Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a gameboy color RPG that follows the book more than the movie.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 1.11.4
- Fastest time
- Frogs look like easy xp
Comments
I initially started this TAS back in 2011 after finding a crash glitch in the bank vault area by pausing and going to a menu before a cutscene trigger. I messed around with it, but wasn't able to get anything useful out of it, but it started my interest in this game. The run however, had many setbacks, and it caused me to restart at least 4 times. It killed off my motivation for a long while, until the user Gand988 made me aware that there was a small dedicated group of people who still speedruns this game. That remotivated me to start again, but this time on BizHawk due to TASStudio.
Stage by stage comments
Gringotts
I chose the first card deck since it was the fastest. I'm not sure if choosing others would be faster due to different combo animations, so that needs to be checked. The giant rat fight was a pain; I wasn't able to manipulate the 3rd and 4th hits to be a critical instead. That would've allowed me to kill the 2 smaller rats first for shorter enemy turns. There's that crash glitch I didn't use here since I wasn't able to get anything useful out of it, so that may be worth investigating for anyone who knows how.
I moved far down to skip kid's 2nd dialogue. I can technically skip the hooded man's dialogue by using cards, but I'm not sure if it's worth wasting cards on this. I messed up a bit by selling the boots since this was done before it was found you could get the sickle drop without getting warped to the forest.
Train
- Use card
- Talk to the red shirted npc in the TAS
- Talk to the black shirted npc at the first cabin. This sets the boss fight to trolls
- Press A 6 more times for the 56448 sickles
- Talk to Neville
- Move to the window npc and press A twice; the first time starts the warp to the forbidden forest and the 2nd cancels it and sets the boss to the frog
- Talk to the red shirted npc 3 times to get kicked out of the train
Unfortunately, getting the sickles seems to have reduced the XP gained.
Hogwarts Area
I had to fight the frog before the knight since you can't override a boss fight. I wasn't able to manipulate 2 crital hits at once, but at least I managed to get perfect luck going back to shore with the npcs.
I paused before talking to Hagrid trigger and equipped a pair of gloves to skip fighting the purple rabbit. I bypassed the 2nd conversation and OHKO the knight.
I can't use the door to the dungeon to take the shortcut to the 5th floor until I open the door from the other side first.
Everything up to the potion's class is straightforward.
Classes
I had to insert a lengthy delay to manipulate a snake to appear alone and drop a pair of fangs as well. I then proceeded to take the following classes:
- Broom Flight Class
- Herbology Class
- Transfiguration Class
- Charms Class
- Defence Against Dark Art
sic - History of Magic Class
Broom Flight Class and Charms Class are the 2 very long and boring minigame courses. There doesn't seem to be a method to skip the former using cards or dying as well.
I grabbed all the herbs outside. For reference, it's Dried Nettles, Mandrake Root, Asphodel Root, Aconite, Wormwood and Dittany.
By the way, the ones that trigger a dialogue before picking them up cannot be found outside Hogwarts until Herbology has started. The ones that are needed that do this are Mandrake Root and Aconite.
Grabbing the Dittany counted as a message, so it made the enemy nearby disappear. You're rewarded with potion recipes which aren't even needed to make the potions as long as you know and own the ingredients.
I messed up with 3 of the dialogue boxes during Transfiguration Class. :/
By now, you would've noticed the lengthy "Class Points Obtained" animation. It doesn't appear to be skippable.
I wasn't able to manipulate any criticals during the Ogre fight sadly.
I sold the pumpkin pasties to reduce scrolling when I use the frogs. I bought 150 chocolate frogs which gave me enough cards to use combos 4 times. I then used the curse book to gain the Mucus ad Nauseam spell for later. I'm not sure if this is the best time to buy frogs, but the only other future oppurtunities are at Gringotts the 2nd time and retrieving Christmas Presents. The other 2 would force me to open the start menu again, since I have to use the curse book anyways to learn the spell.
In case anyone asks why I didn't attack the giant rat for the critical:
I failed to hit 200+ despite numerous attempts. Also the input should be fine for every message after this fight.
Night
The shortcuts are locked at night. The 2 triggers in the trophy room could be skipped by walking around them.
