Who has the worst AI?

[u/Fair_Cold_4616]

Marked for spoilers due to the inclusion of Marcassin

87 votes, 25d ago

18 Oliver

47 Esther

17 Swaine

5 Marcassin

[u/lilwizerd]

I speedrun this game, I can definitively say Oliver. He will really be fighting a deity and unironically go for fireball. Then there's the incessant casting of ward. Esther can feel worse sometimes, but this is a trick. She only dies more often because she has the least health.

[u/Fair_Cold_4616 → u/lilwizerd]

Yeah, Oliver always seems to use spells like Fireball for the bosses and then use spells like Astra for some random enemies on the world map, lol.

I speedrun this game

That’s so cool! What’s your fastest run time, if you don’t mind me asking?

[u/lilwizerd → u/Fair_Cold_4616]

Thank you, and I don’t mind! My personal PB is 5:22:03 for easy mode, and 9:11:07 for normal mode. To be fair, I could probably drive the normal mode time down quite a bit, but I haven’t run it in a while.

[u/Fair_Cold_4616 → u/lilwizerd]

Wow, 5 & 9 hours to complete the entire game is crazy to me; I’ve always felt this was a pretty lengthy game, in part due to the amount of grinding it requires by virtue of being a JRPG. Do you use glitches, or are they glitchless runs? Extremely impressive either way!

[u/lilwizerd → u/Fair_Cold_4616]

This game is actually very refined, so there are no glitches used in the run. I believe on PS3 and Nintendo Switch, there’s an infinite money glitch which is very easy to pull off, but I don’t run those versions so I’m not familiar with them. I do know of one glitch in the remasters that lets you duplicate items, but it’s complicated and pretty slow. I use the casino and exploit the AI of the platoon table to get money for the run instead, and it’s about the same speed. The reason it’s so fast is because you skip all encounters lol, bosses only. There’s an exploit to make it so you can outrun any monsters(I don’t really consider it a glitch but I’d understand if you do) and you can get it right after ding dong well so you use that to avoid everything,

[u/Fair_Cold_4616 → u/lilwizerd]

There’s an exploit to make it so you can outrun any monsters

Wouldn’t you end up severely under-levelled, though? How do you get to a high enough level to be able to defeat the bosses?

[u/lilwizerd → u/Fair_Cold_4616]

That's a bit of a more complicated question, but it comes down to 2 main things, understanding the boss AI, and perfect attacks. Perfect attacks are really important, they let you get a whole attack cycle on the boss basically for free. You have to learn the timings of perfect attacks for all the bosses that can be hit with them. That makes Griffy, one of the familiar tickets that you start the game with, able to do a lot of damage to bosses super fast. But for some bosses, you can't perfect attack them, and those are the harder fights in the game. For example, Moltaan can't be perfect attacked most of the time, since his attacks are technically moves, so he's one of the hardest fights in the run. That's where learning the boss AI comes in. Again using Moltaan as an example, he can be exploited pretty easily because he loves to stand still and use his fire breath attack, so the main strategy is to run away from him and use water bomb with the fairy guy you are given, along with Frostbite from Oliver. Once he hits 50% health, he will immediately use volcanic roar, and can start using it at any point. If you learn the attack timing, you can dodge all damage from it 100% of the time. You keep doing the frostbite and water bomb, and if you time it carefully, you won't ever get caught by volcanic roar. The main crutch that lets you be underleveled is MP items, basically. After tombstone trail, you gamble in the casino for a ton of money, which you use for HP and MP items.

The other thing is that Marcassin is guaranteed to be level 49 when you get him, no matter what level the rest of the party is at. So you use him from then on in place of Swaine.

It might surprise you to learn that familiars are generally not very good(for speedrunning). Like, right after the moltaan fight, the fairy guy is benched forever. And just after you get the 3 orbs, your starting mite guy is also benched. You have Esther's starting guy and the golden version you get from the ticket in the party specifically for the fight against the machine guy in Hamelin(the second one), and then get rid of them. The final party lineup is just Oliver, then Esther with the final evolution of the Griffin, and then just Marcassin. That way, Oliver and Marcassin will cast magic to do their damage instead of using familiars, and getting in close, thus risking damage. Usually, you play as Esther controlling Griffy, and get perfect hits on the bosses to do damage. When you're waiting for his cooldown to go up, you use items to keep Marcassin and Oliver's MP topped up.

[u/Fair_Cold_4616 → u/lilwizerd]

I see. It clearly takes a lot of practice and time to speed run, as you have to learn the ins and outs of every boss fight in the game. I’d also imagine there’s a certain level of RNG involved when it comes to the AI of the bosses, as I’d expect you can’t predict what they’re going to do 100% of the time with complete accuracy.

It might surprise you to learn that familiars are generally not very good(for speedrunning)

Honestly, I’ve found this to be true for playing the game casually, as well. By around the middle of the game, Oliver is powerful enough and has unlocked enough moves you basically never use familiars, lol!

[u/Jack_Of_The_Cosmos]

Oliver has such a high ceiling that not controlling him is a massive opportunity cost.

[u/theshiningstarship]

Esther is stupid but Oliver wastes MP in the least cost effiecent way possible. Like I don't want ward for the 746738 time this battle :D

[u/Limp_Emergency8865]

Normally I'd say Oliver because I hate when he uses ward for no reason, but if you have him on use no MP then that (usually) isn't a problem

[u/Fair_Cold_4616 → u/Limp_Emergency8865]

I hate when he uses ward. I’ll be trying to farm items as Swaine and right before his animation finishes Oliver uses it and I have to do it all over again.

[u/CertifiedDumbass22]

From my current playthrough, I’d say Oliver. I’ve been spending a lot of time as Ester due to the Griffy, and Oliver loves spamming Smash Hit and Ray of Light.

[u/LagunaRambaldi → u/CertifiedDumbass22]

Yeah that sucks. I think you should set the tactics to "don't use abilities". But you probably knew this already.

[u/CertifiedDumbass22 → u/LagunaRambaldi]

Honestly, I probably should.

[u/danteslacie]

Esther dies pretty easy but if you equip her with good familiars, she's "ok". Oliver is the real dumb AI. I leave him alone for a second and he tries to solo the boss and he's dead by the time I get back to him.

I feel like the ones voting for Esther are those who only ever play as Oliver lol.

[u/Jedimobslayer]

Here’s the thing, yes it’s Esther, but she’s not as bad if you put her on provide backup I’ve found, instead of keep us healthy. She wastes less magic on unnecessary heals that way and actually tries to attack