I like to think that I’m a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, but I must admit that I’d never heard of Final Fantasy Legend until today, much less played it. It was kind of a big deal, apparently: it was the first RPG on the Gameboy, was the first Square game to sell over a million copies, and was the first game in what would go on to become the SaGa series. It’s final boss, The Creator, also sparked a JRPG trope that continues to this day: the ultimate goal of most JRPGs is to kill some sort of deity. Makai Toushi Sa-Ga was released in the States in 1989, but carried the Final Fantasy title to help marketing (a nifty trick Square Enix still hasn’t grown out of).
Makai Toushi Sa-Ga featured three classes: humans, mutants, and monsters. Humans leveled up by equipping and using items, and mutants by fighting in battles. Monsters, on the other hand, only got stronger by eating the “meat” dropped by enemies. It seems like a proto-Devil Summoner, except with cannibalization. That alone makes Legend the best Final Fantasy, ever. Period. But if that weren’t enough, there’s also a one-hit kill chainsaw weapon, and, depending on your class, your character might not have a face — only a skull.
Anyway, that’s a really long introduction for a Final Fantasy Legend speedrun video below the jump. I know that the words speedrun and Final Fantasy* seem like an oxymoron, but Legend can be beaten in about two minutes — the ending sequence takes longer than the actual game.
As Kevin from Magweasel explains, the speedrun relies on a series of glitches that allow you to warp to different places, access characters and weapons that are stronger than they should be, travel 16 times faster than usual, and bypass all of the game’s puzzles.
Hit the jump to see the speedrun in action and if, like me, you’ve never played Final Fantasy Legend, you can enjoy the game’s final sequence — that is, of course, if you read Japanese.
[Via TinyCartridge]
*Fun fact! In Final Fantasy IX, if you reach Memoria in under 12 hours, you can get Excalibur, the most powerful sword in the game.
