Game objectives
- Emulator used: Mupen64-rerecording-v2-reset
- This TAS aims to beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as fast as possible while beating all dungeons, temples, and breaking all trials in Ganon's castle without using the Reverse Bottle Adventure or the Get Item Manipulation glitch.
This TAS was made using the reset rerecording version of Mupen64 in order to record resets during the run. If you want to playback the movie, this version of Mupen64 must be used.
Settings:
Video plugin: Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6 WARNING ! The "Copy framebuffer to RDRAM" option must be enabled in the advanced settings in order to playback the movie correctly.
Sound plugin: Jabo's DirectSound 1.6
Input plugin: TAS Input Plugin 0.6
RSP plugin: RSP emulation Plugin
After seeing
Swordless Link's previous TAS beaten by speedrunners in 2015 using a
newer route and newer strategies, I was thinking of improving the TAS using the newly discovered strategies since then like the
Wrong Warp glitch, or the route mentioned previously.
During the making of the TAS, many new strategies have been improved, leading to an even newer route, also called the
"1.0 N64 route" that uses Blank A in Bottom of the Well to get more precious bombchus. This lead to an improvement of around 1 minute and a half compared to the previous route, forcing me to restart the TAS in late 2016. After months of focusing on the TAS, it ended up with an improvement of 80141 frames (22 minutes and 15 seconds) over Swordless Link's previous submission.
General tricks and glitches
Check this
page for an explanation of various tricks and glitches used in the TAS.
Extra tricks:
Twisted bombchu
While holding the ESS position and a bombchu, dropping it with the shield and a changed angle at the same frame makes the bombchu have weird effects: the bombchu can explode when meeting a wall, and can go through doors. An example can be seen
here.
Kokiri Forest
- The run starts by collecting 35 rupees to buy 2 Deku Sticks and 5 Deku Nuts that will be used later in the run. The RNG is heavily manipulated during the rocks rupee collection in order to have them always give 3 rupees.
Lost Woods
- Link clips through the stone leading to Zora's River by jumpslashing on a precise spot that makes him enter in the water right when Link is through the stone.
Hyrule Field
- A WESS is done using a stick, enabling to cross the field pretty fast.
- The owl is skipped thanks to the ESS that prevents it from talking to Link.
Kakariko Village
- The RNG is again heavily manipulated to make the cuccos go at very convenient spots to collect them faster.
- The Navi Dive glitch is done using a simple slash with a stick to enter in the Bottom of the Well earlier.
Bottom of the Well
- The blank A glitch is done by entering in the crawl space and using a Deku Nut 1 frame later. This enables Link to clip through some floors, leading to the bombchu chest.
- Using a bombchu, Link can vine clip, and go swim out of bounds to reach the Hyrule Shield chest, as well as the Deku Shield chest.
Zora's River
- A megaflip is done to reach Zora's Domain using the twisted bombchu trick explained earlier.
Zora's Domain
- A fish is caught, it will be used later in the run to do the Ocarina Item glitch.
- The King Zora is skipped using the A-Slide trick. During this trick, a specific ESS position is held, making Link able to go through it. However, by doing this, speed is lost.
Zora's Fountain
- By jumpslashing at a precise spot of Jabu's mouth, we can touch the loading zone, avoiding taking another bottle with another fish. This trick can be done faster if we had 1 more Deku Stick or the sword.
Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly
- A bombchu is used to activate the switch in the first room. It's the only fast way to activate it with the items there is at that point.
- Using a A-Slide out of Biri (the jellyfish) is a slightly faster than crossing the room normally
- Twice, a SuperSlide is done with Ruto, which is faster than backwalking with it.
- The Navi text on the switch is skipped by activating the switch on the very corner of the switch.
- Doing an ISG is the only fast way to not break the Deku Stick while defeating all enemies in the boomerang room.
- 2 A-Slides followed by Z-Slides to go back to the elevator room quickly.
