Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Is anybody interested in doing this one? I know that I'd really like to see it done, since it's a Zelda game for one (there aren't enough completed Zelda runs!), and the game itself is very neat.
I have no interest in doing the run myself, but I wonder if anybody would like to do it. I've done a small 30 minutes recording of it, and at least it doesn't desync like A Link to the Past does.
TSA knows some techniques not shown in his speedrun on SDA, so you should definitely contact him if you're up to the task.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Well, I'm fairly sure that the existing speedrun has basically every currently known trick needed for a timeattack. TSA probably has some more up his sleeve, but I don't think he's willing to share them just yet.
Someone COULD just take his current WR and recreate it with perfection, but that doesn't sound too fun.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
TSA isn't the only one who's thoroughly played this game. I'm sure that it's possible to think up some original ways to beat this game faster than any human player could, namely regarding techniques that can't be (properly) done without rerecording.
Palace of Winds is a cool dungeon. Not very hard, but a lot of fights. I found two shortcuts after I did this run. One is in the room with those whirlwinds in the air, and those exploding machine things fly around. You can jump diagonally from the top to a whirlwind to the right of the start of the room, and fly safely across to the right side of the room. I think it may save like 20 seconds. The last trick is a way to make your clones walk on air, when they would disappear. This is useful on my boss battle with Gyorg.
From the comments on the run's page.
I thought we established I don't keep secrets? The only things I could think of I mentioned in my commentary - look for more shortcuts where I overlooked stuff, and see if other Tiger Scrolls could be achieved to speed up battles, or find faster fighting strategies.
You can already improve on my Octorok and Gyorg battles by about 2 mins...if not more...
I suppose it boils down to if the Zelda games TSA plays are similar enough that he develops a groove he prefers to stay in through the different games, like "Oh, it's Zelda mechanics; I know this, this, and this always work so I'll keep doing it."
current progress.
ok, so its not actually current, but it goes far enough for now (i'll update it later).
make sure you note that this is a test, not a final product (as there is at least one blatant mistake in it) :P
Watched it... Quite well played indeed !!!
Is the mistake you were talking about, the fact that you went to the fairy fountain a second time needlessly???
Longing to see another WIP... good luck
Ok, now that link contains the current progress (aswell as a savestate, so you dont have to watch it all again), and stops just after exiting the Fortress of Winds.
Xaphan: nope, the second visit was to refill my health, the blatant mistake costs a lot more time than that :P
going back into your house for 20 rupees?
I'm not sure if the fairy should be visited at all. bombs and hearts can be obtained by killing weak enemys.
No idea how much time you spent on the regular enemy battles, but they seemed improvable. There were also flaws in your per-screen-route planning. If you wish me to point them out I'll do, if you postponed the detail-optimization to the final run I'll spare me the time to type it. ;)
In the pathway just before the Fortress of Winds, there's a part where you need to shrink and turn on a statue. If you cut the grass before shrinking yourself, you can get a more direct route to and from the statue when you're small.
That's the main thing I noticed in this newest section.
Yep, that was it. cost me more than 30 seconds, when i could do it right at the very beginning.
I'm not sure if the fairy should be visited at all. bombs and hearts can be obtained by killing weak enemys.
I got it mainly for the refill, but i'll see how many bombs i need throughout and gauge whether or not it'll be required (probably not).
No idea how much time you spent on the regular enemy battles, but they seemed improvable. There were also flaws in your per-screen-route planning. If you wish me to point them out I'll do, if you postponed the detail-optimization to the final run I'll spare me the time to type it. ;)
Please do, with pretty much the exception of dungeons (and even then, somewhat sparingly), I didn't really test to find an optimal path through screens. - It'd probably help to wait a few days, since by, say, friday maybe, I should have the test run finished, and more open to criticism.
I dont think I need anymore rupee's in the run, but if I do, that'll waste some time for sure (to which extent I'll fix it in the final version).
Say TSA, should you happen to read this, were there any major things you were going to do to differently to shave the time on your SDA run down to sub 2.30? while i haven't watched past where i've done, it didn't seem to have many flaws in it.
You need to get the Roll-Dash attack and the Faster Charge - Roll-Dash allows you to pwn Darknuts, Faster Charge to pwn bosses that require the charge + faster puzzle solving involving it.
Just those two things shave about 10 minutes off my current run.
www.geocities.com/atmaweapon_x/ind-lozu.zip
goes to powering up the sword with the third element now (running time of about 97 minutes). a somewhat reasonably convenient savestate after the wind fortress is included.
TSA wrote:
You need to get the Roll-Dash attack and the Faster Charge - Roll-Dash allows you to pwn Darknuts, Faster Charge to pwn bosses that require the charge + faster puzzle solving involving it.
Just those two things shave about 10 minutes off my current run.
Just those cut off that much time? I'll pass on the roll slash (unless you're talking about what i did in my movie anyways and just roll through + dash attack one of them from behind). faster charge i was going to get anyways, as an experiment, so that should work out nicely (just had to find out which kinstone he needed, after that it was easy to locate a conveniently placed piece).
Pretty good so far, but again it would've paid to see TSA's run entirely first. Instead of doing the ice block puzzle to push down the switch to lower the pillars so the lily pad can get past it, you should've moved it as much below the pillars as possible, built up speed for it and then step on the switch and let the momentum carry the lily pad past the pillars.
first of all: I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, you know most of this already, and on some parts I might be downright wrong. I'm just writing it all down just in case you missed some of it.
