Order of the Phoenix is a videogame adaptation of the 5th Harry Potter in the series. It closely follows the plot of the movie as Umbridge is appointed the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Potter raises Dumbledore's Army to defend against the dark arts. This TAS decides to instead corrupt save data to achieve a completed file in which Voldemort is defeated in record time, skipping an hour's worth of gameplay.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.8
- Aims for fastest completion
- Corrupts save data
Comments
Lead up to corruption
First we have to endure 45 seconds of just loading into the game. We select Dutch as the language because it's slightly faster than english. Then after finally loading in, we head off to the right where Dudley is and wait for the two tutorial textboxes to pass so we can talk to him. He starts crying because apparently we killed Cedric and runs off leading to us having to chase him. This chase section is quite funny because walking straight up doesn't mean Harry walks straight along the path and so we have to press L every now and then to stay on the path. This was particularly tedious to TAS and although I've spent most of my time on these 20 seconds, I'm not 100% confident it's completely optimal but that's not to say they are entirely sub-optimal as they might appear visually. The loads to go to the next areas all extend slightly to the left and so it is faster to run diagonally up to the left into the wall. This seems incredibly slow, especially under the tunnel but I can assure you this is faster than walking straight into the load zone. The next cutscene that plays is of Dudley being attacked by Dementors and we just have to mash A through this section. Now we get our first autosave and during this autosave, we reset the console 284 frames after the final A press. This is the first frame we can reset for Save Corruption to work, with the window being a total of 19 frames big.
Corruption
Resetting during this window while saving puts the game into an error state and instead of a saving a file that's just finished the underpass section, the game instead saves a game with all levels completed and all individual level collectibles at 255 which is way beyond the max which is usually 2-10 items. We also choose Dutch again as it is the fastest language for this section too. This brings me to my next point about where this TAS should end.
Without save corruption, the game doesn't really have a typical ending (i.e. credits after beating the final level) and instead spawns Harry into the Gryffindor Common Room and... that's it. This save corruption achieves a similar end, having beaten all levels including the final one and Harry is spawned in the Gryffindor Common Room, so already there's a bit of confusion. Furthermore, this file that has an almost ultra-100% file besides some other 100% requirements isn't permanent and will be wiped if the console is reset again. The RTA speedrunning community has made it so runs are required to gain another autosave so the file is secure and won't be wiped. The fastest way to do this is to enter the Room of Requirement, go up to the pedestal where you learn a spell and exit out of it, which is what this TAS does.
I'm unsure whether this can really be called an 'ending' or if it is, where it should end. I'll leave it up to what others say.
I'd also like to thank the RTA speedrunning community for helping explain some stuff to do with this run. Their information was very useful
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Replacing with a version that plays the last mission and therefore completes the game. Also added the branch.
feos: Accepting.
despoa: Processing...