Found a new glitch related to the Floor 1.5 glitch found by NG4MER (I think) some years ago.
If you get hit by something that can touch the ceiling like a bat, a mouse or one of the pans in the kitchen in certain locations or while rotating in certain directions during the damage animation while you're on Floor 1.5, it screws up sometimes and skews Luigi's angle. Sometimes he realigns, but sometimes it will fail to realign Luigi back to the floor. I find it's easier to get your skewed angle to stick if before you get hit, your flashlight is pointed as far down as it can go, then during the damage animation, you tilt the flashlight upwards about halfway. Also, it's pretty much a requirement to use the Sidestep control scheme, you lose your skewed angle far too easily in Standard.
Skewing makes your collision all wonky, making you able to fall through floors and walls when you shake them, call out to Mario, or just rub against them in a certain way. Sometimes you even jump up to the floor above you if your angle is skewed enough.
Bogmire early (DEAD END):
Link to video
Of course, beating Bogmire early is completely pointless since the game screws up and refuses to open the door to Area 2. At least we know it's possible now, right?
Mario's Glove and Slim Bankshot early:
Link to video
This sucks. You can end up just not falling into the room, you can end up too far outside of the room and won't be able to vacuum the billiard balls, and if you fall in without facing towards the room, you won't be able to turn around to be able to vacuum the billiard balls.
More of Floor 1.5 accessible and early Area 3:
Link to video
This lets you break into Area 3, as well explore more of Floor 1.5. You can't do a whole lot in Area 3 since you don't have any medallions.
And now, no joke, King Boo early:
Link to video
By doing this, you can go and finish the game right after you beat Chauncey. This means you can beat the game catching only 4 ghosts, collecting none of Mario's items, and catching none of the Boos.
The trick is hell, by the way. Getting the skewed angle you need is complete garbage, and after that it's hell to get the right position and rotation to fall between the rooms without landing back in bounds, jumping to the floor above you, or simply losing your skewed angle. Mid-fall you also have to manage to fall into the wall in King Boo's hall, and then navigate out of bounds with an obscured view without triggering the scene that sends you away and without going too far out of bounds or you get stuck.
Since the view is obscured after I fall into the hall, I included an overhead cam courtesy of the Free Look feature of Dolphin so you can actually tell what's going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rboDgpfK0ao
The glitch Cronikeys found about skewing your angle also skews your hitbox, which means you can grab things through walls with moves that normally wouldn't reach before. The first one shown is probably the only one that has a use though, since the other two shown need Breegull Bash.
I think Breegull Bash is the only move that goes further than Taxi Pack, which is unfortunate.
Edit: A trick I was unaware of at the time makes you able to get that Jinjo shown in the first clip with Banjo+Kazooie, so disregard that. The video is mostly for documentation purposes now.
I'm sure Abahbob is aware of this, but it's another use worth mentioning for those who don't know. Also, as mentioned, refilling magic, refilling hearts for more/easier zombie hovers (such as not requiring boomerang for Light Arrow skip).
Tingle can't be used in any place without a map. You're still stuck with Forest Water if you want to skip the Boomerang and still skip the Light Arrows.
I played through this game a few times aiming for speed (casually though), so I can offer some advice.
First of all, don't even bother with Baby forms, they offer absolutely no good skills and are replaced after the first (real) boss, so the only point you'll be using it is on said boss. I suppose this is pretty obvious if you've played the game before, though.
After a Roll/Dash jump, you can keep your speed by firing your blaster repeatedly before Ellie starts to descend. You can even jump Golems and Giant Crabs by doing this. Manipulation for blaster energy drops or trips to save rooms would be necessary, since you can only fire 48 shots off the bat from a full meter.
As far as which build to go for, I recommend sticking with Ballista (the first Teenage form) and using Resistance of Midnight. It's without a doubt the best skill to fight bosses and big enemies with.
If Ballista gets to level 10 and masters Resistance of Midnight, it might be worth looking into if it'd be better to switch to Sentinel (the first Adult form) or sticking with Ballista. At a glance it seems to do as much damage as Ballista does at 10 with Fire Attack Affinity II, but I could be wrong. If for some reason Ballista gets to 15 and masters Fire Attack Affinity II, there's no reason to not switch to Sentinel, since it has better attack and gets Attack Up II at level 5.
Speaking of Fire Attack Affinity II, if you end up getting it, I would advise equipping it. The amount of damage it adds is barely noticeable per shot, but it certainly adds up against bosses. Even if you don't go out of your way to get it, you'll probably end up getting it anyways due to the monster waves and the occasional road blocking Golem you'd want to clear faster by using Chomp.
Some of the annoying enemies that tend to block the road can be quickly bypassed by launching them upwards or by using a Burst Cancel and running by them when they're down (Burst Cancel even works on Giant Crabs). Of course, this doesn't work on Golems, since they don't flinch.
Merely as a guideline for about how long the game is, my last playthrough with unintentional overleveling (15 Ballista, 12 Sentinel) due to an abundance of random item drops was 1:51 1:50 game time. Since most of the game is spent running around collecting new abilities rather than fighting bosses, letting Chomp consume everything shouldn't even save much time (game time anyways, if even that), so it should be able to be beaten easily by a very large margin just by knowing where everything is and knowing the best gems to pick up for the mandatory 2750 gold (2612 with the alternate outfit, I think) you have to spend in Ethanica.
