Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk-1.13.1
- Game version : NTSC v1.0
- BIOS : SCPH5501.BIN
- Heavy glitch abuse
About the game
The fourth instalment of the Tomb Raider series, released in 1999. The story begins with Lara Croft's teenaged tomb-raiding origins, accompanied by her former mentor Werner Von Croy. They travel to a Khmer temple in Angkor Wat, Cambodia in the hope of finding the mystical "Iris". However, the trip is cut short by an accident where Lara is forced to abandon her companion in order to save her own life. Back in the year 1999 in Egypt, Lara Croft uncovers an ancient tomb where the fearsome Egyptian God Seth was once imprisoned. She unwittingly unleashes him and finds herself in a deadly race against time to restore the god to his resting place before an apocalypse befalls Earth. Unfortunately, Von Croy becomes Lara's new rival as he is possessed by Seth himself and he makes things considerably more difficult. Lara travels across Egypt to collect the pieces of Horus' armour in order to defeat Seth. They are found in Pharos, Temple of Isis, Temple of Poseidon and Cleopatra's Palaces. She combines them (with the Amulet of Horus) in the Temple of Horus to finally defeat her enemy. However before Horus can be summoned, Set arrives and destroys the armour, knocking the amulet into the water. Lara quickly recovers it and exits the Temple sealing the entrance shut with the amulet. She must leave it in place to keep Set imprisoned for eternity. As she reaches the exit of the temple, injured and exhausted, she is confronted by Von Croy. Fearful that he may still be possessed she is reluctant to hold onto his hands and so falls into the darkness beneath the collapsing temple.
Comments
Differences between PSX and PC versions
There are a few differences between the PSX and PC versions of the game, only the last two affect speedrunning :
- Longer loading times on PSX.
- Multiple visual "improvements" on PSX, such as gradient bars and an inventory background (and many more effects such as footsteps etc.)
- Having to go into the inventory to equip weapons/take medipacks or even save the game. and since the ingame timer doesn't stop in the inventory, this loses time and is a disadvantage over the PC version which has keyboard hotkeys.
- on the PC version, triggers are active in all rooms, causing the ALT glitch to have more uses. on PSX, triggers are only activated either when the room is rendered, or if Lara is in an underwater room.
Timing
The game runs at 30 fps, so usually 1 ingame frame = 2 realtime frames. On laggy places, the game might need more realtime frames to advance one ingame frame.
Speed and movement
| Movement | Speed (RAM) |
| Walking | 15 |
| Crawling | 16 |
| Running | 47 |
| Standing jump | 50 |
| Rolling (first frames) | 50 |
| Swimming | 50 |
| Sliding | 50 |
| Running jump | 75 |
| Sprint | 47-82 |
| Sprint Roll | 82-100-47 |
As you can see, the Sprint Roll is the fastest way to move. However, That doesn't mean it's faster to do instead of sprinting, as sprinting is a consistent 82 speed. The sprint roll gradually goes uo to 100 speed (adding 2 about every frame) then gradually goes down to 47 (the running animation), making it slower. However, it's better to sprint roll off ledges as Lara's speed carries on to the fall. with a sprint roll that's usually 98-100, which is better than sprinting off the ledge with 82 speed.
Now it is important to note that these are the speeds in the RAM. In practice, the game rounds Lara's coordinates because it only accepts integers. It means that depending if it rounds up or rounds down, Lara's true speed will be a little bit higher or smaller than the RAM speed.
It also allows to adjusting either the X speed or Y speed while keeping the other one the same. The biggest example of this is that for a X speed of -75, the Y speed can be anything from 12 to -13.
When Lara is turning, her rotation speed increases by 45 each frame, until it caps to 1092 (on the ground) or 182 (midair). However, when she is holding her guns (must be fully equipped) and turning on the spot, her rotation speed will reach 1092 in 3 frames (45-90-1092). While swimming, rotation speed adds 45 each frame untill to caps at 728.
Route planning
picking up items loses 32 (IGT) frames at the very very least, which is why I needed to optimize my pickups to the minimum.
Weapons
| Weapon | damage for shot | Damage per second |
| Pistols | 1 (per gun) | 6 |
| Shotgun | ~18 (depends on range) | ~16 |
| Revolver | 21 | ~37 |
| Uzis | 1 (per gun) | 15 |
| Grenade Launcher | 30 | ~16 |
| Crossbow | - | - |
- Both shotgun ammo types have the same damage.
- The "flash" grenades deal no damage.
- The super grenades would be too hard to test (as most if not all enemies don't survive the hit so I can't really calculate, besides, it shoots multiple little explosions which also deal damage, which made things a little confusing.), so I just didn't bother, sorry.
