Two things that come to mind are "cutscene walking" and nullifying effects of CS.
When you open the map just as a text cs is started you will see the text on the map screen and can walk around after closing it, with the text still active.
Link to video
This also happens with the textbox of the guy at the end of the escort in Winter Mesa and the one when you fail the cake mini game.
More interesting:
When you pause as an event is triggered, you can completely nullify it.
In 100% it is used to skip the dialogue whenever you visit a Sheila stage for the first time (even though it only saves like 3 or 4 seconds over the entire run).
An example would be this video
Link to video
Interestingly enough, the result can vary depending on when you pause.
It can also happen that you prevent the game from removing the milk jars once the game is done and they stay until you leave the area.
Another example in country farms:
When you enter the "fight" to get your fire breath back, you can nullify the first CS. It will be played once you defeat the magician and thus makes it impossible to get your fire breath back due to the fact the trigger for the 2nd CS has already been used to trigger the 1st one.
It is possible to skip the dialogue after boss fights, but this will also skip the upgrades you get (destroying boulders, health upgrade, warp).
This makes it useless for 100% since you have to destroy boulders in later stages (and the firefly from hunter, which also makes it useless for any%).
Not sure about Gulp and Ripto, I have never tested it on them I guess.
Skipping the health upgrade wouldn't be a problem (for TAS at least, I like being able to take another hit in RTA), and the warp ability is also never used lol.
Then again, I am not sure how much time it saves, but definitely worth checking for TAS.
I hope this is all correct, it's been a while and my brain is a big mess of too many information that come and go.
Yes, a 4 player run would be close to glitchless (except for minor things) and just really slow.
Not to mention you'd have 4 times the input.
Hahahah hell no.
Yeah, this has been "discovered" several times by several people, but yeah, no real use I guess.
I was told it could be useful in Dreamy Castle (dash to the right from the spawn),
but only for 100% so yeah...
Also I am not completely sure if it only works from the right, but maybe I am mixing things up.
The movement possibilities in this game are insane, RTA runs look really bad compared to this.
Sorry we suck =P
On another note, I already finished 2-2, rather short stage with few screens (since we skip everything lol)
Link to video
Sick, you could reproduce it.
This is really cool~
Good luck with finding the fastest fireflies, this seems like quite some work.
(One reason I do 100% instead of any% haha)
Done with 1-3.
Phantom Ganon was driving me crazy.
When you attack him too early, he does not receive damage.
Funnily enough, even when he gets into his "got damage" animation, you still need to wait for the 4th frame of it before it actually deals damage.
It took me several hours and countless attempts to realize that this was the problem (I looked for any other potential error source basically lol).
Link to video
Nice Imps.
I just remembered one thing:
It once happened to me in Gypsy Road that I finished the first Imp game and got 2 fireflies, skipping the second game.
I think what happened was that as I froze the last Imp, it unfroze one of the others, so the game wanted to trigger the warp back, but I immediately froze it again, so I basically finished the mini game twice.
Sadly I do not have a recording of it, but I think this is what happened.
Awww, I figured this might be the reason.
It requires a file, so no Intro Skip then :<
Skipping the intro itself doesn't save that much time, but it allows a convenient Game Over warp right at the end of Country Farms.
But well, nope.
Nice work so far.
It is a pleasure to see optimized movement in this game.
Since you improved your game knowledge during the TAS, and with the recent changes, I am not sure what to point out, except for the Intro Skip .
There are some minor things I noticed, but most will probably be obsolete due to the new route, so yeah. Imps are definitely a thing for TAS, I have a consistent and fast console strat for the first one in Shamrock, and the second one should be rather easy for TAS as well. Not sure about Gypsy though.
Other than that, really cool work, I especially like the Thief mini game where you reached the portal before Sparx talks to Spyro, and the entrance to Ripto lol.
If you have any questions, I might be of assistance, since I run this game (100% though) and also found some glitches and tricks (like Intro Skip or the Quick Ripto kill)
Oh, and there is this rather bizarre glitch which vomits pixels.
I never really analyzed it in a constructive way, but I doubt it has any uses (except for graphical issues and potential game file deletion lol):
Link to video