Series

Final Fantasy

51 games, 1987–2027.

Games

Mechanics

Mechanic	Final Fantasy 1987	Final Fantasy II 1988	Final Fantasy III 1990	Final Fantasy IV 1991	Final Fantasy V 1992	Final Fantasy VI 1994	Final Fantasy VII 1997
Active Time Battle				Countdown	Countdown	Gauge
Critical hit	From equipment	Fixed	Rate and bonus	Rate and bonus	From equipment	Fixed	Weapon and stats
Damage formula	Attack minus defense	Attack minus defense	Attack minus defense	Attack minus defense	Attack minus defense	Defense as a fraction	Defense as a fraction
Elemental weakness	Scaled power	Flat bonus	Damage multiplier	Damage multiplier		Multiplier with absorb
Fleeing	Luck against level	Own evade	Rate less enemy level	Hold to run	uses	Hold to run
Hit chance	Hit rate against evade	Hit rolls less evade rolls	Hit rolls less evade rolls	Hit rolls less evade rolls	Hit, then evade	Hit times evade	Hit rate against evade
Limit Break							From damage taken
Multi-hit attack	Swings from a stat	Hits less evades	Hits less evades	Hits less evades
Random encounter	By area		By area	By area	Danger counter	Danger counter
Random number generator	Fixed table
Turn order	Shuffled		Shuffled, agility within the party	Active time	Active time	Active time

A marked cell changed from the game before. “Uses” means the game has the mechanic, with no variant recorded yet.

Every claim, by mechanic and game

Concept	Final Fantasy 1987	Final Fantasy II 1988	Final Fantasy III 1990	Final Fantasy IV 1991	Final Fantasy V 1992	Final Fantasy VI 1994	Final Fantasy VII 1997
Active Time Battle				At the start of a battle, each combatant's base timer duration is 50 times a reference party member's modified agility over 10 times its own modified agility, at least 1; the reference is the first present party member whose character ID is 1 or $0B, or failing that the first present one, so a combatant with twice the agility waits half as long between turns. Code `BattleMain` waits 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 11 frames by the battle speed setting (`BattleSpeedTbl` plus one), holding while the game is paused or in wait mode, then decrements every combatant's timers (`DecTimers`) and runs a pending action. An action timer's duration is the base duration times a speed modifier over 16, and 16 is the normal modifier. Code	A combatant's ATB timer is set to 120 + equipment weight ÷ 8 − agility, at least 1, adjusted for haste or slow, and `UpdateTimer` counts it down by one each tick and flags it when it reaches 0, when the turn comes due. The battle speed setting sets a wait of 0, 15, 30, 60, 120, or 240 when a character's turn arrives. Code Final Fantasy IV and V both give each combatant a timer that counts down to its turn. Final Fantasy IV sets its length from a ratio, 50 times a reference party member's agility over 10 times the combatant's; Final Fantasy V sets it to 120 plus equipment weight ÷ 8 minus agility. Code	Each combatant's ATB gauge constant is (speed + 20) times 1.5 times a haste, normal, or slow constant of 84, 64, or 32, over 16; for monsters the speed term is first scaled by 255 − 24 × the battle speed setting, over 255, so the setting slows only the monsters. Every 2 frames `UpdateBattleTime` adds each present combatant's constant to its gauge, and a gauge that overflows gives that combatant a turn. It skips the update only when wait mode is on and the battle-time-stopped flag is also set, since it ANDs the two. Code Final Fantasy V counts each combatant's ATB timer down by one per tick from 120 + weight ÷ 8 − agility; Final Fantasy VI instead adds a constant built from speed to a gauge every 2 frames and gives the turn when the gauge overflows. Code
Critical hit	A swing is critical when its roll is at most the crit chance, which is capped at the hit chance; a critical adds the swing's random damage again, with no absorb taken from it. Code A character's crit chance is the equipped weapon's index number, not the crit rate in the weapon's data (no code we read touches that byte); an unarmed Black Belt or Master gets twice their level. Code	uses	A Fight action rolls once for a critical, 0–99 against the crit probability, and a critical adds the crit bonus to the damage before defense. Both numbers are the first two bytes of the character's job modifiers, so the job sets them. Code	A Fight command rolls once for a critical: a percentage roll under the attacker's crit rate adds its crit bonus to the damage before defense. Each character carries a crit rate and bonus of their own (the field code loads Cecil's from `CharProp`); dual-wielding doubles the rate, which falls to 99 only when the doubling overflows a byte (a rate of 50–127 doubles to 100–254), and adds half the left hand's attack to the bonus, and a bow triples a rate capped at 33 and adds the