Stuff!
- VBA v23.4 or older should work
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time.
- Abuses programming errors in the game
Glitches
Ocarina Glitch
If using the ocarina the same frame you enter a stairway you activate this neat little glitch. While this is activated you are able to walk through enemies, on water and over holes. If you use a staircase that changes the layer you are walking on, Link will be stuck in the second layer. This means you can walk through all walls and objects that are part of layer one.
You are unable to access the inventory in the first room where the glitch is activated. If you roll or jump down a cliff, you'll freeze and some items won't work the way they normally do (Which I don't even think you'll see in this run...).
This glitch allows you to do some nice sequence breaking. The biggest one of these is Palace of Winds early.
The game is nice enough to make a way to access the Wind Tribe early by fusing kinstones with a guy in the town. Then there's no problem to use the ocarina glitch to go through the people blocking the stairs. This skips the Graveyard, Veil Falls and Cloud Tops.
Roll-Lift
When you use a bomb, you can roll and pick up the bomb at the same time. The bomb will be dropped at once though, but it will explode 68 frames faster than normally. This is something I found out later in the run, so earlier bomb drops aren't using this trick. Instead I'm using a different way to make bombs explode faster (Which isn't always faster if you have to travel wtih the bomb). And that is to throw the bomb as soon as you pick it up. It's about 30 frames faster but takes longer to set up compared to the roll-lift.
Another way to use this trick is when lifting pots. If you throw a pot you can pick up the next one at the same time as rolling when timed perfectly. The pot is dropped at once and you get movement forward. Two in one!
The run
It's the start of the run, let's have some fun!
- The beginning is pretty uninteresting: Cutscenes and text...
- I pick up some rupees because I need them later on. Seems obvious, doesn't it? My rupee route is not perfected though... The red rupee I get in the first dungeon (Omg spoilers) should have been skipped in favor of four manipulated blue rupee drops. Oh well.
- This early in the run, I had yet not optimised my movement. The rolling parts are often improveable because of that.Sorry...
- When having Ezlo with you, he will obviously talk a lot through the whole game. If you roll into such conversation, it will take half a second longer before Eslo starts talking. So that's why I'm walking the last few steps.
- The first time you shrink for each new object (Stump, jars etc.) you are unable to skip the shrinking cutscene.
Don't you like Deepwood Shrine? Come on, don't whine.
- First time I have to suffer from the luck manipulation in this game. Basic things that change manipulation is with sword
slashes and rolling. It's sometimes faster to do a bad roll or extra sword slash to get better manipulation, but most of the time you lose more than you earn.
- I hate controlling the lily pad with the gust jar. It is possible to get a boost around the corners. Boosts are always appreciated!
- As mentioned, it would be faster to skip this red rupee...
- The boss takes different amount of time to wiggle around depending on which side he starts from and where he falls. It is also required for the boss to be in the middle of the room to save the most amount of time.
- Once it has fallen you can manipulate him to stay down for a longer time to bring in more hits on him. However... Dealing more damage isn't actually killing the boss any faster. It is possible to hit him up to 9 times each round. But no matter how many times you hit him the first two rounds, he still needs 4 hits at the end. So I made him stay down as little as possible.
Climbing a mountain or two, that's what I like to do.
- For this bomb, it was faster to just walk all the way rather than trying to lower the exploding time.
- On the way to the castle I could have activated the warp around Link's house to faster get to the Palace of Winds. But it ended up being slower.
- The first time you visit the town, after the festival that is, you are forced to learn how to fuse with people. You can skip the fusing part with a S&Q. It is also possibly to commit suicide with a bomb, which ended up being slower.
- For the first spin attack you learn you can't move. And you also have to talk to the guard before actually showing him the spin.
- First use of faster exploding bombs, throwing strategy.
- It is possible to skip using the second tornado, but then you have to fly around the corner and get up the cliff from below and which was slower.
- It's nice that you can reach the mushroom with the gustjar from below, such thing are always appreciated. In order to get enough distance to fly to the other platform you have to get rid of the rock. So I used that opportunity to manipulate a blue rupee drop for the cost of some frames.
Better save some frames in the Cave of Flames!
- I use the Gust Jar to shoot the bomb enemy into the wall. A roll-lift bomb would most likely have been faster, which I still didn't know about at this time.
- After getting the fifty rupees (Which are needed for the Wake Up Mushroom) I could also have used the roll-lift technique. This time to skip lifting up the second pot. If I had watched Atma's WIP more clearly, I wouldn't have missed that. My bad.
- There's a room where you have to throw four enemies into holes, to get a switch out. In the previous room I slashed a few times more than neccesary in order to manipulate them. I still don't think it's good enough, but that was the best I could do at the time.