Edit: Just pointing this out, this game has no potential for sequence breaking, as if you try to get powers out of order, the power just isn't there. Same goes for scenes, you can't do anything out of order.
Failed sequence break: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9por5IUP6yo
Dash gate bypass (useless due to former): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC5Qmzd4KuQ
For what it's worth, people have found iNES headers on Virtual Console releases of games.
Also, [!] does not necessarily mean it's a good dump if you're verifying it with GoodTools, as it's horribly outdated and have many listed as such when they're not. The more popular games listed with a [!] are most likely a good dump, as many more people will have dumped them and can verify it.
Small update. Some new information about Light Arrow skip I thought I'd share.
-Going into the Puppet Ganon battle will crash the game if you are anywhere before Hyrule 2.
-Going into the Puppet Ganon battle will not crash the game once you're in Hyrule 2, even if you do EMS and completely skip Hyrule 1. You do not even need to take Tetra into the chamber.
-Going into the Puppet Ganon battle will give you the fully charged Master Sword and Mirror Shield, for whatever reason.
Yep, that's why we're stumped as to how this would be done. With what we currently have available, I don't think it's going to happen.
Yes, any kind of damage cancels it out.
I figure it would just keep going, but I suppose you could just leave the game on overnight and see if there's some eventual end or if it crashes.
The problem isn't staying in the barrier, it's that any damage at all cancels out the knockback cancel. The knockback barrier actually extends out to the entire map outside that cylinder, so even after you get past the wall, you'll still get smacked around unless you cancel it out.
Also, I just thought I'd mention, the code you're using to make all the buttons turbo makes you rise at a rate that isn't actually possible outside of Action Replay. I know you're just testing, but I just felt I should say something.
I tried this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKK_iLhc42I
It doesn't matter which direction Link faces since he always turns away from the barrier when using the Wind waker...
Am I not far enough into the barrier?
Why do you say it is currently not possible? I was thinking, as long as you are inside the barrier and use the wind waker before getting knocked back, you're fine...
Also, I tried your D-Pad right code but it doesn't work for me. I just entered it into the appropriate Dolphin text file, I don't know what I could have done wrong.
EDIT: Silly me, I had cheats disabled.
EDIT2: Dolphin throws up an error message when using AR codes, so I can't use cheats for testing for now.
EDIT3: Got cheats working, but not every code in the list works... And your codes don't work either...
Yeah, Link turning around is a problem too. The invisible wall is still a wall, so it makes Link turn away from it.
Well, the problem is, once you're down and past the point where the barrier ends, you can get past it, sure, but you can't get anywhere from there. You're way too far down. That's where Zombie Hovering comes in, and why it's necessary.
As far as the codes go, I'm a complete moron and pasted the PAL ones I made for someone else.
Here are the NTSC ones.
D-Pad Down for Forest Water on Bottle 1 (expires immediately)
0A3ED84A 00000004
003C4C52 00000059
D-Pad Left for 1/4 Heart
0A3ED84A 00000001
003C4C0B 00000001
D-Pad Right for 0 Hearts
0A3ED84A 00000002
003C4C0B 00000000
That "some reason" is that any damage at all, or leaving the inside of the barrier cancels out the knockback cancel on the barrier.
Also, theoretically, you can Zombie Hover over the barrier, but since you need to take damage to start a zombie hover, you would end up canceling out the knockback cancel as a result.
Currently, what would need to be done to pull off barrier skip, is taking damage to kill yourself, then canceling out the barrier with the Wind Waker at the same time as you Wind Waker dive, all at once before you die. This currently isn't possible, because in order to cancel out the barrier's knockback, you have to pull out the Wind Waker right as your invincibility frames end, and you die long before then.
As far as spending the invincibility frames somewhere goes, bringing up a regular text box can run them down. However, every text box you can bring up in the area lasts too long (even the Tingle Tuner) and completely misses the window you need to cancel out the barrier's knockback.
Of course, this is pretty irrelevant, as after the text box is gone, you still die immediately with no window for any actions. If you used the text box to dive off the ledge instead, you still die from the void and can't do anything about it, as text boxes don't halt your fall distance into a void like the Wind Waker does. So far only the Wind Waker is known to do that.
If you want testing to be easier, or want to test if Forest Water could help (though it'd be pretty sad if it required it, as then Light Arrow skip wouldn't be able to be done, forcing more item collection), I spliced some codes together a while back, figured I should share.
D-Pad Down for Forest Water on Bottle 1 (expires immediately)
0A3F5018 00000004
003CC57A 00000059
D-Pad Left for 1/4 Heart
0A3F5018 00000001
003CC533 00000001
D-Pad Right for 0 Hearts
0A3F5018 00000002
003CC533 00000000
I just tested it, and leaving the shop via the door exit does not keep Bombchus on B. Warping out with Song of Soaring doesn't either. Ditto for dying.
The timer is still going in all but the last, but that doesn't seem to do anything, even if you go back in the shop and let it expire there. You also don't have infinite Bombchus after any of these.