arrows' attack. Code	Three attack types call `CheckCrit`: fists (type 30), katanas (type 37), and type 36, which the source comments as bows with an element and which uses the knife damage formula, after moving its crit % from its second parameter to the first. `CheckCrit` makes a critical when a roll of 0–99 is under that crit %, and a critical doubles Attack and sets Defense to 0. Code	Unless an attack is set to always crit, it is critical when a random byte is under 8, a 1-in-32 chance, and a critical adds 2 to the damage multiplier, which the code comments as damage ×2. Code In Final Fantasy V only three weapon attack types roll for a critical (fists, katanas, and type 36), at the crit % the attack type carries; in Final Fantasy VI an attack that can crit does so on a random byte under 8, 1 in 32, whatever the weapon. Code	In the North American release, `BattleRollCriticalHit` is entry 2 of the hit-formula table, so it runs only for an attack whose hit-formula script includes it, and only if the hit roll didn't mark a miss. Its chance is (the action's level + the attacker's luck − the target's level)/4, plus the weapon's critical % for a party member, or 255 under Lucky Girl; a 1–100 roll at or under the chance sets bit 1 ($2) of `damageFlags`. `BattleSetTmpDmgAsPhysical` doubles the damage when that bit is set, and sets it itself for an attack whose `attackFlags` bit $2000 is clear. So a chance c of 0–99 crits about c times in 99 (computed for evenly spread 16-bit values). Final Fantasy VI crits on a random byte under 8, 1 in 32, whatever the stats, and a critical adds 2 to the damage multiplier, which its code comments as damage ×2. Code
Damage formula	A character's damage stat rises by 1 whenever a level-up raises Strength to an even number, and by the weapon's damage when it is equipped; the weapon's hit bonus adds to hit rate the same way. Code Each swing that rolls under 200 also rolls damage from the base $B$ to $2 B$ , capped at 255; a hit subtracts the defender's absorb, with a minimum of 1, and the swings' damage adds up to one total. Code A damage spell always connects, for a random value from its power $E$ to $2 E$ ; its roll of 0–200 against 148 + the spell's hit rate − the target's magic defense doubles the damage instead of deciding a hit. Code A damage spell's damage and its chance to double come from the spell's power, hit rate, and element, the target's magic defense, resistances, and weaknesses, and two random rolls. No stat of the caster enters either, so Intelligence adds nothing to spell damage. Code TMPR and SABR, whose spell effect adds the spell's power to the target's attack, do nothing when cast on a character: the routine that loads a character's stats for a spell doesn't load attack, and the routine that saves them back skips it. Code At each level-up, an unarmed Black Belt or Master gets absorb equal to their level and a damage stat of twice their level, whatever armor they wear. Code	Each hit that gets through deals attack plus a random 0 to attack, less the target's defense (at least 0), and the hits add up. Each hit also rolls 0–100, and a roll under 5 makes it critical, adding the attack again. Code	The damage roll is attack plus a random 0 to half of it, times the elemental multiplier (stored doubled and halved back), plus the crit bonus on a critical, less defense (at least 0; skipped when a character hits a character); that times the net hits, divided by the targets hit, is capped at 9,999. Code Final Fantasy II rolls damage, attack plus 0 to attack less defense, and a critical for each hit that gets through and adds them up; Final Fantasy III rolls damage once, attack plus 0 to half of it, and multiplies it by the net hits, and its single critical roll uses the job's crit probability in place of Final Fantasy II's fixed roll under 5. Code	`CalcDmg` takes attack power plus a random 0 to half of it, applies the elemental and creature-type multipliers, adds the crit bonus on a critical, and subtracts defense (floored at 0); that times the net hits, divided by the number of targets, is held to 1–9,999. A Fight command has one target. Code	Physical damage is (Attack − Defense) × M, at most 9,999, and 0 when Defense is at least Attack. For swords, Attack is the weapon's attack power plus a random 0 to an eighth of it, and M is Level × Strength ÷ 128 + 2. Code	`CalcDmgMod` multiplies the damage by a random variance and then by 255 − the target's Defense (Magic Defense for a magic attack), each over 256 plus 1. The variance is a random byte ORed with $E0, so 224–255; the routine's comment says 240–255. Code	In the North American release, `BattleSetTmpDmgAsPhysical` takes the attacker's physical attack S (`physAttack` after stat multipliers) and the action's level L (`characterLevel`) and