The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is a Game Boy Color game developed by Capcom. In it, Nayru, the Oracle of Ages, is possessed by the sorceress of shadows, Veran. Veran uses Nayru's powers to travel back in time and create an age of sorrow that continues to the present. Link must travel through time to collect all eight Essences of Time and defeat Veran.

Objective

  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.5
  • The Objective of this movie is to beat The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages as fast as possible

Comments

This movie uses multiple exploits to beat the game as fast as possible, such as an exploit called "text warping", that forces the game to move link to the next room even if the exit is designed to take him somewhere else. The game's random number generator is also only called when specific actions happen, such as swinging the sword. Due to this, enemies can be easily avoided and rupees can be dug up in large amounts at a time very easily.

Stage by stage comments

Route to Dungeon 1

Not many exciting things happening here, except for a trick called pitwalking, when Link moves between two holes in a specific pattern to avoid falling in either. I also get and plant two gasha seeds for a trick used later in the movie.

Dungeon 1

I needed to kill 40 enemies in order to make the gasha seed grow, so a lot of this dungeon focuses on using damage boosts to kill enemies while still moving.

Route to Dungeon 2

I entered and exited the shop so I could save and quit and be returned to the shop to save time later.
After getting the harp, I use a text warp to get to rolling ridge, and use a Like Like to get Link out of the tree. This accomplishes two things, getting bombs early from a chest skips a cutscene, and getting pegasus seeds early lets Link move much faster.

Dungeon 2

Due to a skip used later, the only thing we need from this dungeon is the feather.
A pitwalk is used to get to the mini boss extremely quickly.

Route to dungeon 3

A large rupee is dug up to help buy Dimitri's flute and pay for mini games later on. A second rupee is dug up later to finish collecting them.
The text warp is used to get Link stuck in the tree again, except this time a save and quit is used to get Link into the graveyard. A bomb, pegasus seeds, and the feather are used to get to the grave early, and skips needing to finish dungeon 2.
I stop by Vasu to get the expert's ring, which lets Link get to his sword early once on tokay island.
On tokay island, an exploit is used by pulling out a bomb while talking to the tokay trader, which causes Link to not pick up a shovel. this is used multiple times to significantly speed up the process of getting all the items back.
When getting back the seed satchel, mystery seeds have been added to it, as well as pegasus seeds still being included.

Dungeon 3

Not much interesting until the second half of the dungeon, where I go back to the first room to use the portal instead of getting a small key.
Scent seeds are used to speed up dungeon 6, so I retrieve them from the regrowing bushes, even though I never obtained them from the tree.

Route to Dungeon 4

Dimitri's flute is purchased because Dimitri's area is the quickest to complete.

Dungeon 4

The only thing needed in dungeon 4 is the switch hook.

Route to dungeon 5

The fight against King Moblin takes a while, so Link slides around for fun

Dungeon 5

The only thing needed in dungeon 5 is the cane.

Route to dungeon 6

A text warp is used to get to the base of rolling ridge.
Multiple minigames are needed in order to get access to dungeon 6, link does some fun things such as spinning in a minecart or standing still on moving platforms.

Dungeon 6

A small portion of the dungeon is done in the past to set up for the section done in the present
For the spinner puzzle, a pitwalk is used to skip a rotation.
After getting the boss key, I return to the past in order to defeat the boss.
A pitwalk is used to skip getting a small key.

Route to End

A scent seed is used to distract the palace guards in order to skip a puzzle in the garden.
After defeating nayru, I visit an underwater tile in order to let a later exploit work.
A text warp is used to get into an out of bounds area.
A tile is selected that causes many odd things to happen, and it is selected in a certain way in order to make veran appear in the upper-left corner of the screen. This causes Link to be taken to the final fight of the game.
Another side effect is that the ring box gets corrupted, allowing Link to equip the red ring, which doubles the damage the sword does.

Other comments

The Map Data of most houses and some caves is stored on the outside of the map, which explains why text warping takes Link to where it does. The last glitch of the run, veran warp, can be used in many ways, including a way to complete the map in a non-linked game. The map was previously unable to be completed.
The main difficult part of making this movie was getting the RNG to work well, because I had to manually make it progress instead of just waiting on or two frames before entering the next room.
This movie is not completely optimized yet, mainly due to the item duplication method on tokay island being discovered halfway through making it, thus slightly obsoleting the expert's ring.
I want to give a huge thank you to Drenn, who helped me with information and let me copy some movement and RNG of a WIP he made up to Dungeon 2.
 Suggested Screenshot frame: 108241 (Edited to screenshot suggested by comments)

Tompa: I guess I'll judge this.

