<Zurreco> if so called professional players cant adapt to every playing field, theyre obviously not that great
Unless it'll be required for anything specific, this means you can skip getting the Fake Hand Scanner and Dragon Bone, reducing how much money you need by 350. Although unless you can find more areas to enter the Shrine or fight the giant Eyeball in Endless Corridor, you'll have to go back into the Twin Labyrinth in order to access the Shrine again.
So far I do not know of any path you can take to reach the Dimensional Corridor without getting the Crystal Skull, although I haven't investigated the possibility much yet. Though you need the Skull if you wish to use the normal route as it turns the ladder into the entrance when you get it. Also unfortunately you still can't enter the Shrine if you kill the Eyeball after already entering it. The Dragon Bone is really what's revealing the entrances to the Shrine.
Link to video
With all these skips I feel I have to figure out what's possible and not possible to skip. What I believe are the technical minimum requirements to reveal the final boss and beat the game are: -Defeat all eight Guardians to reveal the True Shrine of the Mother. -Acquire all Ankh Jewels and reveal all boss ankhs in order to defeat the Guardians. -Acquire the four Seals in order to summon the final boss. -Acquire the Keyblade in order to summon the final boss. -Acquire the Wedge and Magatama Jewel in order to advocate the Mantras in order to summon the final boss.
What I don't know yet if it's technically required to win the game are: -Talk to all four Sages. -The Crystal Skull in order to reach the Dimensional Corridor.
Edit: Not sure if the Dragon Bone is required for the Death Seal or not, or if it's possible to reach it some other way instead. I'll try and see if I can reach the Seal without the Bone.
What I don't know yet if it's technically required to win the game are: -Talk to all four Sages. -The Crystal Skull in order to reach the Dimensional Corridor.
Edit: Not sure if the Dragon Bone is required for the Death Seal or not, or if it's possible to reach it some other way instead. I'll try and see if I can reach the Seal without the Bone.
For the Dimensional Corridor, the entrance has a couple places you could glitch into the wall, either where the ladder should appears or further to the right. Could you get in by doing the same thing as entering the Twin Labyrinth from the Inferno Caverns? Though you'll need the Keyblade to kill one of the mini bosses. But you could always do half of it and then leave to the Endless Corridor and then warp back once you have the Keyblade, assuming you can get in.
You can use the Silver Shield to get the Container, it's just the Angel Shield is a bit more in the way, currently. Plus the Angel Shield can block pretty much everything, even lightning.
The Sage in the Dimensional Corridor is going to be required unless a way to get past Mother's first form is found without the medicine.
I remember the other sages opening different paths. The one in the Spring in the Sky makes a block disappear on the ladder by Nu Wa. The Sage in the Temple of Moonlight opens the Death Seal room (which you may also need the Dragon Bone for). The sage in the Tower of the Goddess makes the room with Mother's Ankh accessible (normally there's a wall preventing access). I could be wrong, but I remember testing and this is what I came up with.
The only thing I'm not personally sure about is what the Mantras actually do.
I must admit I've been lazy the last few weeks, but I have explored the game some with the help of Potentializing's Cheat Engine tablet. Although I haven't finshed exploring the possibilities I have discovered a few things which is required to win the game. Fake Hand Scanner/Dragon Bone: Unfortunately you really have to get these in order to reach the True Shrine of the Mother. Granted you can reach the normal Shrine of the Mother without them, but in order to actually reach the True Shrine you have to climb up/down into the area. Just zipping through the walls won't trigger the change. As a matter of fact zipping through the walls after the True Shrine has been triggered actually takes you to the normal Shrine of the Mother instead. Though of course you can wait with getting them until it's a good time for it.
Eye of Doom, or whatever it's actually called: Although it's not necesary to kill it to finish the game, you have to kill it in order to reach the credits. During the escape cutscene you first escape into the Endless Corridor, but if there's no ladder there you'll get stuck, unable to reach the ending credits. So unless you're satisfied with just beating the game without reaching the credits, you have to kill it.
