Table of Contents
- Emulator: Citra
- Required Emulator Settings:
- Emulator Version Requirements: Citra Nightly 1652 - Nightly 1815
- System -> Language -> English
- System -> CPU Clock Speed: 100%
- Audio -> Emulation -> HLE (fast)
- Recommended Emulator Settings
- Graphics -> Advanced -> Enable Hardware Renderer
- Graphics -> Advanced -> Enable Hardware Shader
- Graphics -> Advanced -> Accurate Multiplication
- Full List of My Settings
Preamble
I had been working so hard and for so long on other projects, that I forgot how much fun I have with Zelda projects. I'll get to those eventually, but for the time being the goal of this project was to prove to myself (and flex) how good and efficient I've become at 3DS TAS projects. I knew that completing my Majora's Mask 3D TAS wouldn't be that hard or take that long, but I still surprised myself with what I was able to do with that, especially considering I basically had to redo more than half of that TAS after finishing it once. After finishing that, I was sure that I could finish an Ocarina of Time 3D All Dungeons TAS in a matter of weeks. I am wildly more familiar with this game and had quickly thought up some neat route ideas that would likely be considered too hard to be done in a real-time speedrun. I also believe that All Dungeons is an incredible category for Ocarina of Time 3D, featuring some of the coolest, flashiest, most technical tricks and routing considerations of any category. Additionally, I wanted to show off some of the new timesaves that I thought up since finishing my Any% TAS that could have been implemented there. I did not want to retread old ground by updating that TAS, so this felt like the best way to improve those things by proxy. I also knew it length would be manageable to complete a TAS for. And yet, this movie is nearly 3 times longer than anything else I have finished. It's likely a little less optimized than my other movies, as I often wasn't frame hunting specific section for hours as I have done in the past. But even so, I feel pretty damn good about how well this turned out. I'm very happy with the finished product.
Movie Execution
- TAS Timing = 1:02:23.000
- RTA Timing = 1:02:10.751
- Frame Count = 223,948
- Rerecord Count = 102,747
- Frame Rate = 59.83122493939037 frames per second
Objective
The goal of this movie is to complete The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D as fast as possible while also completing all of the 8 main dungeons. Completing a dungeon is defined as defeating the boss and collecting the Spiritual Stone or Medallion from the blue warp at the end of the dungeons. Dungeons that do not end with a boss and a blue warp and do not reward either a Spiritual Stone or Medallion (i.e. Ice Cavern) are not included in this definition and do not need to be completed. Beating the game is defined as reaching the end credits by whatever means necessary. There are no other restrictions defined in this category.
Route Description
Although there are many differences between this movie and my
Any% TAS, many segments at the beginning are at least similar. Because of that, I will not be going into detail on things that were already explained in that submission text. I recommend reading through my author notes for that movie before diving into these notes if you want to have a better understanding. I will still be linking to those explanations throughout the text.
Kokiri Forest / Deku Tree 1
Almost every category in this game starts the exact same way by collecting the Kokiri Sword and performing a glitch to leave the Kokiri Forest early before completing the Deku Tree. A real-time speedrun of All Dungeons would also begin that way. However, the route used in this movie collects the Kokiri Sword and 40 rupees to buy a Deku Shield and enter the Deku Tree as normally intended. A large number of the rupees collected here are obtained from bushes that randomly give 1 rupee, 3 rupees, or no rupees. Manipulating the RNG here took a very long time. The goal of entering the Deku Tree in this route is not to complete it this early, though. This movie only obtains the Slingshot and immediately leaves the dungeon. The slingshot will be necessary to complete this route later on, but also has an application for a big timesave prior to when it will be fastest to complete this dungeon. It ends up being a little faster to obtain the Slingshot now and come back later to finish the dungeon. An invisible seam is used to quickly reach the Slingshot room. A good explanation on how these work can be found
here.
When leaving Kokiri Forest, a Forward Extended Super Slide (
FESS) can be used to quickly reach the exit to the Lost Woods bridge. Because the Deku Tree has yet to be completed, the guard is still blocking this exit. A triple slash clip (
TSC) is used to get behind the guard and escape to Hyrule Field. However, no weird manipulation of the camera is necessary in this instance because instead of using the A button to put away the sword, a Deku Stick can be used instead to get the same effect.
Path to Zelda
In Hyrule Field, in-game time begins advancing. I will need it to become morning in order to enter Zelda's Courtyard so there will be some time to kill during this segment. I want to avoid anything unnecessary that will prevent time from passing such as talking to the owl at the entrance to this area. This can be avoided by alternating between pulling out the sword and a Deku Stick frame perfectly while within the trigger. The Any% route and the All Dungeons RTA route would not have a Deku Stick at this point, so this is another benefit to making a detour for an early Deku Tree trip. This movie uses a FESS to quickly cross Hyrule Field. Rolling into some trees in this area have a chance to drop Deku Nuts or a Deku Stick. Grabbing either one of them here when I have time to burn will prevent the route from having to go out of the way to get them later. I wanted to get both a Deku Stick and a Deku Nut drop but all of the other trees that can drop them are too far away to still make it to the Market before the bridge at the entrance closes at night. I wait in Hyrule Field until night because
Hyrule Market will be slightly faster to navigate at night. Because time does not pass while in town areas, I need to prioritize being fast in those areas at this point.
