when I was a kid I was playing through ff7 for the umpteenth time and I accidentally sold my chocobo lure, essentially soft locking me to the kalm area. Instead of restarting I decided to train to a level at which I could kill the midgar zolom. After a few days I was in the mid 50s range with everybody having a few thousand hp and I decided to try my luck. I then crossed the swamp without getting attacked, making my entire grind session entirely pointless.
@@_Archo you can bait it out with the right timing. It's a really old trick, idk why Karl said it's impossible to avoid the Zolom. It's *supposed* to be impossible.
I think every lil homie who played ff7, soft locked themselves somewhere and had to battle out of it. My mistake was putting my short range party members in the elevator fight in my first play through.
One thing I really enjoy about your channel is that even though they may not hold the records, the original finders of new glitches and methods are properly documented and so their names are given proper credit and not simply forgotten about. Thank you for always doing such in depth research
I will say, my experience of playing FFVII as a teenager was something no other game nor remake could ever replicate, it was the right game at the right time.
@@unfazedo They're all trash now. They should have never changed the format to generic hack and slash junk. FF is dead. Has been since Type 0 and it's been on it's way out since FF12.
@@PompeyKilla aww man I LOVE FFVIIR its the only reason I know about ffvii to begin with. I now have played ffvii og, watched ac, dirge, and crisis core. Turned me into a huge ffvii fan. Also I love the combat and maximilian doods playthrough and news videos are what keep me breathing rn.
@@chrisbullock8158 I wanted to play the remake so bad, waited years for it to happen, but the decided to split it up into multiple games, and add purchased DLC. so i didnt and wont ever be checking it out. I absolutely hate the direction games have went, i remember when i was a kid we didnt have much money and i could barely even afford to get ahold of the few games that i did. there is no way i could afford to play games now if i was a kid today. They are completely pricing people out, and its disgusting. You pay a high price tag, for an incomplete game, that doesnt even have all the content, you need to buy that extra as well. not to mention how expensive consoles are now. there is just no way I would have ever been able to get ahold of games as a kid with how expensive it is now. It sucks that everyone seems to like this direction though, everyone love to spend all their money on games that usually have such bad releases they have to have an update patch to fix all the bugs AFTER its already went live and sold. The last game i ever bought was Skyrim lol, and they have literally been reselling skyrim for over 10 years now, and they are still selling it for $60 lol. Its literally over 10 years old. like i dont even care anymore, games have been completely ruined. Aside from graphics, games havnt really improved at all, in any aspect. Game play isnt getting better, just graphics. people just want to buy pretty games now, and want only parts of games and they want to have to buy the rest of the game in multiple DLCs, by the time the ff7r is complete, ill bet with all the DLC its gonna be a $300 game to buy it. Id have to sell crack as a kid to be able to afford these consoles and games. Fuck the gaming industry.
I feel that one. I bought FFVII second hand when I was like, 12 or 13 (it was around the time FFIX came out iirc) I played the fuck out of that game. Beat it and then printed out the entire walkthrough for the game while playing it the second time to see what all I had missed the first time through. maxed out the clock my second play through cause i did so much dicking around with the game.
12:20 you can get over it without the chocobo when the snake is moving to the far east in a big arc. It only starts chasing you after it hits a wall while you are alreasy in the swamp. That gives you enoughh time to get tothe other side. In fact at my first playthroughs as a kid I didn't understand how to get a chocobo and that was my method to get to the cave =D
And when I played the game I always grinded so long until I could defeat the snake (~1500 hp to survive its massive damage skill), meanwhile acquiring Beta ennemi skill for my first E.Skill materia xD
That's right! I knew how to get the chocobo, but for some reason, I just really wanted to also be able to cross the swamp without needing it. Was a good time.
I was so shocked on my 2nd playthrough back in the day (same year it released) when I actually walked across the marsh on foot without the worm catching me. Didn't even think it was possible. Let alone something like this.
Depending on what genre people like the most (like platformers for me) that ultimately determines for many people I believe what game is the best ever in their opinion.
Hmmm, I play pretty much every genre with maybe slightly less experience for puzzle games. I'd have a really tough time choosing between platformers and RPGs, they're both amazing genres with tons to offer. Regardless of my love for RPGs, I would still SM64 the Best Game Ever award. Minecraft, Ocarina of Time, World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Ultima Online, WarCraft 2, StarCraft 2, Rome: Total War, Total War Shogun 2, SM3, Donkey Kong Country 2, FF6, FF7, Dragon Quest 3, Chrono Trigger are all runners up that I'd have a hard time placing ranks on. I know people will hate me for saying it, but Fortnite also deserves a slot both for innovation and replayability, as well as Overwatch.
It's hard enough to decide on my own criteria for judging how good a game is. Is it how much I enjoyed it the first time around? (Giving a huge relative advantage to games from decades past; nostalgia bias.) How much I would enjoy it if I played it for the first time right now? (Giving the advantage rather to newer games which leverage design methodology, programming library, and hardware improvements.) Do I factor in how much the game cost? (A free game otherwise identical to a paid game could be considered "better" in some sense from an economic standpoint.)
Such thing as "the best game ever" doesn't exist, seriously, because everyone is biased to pick a fav game as the "best ever", we all have particular experiences, stories and nostalgia, such factors will always drive us. BUT, we can all agree that certain games are better than others and that there are games considered as the best or most notorious of their genre/console/generation, so I think it's fair to call them "Best *Games* ever" rather than choosing a single one.
@@jackybogues2495 what did you think of final fantasy7 remake and yes the graphics are still good the game is great. have you played final fantasy 7 remake what did you thik of it
2:30 'I didn't even know most console RPGs existed.' Well, as Australian gamers we mostly didn't. To my best recollection, Oz only got 3 turn-based RPGs on the SNES (Mystic Quest Legend, Lufia 2, Might & Magic 2) and about 8 action RPGs (Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Soul Blazer, Shadowrun, LoTR, Lagoon). It wasn't really until the PS1 & PS2 that these large sale franchises became more openly available.
That section of the video confused me honestly. In the USA Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 along with Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Mana, etc. were immensely popular before FF7 came along. JRPGs were anything but niche at the time, at least stateside.
:O The Kalm flashback isn't boring! As an 8 year old kid in 97, it gave me chills to see Sephiroth's immense power. Its really important information to cement him as an almighty villain. Just an annoying barrier for a speed runner though, I will agree to that hahah.
Karl, I doubt you'll see this, but I just want to show my appreciation for your videos, every single one of them. You are certainly in the S-Tier of UA-camrs and I will literally stop everything whenever you release something new. Thank you so much for your content; it is very, very much appreciated
Same! Couldn't agree more. Every time one of Karl's videos turns up on my feed, it is THE next video to be watched, even if I'm currently intending to continue one I'm part-way through!
When I made a new Google account, I decided I was only going to subscribe to the best UA-camrs I had found on the Platform. For obvious reasons, Karl was one of the first.
Glad to see Karl covering FF7 speedruns. It's a speedrun that takes 7 hours and has so many exploits and techniques involved with it that I have to hand it to all runners who attempt it.
I love watching runs of FF7/8/9. Especially when it's relay style with Tojju, Mutski and Luzbel. I could listen to them talking shit for 8 hours with either of those games on in the background.
Love that you play the Aeris Theme during the sponsor segment. nice touch! FFVII is arguably my fav game of all time, I'm really glad that you decided to cover this
"You can just walk over it" made me go down a rabbit hole lol. Never seen any of that before even though TMNT was one of the first NES games I ever played
I've been watching Karl's videos for a long time, regularly going to sleep to them, and WHOA it's cool to see myself in one randomly, haha! Thanks for your great research and attention to this great speedrun, Karl, your videos are always a pleasure!
Yea a several hour RPG speedrun is a much harder sell to people than an action game you can complete in under an hour. RPG speedrunning is an even more specialized group no matter how good the game. I dont care for 3d Zelda games, I'd put A link to the Past way above OoT. Love these skips and sequence breaks, especially in long games.
I used to think ALttP was better then OoT. Now I'm not sure. But they're both amazing. I wouldn't mind someone arguing for one over the other. Now FFVI compared to FFVII is easy. FFVI by so far it hurts my brain.
I'm old. Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES is still my favorite of the series, and I'd argue it set up Final Fantasy 7 to be such a big hit. Square splitting from Nintendo gave them press, the half million people who bought FF3 were eager for the release, and a lot of them bought Play Stations over N64's just to play that game.
I was really confused about this post until I remembered 3 ~ 5 didn't come out in the US till way later. That being said, you have a point. However, 7 still gained much more cultural relevance in the West than 6. Not arguing which is "better" because that's honestly a really tight competition, though for different reasons per each game, I'm just saying you can't just give credit for all FF7's success to 6. The game is a classic for a reason.
This was an amazing thing to witness! I'm good friends with Tsuna, and when I heard about it, I was instantly in people's streams watching this whole thing go down. I didn't realize Kuma was the one who also found the new Cosmo skip! What a beast! And I didn't even know they'd optimized Kalm Skip to just happen right at the Mithril Mines entrance! That's super awesome, and I'm sure the time save there is far more significant than the original Kalm Skip over by Midgar. Amazing video, great attention to detail!