computes (⌊L·S/32⌋ · ⌊(L + S)/32⌋ + S) × (512 − the target's defense) × the attack's power, over 8,192: a base of S + ⌊L·S/32⌋·⌊(L + S)/32⌋, scaled by power/16 and by (512 − defense)/512 (computed). It then doubles the damage when `damageFlags` bit $2 is set, the bit a critical sets and that this same function also sets for any attack whose attackFlags bit $2000 is clear (ff7/critical), multiplies it by 1.5 under Berserk, for a short-range attack or an enemy's Attack command halves it once if the target or the attacker is in the back row (other attacks ignore rows), halves it for a defending target, multiplies it by the target's `backDamageMult`/8 when the unnamed `unk234` bit 0 is set, quarters it under Frog, applies the Sadness, multi-target, and Barrier modifiers, and sets it to 0 under Mini. Last, `BattleAddRndModifierAndZeroCheck` multiplies by 3,841 plus a random byte, over 4,096 (93.8–100%, computed), and raises 0 to 1, so a Mini attacker deals 1. Final Fantasy VI's `CalcDmgMod` also lets defense remove a share, but as (255 − Defense)/256, with a variance of 224–255 over 256 applied before it. Code
Elemental weakness	A physical attack gains 40 hit chance and 4 base damage when its category or element matches the defender's, but neither side of a battle can trigger it: a character's attack reads the character's own category and weakness bytes instead of the weapon's, and a monster's attack is matched against a character's, and all four bytes are always 0. Code A resisted element halves a damage spell's power and drops the 148 from its doubling chance; a weakness multiplies the power by 1.5 and adds 40 to the chance. Code Spells that change an enemy's elemental resistance or weakness, such as XFER, have no effect on enemies; the change is never saved, and attacks read those bytes from the enemy's data in ROM. Code	When the weapon's type bonus matches the target's type, or the weapon's element matches one of the target's weak elements, the attack power gains 20 before the damage is rolled. Code	A physical attack whose element is one of the target's weak elements gets multiplier code 4; one in the target's byte the disassembly calls absorbed elements gets 1, as does any attack when that byte is exactly 2; otherwise 2. The damage routine halves the code, so a weakness doubles the damage and the other byte halves it. Code	A physical attack's element is tested against the target's very weak, weak, immune, and strong elements in that order, and the first match sets a damage multiplier of 4×, 2×, 0, or ½. Code Final Fantasy III's physical attack has two elemental outcomes besides normal, double for a weakness and half for the target's other element byte; Final Fantasy IV adds very weak (4×) and immune (0) to weak (2×) and strong (½). Code		A damage element that the target absorbs turns the damage into healing; one it nullifies makes the damage 0; one it halves halves it; one it is weak to doubles it, unless the damage is already 32,768 or more. The checks run in that order and the first match applies. Code
Fleeing	A character's RUN always succeeds when the party strikes first and always fails in a formation marked no-run; otherwise it succeeds when the character's Luck exceeds `RandAX`(0, level + 15), but the level is read from the wrong place: Disch notes the code reads another character's ailment byte or unrelated memory. Code The NES manual says running depends on agility: "There is no guarantee that your escape will be successful — it depends on your agility level." Manual On an active enemy's turn, it flees when its morale is below twice the party leader's level, or when morale minus twice that level plus `RandAX`(0, 50) is below 80. Code	A character's Run command rolls 0–100 and escapes when the roll is under the runner's own evade %, unless the battle forbids escape; no level or enemy stat enters. Code	Run escapes when a roll of 0–100 is under the runner's run probability plus 25 less the average level of the monsters present (at least 0). The run probability is the third byte of the job modifiers. Code	Holding L and R escapes, with no roll, once the run counter reaches 0, if the battle allows running and some party member can act. The counter starts at $FF (no escape) and a character's turn sets it to 0, except against a monster of level 97, 98, or 99, where it starts at 3, 7, or 10 and drops by one each battle tick while L and R are held; at level 99 it resets to 15 whenever they are let go. Code	While `FleeSuccess` is nonzero, `CheckFlee` counts a flee ticker up each pass; on the 20th it rolls 0–99 and escapes when the roll is under the encounter's flee chance, and otherwise the ticker restarts. A flee chance with the high bit set shows the can't-run message instead, and a `FleeSuccess` of $80 (the Exit spell) escapes at once. The source doesn't show what sets `FleeSuccess` for ordinary running; its RAM notes only guess that holding L and R does. Code	While the characters are trying to run away, each character's run counter gains a random 1 to their run factor each time their status counter overflows, and the character escapes when the counter reaches the run difficulty. The difficulty is 2 for each monster present, or 6 for one marked harder to run from; a monster marked can't-escape, or a pincer attack, forbids running. Code