- A megaflip with a bombchu is used in the elevator room in order to reach the end of the dungeon. The Twisted Bombchu trick was again used to make the bombchu explode when meeting the edge of the platform.
- Using a precise roll, we can open the door right before it locks again.
- By throwing the boomerang very high from the bottom at a precise spot, we can activate the switch without climbing the wall.
- ISG is again used multiple times in the Barinade fight, since it's the only way to not break the Deku Stick.
Kokiri Forest #2
- Using ISG and a very precise backflip, we can climb on an invisible ground that is higher than the ground we backflipped, which enables us to climb on twins house.
- 2 bombchus are used to hover and go out of bounds to enter in Deku Tree. Doing this skips Mido and the Deku Tree cutscene.
Deku Tree
- 1 stick is needed for a later trick, so a plant is killed using the boomerang, ISG is slower in this case.
- 1 bombchu is used to perform the 2-3-1 skip and go directly in the boss room, this skips scrubs. After the megaflip, Link does a ground clip, which is at a very precise spot. After that, a strick is used to recoil on a wall and reach the loading zone of the Boss Room.
- During the fight, I kill Gohma at a specific spot and with a specific RNG in order to have the blue warp as close as possible of the door in order to perform the Wrong Warp to Ganon's Castle.
- Using the Ocarina Item glitch, I delay the warp to the Kokiri Emerald cutscene.
- I get ISG from the bush and use the 2 last bombchus to clip through the wall in order to enter in the door back.
- By entering at the right time and with the right camera angle, I perform a Wrong Warp to Ganon's Castle.
Inside Ganon's Castle:
Spirit Trial
- I collect all the white rupees in the Spirit Trial while taking damage in order to do a cutscene skip later. The white rupee on the top of the room is collected by performing a precise hover using the Statue and the Beam's laser.
- I collect 20 precious bombchus in the next room normally.
- By being saw by the 2 Beamos, I take damage from 1 laser during the roll for the cutscene skip, and the second laser is used to do an A-Slide to exit the castle faster.
Castle Courtyard
- By sidehoping at the first possible frame after another sidehop, the guards are blind and cannot catch Link, even if Link is facing the guard.
- After talking to Zelda, 1 bombchu is used to kill Link in order to skip the Zelda Lullaby cutscene while still getting it.
Temple of Time
- Using an ESS to do precise sidehop, we can clip though the Door of Time and keep an angle that is able to target the side of the wall in order to not fall and skip the door without any sword.
- After becoming adult, there is currently no known way to skip the Door of Time in the other side with the items we had, so a reset is the only fast way to get out.
Hyrule Field #2
- Since we have to wait for night for later tricks, there is no need to waste a bombchu here, so an awesome backwalk is enough.
Kakariko Village #2
- An HESS is done with 1 bombchu to reach the graveyard very fast with the ability to change angle freely.
Graveyard
- By grabbing the grave at the very corner, we can have a weird turn, and by pressing Z during it, we can cancel the grab and enter very fast in Dampe's race.
Dampe
- A time of 0:43 was obtained, which is tied to Swordless Link's record. 0:42 was almost reached.
- After getting the hookshot, I go through the door that closes, but I immediately go back to the hookshot chest room and get crushed by the wall which teleports Link back to the entrance.
Graveyard #2
- I get ISG and perform a SuperSlide with a bombchu, but by grabbing a bush. After reaching the top of the grave, I release the shield and Link attempts to grab the bush, but since link is not strong enough to grab it, Link is teleported to the bush while keeping the same height and thanks to ISG, we can keep this height and climb the seam where an HESS is done with another bombchu to cross it faster. Note that while making the TAS, a new trick was found and resulted in being able to
enter in the temple without any explosives.. However, the trick is
slower, but saves 3 bombchus (1 for SuperSlide, 1 for HESS since it's not worth using because we are closer of the temple, and 1 that will be used later in the first room of the Shadow Temple).