- I get another blue rupee in the room before the boss. This would probably be the best place to get the other blue rupee I got in the mountain.
- Boss fight time! Before I can hit the shell on its back, it has to stop blinking red. It's also faster to have the boss appear on the top, because the head seems to be falling faster or something.
Link runs with the boots and with the bow he shoots.
- Time to upgrade the sword so you can start the clone wars. It's annoying that it takes so long to charge it up, not much to do about it.
- In order to start the quest for the boots you either have to visit the swamp area or you can read the sign that tells you about the area and says that you need the boots. Which is a lot faster. Why is it in games that you always have to know what to do before you can do it? Evil!
- I activated the warp in Hyrule Town before heading to Lon Lon Ranch. It was faster to activate it now rather than later/earlier.
- Good thing that cane can destroy bushes as well, saves me an item switch after buying the mushroom.
- Finally getting the boots! Rolling is 2 pixels/frame while running is 3 pixels/frame. You don't need to charge up the rolling though, so it is still faster to roll from time to time.
- The first time you enter Castor Wilds, Ezlo will start talking. This can be avoided by rolling down into the mud and then start running.
- Atma helped me out with the enemy manipulation when I got the bow. Those enemies are pretty much the worst ones in the game to manipulate.
- I'm getting damaged a lot in the swamp and ruins, simple because it is faster. However, it required me to lose a few frames to manipulate a heart later on, still was a lot faster.
Fortress of Winds is a dungeon alright, let's put up a good fight.
- You can choose if you want to get the left or the right key first. Going right is faster, so that's what I decided to do.
- Before pulling the first lever, I wait a little bit with the roll to the skull. That's so I could roll through the spark without getting hurt.
- I need a specific red kinstone for the early Palace of Winds. You are able to get it from certain chests, a specific tree or hope for perfect manipulation and dig it up from the ground. I choose to manipulate it from an Armos instead. Lost some time but it is definitely the fastest way to get the kinstone.
- By slashing the other Armos when it wakes up, you can quickly get it out of the way. Or else he'll damage you while pulling.
- The part where I clone myself to push some blocks was a huge pain. The ropes were always in my way and I had to get a heart refill in here as I had planned to make Link suffer in the rest of the dungeon. When I hadn finished the dungeon, ZFG pointed out that you don't need to push the second block at all (Which I did in my original version). So I hated myself for it and redid the whole dungeon. Which meant I had to redo the manipulation all over again :(. It was worth it in the end however.
- In this dungeon I discovered that you could roll-lift the bombs. It also shows the first use of roll-lift with pots. So from now on in the run, I'll be using both those tricks when it is faster.
- The three floor masters have to be killed for the "shrinking thing" to appears. Fastest to kill them is with a bomb. I didn't use a roll-lift here though, it explodes the bomb too fast for me to be able to reach the end of the room before they are all killed. If you exit the room the very moment the die you can skip the cutscene where the "shrinking thing" appears.
- I tried to get more hearts in the dungeon, mainly from the ropes at the next cloning section. After hours or attempts I didn't manage to do it. A few more frames could possibly have been saved through that and you wouldn't need to hear the beeping sound.
- You'll have to be insanely lucky (If it's even possible, which I doubt) to avoid slashing the moldorm and have it out of your way. The manipulation I got is very good as well and pretty hard to achieve.
- For the boss fight, you can't manipulate the enemy to be on the same pillar twice in a row. If you have it on the middle one closest to the door on round 1, you can't have it there on 2 but possible on 3.
- Oh yeah, the Ocarina. Good things are bound to happen.
The painful book quest, turns into a glitchfest.
- You have to talk to several Minish folks during the quest. The first one is at Lake Hylia. The books won't appear before you talk to him and you will be unable to start the quest. The next is a the minish in the professor's house, which is needed to get to the bracelets. And finally the Minish in the Library so you can return the books.
- I start off by doing the fuse for early PoW. This was the best time to do so, unless you somehow got the Kinstone before heading over to the mountain.
- On the way to the second book I use the Ocarina Glitch for the first time. It is easy to get stuck on the next screen, I don't think it's possible to do it without running. Once I get to the other side, the book has to be spawn correctly. It is possible to have the book fall both with a vertical and horizontal clone, both were equally fast to use.
- Next Ocarina glitch is used to enter the professor's room without talking to the people in the Library first. If you want to do the glitch with a doorway, the door has to be opened first. There are two ways to do this. Either have a bomb killing you + a fairy refill (Which I'm doing later) or if a person pushes you throw the wall. The woman has to walk the right way to do so and while I wait for that I refill my water again.
- Those stupid enemies guarding the bracelets... Bombs are used and some lucky manipulation to kill them quickly.