Magatama Jewel/Wedge: I haven't investigated enough to see if they're really required, but you must have the Mulana Talisman in order to acquire them. Granted there might still be a way to access them without the Talisman, but they both got the same protective shield the Crystal Skull have so I'll have to figure it out somehow.
Pepper/Treasure/Anchor: They are not needed at all to finish the game, though any water/lava part will take longer to do without the Anchor.
An interesting fact is you must have the Feather in order to beat the game, otherwise you won't be able to reach one of Mother's forms. I haven't decided on any route changes yet, but as soon as I've confirmed whether any Guardians or Mantras and such can be skipped or not I'll be making a new route. I'll post any new discovery I make as well.
I've been doing some experimenting myself with the wall clips. However, the tests I've been doing have been in real time, since I'm an RTA player. I also don't know how to TAS things. Pretty much most of the stuff I've tried has been to find easier ways to do them, since they're so precise. I did try a couple places that I haven't seen before though. In the Endless Corridor, if you go to where you would enter the Shrine of the Mother, you can clip into the top right part and go up. You can even push yourself right and go all the way up to the part with the Twin Statue, saving 2 grenades. There's a platform with a ladder next to it. Stand on the bottom one and do it from there. The back swing from the whip will hit the part that shoots lightning at you. I also got one in the Inferno Caverns in the path to the Chain Whip. The first room there has a bunch of skeletons that throw bones. I was able to clip into the right wall and go up. I was hoping it would take me to the part past where the hidden path is on the Surface. It didn't. It took me to where the exit to the Temple of the Sun is. This got me thinking on how the maps were designed. I'll go into that in a bit. I tried for about an hour trying to get one in the Graveyard of Giants unsuccessfully. At the entrance to the Tower of Ruin on the top right is a section that looks angled. It's not. It's actually several "steps". The fuzzball enemy on the top right actually starts off going towards it. If this one takes you where I think it does, this would give access to Bombs and upper Chamber of Birth without needing to go through the Tower of the Goddess. I don't even know if this one is possible. I was taking a hit from the fuzzball and then trying to damage boost into the wall right as my invulnerability ended. So, about how I think the maps are set up. I think they are all just 4x5 grids. 4 across by 5 down. Normally, they wrap from top to bottom and left to right, or vice versa. The exception is if you go in the direction of an Area transition. Then you go to the new area instead of wrapping. The Twin Labyrinth is two maps then, one for the Front and one for the Back. All of the maps do fit into a 4x5 grid and preserve movement from screen to screen properly. The only map that this doesn't work on is the Surface, which I suspect is two maps with some extra space for things like the bosses or something. This would be easier to check with Cheat Engine. If they are set up this way, it would be helpful to have a map that shows what is actually where, not what the designers want you to think it looks like.
Heyho! I've finally finished the map of all areas (except Hell Temple, Maze of Galious, and Legendary Tree), so now you can see where each area will lead to if you glitch through the ceiling and the floor. I haven't actually found a way to glitch through the floor normally, but I decided to include them so you can see how each area is structured. The way I've made these is I've placed them in rows with rooms above, below and at the side (for the few rooms you can actually glitch through the side), colouring the rooms you can reach normally green, the ones you have to glitch through to reach red and the rows themselves white. As solairflaire theorized, the rooms do indeed normally wrap from top to bottom. Many areas can be reached in a "logical" order both through the ceiling and the floor, though certain areas like Chamber of Birth doesn't like to follow this logical order. Well... some kind of logical order so to speak. Link here for those who's curious or wants a copy of their own: http://www.mediafire.com/download/r8eyqqnob1y9eie/La-Mulana%2C_Wall_glitch_maps.rar Now I can begin making some serious route plans. :)
Number 1: We can't actually skip the Twin Statue, it's still required for getting into the Dimensional Corridor, even with the skull and talisman, the ladder will NOT lead to the corridor unless the center labyrinth puzzle has been solved Number 2: HOWEVER, the Dragon Skull is 100% skippable in real time. It's tricky and even in single segment might require a save-load just to have health to viably do it and not get decimated. The method to accomplish this can be seen in the video below.