- Since the door leading to the Shadow Temple is not loaded because of our height, we can go through it and enter in Shadow Temple.
Shadow Temple
- I use a bombchu dropped with the Twisted Bombchu method to megaflip and get past the first gap. Doing this avoid equipping the hookshot.
- After the Dead Hand battle, we are performing a very time-saving trick which is the Boat Skip: We first perform an entrance point glitch on the sliding door using the hover boots to set the void warp position to where we want. We then get ISG out of a pot which is very fast. I then use again the Twisted Bombchu trick to start a hover very fast. We then reach a tiny spot where Link can go through that causes him to void. After that, I do a simple sidehop, and reach the room with the Boss Door. Using a bombchu and invincibility from a roll, I drop the bombchu and perform a ledge clip after a roll which makes no damage to then be boosted to the loading zone of the Boss Room. This trick is over 1 minute faster than Swordless Link's hover method.
- Because we don't have bombs yet, we can't do the invisible Bongo Bongo glitch that avoids the Boss presentation cutscene.
- After defeating the boss, the Ocarina Item glitch is performed while playing the beautiful intro of the Simpsons to delay the Shadow medallion cutscene. A death is then done at the right time to skip that cutscene.
Graveyard #3
- A simple HESS is done to reach the Kakariko Village very fast.
Kakariko Village #3
- Another simple HESS is done to reach the Death Mountain Trail very fast.
Death Mountain Trail
- We start with an A-Slide out of a Tektite. Later, we have to change our direction, so there's 2 ways continue: either do a Z-Slide and keep a high speed, but not be able to change angle afterward, or either loosing a big part of speed (down to -10 instead of -18), but be able to change the angle afterward, in order to reach the Goron Village as fast as possible. Using a bombchu to do a HESS is again useless here because we have to wait for the night to come later, but it must still be fast enough. The big decrease of speed ended up being significantly faster than the Z-Slide.
Goron City
- A megaflip is done on the rope to ground clip and reach the statue without talking to the Goron.
- Same as the grave trick, pressing Z can cancel the grab of the statue and let the statue move itself while being able to move and enter in Death Mountain Crater.
Death Mountain Crater
- Using a precise sidehop on the edge of the bridge, we can make Link grab the floor instead of the bridge while the cutscene plays. Releasing the ledge will then void link and skip the Bolero of Fire cutscene.
- Magic is obtained after exiting this area.
Death Mountain Trail #2
- After exiting the place where we get magic, it's again useless to waste a bombchu to megaflip to Dodongo's Cavern since it's still daytime, so why not use the Tektite instead ?
Dodongo's Cavern
- Using a bombchu and the Twisted Bombchu trick again, I blow up the wall at distance and exit the cavern to skip the intro cutscene of the cavern. I then re-enter in the cavern.
- A reset must be made here, because later in the run, a Wrong warp will be done, and it won't work without this reset.
- I then perform a hover to climb the cavern and reach the bomb bag. The Beamos had to be manipulated to have the head explosion go where I want.
- After getting the bombs, a megaflip is used to clip inside the statue's mouth, followed by an A-Slide to reach the boss room.
- I take damage during the Dodongo fight for the Wrong Warp that will be done after that fight.
- Using the Ocarina Item glitch, I repeat the process of previous wrong warps, but this one has the particularity to Wrong Warp to the Gerudo's Training Ground which is a very interesting place since it avoids crossing all the Hyrule Field and the Gerudo Valley.
Gerudo's Fortress
- I hookshot the plank at a precise spot that makes somehow Link go through the ceiling. I then use a megaflip to reach a walkable spot out of bound to get past the gate.
Haunted Wasteland
- A simple HESS is done to reach the Desert Colossus very fast. The HESS can interestingly get past the quicksand at the beginning of the Wasteland.
Desert Colossus
- I use the enemies to reach the wanted place very quick and start climbing the seam.