In the Hyrule Castle area, this movies skips more owl text by immediately grabbing the vine wall while inside the trigger to start the text, delaying it activating. At the top of the wall, frame perfect weapon swapping can be used to leave the text trigger area without the text starting. Normally, this map would need to reloaded to spawn Malon, an NPC who gives Link the Weird Egg item which is used to clear the path at the end of this area. This can be avoided by getting out of bounds using a precise seam walk to get out of bounds. Link can walk up the line where 2 walls meet if they are sloped enough and he is walking slowly enough. This particular seam walk is incredibly precise. From this out of bounds area, Link can enter the castle moat water while out of bounds. Waterboxes always extend infinitely downwards, so Link can swim into the small patch of water coming from the crawlspace in order to float up to this small alcove without moving the crates to jump across, skipping the weird egg. The little patch of water coming from the crawlspace isn't real water on the N64 version, so this particular method of skipping the Weird Egg only works on 3DS. This skip was not known while making my Any% TAS and ends up saving roughly 30 seconds with additional timesave coming from the owl text skip. Link needs to wait to enter the crawlspace until it becomes day because guards will be blocking the path once inside if it is still night. This movie loads the next area on the frame that it turns day.
I was able to manipulate slightly better guard patterns than my Any% TAS which saved a few frames. However, the biggest timesave in this segment is due to skipping the Zelda's Lullaby cutscene. By dying on solid ground on the same frame as entering the cutscene trigger, the cutscene will begin but then will be interrupted by the death cutscene. This still gives Link the song and clears the cutscene. This skip is possible due to a cute easter egg in this area where a guard throws a bomb out of the western window if Link shoots at it with the Slingshot. This is reason for going out of the way early to get the Slingshot. The detour causes it to not save as much time, but I estimate it is still roughly 30-45 seconds. Where this bomb lands is completely random which is why this skip is generally not done in an RTA speedrun. With the randomness in this movie, Link was just barely able to make it to the cutscene trigger before the bomb exploded.
Path to Farore's Wind
By talking to Impa, Link is taken to Hyrule Field. There is still likely a fast way to skip the gate in Kakariko as shown
here, but every setup I've been able to pull off for it still manages to be slower due to how precise it is. A FESS is used to quickly get to Goron City. The statue in Darunia's throne room
can be unloaded by loading and unloading this room in a particular order. Recently it was discovered why this trick works. The gist of it is that a different actor in the big central room takes an extra frame for the collision to load in. By loading that room for only 1 frame, the collision for that actor takes the place of where the collision for the statue should be in memory, meaning that the statue collision is essentially overridden. Once back at Death Mountain Trail, a
precise TSC can be used to enter the fairy fountain without the Bomb Bag in order to get magic.
After savewarping back to Kokiri Forest, this movie goes to the Lost Woods in order to quickly get to the top of Zora's River. In most speedruns, a
Navi Dive is used to enter this loading zone, which requires waiting 30 seconds after entering a map for Navi to become available. Recently, a new invisible seam was found in this area which allows Link to enter this loading zone without needing to wait for Navi. This likely saves roughly 15 seconds. More owl text is also skipped in this area by alternating weapons. This owl will need to be skipped again when coming back through this area. In Zora's Domain, King Zora can be skipped with a TSC. Farore's Wind can then be obtained without the Bomb Bag by
clipping into the fairy fountain with a sidehop from the top of a very tall invisible seam. The inputs for this seam hover were taken from my Any% movie.
Deku Tree 2
The first dungeon that will be completed is the Deku Tree, but before going there, this movie will enter Jabu Jabu's Belly in order to set a Farore's Wind warp point. Link can quickly make his way over to Jabu Jabu with a Water Extended Superslide (WESS). This is achieved my performing a
megaflip off of the Gold Skulltula in this area to reach a high backwards speed. Link can enter Jabu Jabu by performing a jumpslash with a Deku Stick in a particular position which skips needing a Bottle. When Link Jumpslashes with a Deku Stick, the hitbox goes behind his head for a few frames and if it hits a wall, it sends Link flying backwards at a high speed. By hitting Jabu Jabu's head while the stick is behind Link, he gets sent back fast enough to clip into Jabu Jabu's mouth in order to reach the loading zone.
Savewarping back to Kokiri Forest, this movie goes back to the Deku Tree. The invisible seam in the middle of the room is used to get to the top of the dungeon and another invisible seam is used to clip through the ceiling in order to
sidehop to the boss room. Gohma can be stunlocked with a
broken Deku Stick.