Tompa: So... This run was a nice watch and it's great to finally have a finished TAS of Ages!
However, while it is optimal at times, and the game's RNG is a very painful matter, it has many flaws and at some times sloppy. Swordless Link, with the help of me, started TASing this in 2007, which finished the 4th dungeon. While that has been obsolete thanks to new findings, like the Text Warp, it's still using several strategies in certain rooms that are faster than this submission. The WIP was posted in the forums and dungeon TASes could easily be found on Youtube with a simple search. Despite this, the submitter claimed to not know of any other TAS WIPs than Drenn's, also posted in the forums, which shows a lack of general research. Some strategies are also found in the published Oracle of Seasons TAS.
The mistakes done are not too major, but could have saved many seconds in the whole run. As no public WIPs were posted, I couldn't have helped out earlier by reviewing it.
All that said: The run was very well recieved and has been long awaited, I personally enjoyed it as well. In the end, despite me sounding pretty harsh, I'll Accept this for publication to the Moon.
AntyMew: Processing...

TASVideoAgent
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Didn't know to link a video in the comments, so here is a temp encode that Pokota made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g7TJClJIC0
Tompa
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This was a quite surprising run, as I hadn't heard anything about it being worked on, which could have been a good thing =). There were some things that could easily have been done faster, that were already present in the old WIPs done by Swordless Link and myself. First thing that comes to mind: 14:26 when you throw the rock, if you press B to throw it and then press A for the bracelets. This cut down the time Link stands still by 6 frames. Something that could have been done several times in the run. I'll look through it more closely and write some more later on =).
Dwedit
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This run is amazing. The game just becomes a race to get to the final song, then all hell breaks loose. Also the punch ring thing on Tokay island was a good "why didn't I think of that" moment.
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Looks well done. :) Amazing run. I don't mind if there are improvements.
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Awesome run! For the screenshot, I recommend that moment in the Tokay shop when there are four shovels on the floor :D
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Refraining from voting until Tompa gets back on that optimization stuff. I like what I see though.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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Amazing run. I especially love the Tokay Island part. Yes vote for Stars.
Ford
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Sweet merciful crap that was amazing! Yes. SO MUCH yes!
Techokami
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Impressive glitching! Yes vote.
Tompa
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There are no major improvement really. What I mentioned above, to cancel the waiting time after throwing objects, is a recurring thing that could probably save up to a second in the run. As this was long known, both used in previous OoA WIPs as well as in the published OoS run, it's a bit on the weak side that it wasn't included here as well. There are also some other minor room strategies that are slower compared to previous runs. And simply by watching this 9 years old WIP in real time, you could have improved some things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmXtWUfPixw. So a little low on the general research for the run, must say. The RNG is very painful in these games. Sometimes you are forced to go with non-optimal RNG for certain rooms, so I can't really complain much in this case. Overall, not a bad TAS, but quite improveable, as the author agrees on in the submission comments. By actually watching and comparing old WIPs, many seconds could be saved. A good job, but a fairly weak one.
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improvement looks small,i understand the six frames add up but i think a tas with that much rng should be accepted as it's pretty optimal in manipulating,also secondin the vote for the multiple shovels
TAS i'm interested: megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched fighting games with speed goals in general
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How does the ring box corruption work? Does it just give you a ring "at random" and equips it? Or does it convert an already existing ring into another? Or just appraise/equip an unidentified ring for you? I'm wondering since wouldn't it be better to get the Double-Edged Ring (sword does an extra eight damage, but you take one heart in damage with every hit) instead of the Red Ring (double the damage of the current sword)?
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
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Tseralith wrote:
How does the ring box corruption work? Does it just give you a ring "at random" and equips it? Or does it convert an already existing ring into another? Or just appraise/equip an unidentified ring for you? I'm wondering since wouldn't it be better to get the Double-Edged Ring (sword does an extra eight damage, but you take one heart in damage with every hit) instead of the Red Ring (double the damage of the current sword)?
The ring box corruption causes you to have an extremely large ring box containing mostly useless rings, unfortunately the Double-Edged ring is not in the list. I could have tried using the whimsical ring, but I would have had to found an RNG seed that made it get a critical hit (1/256 chance of dealing 12 damage) twice in a row to kill veran, saving only some of the spin attack animation and one sword swing. Funny enough, the poe clock is included in the ring box, although it seems to have no effect when equipping it