- After the save warp I do the third and final Ocarina Glitch for this area. If you open the door the same frame as you die, Link won't enter the house and you can do the glitch. The normal way of reaching this book is to go through a cave in the forest, which is a lot slower than this method. While the ocarina glitch is activated you are unable to run into the tree without you freezing. By playing the ocarina again you reset the glitch. This will be used twice in the run.
Make your bets, how fast I can beat Temple of Droplets.
- I've never liked ice. It's slippery and harder to optimise. You are unable to roll the same way on ice, even if it is shorter distance, running is almost always faster.
- After getting the first key, I use the ocarina glitch once again. This skips the big key. If you would have been able to reach the right lever this way, the flippers would have been skipable. If you try to go down the screen from above the platform, Link will just get stuck. Lots of testing was made and it just isn't possible...
- This time, controlling the lily pad is even harder. There are a lot of walls in the way that you have to go around. sometimes you can save time by not using the gust jar as early as possible. I also delayed it, which didn't cost any time, to avoid enemies. I once waited a long time before going to the next screen, that's because the game is evil enough to not let me unless Link is on the top of the screen.
- Normally you have to do a block pushing puzzle to open up the way. But if you give the lily pad some speed and press the button, you can make it go through without having to do the puzzle. Something I learned from TSA's speedrun of the game.
- I'm not satisfied with the battle before the first lever. All enemies with some kind of shield blocking them (Darknuts for example) are painful to fight against. Getting a better manipulation here cost me more than it earned. Unlucky business.
- Time for another ocarina glitch. It is possible to reach the left side lever before the right one. But if you open it, the room will be filled with light as normally (If you reenter the room that is). But none of the ice will be melted and you won't be able to continue in the dungeon.
- In the room with the glitched waterfall screen I go left, up and then right. Why not go up at once? The room is part of floor B2 and if you go up by climbing the wall you reach B1, which I don't want to do. So that's why I have to go around that screen.
- For the miniboss, it works the same as the boss in Deepwood Shrine, except you have to wait for the electric field to disappear first. Obvious enough, nothing worth mentioning really.
- Giant octorok! After you had lit his back on fire, he will start raging. You can change the time it takes for him to cool down depending on where he attacks. Best result I could find was to have him attack the corner. It wasn't possible to manipulate to only shoot nuts for his attacking rounds. While I don't like the "sucking attack", it wasn't possible to avoid it completely.
The Cloud Tops and the Graveyard? Skipping those isn't really hard.
- Nothing to say.
Palace of Winds above a cloud, should satisfy the crowd.
- I got very luck with the peahat manipulation at the beginning. The manipulation for the heart took longer to get though, having 1/4 of a heart is not a good thing...
- Link will run a lot faster than he rolls if you get hit by fire. If you keep pressing buttons the fire will cool down faster. So I'm timing it to disappear at the edge of the screen.
- One of the things I like the most in this run, is the Wizzrobes fight. You start it by going to the middle of the platform. Bombs are needed to beat them as quickly as possible, and as I don't have enough I have to manipulate them. Getting a bomb drop from Wizzrobes is pretty rare. But still I managed to get two drops, oh yeah!
- When you jump up on clouds to the next level, you can use a nice trick to avoid jumping as much. You only need to be at the top of the screen when jumping to enter the loading zone. At one point I'm even skipping the clouds completely and just jump into the wall. A neat way to save some time.
- Once I had reached the two ball & chain guys, I lost a lot of my motivation to carry on. They didn't want to be nice at all and I wasn't satisfied with anything I did in the fight. Then Atma came and helped out with the fight which made it turn awesome at the end!
- I wanted to manipulate a heart from the stalfos when cloning Link, which obviously didn't happen because enemies are evil in this game. Probably why they are called enemies I suppose.
- At the start of the battle against the moblins and wizzrobes, I rolled into the wall. This was to manipulate the enemies in going the way I wanted them. It didn't cost any time as I had to wait for the wizzrobe to spawn anyway.
- I skip an Ezlo conversation by jumping down the hole, would have been faster to roll otherwise.
- OMG HARD DARKNUT BATTLE! WHAT TO DO?!
- Manipulating the two floor master to stay out of my way was a huge pain. I didn't really expect it to be possible at all. But with some luck on my hand, and a couple of frames lost in the progress, it became a success.
- And as usual, a boss awaits at the end of the dungeon. If you manage to hit the three eyes in a time of like 5-7 frames (never actually checked...) you are able to skip the clones, this was sometimes faster as it takes so long to charge it up. However, it takes a little bit longer to damage him when the other 5 eyes appears. Because you still need to hit three eyes (Doesn't matter which three) to inflict any damage.