The very long cutscene that plays after entering the blue warp where Link gets the Kokiri Emerald can be skipped by performing a
Restricted Items Wrong Warp (RIWW). This is done by using the Restricted Items glitch to use Farore's Wind in the boss room just as Link enters the blue warp. Returning back to Jabu Jabu's Belly and attempting to play the Kokiri Emerald cutscene will send Link to the Royal Family's Tomb area at the end of the cutscene that plays when obtaining the Sun's Song. However, Link is out of bounds and will void out. Because the last entrance is still supposed to be Jabu Jabu's Belly, Link will respawn there after voiding out. This saves several minutes.
Jabu Jabu's Belly
This dungeon is not as flashy as what came before or what comes after, but it is extremely technical in a TAS setting. The route is very similar to what would be done in real-time, but the movement is much more challenging, When carrying Princess Ruto around, it is not possible to roll or sidehop, so backwalking is the primary form of movement. However, there are a ton of enemies in this dungeon so preventing Link from targetting these is very difficult. This movie often had to manipulate the camera against walls in such a way that none of the Shaboms (the bubble enemies) were visible. There is also a lot of randomness in how these enemies move. The switch used to open the Boomerang room has a Navi text trigger on top of it that can barely be avoided by landing on the very edge of the switch. However, I accidentally realized that triggering the text on the same frame that the door opening cutscene plays will break out of the cutscene early and saves some time.
The wrong warp earlier did not use up the Farore's Wind warp point set previously, therefore it can be used to quickly reach the entrance of the dungeon. This movie then uses the Biri (the jellyfish enemy) to megaflip across the gap, skipping a large portion of the dungeon. The slingshot is used to position the enemy for the megaflip. The blue switch in front of the door normally needs to have a weight placed on it for the door to remain open, but a well timed and spaced roll allows for a 1 frame window to open the door before it closes. A trick Boomerang shot is used to hit a switch in the room before the boss without climbing the wall. A TAS can essentially use gyro aiming to snipe a target in only 1 or 2 frames. Interacting with gyro on Citra is very difficult though as the interface is not easy to work with frame by frame. Much of the gyro aiming used was done by hex editing the values needed. This took a very long time for me to figure out and become efficient with, but it was made a lot easier with my
CTM movie file hex parser.
The Boomerang is required to defeat Barinade. This movie uses very fast gyro shots to break the 3 tentacles to end the first phase. The second phase can be dealt with very quickly by stunning the boss just before the jellyfish shields have a chance to disperse and spin around. They can then be quickly eliminated with Deku Nuts. Finally, the end of the fight is just a matter of chasing Barinade down, using the Boomerang to stun, and dealing damage. The blue warp takes a few seconds to be interactable after the fight. Due to the way this blue warp works, after triggering the warp, it is possible to lose several seconds waiting for Ruto to start talking to Link based on how the camera and Link are positioned. I spent a long time entering the blue warp trying to get a basically instant cutscene start. I'm happy with how fast it ended up being. This cutscene cannot be skipped in the same way that the Deku Tree cutscene can be skipped due to Ruto's text messing with how the warp works, unfortunately. A wrong warp is possible but requires items that this movie will not collect.
One cute optimization is that during the Zora Sapphire cutscene, if the first few textboxes are cleared very quickly, Ruto will start swimming away in order to give Link the Zora Sapphire before the rest of the textboxes get cleared. This saves 5-10 seconds.
The Power of Wrong Warping
Savewarping back to Kokiri Forest, this movie sets Farora's Wind in Link's house coming from Kokiri Forest. This warp point will be very important shortly. In the Lost Woods, the owl is skipped once again. Link damages down to 1/2 of a heart using the business scrubs and travels over to the Sacred Forest Meadow. This next sequence is incredibly precise, and it's remarkable that everything here ends up actually working. The Wolfos in this area is used to do a glitch called
Quick Putaway (QPA). This glitch involves putting away a Deku Stick while it's in Link's hand the frame that he is damaged. If the broken Deku Stick exploit is then used, the damage value used by the Deku Stick will be glitched to set multiple different damage types. This is because the Deku Stick is immediately put away when it breaks. The game reads the value of the item in Link's hand to determine which damage value should be used, but because Link's hand is empty, it reads garbage data that is interpreted as multiple damage types. One of those damage types that is set is Megaton Hammer damage. So when Link gets QPA, he can then break the Deku Stick on the Wolfos in the middle of the entrance to this area to open a hidden grotto with the hammer damage. It is important to note that jumpslashing the Wolfos back will kill it, but hitting its front will cause it to block which prevent broken Deku Stick from being achieved. It is necessary to contact the Wolfos in a small area on its side in order for this to work.
