Well, we haven't heard from Blitzag in ages, this run of mine has been sitting around gathering dust, so I guess it's only fair that I submit it.
  • Created using Phil's Patched FCEU with U+D/L+R enabled
    • (You can use the normal FCEU emulator to watch it)
  • Abuses luck
    • Mostly on the overworld
  • Abuses glitches
    • L+R to move fast horizontally
    • U+D to move up fast on elevators
    • Healer Glitch to break the game physics
    • Super speed to exit Thunderbird's room before he's loaded
    • Starts the game with no data present (no apparent effect)
  • Uses death as a shortcut
  • Beats the game as fast as possible using known glitches
Although the ROM is apparently a bad dump, I can still watch other Zelda 2 US movies and other people have been able to watch my movie in the past without problem. I hope it will be a non-issue.
Basically, after Blitzag's & Genisto's last submitted version was not accepted, I began playing around with it on my own. After I finally made a complete video, I then played around a lot with improving it, hex-editting the file many many many times. Eventually, the only remaining ideas would only knock a few frames off that part but would cause an overworld desync later that caused more than 20 frames of delay. I then tried to combine improvements and redo the overworld, but once again it did not improve the time. This is what resulted in this final video.
A big thanks goes to Blitzag for all of his original work putting the first few versions of the run together. More thanks to Genisto for his specific parts in Blitzag's run; I had to study him executing the healer glitch quite a bit to duplicate it, and I studied his Dark Link fight as well. Also, thanks go to Arc as well since I also studied his Zelda 2j run (mostly for the Dark Link battle).
Now, about the Healer Glitch, I made updated maps of Death Mountain and the Great Palace to take into account the glitch. Mostly it causes the game to behave weird when you exit screens to the left. If you scroll the screen to the right a bit, exitting to the left will either send you to an unexpected place, otherwise you'll enter the room to the left pretty much in the middle of the room. It's rather difficult to explain beyond that.
The Healer Glitch is what gives most of the Overworld and Palace warps. The other glitch, holding U+D on an elevator, is another which causes you to go off the top of screen and come off the bottom of the screen below you.
The one death in the game is not necessary, but it's 256 frames faster. If you exit that screen as it is, you get sent deeper into Death Mountain and it's quite a backtrack to get to the rock (which is what warps you across the world). Dying allows you to exit the room normally without activating the glitch.
About the possibility of skipping jump and still getting downward thrust, I don't believe it's possible because you need to be able to have your feet at the same level as the blocks in order to teleport Link on top of the block.
Why didn't I publish this run sooner? I was really hoping Blitzag would be able to finish his run and submit it, but ah well.

Phil: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
First to vote yes on this glitchish submission hihi... As always, great job Giga!
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Former player
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 518
ye gads, its more broken than it was before. YES.
Joined: 12/20/2004
Posts: 226
This run = LOL + WTF Wow, this was a really entertaining 6 minutes. Great job, Gigafrost.
Former player
Joined: 7/12/2004
Posts: 146
Location: Dirty South, USA.
This is probably the craziest run I've ever seen.
If for honesty, you want apologies, I don't sympathize.
Player (66)
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Man, I can't believe what I had to go through to find this rom. And it's even legal for me to download because I own the damn cartridge! *takes a deep breath* *watches movie* *laughs out loud and gets a strange look from his sister.* That was worth every inch of aggravation. How can someone watch this and not vote yes?
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Former player
Joined: 8/15/2004
Posts: 422
Location: Minnesota
That was mind-blowingly awesome.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
In the words of my brother when I showed him the original nine minute movie... That poor game. Very wow. Just two things. First, you stand in front of the downstab guard for a second before interacting; any reason? And it would seem that doing a quick backtrack on the collapsing bridge at the very end would allow you to fall into the pit faster. If that doesn't work, then jump. I also have to question the aesthetics of the bunny hopping, but I'm not going to make that a big issue. Still, great job!
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
It's good to explain the questionable parts. :) For the downstab guard, there's a delay. Since sword and talk are the same button, the probably-not-noticed attack just before talking to him proves the delay is apparently necessary... Assuming you're talking about the bridge in the Great Palace, it's hard to see thanks to the Healer Glitch, but there's lava everywhere else as seen in this picture taken straight from Arc's run: http://www.kraftfam.org/~erk/nesvideos/zelda2bridge.gif Unless you're talking about a different bridge... Anyways, about the jumping, at first some of it was aesthetic, but then it turned out to be faster sometimes to do it. It's because, if you're on the ground, you have to press forward every other frame, meaning every other frames your speed is one unit slower. Sometimes it doesn't matter, but a few rooms can be done faster. Of course, I didn't edit it in everywhere it's faster because of the later overworld desyncs...
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Yes, that was the bridge. I'm thinking that you can pass over a part of it, back off and fall through the part that has already collapsed, then zip to the hole. It would be a bit faster than having to wait right above it. And if, for whatever reason that doesn't work, you can just jump to maximize your accelaration. Ah, whatever. I'll just wait for a future version and star-vote this one. :)
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
Ah. Yeah, I tried something similar to that... falling as far to the left as possible. I never could make it except when I was right above it, I think. (What I did is I fell from the block just to the left of the hole, but used L+R to sneak into the still-solid block to still make it down the hole w/o losing downwards momentum. At least that was the only way I was able to maintain the momentum.)
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
You are a real hero! Great job, Gigafrost. :D A total yes from me.
Player (86)
Joined: 3/8/2005
Posts: 973
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Yes, Great work Gigafrost.
Player (71)
Joined: 8/24/2004
Posts: 2562
Location: Sweden
WOW! = YES. :D I can't say more.
Joined: 8/31/2004
Posts: 298
Location: Falun, Sweden
Among the ugliest, most teriffying things I've ever seen. I loved it! A Yes from me too!
Bein' away for like five years, and not a single new post in the ZSNES forum... :'-(
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (246)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
do you even KNOW what you're doing on that castle??? crazy yes
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
This movie is even more broken if you accidentally have PAL emulation active. At first, I didn't know which one was the correct. Then, I guessed it was the one that finished the game. Haha
No.
Player (201)
Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511
Very cool. How was L+R used to do that fast horizontal movement?
g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}
Former player
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 366
Pretty much you hold it for a few frames and then release. In a bit more detail... Link seems to have a "velocity" variable which I'm guessing is an 8 bit signed int. Normally he can't go outside a certain range, but holding L+R causes the value to increase much more than the usual 1 per frame. This allows you to go outside of the usual bounds and acceleration is unlimited. Because it is signed, though, eventually you reach a point where accelerating 1 more frame will cause Link to suddenly switch his direction of travel. So, L+R launches you and you use normal direction keys to maintain the speed as fast as possible (with bunny hopping being the most efficient way to maintain speed.)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 104
Holy shi-! You blazed through pretty much everything! An Everlasting Yes from me!
Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716
You've made a mockery of the game. Very well done.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3572)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
definate yes, this run shows a much more polished exploitation of these insane glitches.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
I vote WTF? Why isn't that an option? No Yes Meh WTF?
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Ele
Former player
Joined: 3/13/2005
Posts: 4
You broke the game. D= I vote yes. Well done!
Joined: 12/13/2004
Posts: 103
It is greatly done, so I feel yes is the only alternative to vote. Not quite as entertaining as a version that complete all levels, still with glitches, but entertaining enough.