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scorpianman42 wrote:
The ring box corruption causes you to have an extremely large ring box containing mostly useless rings, unfortunately the Double-Edged ring is not in the list. I could have tried using the whimsical ring, but I would have had to found an RNG seed that made it get a critical hit (1/256 chance of dealing 12 damage) twice in a row to kill veran, saving only some of the spin attack animation and one sword swing. Funny enough, the poe clock is included in the ring box, although it seems to have no effect when equipping it
Aha, ok. Then what if you got either the Double-Edged or the Whimsical ring from the Yoll Graveyard directly after the first dungeon? Or are there not enough enemies to kill for the seed to appear until then? Alternatively if you buy one of the rings at the Advance Shop for 100 rupees and make sure it's the Whimsical one? Then you'd have a way to instantly kill most bosses from the start of the game. Or am I missing something something important with this idea? Apart from the obvious RNG struggle to get all those critical hits that is.
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
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Tseralith wrote:
Aha, ok. Then what if you got either the Double-Edged or the Whimsical ring from the Yoll Graveyard directly after the first dungeon? Or are there not enough enemies to kill for the seed to appear until then? Alternatively if you buy one of the rings at the Advance Shop for 100 rupees and make sure it's the Whimsical one? Then you'd have a way to instantly kill most bosses from the start of the game. Or am I missing something something important with this idea? Apart from the obvious RNG struggle to get all those critical hits that is.
If/when I TAS this game again, I do plan to time the whimsical and double edged rings, although I'm not entirely sure they would be faster than skipping them altogether. we could buy the whimsical ring from the advance shop, or we could get the double edged ring from the gasha seed spot. either way, we have to go out of the way to get them appraised. killing 40 enemies before the end of level 1 would require some unoptimal farming, but buying the whimsical ring would only take a slight detour into the advance shop and then to vasu. The main problem with these rings is that they wouldn't save too much time, considering if we used them on every boss possible after getting them it would require getting heart containers (double edged ring) or getting extremely good RNG (whimsical ring) that may slow down other parts of the dungeon. The pros/cons to each boss fought would be as follows: Giant Ghini (whimsical only): about 3 seconds Pumpkin head (whimsical only): about half a second Swooper (whimsical/ double-edged with farming): about 9 seconds Subterror (both): about 1 second Shadow hag: 0 seconds, have to use seeds Armos warrior: about half a second Vire: (both) about 7 seconds Octogon: (whimsical/ double edged with heart containers): 15 seconds? Not quite sure with this one, because I don't know how long the fight would take without the expert's ring Nayru: 0 seconds, takes 3 hits of any strength Veran(both): about half a second Overall: about 36.5 seconds Approximate time to talk to Vasu: 16 seconds Approximate time to get a ring from the advance shop: 6 seconds Given that these are all very rough timings, I'm still not sure the whimsical ring would be faster. It lowers sword damage to 1 when not scoring a critical strike, so it may add extra hits on enemies or add an extra equip. again the RNG needed to hit certain bosses (three/four times in a row for octogon) may also slow down other parts of the dungeons.
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How easy/hard is it to manipulate RNG? I feel (only from hearing the damage potential) you'd benefit more from the Whimsical ring, though I have no knowledge of how difficult it is to do so. Alternatively is it possible to corrupt your ring box much earlier in the game in order to get the Whimsical ring withouth having to spend any extra unnecessary time to get it the normal way? Or might doing so break the game in the long run due to the corrupted nature of the ring box? Granted the Double-Edged ring would make everything a lot more predictable with the fixed damage, yet also a lot more dangerous. Alternatively it could also work if you got the Power Ring L-2 (plus two sword damage, getting hurt makes you loose an additional 1/2 heart) instead (or together with any other rings, though getting the level 2 Ring box so you can bring two rings with you would probably be more time consuming than it's worth).
"An artist who can’t take constructive critique on their work is only hurting themselves and their potential. Conversely, and artist that can’t communicate a critique in a constructive way isn’t helping anybody."
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Tseralith wrote:
How easy/hard is it to manipulate RNG? I feel (only from hearing the damage potential) you'd benefit more from the Whimsical ring, though I have no knowledge of how difficult it is to do so. Alternatively is it possible to corrupt your ring box much earlier in the game in order to get the Whimsical ring withouth having to spend any extra unnecessary time to get it the normal way? Or might doing so break the game in the long run due to the corrupted nature of the ring box? Granted the Double-Edged ring would make everything a lot more predictable with the fixed damage, yet also a lot more dangerous. Alternatively it could also work if you got the Power Ring L-2 (plus two sword damage, getting hurt makes you loose an additional 1/2 heart) instead (or together with any other rings, though getting the level 2 Ring box so you can bring two rings with you would probably be more time consuming than it's worth).
