hm, I thought using wall and reflecting spells was pretty typical. Seems like his spells do an awful lot of damage though.
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Maybe it uses the magic defense stat of the character w/the wall. With low levels and very little equipment, that'd make sense. But there's no way that'd be a recently discovered glitch.
It could just prevent counterattacks or have some other weird effect.
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The guy made a forum post explaining some of the stuff he did.
+ Show Spoiler +I'm gonna go ahead and explain most of what I can right here right now before questions get asked after watching the run.
1. Experience Glitch: All enemies that are not immune to weak, are also not immune to life (weird to be immune to life right). Those that are immune to life are bosses. They are dieing and they ain't comin back! Another requirement is that there must still be something alive so that you can caste life on them.
How it Works: Basically all enemies are defaulted to 0 vitality. Life works by bringing you back to life with (Vitality * 5) hp. 0*5 = 0hp. So the enemy is brought back to life with 0 hp. It therefore dies again, and I gain the exp and gold of dead fish.
2. Wall Trick / Boss Glitch: This glitch is abuseable on the Dark Elf, the Four Elements, and Zeromus. What makes these guys special? Their transformation is a counter attack. But the counter-attack is based on their hp. However, this counter-attack is bypassed by not directly attacking the boss, but by reflecting a spell. This way I can do the necassary dmg without triggering the counterspell.
Note: Zeromus' transformation is really just a heal to bring his hp from 16k back up to 61k.
3. Tricks and Strategies for Zeromus: Using cure1 on Zeromus? WTF is wrong with me right? Well, what it does is cause Zeromus to counterspell with nuke, but he doesn't do this at full power, he does it at a reduced wisdom. If I can get him to counter with nuke soon enough before he casts big bang (while it is already queued), then his big bang will be very weak. You can see the effect of this in my speedrun, you'll notice the first couple Big Bang's don't have much umph, but the last few are quite devastating.
The next question I'd expect to be asked is why I take my time with things and wait for the big bang to revive rydia and blah blah blah. Well the biggest difficulty after the first 2 big bangs, is having to work around Black hole. This move removes my wall. So I have to work around his rotation to sneak in the flares.
Hope this answers any questions that would arise from watching my speedrun. Any other questions, and I will try to answer, but if they are blah blah blah "why didn't you get sub 3-hrs" I'll kick you in the nuts and take your girlfriend.
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lol those starcraft runs were pretty impressive though cauz they could even finish it faster than me with cheats except the "there is no cow level" or even the others similars to this one. God they must have been really bored to accomplish those things :p
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Thanks Pwntrucci, looks like I was on the right track.
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Maybe i'm misremembering something about the game, but when Kain steals the dark crystal in the underworld, I thought you would have to go get the crystal first? wtf?!
How did he get kain to steal the crystal before he went through that part of the stage and got it? I still remembering having to kill all those stupid trap doors that took forever to beat
Maybe I skipped something while I was watching the videos....someone enlighten me?
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There's a glitch that lets you skip it.
+ Show Spoiler +Apparently when you're in the throne room after the calbrena dolls/Golbez bit, casting warp puts you back in the crystal room, with the dark crystal still there. The Kain thing triggers in the sealed cave entrance when you have dark crystal in your inventory, so you can skip the whole cave.
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oh damn that is sick, that part of the game was such a pain in the ass
the only redeeming qualities of that portion were getting the light sword, and maybe the defense sword..it's been a while I can't remember if that's where you get it
other than that it was so obnoxious
+ Show Spoiler +i found it amusing that rosa was still wearing the prisoner armor until he stripped fusoya in the golem
I also never realized that cecil's defense would be high enough to defend the entire party against valvalis, that's pretty sick
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I really enjoyed the metal gear solid runs, very nice play.
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bleh, didnt fight evil wall (which had me quit the game for a few years) so is all null and void to me :p
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On March 07 2008 07:20 Powerpill wrote:
bleh, didnt fight evil wall (which had me quit the game for a few years) so is all null and void to me :p
Virus > evil wall.
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Evil wall is extremely hard, I think practically impossible at those levels and with that equipment actually. So it's quite the windfall you're able to skip fighting it in a speedrun. I mean, the Fire Brand's not going to cut it, and there's no easy elemental weakness to exploit.
Yeah, Kain's Silver gear courtesy of Golbez and co. really buffs up Cecil's defense to tank for the entire party, making the next several boss fights possible.
It's amazing how you don't actually have to level at all until right before the final dungeon. First Tellah comes along to bail you out for overworld boss fights, then Kain gear makes Cecil MVP, then you can dark crystal glitch past Evil Wall.
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True, he would be a sonofabitch at low levels.
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I'm curious about this save battery thing. I never played Final Fantasy's on snes's (couldn't read english back then.) At some point it dies and you can't save anymore and your game is basically fucked?
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On March 07 2008 11:01 Pwntrucci[sR] wrote:
I'm curious about this save battery thing. I never played Final Fantasy's on snes's (couldn't read english back then.) At some point it dies and you can't save anymore and your game is basically fucked?
My FF3 battery got increasingly sketchy as time went on. It wiped my games a few times in its later years. You could probably open the cartridge up and swap about the battery, but I never tried.
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going to download this :D
cant wait
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Final_Fantasy_2_USA.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy/images/1/10/Baby_chocobo.jpg)
