Everyone's had a moment a game at some point, when they think to themselves "This is impossible. I can't go on." You either reached an insanely hard part, went ahead too far without leveling up enough, or were simply outclassed. That would be what I call a "Long Shot."

My area of expertise is overcoming those troubles.

Note: Spoilers ahead for two FFVIII bosses.

Two of my earliest memories of overcoming the near impossible was Final Fantasy VIII. Namely, the fight with Diablos and the (first?) fight with Raijin and Fujin where Balamb is occupied and cannot be left.

The first fight, Diablos, I remember vaguely but I still remember it.



When I was a kid of around...lessee, 1999 ish, maybe around 2000 so... When I was about 7 or 8, my sister had gotten Final Fantasy VIII for Christmas. She kept issuing threats to my brother and I that SHEBETTERFINISHTHEGAMEFIRSTORSHE'LL blah blah blah. I had a save a little bit in, but something happened and it was deleted. I was crushed. All my time and effort, gone. My sister, however, had had an old save a bit further in from mine, specifically, on the train from Balamb to Timber.

I remember that save. She had gotten on the train without training, and was under the impression that Diablos had to be defeated on the train. Whether or not that's true, I can't tell you, but she was inadequately leveled for the battle. Needless to say, she tried many times, each failing and ending with a long string of profanities and ending with an angry smash of the power button. She eventually gave up, restarted the whole game, and power leveled to destroy Diablos and then proceed to trash talk the television screen.

Anyway, I decided, "Hey, why don't I try?" My sister scoffed and said "Go for it, but you won't win."

So I load the save, check junctions, etc. Don't do much, and initiate the battle with Diablos.

It rages on for a good half hour of draw-cast Demi and Scan, and having Squall pound on him with attacks.

Sooner or later he goes down, and my sister threatens to hit me. It was good.

However, the victory was bittersweet as when I got back to Balamb in disc 2...



Never have I hated a pair of bosses than I have Raijin and Fujin.

This battle came as a surprise to me. I was kinda low leveled for this area. I had gone into Balamb, and at that point in the game, it's occupied by Galbadian soldiers. You can't leave to train on enemies, and you must defeat Raijin and Fujin to continue.

I couldn't.

I'd try days at a time to whoop those two, but Fujin's irritating Sai attack would generally spell the end for my party. I'd do it for days, weeks, until finally...I gave up. I was about to restart, but I began to think of all that time spent would be wasted. So I didn't. I quit FFVIII until maybe circa five years ago. I got a dexdrive from my sister's friend and went through my games to check what saves I could get and mess with (as I was lacking of a gameshark at the time.) and decided to try FFVIII. There was a save with all items I began to screw around with, when I remembered my game still existed.

So I decided, I'd try one last time before putting the nail in the coffin for that save. I load it up, went straight for Raijin as usual, and whooped him and his guards like always.

Then Fujin steps in. Draw Pandemona, the fight begins. And I win.

Somehow, something changed in those five years. Whatever it was, I finally defeated Rai and Fu, and continued on with my quest, stopping only because my discs died.

Those are nothing special, really. Just triumph over normal RPG bosses. My real favorite long shot was...



The bikes in Battletoads.

Somewhere in my hell of a house is a copy of the good old Battletoads game for the NES. I'd play it with friends, my brother would try to beat it, and all that. But there was just one stage my older brother could never beat. It was the infamous bike stage of Battletoads.

The bikes have been legendary for being almost-friggin'-impossible to beat. I had watched my brother try and fail on many occasions. He'd give up afterwords, or do the stage select cheat to get past it to beat the game.

I, one day, was playing it alone and decided I'd try to go through the whole game. My chubby 6 year old fingers get me to the bike stage and remember all the times my brother had failed. He comes in, waiting to laugh when I fail at the stage.

It starts, the bikes move slowly, everything is easy. It speeds up, gets harder. Before I know it my eyes are scrolling from right to left quickly and my jumps keep in time to avoid holes and my movements avoid the walls. Suddenly, it ends. The bike segment has been passed. I rejoice, and my jealous brother resets the NES.

I've completed many more "Long Shots", but those three are some of my favorites. My expertise lies in things others can't easily do, but I seem to be almost a natural at.

Of course, my expertise may also be the ability to spin long-winded tall tales out of indelible short stories of triumph. Which is, of course, a way fancier way of saying "bullshit."

~Culex