El_Cactus Patch

FF7 - Ghost Square Easter Egg

Here's another utterly useless oddity left in the game. If you hold down certain buttons while on this field screen, one of the bats over yonder will fly over to swoop overhead. It can triggered repeatedly, and my best guess is that it's an old left-over debug routine to check that the bat was flying around properly.

FF7 - Swapping Characters

A curious aspect with FF7 PC is how robust (or apathetic is maybe the right word) about what files it's made to read. You can overwrite any character's files with another and the game will read them without too many problems.

FF7 - The Hero Midgar Needs

FF7 - Diamond Weapon vs. Proud Clod

One of the things I always wondered about was how Proud Clod, Shinra's anti-Weapon artillery, would actually fare if pitched against one of the Weapon monsters. As I got more familiar with modding, I needed to test enemy vs. enemy AI and, well, why not kill two birds with one stone?

Sonic ROM Hacks - Sonic Mega Hack: Ultra Edition (actual name)

A while back, I got badgered by someone for not having a single Sega-related video on my YT channel, despite the name-sake. So rather than keep a dead joke going, I decided to seek out some ROM hacks of the classic Sonic games and give 'em a whirl.

FF7 - Rare Enemy Attack: Ascend

I have a forte for finding the truly useless things in FF7 that have been left buried since it's release. This enemy 'attack', called Ascend, was one of them and it even doesn't require modding to see it.

To see Ascend in action, you have to find a group of enemies called 'Dorky Face' in the Shinra Mansion. You then have to Silence your own team (though the Dorky Faces can do this for you, eventually) and then do something you'd likely never do naturally. You have to use Dazers on your own party members to paralyse them all.

FF7 - Disc Swap Glitch (1998 PC version only)

One thing FF7 PC is known for within the community is how glitchy and poorly optimised it is for the platform. Over the years, some pretty insane glitches have been discovered and my small contribution builds on the findings of SuperAcro: essentially, if the disc is swapped during a battle swirl the game will run a debug routine and load a fight called 'Encount Error'. Winning/Fleeing this fight teleports your party back to their last known World Map location.

However, you can take this further by converting the Encount Error battle into any enemy formation in the game by first finding and then dying to that enemy formation, loading another save (without closing FF7 down), and then performing the Disc Swap glitch. This loads the encounter you died to, rather than the Encount Error one.

FF7 - Junon Leagues (NT Mod)

FF7 - Japanese LLNIIENACMO Challenge

One of my favourite runs, the LLNIIENACMO challenge is quite well known in certain FF7 circles as being one of the toughest yet most fun challenges for aspiring aficionados to try their hand at. The Low Level, No Item, Initial Equipment, No Accessory, Command Materia Only (LLNIIENACMO; I always think 'Flamingo' to remember it) requires a fair amount of tactical planning, but the spin on it is that we're playing it on the original Japanese release (often called the J-ORG).

There were a fair few small differences between the EU/NA/INT ('Int' stands for the International Japanese release, which was revised to be much closer to the EU/NA releases) and the J-ORG which became pretty serious during this challenge run. The LLNIIENACMO is well-documented, but the J-ORG's differences, along with an inability to manipulate Slots, forced us to come up with some new strategies to get the job done. Playing in a foreign language I can't read probably didn't help either.

FF7 - Mexico's Hardcore Mod

Language barrier? No problem! This was a prototype mod put together by a user going by the handle of Mexico on ff7.fr, which is probably one of the largest and most active FF communities. After helping the mod author out with some AI questions, he sent me a copy of their mod for a playthrough and I got my battered old thinking cap on.

The mod itself was definitely more difficult, but had a few flaws that are all too common in hard-type mods. There was an over-reliance on attacks that completely drained out MP, which hits item stocks quite hard (a better alternative is usually to drain a little MP, rather than all of it). We also had zero weaknesses to work with, which made most fights a one-dimensional tank n' spank.

FF8 - Contrived Challenge

When FF8 came out for Steam, there was a big buzz about how this would renew interest in the game, possibly making the way for extensive mods of the kind FF7 enjoys.

But what I was surprised by were the game's achievements. I expected the same kind of dross that had been rolled out for FF7 and, to a certain extent, some of the achievements were just that. But it was easy to tell that some effort had been made this time around. The Contrived Finish challenge, besides having a cheeky name, also seemed like it would be a good place to start for me picking the game up again.

FF7 New Threat Mod - v1.2

Something I've been working on actively for over a year is this large-scale gameplay mod for FF7. Unlike most Hard-type mods, this one is focused on making more content and enhancing what's already there. It features new bosses, revised inventory, more sidequests, and more options. The modular nature of the game means that it's possible to continue building on it, with the overall goal being to attach a New Game+ campaign.

Streets of Rage 1 - Doubles Challenge

If you're needing to spice up old games, there's a neat trick you can pull with the emulators. By mapping Joypad 1 and Joypad 2 for the same keys, you can end up with simultaneous control over two characters. That gave me an idea to have a shot at beating SOR1 on it's hardest setting with two characters operating in tandem.

Pokemon Vietnamese Crystal - Nuzlocke Challenge

FF7 Gjoerulv's Hardcore Mod - Lv.1 Challenge