- Here comes a very funny and interesting trick that is the Skulltula Hookshot Jump: I first wait a little bit because night is not yet reached, but extremely close (the waitings before were worth). The Skulltula is then killed, and its token is collected in mid-air with a sidehop during which I pressed the fish bottle (can be any cutscene item) to delay the token obtaining as long as I don't look at the token. I then use the enemies again to reach the flag very fast, then I hookshot the flag at a spot where I look at the token right before obtaining it, so it takes the token. After the text dialog is closed, or if the camera somehow moves, Link is propelled at a height depending on how high the hookshot was targeting. After the Hookshot Jump, I pull out a bomb and do an A-Slide to reach the seam and hookshot the Silver Gauntlets chest and finish with a SuperSlide to reach the Mirror Shield chest. This new method of getting the Mirror Shield is faster, and also saves a lot of explosives that can be used later in the run.
Spirit Temple
- The room with the mummies uses the intended way to do it, it would be faster if we already had the fire arrows like in Swordless Link's previous movie.
- Using some precise rolls and sidehops and a hookshot clip, we can climb on the statue's shoulder, then on its sword, and finally, on its head.
- 2 bombs are used to perform the Boss Key skip. I also take damage from the first bomb and hover with it, because it will be necessary to have low hearts for the incoming cutscene skip. This uses 1 bomb less than in Swordless Link's previous movie.
- During the Naboru fight, I drop a bomb 1 hit before defeating her so the bomb does it. During the bomb timer, I climb the throne and grab the corner of it using a slash right when Naboru is defeated by the bomb. This makes Link clip through the floor with the ledge grabbed, so it just needs to be released to void and skip the cutscene of Noboru's death.
- Twinrova was manipulated so fires 3 times a row, and then once. Currently, nobody managed to get it 4 times a row, which is maybe impossible.
- In the second phase of the battle, Twinrowa was hookshot after she throws the effect. Doing this makes her move faster afterward.
- Once defeated, the Spirit Medallion cutscene skip is performed as usual with a death.
Death Mountain Crater #2:
- A backward A-Slide is made, during which a bomb drop was manipulated to appear, followed by a forward A-Slide to grab the bomb drop and finally followed by a backward Z-Slide to reach the ladders and enter in the Fire Temple.
Fire Temple
The timer before Link gets burned in hot rooms can be frozen by pressing a cutscene item (bottle with a content, fairy spells, Ocarina...) while in mid-air. It will be used a lot in this temple.
- The Time Stop glitch was used in the first room in order to have the camera not look at Darunia when entering in the next room, so the cutscene is not triggered, resulting in a big time save.
- In the room with the giant blocks, a megaflip is done with the Torch Slug to avoid grabbing the ledge.
- Immediately after that, a bomb is taken to clip between the the block and the wall by having a precise angle at the corner without activating the switch unlike Swordless Link's previous movie that activates it.
- In the room above Darunia, an A-Slide is first done to get past the fire walls, and also goes through the fire without taking damage, since the A-Slide and the roll makes Link invincible for a short amount of time. This A-Slide is followed by a Z-Slide to change the angle and reach the bigger fire wall where a bomb is pulled to megaflip through it and skip the switch that deactivates that walls. This is followed by a third bomb that is used to blow up the fake door.
- During the Flare Dancer fight, he was manipulated after dealing damage to him to make him go back to the fire circle faster.
- In the room with the hammer chest, a bomb is thrown to HESS and climb to the chest faster while taking another bomb to do a weirdshot that puts link underground and moves him closer to the chest to open it once in the ground during a very short amount of time while it's on fire.
- By performing an A-Slide or whatever method that results in a speed of -18 (SuperSlide, HESS) on a corner with a precise angle, we can clip through it, but before this, the angle is changed at the last frame in order to face the Boss Room loading zone and jumpslash to it.
- Volvagia has a hitbox located under the first fire hole that can be reached either by dropping a bomb on the corner of that hole, or either by weirdshoting. The weirdshot is a better way since it saves many bombs and can deal damage faster. Unfortunately, the hammer has to be used at least once to kill Volvagia.