In case anyone has hyper hearing and is curious lol: At 19:50 the background music / song is "Level 0" by Jim Andron, from the Philips CD-i version of Tetris.
Honestly I think the sound track does A LOT for the staying power of the game. Every single song is just a masterpiece and outside of maybe FF10 it easily has the best music in the franchise. I still find the songs popping into my head at times randomly.
It's always cool to hear about old games having new exploits discovered decades later, but it also always gets me curious about other games. Stuff like this happens because a game was at some point popular, especially within the speedrunning community, and even after things die down a bit there are still some dedicated runners still playing it. What about games with less popularity, though? What secrets could be hidden in those games which already barely even get runs? With hardly anyone even playing them, we might never know.
Few speedrunners may have the routes and paths, glitches that they use, it's only less well documented. Take as an example Kleric for BotW. He's really good at documenting the glitches because there is a lot to take from and sources to check. If you want an example of somebody that knows a lot about Pokemom speedruns it's Werster; but I really doubt he would share everything he knows except in livestreams, but if he were to release all the info to everybody other runners would catch up to him. There's a little of competition in this kind of thing, like businesses that wouldn't share important information with others.
There are a lot of speedrunners that focus on smaller underplayed games. Why compete to get into the top 25 of a popular game when you could mark the first world record in 5 other ones
Absolutely insane that Kuma managed to get that glitch through the floor knowing all the hidden mechanics behind it! Such awesome initial discoveries by Kuma and then the rest of the community figuring out how the floor clip worked and how to make the skip easier.
I love watching these videos and understanding the concepts, you do such a great job at simplifying information but still mentioning everything precise about the skips.
Karl is genuinely an amazing UA-camr. I have never been interested in speedrunning (other than Joshimuz's highlights) and yet I find Karl's videos very interesting. Keep up the good work, man, can't wait for you to hit 1M subscribers, you definitely deserve it.
@@killwillv2610 Except most people don't see "best game ever" and assume it was decided by some kind of objective metric of how many people collectively have nostalgia for it and decided to give it a high number on the funny number site. They assume it was a subjective decision based on subjective observations of its impact and influence. There is no "how good the game is" stat. What factors are even included is entirely subjective. And those stats you're referring to are still the result of peoples' subjective opinions.
@@noneofyourbusiness7965 Kind of a weird evangelical section too. Came out if nowhere. But I think he was trying to hype up the new speedrun findings by elevating FF7 to something much more than it is.
right, theres alot to consider. ff7 was one of the best games of it's time, no one can dispute that, but like Karl says in the video ff7 really has not aged well at all, so it definitely has gone down with time
Well, it took about five hours but we eventually found it - the music in the opening is "Celeste - Quiet and Falling". Please credit your music in the description, people.
Skip to 6:30 if you want to get to the actual content alluded to by the title, unless you're big on preambles about tangentially related games of the era.
I love this channel because I don't really know anything about things like guitar hero or final fantasy but you make then so cool and interesting to watch. Keep up the good work!
He doesn't make ff7 sound cool it was the coolest game you should play the original version if you ever get a chance. I never play a game for its story or pay attention to it, but that was a story I can pretty much tell you now I've played it that many times since it came out in 97.
Ah, Final Fantasy VII, my favorite Chocobo Racing game. Thank you for covering this, Karl! Of all the JRPG speedruns to cover, this classic is a great start, not just because of how massively popular it is, but also how gosh-darn broken it is. Programmers don't lie when they say most code is held together by duct tape and gum, but FF7 was held together by sticky notes and dried school glue. I would know. I've explored the debug room extensively back in the day.
@@Ramsey276one No lie, I only ever got to play a little bit of FFX back in the day at a friend's house until life got in the way, and I happened to stop around the part where they were just introducing Blitzball, but never got the chance to play it myself. And the main reason I wanted to play the game at all was because of Blitzball. And the Chocobo racing, of course. A shame I will carry to my grave. But maybe it was for the best, since I didn't want to take the game hostage like I've done with the entire Compilation of VII.
Is it true there are clues there that originally Aeris wasn't going to die? I've heard that... and noticed that if she was present, all parties would be full-strength to fight the final boss battle.
(Facepalm) Oh, _the Chocobo racing._ *Goddamn Teioh!* I wanted to smack that ridiculous hat off Joe's head every time I saw he'd be racing. A litle background for those who may not remember: Teioh was an example of the game openly sabotaging your Gold Saucer efforts. That chocobo's job was literally to show up in races which offered good prizes, and try to _force_ a lossfor you. No matter how swole your mount, Teioh's stats were better-- he could even exceed the normal stat maximums to make that happen. As a black chocobo he also ignored a slo-mo effect in a section of the race course. I grant you-- when I played FFVII way back when, I probably wasn't the most strategically-minded jockey. But at S-Rank, Teioh was still clearly a monster... he almost seemed unbeatable. He made no real mistakes; only being blocked or corralled by other jockeys made him falter. And he always had the perfect timing and remaining stamina for a home-stretch sprint that ensured I couldn't reach the finish line first. Most my few S-Class victories against Teioh happened because he was going *too* fast! His devastating come-from-behind sprints in the last seconds led to collisions sometimes: you might get bulldozed past the finish line in front of him before the game physics shoved you to one side.
@@henrysokol3466 Unfortunately, no. Aeris was planned to die fairly early on during development even when the game was still in concept (according to old interviews in the original Ultimania / guide books). I think the devs weren't completely sure exactly where her death would take place, though. There is some leftover data for Aeris appearing on some areas of Disc 2 that can be reproduced in Disc 3, but nothing that can be accessed without cheating and are likely to crash the game if accessed "normally". Frankly, I think it's for the best. It wouldn't really make for a challenging final boss fight if she could just go in with a Great Gospel. Heck, it'd probably be too easy even with just her Fury Brand. Seph would just rage-quit after seeing Omnislash for the 16th time in a row.
Every time you say "I really hope you enjoy" I have to laugh because there is not a video that you have made that I haven't enjoyed in some way. I remember playing this back in the day and absolutely loving it, sitting in my room with the soundtrack to Empire Records cranked up. Such great memories.
Kind of hard to understand RPG speedrunning. Final Fantasy VII happens to be one of the most unique. Early 3D game development was the perfect time for a beautiful speed game.
Crazy that people are still finding stuff out about this game. I have so many fond memories and nostalgia for this. I am waiting until the remake is complete to give it a run through.
Man. I didn't expect those nostalgia feels when you started playing the final fantasy 7 theme on piano... I "pirated" that shit from KH insider back in the 00s, and my brother and I would spend hours listening to the various jrpg and zelda music.... Those were powerful good moments. The best of my childhood.
Great video as always, but I will say that you can outrun the zolem on the desert without an encounter. I managed to do it when I was much younger as I had no idea how to get a chocobo since I was young. You stand on the furthest side and look towards the other where the water is, if zolem is going towards the corner you can make a run and it gives you just barely enough time to get through before an encounter.
It really amazes me that I care to watch a video about a game I've never played and never been interrested in. You make speed running facinating and interresting to us all, Karl.
I got soft-locked in the Ultima Weapon fight by getting a random encounter on the same frame that I started the boss battle. The weapon was gone, but the music was still playing. I restarted, and the weapon came back.
18:40 It's a not a "quirk" that places him underneath, and there's no limit on 6 triangles once the stale triangle glitch is done you can move around as much as you want within that region (as long as you don't bump into neighboring regions too much). You dismount as you normally would and if done right the game points to cloud's location as being a on a point triangle with all vertices being the same. This "messes up the math" in the algorithms to put it simply, and thusly prevents new triangles from being loaded as normal and allows cloud to move to any triangle in the region.
I beat it summer last year. The impact the game had on me was so huge that I felt an existential crisis for 3 weeks after I finished the game. I am already experiencing nostalgia from this game (it hasn't even been a full year from when I defeated it). So I can't imagine how huge the nostalgia must be if one played this when it got released.
What made FF7 and Zelda so special is the era in which the games came out. We had just come out of the 2D platform era of the super nintendo. When the Nintendo 64 and Playstation came out it was a shock to the senses. Suddenly, we had 3D games with worlds big enough to rival today's games IN 1997.
To me a game having the highest score on Metacritic and being featured on many top 10 lists absolutely doesn't make it the best game ever. It's very subjective of course, but those two metrics simply represent what the average person thinks, and this rarely means people who are so passionate about games and have played so many of them that their opinions are valuable. A proof of this is that for most Zelda fans, Ocarina of Time isn't even the best Zelda game. The Wind Waker often comes up (clearly the best one as far as I'm concerned), and A Link to the Past too.
Windwaker being the best Zelda lmao that's a reach. Clearly you were not around when it came out as most people hated it. I played Windwaker once and have no interest in ever playing it again same with Twilight. OoT and LTTP will always be the best 2 Zelda games its just personal preference on if you like 2D or 3D.
@@Eiji475 What do you mean I "wasn't around"? lol I bought it when it came out, because it was the first game ever to get the "20/20" score on the most famous French video games website. So, nope. People hated the trailer because they didn't expect this kind of graphics, but certainly not the game after it came out.
