All routes will contain pre-planned menus at specific points within the run, the broad purpose of which will be to make sure that characters are sufficiently prepared for future battles.
Fixed Length Menus[edit | edit source]
There are 3 parts of the game in which the story cannot be progressed until a specific amount of time has passed, while the player still has control over a character. These can be taken advantage of by doing some menuing within these periods of time, effectively rendering these menus "free" if they can be performed quickly enough.
Balamb Garden 2F[edit | edit source]
Menu length: ~50 seconds
After returning from the Dollet mission, Squall must go to the corridor on the second floor to await the results of the SeeD exam. The Garden faculty member will not appear to give the results until both of the following occur:
- Zell walks over a specific point during his pacing back and forth.
- 50s have passed from the time that you entered the screen.
As a result, it is common for speedrunners to follow the following procedure:
- Take note of the time that the screen begins to fade in from black. The timer in Livesplit is often used as a reference.
- Open the menu when Zell is closest to the camera and is midway through his turning animation.
- Perform the menu.
- If the menu is complete in time, wait in the menu screen until 50s has passed from entering the screen, then cancel out.
After this, Zell should only walk a short distance before triggering the Garden faculty to appear.
Laguna Dream 1[edit | edit source]
Menu length: ~10 seconds for PSX, ~18 seconds for other platforms
After arriving at the Galbadian Hotel and taking a seat with Laguna and co. in the first dream sequence, Julia will eventually enter the room. From the moment that Julia appears, there is a fixed amount of time in which she walks towards the piano and then plays her full rendition of "Eyes On Me", and the cutscene of Julia joining Laguna at his table cannot occur until this full time has passed.
During this time the following occurs:
- Some conversation between Laguna, Kiros and Ward.
- Laguna walks towards the stage.
- The leg cramp cutscene plays.
- Laguna walks back to his table.
- Some more conversation between Laguna, Kiros and Ward.
Overall, this whole process is shorter than Julia's fixed length of time, so we can use the steps in bold above as an opportunity to do a small amount of menuing with this extra time.
Some versions of the step count will also choose to use this free time as an opportunity to perform the Diablos Menu Glitch.
Esthar Menu[edit | edit source]
Menu length: 5 minutes
After Zell's party have visited Dr. Odine in his lab, they are told that they must try to board Lunatic Pandora as it is passing over the city. A 20 minute countdown starts upon leaving the laboratory, but the first possible opportunity to board the Lunatic Pandora does not occur until 5 minutes have passed, when there are 15 minutes remaining on the clock. For this reason, there are 5 minutes of free time within which many different things can be done, including menus, shops, and battles. This whole section is referred to as the "Esthar Menu", and is regarded as one of the hardest sections of the Any% speedrun.