The Wolfos can then be used to damage Link to 1 HP while in the air. With the right position and angle, Link can enter the open grotto before landing. The game wants to trigger the death animation but it also wants to load the grotto. The game won't do the death animation until Link hits the ground, and the grotto won't load until the death animation is no longer queued to be triggered or a new area attempts to be loaded. The game can be paused to quit out to the title screen while the grotto is still queued up to be loaded. However, the title screen acts like a cutscene, so what ends up happening is a similar situation to the FWWW used early at the Deku Tree blue warp. The game tries to add the value 4 to the area that is loaded, which is supposed to take Link to the title screen, but it instead is trying to take Link to the grotto. So instead of going to the title screen, it sends Link to the grotto and add a value of 4 to that area. This takes Link to a different grotto in this situation upon loading in from quitting the game. Additionally, a game state is triggered known as Attract Mode. This is the mode used when the title screen is active. This mode disables the touch screen, allows Link to use any item in any area, and prevents the game from being paused. The summation of this grotto glitch is known as
Death Hole Wrong Warping (DHWW).
The very cool thing about DHWW is that every time Link tries to load a new area as this state persists, the game will continue to add a value of 4 to each new area. For instance, when Link tries to return to the Farore's Wind warp point set earlier (which is easy to use because the DHWW state allows Link to use Farore's Wind anywhere), instead of taking Link back to his house, it adds 4 to that entrance which ends up taking Link to the Hyrule Market Entrance area. A comprehensive list of where every loading zone will end up taking Link can be found
here.
However, the issue with this is that Farore's Wind will also take Link to the room number and coordinates associated with the entrance where the warp point was set. If the game tries to load a room number in a map where that room doesn't exist, the game will crash. The coordinates where Link spawns could also put Link out of bounds when he loads in. In the case of Link's house, the room number works with Hyrule Market Entrance so that the game doesn't crash, but the coordinates would end up putting Link way out of bounds. The box in the image below shows roughly where Link would end up.
Things get even more complicated. In the DHWW state, loading zones take a little bit longer than normal to become active upon loading into a new area. This gives Link enough time to enter a loading zone and trigger Farore's Wind as the loading zone becomes active. This technique causes what is commonly known as a void warp. When used in conjunction with DHWW, it is known as a Death Hole Void Warp (DHVW). In this instance, the Farore's Wind Point will take Link to the map where Farore's Wind is set, but with the coordinates and room number that would be used upon exiting the grotto. However, the coordinates that get set when exiting a grotto are determined by the coordinates at which Link enters the grotto. So if Link enters a grotto on the eastern edge of it, he will exit towards the east. Normally this isn't important, but when you look at where the grotto coordinates are when shown on the Hyrule Market Entrance map...
...Just barely out of bounds! Luckily, Link is spawned in the air slightly above the grotto coordinates are, and Link can move around in the air ever so slightly before he lands. Because of this, if Link initially enters the grotto while dying at exactly the right position on the eastern edge, there is just enough room to have him barely land on solid ground in the Hyrule Market Entrance if a very precise control stick angle is held while he is airborne. I found that there was less than 3 in-game units of leeway for the position to enter the grotto which is very difficult to achieve when the Wolfos is trying to push Link around. For reference, Link travels about 6 in-game units every frame while walking in a straight line.
When Link spawns in, he makes his way to the loading zone to the right. This loading zone happens to take Link to its intended destination of Hyrule Market Entrance -> Hyrule Market. However, that Farore's Wind warp point is still set because that particular DHVW implementation does not use up the warp point. Because of this, Link can use Farore's Wind in the loading zone for this area to do another type of DHVW which takes him to the map of the loading zone but with the coordinates of Farore's Wind (which are still the coordinates for Link's house). This uses the Farore's Wind point, which would otherwise need to be dispelled anyways, and saves several more seconds by putting Link closer to the next loading zone he will enter.
In summary, Link achieves QPA by putting away a Deku Stick while the getting damaged by the Wolfos. He then opens the hidden grotto with glitched Megaton Hammer damage by breaking the Deku Stick on the Wolfos during a jumpslash. The Wolfos kills Link in midair just before he enters the grotto at a very precise position on the eastern side of it. Quitting out of the game triggers the DHWW state and loads Link in at the wrong grotto. By returning to the Farore's Wind warp point at the same time that the grotto exit load zone triggers, Link is taken to the map of the Farore's Wind point with the grotto exit coordinates. The DHWW state causes the game to add 4 to warp point which takes Link to the Hyrule Market entrance just barely out of bounds. With a good control stick angle Link can barely land on solid ground. Then Link can do another DHVW in the nearby loading zone to go to the Hyrule Market with more favorable coordinates. This sequence has not been done in an RTA speedrun due to it's difficulty. Instead, a similar but much longer wrong warp sequence is done. This routes likely saves over a minute.
