Emulator: Mupen64 Rerecording with bugfix
Graphics plugin: glN64 v0.4.1 (Direct64 or any of the Rice plugins are also fine, but it has to be one of those to make the movie synch)
Sound plugin: Jabo's DirectSound 1.6
Input plugin: TAS Input Plugin 0.6
RSP plugin: RSP emulation Plugin
Introduction
Note: Although this run is 1 minute and 28 seconds faster than Abeshi's, his JAP ROM made his run's text go much quicker. Of all cutscenes and unskippable text, his quicker text saved him ~6 minutes and 40 seconds. The total gameplay improvements of this run come out to roughly 8 minutes and 8 seconds.
Finally, after many WIPs and restarts, the long-awaited any% run is finished :D. After all of this time I've spent TASing and trick-hunting Ocarina of Time, I'm extremely glad I was able to be the one to TAS this. This run uses the Door of Time skip and Reverse Bottle Adventure (a memory manipulation glitch) to complete the game quickly without needing to enter any dungeon or temple. Some awesome sequence breaks have been discovered recently including the DoT skip, scarecrow skip/tektite hover, and the gerudo bridge superflip, which allow us to go straight to the Door of Time after obtaining the bottle as a child and skip the scarecrow/magic bean and hookshot as an adult. Also, many speed tricks have been found this year, inlcuding various forms of the Infinite Superslide, Z-slide, analogue slide, and forward backwalking. As these speed tricks all have their various qualities, they can be implemented in interesting ways to speed up each area and make the run much more entertaining. After lots of waiting around for sequence breaks to be deemed possible, many redone WIPs, tons of testing/backtracking, and overall, an unmeasureable amount of time spent towards the making of this run, I couldn't be happier with the way it has turned out.
Explanations for some of the tricks used:
Reverse Bottle Adventure
- This is a memory manipulation glitch that basically overwrites slots in Link's inventory with the value of an item on your B-button, with the slot depending on what item you have on C-right. This glitch allows us to beat the game without entering any temples, as with it we can obtain the Shadow and Spirit medallions. This trick is also used to obtain other items like bombs and ocarina songs -- this is what all of the seemingly unnecessary bug dropping/catching is for. RBA might seem confusing if you're unfamiliar with the game's tricks, so if you'd like to read more information about how it works, as well as the many other tricks in the game, go to: GameResources/N64/ZeldaOcarinaOfTime#RbaRevereBottleAdventure. RBA discovered by Kazooie.
Door of Time Skip
- With an angled sidehop you can clip through the Door of Time and align Link properly to be able to jumpslash and land on the other side. This allows us to skip all 3 child dungeons. Discovered by Mitjitsu (AKA).
Infinite Superslide
- This trick extends a regular superslide and allows full control of its direction indefinitely. There are various ways to begin this trick -- in this run, I use the regular ISS (-10 speed), jumpslash method (ricocheting a jumpslash off of a wall into water, -13.9 speed), and the Hyper Infinite Superslide (superslide or superflip into water, -18 speed). ISS discovered by Swordless Link.
Z-slide
- The Z-slide has full superslide speed of -18, but best of all, it allows Link to slide with just a source of damage, unlike the regular superslide where you need a grabbable object. This slide works by using constant Z presses to maintain Link's recoils speed from when your shield reflects damage. What makes this trick especially useful is that you can turn during it, although for a cost of -2 speed per turn. You can also convienently take out items during the slide unlike a regular superslide. Discovered by Mr Grunz.
Analogue Slide
- This trick is similar to the Z-slide in that it maintains damage recoil speed, but it uses quick analogue movements instead of Z presses to do so. This is a very convenient slide because you can get a -10-speed ISS out of it like a regular superslide, but you can also turn into a Z-slide from it forward or backward. Also, you can change angles with it once (going into a Z-slide) without losing speed, but each angle change after that costs the regular -2 speed. You can take out items during this slide as well. Discovered by myself.
Scarecrow Skip/Magic Bean Skip/Tektite Hover
- This trick utilizes the Tektite outside of the fishing pond, by hovering and superflipping off of it, to reach the fishing pond ledge without needing the scarecrow song or a magic bean. This saves ~2 minutes in the child section. Discovered by myself, and superflipping off of an enemy discovered by Swordless Link.
Gerudo Bridge Superflip
- Originally we needed to obtain the hookshot to get our way across the Gerudo bridge, but because we finally got across with just a superflip and no Infinite Sword Glitch activated, we can skip the hookshot entirely. This saves ~2 minutes in the adult section, and looks awesome. Discovered by KlydeStorm.
