Run Goal
The aim of this run is to show what it would be like to finish the game Ocarina of Time without every fighting the final boss. The reason this goal exists it to show a lot more of the game without the run being overly long. This run contains a decent amount of the glitches that are in this game and also shows off the recently discovered Wrong Warp glitch.
Emulator Information
This run was made on a specific version of Mupen64 which allows resets to be recorded in an m64. Download the .zip here and extract the .exe and place it in your Mupen folder, then run it. It's crucial that you run the movie on this version of Mupen.
[dead link removed]
Plugin settings:
Video: Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6.1 IMPORTANT!!! You MUST have "Copy framebuffer to RDRAM" enabled. This is what removes the imfamous pause lag in Ocarina of Time. To do this, go to Options -> Settings -> Config (under video plugin while Jabo 1.6 is selected) -> Advanced (if there is no Advanced tab, then under Settings, uncheck "Hide Advanced Settings" and hit Apply first). Note: Although I used Jabo 1.6.1 while making the run, Jabo 1.6 works as well (and looks identical to 1.6.1 as far as I can tell).
Input: TAS Input Plugin 0.6
Sound: Jabo's DirectSound 1.6
RSP: RSP emulation Plugin. IMPORTANT!!! This plugin must be the one listed. There is another RSP plugin, and having it selected instead WILL desynch the movie. If you do not have RSP emulation plugin, download it here (extract it from the .zip) and put it in your plugins folder: [dead link removed]
PLEASE READ!!!
IF YOU GET A DESYNC AFTER THE MASTER SWORD CUTSCENE PLEASE USE THIS SAVESTATE AND THE REST WILL PLAY
Introduction
I started this run around the middle of August when I was looking for something to do in my free time, this run was originally supposed to be very quickly done and just for practice but it became something more than that. I ended up spending a lot of time redoing rooms and HEXing rooms, for example I did the entire run from just after the Eyeball Frog to the boss key skip in the Fire temple, and I had to completly redo the majority of it to use the timer glitch so I had time to finish the dungeon without being warped back to King Zora.
General Tricks and Glitches
Sidehopping: This is by far the overall most useful form of "normal" movement that you can do in the game. As a child, it's the fastest form of movement period, and as an adult, it's the fastest movement over shorter distances (backwalking is faster over longer ones).
Backwalking: This has its uses as a child (like when carrying a bomb), but it usually is slower than sidehopping. As an adult, it's the fastest form of movement, but its slow acceleration makes it slower to sidehopping in a lot of cases. Over long distances, backwalking will almost always be faster as an adult.
Rolling: Generally useless next to sidehopping, but still helpful in some places, for example, if a sidehop chain doesn't quite reach the door you're going to, it might save a few frames to do a roll instead of the last sidehop.
Superslide: This occurs when you roll and grab a grabbable object (like a plant or rock), and a damage source hits your shield at the time you grab onto it at. Bombs are good for this as they can serve as both the damage source and the grabbable object at the same time. It causes you to be propelled backwards at the maximum speed obtainable in the game, and it continues for as long as you hold R to keep your shield out. Releasing R causes your speed to return to normal. In previous OoT TASes (and in current OoT unassisted runs), this was the most useful method of travel, but it has been largely obsoleted by A-slides and Z-slides now.
Infinite Superslide (ISS): Also sometimes incorrectly referred to as "extended superslide", this is a reduced-speed kind of slide in which you can actually change angles. It's done by tilting the analogue stick very slightly to the left or right, then holding Z after Link begins to move. It can be done with any kind of speed, so speed that you get from damage sources can lead to what is called a "damage ISS". This is very slow and useless, though. A more useful application of it is to go from a superside into an ISS, however, this does not maintain the maximum speed that a superslide has, but rather almost halves it when you switch from the superslide to the ISS.
Hyper Infinite Superslide (HISS): This is just an ISS which actually has superslide speed, meaning it's a superslide in which you can change angles. Recently Bloobiebla found that by rolling into an explosive whilst holding the ISS position and then pressing Z + R you can actually get a HISS just like you would in Majora's Mask!
