RPG challenge videos

[Don]

The other day I was looking at this FFX2 video and it was like level 2, no death, blah blah blah, so it's like okay. Sure I know the guy is equipped with stuff that are best in the game at level 2 and have all the class skills but it's still worth checking out, and then I saw the guy keeps on dying on Shuyin and at the end it said 'no deaths means all 3 characters are alive at the end of the battle'.

I mean seriously, that's like saying IDDQD is a valid way for 'no damage on Doom2', given how trivial it is to bring people back from KO in any FF game. I realize RPGs probably don't make good tool-assisted videos but if you're going to that low why even bother calling it a challenge?

[SineSwiper]

Actually, some TAS videos for RPGs are pretty interesting, mainly for doing something wild with a glitch or some luck manipulation for hilarious results. Some of my favorites:

http://tasvideos.org/1482M.html
http://tasvideos.org/1199M.html
http://tasvideos.org/1168M.html
http://tasvideos.org/1082M.html
http://tasvideos.org/1285M.html

[Don]

I'm not too into using glitch or tricks with RNG (like manipulating the seed until you get all crits or all misses) but I seriously question how anyone can seriously take a 'no death' challenge to mean 'everyone is alive at the end' in a Final Fantasy game.

I saw one where people beat FF6 at level 5 and FF4 at level 45 or so and both involves heavy use of RNG manipulation (cycle through commands to change the seed), though the FF6 one was especially lame since it was relying on Life 3 on where you can't get away with RNG. The FF4 one at least took a Big Bang at some point since you can't make Zeromus skip that no matter what, and relies a lot on Kain jumping at the right time to avoid Big Bangs to reduce the damage taken.

[SineSwiper]

I just like how cool the TAS videos look, and it still takes a lot of time and effort to make those and figure out those tricks. The Chrono Trigger one was probably the most bizarre speed runs I've ever seen from a TAS video. There are some with 0.3 seconds of actual gameplay, or single-frame movement tricks, but that's the first time I've seen tricks involving corrupting the save file by resetting too fast (and doing it in a controlled manner).