So I recently played through both games and greatly enjoyed them, so I've been tossing around TAS ideas. You're absolutely right about that manipulation being a pain in the keister, though I'd love to give a try when I get more time. Planning is what I've been working on now, mostly.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/620532313/ZeldaOoS-TE-1%20-%20Copy%20%281%29%20-%20Copy%20%281%29.vbm
I'm thinking a linked run would be my goal. Cutting out the mostly uneventful non-linked Hero's Cave while adding a fuller ending and some littler events partways through would make for a better watch I think, especially for people who've only played the normal way.
Looking around, I found that a password of all capital N's works, but it was non-linked. Doodling around with the password generator linked earlier, I discovered that to change the qualities of a password you only need to change one or two letters to randomly find a working password, so I tested several combinations using only letters that are one direction away from capital N, and eventually found one that was a Linked, Hero's Secret game!
So the most important planning step now is to decide what animal to be my buddy. That password gave Moosh. Changing the 6th-to-last character to a right-arrow gives Dmitri, and with a little testing I could find one for Ricky. Each one moves differently and an entire chunk of the game's landscape is completely different depending on the buddy you get.
VGMaps details
It seems clear to me that Dmitri is the best to get--after getting the flippers, calling him would be unnecessary, unless his swimming is faster than Link's. Manipulating the 80 rupees necessary to free him from Moblins might be tricky, but there's a staircase under a burnable tree one screen right of the first dungeon with an old man that gives 100, so the easy solution is there, I just don't know how much better it'd be for time.
Thoughts? Anything else I should know about?
I'm guessing finding a similar set of passwords for Ages would be a similar endeavor, just finding anything that works that's quick to enter would be the tricky part.
--Found an equivalent password for Ages: NNNbN NNNNN NNNNN NN-NQ. I assume this is a Moosh password, a slight change will give Dmitri and another, Ricky. Changing 6th-from-last to Left Arrow works, not sure which is which yet. Either I find the Mem Address or I play the game until I know! Work either way ha