From here Link can start entering loading zones to chain wrong warps. The sequence is as follows:
Hyrule Market Entrance -> Hyrule Market = Hyrule Market from Hyrule Market Entrance
Hyrule Market -> Temple of Time Entrance = Fire Temple from Fire Temple Boss
Fire Temple - > Death Mountain Crater = Forest Temple from Forest Temple Boss
When Link spawns in at the Forest Temple, he's trapped in the basement room behind a gate. Normally it would be possible savewarp, here to reach the entrance but because the DHWW state is still active, the game cannot be paused to save. However, the game can be saved if Link is taken to the Game Over screen. Unfortunately, there's nothing that can deal damage in the room in the Forest Temple where Link spawns. To get around this issue, this movie uses one of the Fire Keese (bat enemy) in the Fire Temple lobby to kill Link as he's entering the Forest Temple loading zone so that Link immediately dies upon gaining control in the Forest Temple. Walking too fast will put out the fire, so Link slowly walks to the loading zone to continue taking damage.
Forest Temple
Using a TSC in the main room, Link can reach the basement room of this dungeon while it is unloaded. A good portion of the walls in the room are actually an actor so that the room can be rotated as a part of a puzzle. Because of this actor, when in the room unloaded, many of the walls do not exist. Due to this quirk, Link can navigate around the walls that still exist and hop behind the boss door. When in the hallway leading up to the boss door, Link is actually standing in side the railing that lines the both edges of the hall.
Remarkably Phantom Ganon is probably easier to fight as child Link. As adult, only the Bow and the Hookshot can damage the first phase of this boss when he's running through the paintings. Luckily, the Slingshot also happens to work. This is the main reason for obtaining this item. Every other use for it up until now could have been avoided. During the second phase when Phantom Ganon starts flying around the room, there was never any consideration for how the boss would deal with the Boomerang. Normally Phantom Ganon will block projectiles, but he cannot block the Boomerang, allowing for effortless instant stuns. This can be used to stunlock the boss and end the fight quickly.
The blue warps for all of the adult temples except for the Fire Temple do not try to play a cutscene when doing the same Farore's Wind glitch done in the Deku Tree. Instead, it will simply return to the warp point, skipping the Medallion cutscene. The cutscene for the Forest Temple is particularly long, so this saves minutes.
Forward in Time, Back in Time, and Back in Time (but Actually Forward)
Upon returning to the warp point, this movie immediately sets another warp point and savewarps. Link makes his way back to the lost woods to damage down on the Business Scrubs again. Their projectiles can be used to perform the DHWW glitch once again at the nearby grotto. Returning Farore's Wind send Link back to Hyrule Market. Entering the Shooting Gallery goes to outside the Temple of Time, and Entering the Temple of Time initially appears to take Link to the intended location. However, after the introductory cutscene for the Temple of Time plays, Link is standing next to the Master Sword behind the Door of Time. There currently is not a known way to clip through the Door of Time to get the Master Sword early, so this is the fastest way of skipping it. However, there is a catch. Normally, picking up the Master Sword in the DHWW state would take Link to a map where he would be stuck. Luckily certain cutscenes that can play will cancel the DHWW state which prevents this from happening. One such cutscene is the introductory cutscene for the Temple of Time. This means that this method of Door of Time skip will only work just this once.
The Light Medallion cutscene is very long. Due to being in the DHWW state in the Temple of Time earlier, after gaining control, the small cutscene where Navi shows Link the Master Sword play out now, in comical fashion. Reloading this room by moving in and out quickly will start the cutscene for the Prelude of Light. This cutscene will not play until the Link has cleared the Forest Temple blue warp, completing that dungeon. This is the main reason for completing Forest Temple as child. With the Door of Time still closed and having very few adult items, it takes a surprisingly long time to do Forest Temple in this adult section. The Prelude of Light cutscene has several methods that allow it to be skipped. However, all of those methods require items that would unfortunately take longer to collect than just watching the cutscene.
Compared to Ocarina of Time on the N64, the 3DS version doesn't have too many obvious version changes that anyone could notice. One major addition though is the inclusion of a boss rush which allows Link to replay boss battles. The game checks Link's inventory for the Prelude of Light when determining if the boss rush mode is unlocked. Link has to interact with his bed in his house in order to access this mode. Most of the route up until this point was done to get the Prelude of Light as early as possible to unlock the boss rush, beating the Deku Tree and Jabu Jabu's Belly along the way mostly just because they were convenient. Once the Prelude of Light is obtained, it's back to Link's house to use the boss rush mode. The fastest way to do this is to immediately return to the child timeline and savewarp.
Prior to interacting with boss rush, Link leaves and reenters his house. This will be convenient for coordinate stuff later. The bed textbox can be glitched by quickly advancing the text which allows Link to be able to sleep at the bed to refill magic and enter the boss rush menu, saving a load. After triggering the boss rush menu, Link sets Farore's Wind using the Restricted Items glitch. Setting Farore's Wind after exiting the boss rush menu has a weird oddity. Returning to this warp point will return Link to the title screen, essentially like a soft reset. This will be very powerful. Sleeping at the bed restores Link's magic. Then it's back to the Deku Tree for the third and final time. Using the invisible seams, this movie quickly returns to the boss room.