@Eiji The people who hated Windwaker didn’t like it because of the art style but the gameplay and mechanics were never disputed. Tbh I was disappointed with the art style too when it came out but I ended up loving Windwaker. At the time of OOT’s release it was a huge step for the Zelda franchise in terms of graphic output but I’d argue that OOT isn’t as playable as Windwaker currently is. There are plenty of mechanics and limitations from the N64 era that feel outdated (and quite frankly make me feel like revisiting certain N64 games are a chore). I’ll be honest and say I never felt compelled to complete OOT but I did outplay Windwaker. I feel like “best” games shouldn’t be purely fueled by nostalgia and context. There are games I loved back then that I can’t play in the current day, yet there are other games that stood the test of time more effectively.
17:00 Look at that. How games work underneath. Triangles, polygons, collision and hit boxes, so on. More food for thought for me. I love the background music in your videos.
I have to admit, I don't get the praise that Ocarina of Time gets. I've played through most of the Zelda games and that is one of the ones I've enjoyed the least.
@@kosmosyche I'm in agreement to a large extent. I like Link to the Past too, along with a Link Between Worlds. The painting gimmick is a lot of fun. Twilight Princess is one of my favorites of the 3D era and much of that has to do with Midna. I like having a support character who isn't irritating. Further on the personality front, my two favorite FF games are VI and XII and I think VI wins out for me, just because every single character arc is exceptionally well fleshed out.
I’m very, VERY late to the party when it comes to finally playing this game. I’ve been playing the remake and the original so much recently and now I finally understand why FFVII is a masterpiece.
While I do feel that OoT is one of the best games of all time, I think Mario64 is the best example of gaming evolving into something new, something different and more immersive than what we've ever seen before. Nintendo knocked it out of the fucking park and changed gaming for everybody
Tho 1 thing about OoT is that it's the 3DS version that can be considered 1 of the best games of all time yet people who say that for some reason only mean the N64 version what has aged like milk on lot of aspects the 3DS version fixed...
Hey, can you give me a few pointers on what people like about OoT? After a full playthrough, I can't name a single point, and the intro to the video really confused me.
@@plantelo nostalgia and N64 lacking games while games also being more expensive, so those who grew up with N64 replayed the few games they had lot more.
I remember in the late 90s there was a website discussing various rumors and conspiracy theories in FF7. Including a wooden chocobo, being able to play as Zack from start, or Cloud being able to use Sephiroths sword.
FFVII is generally still considered to have aged well I think, the Materia system is still fantastic to this day, and the battle system can always be sped up in the options.
It overall has aged well because turn based combat doesn't age as badly as early attempts at other 3D genres, with things that overall haven't aged well just being the overworld models and some combat animations being too long (tho modern ports do include a speed up function).
Yeah, I didn’t get what he meant about OOT aging better than FFVII. Seems like the exact opposite to me. No disrespect to OOT, but that’s the nature of trying real time combat on the N64.
Dunno about that. I played FF VII for the very first time a couple of months ago and it felt dated and borderline unbearable at times. FF VI feels vastly superior to me.
"Remake" is prominently slapped across the game's old title and logo, to the point of being obstructive. On the face of things, that just seems pointless. But I have a hunch it isn't there just to distinguish the new game from the original. If I'm right it's a *full, meaningful piece* of the game's title, that suggests what will happen within the game. It's been confirmed the Remake happens in a parallel universe, meant to duplicate the original game's. But by the end of the first installment Fate is helpless to keep the intended timeline on track. Things could possibly turn out _better_ than in the original game, but it's too big a gamble to take. Aeris is going to have to clue everyone in so they can try to recreate its events... *remake* the wrecked storyline. Some things make a lot more sense that way-: Aeris's warning to Cloud he mustn't fall in love with her... Sephiroth being interested in 'strengthening' Cloud for some reason... the cruel and cryptic "seven seconds 'til the end" comment he knows Cloud will understand once he learns Aeris must die.
You can absolutely outrun the Zolom, but you have to wait for it to be in the farthest part of the marsh away from that little peninsula so I doubt it's a viable speedrun strat.
There are multiple more consistent strats to get past Zolom without a chocobo prior to Kalm Skip. Save and quit in the middle of the marsh reset the Zolom's position without resetting yours for one, but that was slow. The most common used method was Zolom manip, where the speedrunners ran behind a cliff and forced the Zolom to bounce off the cliff. They would then run in the Zolom's tail and split off at a certain point. This required proper movement though, otherwise the Zolom would u-turn right into you.
It's also not *that* hard to kill Zolom, since he can be poisoned to death with Bio. In a casual playthrough, if you grind the fire materia to fire 2 and link it with added effect on an armor, you can make a character immune to fire and pick up the massively powerful enemy skill "Beta" early on.
You went on for more than four minutes 4:10 praising the game before you even mentioned the glitch. Thank you so much for the respect you have shown this amazing game which is so close to my heart.
I would visit my Dad in EU when I was a kid and he had a French copy of FFVII. I couldn’t understand a single word but I managed to make it through disc 2. When it asked me to use the next disc the game would never load. I had to wait many years to finally get it for myself in English. Still a fond memory.
Nothing beats FF7 IMO. The story, the setting, music, characters and gameplay. It is still my go to game when I want to replay an older game from my childhood.
@@sblower9410 The way I see it, cheating in video games involves interacting with it in a way contrary to what the original developer intended, defeating the purpose of its existence. So yeah, it's a battle to see who can distort a game's original vision the best, like making a collage painting with a whole bunch of unrelated works of art.
@@naught_. I prefer to save the word "cheating" for things that are more like theft. IE: your stealing the glory of your peers. It is unreasonable in my view to call merely using a game as a platform as a form of cheating. That undermines the true damage that cheaters do to their communities.
I honestly think majora's mask was better than OoT as much as I didn't want it to be true as a kid. it felt way more cohesive, populated, and generally all together. the game loop time mechanic was also just so interesting, such a great expansion on the time travel function in OoT. no adult link might lower the score a bit but it's offset by having zora link anyway so whatever! also come on underwater swimming? having water zones? OoT water areas were ALL painfully shallow if you'll excuse the pun. the best stuff that happened with water was maybe the water temple and the fishing minigames. and the music! so much joy and dread that they really made you feel, also in the people's words as the end grew closer. it really is a special game.
I have to admit FF7 was THE reason I bought a Playstation. I still hold it in the highest regard. If I had to pick only 10 games out of my whole collection to keep and give up everything else, I would keep FF7, no compromises.
First time I view the "sponsor section" of your videos for two times. The background music was one of (if not THE) favorite compositions in the game. Thank you very much for playing it
I love that speedrunning strats are sometimes just found by pure chance or by brute forcing the game's limits/mechanics years after the game was made. I imagine that many speedrun strats can just make people go: "how in the HELL, did they find this out?".
@@justicegaming1412 Random solar particle collided with the N64 and changed a single bit value for Mario's elevation. Stuff like that is common enough that most modern electronics have some form of correction mechanism for it, or even shielding against it for stuff like flight computers.
Regarding your opening: Top lists tend to be more about influence than actually how good a game is. Ocarina of Time is one of the absolutely most influential games of all time because of a lot of wonderful design decisions, especially for UI and control components, but it's far from the best game out there. It's extremely short, very linear, super easy, uses waiting to try to feel like difficulty for combat, and the time it takes to use the iron boots adds up to too much... Despite all of the waiting for openings and the delays from the iron boots, I still completed the game, with all 100 skulltulas, on the same Christmas day that I first obtained the game because of how incredibly short it is. The linearity of the game also greatly reduces its replayability. This isn't to say that it's in any way a bad game... It isn't. It's great. It's still one of the best despite these flaws because of how great it is elsewise... But it's easily outclassed in how much fun it brings by many other Zelda titles, and by the best of the best non-Zelda games as well.
OoT is not short at all. It takes 20+ hours to complete on a first playthrough. Most adventure games these days are between 12 and 30 hours. It is a bit linear but there's enough to do and explore that you don't need to be on the main quest path the whole time. You also don't have to wait in combat unless you just stand there and don't make use of items. If waiting for an opening was truly as issue no one would like Dark Souls.
@@soundboyeric2276 You can hear them, and the map tells you what areas you've finished finding them in. That made it super simple for anyone paying attention. Every other collectible in the series I can think of right now off the top of my head, Secret Seashells, rings from the Oracle games, Maiaimais, Gratitude Crystals, etc... Skulltullas took less time to search for and find than any one of the others, because every time you entered an area with one, you'd just hear that loud chittering and know that there's a skulltulla. It's the same reason none of Metroid Prime's missiles or energy tanks were what I'd call "Hidden", because they all had a loud hum to them making them easy to hear if you were in the right room. (Though that game took me a few days to complete, simply because of its larger scope.) Audio cues just give collectibles away and make them almost impossible to miss.
It would be very interesting to see a video highlighting major potential skips that people are working on across various games, but haven't been found yet. The kind of limitations that speedrunners say "man it would be nice if I could skip this whole section". If there were enough of these known wanted skips it may fill an entire video.
Karl you have such an amazing ability to tell a story I could listen to you talk about anything. The fact that you happen to talk about video games a true life long passion of mine is just bonus.
I absolutely ADORE FFVII and Remake. Love some of the ideas in AC CC and love how it's being done in remake. Dirge is dirge and somehow its not terrible in remake. Remake brought me into the franchise and even though I was 16 when I played the game last year, I feel almost like a feeling of nostalgia for it. Amazing and in my opinion still holds up amazing.