Troll
It's skipped; not sure how to give credit for this skip, since apparently, it was rediscovered multiple times. I suppose I should congratulate gand988 and others for finding this independently, given how most encounters (listed below) when attempting to pause crash the game.
Also, you can't leave the floor; not even deathwarping takes you away.
Night 2
Peeve's note can be bypassed the first time, but will immediately trigger after coming back. I had thought of using the spiders encountered tonight to hijack their turns and kill me, but then Daniel Griffith/psirockin123 showed that it only works for enemies faster than you, which is rather difficult barring bosses at level 78. gand988 informed me that real time runners get by this by save, reseting, then using a card afterwards to die, but because there's a chicken fight later, I wasn't sure it's worth doing it here. If anyone wants to time it, they also have to take account buying more frogs to guarentee 6 card combo uses.
I learn Petrificus Totalus for the later bosses then trigger the alarm.
If a death warp is used to escape Snape and Filch, the game acts as "day" and all students appear wandering (can't talk to them however), but you won't be able to progress. Also, you can't go back downstairs unless you deathwarp if you talked to Dumbledore. Finally enemies don't appear after a deathwarp even if you get caught and had to start over.
Chickens
Pausing and unpausing resets their position, making it easy to farm them. Also if you picked up an item an interacted with the chicken at the same time, the boss address becomes 6, but the fight doesn't start. It doesn't matter however, since all enemies are gone for this section, even indoors.
Vermillious Uno is 6 frames faster than Flipendo Uno due to shorter animation. Also 80 frames are saved every fight from petrifying all 3 chickens at once to stop them from attacking. I wasn't able to hijack thier first turn. Also, the chickens only drop corpses if you fought them like this; using the cards won't make them drop "a chicken".
Night 3
Since there's no mandatory battles from here until the end, I decided to use a deathwarp. Most of the time, the game seems to softlock. I noted down when it happens for the first 300 frames or so, but I'm not certain what makes it work.
The Malfoy dialogue can be walked past. Deathwarping before getting caught by Filch once again makes all students appear and does not proceed with the story. Additionally Hermoine would stop following you until you arrive at the Astronomy hall again.
Finally I'm so sorry for causing the viewer's eyes to bleed for the next 60,000 frames or so.
Detention
It's faster to go down to the next screen rather than through the hut. Also if you trigger it from far below, you glide.
If you die before meeting the unicorn, you respawn at the very beginning of the forest. If that happened after meeting the unicorn, you respawn at said unicorn. In other words, you can only deathwarp to the medical ward after leaving this place. Oh, and dying during the wrong warp doesnt' warp you anywhere.
Last Area
Dying anywhere spawns you back to the door, even if it's not from a boss fight.
I can't hijack the Devil Snare's first turn, but I managed to do so afterwards by attempting to run away, then press A/B every time it takes damage from poison. I think it's possible to improve this by critical OHKOing the smaller plants, but I'm not sure if that even helps. I also showcase what happens if they regaing movement at the same turn as dying.
By the way, to make sure they never unpetrify, delay when to press A/B.
The broom room is one of the few places the game doesn't softlock when you pause. I wasn't able to skip it, but the menu removed much of the lag, causing the countdown to be 8 frames each. This saves 129 frames.
I hijack the horse knight's first turn to make it my turn. I found out for some reason, probably due to it's speed, I don't even need to petrify it to skip its turn.
I hijack the rook's first turn to first petrify it, then cast Mucus ad Naseum. The delay exists for different reasons. For the first one, it's because it's lag. The 2nd delay was due to if I casted eariler, nothing will happen. Also, I had to cast another attack right after the poison, or else it'll poison me instead. Poisoning without petrify softlocks the game. Finally, unlike the previous battle, I had to petrify to skip it's turn.
The knight's fight is the same, except it ended up 60 frames faster to poison twice.
The potion minigame doesn't seem to be affected by when you start it.
Professor Quirrel and Voldemort's fight were similar to the knights', except I poisoned them 3 times.
