Speedrunners may have found their new favorite in the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo, as the community is surgically picking it apart in order to finish it in the fastest possible time.
Square Enix released the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo in early March, providing excited fans of the classic RPG their first chance at a hands-on experience for the highly anticipated game. The demo covers the first chapter of the story, particularly Avalanche’s bombing mission against one of Shinra’s Mako reactors.
The Final Fantasy VII Remake demo may be beaten in under an hour by the average gamer, but speedrunners are looking to finish it as fast as possible. According to Kotaku, the fastest completion time is currently at 13 minutes and 22 seconds.
One of the speedrunners currently focused on the demo is desa3579, who was able to finish it at 13 minutes and 25 seconds. He once held the fastest time, but it was eventually topped by fellow speedrunner SwiftShadow at 13 minutes and 24 seconds, before another speedrunner, Ffamran, set the current record.
“We are thinking of new strategies daily for every encounter, starting from the troopers at the start all the way to the boss of the demo, Scorpion Sentinel,” desa2579 told Kotaku, adding that optimizing the speedrun through the demo is kind of their way of celebrating the imminent launch of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which will finally happen about five years after Square Enix’s E3 2015 announcement.
According to desa2579, he believes he has played the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo more than 200 times, logging about 40 hours on it. Some of that time has been spent figuring out the nuances of the abilities of the demo’s playable characters, Cloud and Strife, as well as the pattern of the Scorpion Sentinel that serves as the boss fight at the end.
Speedrunners, including desa2579, have even found glitches that have helped shave off seconds from the demo’s completion time. It is unclear, however, if these bugs will still be present once speedrunners take hold of the full release of the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
The Final Fantasy VII Remake is set to roll out in a delayed release on April 10.
