Game:

Final Fantasy VII (1997)

Duration: 10:06

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5

I have made up a new strategy for Demons Gate.
One that finishes Demons Gate before it ever gets to attack.

For this to work, Tifa must be (at least) on Level 19 and her Strength must be (at least) 43.
In addition thereto, one needs two Right Arms.

As Demons Gate has 10,000 HP, as a Right Arm does around 1,250 HP of damage and Tifa's Deathblow about 1,900 HP of damage under these circumstances, 4 Death Blows and 2 Right Arms will be just enough to kill Demons Gate.

While I was watching lolo262626' Speedrun Strategies video on Demons Gate, I realized that even when resorting to a so called "perfect tactic", one still needs at least 1:40 min to defeat Demons Gate.
I find this horribly long. Even worse, a huge amount of that time is just wasted when Demons Gate uses Demon Rush and pulls itself back to the back of the screen after that attack.

Therefore, I looked for a way to defeat Demons Gate before it may use Demons Rush even once.
The obvious solution was to slow Demons Gate but, as I don't have access to Slow, I had to discard this idea again.
So, I studied Demons Gate AI and found something very intriguing:

Here's what you need to know about Demons Gate's AI:
At the beginning of the battle, Demons Gate will randomly set its turn count to an integer between 0 and 4.
If its turn count is 0 or 1, Demons Gate will start off with Falling Rocks; if it is 2, it will use Cave-in; if it is 3, it will use Petrif-Eye or Falling Rocks.
Moreover, its turn count will be incremenetd by 1 after any of these attacks and randomly reset to 0, 1 or 2 once it reaches 3.

More interesting is what happens if its turn count is 4.
Namely, it will use an attack called Advance, which is actually just an attack animation (it will swing around its arms and move closer to the characters).

Now comes the intriguing part.
If Demons Gate's turn count is 4, there is a 1/3 chance it will be set to 5 and a 2/3 chance that it will be set to 6.
If Demons Gate's turn count is 6, Demons Gate will use Demon Rush and its turn count will be reset to 0.

If it is 5, on the other hand, Demons Gate will do nothing and just increase its turn count to 6.

You can probably already guess what Demons Gate's optimal behavior would be.
But there's even more.

The first time one reduces Demons Gate's HP to 7,500 or below, Demons Gate's turn count will also be set to 4.

If one employs the Wait Trick and uses the information on Demons Gate's AI, it is very well possible (provided all Deathblows connect) to beat Demons Gate in only 50 seconds.

Here is how that works:

Demons Gate's inital turn count is 4 (which happens with a probability of 1/5), and it is then set to 5 (1/3). Meanwhile, Aerith casts Death Sentence on Tifa and Tifa hits Demons Gate with a first Deathblow. Demons Gate gets another turn but does nothing, its turn count is set to 6 though. Tifa hits Demons Gate with another Deathblow. As Demons Gate's HP is thereby reduced to less than 7,500, its turn count is set to 4.
Demons Gate gets another turn but only swings its arms, its turn count is once again set to 5 (1/3). Cloud throws a Right Arm and Tifa damages Demons Gate with a third Deathblow. Demons Gate gets another turn but does nothing. Its turn count is set to 6, Demon Rush is imminent. Aerith throws a Right Arm and Tifa successfully uses Deathblow on Demons Gate for a fourth time. Demons Gate dies.

So, the probability of the optimal battle is 1/45 on Demons Gate's side. Unfortunately, it seems to be much lower on Tifa's side (all 4 consecutive Deathblows must hit; if you enjoy resets, this will be fun).
Combining these two requirements, one likely ends up with odds of 1/100 to 1/1,000 (I did not care to calculate the Deathblow hit chance for this battle since there is really no need for additional pessimism...).

Thankfully, it takes less than 30 seconds to fight Demons Gate again after a soft reset.

It ended up spending three weekend sessions (around 60 hours) on this segment, which is absolutely uneventful except for the Demons Gate battle. This may sound like a lot of time, but it did not in the least feel as terrible as the Jenova-BIRTH battle...

03:55:54

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