Honestly, I just feel like the story is gonna get better, they managed to make the Dirge story not terrible so clearly they're already performing miracles on the series. (BTW, I love Dirge but I will admit that the story wasn't exactly the best XD)
The best game of all time being decided by popularity is pretty questionable. The majority is wrong in most cases, why would they hold the most sway over this?
YES!!! Same goes for Super Mario 64! It's not the best 3D platformer ever made nor the best Mario game! (this is the OBJECTIVE TRUTH!!! I'm so cool amirite)
This is why best game lists are stupid, that sort of thing will always be subjective. You could easily make an objective list about the most _influential_ games, though.
As per usual karl is goated with the updates, hope you’re doing well with your battle my friend, I wish you nothing but good luck and just know we’re all here for you
I figured out that cosmo canyon glitch myself when the game was first released. I feel like being part of one of those cases of science discoveries happening in antiquity, being lost for centuries before being discovered once again. But the Kalm glitch is astonishing!
I've seen at least a few of your videos over the years.. and as someone who never tried to glitch or do anything out of the normal while playing games, I find these very interesting. People are insane. Great video. This game is tied to my life.. I was 13 when I played this.
Another trick: you can actually skip areas by switching the disk into a wrong game/disc (not disc number, since most things are the same in each disc except movies and SNOVA folder in disc 3). It causes the game to put already loaded areas into the horizon. To do this, make sure you're far from the destination and then switch the disc. It happens because the game only loads areas outside the horizon, the game will load areas when you walk to it and remove the areas as you walk far from the area (due to RAM and/or graphical limitations). For some reason, the devs programmed the game to put the wrong maps (previously loaded maps) when you use a wrong disc instead of crashing the game / blank areas due to wrong data (in FF8, you cannot cross the unloaded areas because there are invisible walls on the horizon) Not sure if this can be done on actual PS1 but I did this on an emulator (I was using PSXfin) for fun
Idk, I feel like saying ocarina is the best game ever is kinda like saying Morphy is the best chess player ever. In actuality, there have been a TON of players since then that can play more accurately than Morphy could, because the game has evolved a lot. Similarly, I think tons of better games have come out since ocarina. It's more the context around the game than anything that puts it in the conversation.
I agree with this and Morphy would be about 2600 by today's standards, not even a super GM, which is 2700+. I don't think Ocarina of Time is one of the best games but that's probably because I didn't play it till years after it came out so I don't have that nostalgia.
@@wheelhouse15 ocarina absolutely was one of the best games ever when it came out, and it's fair to say that it expanded the idea of what a video game could be. I think it deserves reverence for its place in video game history. But yeah, I dont think the gameplay holds up all that well, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of games I'd rather play than ocarina now.
@@SJNaka101 That's one thing I can't really say because I didn't own a NES or Super NES. To me it was just something I played later on so I can't really compare it to anything at the time fairly because I don't remember what was out at that time.
You can DEFINITELY outrun the Zolom, actually. I have no idea of the mechanics of how it works but I know i've done it on both the PS2 and on PC, just as a personal challenge. I do know it was hard as fuck though and took me dozens of attempts at least, both times I did it. I specifically remember though, waiting until it was facing into and going into a corner, and then run perfectly towards the Mithril Mines. Then I would make it, just barely. Not useful info for the speedrun, or the video even, but I wanted to clarify that it at least should be possible.
Speedrunners for FFVII actually wouldn't use a chocobo to get passed the Zolom originally. There's a small piece of the mountain that sticks out in the middle of the marsh on the north side, and if you wait behind it, the Zolom will bounce off that corner of the mountain and go the opposite direction instead of reaching you.
That's how we used to do that section before kalm skip. There's a trick to it where you can have Zolom hit the mountains and slithers away from you instead of at you. Takes a little practice but once you get it, you'll never forget how to do it
@@NixXRemade Thank you so much for the clarification! I thought that that was true. Crazy that I figured out a speed-trick before I even knew speedrunning existed!
@@d13sel51 Thank you so much for the clarification! I thought that that was true. Crazy that I figured out a speed-trick before I even knew speedrunning existed!
Thank you, man. This game was what bonded me and my brothers growing up. It was so fresh, I still remember that opening sequence with Aeris like it was yesterday. I don't think this generation of kids realize how lucky they are, nor will they ever understand the feeling of playing a game and feel so immersed in the world's lore. My kids have so many games to play, they switch games every 30 minutes. They just want something quick and satisfying. They just don't have our patience. The "times" have changed. I'm grateful I experienced it first-hand. Great story, music, dialogue. This game gave me and my brothers a lot of philosophical nights and pretty much shaped and broaden my thinking.
Oh hell yes Karl! It's four am here in the states and I'm wide awake and can't sleep. I am so very grateful for this upload. Ff7 is most definitely one of the greatest games ever made.
I discovered the canyon breakdown one as a kid. One guy spoke of the mithril mines, and noone believed him but me, lol. It was also a point of pride to have max time on the game too.
good video karl, as a longtime speedrunner of FF7 its nice for it to get some love, the guys who found these glitches are great people and deserve all the praise and accolades thanks for a fun and thorough look at the new glitches that have come in FF7
Elden Ring video next? While you wait for that, install Honey and start saving money - joinhoney.com/karl
OHHHHHH ELDEN RING!
Boop
Was that music before the ad from Body Harvest or Super Metroid???? I can't place it, but definitely sounded suuuuper familiar!
I was hoping for a new video "on the first day in march, twenty twenty-two, cheese would achieve this run"
chess is the greatest game of all time. basically older than time and even has 1v1 speed-running
when I was a kid I was playing through ff7 for the umpteenth time and I accidentally sold my chocobo lure, essentially soft locking me to the kalm area. Instead of restarting I decided to train to a level at which I could kill the midgar zolom. After a few days I was in the mid 50s range with everybody having a few thousand hp and I decided to try my luck. I then crossed the swamp without getting attacked, making my entire grind session entirely pointless.
What an epic tale
How is that even possible man
@@_Archo you can bait it out with the right timing. It's a really old trick, idk why Karl said it's impossible to avoid the Zolom. It's *supposed* to be impossible.
I did the same thing except I didn't grind and never played again lmao
I think every lil homie who played ff7, soft locked themselves somewhere and had to battle out of it. My mistake was putting my short range party members in the elevator fight in my first play through.
One thing I really enjoy about your channel is that even though they may not hold the records, the original finders of new glitches and methods are properly documented and so their names are given proper credit and not simply forgotten about. Thank you for always doing such in depth research
I am always much more impressed by the glitch finders and the strategies they come up with for optimization than I am of the people who execute it.
I will say, my experience of playing FFVII as a teenager was something no other game nor remake could ever replicate, it was the right game at the right time.
7R is trash
@@unfazedo They're all trash now. They should have never changed the format to generic hack and slash junk. FF is dead. Has been since Type 0 and it's been on it's way out since FF12.
@@PompeyKilla aww man I LOVE FFVIIR its the only reason I know about ffvii to begin with. I now have played ffvii og, watched ac, dirge, and crisis core. Turned me into a huge ffvii fan. Also I love the combat and maximilian doods playthrough and news videos are what keep me breathing rn.
@@chrisbullock8158 I wanted to play the remake so bad, waited years for it to happen, but the decided to split it up into multiple games, and add purchased DLC. so i didnt and wont ever be checking it out.
I absolutely hate the direction games have went, i remember when i was a kid we didnt have much money and i could barely even afford to get ahold of the few games that i did.
there is no way i could afford to play games now if i was a kid today. They are completely pricing people out, and its disgusting. You pay a high price tag, for an incomplete game, that doesnt even have all the content, you need to buy that extra as well. not to mention how expensive consoles are now. there is just no way I would have ever been able to get ahold of games as a kid with how expensive it is now.
It sucks that everyone seems to like this direction though, everyone love to spend all their money on games that usually have such bad releases they have to have an update patch to fix all the bugs AFTER its already went live and sold.
The last game i ever bought was Skyrim lol, and they have literally been reselling skyrim for over 10 years now, and they are still selling it for $60 lol. Its literally over 10 years old.
like i dont even care anymore, games have been completely ruined. Aside from graphics, games havnt really improved at all, in any aspect. Game play isnt getting better, just graphics. people just want to buy pretty games now, and want only parts of games and they want to have to buy the rest of the game in multiple DLCs, by the time the ff7r is complete, ill bet with all the DLC its gonna be a $300 game to buy it.
Id have to sell crack as a kid to be able to afford these consoles and games. Fuck the gaming industry.
I feel that one. I bought FFVII second hand when I was like, 12 or 13 (it was around the time FFIX came out iirc) I played the fuck out of that game. Beat it and then printed out the entire walkthrough for the game while playing it the second time to see what all I had missed the first time through. maxed out the clock my second play through cause i did so much dicking around with the game.
12:20 you can get over it without the chocobo when the snake is moving to the far east in a big arc. It only starts chasing you after it hits a wall while you are alreasy in the swamp. That gives you enoughh time to get tothe other side. In fact at my first playthroughs as a kid I didn't understand how to get a chocobo and that was my method to get to the cave =D
gotta love good old childhood brute force methods that feel almost intended lol
Same here :)
And when I played the game I always grinded so long until I could defeat the snake (~1500 hp to survive its massive damage skill), meanwhile acquiring Beta ennemi skill for my first E.Skill materia xD
I can confirm that it is possible to avoid it.