After a dungeon blue warp has been cleared, they have unique property. The game checks if the warp has been cleared to determine whether or not the cutscene for the dungeon completion needs to be played. If the game determines that the warp has been cleared and no cutscene should be played, it sets a value that essentially says that no cutscene should be played. As discussed earlier when explaining DHWW, the title screen is essentially a cutscene. By setting up a FWWW on this blue warp and returning to the Farore's Wind point on the first frame that the blue warp starts to take Link away, the value that tells the title screen to play a cutscene gets overridden by the blue warp's value that says not to play a cutscene. Link is then taken to the title screen but will be fully in control.
In this game, the title screen essentially loads its own save file when it plays the title screen cinematics. This route wrong warps into this file. This glitch is known as
Back in Time (BiT). This name was taken from other Zelda games that have a similar glitches that allow for the game to be played on the title screen. The benefit of this glitch is the fact that the title screen file has almost all of the items. This includes most inventory items (Bombs, Hookshot, etc.), most gear items (swords, shields, tunics, etc.), all Ocarina songs, all Medallions and 14 hearts. This file also has 8 keys, the map, the compass, and the boss key for every dungeon. Noteable things miss are the Spiritual Stones and most item capacity upgrades (Quivers, Bomb Bags, Gauntlets). The rest of the file is in an "untouched" state. Most cutscenes that only play once are reset and all chests are unopened. Some data from previously are carried over though, such as how full the magic meter is, the time of day, and the Scarecrow's Song.
After performing BiT, the game cannot be paused, much like in DHWW mode. In order to save this title screen file state, the game performs a death warp to save and quit. Because Link spawns out of bounds due to the coordinates being set to Link's house, he can damage down by voiding out multiple times. This file also has bombs equipped, so they can help to inflict more damage. This takes a pretty long time because this file has 14 hearts. After dying, Link can enter the moat water directly in front of him to trigger the game over in order to save and quit.
Water Temple / Shadow Temple
Savewarping as adult takes Link to the Temple of Time. This movie places a Farore's Wind warp point in the Hyrule Market Entrance. Bombchus can then be used to perform a Hyper Extended Super Slide (HESS) to get to Kakariko Village quickly. A HESS can reach higher speeds than a FESS making them pretty much the fastest form of movement from here on out. Link can also use the Master Sword to immediately blow up a chu as the damage source. Because the BiT file has 50 Bombchus to burn through, HESSing can be done liberally whenever it saves time without really worrying about running out. A hidden grotto is uncovered and Link performs the DHWW glitch once again. After respawning after the game over screen, a new glitch is performed known as Farore's Wind desync. When Farore's Wind gets set, several values are stored such as the map, room number, and coordinates for where the warp point should take Link. When Link is in a grotto, the coordinates get set pretty much instantly. However, the map data for the warp point takes a few frames to update. By dispelling the warp point, resetting it, and then returning to the warp point as fast as possible, Link will get set to the map where the old warp point was set with the coordinates and room number of the new warp point. When in a grotto the coordinates used when setting a warp point are for the last non-grotto entrance. In this case, it is the coordinates for entering Kakariko Village from Hyrule Field. In DHWW mode, a Farore's Wind point from Hyrule Market to Hyrule Market Entrance goes to the Shadow Temple. With the Kakariko Village coordinates, Link is placed just above the loading zone for the Shadow Temple boss room. With precise air movement, Link can reach the loading zone.
In DHWW mode, the Shadow Temple -> Shadow Temple Boss loading zone will take Link to Water Temple -> Water Temple Boss. Morpha is technically a little faster to fight with the Hookshot. However, in DHWW, Link essentially only has access to 2 items and cannot pause to change equips. Having Bombchus equipped in stead will save time by allowing Link to damage down faster during this segment. Fighting Morpha without the Hookshot is actually very difficult. With a very precise crouch stab, followed by a quickspin, Link can knock Morpha out of the water and precisely jumpslash onto the floor around the perimeter of the room. The boss can then be trapped against the wall. Link sets Farore's Wind while entering the blue warp in order to save some time during the casting animation. The blue warp while in DHWW takes Link to the Chamber of Sages but Link has full control and the screen is stuck in a blacked out state. Most cutscenes cannot play in DHWW mode and will just make the screen go black even though the controls still work. Using another Bombchu, Link can game over in order to save and quit.
After reloading, Link returns to the Farore's Wind warp point that was set in the Water Temple boss room during the DHWW segment. In DHWW that warp point would go back to Water Temple -> Water Temple boss, but now that the game is no longer in DHWW mode, it will take Link to the "correct" map. This means it will send Link to the entrance tied to the loading zone that he entered to get to the Water Temple boss, which if you can remember, was Shadow Temple -> Shadow Temple Boss. The coordinates for FW will be the coordinates for Water Temple Boss though, which immediately warps Link into the Bongo Bongo introduction cutscene.