- The crossbow normal shots deal 5 damage.
- The crossbow poison arrows deal 5 damage at first, then drain the enemy's health by 1 gradually every 15 frames, until it reaches 1 and the poison stops there, doesn't kill the enemy.
- The crossbow explosive arrows deal 30 damage.
In this run we only need the shotgun* (not sure, read this page to find out why) and the grenade gun. mainly because there aren't many enemies and when we do need to shoot things we need something with the explosive effect to kill multiple enemies at once (like in The Mastabas)
Glitches and tricks
useful glitches
- Corner bug : By clipping inside a corner at a ~45 angle , Lara gets teleported to the top of that corner. If no walkable ground is on top of that corner, Lara just stands there.
- Flare bug : The flare bug is abusing the fact that Lara moves behind the flares when she picks them up crouched. allowing for easy full embeds.
- Dive bug : If Lara performs a dive to a wall and hits the point where it meets the floor, Lara arrives at the floor without taking any damage. Even if the fall hight would have normally killed her.
- QWOP : The state that happens when the game thinks Lara is falling while she's still on the ground. What makes it useful is that it ends with a quicksand bug. can be done in multiple ways. The way that was used in this TAS is doing a specific jump at a stair.
- Flare Cancel : When throwing a flare during a long fall, The "Throw Flare" animation overrides Lara's stumble animation when she arrives. allowing her to move as soon as she falls. very useful. Lara still takes damage/dies from the fall though.
- Free flares: A glitch in the crouching system allows to get a flare in Lara's hand without actually removing any flares from the inventory. it even works if there are no flares in the inventory at all! Used in Cambodia and saves over 2 minutes.
- Keyhole Glitch : an extremely useful glitch that allows Lara to place keys and puzzle items without having them in the inventory. Basically, the game has two responses when pressing action near keyholes. either "Yes" (when Lara has the item in her inventory) or "No" (when she doesn't)- Picking up flares is signaled "Yes" for the game. Now interrupting Lara's animation when she picks up flares when she's next to a keyhole transfers the "Yes" command from the flare to the keyhole, so Lara inserts the needed puzzle/key even without having it! extremely useful and used in a lot of levels.
- Flare Jump : A glitch that happens when Lara jumps at the frame the flare pickup animation starts. Only possible if the "move to pickip" animation is interrupted. when it happens, the jump physics transfer to the flare pickup animation, Launching Lara up+forwards then she starts falling down, but while performing the flare pickup animation which ignores all collision and objects until the frame is finished. useful for skipping doors and triggers.
- Extended Sprint : Not all the frames of Lara's sprint animation require the sprint button to be pressed to continue sprinting. in fact only a few frames require it to be pressed(only 1-2 frames with sprint button pressed between 7-8 frames of not needing the button pressed). extremely useful and used in almost all levels. unfortunately you can't turn without the sprint button pressed.
- Binoculars camera bug : When Lara is embedded inside a wall, using the binoculars then letting them go results in the camera being thrown for about 20 squares (the levels are made of "rooms" which are made of squares, each square is 1024*1024. a perfect block is 1024*1024*1024). only useful with the trigger bug.
- Trigger bug : Triggers are generally designed for Lara to trigger, but turns out, they're designated for the first active object. but the only way to abuse that is embedding into a wall. Active objects include enemies, flares or even the camera!
- Advanced Look Triggering (ALT) : ALT is the fine combination of the flare wall bug (most of the time), the binoculars camera bug and the trigger bug. Basically, we embed into the wall using a flare, removing Lara from the active objects list. and having no other active entities (the flare in Lara's hand doesn't count) then using the binoculars to throw the camera to the trigger we're aiming for (most of the time the level end trigger), then the trigger bug takes care of the rest!
bad glitches
i.e glitches that slow me down
- state breaking : This glitch happens due to missing "Set Lara Free Hands" animation command from some animations (like picking up items from pedastels and pushing the big buttons in Undereneath the Sphinx). To put it simple, the game thinks Lara has her guns in her hands, making her unable to do multiple moves, such as grabbing ledges, lighting/throwing flares, drawing guns etc.. The only way to get rid of it is coming to a complete stop for 1 frame, as seen in Tomb of Semerkhet.
- Flare throw bug : This bug happens when Lara does certain animations while holding a flare, it makes her unable to throw it! for flare cancels, holding down the flare buttong anyway makes her throw the flare part way into her stumble animation and still saves some time, as seen in Tomb of Seth.
- waterskin bug : for whatever reason, when using the waterskins in the last level, sometimes Lara would refuse to move/use another waterskin for some frames.
Why NTSC V1.0?