Superflip: Also called a "megaflip", this is simply a backflip at superslide speed. If you roll into a damage source with your shield out, and backflip right as it hits you, you will be propelled backwards in the air at superslide speed. This allows you to cover large distances and gaps that you normally are unable to cover. A sidehop can also be done in place of a backflip (this is known as a "superhop", or, for some reason, a "megasidehop"), but it has much more limited use as a sidehop does not have as much height as a backflip.
Z-slide: This is the act of maintaining whatever speed Link has with constant Z presses. No matter what speed you have, pressing Z will maintain it for an additional 3 frames (1 visual frame), so holding Z for 3 frames, releasing for 3 frames, holding again for 3, etc. allows you to keep whatever speed you have for as long as you want. The obvious use of this is to effectively "superslide" from damage sources without the need of a grabbable object. This is started the same way a superflip is started, but instead of backflipping, you simply allow Link to be propelled backwards on the ground for 3 frames, and then begin the Z presses.
Max speed Z-slides aren't the only useful Z-slides, however. When backwalking up or down hills, your speed will often drop below its max backwalking speed, so if you begin Z-sliding while backwalking, you will maintain that speed even when going up or down hills. This saves time in various places and is seen several times in the run.
It is possible to change your angle while Z-sliding, up to 27 degrees either way, but doing this causes your speed value to drop by 2 points for every turn, so it is only ever done when necessary.
A-slide: Originally called an "analogue slide" but later shortened to A-slide for convenience, this works very similarly to a Z-slide, but instead of pressing Z on and off every 3 frames, you are alternating between holding one extreme of the analogue stick and holding it at neutral, every 3 frames (while holding Z the entire time). An advantage of this is that there is no sound of constant Z presses, but at the same time, it does cause Link to appear to flicker in place because of the constant analogue movements (this is significantly more distracting as a child, and when you're an adult, it's not annoying at all). The biggest advantage an A-slide has over a Z-slide is that you can actually change angles from an A-slide into a Z-slide without losing any speed, and the angle which you can change has a much bigger range than the Z-slide does (45 degrees either way as opposed to 27 with Z-slides). This means that a fairly large angle change can be made in most slides without losing any speed. After the first angle change, you will be Z-sliding, so each subsequent angle change will cost a drop of 2 speed points.
Infinite Sword Glitch (ISG): This occurs when a crouchstab is interrupted by something (excluding a damage source). This can be reading Navi text, reading a sign, or grabbing an object. It causes your sword to be in a perpetual state of attacking, so anything you touch while it's active will be hurt by your sword. It is what allows hovering to be done.
Hovering: This is the act of gaining height or distance in the air using damage sources (usually bombs or bombchus). With ISG active, shielding any damage source will cause Link to become fixed in place, and if he's in the air while this occurs, he will stick in the air until you jump down. With each damage source, the entire height or distance of a backflip or sidehop can be achieved in the air. This allows us to reach various places sooner than we normally would be able to. The most notable example of this is obtaining the Mirror Shield in the desert without ever actually entering the Spirit Temple.
Power Crouch Stabbing: In Ocarina of Time, the crouchstab move (B while holding R to crouch) retains the same source of damage as the last attack you did. This means that if the last attack you did was a jumpslash, then all of your crouchstabs will have the same power as a jumpslash. This is incredibly useful when fighting almost any enemy in the game, particularly bosses.
Cutscene Diving: Whenever a cutscene is playing, Link will fall until he hits solid ground. This means that if Link were to be over a body of water as a cutscene started, he would fall right through the water and hit the ground below it, allowing some things to be skipped.
Owl Skipping: The owl's text can be skipped by alternating between two items (the button presses are frame perfect) while in the zone in which his text would activate. It prevents it from doing so. Note: This can also be used to skip various other texts in the game, like Navi's text about the twisty corridor in the Forest Temple.