Quick snipes take out the hands. The body portion of Bongo Bongo can be stunlocked with well times sword attacks. The Shadow Temple and Spirit Temple blue warps check to see if Link has the Medallion associated with that dungeon when determining whether to play the Medallion cutscene. Because Link has the Shadow Medallion, no cutscene plays here when completing this dungeon.
Dodongo's Cavern
This movie sets Farore's Wind outside of the Kakariko Bazaar for later. Dodongo's Cavern is just up Death Mountain Trail. As adult, the entrance is always open, even if it was never opened as child. This dungeon can be completed very quickly by clipping out of bounds with a trick known as Hookshot Jumping. The gist of this glitch involves cancelling the the animation of the Hookshot connecting with a surface that it can pull Link towards. When this happens, Link still gets the vertical velocity that the Hookshot would have given him when pulling him towards the surface, but the game will no longer stop him when he reaches the end of the where the chain should be, so he keeps going up. There are several ways to cancel the Hookshot animation such as cutscenes, dying, or by overriding them with another animation. In the 3DS version of this game, the Hover Boots and Iron Boots were changed to be inventory items as opposed to gear items, allowing them to be equippable to the X, Y, I, and II buttons. Along with this change, an animation for butting on and taking off the boots was added. This animation can be used to cancel the Hookshot animation and travel upwards at high speeds. This is enough to clip through the ceiling and make it over to the boss loading zone.
King Dodongo is dispatched easily. Using Bombchus to stun this boss on the N64 version is harder, but he will eat them right out of Link's hands in the 3DS version. The Master Sword does enough damage to kill the boss in 2 cycles. A FWWW is then used to warp to the Sun's Song cutscene again. This is decently faster than watching the Goron Ruby cutscene.
Spirit Temple
Once again Farore's Wind is set somewhere for later shenanigans, this time from Kakariko Village -> Death Mountain Trail. Having all of the warp songs allows Link to immediately warp to outside of the Spirit Temple with the Requiem of Spirit. Another Hookshot Jump allows Link to reach the loading zone next to where the Mirror Shield chest is. This Hookshot Jump is incredibly precise and requires a huge amount of height to achieve. This file has enough keys to open every door in the dungeon so this doesn't save a ton of time over entering from the main entrance, but it's still faster and very cool.
After waking the Iron Knuckle in the first room, this movie equips the Giant's Knife which does double the damage of the Master Sword, but cannot be used with a shield when wielded. Additionally, the Giant's Knife will break after some combination of hitting most enemies or objects with 4 jumpslashes and/or 8 normal slashes. Once it breaks, it will deal half the damage of the Master Sword. However, durability is not expended when doing a spin attack. An uncharged spin attack does the same damage as a Master Sword jumpslash. This allows the Iron Knuckle here to be dealt with just as fast as if the Master Sword had been equipped. Careful consideration is also used to make sure that the Iron Knuckle break its throne so that Link can grab some hearts here.
The downside to having the Giant's Knife equipped is that slashing Bombchus to perform HESS's and FESS's will cause the sword to lose durability, so it's not a great option. Thankfully, due to the movement in the Spirit Temple mostly consisting of small bits of movements between rooms, there's an even faster option anyways. By crouchstabbing a wall with the Megaton Hammer and equipping the Hover Boots on the correct frame, Link can maintain his backwards speed over relatively short distances. Because most of the movement in the Spirit Temple starts with a wall nearby and isn't over large areas, this is a very fast option.
With all of the keys already in the inventory, Link can make it to the top of the dungeon without sidetracking. A Hookshot Jump can be used to reach the loading zone for the boss room. Despite still being a pretty short trek from entering the dungeon to entering the boss room loading zone, Spirit Temple is the second longest dungeon when adding up the actual gameplay, second only to Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly. Spirit Temple is far more technical, however, and that only continues into the boss fights.
The cutscene at the end of the Nabooru Iron Knuckle fight can be skipped by clipping out of bounds before the fight ends. The Iron Knuckle armor can be grabbed with the Hookshot. However, when the Hookshot grabs an object, it often pulls Link forward just a bit which can send him through the wall. In order for this to save the most time possible, the boss needs to be lured over to a wall without stopping to do an attack. Initially, my plan was to use Bombchus to damage Naburoo Knuckle from afar, but there would not have been enough time to deal enough damage before reaching the corner and it would not have left this movie with many Bombchus afterwards for movement tricks. I then discovered that a Giant's Knife spin attack had enough range to deal damage without stalling the boss. After clipping, Link can perform a jumpslash while out of bounds and still land the hit. This is similar to the clip use to enter Jabu's Jabu's Belly. Two-handed weapons have a tendency to hit things directly behind Link.