Firstly, the free flares glitch only works on this version, which in itself is a huge advantage. Secondly, this is the only NTSC version where Von Croy's cutscenes in Cambodia are skippable with the look button.
Not to mention several flybys and triggers that are simply missing from this version.
Total ingame time
55:22.57
55 minutes, 22 seconds and 17 frames. A total of 99677 IGT frames.
Stage by stage comments
Cambodia
The two tutorial levels the game starts with.
A long one minute cutscene is skipped using flare jumps.
The free flare glitch saved a lot of time in these levels. everytime you see a flare used for anything, in other versions speedruns have to go through the actual puzzles in order to get through the areas.
Tomb of Seth
Originally, I picked the shotgun up to use in the Valley of the Kings level, but when I reached that level Temple of Horus found a small route change that discarded the need for the shotgun. but I made good use for it in The Mastabas level.
The keyhole glitch to skip the Eye Piece is very precise.
The flarejump after the keyhole glitch skips a cutscene.
The flarejump at the end skips a 2-3 minute long puzzle.
Burial Chambers
After activating the first lever you can see Lara turning to the left when sprinting, this was done to save time when picking up the star below, it shortened Lara's sidestep to reach the star.
After pushing the statue in place, there's supposed to be a small flyby- but this flyby isn't present in the NTSC V1.0 version.
Valley of the Kings
Originally the route was- skip triggers of enemies- use shotgun to kill one enemy that's impossible to skip- ALT the end of the level. but Temple of Horus found the new route wth flare jumps when I reached this level. (in fact I TASed the old route before he found the improvement. shown here: [dead link removed])
KV5
The jeep (that you see moving at the beginning) triggers the end of the level when it reaches there because Lara is in the wall. the pickups lost 0 time. Not really needed but more of a "why not" thing, they're free and don't lose any frames.
Temple of Karnak
The keyhole glitch is very precise.
-Temple of Horus found a huge improvementon this level when I was finishing up The Citadel. the improvement is an oob trigger bug- a technique he found recently.
The Great Hypostyle Hall
Just passing through. This level is unnecesarry due to a skip in the following level.
Sacred Lake
The skip at the end where Lara falls from the ceiling requires the qwop cancel that was performed moments before.
Tomb of Semerkhet
Using poles that Lara climbs on breaks Lara's state. Which is why I used a stair to get Lara to a full stop at one point in the level.
The moveable object bug use here saves a lot of time here.
Temple of Horus has also found a timesaver on this level (when I was in Citadel) using the same technique he used in The Temple of Karnak.
Guardian of Semerkhet
Manipulating the bull/sphinx(?) took some time. The little pause he makes before charging to hit the second eye seems unavoidable.
Desert Railroad
Performing the skip here requires pressing action on the flare at a specific frame when the flare is dying, meaning we have ~29 seconds (A flare lasts for 30 seconds) of free time, which I had to put to good use ;)
At the end, killing Lara loses 6 frames compared to finishing the level differently (without killing her). This is a speed-entertainment tradeoff.
Alexandria
~Just passing through
Coastal Ruins
This level is weird, the triggers are active in all rooms. underwater or not. Making the ALT possible. it doesn't save *that* much time though.
Pharos, Temple of ISIS
The two keyhole glitches in this level skip... 4? levels or so. the underwater parts were hell to optimize.
Cleopatra's Palaces
Another level where PC has a huge advantage over PSX due to ALT.
Cairo
This section is supposed to be a big hub puzzle. but with glitches we can skip most of it.
In the last level before Citadel, for some reason one tile is missing a trigger for a cutscene on NTSC V1.0, which is (yet another) advantage over other versions.
The "random" thrown flare in the same level is important and helps skip a ~20 seconds cutscene.
The (unfortunate) 2 minutes cutscene at the end of this section is unskippable.
The Citadel
The flarejump at the beginning skips a long cutscene.
the second flarejump skips a small flyby.
the third one skips fire
the fourth skips a long-ish flyby.
Yet another advantage for the PC version here due to ALT.
the moveable object bug here is used more than once and saves some time.
the flarejump after pulling the pole skips a small flyby.
the last flarejump skips opening a trapdoor.
Barking mad.
The Sphinx Complex
The first flarejump skips triggering a couple of enemies so we can use ALT later, and also skips through the area faster.
The shovel skip skips the whole level basically.
Underneath the Sphinx
(Unfortunately) this level is only needed to pickup four "Holy Scriptures" which are needed in the last level because the keyhole glitch doesn't work to skip them.
The first flare jump skips a trigger that closes the door behind Lara.
Pushing the big buttons breaks Lara's state so after pushing all of them I had to stand still for one frame in order to pullup the flare.