Hit chance	A physical attack's hit chance starts at 168; Dark on the attacker costs 40, and Dark on the defender gives 40. Unless the defender is asleep or stunned, it then adds the attacker's hit rate and subtracts the defender's evade. The result is held within 1–255. Code Against a sleeping or stunned defender, base damage rises by a quarter, and the attacker's hit rate and the defender's evade drop out, so the hit chance stays at 168 apart from Dark's 40 either way. Code Each swing rolls 0–200 with `RandAX`; a roll of 200 always misses, and any other roll hits when it is at most the hit chance. Code Measured in the ROM over all 256 battle-RNG states, one swing with base damage 20, hit rate 10, and crit chance 1 against evade 6 and absorb 4 hits 221 times and is critical 4 times; with the attacker in Dark it hits 170 times, and against a sleeping defender 216 times. Verified A level-up that raises a character's Agility also raises their evade by 1, up to 200. Code A new character's hit rate is 10 as a Fighter, 7 as a Red Mage, and 5 in the other four classes; evade is 53 for the Fighter, Black Belt, and White Mage and 58 for the Thief, Red Mage, and Black Mage. Code Each level-up adds 3 to the hit rate of a Fighter, Black Belt, Knight, or Master, 2 for a Thief, Red Mage, Ninja, or Red Wizard, and 1 for a White or Black Mage or Wizard, up to 200. Code A new game zero-fills every character's stat page, weapon and armor slots included, so the party starts unarmed, with 400 gold. Code The 40 weapons add from 0 to 50 to hit rate: 0 for both nunchucks, the Iron Hammer, and four of the six staves; 10 for early blades such as the Small Knife and Short Sword; 35 for the Defense, CatClaw, Katana, and Xcalber; and 50 for the Masmune. Code Shop 1, the first weapon shop in `lut_ShopData`, sells the Wooden Staff, Small Knife, Wooden Nunchuck, Rapier, and Iron Hammer, with hit bonuses of 0, 10, 0, 5, and 0 and damage of 6, 5, 12, 9, and 9: the most accurate of them, the Small Knife, deals the least damage. Code Shop 1 is the weapon shop in Coneria, the town beside the starting point; Nintendo Power's guide lists Coneria's weapons as shop 1's five. Magazine Across the 128 enemy records, evade runs from 0 (Scum) to 144 (the Air elemental), with a median of 48; 31 records sit below 25, and six reach 100 or more: Air, Nitemare (132), Frost D and Sphinx (120), Wraith (108), and Chaos (100). Code A new game puts the party at overworld tile (153, 165), in land domain $2C, whose eight formation slots all hold 3–5 Imps (evade 6). The domain to its north, $24, gives 3–5 Imps in 48 of 64 battles; its other slots hold 1–3 GrImps (evade 9), 1–2 Wolves (36), a lone Madpony (22), and, 1 time in 64, 3–6 Imps with up to 4 GrImps. Code The Air elemental (evade 144) is in the random battles of five standard maps, $2F, $30, $32, $33, and $3A, as 2–4 or 3–6 of them in one 12-in-64 slot of the last three, to which $32 and $33 add a second, smaller slot of 1–3 (15 and 18 of 64 in all); Wraith (108) fills 42 of 64 chances on map $25, Frost D (120) 30 of 64 on map $34, and Sphinx (120) 24 of 64 on map $0E and 12 of 64 in four overworld domains. Code Nintendo Power's 1990 strategy guide paces the party by level: about 3 for Garland, "Wait until Level 8 or 9" for the Marsh Cave, and "Level 27 or above to have a good chance against Chaos." Magazine Nintendo Power's guide places Wraiths in the Ice Cave and Air elementals in the Sky Castle. Magazine FF1Randomizer names the standard maps by index: $0F, $25, and $26 are the Ice Cave's B1–B3, $2F–$33 the Sky Palace's five floors, $34 the revisited Temple of Fiends' first floor, and $3A and $3B its Air and Chaos floors. Web	Final Fantasy rolls once per swing against a single hit chance that already has the defender's evade subtracted; Final Fantasy II splits that into two sets of rolls, the attacker's against its hit % and the defender's against its evade %, and subtracts the defender's successes from the attacker's. Code	uses	uses	A physical attack first rolls 0–99 against its hit % (100 where the attack type calls `SetHit100andTargetEvade`, as fists and katanas do) and misses on a roll at or above it; a target that can dodge then rolls 0–99 against its evade %, and a roll