That's right!
I knew how to get the chocobo, but for some reason, I just really wanted to also be able to cross the swamp without needing it. Was a good time.
I was so shocked on my 2nd playthrough back in the day (same year it released) when I actually walked across the marsh on foot without the worm catching me. Didn't even think it was possible. Let alone something like this.
Somehow, I did that on my first playthrough (back in 2020) without prior knowledge. T'was a strange feeling alright~
Depending on what genre people like the most (like platformers for me) that ultimately determines for many people I believe what game is the best ever in their opinion.
Absolutely, in the end it is about preference and subjectivity
Hmmm, I play pretty much every genre with maybe slightly less experience for puzzle games. I'd have a really tough time choosing between platformers and RPGs, they're both amazing genres with tons to offer. Regardless of my love for RPGs, I would still SM64 the Best Game Ever award. Minecraft, Ocarina of Time, World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Ultima Online, WarCraft 2, StarCraft 2, Rome: Total War, Total War Shogun 2, SM3, Donkey Kong Country 2, FF6, FF7, Dragon Quest 3, Chrono Trigger are all runners up that I'd have a hard time placing ranks on. I know people will hate me for saying it, but Fortnite also deserves a slot both for innovation and replayability, as well as Overwatch.
@@VesperAegis and for me I also love games like the Spyro Trilogy and the OG BFBB and many other games so I have multiple favorite games haha
It's hard enough to decide on my own criteria for judging how good a game is. Is it how much I enjoyed it the first time around? (Giving a huge relative advantage to games from decades past; nostalgia bias.) How much I would enjoy it if I played it for the first time right now? (Giving the advantage rather to newer games which leverage design methodology, programming library, and hardware improvements.) Do I factor in how much the game cost? (A free game otherwise identical to a paid game could be considered "better" in some sense from an economic standpoint.)
Such thing as "the best game ever" doesn't exist, seriously, because everyone is biased to pick a fav game as the "best ever", we all have particular experiences, stories and nostalgia, such factors will always drive us. BUT, we can all agree that certain games are better than others and that there are games considered as the best or most notorious of their genre/console/generation, so I think it's fair to call them "Best *Games* ever" rather than choosing a single one.
I remember when ff7 was released and we were like "these graphics are amazing"
Imop they still are. I want a game not a movie
@@jackybogues2495 everyone's entitled to their opinion. I want an experience personally
I remember playing Waverace 64 and thinking "yup, games have peaked. This is photo realistic"
@@jackybogues2495 That's part of why I didn't like FF8. It's graphics were too good and everything felt out of place.
@@jackybogues2495 what did you think of final fantasy7 remake and yes the graphics are still good the game is great. have you played final fantasy 7 remake what did you thik of it
2:30 'I didn't even know most console RPGs existed.' Well, as Australian gamers we mostly didn't. To my best recollection, Oz only got 3 turn-based RPGs on the SNES (Mystic Quest Legend, Lufia 2, Might & Magic 2) and about 8 action RPGs (Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Soul Blazer, Shadowrun, LoTR, Lagoon). It wasn't really until the PS1 & PS2 that these large sale franchises became more openly available.
That section of the video confused me honestly. In the USA Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 along with Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Mana, etc. were immensely popular before FF7 came along. JRPGs were anything but niche at the time, at least stateside.
:O The Kalm flashback isn't boring! As an 8 year old kid in 97, it gave me chills to see Sephiroth's immense power. Its really important information to cement him as an almighty villain.
Just an annoying barrier for a speed runner though, I will agree to that hahah.
Shout out to 4-8 Productions. His runs are top tier and he's very knowledgeable about the glitches and tech.
And he has an excellent community, too.
This ! ❤
RJ, Oddmog, Deano, primdeath, lupi_ff7
also all top tier runenrs
aka Death_unites_us
Agreed! What a legend... Shout out to Final Fantathon too!
Karl, I doubt you'll see this, but I just want to show my appreciation for your videos, every single one of them. You are certainly in the S-Tier of UA-camrs and I will literally stop everything whenever you release something new. Thank you so much for your content; it is very, very much appreciated
Same! Couldn't agree more. Every time one of Karl's videos turns up on my feed, it is THE next video to be watched, even if I'm currently intending to continue one I'm part-way through!
Agreed, the flow of each story his videos tell is literally perfect.
When I made a new Google account, I decided I was only going to subscribe to the best UA-camrs I had found on the Platform. For obvious reasons, Karl was one of the first.
Glad to see Karl covering FF7 speedruns. It's a speedrun that takes 7 hours and has so many exploits and techniques involved with it that I have to hand it to all runners who attempt it.
I love watching runs of FF7/8/9. Especially when it's relay style with Tojju, Mutski and Luzbel. I could listen to them talking shit for 8 hours with either of those games on in the background.
@@jakel7213 three of the greatest speedruns ever recorded, those. Not for speed, but for pure chemistry and fun.
@@JandarLefey The slide whistle in VIII is a crowning achievement in speedrunning history IMO 😋
So you want to give them a handy?
it
Love that you play the Aeris Theme during the sponsor segment. nice touch! FFVII is arguably my fav game of all time, I'm really glad that you decided to cover this
"You can just walk over it" made me go down a rabbit hole lol. Never seen any of that before even though TMNT was one of the first NES games I ever played
i watch James too, i find it funny that almost every 80s kid should know what you can walk over and what game it is
🎶some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb 🎶
I've been watching Karl's videos for a long time, regularly going to sleep to them, and WHOA it's cool to see myself in one randomly, haha! Thanks for your great research and attention to this great speedrun, Karl, your videos are always a pleasure!
I love how people unironically praise a documentary that puts them to sleep. Relaxation is huge!
Iuuuu
yooo whats good dash!
@@ZandarKoad Only repeat viewings for sleep. Watching something for the first time, I get too interested in it and it keeps me awake.
"I'm DashRetro" - Dash Retro
Yea a several hour RPG speedrun is a much harder sell to people than an action game you can complete in under an hour. RPG speedrunning is an even more specialized group no matter how good the game. I dont care for 3d Zelda games, I'd put A link to the Past way above OoT.
Love these skips and sequence breaks, especially in long games.
Exactly
I agree about ALttP. It has also aged much better too I think.
I like links awakening the most
i wonder if, as the completion time drops, it will be more appealing to these people?
I used to think ALttP was better then OoT. Now I'm not sure. But they're both amazing. I wouldn't mind someone arguing for one over the other. Now FFVI compared to FFVII is easy. FFVI by so far it hurts my brain.
I'm old. Final Fantasy 3 on the SNES is still my favorite of the series, and I'd argue it set up Final Fantasy 7 to be such a big hit. Square splitting from Nintendo gave them press, the half million people who bought FF3 were eager for the release, and a lot of them bought Play Stations over N64's just to play that game.
You’re so old that you still call it Final Fantasy 3 when everyone else now refers to it as FF6 😜
I was really confused about this post until I remembered 3 ~ 5 didn't come out in the US till way later.
That being said, you have a point. However, 7 still gained much more cultural relevance in the West than 6.
Not arguing which is "better" because that's honestly a really tight competition, though for different reasons per each game, I'm just saying you can't just give credit for all FF7's success to 6. The game is a classic for a reason.
You mean Final Fantasy 6 right?
@@RanEncounter ackshully its final fantasy 6 right? No, homie, us old people who actually played it when it released, called it FF3.
Same. I grew up with FF3, SMRPG, SoM, CT back when squre enix was still squaresoft.
This was an amazing thing to witness! I'm good friends with Tsuna, and when I heard about it, I was instantly in people's streams watching this whole thing go down. I didn't realize Kuma was the one who also found the new Cosmo skip! What a beast!
And I didn't even know they'd optimized Kalm Skip to just happen right at the Mithril Mines entrance! That's super awesome, and I'm sure the time save there is far more significant than the original Kalm Skip over by Midgar.
Amazing video, great attention to detail!
In case anyone has hyper hearing and is curious lol:
At 19:50 the background music / song is "Level 0" by Jim Andron, from the Philips CD-i version of Tetris.
Honestly I think the sound track does A LOT for the staying power of the game. Every single song is just a masterpiece and outside of maybe FF10 it easily has the best music in the franchise. I still find the songs popping into my head at times randomly.
It's always cool to hear about old games having new exploits discovered decades later, but it also always gets me curious about other games. Stuff like this happens because a game was at some point popular, especially within the speedrunning community, and even after things die down a bit there are still some dedicated runners still playing it. What about games with less popularity, though? What secrets could be hidden in those games which already barely even get runs? With hardly anyone even playing them, we might never know.
It was only recently that an entire secret quest line was discovered in FF9. And FF9 has a pretty dedicated Speedrun community.
Few speedrunners may have the routes and paths, glitches that they use, it's only less well documented. Take as an example Kleric for BotW. He's really good at documenting the glitches because there is a lot to take from and sources to check. If you want an example of somebody that knows a lot about Pokemom speedruns it's Werster; but I really doubt he would share everything he knows except in livestreams, but if he were to release all the info to everybody other runners would catch up to him. There's a little of competition in this kind of thing, like businesses that wouldn't share important information with others.
