Game:

Final Fantasy VII (1997)

Duration: 3:07

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8

This is where everything falls apart. In a way.

Normally, one is merely supposed to wait for Diamond Weapon to reach the shores of Midgar, which is where one can then engage in the Diamond Weapon boss battle.

It takes Diamond around 135 in-game seconds to arrive there.
He advances as long as one is oneself on the world map. If one is not on the world map, Diamond does not move on.

Therefore, I obviously lose some time in this segment because I spend time on field maps. However, the time I lose (around 40 seconds) is spent extremely well as I will be able to make up around 4 minutes with the 40 seconds I "waste" here.

As you probably already know, I will skip the return to Midgar, which, albeit being utterly time-saving (about 12 minutes are saved), means that I will not acquire Cloud's Ragnarok. This can be a very detrimental consequence of the Midgar Skip since the Ragnarok is Cloud's second best weapon, not only in terms of Attack but also due to its magic boost.
To be precise, the Ragnarok increases Cloud's magic stat by 43, which is surpassed only by the Ultima Weapon (+51) and matched by the Apocalypse.

Obviously, I cannot get the Ultima Weapon or the Apocalypse but Cloud still needs (it later turned out he actually does not) the magic boost. So, I decided to get the Heaven's Cloud, the magic boost of +31 of which makes it Cloud's third best weapon for that purpose.
Also, I get the Heaven's Cloud because I had to visit the Gelnika anyway.

While Tifa is no doubt the most potent damage dealer in this speedrun, one can improve on that.
What's better than having Tifa in your party?
Having 1.5 Tifas in your party.

Cid, equipped with his Venus Gospel and the Ziedrich (+20 Strength), will in fact be able to deal around half the damage Tifa is capable of inflicting.

But there is even more.
Added Cut=Deathblow is nice, but 2xCut is almost as good, and it's just within reach.
Fortunately, I was able to enter and exit the Gelnika all the time without getting a random battle (escaping such a battle would have been almost impossible).
Had I got a random battle there on the other hand, I would have had to save inside the Gelnika first and split this segment into two in order to make that random battle disappear, which would have cost me around 3-4 seconds.

Finally, there is menuing at the end, which I have grown quite fond of.

In between, there is still a tiny detail. Getting two War Gongs in exactly one world map battle. It was worse than stealing two Right Arms in exactly two attempts 30 segments ago.

As I had to get into the Grand Horn battle quickly, I had to run around like a maniac, which means that I could not even make sure to get that 2 Grand Horn battle all the time, and I ended up getting that 2 Grand Horn encounter in only 1 out of 4 battles on average.
Getting two War Gongs is even worse, the probability of winning two is around 2%.
So, on average I should have had to spend 200 attempts to win two War Gongs in one 2 Grand Horn battle.
I had to spend definitely more than twice that number of attempts before it worked out the way it should...

06:11:53

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