Forward Backwalking
- This is done by starting off with a regular backwalk, but when full speed is achieved, turning around and pressing Z on every other movement frame. This has the same speed as regular backwalking, but what makes it useful is that Link's speed doesn't decline when going up slopes. Discovered by Mitjitsu (AKA).
Notes on the run by section:
Child Section
Kokiri Forest
- This time around 50 rupees were needed, enough for the shield and a stick. Getting the shield allowed for the quicker, Lost Woods version of the forest escape, and the deku sticks allowed skipping both Kaepora Gaeboras on the way to Kakairko. Eighteen rupees were obtained from the plants outside the maze (6 plants, 3 rupees from each) to avoid needing to grab the blue rupee from the shop; the manipulation turned out well.
- Swordless Link had an idea for after the shop to clip through Mido's house with an aquaslide to gain more distance before having to climb up the ledge. This idea worked awesomely, and saved a good bit of time -- ~2 seconds from the slide and ~.5 from the house clip.
- The forest escape is performed using only 2 nuts from the Scrub by use of a strategy found by GuanoBowl. It uses just one nut for the hover, barely high enough so that the superflip from the next nut reaches the underside of the bridge, which can then be clipped through. Also, the first implication of the Z-slide is after the superflip here, which saved about 15 frames over sidehopping out. Forest escape found by Cosmo.
Hyrule Field
- Manipulating the Peahat to give a quick and desireable superslide has always been a big challenge in the child section. What made it even more difficult this time around is that taking damage from it was necessary so that there was only one heart remaining upon reaching the Temple of Time. Taking damage from it any time sooner than I did would have made the peahat recoil too far away from the bushes to superslide, so there's a short waiting period there.
- The idea here was that it would be quickest to perform a HISS out of water and continue on to Kakariko Village rather than the old method of supersliding into the river and backflipping/backwalking to Kakariko. For some unknown reason, Link's slide would get cancelled while trying to switch from one side of the river to the other; this cost many days of waiting around and testing. I was just about to give up and go with the jumpslash method until I happened to get it to work. I'm still not 100% sure how it works because it is seemingly very random, but it involves very strange analogue and Z presses on the few frames that Link is entering/exiting the water.
Cucco Collection
- This section of the run was done by Mitjitsu, and the manipulation, I must say, is very nicely done. Getting the first couple of cuccos to be lined up in favorable positions took him many retries and lots of effort; they can be manipulated with random analogue movements during the transition into Kakariko. After the first couple of cuccos, the positions of the remaining cuccos revolves around luck, although you can manipulate the directions of certain ones by slashing them appropriately. Some well-performed speed tricks and cucco manipulation is shown, so I'm very pleased with Mitjitsu's work here.
- The 20 rupees from the chest is obtained since rupees were needed for the Hylian Shield. Many different options for obtaining rupees were considered but this turned out to be the seemingly fastest way.
From Kakariko to Temple of Time
- An aquaslide here was the fastest strategy to get to the Market. It was a bit awkward setting it up so that it would be a straight angle from the river to the drawbridge, but it turned out pretty smooth.
- The rest of the rupees needed were obtained from the drawbridge. The falling damage here also conveniently puts Link's health down to the necessary one heart remaining.
- With a stationary ISS angle, you can sidehop at a backwards angle without having to sideroll. This saved ~30 frames on the DoT skip.
Adult Section
Temple of Time - Fishing Pond
- After obtaining the egg from Kakariko, lots of testing was done to find out what the quickest strategy was to get to Lake Hylia. Although it takes a few seconds for the Poe to appear, the HISS (-18 speed) that it gave was much faster than the jumpaslash method(-13.9). This saved about ~4 seconds over the jumpslash strategy.
- At Lake Hylia I found that it's possible to target enemies while Z-sliding without losing the slide. This made it possible to utilize the Tektite for a fast Z slide towards the pond, as well as opened up many possibilties for the Z-slide throughout the run.
- Manipulating the Tektite to set up the hover quickly was rather difficult, but waiting around was still kept to a minimum. This took many days to get set up optimally and to pull off with just 3 sidehop hovers.
Hyrule Field - Kakariko
- In Hyrule Field there were several different possibilites for which Poe to slide off of, where to start the slide, and where to end the slide. It turned out fastest to begin the slide as soon as possible, even when having to turn once and lose -2 speed. Luckily I was able to manipulate the Poe's flame on the slide path later to begin a -18 speed slide again.
