I played the whole Light World today and I'm pretty sure that this is the optimum route. There is very little freedom in the LW: any route must have the dungeons completed in that order, there is no choice. But delaying getting Zora's Flippers until later is the biggest time saver. Technically though, the fastest route would involve skipping the HC at the sanctuary, but in a speedrun without savestates it comes in handy the whole game, costing only 2.5-3 seconds. Now on to the Dark World...
Edit: TSA, at around 25:10 of your Light World video, wouldn't changing the crystal switch to blue make the route in the next two rooms slightly shorter?
Can someone make a list of what all the level order rules are?
Edit: Can someone remind me what you need quake for? I forgot. Also, do you ever need ether besides when you open misery mire?
Edit 2: I just remembered you need quake to open turtle rock. Is there anything else you need it for?
Ether and Quake are only needed to open dungeons. Other non-essential uses for Ether are to reveal invisible paths, and can be used (like the ice rod) to do the freeze enemy+hammer trick to make an enemy drop a magic container.
Here's what you should have before attempting to complete the dungeons:
Dark Palace: At least 110 rupees
Blind's Hideout: Magic Hammer
Flooded Palace: Zora's Flippers, Magic Hammer
Skull Woods: Magic Hammer (must also pick up Fire Rod to reach boss.)
Misery Mire: Titan's Mitt, Ether Medallion, Flute Bird, Hook Shot
Ice Palace: Titan's Mitt, Zora's Flippers, Fire Rod or Bombos (Cane of Somaria highly recommended)
Turtle Rock: Titan's Mitt, Magic Hammer, Quake Medallion, Fire Rod, Ice Rod, Cane of Somaria
Let me know if I'm missing something.
For Turtle Rock, the Magic Powder can be used as an alternative to the Cane of Somaria. Though, I doubt the time wasted acquiring the mushroom and the powder itself is made up by obtaining the Mirror Shield earlier.
Also, Hookshot is required in Misery Mire
Added both to the list. The Cane of Somaria is useful in other dungeons and is pretty much on the way compared to taking the detour for the Magic Powder, so I doubt it as well. Also, I've been reviewing the Light World route and I believe that it might not be the "theoretical" fastest. The fastest route would involve accumulating 100 rupees by the time you get to the Master Sword forest, then if you win the gambling game there twice, you can accumulate 500 rupees before entering the Dark World. This would avoid the detour to get the rupee chests in the Eastern Palace, Sahasrahla's room and in the Village of Outcast. This is more ideal for a time attack than a speedrun because the odds of winning are against you, forcing you to redo the run many times. In addition, getting 100 rupees just through fighting enemies on the way is difficult without savestates to control the randomness. So the new fastest route becomes:
Hyrule Castle
Save Zelda
East Palace
Pegasus Boots
Book of Mudora
Desert Palace
Tower of Hera
Gambling x2 (need 100 rupees)
Master Sword
Hyrule Castle 2
(Btw, I played the entire Light World very smoothly today without dying and in one sitting, all after one night of practice! Wish I had recorded it...)
(Btw, I played the entire Light World very smoothly today without dying and in one sitting, all after one night of practice! Wish I had recorded it...)
Do you know how long it took you, and do you plan on ever doing a speed run of the whole game?
I don't remember exactly how long it took me, I was mainly just trying to get hang of the game again. It looks like an ALttP speedrun is much easier to do than an LoZ one in terms of fighting, but there's a lot to memorize. I'll record myself playing tomorrow and post it up if it's noteworthy enough.
TSA played rather solidly in the Light World, the only way I can considerably beat his time is if I use my gambling route, which is very hard to pull off in a speed run. I'll try the same route he did and see how close I can come.
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
I just wanted to point out this website which we've mentioned before concerning glitches, bugs and shortcuts:
http://kontek.net/davidwonn/snes.html#L
His Link to the Past section contains an interesting item which explains a shortcut we should be considering. "Reach the Dark World Early" and "Finish the Game with only 11 Hearts" outline a fast track that allows for skipping quite a bit of gametime, including 2 of the 3 pendants and the Master Sword!
I was thinking of incorporating the glitches into a time attack route, I think people would find them interesting to see. In a speedrun I couldn't use them though, since the goal is to demonstrate skillful playing and violates rules set in official records. Does anyone know how to record from the snes console to the computer? If not, I'll just record from ZSNES.
If you would allow glitches for an emulator speed run, there are also a lot of other glitches that could be used. For example, if I remember correctly there's a glitch that lets you enter Ganon's Castle without getting any crystals.
Recorded the run on ZSNES, got to Agahnim's Tower and died three rooms before reaching him...very frustrating because Agahnim himself never kills me; heh, I'll try again in the morning. Better get used to playing with a keyboard...
Of course this game might be one of those "How far should we take the glitches, even in an emulator run?" games, seeing as how, with a few major glitches, you can trigger the ending in about 3 minutes... o_O
Zanapher has a nice big "Glitch FAQ" on GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/game/9107.html). Might be worth a read for those who do plan to use glitches...
ok, after 20 practice runs over an entire week's hard practice, I've finally recorded my Light World run of ALttP. It's 31:23 from the moment Link jumps out of bed to the final blow against Agahnim. I'm not sure how my time compares to TSA since I don't have his video with me at the moment. I'll post a full commentary on my run later as it's 4:22 am and I'm struggling to type these words. The run is being uploaded now, it should be finished by the time I wake up. Zzzzzzz......
Alright, the uploading of my ALttP Light World speedrun is finished. I used the same route as TSA with the exception of a few slight changes. Overall, the run went pretty well, and is the smoothest one I have done so far. I got unlucky in the Eastern Palace not getting as many arrows as I wanted before facing the boss. I took a big risk in the Tower of Hera that could have costed me the whole run, but ended up saving me a lot of time.
hmm, so my run is 1:02 minutes faster...I'll have to look at his video again sometime to see where the difference came from.
Anyway, here's my video, split into two sections for filesize reasons:
ALttP Light World Speedrun Part 1ALttP Light World Speedrun Part 2
Was that done on a real SNES or ZSNES? I haven't watched it yet, but it seems impressive, so I'll watch it soon. Do you mind if I post a link to those videos on the ZHQ forums?
It was on ZSNES since I can't record on the real console yet. For my full non-practice run I'll do it on a real SNES. You can post the link on ZHQ, hopefully I won't exceed my bandwidth limit. :P
After getting the 100 rupees in the first level, why didn't you just drop down and walk through the path in the middle instead of going around the long way? I think you could have saved another 3 or 4 seconds.
Edit: By the way, are you still going to do a LoZ speed run? If so, which will you do first, LoZ or ALttP?
because that's around when the big cannon is launched which you cannot dodge around.
The Light World alone takes as much time as doing an entire LoZ speedrun, but LoZ is much harder to do overall. I'm a little out of practice with LoZ after spending so much time with ALttP, so I may do both eventually, but I think I'll focus on ALttP for now. Besides, it's one of my favourite games of all time. :)