Jim Power & The Lost Dimension in 3D. This game deserves a community of runners. Amazing soundtrack too
There are a lot of speedrunners that focus on smaller underplayed games. Why compete to get into the top 25 of a popular game when you could mark the first world record in 5 other ones
Absolutely insane that Kuma managed to get that glitch through the floor knowing all the hidden mechanics behind it! Such awesome initial discoveries by Kuma and then the rest of the community figuring out how the floor clip worked and how to make the skip easier.
I love watching these videos and understanding the concepts, you do such a great job at simplifying information but still mentioning everything precise about the skips.
Karl is genuinely an amazing UA-camr. I have never been interested in speedrunning (other than Joshimuz's highlights) and yet I find Karl's videos very interesting. Keep up the good work, man, can't wait for you to hit 1M subscribers, you definitely deserve it.
Always a good day when FFVII breaks the internet again, like when Tifa did the thing to Italy 😂😂
I loved that big swerve at the start where you made it seem like SMB64 was your choice for best game of all time lol. well played.
Same with the sponsor I thought it was gonna be skillshare with his piano
I was thinking OoT the whole time, expecting to need to correct him once he revealed his answer. Then, he ended up being correct after all.
OoT caused me to stop playing zelda games. Its just bad
@DarkCoreX stats don't lie
@@killwillv2610 Except most people don't see "best game ever" and assume it was decided by some kind of objective metric of how many people collectively have nostalgia for it and decided to give it a high number on the funny number site. They assume it was a subjective decision based on subjective observations of its impact and influence.
There is no "how good the game is" stat. What factors are even included is entirely subjective. And those stats you're referring to are still the result of peoples' subjective opinions.
I don't think you can name a best game of all time. They really need to be considered by era and genre.
Well uh yeah thats obvious
@@Hithere-uz6wd Obvious but there's a section about best game ever at the beginning of this video.
@@noneofyourbusiness7965 Kind of a weird evangelical section too.
Came out if nowhere. But I think he was trying to hype up the new speedrun findings by elevating FF7 to something much more than it is.
right, theres alot to consider. ff7 was one of the best games of it's time, no one can dispute that, but like Karl says in the video ff7 really has not aged well at all, so it definitely has gone down with time
Well, it took about five hours but we eventually found it - the music in the opening is "Celeste - Quiet and Falling". Please credit your music in the description, people.
Skip to 6:30 if you want to get to the actual content alluded to by the title, unless you're big on preambles about tangentially related games of the era.
I love this channel because I don't really know anything about things like guitar hero or final fantasy but you make then so cool and interesting to watch. Keep up the good work!
He doesn't make ff7 sound cool it was the coolest game you should play the original version if you ever get a chance. I never play a game for its story or pay attention to it, but that was a story I can pretty much tell you now I've played it that many times since it came out in 97.
Ah, Final Fantasy VII, my favorite Chocobo Racing game.
Thank you for covering this, Karl! Of all the JRPG speedruns to cover, this classic is a great start, not just because of how massively popular it is, but also how gosh-darn broken it is. Programmers don't lie when they say most code is held together by duct tape and gum, but FF7 was held together by sticky notes and dried school glue.
I would know. I've explored the debug room extensively back in the day.
I enjoy on Switch the Blitzball installment, sometimes taking breaks with the RPG they bundled with it? Smart move!
XD
@@Ramsey276one No lie, I only ever got to play a little bit of FFX back in the day at a friend's house until life got in the way, and I happened to stop around the part where they were just introducing Blitzball, but never got the chance to play it myself. And the main reason I wanted to play the game at all was because of Blitzball. And the Chocobo racing, of course. A shame I will carry to my grave.
But maybe it was for the best, since I didn't want to take the game hostage like I've done with the entire Compilation of VII.
Is it true there are clues there that originally Aeris wasn't going to die?
I've heard that... and noticed that if she was present, all parties would be full-strength to fight the final boss battle.
(Facepalm) Oh, _the Chocobo racing._ *Goddamn Teioh!* I wanted to smack that ridiculous hat off Joe's head every time I saw he'd be racing.
A litle background for those who may not remember:
Teioh was an example of the game openly sabotaging your Gold Saucer efforts. That chocobo's job was literally to show up in races which offered good prizes, and try to _force_ a lossfor you. No matter how swole your mount, Teioh's stats were better-- he could even exceed the normal stat maximums to make that happen. As a black chocobo he also ignored a slo-mo effect in a section of the race course.
I grant you-- when I played FFVII way back when, I probably wasn't the most strategically-minded jockey. But at S-Rank, Teioh was still clearly a monster... he almost seemed unbeatable. He made no real mistakes; only being blocked or corralled by other jockeys made him falter. And he always had the perfect timing and remaining stamina for a home-stretch sprint that ensured I couldn't reach the finish line first.
Most my few S-Class victories against Teioh happened because he was going *too* fast! His devastating come-from-behind sprints in the last seconds led to collisions sometimes: you might get bulldozed past the finish line in front of him before the game physics shoved you to one side.
@@henrysokol3466 Unfortunately, no. Aeris was planned to die fairly early on during development even when the game was still in concept (according to old interviews in the original Ultimania / guide books). I think the devs weren't completely sure exactly where her death would take place, though. There is some leftover data for Aeris appearing on some areas of Disc 2 that can be reproduced in Disc 3, but nothing that can be accessed without cheating and are likely to crash the game if accessed "normally".
Frankly, I think it's for the best. It wouldn't really make for a challenging final boss fight if she could just go in with a Great Gospel. Heck, it'd probably be too easy even with just her Fury Brand. Seph would just rage-quit after seeing Omnislash for the 16th time in a row.
Every time you say "I really hope you enjoy" I have to laugh because there is not a video that you have made that I haven't enjoyed in some way. I remember playing this back in the day and absolutely loving it, sitting in my room with the soundtrack to Empire Records cranked up. Such great memories.
He underscored Aeris' theme in the ad. I couldn't bring myself to skip it. Well played Karl, you win this round.
Brilliant idea playing Aerith’s Theme during the sponsor. I didn’t even think of fast-forwarding through it
Wow, that's amazing! Speedrun communities are so passionate and it shows with how impressive these skips are.
I'm so glad to see you cover my favorite genre in video games . I'd definitely love to see more about RPG speedrunning
Kind of hard to understand RPG speedrunning. Final Fantasy VII happens to be one of the most unique. Early 3D game development was the perfect time for a beautiful speed game.
For a fan of ff7 this was very fun to watch, thank you, you absolute legend.
Crazy that people are still finding stuff out about this game. I have so many fond memories and nostalgia for this. I am waiting until the remake is complete to give it a run through.
Man. I didn't expect those nostalgia feels when you started playing the final fantasy 7 theme on piano...
I "pirated" that shit from KH insider back in the 00s, and my brother and I would spend hours listening to the various jrpg and zelda music.... Those were powerful good moments. The best of my childhood.
Great video as always, but I will say that you can outrun the zolem on the desert without an encounter. I managed to do it when I was much younger as I had no idea how to get a chocobo since I was young.
You stand on the furthest side and look towards the other where the water is, if zolem is going towards the corner you can make a run and it gives you just barely enough time to get through before an encounter.
Can we show a little love to the 9th final fantasy? Such an underrated installment.
It really amazes me that I care to watch a video about a game I've never played and never been interrested in. You make speed running facinating and interresting to us all, Karl.
True!
I got soft-locked in the Ultima Weapon fight by getting a random encounter on the same frame that I started the boss battle.
The weapon was gone, but the music was still playing. I restarted, and the weapon came back.
18:40 It's a not a "quirk" that places him underneath, and there's no limit on 6 triangles once the stale triangle glitch is done you can move around as much as you want within that region (as long as you don't bump into neighboring regions too much). You dismount as you normally would and if done right the game points to cloud's location as being a on a point triangle with all vertices being the same. This "messes up the math" in the algorithms to put it simply, and thusly prevents new triangles from being loaded as normal and allows cloud to move to any triangle in the region.
So much nostalgia for this game. No other game brings back feelings the way FF7 does.
I beat it summer last year. The impact the game had on me was so huge that I felt an existential crisis for 3 weeks after I finished the game. I am already experiencing nostalgia from this game (it hasn't even been a full year from when I defeated it). So I can't imagine how huge the nostalgia must be if one played this when it got released.
G4TV once described the storyline as 'so emotional it cuts itself.'
What made FF7 and Zelda so special is the era in which the games came out. We had just come out of the 2D platform era of the super nintendo. When the Nintendo 64 and Playstation came out it was a shock to the senses. Suddenly, we had 3D games with worlds big enough to rival today's games IN 1997.
To me a game having the highest score on Metacritic and being featured on many top 10 lists absolutely doesn't make it the best game ever. It's very subjective of course, but those two metrics simply represent what the average person thinks, and this rarely means people who are so passionate about games and have played so many of them that their opinions are valuable. A proof of this is that for most Zelda fans, Ocarina of Time isn't even the best Zelda game. The Wind Waker often comes up (clearly the best one as far as I'm concerned), and A Link to the Past too.
Windwaker being the best Zelda lmao that's a reach. Clearly you were not around when it came out as most people hated it. I played Windwaker once and have no interest in ever playing it again same with Twilight. OoT and LTTP will always be the best 2 Zelda games its just personal preference on if you like 2D or 3D.
