Game:

Final Fantasy VII (1997)

Duration: 29:12

1,772 views

23

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Final Time: 06:40:07

- Time right before Bizarro-Sephiroth, last time the menu clock is visible: 06:34:17
- 00:05:50 from exiting the menu for the last time until the damage of the finishing strike on Sephiroth is shown
- 06:34:17 + 00:05:50 = 06:40:07
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Firstly, I need to grab Tifa's Hero Drink and Cait Sith's Elixir before I leave for the Final Descent.

The Final Descent consists of two screens with pseudo-random battles. Whenever Cloud jumps to another plattform, there is a 76/256 chance (roughly 29.7%) a battle will occur.
If a battle ocurs, it will be either against an Allemagne (26/256 chance), a Dragon Zombie (102/256) or an Iron Man (128/256).
13 jumps have to be performed to reach Jenova-SYNTHESIS, and it is perfectly possible to accomplish this without triggering any battle at all. The probability of that event is (180/256)^13, which is equal to slightly more than 1%.

Interestingly, how many battles one gets on the entire Final Descent seems to be determined by the time one leaves for the first Final Descent screen. I did not take the time to analyze this most thoroughly but simply spent a few days on spending slightly different amounts of time before leaving for that screen...

By all means, do not accept more than 1 battle on the Final Descent (6.6%). Better yet, do not accept any battles at all.
Just getting into those battles wastes time but, even worse, you will probably end up severely damaged, in particular if you encounter Iron Men, which makes even more menuing necessary.
On top of that, it is almost impossible to escape from these battles quickly. If you encounter Dragon Zombies, you will most likely have to witness two attacks and lose at least half a minute as Dragon Zombie only has attacks with aggravatingly long animations.

Also, this is the final segment. You have all the time in the world to get this right. So drink your goddamn TEA and take your time.

Jenova-SYNTHESIS is the first final boss and already the most difficult with my strategy. As soon as her HP drops from 60,000 to below 15,000, she will start her Ultima countdown and not attack again before the counter reaches zero.
The fastest way to inflict more than 45,000 HP of damage to Jenova is by having Cid Deathblow=Added Cut her for more than 9K HP and having Tifa 2xCut her twice under the Berserk status for more than 19K HP each.
When a character is afflicted with the Berserk status, they will choose their target randomly. There are three enemies in this battle and Tifa's first two 2xCuts must hit Jenova-SYNTHESIS A, which happens with a probability of 1/9, and Tifa's final 2xCut(s) may hit Jenova-SYNTHESIS B and C as well without losing too much time.
I was quite lucky that Tifa's third 2xCut hit Jenova-SYNTHESIS A instead of her arms, resulting in a perfect battle. Still, even in the worst case, Tifa killing both of Jenova's arms first, I would have lost only 10 seconds.

Bizarro-Sephiroth is the second final boss and by far the easiest, thanks to ATB on Wait.
There is only condition that must be met: His opening move, Sephiroth Shock must not kill anyone or be critical on Cid.
One word of advice: Do not even consider killing off Bizarro's other limbs, for you lose more than 15 seconds on waiting for a "Sephiroth's ugly and feeble body part ... has died" notification.
As Bizarro has solely 40,000 HP, Cid and a heroic Tifa will finish that cute entity in just three turns.

Safer-Sephiroth is the truly final boss and ranges on the difficulty scale somewhere between Bizarro-Sephiroth and Jenova-SYNTHESIS.
A few things must work out in this fight: Cid must not miss any of his two Deathblows, Shadow Flare may not kill Tifa or Cid and Safer's physical attack may not kill Tifa or Cid either.
To be perfectly honest, Cloud's only purpose in this battle, after having cast DeBarrier on Safer-Sephiroth, is that of a human shield. His only considerable source of damage, Ultima, takes too much time to perform and barely deals 6K HP of damage.

Finally, there is Sephiroth and I found a revolutionarily entertaining new way of dealing with him... ;]

Thanks to everybody who has watched my speedrun. I hope you enjoyed it.

Special thanks to:
-Farringa for having completed the first segmented FF7 run in 2007
-GarlandTheGreat for having written a speedrun guide which I made thorough use of
-BrutalAl for having provided me with several ways to gain time through his expertise and glitch discoveries
-antdgar3 for having worked on a TAS of FF7 in 2009 which I based several of my earlier boss battle strategies on
-lolo262626 for having conceived of his speedrun boss battle strategies which I used for guidance
-Gjørulv for having reincited my interest in FF7 in 2010 with his Hardcore Mod
-Acro of ff7.fr for having created the most comprehensive and in-depth FF7 website I know of
-Tobias

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