under it is a miss, or a shield block when the target carries a shield. Code Final Fantasy IV counts a weapon attack's hits from a loop of percentage rolls, one per point of the attack multiplier, less the target's evade rolls; Final Fantasy V's physical check makes one hit roll and one evade roll, and the attack either lands or misses. Code	Unless the target has Image, which a physical attack instead tests with a random byte under $40 (a miss that may remove the Image), an attack that can miss hits when a roll of 0–99 is under its hit rate times the target's stored evade, over 256, where the stored value is 256 − 2 × the evade % (255 for 0). The branch meant to pick Evade for a physical attack tests a carry flag that the check before it has cleared, so every such attack is checked against the target's magic evade (MBlock) and skips the Blind and status adjustments; the disassembly carries a `BUGFIX_EVADE` option, credited to Terii Senshi, that restores Evade. Code	In the North American release, `BattleRollPhysicalHit` hits when a roll of 1–100 (`BattleGetRnd164`) is under the hit chance: the attack's hit % (`targetAttackPercent`) plus a quarter of the attacker's dexterity, plus the attacker's Df%, less the target's Df%, cut by 30% under Fury, and raised to at least 1, which never hits. A party member's Df% is a quarter of its dexterity plus its physical evade and an enemy's is its physical evade alone, so a party attacker's dexterity counts twice. The chance is instead 255 against a target under Death, Sleep, Confusion, Stop, Petrify, Manipulate, or Paralysis, for the Death, Nullify, and Absorb affinities and one unnamed affinity flag, and for two flags the code leaves unnamed (`unk234` bit 0, `unk218` bit 5). Before the roll, a 0–99 roll under the attacker's luck/4 makes a sure hit; failing that, when an enemy attacks a party member and the same roll is under the target's luck/4, the attack misses, even at 255. `BattleGetRnd164` scales a 16-bit random number by 99/65,535 and adds 1, so it gives 100 only for $FFFF, and a chance h of 2–100 hits about (h − 1) times in 99 (computed for evenly spread 16-bit values). Final Fantasy VI instead scales the hit rate by the target's stored evade (magic evade, through a bug) and rolls 0–99 against it. Code
Limit Break							In the North American release, when an enemy's action takes HP from a party member, `BattleApplyDamageAndChargeLimitGauge` adds ⌊300 × damage / max HP⌋ × 256 over the character's HP divisor to the Limit gauge, with 512 in place of 256 under Fury and 128 under Sadness, and caps the gauge at 255; the damage counts in full, even past the HP the character had left. It adds nothing for healing, MP damage, a character whose limit level is 4 or more, or a turn flag the code leaves unnamed (`turnFlags` bit 3). The divisor is read from KERNEL.BIN per character and limit level (`hpDivisor`), so the code alone doesn't give its values. Code
Multi-hit attack	An attack swings $⌊ h / 32 ⌋ + 1$ times for hit rate $h$ , times a multiplier that FAST raises from 1 to 2; an unarmed Black Belt or Master swings twice as often. Code Measured the same way, four swings with base damage 40, hit rate 100, and crit chance 20 against evade 40 and absorb 10 land 1,020 of 1,024 swings, 109 of them critical, for 129–413 damage; with FAST, eight swings land 2,040 of 2,048, 213 critical. Verified	A Fight action rolls 0–100 once per point of the attacker's hit multiplier (adjusted by haste or slow, at least 1) and counts the rolls under its hit %, then rolls once per point of the target's evade multiplier and counts the rolls under its evade %. The evaded rolls are subtracted from the hits, at least 0, and the rest are the hits that deal damage. Blind halves the attacker's hit % and the target's evade %. The check returns no successes when the attacker is a toad or mini, and the disassembly marks as a bug that the evade check reads the attacker's status too. Code	A Fight action rolls 0–99 once per point of the attacker's attack multiplier and counts the rolls under its hit %; Blind halves the hit %, and when a back-row penalty applies (not for a harp or bow and arrow) an attacker in the back row halves it, and a target in the back row halves it again and adds one evaded hit. The target then rolls once per point of its evade multiplier against its evade %, with no evade rolls when it is a toad, mini, or jumping, and its successes are subtracted from the hits, at least 0. The net hits multiply one damage roll, and none is a miss. Each hand rolls separately. Code	A Fight command makes one percentage roll per point of the attacker's attack multiplier and counts the rolls under its hit rate; the target rolls once per point of its defense multiplier and blocks one hit for each roll under its defense rate. The hits left after blocking multiply one damage roll, and none left is a miss. Code A character's attack multiplier, the number of hit rolls, is strength ÷ 8 + agility ÷ 16 + 1; the defense multiplier is agility ÷ 8 plus level ÷ 16 times the shield's multiplier. Code Final Fantasy IV keeps Final Fantasy III's physical attack: percentage rolls per point of an attack multiplier, the target's successful evade rolls subtracted, and one damage roll of attack plus 0 to half of it, with the crit bonus added before defense, multiplied by the net hits and capped at 9,999. Code