Undoubtedly Majora's Mask is better than Ocarina of Time, though for simply being trailblazing at the time OoT deserves the accolades.
@@Eiji475 What do you mean I "wasn't around"? lol I bought it when it came out, because it was the first game ever to get the "20/20" score on the most famous French video games website. So, nope. People hated the trailer because they didn't expect this kind of graphics, but certainly not the game after it came out.
@Eiji The people who hated Windwaker didn’t like it because of the art style but the gameplay and mechanics were never disputed. Tbh I was disappointed with the art style too when it came out but I ended up loving Windwaker. At the time of OOT’s release it was a huge step for the Zelda franchise in terms of graphic output but I’d argue that OOT isn’t as playable as Windwaker currently is. There are plenty of mechanics and limitations from the N64 era that feel outdated (and quite frankly make me feel like revisiting certain N64 games are a chore). I’ll be honest and say I never felt compelled to complete OOT but I did outplay Windwaker. I feel like “best” games shouldn’t be purely fueled by nostalgia and context. There are games I loved back then that I can’t play in the current day, yet there are other games that stood the test of time more effectively.
@@Eiji475 Subjective argument acting like an objective take. Lmao
16:52 I love how looking at this screen out of context looks like it's calling Cloud a "pos"
17:00 Look at that. How games work underneath. Triangles, polygons, collision and hit boxes, so on. More food for thought for me.
I love the background music in your videos.
I have to admit, I don't get the praise that Ocarina of Time gets. I've played through most of the Zelda games and that is one of the ones I've enjoyed the least.
Yep, my favorite Zelda is still A Link to the Past. But I also think FF6 is better than FF7 tbh. I guess I am more into 16-bit era RPG's.
@@kosmosyche I'm in agreement to a large extent. I like Link to the Past too, along with a Link Between Worlds. The painting gimmick is a lot of fun. Twilight Princess is one of my favorites of the 3D era and much of that has to do with Midna. I like having a support character who isn't irritating. Further on the personality front, my two favorite FF games are VI and XII and I think VI wins out for me, just because every single character arc is exceptionally well fleshed out.
@@newcarpathia9422 Midna waifu for laifu.
I’m very, VERY late to the party when it comes to finally playing this game. I’ve been playing the remake and the original so much recently and now I finally understand why FFVII is a masterpiece.
While I do feel that OoT is one of the best games of all time, I think Mario64 is the best example of gaming evolving into something new, something different and more immersive than what we've ever seen before. Nintendo knocked it out of the fucking park and changed gaming for everybody
Tho 1 thing about OoT is that it's the 3DS version that can be considered 1 of the best games of all time yet people who say that for some reason only mean the N64 version what has aged like milk on lot of aspects the 3DS version fixed...
pfft the best game is obviously magic knights ray earth for the sega saturn
Hey, can you give me a few pointers on what people like about OoT? After a full playthrough, I can't name a single point, and the intro to the video really confused me.
@@plantelo nostalgia and N64 lacking games while games also being more expensive, so those who grew up with N64 replayed the few games they had lot more.
@@plantelo I don't know if this playthrough of your was recent, but it obvious OoT won't have the same impact nowadays as it did in 1998
I remember in the late 90s there was a website discussing various rumors and conspiracy theories in FF7. Including a wooden chocobo, being able to play as Zack from start, or Cloud being able to use Sephiroths sword.
8:28 - great editing here. I love how the "!?" text box shows up, as if the game itself is shocked at the skip happening that Karl is describing.
FFVII is generally still considered to have aged well I think, the Materia system is still fantastic to this day, and the battle system can always be sped up in the options.
It overall has aged well because turn based combat doesn't age as badly as early attempts at other 3D genres, with things that overall haven't aged well just being the overworld models and some combat animations being too long (tho modern ports do include a speed up function).
Yeah, I didn’t get what he meant about OOT aging better than FFVII. Seems like the exact opposite to me. No disrespect to OOT, but that’s the nature of trying real time combat on the N64.
Dunno about that. I played FF VII for the very first time a couple of months ago and it felt dated and borderline unbearable at times. FF VI feels vastly superior to me.
@@PerritoGG ff vi (ff3) is the best final fantasy by far
Final Fantasy 7 is amazing, i have so many childhood memories. Also the remake is amazing.
"Remake" is prominently slapped across the game's old title and logo, to the point of being obstructive. On the face of things, that just seems pointless. But I have a hunch it isn't there just to distinguish the new game from the original. If I'm right it's a *full, meaningful piece* of the game's title, that suggests what will happen within the game.
It's been confirmed the Remake happens in a parallel universe, meant to duplicate the original game's. But by the end of the first installment Fate is helpless to keep the intended timeline on track. Things could possibly turn out _better_ than in the original game, but it's too big a gamble to take. Aeris is going to have to clue everyone in so they can try to recreate its events... *remake* the wrecked storyline.
Some things make a lot more sense that way-: Aeris's warning to Cloud he mustn't fall in love with her... Sephiroth being interested in 'strengthening' Cloud for some reason... the cruel and cryptic "seven seconds 'til the end" comment he knows Cloud will understand once he learns Aeris must die.
You can absolutely outrun the Zolom, but you have to wait for it to be in the farthest part of the marsh away from that little peninsula so I doubt it's a viable speedrun strat.
Yep I was thinking the same thing.
There are multiple more consistent strats to get past Zolom without a chocobo prior to Kalm Skip. Save and quit in the middle of the marsh reset the Zolom's position without resetting yours for one, but that was slow.
The most common used method was Zolom manip, where the speedrunners ran behind a cliff and forced the Zolom to bounce off the cliff. They would then run in the Zolom's tail and split off at a certain point. This required proper movement though, otherwise the Zolom would u-turn right into you.
It's also not *that* hard to kill Zolom, since he can be poisoned to death with Bio. In a casual playthrough, if you grind the fire materia to fire 2 and link it with added effect on an armor, you can make a character immune to fire and pick up the massively powerful enemy skill "Beta" early on.
I did it accidentally as a kid!
you still dont outrun it, you just get a headstart
You went on for more than four minutes 4:10 praising the game before you even mentioned the glitch. Thank you so much for the respect you have shown this amazing game which is so close to my heart.
I would visit my Dad in EU when I was a kid and he had a French copy of FFVII. I couldn’t understand a single word but I managed to make it through disc 2. When it asked me to use the next disc the game would never load. I had to wait many years to finally get it for myself in English. Still a fond memory.
This shit is tight. I love how dedicated speedrunning has become since I started watching them in like 2004
أكبر
أكبر
حان الوقت لك قريبًا
Nothing beats FF7 IMO. The story, the setting, music, characters and gameplay. It is still my go to game when I want to replay an older game from my childhood.
This & Legend of Dragoon
"You can't speed-run a turn-based RPG."
"Bet"
Undertale speedrunners: hold my Punch Card
You can speedrun anything if you believe in yourself... as in believe in your ability to cheat.
@@naught_. the way you put it makes speed-running is a competition about who is the best cheater who tells everyone how they are cheating.
@@sblower9410 The way I see it, cheating in video games involves interacting with it in a way contrary to what the original developer intended, defeating the purpose of its existence. So yeah, it's a battle to see who can distort a game's original vision the best, like making a collage painting with a whole bunch of unrelated works of art.
@@naught_. I prefer to save the word "cheating" for things that are more like theft. IE: your stealing the glory of your peers. It is unreasonable in my view to call merely using a game as a platform as a form of cheating. That undermines the true damage that cheaters do to their communities.
Man Aerith's theme used to make me cry everytime I heard it. You did an excellent job playing it!
The Mass Effect galaxy map music in the middle of this was nice
I honestly think majora's mask was better than OoT as much as I didn't want it to be true as a kid. it felt way more cohesive, populated, and generally all together. the game loop time mechanic was also just so interesting, such a great expansion on the time travel function in OoT. no adult link might lower the score a bit but it's offset by having zora link anyway so whatever! also come on underwater swimming? having water zones? OoT water areas were ALL painfully shallow if you'll excuse the pun. the best stuff that happened with water was maybe the water temple and the fishing minigames. and the music! so much joy and dread that they really made you feel, also in the people's words as the end grew closer. it really is a special game.
I have to admit FF7 was THE reason I bought a Playstation. I still hold it in the highest regard. If I had to pick only 10 games out of my whole collection to keep and give up everything else, I would keep FF7, no compromises.
I get so excited when you upload, you introduce me to new and exciting speedruns 😭😭
Very interesting. Thanks for the video Karl.
First time I view the "sponsor section" of your videos for two times. The background music was one of (if not THE) favorite compositions in the game. Thank you very much for playing it
I love that speedrunning strats are sometimes just found by pure chance or by brute forcing the game's limits/mechanics years after the game was made.
I imagine that many speedrun strats can just make people go: "how in the HELL, did they find this out?".
As far as I'm aware, people still don't know what caused that upwarp in TTC in SM64.
@@justicegaming1412 I think they found out it was a random cosmic ray
@@justicegaming1412 yeah it was something with the cartridge
@@justicegaming1412 Random solar particle collided with the N64 and changed a single bit value for Mario's elevation.