- A Wrong Warp is then performed that warps Link right to the Forest Temple.
Forest Temple
- In the 4 Poes room, catching something in a bottle when the Poes cutscene starts results in skipping a part of the cutscene which is faster.
- In the vines room before the blocks room, a jump damage boost is performed that makes possible for Link to grab higher places while having a lot of speed. We can reach the blocks room without using the key by doing this.
- A ground jump is first performed in the blocks room in order to avoid climbing the stairs.
- 2 other ground jumps are done to climb up the blocks without solving the puzzle.
- The Navi text is skipped in the inverted room by switching the hookshot and the sword at the right frame multiple times.
- After getting the bow, an A-Slide is done to clip through a corner and reach the Boss Room while taking damage from it for a later cutscene skip.
- During the second phase of the Phantom Ganon fight hookshoting him puts him in a vulnerable state for a short amount of time during which we can slash him with the sword to start damaging him very fast.
- The Forest Temple medallion cutscene is skipped by dying, and teleports Link to the entrance of the temple.
Goron City #2
- An A-Slide is performed to get to the Lost Woods faster while taking damage from it for a later cutscene skip.
- A megaflip can be done after blowing up the rocks blocking the loading zone with the bombs on the walls that results in precious time save.
Lost Woods #2
- Using a precise jumpslash, we can land on a part of the ground that pushes Link inside the stone and reach the Zora's River faster than the old hover strategy.
Zora's River #2
- Using the recoil boost, we can reach a part of the waterfall that doesn't push link out, and makes entering in Zora's Domain possible without playing Zelda's Lullaby. This strategy is faster than walking with the Kokiri Boots and equipping the Hover Boots to reach it.
Zora's Domain #2
- By backwalking at the edge of the ladder on top of it while going in its direction, we can be pushed by the ladder out of bounds while grabbing the ledge. This enables us to get to the Lake Hylia much faster than crossing the Hyrule Field.
Lake Hylia
- Since there's still a lot of time before the daytime comes, I manipulate the RNG to get 20 bombs from the bushes, and since it's useless to waste a bomb to get to the temple faster because we have to wait, I do an A-Slide out of a Tektite to reach the water faster.
- With an extremely precise angle and an extremely precise speed, we can clip inside a wall with a jumpslash, to then reach the Water Temple simply by swimming into the loading zone. This method is faster than the SuperSlide teleport glitch used in Swordless Link's previous movie, and also saves 1 bomb.
Water Temple
- Using a bomb is not worth using, so an A-Slide from a Tektite is done to get a lot of speed to reach the next room with the Hover Boots.
- At the end of rolls, Link is invincible to the Blade Traps, and with the Hover Boots, we can climb the slope without slipping.
- A hover is started with 3 bombs, followed by the usage of the 2 last bombchus to be high enough to clip through the door with a jumpslash.
- During the Morpha fight, I trap it to a corner to damage it freely. Once 1 hit is left before defeating it, I take damage twice, 1 at the beginning of the roll and 1 at the end, followed by a jumpslash to kill it while diving in the water since a cutscene makes the water collisions not occur, which saves time for later.
- A wrong Warp is performed to skip the Water Medallion cutscene, however, this makes the water level in Lake Hylia not raise, which is a problem because Fire Arrows are needed in the run, but it needs the water to be raised to be obtained, this problem will be solved later with a cool trick.
Lake Hylia #2
- The daytime is very close, just in time for the trick that comes: I must first kill the Gold Skulltula on top of the tree. To do that, I walk slowly on the tree seam to gain height, then a precise spot where we can hookshot that is high enough is shot followed by a jumpslash to reach the branch of the tree. After that, the Skulltula can be killed, and its token is collected while in mid-air during which I pressed the fish bottle button to delay the obtaining of the token. I then shoot the sun to make the Fire Arrow appear while still having the token obtaining delayed. Then, a Skulltula Doom Jump is performed to reach the Fire Arrow platform and collect it.