Random encounter	On the overworld, a step onto a tile marked for fights starts a battle when the battle-step generator returns less than 10, or less than 3 aboard the ship; in dungeons and towns the threshold is a per-map rate. Code `GetBattleFormation` picks one of the area's 8 formations by indexing `lut_RNG` with a counter that rises by 1 per battle; the low 6 bits select formations 0–3 with 12 chances in 64 each, 4 and 5 with 6, 6 with 3, and 7 with 1. Code		On the world map, a step starts a battle when a random byte is under the rate loaded for the current world and vehicle; the listing's comments give those rates as 5 on foot, by canoe, or by ship, 7 underwater, and 18 for one chocobo case the disassembly marks with "???". Code	On the overworld, each step reads a rate from an 8 × 8 grid of map regions (7, 8, or 10) and starts a battle when a byte from a fixed random table, plus an offset that grows by $11 each time the step counter wraps, is below it. Code	Each step on a normal map adds the map's rate to a random-battle counter ($E0 at the normal rate; $40, $180, or $200 at the others), and a battle starts when a byte from the random table, plus an offset that grows by $11 each time its pointer wraps, is under the counter's high byte. Code	Each step on a town or dungeon map adds the map's rate to a random-battle counter ($70 per step at the normal rate; $40, $160, or $200 at the low, high, and very high ones; the Charm Bangle halves them and the Moogle Charm zeroes them), and a battle starts when a byte from the random table, plus an offset that grows by 17 each time its pointer wraps, is under the counter's high byte. A battle clears the counter, so each step without one makes the next likelier. Code On the world map, the sector that picks the battle rate and group is read from $1F60 and $1F61. While the player walks, the world map's movement code copies the current position there only in the branch taken after a random battle starts, so the rate and group stay as they were until a battle or another writer (world map start, events, entrances) updates them; the disassembly marks this as a bug. Code Final Fantasy VI keeps Final Fantasy V's random-battle counter, which each step raises by the map's rate and which a byte from the random table, offset each time its pointer wraps, is tested against; it halves the normal rate from $E0 to $70 per step and changes the high one from $180 to $160. Code
Random number generator	`BattleRNG` returns the next byte of a 256-byte table, indexed by a counter (`btl_rngstate`) that wraps, so battle draws repeat every 256 calls. Code `BattleRNG`'s table holds `$00` twice and never `$95`, so a battle draw is never `$95`. Code `RandAX` scales a table byte $r$ into a range: $lo + ⌊ r (hi - lo + 1) / 256 ⌋$ . Code `lut_RNG`, the 256-byte table at `$F100`, holds every byte from `$00` to `$FF` exactly once. Code `BattleStepRNG` returns `lut_RNG[i]` for a counter $i$ that steps by 1 per call; each time it wraps to 0, a sign byte gains `$A0`, and its top bit sets the direction of the next pass. Code
Turn order	Each round, `DoBattleRound` lists the 9 enemy slots and 4 characters and shuffles them with 16 swaps of two random positions; no stat enters the order. Code The NES manual says agility sets the order: "Each character's agility, regardless of enemy or ally, dictates the order of execution." Manual At the start of a battle, unless the formation is marked no-run, the game draws $V = S + RandAX (S, 100) - surprise rate$ with $S = ⌊ (Agility + Luck) / 8 ⌋$ of the party leader: below 11 the party is surprised and loses its first round of commands, and from 90 the party strikes first and the enemies skip the first round. Code		`determine attack order` gives each of the 12 battle slots a random key of 0–255 and passes the list to a routine the disassembly calls "sort attack order list ???"; it then gives each of the four characters a key of agility plus a random 0 to twice agility, sorts those the same way, and writes the characters in that order into the character entries of the first list. Chance places each character among the monsters, and agility orders the characters among themselves. Code	uses	uses	uses