This is a single segment (RTA) speedrun of the North American version of Final Fantasy Tactics, completed in 3 hours, 58 minutes, and 26 seconds. The game was played on a PS2 90001 with Fast Disc Speed set, and originally completed on January 19th, 2015. This run aims for fastest possible completion.

This is an update to my 40812, located here:    • Final Fantasy Tactics NA Any% RTA in ...  . An almost 10 minute improvement, this run contains many strategy optimizations compared to the 408, in addition to better luck. I honestly never thought sub4 would be achieved,, but I'd like to give a big shoutout to fellow runner eLmaGus, who pushed me to try for it (in addition to being the first one to actually get it).

There are too many optimizations to fully list, but to cover the basics:

Overall:
Further optimized all the grind battles
Optimized camera rotations (the camera automatically rotates to show a unit if he's not visible, and this can be avoided by rotating it yourself manually during enemy turns, or during the movement of your own units)
Optimized camera zoomouts (zooming out the camera for every battle is almost always faster)
Optimized cursor movements (nothing major, but some fights use different Math combinations to save a few frames)
All instances of Float are removed unless required for consistency (It wastes 2 3 seconds at the start of the battle if any unit has Float equipped)

Per battle:
Gariland Magic City: Better starting formation which allows for a consistently faster fight, as well as greater odds of being able to kill the front Squire via Throw Stone usage
Golgorand Execution Site: Flare is used instead of Holy, which is faster even in average cast scenarios. The exception is if Gafgarion evades (causing a long dialogue sequence)
Underground Book Storage 2nd Floor: Flare is again used instead of Holy. Setting Float on Ramza allows for a quick backup strat regardless of enemy actions, so long as the Time Mages don't survive
Bed Desert: Skipped taking Rafa as a dummy unit. Mustadio with an Angel Ring accomplishes the same thing. (Starting formation is important in this fight, or else Balk's poison overrides the Reraise)
Bethla Sluice: Haste 2 is used instead of Haste. This is a few seconds slower, but Haste 2 has 100% accuracy and improves consistency in this fight (shoutouts to cha0s for pointing out this spell exists)
Outside Limberry Castle: Flare is used instead of Holy. Unfortunately in this run, Lede evades the spell, so I end up losing time and am forced to use a backup strategy
Altima: Cleaned up the strategy in this fight to only use Ramza & Orlandu (Meliadoul is no longer needed)



Overall, the execution & decision making in this run was very good. The luck was also superb for the entirety of Ch. 1 3, but less than ideal in Ch. 4. I got quite a few random encounters in Ch. 4, in addition to a poor Orlandu. Nonetheless, I'm pretty satisfied with this run... even though it took me about 10 months to upload it to Youtube. (which coincidentally, is the same number of random encounters I got).

Improvements that can be made to this run (outside of better luck):
A better text mashing technique was discovered for Orbonne, that applies until you set options during Ramza's first turn. By holding O and mashing X, it simulates the effects of Fast text speed, saving ~5 seconds.
A better Math combination is possible in Araguay Woods (HeightPrimeBolt3), which accomplishes the same thing as CT3Bolt3, but spares the Bolt 3 animation on Boco.
CT3Flare can likely be used at Outside Murond without major repercussions (in an average case scenario).

I'd say the best theoretical time for this category would be a 3:55:XX, which would involve quite a bit of grinding. It's unlikely I will ever try to achieve this time, as I'm pretty happy with sub4.

Thanks for watching! I'll be uploading the raw tape of my J No Math PB soon as well, and that video (as well as all future videos) will be in 60 FPS. Apologies for the 30 FPS on this one.

For more info:

Twitch: twitch (dot) tv/claude (Yes, I got a name change from theclaude!)
Twitter: @ClaudeFFT

See you next crime!