Timer Glitch: By using something like a bottle or a trading item you can temporarily pause the timer whilst you are in the air, this causes every input to be locked meaning moving the analogue stick or pressing button does absolutely nothing, this trick is the reason this run is possible.
Notes on the Run by Sections
UP UNTIL COLLECTING THE BOTTLE THIS IS ALL FROM MrGrunz' SUBMISSION NOTES AND INPUTS FROM HIS ANY% TAS.
Obtaining Kokiri Sword
Leaving Link's House and getting to the crawling hole has been TASed so many times now, that it is no surprise no frames could be saved here. Maybe 3 frames could be saved before doing the Gainer up to the hill, but I wasn't able to do this even after a few hours of attempting. I saved 3 frames on the final sidehops to the Kokiri Sword chest by managing to gain enough distance to make it to the chest with 3 less sideways walking frames.
Travelling to Lost Woods
On the way to the crawling hole no frames were saved, neither do I think this can be done any quicker. In the list you see me losing 21 frames at collecting the rupees from the bushes. I collected 4 additional rupees, which are later on used to skip the blue rupees in the shop. This route change saved almost 2 seconds. 21 frames is also not much time lost considering I had to manipulate 3 bushes at the same time and one slash already costs more than 21 frames. This means, if I had to slash only one bush, I would have saved a few frames as well. By using more precise angles for the sidehops after climbing the vines, I was able to save 6 more frames.
Lost Woods
I do the first angle change after one less sidehop and thus ended up saving 6 frames. This needed almost perfect angles to not get stuck at any walls for a short amount of time, which would have made me lose all the saved time again.
Zora's River
This section is the most important reason why I did this run. I started an attempt for a new any% run back when we were still getting Adult Link earlier in 2012 and had TASed this already, when Swordless submitted his run. After watching Swordless' TAS of this section, I knew that there could be a quite a bit time saved and it also made me assume, that this does probably apply to few more sections. Zora's River - especially everything until entering the water - was a nightmare to TAS. The goal is to make your last sidehop before an angle change always end directly in the end of a corner without any additional walking, because this always costs time. Thanks to all the slopes this became extremely hard to pull off. After around 12-15k rerecords I succeeded and saved half a second. As I did this section already long before doing this full game run, those 12-15k rerecords are not part of this run, because I simply copied the input.
I use a nice timesaver I discovered here as well: If you enter a river (water needs to be flowing), instantly leave again and then keep sliding very close to it, the flowing speed of the water gets added to Link's Speed. Of course, this also works by doing a super swim into the right direction of the river. I managed to reach speeds, that were even higher than Superslide Speed, which we actually assumed to be the light speed of the N64 Zelda Universe.
In the end I drop 6 frames before entering the loading zone to set a smart trick up.
Hyrule Field
When you enter most loading zones, Link takes his speed with him into the next area. During the time you don't have control over Link, he walks with this old speed (everything higher than max. walking speed is lowered automatically to max. walking speed by the game). By entering the loading zone with a very low speed, Link thus barely walks forward during the transition. By abusing this I'm able to end up way closer to the spot I can set the Water ESS up when I get control over Link again. I also saved a bit of time by abusing the same "River Trick" again.
Kakariko / Cucco Collection
Not surprisingly, this part was a huge bitch to me (still not as huge as Ganon's Tower). Apart from the new Sequence Break at the Collapse of Ganon's Tower, most time was saved in this section. Here are some basic cucco rules, you should know, to understand what I do:
• When you throw a cucco, he hops in the same place for 4 seconds and then starts running away from Link. For the first few frames the cucco simply runs into the direction he is facing, but then he behaves more complex. The cucco checks for Link's and his own position, creates a straight line between those 2 positions, which he updates every 3 frames, and then runs way from Link on this line. As this line is updated every 3 frames, you become the cucco's master from this point on. By carefully moving Link into the right positions you can make the cucco walk and eventually end up wherever you want. I'm still not sure if all the people, that attempted the cucco collection in the past, were fully aware of this.