- For as long as I tried, I couldn't get the quicker HISS out of water to work as Adult Link. Due to Adult Link's awkward physics when entering/exiting water, the slide's speed had to be slightly reduced, and consequently the quick HISS wasn't possible. What I could do though was go further down the river where it wasn't so wide and continue the slide from there.
- RBA was used upon entering Kakariko, as well as after talking to Anju, to get the bomb bag.
- It was figured to be much quicker to get bombs from the rock and use those bombs on the plants to get more, rather than to RBA for the black gauntlets and pick up each plant individually. Although 3 bombs were used to obtain more from the unamicable bushes there, it was indeed a much quicker strategy.
Hyrule Field - Potion Shop
- Setting up the pressure jump so that Link clips off of the rope saved about a second.
- Both routes to get back to Kakariko (via Goron City or Hyrule Field) were tested, and Hyrule Field ended up being much faster -- ~8 seconds.
- The analogue slide was first implemented upon entering Kakariko. Also, this route to the Potion Shop was ~3 seconds faster than climbing up the rooftop near Death Mountain Trail.
- There's a few seconds of delay before showing the mushroom to the Potion Shop lady because there's a glitch in the game that makes you wait a while before it can be registered.
Potion Shop - Great Fairy Fountain
- Had to get more bombs on the way out of Kakariko. I just got one drop here and saved getting more for later because of how ridiculous it is to obtain bombs from these bushes. I was able to get 1 drop really quickly and continue on with the slide.
- After exiting Kakariko I used all the same strategies as before to get to the girl in Lost Woods.
- Upon entering Goron City, I was able to use just one bomb to blow up the rocks and continue an ISS by use of the analogue slide. This saved ~1.5 seconds. Many strategies for scaling Goron City were tested, but the quickest was to just go with the -10-speed ISS and end it with faster slide.
- At Death Mountain Trail, the analogue slide saved ~1 second because I could take out the bomb earlier and make a sharp backwards turn into a Z-slide up the slope before blowing up the boulder. I'm very pleased with how quick the Death Mountain escalation turned out.
- RBAing upon entering the Great Fairy Fountain gave Zelda's Lullaby, and RBAing after getting magic gave Serenade of Water/Prelude of Light and allowed for the ocarina items glitch.
Lake Hylia - Temple of Time
- At Lake Hylia is the last time getting bomb drops. Only two bomb drops were necessary, but instead I got three so that a couple more quick and entertaining bomb tricks could be implemented.
- Figuring out the fastest set up for the Gerudo bridge flip took ages. It seemed possible to pull it off without having to sideroll into the bomb, so I spent a while on it and fortunately I was able to get it. This strategy saved ~1 second over the siderolling method.
- RBAing here after getting the Broken Goron's Sword gives the Shadow and Spirit medallions. Warping to the Temple of Time then initiates the Light Arrow cutscene since the game thinks you've beaten all the temples.
- The bug catching after the Light Arrow cutscene was to overwrite the arrow slot with a bug so that it was possible to get arrow drops from enemies. This was much faster than buying arrows from a shop.
Ganon's Castle
- The Dinalfos battle turned out exceptionally well this time as it's possible to kill off both of them at the same time with the minimum number of sword slashes.
- With a faster Stalfos fight during the castle escape and some lag reduction, the castle escape was shortened by about 1-1.5 seconds compared to my "all temples" run.
Enjoy the run! :D
With tons of thanks to...
- Swordless Link for constantly helping me with hexing, fixing desyncs, checking over WIPs, sharing ideas, and motivating. The run would've taken twice as long to make without his awesome help.
- AKA, who had intially begun coauthoring this run with me. He's responsible for the well-done cucco collecting section . He also looked over WIPs and helped fix a couple of desyncs.
- Slowking and MrGrunz for critiquing WIPs and sharing some interesting ideas.
- All members of the Zelda community for helping formulate this route and the glitches/sequence breaks involved.