Ganon's Castle
- A simple A-Slide is performed to reach the bridge appear spot faster.
Inside Ganon's Castle #2:
Spirit Trial #2
- Since the white rupees were already done as a child previously in the run, the first room only consists in going to the next room as fast as possible.
- Since we no longer have bombchus for the next room, a weirdshot is done with the Torch Slug, which is also faster.
- Since magic mustn't be wasted, I simply use the torch that I shoot with an arrow to burn the web.
Light Trial
- I use an A-Slide with a precise angle and position to clip inside the big rock as fast as possible, that normally requires the Gold Gauntlets.
- Because I want to avoid an extra-equip or loosing too much time, an invisible Keese is shot with the Light Arrows.
- A cool Time Stop is done in the next room while playing Zelda's Lullaby, enabling Link to move while the song plays.
- A tricky trick has been done in the white rupees room: since I don't want to waste time to do a ground jump or to equip the hookshot, I throw a bomb, backflip and shield it with the ESS position to change the angle while backfliping, and this results in being able to grab higher ledges.
Fire Trial
- The management of the time is hard here since we only have 3 hearts, and consequently 24 seconds, so the freeze timer trick explained previously in the Fire Temple paragraph will be used.
- An interesting trick is done to skip the Gold Gauntlets here: I hold the ESS position and make a roll with a different angle, so I can have the start angle back when in mid-air, and by grabbing a precise spot of the ledge, we can grab a part that is inside the big block and collect the last white rupee.
Shadow Trial
- A bomb is dropped to do an A-Slide before lighting up the torch to be able to not waste time waiting for its explosion.
- Gold Gauntlets are not taken since we already skipped all the parts that required it.
Water Trial
- By hookshoting a Freezard while moving, we can clip through walls, and in this case, the ice wall. This avoids taking Blue Fire.
- By jumping at the very edge of the block, we can jump far enough to reach the next part.
- The hammer switch can be activated without Blue Fire by jumpslashing it at the part on the right.
Forest Trial
- Because we are low on magic, and can't waste time to take some, only 1 torch can be lighted up with Fire Arrows, and the rest with arrows.
Tower of Ganon
- The Dinolfos are manipulated to always go in the same spot to damage both with 1 sword hit and kill them very quick.
- After getting the Boss Key, I HESS through the door next door with a bomb I dropped before entering in it. However, this harder than it looks, because dropping the bomb in front of the door is not enough to get the HESS: Link must first face the door while having the bomb in his hands, after that, the bomb must be dropped with the shield and open the door at least 1 frame later. Depending on how many frames after we opened the door and the position, the bomb will be pushed more or less into the next room, which makes the HESS possible after this if it has been done correctly.
- The Iron Knuckles were hit simultaneously during the fight with precise sword hits.
- The HESS trick through the doors is repeated twice with the Boss Key Door and with the next door.
Ganondorf
- Ganondorf was manipulated at the beginning of the fight to start doing the attack as soon as possible.
Tower Escape
- A very interesting shortcut is made here, also called "Void Warp": A bit similarly to the ladder ledge clip, by grabbing the ledge near the fence makes it possible to grab the ledge out of bounds. Before doing this, I drop a bomb to damage Link while he is grabbing the ledge and lands on the loading zone that leads to a part of the castle. However, since we touch the loading zone right when the game voids us, it wants to put us where we were before the void in the room that we entered. But since the previous position was at extremely high coordinates, we are at the very top, and we can reach the last room out of bounds.
- A cool HESS is done right when landing in the unloaded room to exit it faster.
- A SuperSlide is then done, because this allows Link to keep the speed during cutscenes, which ends up saving time.
- Never forget the kiss to Zelda at the last part ! Zelda pushes Link when exiting the castle and saves a bit time.
Ganon
- A SuperSlide is made before the battle and the shield is held until the sword is gone in order to keep the Master Sword during the fight, because the Master Sword deals much more damage on this Boss than any other item.