• By slashing the cucco, he start to runs away from you in the exact same manner he does when you throw him (apart from not hopping before hand), so you once again get full control over it.
• If you have an item equipped while picking up a cucco Link first has to put it away to start the picking up animation. This costs around 21-30 frames (I don't know the exact number), so you want to have no items equipped whenever you have to pick one up.
• All 7 Cuccos walk around in there own area totally randomly. Even if you only change your input slightly one of the cuccos can end up at a very different spot than it did before. This sounds bad in the first place, but it also means that you can get them to be wherever you want in them to in their area.
The first part of the Cucco Collection starts pretty basic. I do most of the stuff like people did it in the past and do some slight optimizing tricks, that saved 3-6 frames in some spots. I consistantly have had to manipulate the cuccos already, though. Major first improvement was getting Cucco 3 (Cuccos listed by the first time I really interact with them) to stay more to the left, so I can fly around the tower more smoothly. At first the goal for the following part was to make all cuccos end up directly in front of the cage. As this is definitely impossible without wasting extra time, I decided to try something else: I manipulate all cuccos to be at the exact same spot while I'm also there ready to slash them. This way I can make them all stand directly in front of the cage just waiting for me to be thrown in. Slashing takes only 21 frames, so this was by far the fastest solution I could have imagined.
Other notable improvements here are: Using a jump to reach Cucco 4 instead of a sidehop+jumpslash combination. The jump itself saves no time at all, but as I have no sword equipped while picking up the cucco this saves quite a bit of time. I also manipulated Cucco 2 to be more far away from the house and closer to the cage, so I can reach it within 1 sidehop instead of 2 after slashing cucco 3.
The 2nd part is where I actually saved way more time. Cucco 5 was equally well manipulated in both mine and Swordless' TAS. I used a new strategy for the following cuccos, though: Cucco 5+6 are both thrown into pretty much the same position. As I jump down to Cucco 6 after throwing Cucco 5, he simply runs a bit against the wall over into the direction of the cage. Cucco 6 caused a lot of trouble, though. As I climb up to Cucco 7 after throwing him, he usually runs into the wall of the Bottom of the Well and stays there. I wanted him to get past the Well, though, because this saves a lot of time. In order to do this I had to be as close to the fence as possible when throwing him. Throwing himself needed a precise angle, but this was still not enough to get it to work. I also had to wait for 6 frames after climbing the ladder before I was able to start moving again. Fortunately, this meant also having enough time to get a cool camera view. While I was doing all this, I also had to manipulate Cucco 7. I ended up having to try different things while backwalking with Cucco 5 to manipulate him correctly, because I was limited with my movement options later on due to the problems Cucco 6 caused. I needed like 2 weeks to get this part done, but the time I saved was big enough to be worth it.
The main goal was once again to get them to be in the same place at the same time, so I can slash them to get control over them. After that I slowly walk behind them to make them end up in front of the cage. If I walked faster, I would have went past them too early and thus they would have run away from the cage again. I also had a better position when getting the bottle, so I saved another 10 frames on the way to the rock, that gives me bugs. After collecting the bugs I head towards the Bottom of the Well and use a navi dive to skip lowering the water and obtain bombchu's extremely early on in the run.
Bottom of the Well
The reason we come to the Bottom of the Well this early is to collect Bombchu's, these allow us to collect the bombs very fast later on in the run, and also allow me to do a few HISS' on the way.
Usually when you enter the Bottom of the Well you need to use Zelda's Lullaby to lower the water to reach the Lens of Truth room, however you can do a glitch called the 'Actor Glitch'. This allows you to unload all of the actors in the main room by entering a room before the camera has a chance to move about. This causes the next room to be loaded whilst keeping Link in the room he is currently in.
After I unload the main room I head towards the room containing the Dead Hand. I have to enter this room to re-load the main again or I am unable to use the Skulltula to clip as it is currently not loaded, I also collect the 100 rupee chest so I can buy the Hylian Sheild later on. As I get better manipulation in the room than Swordless I am able to reach the 100 rupee chest in less time which also allows me to start sidehopping faster towards the door. This means that I only need 1 side hop to reach the door after the cut scene finishes over the 4 that it took Swordless to do.