- As said, the biggest problems in your test-run are optimisations on a per-room-basis: there are some obvious errors in your current test-run, and it'd take too long (read: I'm too lazy) to point them all out. You'll have to spend more time examining ways, fighting tactics (including enemy manipulation?) etc on your final run. Comparing each room to TSAs run might help on puzzles as well.
One example: you didn't seem to notice that the seed-covered floors in the first temple slowed you down. There were no visible efforts to avoid them.
small check-list for going through each room:
- early bomb throwing, early sword charging
- when cloning link, make sure the "real" link is standing on the correct pad. After the clones disappear, the remaining Link should stand in the spot closest to your next destination.
- dash boots. You didn't use them as often as I expected. Then again, I might overestimate their speed.
- rolling vs. walking. Sometimes you rolled too far instead of walking the shorter distance. make sure to compare the routes every time.
general route changes. It's up to you to check if they're faster, at least they seem faster to me.
- first temple, your ride on the lower level: after getting the key, you're going back up to drop from the barrel again. Isn't it faster to just ride back on the leaf?
- maybe skip the bomb upgrade, as mentioned.
- open the wind crest in town earlier, saves you one walk from lake to town
- after visiting the witch for the first time, on your way back to town: open the path south of Lon Lon Ranch, so you can get there faster when going for the third book
- after fusing the first two elements: does the game require you to do the first tutorial-chargeup, or can you go right to the exit?
I only watched until the beginning of the ice dungeon (forgot it's name) when VGB crashed. Will watch more later.
edit - 4th element get! - only one (long) dungeon left!
Tub wrote:
first of all: I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, you know most of this already, and on some parts I might be downright wrong. I'm just writing it all down just in case you missed some of it.
Constructive criticism is always welcome :)
- As said, the biggest problems in your test-run are optimisations on a per-room-basis: there are some obvious errors in your current test-run, and it'd take too long (read: I'm too lazy) to point them all out. You'll have to spend more time examining ways, fighting tactics (including enemy manipulation?) etc on your final run. Comparing each room to TSAs run might help on puzzles as well.
One example: you didn't seem to notice that the seed-covered floors in the first temple slowed you down. There were no visible efforts to avoid them.
Enemy manipulation can be done, but its a little difficult with some enemies. Puzzles and such I will compare for the second version, as AnotherGamer pointed out. The seed out decently with rolls, as I didn't overshoot the area I had intended to be at, but I'll see if its faster to walk around or something. After I get the gust jar, its faster to roll over them than to use it to clear a path (I checked at least that much :P).
small check-list for going through each room:
- early bomb throwing, early sword charging
Yep, got that covered, the bomb throwing i didn't think of totally until part way up the mountain.
- when cloning link, make sure the "real" link is standing on the correct pad. After the clones disappear, the remaining Link should stand in the spot closest to your next destination.
Got that covered, mostly.
- dash boots. You didn't use them as often as I expected. Then again, I might overestimate their speed.
Yeah, they're often a bit slower due to the menu changing and such required, since menu navigation would take about 45-60 frames tops, charge time is ~30 frames, and the speed isn't too much faster than rolling. Most of their use I get is when it's required, and when spanning multiple screens in the same area as the effect doesn't require recharging when passing through the same area.
- rolling vs. walking. Sometimes you rolled too far instead of walking the shorter distance. make sure to compare the routes every time.
With the rolling vs walking, at least some of those i compared, and rolling was usually a few frames faster even though half of the animation might've been me rolling at a wall.
general route changes. It's up to you to check if they're faster, at least they seem faster to me.
- first temple, your ride on the lower level: after getting the key, you're going back up to drop from the barrel again. Isn't it faster to just ride back on the leaf?
- maybe skip the bomb upgrade, as mentioned.
- open the wind crest in town earlier, saves you one walk from lake to town
- after visiting the witch for the first time, on your way back to town: open the path south of Lon Lon Ranch, so you can get there faster when going for the third book
- after fusing the first two elements: does the game require you to do the first tutorial-chargeup, or can you go right to the exit?
- Yes, it is infact faster. I dont know why I didn't bother testing, but I compared, and it's about 15 seconds faster at least than the way I did it.
- Probably will, i should be able to manipulate some (pot? enemy? i dunno) drops to my advantage for bombs and hearts.
- Will certainly do, the reason I didn't earlier was because I totally forgot there was one in the town >_>
- Yep, going to do that too.
- Unfortunately so, ezlo just keeps bugging you to do it if you try to walk down.
I only watched until the beginning of the ice dungeon (forgot it's name) when VGB crashed. Will watch more later.
I should have a new wip up within a few hours tops of this post, and will edit as such to include it. I found a nice little shortcut, which if he's able to replicate it, should save TSA almost a minute and a half :)
Finished. total time of 2:24:49.
The final dungeon I just was hating so I didn't bother test running it to find the ideal path to go. still, turned out ok like that. Vaati went down rather nicely too, so that's a bonus.
Here's summing up what -I- know is majorly improvable:
1) get the 20 rupees from Links house at the beginning = ~30 seconds saved
2) Skip the fairy/bomb upgrade = ~30 seconds saved
3) Skip the dash attack = ~20 seconds saved
3.5) MAYBE skip the rock breaker, I'm not actually sure yet as it proved useful throughout.
4) Open the town warp earlier = ~15? seconds saved
5) Do better barrel movement = ~2-5 seconds saved
6) Wander back in the dungeon using the leaf = ~15 seconds saved
7) push the rock on the way back from maple's place the first time = ~5-10 seconds saved
8) That ice puzzle = ~5? seconds saved
9) Dont hit the mountain/minish village warp points = ~5 seconds saved
That's all that comes to mind, so if anyone cares to point out more, please do :)