In Ages, Seasons, and TMC, RNG only changes when certain events happen, such as swinging the sword, enemy movement, screen transitions, etc. so manipulating RNG is mostly done on screens such as the title screen, where the RNG constantly scrolls, or when there is down time, such as after a boss. manipulating RNG in the middle of a segment normally results in losing quite a few frames. Since the whimsical ring needs a very specific value (1/256), it would more than likely affect another part of the dungeon. I would definitely still look into using it in a future run. The ring box getting corrupted is a side effect of the way we set up the last trick in the game, veran warp. It works by selecting a tile out of bounds that makes the game code go haywire. We need the tune of ages to reach this tile, that is why we have to beat D6, and consequently D1 and D3. So unfortunately there is no (known) way of corrupting the ring box earlier in the run. getting the power ring L-2 would require getting the Long shot, which would mean entering and beating half of D7. The power ring Level 1, located in D1, would be a possibility. I would probably also time the Double-Edged ring but I would bet that the whimsical ring would be faster. Another fun fact, trying to look at your ring list with a corrupted ring box normally crashes the game.
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Awesome to see this finished, I hope it's accepted. I do see many places that could be improved, I'll come up with a list or something at some point, but of course scopr acknowledged it's not entirely optimal. These improvements consist mostly of movement optimizations and stuff like that, the route itself seems fine aside from getting the expert's ring. Just as Tompa said, nothing too major. I wouldn't encourage you to use the whimsical ring later on, mostly for your sanity's sake, but that's your call. The timesaves aren't reliable since you never know what RNG you'll actually be able to get.
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scorpianman42 wrote:
Tseralith wrote:
How easy/hard is it to manipulate RNG? I feel (only from hearing the damage potential) you'd benefit more from the Whimsical ring, though I have no knowledge of how difficult it is to do so. Alternatively is it possible to corrupt your ring box much earlier in the game in order to get the Whimsical ring withouth having to spend any extra unnecessary time to get it the normal way? Or might doing so break the game in the long run due to the corrupted nature of the ring box? Granted the Double-Edged ring would make everything a lot more predictable with the fixed damage, yet also a lot more dangerous. Alternatively it could also work if you got the Power Ring L-2 (plus two sword damage, getting hurt makes you loose an additional 1/2 heart) instead (or together with any other rings, though getting the level 2 Ring box so you can bring two rings with you would probably be more time consuming than it's worth).
In Ages, Seasons, and TMC, RNG only changes when certain events happen, such as swinging the sword, enemy movement, screen transitions, etc. so manipulating RNG is mostly done on screens such as the title screen, where the RNG constantly scrolls, or when there is down time, such as after a boss. manipulating RNG in the middle of a segment normally results in losing quite a few frames. Since the whimsical ring needs a very specific value (1/256), it would more than likely affect another part of the dungeon. I would definitely still look into using it in a future run. The ring box getting corrupted is a side effect of the way we set up the last trick in the game, veran warp. It works by selecting a tile out of bounds that makes the game code go haywire. We need the tune of ages to reach this tile, that is why we have to beat D6, and consequently D1 and D3. So unfortunately there is no (known) way of corrupting the ring box earlier in the run. getting the power ring L-2 would require getting the Long shot, which would mean entering and beating half of D7. The power ring Level 1, located in D1, would be a possibility. I would probably also time the Double-Edged ring but I would bet that the whimsical ring would be faster. Another fun fact, trying to look at your ring list with a corrupted ring box normally crashes the game.
You can get L2 Power Ring from the Advance Shop, thus getting it prior to D1. The Advance Shop has 1 Tier 3 ring for sale, and you can manipulate it to be the L2 Power Ring, a Tier 3 Ring.
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DecafGrub47393 wrote:
You can get L2 Power Ring from the Advance Shop, thus getting it prior to D1. The Advance Shop has 1 Tier 3 ring for sale, and you can manipulate it to be the L2 Power Ring, a Tier 3 Ring.
Oh, I didn't know that, The guide I normally use only shows it being obtainable through the cave on Crecent Island. Thanks for the info!
Post subject: Movie published
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3127] GBC The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages by scorpianman42 in 1:20:44.32
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Can the thumbnail for this run being a GIF of link jumping down from a ledge and edgewalking across a pit with Deal With It Glasses edited onto his face? Edit: Kind of fell apart near the end when the room glitching got out of control and skipped to the last boss, but this is a TAS after all. PS: Is there any consideration for cross-game stuff, or could one just use the same input for most of the game if someone decides to do both?
"The guy was fatally injured and wants to be covered by God's tears (rain) before he dies. God is too busy to bother because it wastes frames." Frames 16:26
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i can't download the movie...why...i want it...