The Category -
The Spyro 2 misc category "Bone Dance" was a category created by members of the Spyro community a few years ago and has recently been added to the leaderboards on speedrun.com. If this wasn't already a big enough meme, I decided to make a TAS of it.
The Game -
Speedrunning Spyro 2 is notorious for a very broken jump mechanic, called the "Double Jump". This can be misleading, as in most games, a Double Jump consists of pressing the jump button twice. But in this case, that is not how it works, if you press the jump button twice, you will glide, not Double Jump. To access the Double Jump, you very simply have to press "X" then press "Square" a few frames after. This is something that the developers of this game overlooked, as it can be abused to very easily break the game.
The Speedrun -
In this game, there are 3 homeworlds, Summer Forest, Autumn Plains, and Winter Tundra. Since the level where the Bone Dance is featured, "Skelos Badlands" is in Autumn Plains, so this category would start out as a normal Spyro 2 Any% Speedrun until reaching Autumn Plains. Upon reaching Autumn Plains, Skelos Badlands is very conveniently right infront of you. However, you cannot charge straight towards it, as there is a plane of water between you and Skelos, instead you have to run around it, then enter the level from there. Upon entering Skelos Badlands, there are a bunch of enemies called "Catbats", flying bat like creatures scattered around the level. Conveniently, they are place in very good positions, allowing me to heavily optimise this level in particular. The reason these "Catbats" are so useful to this TAS, is that they can be proxied off of very easily (I will explain more on proxies in the next paragraph). To unlock the final goal of the category, the "Bone Dance", one must retrieve 8 bones, held by dinosaurs which are also, conveniently close to some Catbats. The timing stops after the Bone Dance finishes.
Proxies -
Proxies, or Proxy Jumps are heavily used in this TAS to make it really optimal. In this TAS you will see 3 different types of Proxy, A squeeze Proxy, A forward proxy, and an upward proxy. The first proxy you will see is a squeeze proxy. The way squeeze proxies work, is that Spyro gets stuck either between two bits of scenery that are a tiny bit too small for him to fit into, sending him flying into the sky, or in this case, gets stuck between a frog and a wall. This is to skip having to go the intended way, saving quite a bit of time. The second proxy won't come until Skelos Badlands. The first proxy off of a Catbat will be a forward proxy, sending Spyro flying forwards, giving him a bit more time save. The third and final kind of proxy is an Upward Proxy, similar to a forward proxy, insted he gets shot upwards instead of forwards. The way proxies work is that dead body hitboxes were designed so that Spyro could charge through them, but not glide through them. By killing an enemy, charging into its hitbox, then pressing X while still holding charge, Spyro will glide for one frame, and will try and remove him from the gliding state. Proxies can differ in height, as you will see in this TAS.
Thank you for reading, and enjoy the TAS