Beat with first generation

[SecularStoner]

Is it possible?

[AliceShiki]

Yeah, sure. Once Gerrard gets his armor, kill your Emperor in Watchman's Nest some 80ish times or so, and you'll eventually run out of Emperor possibilities and be forced into Final Emperor.

Once you're at Final Emperor, you won't be able to get timeskips anymore, so you'll have to clear the game in a single generation. It's a well-known challenge run of the original.

You won't have many formations to choose from if you do that, but you will at least have Fanged Assault, so it's not the worst possible situation to be in. It was rougher in the original when you would only have Imperial Cross and Free For All.

[rupsch]

I guess it doesn't work in this version, though. I let my emperor die and he was replaced with the court mage. Had the mage die and chose another emperor, but the mage was available as a retinue member. Killed him again and he just showed up at the bar - good as new.

[Chester]

It isn't just killing all the classes - it's killing all the characters. There are 8 Court Mages. Per Gender. So you'd have to kill all of them. Then for every other available class as well. Then the Last Emperor will show up.

It's something you'd really only do as a challenge run. And is very tedious setting up.

[rupsch]

Good Lord. The first one to attempt that must have had serious issues or waaay too much time on their hands.

[Chester]

It was 1993 (and in Japan - the original never received an official English release). Some people didn't have a lot to do after school.

[AliceShiki]

I remember doing it in the Remaster, and it, surprisingly, didn't take that long.

It's just so fast to fast travel to the nearest dungeon and die... Sure, you need to repeat it 80ish times, but I think it only took me like... 30min, or something? It was certainly very boring, but it wasn't the end of the world either.

Funnily enough, I dunno if the bug happened in the original, but I know that in the Remaster, when you reached Final Emperor through this method, you actually got 2 options to choose from in the inheritance menu... Two copies of the Final Emperor you chose at the start of the game. They were the exact same with 0 differences between them, but for some reason, 2 copies of the Final Emperor appeared there.

There was also a bug with the Windmaker where Early Final Emperor couldn't use it, even though Final Emperor is normally able to use it.

Those bugs were both fixed in the Remake, btw~

[SecularStoner]

Should I do that? Final emperor seems cool and an interesting way to play.

[Chester]

I wouldn't recommend it if this is your first run, you'll end up missing out on a few things. But for a NG+ run, if it interests you then it's a very new and interesting way to take on the game.

[AliceShiki]

If you already cleared the game once, and want to play the game again... Sure? It's a fun way to play. Can be done on either NG or NG+. Up to you.

But if it's your first run... Then no. Challenge runs on your first run are usually a bad idea.

[Cernunnos]

Originally posted by SecularSmoker:

Should I do that? Final emperor seems cool and an interesting way to play.

What's the point? You'll play the last Emperor at some point so you may as well play the game normally and unlock formations and abilities. Plus without any time skips you're going to miss out on content.
Leave the challenge runs until you've actually beaten the game.