Hello, so today I'm presenting to the community a new route for the No Mix category that can only be done on HD Remaster. I've put together a video that entails everything that is needed to know about the route, one that is commented on and one that is not. I also put together some fairly comprehensive notes that can be used for runs. They contain all the battle scripts to follow, each item to pick up, and all the menuing that's done, as well as various things that are important to the route. They also have images of each character's sphere grid with each move that's made on it.

So this route was derived from the PS2 No Mix category that appears to no longer be on the leaderboards. About 4 years ago, this category had a leaderboard that was only on the PS2 leaderboards and not on HD Remaster, simply because no one was doing runs. But WHY were there no runs?? Was it just because there was no interest?? That is likely the case, but after looking into the No Mix route, you'll learn that one of the most important abilities used is Quick Hit. Now what's interesting is that this ability was mechanically changed in HD Remaster and is only half as effective as before. So it's not like you can just run the same PS2 route on HD Remaster. So I looked into whether or not there was a route for No Mix on HD Remaster, and there just wasn't one out there. So I took it upon myself to route it out and see if there was a possible route similar enough that would work, and I was successful in figuring one out! It took a lot of trial and error, but it came together as a very consistent route that I'm super proud of and am happy to finally share it with the community! 😄

So I wanna say a few more things for transparency though. It actually took me about 4 years to put all of this together, and I even had a finalized route about 3 years ago now, but I ended up taking a break from this due to feeling some burnout with the project. At that time, I was a bit more involved with the community, and I had every intention to present the route while also having an actual run to present as well. However, my interest in speedrunning FFX and doing speedruns in general began to dissolve, as I started to shift my focuses elsewhere. I like doing challenge runs and find I'm more inclined towards that. I actively think about ways to challenge myself, and that thinking is what led me to find this route. Guess I'm more of a router than a runner 😉 So after some time had passed, I ultimately decided I would put together a video showcasing the route and present it to the community. I'm still no longer interested in doing runs, and I'm not here today to ask for a leaderboard to be added or to get involved with anything like that. At this point, I'm just happy to share something that I find interesting that I'm sure some of you here will take an interest in. Personally, I'll be moving on to other things from here 💪 And finally, I unfortunately do not remember who the runner is that originally ran No Mix on PS2 as I cannot find their run anymore that I based this route on. So whoever you are, I wanna thank you for making this route even possible.

I'll check back here occasionally to talk with anyone who has any questions or comments, but I'll always be at my YouTube channel to talk there as well. I hope you all enjoy the route and I'm curious if anyone is gonna do any runs! 👀

Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zXZR6ReNkOhHcVElQyYi2kWoJqDMqJZG2x-s1IhJtuk/edit?usp=sharing

Looks cool! I think the reason why No Mix was taken off the boards was because at the time the route was recently changed from the Trio of 9999 route to the current Bahamut Route which took away a lot of the need to mix so the community decided it wasn't a board we needed anymore. I'm always for people doing their own categories of speedruns even if there isn't a board for it. So kudos to you!

Ah, that would make sense. I remember when I first read about the bahamut route, I had wondered if it made No Mix obsolete, but it seems the route still uses mix a few times, so I had decided to keep working on this route. Challenge categories can see some interesting changes and I think No Mix is a fun route that adds some variety to the table. Also I was a little blown away to learn that a faster any% route was discovered for this game. This community seems to be doing a lot of good work still! I'm also impressed with the RNG Manipulation route as well as PC having the cutscene remover now. Very cool stuff!