History Main / SoloCharacterRun

** Accomplished with most of the cast from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', even to the point of a solo Yuna playthrough with no Summons. There is one boss fight exception if you use Yuna for this challenge, unless you are absolutely insane. (You'd have to be pretty insane to play Yuna Only, No Summons, No Sphere Grid, etc. anyways. It's been done, though.) A solo run is made slightly easier in this game by the way the level and skill system works. With enough grinding, any character can learn anything they would need by traveling into the Sphere Grid sections belonging to other party members. The only thing that can't be learned by everyone is Yuna's summoning ability. One particular {{Superboss}}, Shinryuu, is actually easier to do solo than with a full party. In the same vein as the aforementioned Ruby WEAPON, it cannot use its [[UnblockableAttack unblockable]] party-member-removing attack Eraser if only one character is alive.

** The StatGrinding mechanics in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' base stat and skill growth off of how many times a character performs actions in battle. Because you'll have only one party member doing everything, a Solo-Character Run in ''Final Fantasy II'' can be ''[[GameBreaker a cakewalk]]'' compared to playing the game normally. Most notably, Evasion skyrockets if only one member gets targeted by attacks, which can net you maxed-out Evasion when reaching Lv.6 Evasion is typical in a normal playthrough.[[note]]To demonstrate: The FinalBoss has an Accuracy of 8-100%; even with 7-99% Evasion, he ''will'' hit you at least once. With an Evasion of 16-99%, the FinalBoss has a 0.0000000000000001% of hitting you with his physical attack. ''Once.''[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' has it as one of the most difficult challenges, even more considering that this is a gam ewere ''Min/maxing'' is heavely recomended and a lot of times not enough, the gameplays online who shows it are quite spectacular as this challenge is hard.

** [=SCRs=] are ridiculously easy in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', thanks to the ease of pulling off {{LimitBreak}}s. Lionheart, "Armageddon Fist," Acid, Invincible Moon...it's all good. Another reason is that there is no limit to the number of Guardian Forces you can assign to a single character...thus, it is entirely possible to have a level 10 Squall with 9999 HP that hits for thousands damage about one third into the game.

** This can be done in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' except when plot-necessary ([[spoiler:Cloud is incapacitated for a period, and there are some boss fights that must be fought with specific characters]]). It's somewhat trivial if you use Cloud, since the Yoshiyuki sword you pick up in Rocket Town powers up if you have dead people in your party. It's balanced out by a couple bosses that have attacks that trap your character and require intervention from your dead party members, netting you an instant game over. The first, Reno can be taken out if you power level early, usually getting Cloud to unlock Meteorain long before you would otherwise get it. The other, Carry Armor, can quickly become ThatOneBoss, since it will often open the battle with Arm Grab, ending the fight before it can even begin. SaveScumming can be considered mandatory for him. That said, the BonusBoss Ruby Weapon is easiest if you start the battle with one character alive (otherwise it uses Whirlsand to remove all but one character from the battle) and then revive the other two.

** Accomplished with most of the cast from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', even to the point of a solo Yuna playthrough with no Summons. There is one boss fight exception if you use Yuna for this challenge, unless you are absolutely insane. (You'd have to be pretty insane to play Yuna Only, No Summons, No Sphere Grid, etc. anyways. It's been done, though.) A solo run is made slightly easier in this game by the way the level and skill system works. With enough grinding, any character can learn anything they would need by traveling into the Sphere Grid sections belonging to other party members. The only thing that can't be learned by everyone is Yuna's summoning ability. One particular BonusBoss, Shinryuu, is actually easier to do solo than with a full party. In the same vein as the aforementioned Ruby WEAPON, it cannot use its [[UnblockableAttack unblockable]] party-member-removing attack Eraser if only one character is alive.

Not to be confused with SoloSequence, in which single-character play is temporarily enforced. A character class ([[FakeBalance supposedly]]) designed to facilitate this kind of play is a SoloClass.

* Possible to do in the ''Empires'' subset of ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' games, ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors 6 Empires'' outright rewards you for doing this for one battle on [[NintendoHard Master]] or the hard '''{{H|arderThanHard}}ELL''' difficulty (that's '''CHAOS''' for everyone outside Japan). needless to say, doing this for one battle on the higher difficulties is hard enough. Doing it for every battle on '''HELL''' puts you on par with [[MemeticBadass Lu]] [[ThatOneBoss Bu]], if only for the fact that your stats are not carried over between [[NewGamePlus consecutive games]] [[GlassCannon and you have a high chance of being 1-Hit-KO'd early on]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has a variation, with people only following this as long the required character is around, meaning someone that joins early and rejoins early like the Figaro twins is the "closest" to the feel of the challenge. [[AttackAttackAttack Umaro]] is considered to be the only one that can't win it, [[TierInducedScrappy for obvious reasons]]. One specific variation is to use Celes, Edgar, and Setzer (the only three characters forced back into your party in the second half of the game) and have them each do a solo run through the final dungeon, which requires splitting into three parties.

* Occasionally crops up in media about video games as well. ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'' references this in a couple of different ways. The Blue King is known as "Legend Slayer" for doing a solo-run against a Legendary-class monster (for reference, entire ''parties'' usually have a hard time taking on weaker opponents) and it's something of a rite of passage for characters who reach Level 7 to do one of these against lower ranked monsters in the Unlimited Field.