- Jumpslashing Ganon is faster than crouch stabbing, because the tail is too high to be reached with a crouch stab when Ganon becomes vulnerable back.
- During the second phase, jumpslashing on the tail stays faster.
End
- Last input at 1:42:29.53, 22:15.19 faster than Swordless Link's previous movie.
Improvements
Possible Improvements
I noticed a few possible improvements after having the run finished, or at a point where I was too far away to go back:
- The way to enter in Shadow Temple is possibly better with the Hookshot Jump method mentioned in the stage by stage paragraph, because although it's slower, it can save time later.
- At the Forest Trial, the torch room is slower than in Swordless Link's previous movie. However, I only refilled magic once, while Swordless Link refilled it 3 times. But I don't think all of these magic saves were worth. Also, one pause may be saved here.
- The Void Warp during the collapse escape may be possible to be done with a rock falling fast instead of using a bomb. A rock may come faster at the right place than the bomb that takes time to explode.
Potential Future Improvements
Some tricks are close to be possible, and other tricks in the game can't be used in this category:
- There may be a way in the future to activate the switch in Jabu-Jabu's Belly before the boomerang without Ruto. We already know that Ruto's cutscene
can be skipped without any problem, but she is so far only needed to activate the switch.
- There may be a way in the future to defeat Bongo Bongo without watching the introduction cutscene of the boss. This is
possible, but requires bombs and the current route does not permit this for now.
- Climbing all the way up to the hammer in the Fire Temple may have a
significant shortcut, the only problem left is to load the room where we doom jumped to. Actually,
it is possible, but requires too many explosives.
Special Thanks
First of all, thanks to Aktan for the video encode that is on my channel !
I'd like to thank the entire community of this game for all of these very cool tricks that made this time possible. I thank to all speedrunners of this category for making runs that helped me, and also Swordless Link, Abeshi and Bloobiebla for their movies that inspired me a lot !
Noxxa: Unsurprisingly, the responses to this movie (in terms of publishability) were quite divided.
To start off with the content of the run itself: this is clearly a high quality run, a very good improvement over the currently published run, viewer response was largely positive, and it's clear that nobody has an issue with the quality of the run itself.
The major discussion point here is publishability. This is a Mupen64-rr movie, and Mupen64-rr is currently not an accepted emulator for any runs that do not have a
continuance. Based on that rule, strictly speaking this movie should not have been made possible to submit to begin with, but I've granted a unique exception for that. Now the viewing audience has also been able to have their say in this, so let's evaluate the various points that were made in the discussion.
FatRatKnight made a good
outline of points, so I'll evaluate each of these points.
Obsoletion
This movie obsoletes a two-hour published movie by 22 minutes, or just over one-sixth of the previous run's runtime. That is a lot of time. In fact, even real-time speedruns have caught up and beaten the TAS' time thanks to newer routes and strategies. In a practical sense the published TAS is well obsolete already, and as a site that aims to provide high quality TAS videos, we do not really want to let such old records stick around, especially when newer TAS records exist. This is a strong reason to publish such a newer TAS record on the site to obsolete the older one, rather than keeping up just the record of the older one.
Precedent
In being a special exception, this judgment does not aim to set a precedent for any future judgments. No future Mupen64-rr movie (except for continuances) should expect to be submittable or publishable. This goes for all games, regardless of popularity.
Additionally, even if the status of this submission were applicable as precedent, it would still exclude many other potential cases. This is an instance of a Mupen64-rr movie obsoleting another Mupen64-rr movie; it does not provide any precedent for accepting a Mupen64-rr movie as a new publication, or accepting a Mupen64-rr movie to obsolete a BizHawk movie.
Effort
This movie is not easily reproducible on BizHawk - the run shows expansive effort in maintaining a high technical standard in a 102-minute run of a highly technical 3D game. This run could probably have been made in BizHawk to begin with, but the author did not find that a workable option. Regardless of how workable that would have been, we cannot outright dismiss the effort placed into this run, and the fruits of it.
