(Link to video)
Link set sail to distant lands to train and found himself shipwrecked on Koholint Island, and soon finds out he was trapped in a bizarre dream world, created by the Wind Fish. However, Link was in no mood to complete the game in the proper order, and uses a magic doghouse to warp into the final boss and use his magical bombs to end the tyranny of the Nightmares, just in time for breakfast. Link's Awakening DX for the Gameboy color is an enhancement of Link's Awakening, which was only black and white. This version introduced color, an extra dungeon, and numerous bug fixes.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk-2.3
  • BIOS used: [BIOS] Nintendo Gameboy Color Boot ROM (World).gbc
  • Forgoes memory corruption
  • Major skip glitch
  • Uses death to save time
  • Uses a game restart sequence
  • Heavy glitch abuse

Comments

This is an any% warp glitch TAS of Link's Awakening DX. The only rules I set are; no ACE or save file corruption. The major difference between this run and the previous TAS(bobmario511's 5:39.06, a 26.005s improvement) is a new glitch I discovered using bombs to beat the final boss more quickly.

Stage by stage comments

Obtaining the Sword

This is necessary. Our hero, Link, sets off to get his sword back. I manipulate NPCs to shield boost and damage boost to the sword faster. I use combinations of left + right and shield to glitch its hitbox to pick up the sword from way above. I then save and quit to warp back to Mabe Village.

Getting bombs

Here I manipulate some very rare rupee drops(probably 1/1000) and duplicate each of them into 2 using a glitch. I then enter the shop, that collision with the corner of the doorway was actually a frame faster. The shovel must be stolen to spawn the bombs, the death is unavoidable. Paying for the bombs was faster because I don't get the scolding textbox that freezes Link.

Setting up the Wrong Warp

Entering a warp from unintended directions affects how the game determines where you go, and the doghouse is one such example. The game uses values such as your kill count instead of the correct values to decide your destination, therefore 2 kills are necessary to warp to the correct glitched map. Manipulating optimal shield boosts and sword clinks, I kill 2 Oktoroks to the south and proceed to the glitch world. Taking the optimal route, I get to the boss fight 13 seconds faster than Bobmario511 due to routing differences, where he has to enter a separate glitch world to obtain the ocarina.

Nightmare Fight

A lot of time is saved in this fight thanks to a new glitch I found making my previous TAS. Combinations of left + right allow you to place bombs from far away, known to previous TASers for years. The game gets confused if you place 2 bombs very rapidly offscreen with left + right, therefore cutscenes are broken and will instantly skip to the end of their sequence, labeled 'bomb triggers' by the community, I just found a new way to do them without screen transitions. The "Blob" is killed without powder thanks to previous discoveries by Pirohiko I believe. Bomb triggers are abused to make Agahnim(ball casting guy) instantly start casting again instead of morph and move around. The first trigger is sacrificed in order to save more time with Moldorm's phase. After that, Moldorm is dispatched. Unfortunately, that damage during the Ganon phase is unavoidable, because the Keese perfectly homes in on Link and he's frozen for too long to get out of the way. This is the biggest time saver in the run, Dethyl's phase is skipped and he instantly dies, thanks to bomb triggers, I also did this in my other TAS. The boss is now dead and we can proceed to the credits. Final RTA time was 3:50.08 and TAS time ends at 5:13.055.
This run wasn't that long, but completely destroys the game sequence in an interesting way. There is an ACE method to get to the credits, but this was much more interesting to me to do.

Potential Timesaves

The biggest potential time save I can think of would be an alternate method of obtaining bombs, most likely with a separate wrong warp, getting Roc's Feather, and obtaining a bomb fairy, though this procedure may be too lengthy. There may be more optimal movement strategies to get an earlier doghouse framerule(4 frames per rule), or a faster bossfight.

Thanks

Thanks to LADX speedrun community and prior TASers for contributing knowledge and strats to this run. Thanks to Tompa for being supportive of my prior work.

ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: This movie is well optimized and the reaction from the audience was very warm.
While the movie itself is good and the goal is clear, I have to make a remark about the current branching situation for this game, for the purpose of giving reference for future judgments. As of today, there is a known way to beat the game faster than in this submitted movie, that is by using a memory corrupting glitch. So while the current "warp glitch" publication is flagged as the fastest-completion movie, this submitted movie should not get flagged as such, despite the fact that it beats it under the same rules.
Accepting as Moons for obsoleting the current "warp glitch" publication.
Whatever or not a movie using the memory corrupting glitch should obsolete this, it will be duly discussed after that such hypothetical movie gets submitted, as we can't judge a submission that doesn't (yet) exist.
feos: Pub.

TASVideoAgent
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Mitjitsu
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Didn't know the final boss could be beaten that quickly, yes vote.
EZGames69
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Finally, a movie of this game that includes the final boss music. The glitches were pretty cool though, yes vote. Side note, are you planning on doing the original GB version as well?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Active player (376)
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The GB version has the screen warp glitch that involves constantly opening the map, the biggest difference, it's pretty annoying. That run is already pretty optimized, with a Dethl skip glitch using screen warps.
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THIEF the hero! You have defeated all the nightmares, and by that we mean one of them. You have proven your tasdom, courage to enter a doghouse, and power of glitches. Well done THIEF!
Tompa
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Joined: 8/15/2005
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Beautiful run there! I'll continue to support your work =).
Patashu
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I didn't expect this one to get improved in 2019! I love L+R/U+D glitches in Zelda games, and this is a nice pickup. Yes vote.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
EgixBacon
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Nice. I had the original (non-DX) cartridge of this game as a kid but could never get very far in it. Yes vote.
FanFiction|Youtube Still on Win7! Take that, Microsoft!
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Joined: 2/23/2008
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Very clean and entertaining run! That bomb glitch is quite the time saver. Yes vote.
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Really nice run, now to see the original on gameboy and the new switch version being broken like this! Obvious yes vote from me!
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This run wasn't that long, but completely destroys the game sequence in an interesting way. There is an ACE method to get to the credits, but this was much more interesting to me to do.
I never knew this game even had ACE. That sounds like you can pull off some amazing thing to mess around with for a playaround.
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jlun2 wrote:
I never knew this game even had ACE. That sounds like you can pull off some amazing thing to mess around with for a playaround.
The ACE method is a credits warp using a glitched chest in a wrong warp map, using some save file names to do the work, however it is Japanese version only. I'm not technical with ACE mechanics or such, so a playaround wouldn't be something I'm capable of.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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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. ---- [4084] GBC The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX "warp glitch" by TwistedTammer in 05:13.06