Twinrova has a very large amount of randomness. To optimize this fight, I want the same sister to give me 3 shots in a row in quick succession. Each of these quick shots has a 1/8 chance of occurring. At the same time, I want the other sister to be nearby so that the beam does not have far to travel. This is also essentially a 1/8 chance. For the 4th shot, I want the other sister to shoot while the first sister is still close. Once again, both of these are a 1/8 chance. So each of the 4 shots is just about a 1/64 chance of happening optimally.
During the second phase, Twinrova will always shoot the same elemental beam 3 times in a row until enough damage has been dealt, at which point it becomes random. Similar to the first phase, after absorbing a beam, the boss will fly to a random pillar around the room. If Link interrupts her attack and has good positioning, Twinrova has a chance to stay at the pillar she already fired from, saving a few seconds. This optimally needs to happens twice for a perfect fight. A wonderful breakdown of all of the randomness in this fight and how it works can be found
here courtesy of dannyb21892.
Twinrova's second phase cannot be stunlocked like many of the other bosses, and the time it takes for an entire cycle to happen in order to deal damage is very long. A 2 cycle seconds phase would waste a lot of time. Luckily the BiT file has the Giant's Knife. This sword can only do 4 or 5 attacks against enemies before it breaks, but it is twice as strong as the Master Sword. 3 jumpslashes is just enough to take Twinrova out in a single cycle. If Link is too close to the boss hitbox, the sword will break early, similar to the broken Deku Stick exploit. Positioning is important to prevent this.
Fire Temple
The Bolero of Fire can be used to warp to the front of the Fire Temple. Link already has the boss key so he can immediately enter the boss room. There are actually 2 Volvagias in this fight. One of them pops its head out from the ground and the other flies around. Link can damage the flying Volvagia using bombchus while the whack-a-mole head is active. This ends the fight without having to wait for Volvagia to fly around the room.
The blue warp can be used with the Farore's Wind Point set at Kakariko Village -> Death Mountain Trail to do a FWWW to the end credits. Fire Temple is the only adult dungeon where the blue warp can be used for wrong warping due to cutscene that normally tries to play where Death Mountain Erupts. Pressing A to return to the warp point is the final input.
Possible Improvements
- Mounting and climbing invisible seams is very difficult. There are likely slightly faster setups for all of these that end up saving a frame or two.
- I intentionally lost 1 frame to pull out a stick during the Zelda's Lullaby cutscene. The stick only stays in Link's hand if you roll during before starting the text. I simply like the way it looks
- In retrospect, it probably would have been faster to equip the Giant's Knife during the Bongo Bongo, using quickspins to stunlock the boss. This would have eliminated several swings but also would have required equipping and unequipping the sword. It just never crossed my mind. Odds are it would end up saving less than like 2 seconds if it did end saving any time at all.
- I believe that I wasted a few frames during the Twinrova fight, specifically in the second phase while shielding the final attack because it simply looked cooler. I have no regrets.
Special Thanks
As is becoming routine for me, I keep my TAS projects a secret, only telling a few friends until I'm ready to release them. This time around I told no one. Because of this, I find it very important to take inspiration from every bit of Ocarina of Time TASing I can get my hands on. Specifically, I frequently referenced
SwordlessLink's Glitchless movie and
homerfunky's All Dungeons, Temples, & Ganon's Trials movie, which were both submitted and published roughly within the last 2 years. I believe that these movies are both very high quality and were great assets during this project.
I'd also like to thanks
Hylian Freddy for always having an answer to the questions I was thinking up. During the making of this movie, I would occasionally ask sneaky, vague questions in the Ocarina of Time 3D Discord server, only to realize that Freddy had already answered the question months prior. He also unknowingly helped me save a lot of time in this movie in various places.
Suggested Screenshots
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CoolHandMike: This is a very complex and impressive tas. Tons of precise routing with some brand new strategies. This is much faster than the already fast RTA WR All Dungeons with the time saves possible with tasing that bests it by over 15 minutes. While the author mentions that there could be some minor improvements this tas definitely passes the bar for optimization.
The All Dungeons goal of completing all the dungeons by killing their bosses is an entertaining goal that has great feedback.
Accepting to Alternative "All Dungeons".
Congratulations!
Note: I had trouble getting this to run with Citra Nightly 1815, benstephens56 noted to use a newer version of Citra to be able to right click the game title in Citra, then Disk Shader Cache -> Delete. This somehow fixes that crashing on trying to open the game. I was still having trouble running the movie since it kept getting stuck on the name entry screen, but after deleting the savegame (which the submission notes), and also closing the newer version of Citra, the tas movie was able to play to the end.
Spikestuff: Publishing. As a note a quicker way to access the Shader Cache without the need of another build of Citra is by going to
%appdata%\Citra\shaders.