The four keyhole glitches here are very precise and each requires picking up flares at specific frames while the flares are almost dead.
Killing the bats is more or less necessarry because they push Lara while she's glitching the keyholes which ruins it (and doesn't really lose time because we need to wait for the flare to die anyway)
The divebug here is faster than flarejumps.
picking up the holy scriptures, we have to avoid a row of tiles that closes the door behind us.
Again, the divebug on the way back is faster than a flarejump.
The final flarejump skips the same door trigger we skipped at the beginning.
The Sphinx Complex (again)
Just a quick ALT to The Mastabas. We could have went to The Mastabas on the first visit but we wouldn't have the holy scriptures so..
The Mastabas
Using the shotgun instead of the grenade gun here saved a little time, so, picking up the shotgun wasn't all bad.
We need to get the waterskin in this level for the last level.
We luckily are able to skip this level using ALT, but we have to enter the water room (which is the only water room in the level, btw. :D) using a little complicated method with QWOP and a flare.
The Great Pyramid
if this level isn't the best explanation for ALT I don't know what is. we embed into the (invisible) wall, throw the camera to the trigger and voilà. this one is obvious because the trigger room is actually rendered.
Khufu's Queen's Pyramids
the first jump skips a little platforming
I had to light the flare at a specific time in order to optimize the upcoming keyhole glitch, since I have to wait for the flare to die in order to do it.
This level ends in the most specific keyhole glitch in this entire game, both pixel perfect for the positioning and frame perfect for pciking up the flare, and also Lara's angle plays a part. not to mention the game randomly decides to pop Lara out of the wall.. but it works!
This keyhole glitch skips 2 levels where the main objecctive is actually getting that key.
Inside the Great Pyramid
firstly, we need to do 4 keyhole glitches in this level, i.e we need to drop flares, but I have the grenade gun equipped which makes it slower. instead of going through the inventoryto equip the pistols I instead wasted the grenades and Lara autoatically equips the pistols.
On the flare jump spot there's supposed to be a flyby that's well over 10 seconds long. but it seems to be missing on V1.0.
Four keyhole glitches, two of those seem to be problematic, but nothing that lost time.
Unfortunately for the end part I had to use a slightly slower route (about 1 second) in order to save health and medipacks. ended up using 1 large medipack instead of using 2 small medipacks and a large one, as I need the medipacks for the next level and they save way more than a second in there.
Temple of Horus
The beginning is nothing but a couple of puzzles with water.
When we reach the main room we have to put the four holy scriptures we got from Underneath the Sphinx. Unfortunately these aren't skippable, otherwise we would have been able to skip Underneath the Sphinx altogether!
Once we actually meet Seth (in the second level) we use a glitch to skip through most of the room using an odd bug produced by very specific geometry. If you grab that specific ledge from the face shown in the movie (which you're not meant to be able to do in the first place), Lara appears at the monkeybar ceiling above her instead!
on the ladder, going that way instead of jumping off skips a small cutscene.
Possible improvements or ideas
- Maybe not getting the shotgun.
- Temple of Karnak and Tomb of Semerkhet.(due to the new timesavers Temple of Horus found when I was almost done with the TAS.)
Final words
Just wanna say how funny it is, the longest game in the series yet it's the most broken.
Starting this project I never thought I actually would be able to finish it, because this game is huge and has so many tricks and exploits, but here we are :)
Special Thanks
- The Tomb Runner discord for their notes and ideas while I was making this TAS, Without them there would be no TAS.
- Wyster for his old WIP. it helped in some parts (mainly Burial Chambers).
- Temple of Horus for literally finding over half the skips used in this run. He is the best.
- Temple of Horus for sticking by me in every little detail and helping me when I couldn't get some skips to work.
- Temple of Horus for providing me with a Lua script for viewing RAM values (which was originally made by Lapogne36, but massivly upgraded by Temple of Horus)
- Spikestuff because https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/578488410742718474/673401341762076672/stuff.png
- some of these comments were quoted by multiple sources, mainly Tomb Runner's Area51 and Riku's old TR4 RTA any% runs guide and the tomb raider fandom website and lapogne36's Tomb Raider 1 submission notes.
Suggested screenshot :
I don't know honestly.
Memory: Claiming for judging
Memory: So another great Tomb Raider run from Troye. This one has some great highlights like being able to push multiple objects at once and being able to trigger level exits with binoculars. Even though the game can be a bit dark at times, it usually doesn't happen where there is stuff going on. I'm not sure whether or not a color correction encode would help here either. In any case I found the movie very entertaining.
Accepting to Moons.
Spikestuff: Publishing.