Other comments
Tricks
Pausing before a trigger
The game doesn't like it if you pause before a cutscene trigger; attempting to open other menus cause the game to bring up the dialogous, and the game usually crashes or softlock. Other times it causes skips and other effects. A list as follows:
- Pausing in front of a door doesn't seem to do anything different other than play the door sound twice
- You can "skip" this by moving diagonally, but you won't be able to enter the door
- Can't seem to pause in front of the bank
- Gringotts bank in front of Hagrid - crashes/softlock
- Unpausing makes Hagrid disappear
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the dialogue interrupts it
- Any boss - brings you to coords 0,0 after the fight
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the boss interrupts it
- Any enemies - makes them disappear
- Before the kid that gives you cards after the bank - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the dialogue interrupts it
- Purple hooded guy has same effect as the kid; also note at 0,0, you can move up/down but only to the left
- Using a card combo when the above dialogue is triggered can be used to skip it; not sure if worth the cards
- In front of the train door - nothing special happens
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- On the train - Using a card combo when you won the last fight immediately counts Malfoy's battle as won; the trigger at Ron's cabin still works however
- NPC's become glitched
- Right at Ron's encounter (before the candy cart) - Softlock after 2 dialogue boxes in the menus; can't even pause
- Using a card combo here and winning also glitches the NPCs; however one difference here is that this also places the "Yes" item if you trigger the frog battle
- Unpausing gets rid of the trigger, forcing you to either restart or use a card combo to continue
- Right at Ron's encounter (after the candy cart) - softlocks after the rat chases the bullies away
- Unpausing too soon does nothing
- Unpausing after the bullies appear on the menus gets rid of the trigger and the card; you'd be stuck unless restart without saving or using a card combo
- Can't seem to pause after grabbing the sickles before the glitched dialogue
- Before the warp to the forest - Same as doing so in front of a door, except high chance of disabling the ability to talk to anyone or pause
- Can't seem to pause before the train conductor shoos you out
- Right before the shore - Gets stuck after unpausing: http://i.imgur.com/4n0mtwk.png You can then move to the far left/right and go out of bounds; pausing again moves you to different places
- Right before Hagrid's talk - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing skips the cutscene
- Right before Hagrid again - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing does not skip the cutscene
- Don't have any cards to check
- Right before Hagrid after the knight - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing does not skip the cutscene
- Don't have any cards to check
- Right before the girl's dormitory - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (you get yelled at)
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Right before the girl's dormitory - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Right before the girl's dormitory the 2nd time - Softlock once dialogue ends
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (you remind yourself you get yelled at)
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Right before broom class - softlocks once dialogue ends
- Unpausing proceeds as normal, but with with glitched camera
- If the last battle was won, the card combo would work, then softlock once Harry walks to his broom
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends
- Right before Defence Against Dark Art class - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (You get cursed)
- First trigger at the trophy room - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Second trigger at the trophy room - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Right before getting caught by Filch - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing sets Filch, unmoving, back at the entrance. He could also be walked past.
- First troll cutscene - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Using a combo card crashes the game after the battle
- Same for dying
- Attempting to leave the floor - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Ron tells you to help Hermoine)
- Right before the Troll - Fight starts as normal, then warp to 0,0 after it ends
- Unpausing or using cards skips this section
- Right before Peeve's note - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Right before getting caught wandering at night - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Get caught and forced to redo the restricted area)
- Right before Snape becomes suspicious - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Attempting to go downstairts - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Snape catches you)
- Attempting to go past Noris the cat - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Get caught by Filch)
- Right before Snape and Filch closing in on you - Can't move except pause which warps you to 0,0
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Bumping into Filch/Snape - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Get caught by Filch)
- Right before the mirror - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Unpausing makes the trigger disappear (forced to reset or exit and get caught)
- If the last battle was won, the card combo would work, then the trigger disappears
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends
- Attempting to go downstairs after the mirror - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Right before Malfoy gets caught - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- If the last battle was won, the game proceeds to losing house points right after battle, then softlocks
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends
- Right before Filch catches you at the Astronomy tower - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Right before you overhear Quirrel - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- At the entrance of the forbidden forest - Game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was won, the game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends
- Forbidden Forest 1 - Game softlocks after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (You meet the centuars)
- Forbidden Forest 2 - Game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was won, the game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends (even if dialogue is over)
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (You team with Malfoy)
- Forbidden Forest 3 - Game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was won, the game softlocks after dialogue
- If the last battle was lost, the game crashes as soon as the dying animation ends (even if dialogue is over)
- Unpausing proceeds as normal (Malfoy runs away and you faint)
- Before the broom minigame - Game proceeds as normal after dialogue
- Not enough time to trigger a card combo before the cutscene interrupts it
- Unpausing proceeds as normal
Note: Even in combat, it depends on if the dialogue was still ongoing before a transition. If the dialogue hasn't stopped, dying in combat crashes the game. If the dialogue went through, or there was none, it may or may not crash/softlock; often it simply deathwarps you to whatever the last location is, but doesn't proceed with the story. Also if the dialogue was triggered at the win screen, it softlocks. Triggering the dialogue during combat, but winning will potentially warp you to 0,0 assuming dialogue hasn't finished. Finally, in the case if the dialogue was triggered mid combat, and the during a brief moment when there's no text the battle proceeded to the win screen, there's a chance it may either softlock, or restart the dialogue.