After I exit the room by clipping through the wall, you can clip through vines as Child Link by getting hit by a damage source at the same time you grab onto the vines, in this case I use the Skulltula as the damage source and I then swim towards the Bombchu chest and then save and reset the game.
Kakariko Village
I climb out of the well using the water, and then use a chain of sidehops to reach the next zone.
Hyrule Field
I Skip the owl using the Sword and Stick and then use a Water Infinite Superslide by recoiling off of the wall to reach the castle in the least amount of time.
Hyrule Market
I collect the Hylian Sheild here before heading towards the Temple of Time to become an Adult.
Temple of Time
In this room I use the recently found Swordless DoT skip as it is faster than using the regular method which involves using a jumpslash to skip the Door of Time and become an Adult early on in the game.
Hyrule Market
I use a backwalking Z-Slide to travel through the Market Area which looks cool and is faster than using sidehops.
Hyrule Field
This is the first area where the newly found HISS glitch is used, I use this glitch to slide towards Kakariko Village, I then change the HISS into a full speed Z-slide, this is useful to note as it means you can now change your angle to any position on the stick and keep a full speed slide over the maximum of -27 and + 27 that it was with an A-Slide.
Kakariko Village
Here I use another HISS to slide towards the Cucco Lady and collect the Pocket Egg, this item is needed to start the trade quest which lets me use the Eyeball Frog early glitch which I will talk about later on. I then use another HISS to travel towards Death Mountain Trail.
Death Mountain Trail
Here I use a HISS by exploding the bombchu off of the sign an rolling into it, the angle of which I roll at and the position I place the Bombchu makes it so that it flips Link around causing me to slide towards my next destination which is Dodongo's Cavern.
Dodongo's Cavern
I originally did the dungeon the same way that Swordless does in his All Dungeons TAS except as an Adult, however Bloobiebla told me that you were able to use a hover to reach the head of Dodongo by using a chu, the laser from the Beamos, and then you can then use the explosion of the Beamos' head when you kill it with another chu to hover up slightly higher, and then use some more Chu hovers to barely reach the head where I then do a jumpslash onto the upper part of its head and then do a backflip and a sidehop to reach the platform above the Dodongo's head allowing me to reach the Bomb chest 53.4 seconds faster than the regular method of doing this dungeon. Bloobiebla also TASed the hover inside of this dungeon so thanks to him for that.
After collecting the bombs I use a couple of Superflips to exit the dungeon.
Death Mountain Trail
Here I use a HISS to quickly make my towards Goron City where I can collect the Fire Tunic.
Goron City
Here I collect the Fire Tunic from the rolling Goron before heading towards the Lost Woods.
Lost Woods
In this section I use a recently found glitch to skip having to unload the area containing the water, as it was done in Swordless' All Dungeon TAS using a hover which uses a huge amount of bombs and takes a lot of time. To do this you need to grab the edge of the stone at a precise angle and then let go and jumpslash quickly after, this pushes me out of bounds similarly to the way this is done as a Child, I then swim towards the loading zone and end up in Zora's River.
Zora's River
Here I use a Superflip to skip the waterfall in Zora's River and avoid having to collect Zelda's Lullaby altogether.
Zora's Domain
In this area I have to use several different glitches to be able to obtain the eyeball frog early, but first I equip the Egg, and the button and head towards King Zora with a HISS. When I am in range for King Zora to load I use my trade item, after this I then slide to a point where King Zora is no longer loaded and then slide straight back up towards him, this causes him to unfreeze without having to collect the Blue Fire from the Ice Cavern.
After this I then speak to him whilst holding the R button, this causes the flag which decided whether or not King Zora gives you the Tunic or the Frog to be delayed by 3 frames, this causes him to give you the Eyeball Frog instead of the Tunic. This gives me 3 minutes on the In-Game timer to beat Fire Temple and enter the wrong warp.