Integrity
The rule that this run technically violates, and was given an exception for submission, is the rule that Mupen64-rr submissions are not allowed.
The major question here is - how rigid is this rule? We already make exceptions for this through the continuance system, which already shows it is not perfectly rigid. We have exceptions to the rule. Therefore, arguably it is reasonable to make further exceptions, especially if similar situations apply. This movie was started (in its current iteration) before continuations stopped being handed out; the only real difference here is that no continuation was actually asked for. Would this situation and controversy really be so different if homerfunky had made a short post about the production of this run in the continaunce topic?
TASVideos is its own community, but it is not the only community with any relation to TASing. Other communities and entities still exist, and we have to deal with their existence in some way. There are a lot of different things we can do there, and the community members themselves are divided on what they consider the best solution.
For one, we could hard-line on our rules and accept only that which strictly adheres with TASVideos' goals and aims. That is an option, and a stance that a number of users in the discussion topic have expressed. It makes sense to uphold rules consistently. On the other hand, others don't agree that emulator choice should be the deal-breaker for accepting a run, especially not if it is a high quality run that would obsolete a significantly outdated record that currently exists on the site, and which uses the same emulator to begin with.
The bottom line is - we have a movie which was not intended to follow the rules of the TASVideos community to begin with. Instead it was intended for sharing with other communities. Do we restrict ourself from accepting the movie for our own site if it does not fully fit in our ruleset, or should we leave room for some flexibility in the rules? In the end, I think that the negatives of this movie are outweighed by the benefits that taking it in has for the site and its community, all points considered.
That aside, I'll also address a few more subjects:
Accuracy
Mupen64-rr is a horrible emulator, in terms of emulation accuracy. This is a pretty well established fact at this point. It is also one of the reasons that it is no longer an accepted emulator. The alternative we have for TASing is BizHawk with its Mupen64Plus core. That core is not exactly brilliant either, but it's still an improvement.
There are a few practical questions to ask here when it comes to emulation accuracy between these two emulators. How much of a difference does it really make in this particular instance? In practice, it's not that much - Mupen64 emulates Ocarina of Time more or less correctly, at least with the right plugins. Mupen64Plus in BizHawk provides a general emulation accuracy improvement, but it's pretty marginal in this case. There are no significant dealbreakers or inaccuracies that Mupen64 has here or that the movie relies on. It's not a good situation, but it is a workable situation.
This also ties into obsoletion. This movie is set up to obsolete another Mupen64 movie. Emulation accuracy is not going down, it merely stays the same. It's not an ideal situation, but it is manageable. It would be a different situation if this movie attempted to obsolete a BizHawk movie, or even if the movie did not attempt to obsolete anything.
Publishability
Here, we take into account the other reasons that Mupen64-rr was banned for submissions. Aside from the general lack of good TAS tools (like proper memory watching tools, or lua script integration, or other useful features common with today's TASing emulators), it was banned for having
sync issues and
AVI dumping issues, both of which made Mupen64-rr an absolute nightmare to work with for publishers. Rejecting the emulator meant relieving this nightmare from the publishing staff (mostly), and they would generally not be happy to have it brought back on them. For that reason alone, I would not have allowed this run to be submitted in a typical case.
Fortunately for this submission though, there is
Aktan, who already encoded the movie for homerfunky. Therefore, as long as Aktan publishes this movie, no publisher is forced to deal with Mupen64 (again) for the sake of publishing this movie. This effectively removes one of the major stopping points towards publishing a Mupen64 movie, and makes it much more viable from a staff's perspective.
Conclusion
Putting all these points together, I find that the drawbacks towards accepting this movie are largely mitigated, or otherwise don't really have that much of a negative impact (if any) on the site as a whole. On the flipside, we are looking at a highly appraised, technically solid movie that improves on an old and outdated record.