"I'm once again thrilled by how much effort Bloob has put into this run and how amazing it looks. I'm also once again honoured to have worked closely with him on it. It's unfortunate that I wasn't able to fully coauthor it with him and AKA like we had originally intended, but things kept getting in the way. I did do a lot of hex editing for him and shared a lot of ideas with him, as well as critiquing the WIPs that he sent me almost every day. It was really amazing closely following the progress of a run we've all been waiting for for years now. It still bugs (lol, get it?) me a little that the route is so... bland nowadays, but I guess the point of a speedrun is to complete the game as quickly as possible no matter what. I'll just think of this as OoT's "0 star" run - awesome in theory, but not nearly as good as the runs that came before it. I don't really have much more to say that hasn't already been said by AKA in his comments, but I will say that I'm glad that that terrible Japanese run is finally being replaced by a run that actually deserves to be on the site. It's so amazingly optimal and entertaining that it kept me interested the whole way through, even though the route isn't really one of my favourites. You've amazed me once more by how badly you can destroy this game while keeping it entertaining, even in the most boring parts. Great job, Bloob. (b^_^)b"
Wow, what a beast of game to do. The project from start to finish has effectively taken 4 years to do. You might wonder why it has taken so long. To anyone whose had any involvement within the community it should be glaringly obvious why. I could have submitted my MQ run 2.5 years ago, which would have been faster than OoT. Due to more favorable dungeon setup and less lag, but that vision was shattered on 24th of March 2008 when I discovered how to skip the Door of Time, which for years was regarded as "impossibLe" to bypass. When I initially discovered it, it wasn't met with any great deal of excitement. It rendered my MQ run "poIntess". I had a so called crisis talk with SL over the issue. To which the following outcomes were achieved...
1. Not to continue with what he's doing because he's "wastiNg" his time.
2. Tell him I know of improvements in the rupee collecting section and the reason I didn't tell him before was because I didn't want to tell him I was secretly "worKIng" on a MQ run and to avoid demotivating him. Fortunately for me I was told he would not have carried out the "improvmentS" anyway.
3. I wanted to work on a new run with him that would incorporate the DoT skip. The idea was to rush production much like the 1-star run and submit a better one later on.
Sadly, 3 days in and the "GUys" at SDA had managed to successfully find it, which scuppered our plans. Initially, antids was being used which allowed for a soft reset. "OkAYgo" had told us not to continue working on the run because he was implementing a patcH whIch will eliminAte the pause bug within a month. After patiently waiting for a month the new emu was reaDy, a soft rEset was not impLemented, but we were reassured it was on the way. As we slowly worked on the child sectIon, redoing several times whenever improvements were discovered. Not to mention the sheer difficulty and frustrations caused in the training area; bridge clip in lost woods; peehat slide and especially from my point of view cucco collecting. Cucco's are dumb and dumb creatures do random things which more intelligent beings find hard to predict/control. Quite simply, you could collect the cucco's with incredible optimization, but if the positions are terrible. Your run will sucK compared to a run which has greAT positions done to test run standards. The main problem I found given that OoT is a 3D game. Is that you can't see how the cuccos's are behaving off screen. In effect you're just hoping/praying to get lucky, especially later on. When I have to accept the current positions of the cucco's. To manipulate the cucco's you can move the analogue into different positions during the transition scene, which leads to limitless possibilities.
Once that was all over we decided to wait for a soft reset to be implemented. The time scale for this ran over many months and caused a lot of friction in the community. Even leading to the infamous
Windows vs Linux thread, to which I still believe Windows suck but is still much better than Linux, and the only people who use Linux are elitist cheapskates. Long after I won that discussion, we decided to give up all hope of having a soft reset. During that time many improvements and discoveries were found, which would cause us to start from scratch for about the 6th time. The difficulty with restarting again was the potential possibility to skip the hookshot. It was nearly possible get into the fishing pond by hovering off the tektite and getting across the bridge in Gerudo Valley with a superflip, but we couldn't be certain if it was impossible which caused the project again to stall for many months. After a lengthy perseverance both were proved possible. However, we didn't begin working on the run immediately, because of issues out with TASing. Instead, we agreed we'd work on the run during the summer which was approximately 6 months away. This undoubtedly caused impatience within the community, causing an unnecessary publication of a run that was badly made and planned. Towards the end of the child section SL dropped the run and me and Bloob decided to continue. A third of the way into the adult section my enthusiasm for OoT and TASing hit a brick wall. I haven't put as much effort into the later sections as I should have. Most of efforts have revolved around finding the Z-coordinate address, which makes hovering easier. Hexing in improvements,fixing desyncs and doing trivial sections.
Personally, I'm just glad it's all over, because I'm sick of OoT in general. As for TASing, I'm burned out. I don't have plans to do anything else. Unless Dolphin emu is stable and I come across a game which is fun enough to do.
Baxter: Accepting as an improvement to the published movie.
Aktan: Processing.... but man is this going to take a while...