I then use a HISS to exit Zora's Domain.
Zora's River
Here is the first instance you can see of me using the timer glitch, this glitch allows me to pause the timer for the whole time I am in the air by using either a trade item or the bottle, this means that I will be sidehopping everywhere instead of using a HISS which may be faster in Real Time but it adds a lot more time than using sidehops whilst doing this glitch. I then use a Superhop to clip Out of Bounds and head towards the Lost Woods.
Lost Woods
Here I collect 3 hearts and 5 bombs and head towards Goron City.
Goron City
In this area I use a few chains of sidehops to reach the statue near Death Mountain crater, I then pull the statue out and use a backflip and sidehop to reach the next area.
Death Mountain Crater
In this area the Eyeball Frog timer is not running as the game uses the Fire Timer over the Frog timer, this means that I don't have to use sidehops everywhere in this area or any area which also has a timer like this. This is also the reason I have to get the fire tunic. I use a Superflip into a Z-slide to skip the Bolero of Fire loading zone and I then use a HISS to slide towards the Fire Temple.
Fire Temple
- In the first room I use a chain of sidehops to reach the room containing the first key.
- In the next room I do not need to use sidehops as the fire timer is running here although I use them anyway as I do not have any bombs to spare.
- I then head towards the main room to collect the two keys.
- After collecting the first key I then use a HISS to cross the lava very fast, this also means that I have to put on the Fire Tunic here or the slide will be cancelled, this also means that the Frog Timer will now be running in every area from now on as the fire timer is stopped by the tunic. I also use a damage boost to quickly climb onto the ledge and enter the 3rd key room, this is surprisingly precise.
- In the next couple rooms I sidehop around until I reach the area with the elevator.
- In this room there is a huge amount of waiting timer whilst waiting for the elevator to reach the top, this means that I have to spam backflips every frame possible to reduce the amount of time that is wasted on the timer in this room, backflips take 6 frames longer than sidehops so for every backflip I do it saves 6 frames extra on the timer.
- In this room I use an explosive to clip me out of bounds and allow me to skip a large amount of the dungeon, this requires me to hit the switch beforehand as if I don't the switch will stop all of my momentum when I clip Out of Bounds.
- The strategy in the room with the moving fire wall is slightly faster than the way Swordless does it as it avoids using a slow jumpslash, I then move onto the next room.
- In this room I pull out the bomb 6 frames earlier than Swordless does, so I end up being 6 frames faster in this room whilst avoiding as much waiting time as possible.
- The Flare Dancer is killed using bombs as I don't have the hookshot whilst jumping around everywhere to save as much time as possible and I also collect some bombs from him afterwards.
- I then collect the hammer and use an A-slide to clip Out of Bounds and jumpslash into the Boss rooms loading zone.
Volvagia fight
It was recently discovered that you can actually kill Volvagia using bombs, to do this you need to place the bombs onto a certain place in the room, and then only hit Volvagia once with the hammer to avoid him from flying. I also have to wait until Volvagia goes back undergound to throw the 3rd bomb or he will fly when he comes up for the second time, this means that I pause the timer using sidehops and backflips until then.
After killing Volvagia I then drop and catch bugs on the very end of the warp, this allows the timer to continue whilst the warp is picking link up, the Eyeball Frog timer then runs out at the perfect time which means that I get warped to both the Fire Medallion Cutscene and also I get warped back to King Zora resulting in me being Warped to the End Credits of the game!
Thanks to:
MrGrunz - MrGrunz has taught me basically everything I know about TASing, if he sees something I can improve on he will tell me, this has resulted in me become better at TASing than I would have on my own. I huge thank you to him.
Bloobiebla - Bloob has helped me a lot throughout this run, I could always ask him for help with something if I needed it and he even TASed a few of the rooms in the TAS himself.
Also thanks to:
Fox
Lilkcough1
MTA
Slowi
If I forgot anyone please tell me.
