Game:

Final Fantasy VI (1994)

Duration: 14:21

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First off, if you want to see how we get a perfect IAF Sequence (every battle has only two enemies, giving the minimum amount of EXP), check out    • Final Fantasy VI Low Level Game - Man...  . We don't even need to perform this manipulation multiple times, so it doesn't hamper our ability to take attempts at this section.

This IAF Sequence is a bit different than usual because Gau isn't here to take all of the EXP. This means that we need to make a decision on how the EXP should be distributed. We can't avoid our level average being brought above 7 in this run, so we should give Edgar enough EXP to reach that level. Edgar also can't go above level 9 since that would increase Gogo's level. Finally, we want to level Locke over Cyan since Locke gets a variety of useful weapons for the next section of the game while Cyan's weapons are all pointless beatsticks and nothing he can do really stands out.

Beyond that, there are a few options. We could lower the maximum level of our party as much as possible (Edgar 9, Cyan 9, Locke 9, Gogo 9), or we could try to lower our average level (Edgar 7, Cyan 7, Gogo 9, Locke 12 is a possibility). However, I decided to go with the metric of wasting the maximum possible amount of EXP; it's a little harder to calculate, but this best reflects the spirit of the LLG IMO. This results in the spread of Edgar 8, Cyan 8, Locke 10, Gogo 9, which is just barely possible to achieve.

Now on to the strategy. This part originally seemed quite nasty. Absolute Zero from the Spit Fires has always been the bane of LLGers. It's hard (if not impossible) to pre-empt the Spit Fires due to the Pincer Attack, meaning that even if we can kill or incapacitate the enemies in one hit (we can't), we still need to deal with a 1/3 chance of dying in every fight. That stacks up really quickly. In addition, we don't have great answers to Chupon's Fire Ball, Ultros' Tentacle, or half the crud that Air Force can do.

I originally thought that jumpcheese would be less powerful here since the original jumpcheese strat couldn't reliably handle multiple enemies at the same time. If multiple enemies are attacking, the second enemy can delay our landing, meaning that the first enemy's ATB will recharge too quickly to deal with. Enemies having different speeds can help throw off the strat as well. However, having three or more characters allows us to upgrade the cheesiness from an 8/10 to a 10/10.

Here's how it works. Let's assume that we are able to jump with all three characters at approximately the same time. The enemies attack while the characters are in the air, so we avoid their attacks on this cycle. When the first character lands, they should sometimes get attacked before they can get in the air again. However, the other characters are also going to land before that first enemy attacks. By run-stalling between each character landing, we have tons of time to get the first character in the air again.

But it get dumber than that. Now that the first character is able to jump, we have another animation delaying the enemies. So we can continue to run-stall and chain Jump animations until all three characters are in the air again! Remember that Jump takes priority, so no matter how long we take to input the command, Jump will always go off. Because we've run-stalled for so long, the enemies will always take their turns as soon as we get into the air again, and the cycle repeats itself. In other words, we can reliably Jump over everything even with many enemies on the field!

There are still a couple things to note though. We equip Edgar with a spear (which can't proc any spells), and always have him Jump last to avoid a proc throwing off the timing in one way or another. During the regular battles, we give Locke auto-Haste so that he'll pre-empt the enemies with a well-timed run-stall and give Cyan auto-Haste so that he'll pre-empt Edgar. In this way, the battles are consistent. Edgar just takes a damage-boosting Relic.

However, I was having trouble getting the strategy to work against Ultros and Chupon. It always seemed like Chupon would start slipping in attacks before Edgar would land. At first, I thought this was because Ultros' text boxes were screwing things up somehow, but the answer turned out to be a lot simpler than that. Chupon is just really, *really*, slow. I didn't consider this at first because enemy speeds aren't usually that impactful, but in this case it made a huge difference. To remedy this, we increase the battle speed to 3 to make Chupon fast enough while still having high odds of pre-empting Air Force's attacks. I also modified my equipment to even out my speeds, but I don't think this mattered.

Note that Ultros still hits Cyan once at the start, but I planned for this to happen. Cyan needs to land before Locke, so we need to wait before jumping with Locke, and Ultros never does anything dangerous on the first turn of the fight.

(continued in the comments)

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