The above listed scenarios assume during combat, dialogue has not been stopped.
Bypassing triggers
The programmers messed up some of the trigger area for certain cutscenes, allowing them to be walked past.
- The door to the bank; you still can't enter without triggering the message however
- The 2nd encounter with the card kid
- At the cavern before Hogwarts, for the 2nd Hagrid conversation
- The 2 dialogues at the trophy room (Thanks Gand988 for the 2nd one)
- Escaping the bathroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sBYSz03boA (Thanks to Daniel Griffith/psirockin123 for this)
- Peeve's note (Still needs to read it after coming back)
- The libraian after triggering the alarm in the restricted section; immediately gets caught by Snape however http://i.imgur.com/Re3hXVn.png
- Snape and Filch closing in on you (Door to the mirror will be locked, however http://i.imgur.com/Es3XBBP.png)
- Malfoy reporting you for bringing the dragon
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Walking during a cutscene is slower than normal walking.
Moving closer to the destination before the cutscene starts usually saves time.
Potential Improvements
0xCD12 is the countdown for message boxes. I only found out after revisiting Gringotts. Sadly, due to RNG issues, I wasn't able to implement this before the 2nd giant rat fight. For future runners who may want to reuse parts of the run, here's a list of every single instance I messed up getting rid of the message box:
- 4150
- 23564
- 38466
- 81385
- 81421
- 84254
- 86340
Others:
- Giant Rat fight 1 - Get a critical hit on the 3rd and 4th attack instead and use the first 2 attacks to kill off the smaller rats to shorten the next 2 enemy turns.
- I'm not sure if it really matters not getting the boots from the first fight really saves time since that help message would simply appear again when I buy school supplies
- Leaving the bank without having to move away from enemies since moving diagonally slows you down by 3 frames.
- Don't sell the harden boots; I initially sold them for sickles, but then I found out later that by speaking to Neville during the train, I could glitch the 56448 sickles without getting warped to the forest.
- Get a shorter glitched message during the train.
- Get 2 crital hits on the frog to 2HKO.
- Find a way to make use of the "Yes" item in a any%; The only use as of now is for 100% where it can be manipulated to change the game to a "new" game but keeping all your cards, sickles, etc. In other words no need to beat the last bosses 4 times.
- Find a way to get the higher XP drop from the frog along with the sickles; this should help with the ogre, and giant rat 2 and devil's snare fights.
- Get better luck with both the snake fangs and the npc blocking the Dittany herb.
- Find out how to get more necessary cards from less chocolate frogs.
- Giant rat v2 was 7 hp awawy from OHKO if I did a critical on it http://i.imgur.com/YbwpqyH.png
- The npc right before Hagrid at the forbidden forest needs better placement.
- Another npc when leaving the forbidden forest needs better placement.
Thanks
- Gand988
- SuperMonkeypotato
- StarrlightSims
- Daniel Griffith/psirockin123
- All those who posted on the thread on TASVideos and SDA
Samsara: The execution looked good all throughout apart from the minor (unnoticeable) mishaps with textbox clearing, but overall it's just 20 minutes of walking, 10 minutes of fights and minigames and 30 minutes of lag. Accepting to Vault.
Note to publishers: This submission was pre-claimed by feos.
feos: Thank you. Pub.