During the second and third rounds, I walk away from the eyes to make some clones. Even though you are able to hit the eyes for awhile longer, you won't actually inflict any damage to the boss. Getting at least two hearts at the end was very good, even though I actually didn't plan it in the first place. I won't complain at least :).
To Dark Hyrule Castle we arrive, I hope we get out alive.
- When you hit the statues with your sword beam, Link will freeze until the have finished talking. If you interupt it with the Ezlo takes, you'll be able to move freely during that time.
- The route for the dungeon went through several changes and many many redos until I had it down. The goal is to get four keys as fast as possible to be able to get the big key. There are six different keys to choose from. The two I skipped were the NW tower key and the key you get from the King (That I didn't even care to rescue).
- As you'll notice, I'm heavily abusing the ocarina glitch to skip a lot of the dungeon. The first one skips a key, so that I don't have to visit the king. If you go through a screen transition where there is a wall on the other end, you'll get stuck most of the time. To be able to get out I had to roll first. By doing that I put Link higher up on the screen, which also means I'll be higher up when reaching the next screen. This allows me to get out of the wall. Another way is to jump.
- I exit the castle so that I'll be able to save warp there later on. Or else you'll end up in the Sanctuary.
- The moblin was often in the way here. If he goes the wrong direction, I'll lose a few frames and changing it will lose even more. That's why I'm taking different paths each time.
- All except the ceiling is part of layer 1 in the entrance room of the castle. This means I won't be able to get stuck in layer 2 after doing the ocarina glitch. Luckily I'm able to do it at a different spot instead.
- After activating the ocarina glitch the last time, it will stay active for quite a long time. If you jump in a doorway at this point, Link will move down a few pixels, making it possible to get through two closer doors. You can't make the jump if you roll into the doorway however, not really sure why.
- As the glitch is still active, I'm able to walk on the holes. Remember that I can't roll at this point, as it will make me fall. You have to make a little trick when you jump down the fence, because you can't get down with the glitch activated, and that is to roll after you have jumped. When you land you have to make sure the platform is below you, or the hole eats your soul. I was happy to see that I didn't have to wait for the platform at all, didn't expect that.
- I'm far from satisfied with the double darknut fight... Fighting one is usually pretty easy, but it gets complicated with another one. You can only slash them on the sides or the back (With the exception of them making a specific attack) and with each hit both you and the darknut will be pushed away. There's no way this fight is optimised, but I simply couldn't do it any better. Anyone is free to give it a shot!
- Finally having all keys, it's time to get the big key, which was actually harder than I thought. The reason to this is that the pots often contain a green rupee. As I haven't picked up any green rupees in the game, I'm getting a message if I grab one. 3 frames were lost to manipulate them to not appear.
- Last three rooms before the boss. First one wasn't too bad. With more health it would probably be faster to get hit by him. Having no health, I used my sword to give me a boost.
For the next room there are 10 enemies in your way while you have take your 3 clones with you to the buttons. Having all them out of your path isn't realistic (But probably do able with huge luck manipulation). I think I did well enough to only slashing them once.
This darknut fight almost made me quit the run, even though I'm just before the boss. I didn't touch the run for like 2 weeks. I just couldn't get a good fight which I could be satisfied with. One darknut is easy to task, two are crazy hard but three... that's just impossible to do right.
- Vaati #1: Slash the small eyes, slash the big one. Not that complicated, not so hard.
- Vaati #2: Same as with the boss in Palace of Winds, if you hit all the eyes quickly enough you don't have to use clones. You have to manipulate the eyes to be on the fastest side to shoot them, as well as manipulation where Vaati is heading. This wasn't all that difficult, just annoying. It sucks that only two hits were needed the last round, nothing I could do about it.
- Vaati #3: It's the final boss time! And as always, you have to manipulate his attacks and movement. First you need to get rid of his arms. If you make it appear in front of the "shrinking thing", you can be pushed inside as soon as you become Minish.
For the last phase, I could have killed my clones to roll and slash him earlier (As I did for the final blow), it isn't any faster however. You'll be able to slash more, but not to more damage. Also, you can't stand any closer when hitting the balls the eyes shoot. If you hit the eyes with them too early, they won't die.
- And that's the end and time for the over-a-minute-long ending sequence!
Thanks to
Atma: He has been helping out a lot during the making. Constantly checking the run and pointing out when I made dumb mistakes and helped me with some enemy rooms. Thanks a lot!
Pika9323: Discovered the Ocarina Glitch that is the most awesome thing in the game.
TheDemonLOZ18: His Youtube run helped me plan the route when using the ocarina glitches.
MrGrunz: Finding some useful tricks that were used.
Greenalink, SD2, GhostNinja and all other nice WIP watchers. Thanks for the feedback!
klmz: High quality and very positive audience feedbacks. Accepted as the first movie entry of this game.