Stuff like that is common enough that most modern electronics have some form of correction mechanism for it, or even shielding against it for stuff like flight computers.
Regarding your opening: Top lists tend to be more about influence than actually how good a game is. Ocarina of Time is one of the absolutely most influential games of all time because of a lot of wonderful design decisions, especially for UI and control components, but it's far from the best game out there. It's extremely short, very linear, super easy, uses waiting to try to feel like difficulty for combat, and the time it takes to use the iron boots adds up to too much... Despite all of the waiting for openings and the delays from the iron boots, I still completed the game, with all 100 skulltulas, on the same Christmas day that I first obtained the game because of how incredibly short it is. The linearity of the game also greatly reduces its replayability. This isn't to say that it's in any way a bad game... It isn't. It's great. It's still one of the best despite these flaws because of how great it is elsewise... But it's easily outclassed in how much fun it brings by many other Zelda titles, and by the best of the best non-Zelda games as well.
OoT is not short at all. It takes 20+ hours to complete on a first playthrough. Most adventure games these days are between 12 and 30 hours. It is a bit linear but there's enough to do and explore that you don't need to be on the main quest path the whole time. You also don't have to wait in combat unless you just stand there and don't make use of items. If waiting for an opening was truly as issue no one would like Dark Souls.
Yea u got all skulltulas in one day lol keep lying
@@soundboyeric2276 You can hear them, and the map tells you what areas you've finished finding them in. That made it super simple for anyone paying attention.
Every other collectible in the series I can think of right now off the top of my head, Secret Seashells, rings from the Oracle games, Maiaimais, Gratitude Crystals, etc... Skulltullas took less time to search for and find than any one of the others, because every time you entered an area with one, you'd just hear that loud chittering and know that there's a skulltulla. It's the same reason none of Metroid Prime's missiles or energy tanks were what I'd call "Hidden", because they all had a loud hum to them making them easy to hear if you were in the right room. (Though that game took me a few days to complete, simply because of its larger scope.) Audio cues just give collectibles away and make them almost impossible to miss.
FF7 ... this one will have a ton of views!
It would be very interesting to see a video highlighting major potential skips that people are working on across various games, but haven't been found yet. The kind of limitations that speedrunners say "man it would be nice if I could skip this whole section". If there were enough of these known wanted skips it may fill an entire video.
Karl you have such an amazing ability to tell a story I could listen to you talk about anything. The fact that you happen to talk about video games a true life long passion of mine is just bonus.
I can't be more great full than being an absolute legend 💜
Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for making this very entertaining glimpse into FF7 speedrunning
I don't think you can objectively say a video game is the best of all time because art is an entirely subjective medium
Dang FFVII getting a lot of love lately.
First SomeCallMeJohnny's review of that came out and now this.
I thought the same! Both were awesome videos too!
That AVGN Turtles review reference was very clever lol, nice touch. Love it!
I absolutely ADORE FFVII and Remake. Love some of the ideas in AC CC and love how it's being done in remake. Dirge is dirge and somehow its not terrible in remake. Remake brought me into the franchise and even though I was 16 when I played the game last year, I feel almost like a feeling of nostalgia for it. Amazing and in my opinion still holds up amazing.
Honestly, I just feel like the story is gonna get better, they managed to make the Dirge story not terrible so clearly they're already performing miracles on the series. (BTW, I love Dirge but I will admit that the story wasn't exactly the best XD)
5:54 actual speedrun related content starts
8:57 the actual skip mentioned in the title
The best game of all time being decided by popularity is pretty questionable. The majority is wrong in most cases, why would they hold the most sway over this?
agreed. OoT isn't even the best zelda, let alone the best game of all time... but that's nostalgia for you.
@@Simon-xi7lb Same goes for FF7, its not even the best FF or the best game square soft made, FF6 and Chrono trigger were always superior.
YES!!! Same goes for Super Mario 64! It's not the best 3D platformer ever made nor the best Mario game! (this is the OBJECTIVE TRUTH!!! I'm so cool amirite)
This is why best game lists are stupid, that sort of thing will always be subjective. You could easily make an objective list about the most _influential_ games, though.
So Oscars are worthless because they are a representation of what is more popular among the academy professionals voting?
As per usual karl is goated with the updates, hope you’re doing well with your battle my friend, I wish you nothing but good luck and just know we’re all here for you
I figured out that cosmo canyon glitch myself when the game was first released. I feel like being part of one of those cases of science discoveries happening in antiquity, being lost for centuries before being discovered once again. But the Kalm glitch is astonishing!
I've seen at least a few of your videos over the years.. and as someone who never tried to glitch or do anything out of the normal while playing games, I find these very interesting. People are insane. Great video. This game is tied to my life.. I was 13 when I played this.
FF7 is my favourite game of all time. The music and plot is so poignant. Great to see that this could also be speed run!
It’s baffles me that players are still discovering new things from FF7.
I had a feeling this was possible too. It's always great to see speedrunners finding new ways to break old games!
Another trick: you can actually skip areas by switching the disk into a wrong game/disc (not disc number, since most things are the same in each disc except movies and SNOVA folder in disc 3). It causes the game to put already loaded areas into the horizon. To do this, make sure you're far from the destination and then switch the disc. It happens because the game only loads areas outside the horizon, the game will load areas when you walk to it and remove the areas as you walk far from the area (due to RAM and/or graphical limitations). For some reason, the devs programmed the game to put the wrong maps (previously loaded maps) when you use a wrong disc instead of crashing the game / blank areas due to wrong data (in FF8, you cannot cross the unloaded areas because there are invisible walls on the horizon)
Not sure if this can be done on actual PS1 but I did this on an emulator (I was using PSXfin) for fun
Idk, I feel like saying ocarina is the best game ever is kinda like saying Morphy is the best chess player ever. In actuality, there have been a TON of players since then that can play more accurately than Morphy could, because the game has evolved a lot. Similarly, I think tons of better games have come out since ocarina. It's more the context around the game than anything that puts it in the conversation.
I agree with this and Morphy would be about 2600 by today's standards, not even a super GM, which is 2700+. I don't think Ocarina of Time is one of the best games but that's probably because I didn't play it till years after it came out so I don't have that nostalgia.
@@wheelhouse15 ocarina absolutely was one of the best games ever when it came out, and it's fair to say that it expanded the idea of what a video game could be. I think it deserves reverence for its place in video game history. But yeah, I dont think the gameplay holds up all that well, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of games I'd rather play than ocarina now.
@@SJNaka101 That's one thing I can't really say because I didn't own a NES or Super NES. To me it was just something I played later on so I can't really compare it to anything at the time fairly because I don't remember what was out at that time.
You can DEFINITELY outrun the Zolom, actually. I have no idea of the mechanics of how it works but I know i've done it on both the PS2 and on PC, just as a personal challenge.
I do know it was hard as fuck though and took me dozens of attempts at least, both times I did it. I specifically remember though, waiting until it was facing into and going into a corner, and then run perfectly towards the Mithril Mines. Then I would make it, just barely.
Not useful info for the speedrun, or the video even, but I wanted to clarify that it at least should be possible.
Speedrunners for FFVII actually wouldn't use a chocobo to get passed the Zolom originally. There's a small piece of the mountain that sticks out in the middle of the marsh on the north side, and if you wait behind it, the Zolom will bounce off that corner of the mountain and go the opposite direction instead of reaching you.
That's how we used to do that section before kalm skip. There's a trick to it where you can have Zolom hit the mountains and slithers away from you instead of at you. Takes a little practice but once you get it, you'll never forget how to do it
@@NixXRemade Thank you so much for the clarification! I thought that that was true.
Crazy that I figured out a speed-trick before I even knew speedrunning existed!
@@d13sel51 Thank you so much for the clarification! I thought that that was true.
Crazy that I figured out a speed-trick before I even knew speedrunning existed!
The flashback scene at Kalm wasn't incredibly boring. Come on now. Greatest story ever.
Krappa
Yeah that made me do a double take like "what?? he just call the Sephiroth flashbacks boring?"
He meant it in the context of a speedrun, evidently
Thank you, man. This game was what bonded me and my brothers growing up. It was so fresh, I still remember that opening sequence with Aeris like it was yesterday. I don't think this generation of kids realize how lucky they are, nor will they ever understand the feeling of playing a game and feel so immersed in the world's lore. My kids have so many games to play, they switch games every 30 minutes. They just want something quick and satisfying. They just don't have our patience. The "times" have changed. I'm grateful I experienced it first-hand. Great story, music, dialogue. This game gave me and my brothers a lot of philosophical nights and pretty much shaped and broaden my thinking.
Your subconscious editing mind knows the true best game of all time, which is why Celeste music is playing as you talk about it.
Quite Possibly the Greatest Video Ever Made
Always a good time when you upload. You sir, are the legend.
Oh hell yes Karl! It's four am here in the states and I'm wide awake and can't sleep. I am so very grateful for this upload. Ff7 is most definitely one of the greatest games ever made.
I discovered the canyon breakdown one as a kid. One guy spoke of the mithril mines, and noone believed him but me, lol. It was also a point of pride to have max time on the game too.
good video karl, as a longtime speedrunner of FF7 its nice for it to get some love, the guys who found these glitches are great people and deserve all the praise and accolades thanks for a fun and thorough look at the new glitches that have come in FF7