Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game in the entire series and I also happen to be a huge fan of speedruns. There’s something about watching someone show off everything they’ve learned about a game they’ve played thousands of times, executing incredibly difficult maneuvers just to shave off a second or two.
RPG speedruns are a whole different beast. Watching someone destroy Skyrim in an hour is cool, but Final Fantasy VIII takes more than EIGHT FUCKING HOURS. That’s a lot of stuff to memorize and A LOT of mental stamina required to marathon it all in one sitting.
For starters, there’s a three-frame trick to guarantee a Triple Triad victory and obtain the Quistis card, then abusing the Limit Break mechanic by running during the Ifrit battle to avoid their animations. There’s randomness involved early on too, farming Fish Fins from Fastitocalons using Quistis’s Laser Eye Limit Break. It’s… a lot.
I’ve watched a few other people run the game in the past, but I’m currently watching SophLUL’s run during her appearance at the all-female runner Frost Fatales 2020 earlier this year and thought it was super informative. So I wanted to share it with you folks. Enjoy!
Cheap Boss Attack 
Speedruns fucking fascinate me. So do those modified Mario games. I’m about to find a speedrun of Celeste because my eyes need to be impressed with that level of skill.
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I’m fascinated by speedrunning as well, it’s weirdly thrilling and engaging. I can HIGHLY recommend the YouTube channel Summoning Salt if you don’t know it. He breaks down (in very detailed videos) the world record attempts for all you favourite video games. Except FFVIII at the moment, unfortunately.
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Sounds good to me! I’m fascinated watching people do things well that I can’t do at all :D
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Aye, they had rad skills, yo! Puts me to shame, in a geeky way.
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