Run Goals
The goal of this run is to beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as quickly as possible while completing all of the dungeons, temples, and Ganon Trials in the game and not taking advantage of the
"Reverse Bottle Adventure" glitch. The reason this goal exists is because it showcases a lot more of what the game has to offer than the heavily-glitched any% run does, but without collecting absolutely everything like a 100% run would, making it a rounded run that casual fans of the game should be able to appreciate more than the any% (where it's often hard to tell what's even going on).
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]
Introduction
I started this run in May 2011 when looking for a new TAS project. I had always wanted to improve Bloob's time of 2:51 which he obtained back in 2008, and I felt that at that point, the metagame had evolved enough that a new run was finally needed. I started TASing the game and played until I left the forest, and then I left it for a while because I still wasn't sure if I wanted to do it because I knew it was a pretty big project. After some encouragement from Bloob, I decided to TAS more, and by the time I reached Kakariko Village, I knew I wanted to finish the whole run, because it was already extremely different and much cooler looking than the previous run of this category. I slowly TASed the child section of the run between May and August, and when I reached the Shadow Temple (the first temple done as an adult), I started to lose interest in the run. There was a really precise trick in there that had to be done, and I was in no mood to do it. Thankfully, MrGrunz offered to TAS the trick for me, saying that he didn't mind doing it since he was the one who discovered it and therefore knew all of the tricks to making it work, which would save me a lot of time. After the temple was done, I stopped working on the run for several months. I seriously picked it up again towards the end of November, at which point I blasted through the entire rest of the game in just under two months, showing every part of the run to the Zelda speedrun experts that I talk to every day on IRC for criticism and advice, and finally achieving a time of 2:04. Although the Japanese version was used, it only actually saves 12-13 minutes over the English version, meaning most of the improvements to Bloob's TAS came from drastic route changes and metagame advancements, and a higher level of optimisation. I am extremely proud of both the final result and myself for being able to create it.
Why did you play on the Japanese ROM when the previous run was played on the English ROM?
The Zelda community has long since accepted that the Japanese ROM is better for speedrunning. It saves 12-13 minutes in this category alone through quicker text. We feel that the point of a speedrun is to see the game done as quickly as possible, and while I understand preferring the English version to play, using it for a speedrun when there's an alternative which is this much faster is just asinine. Everyone knows the Zelda story by now, and chances are, if you're watching this TAS, you already know Ocarina of Time decently well, too, and don't need to read what's being said in the game. In short, the Japanese version removes a lot of unavoidable waiting time during cutscenes and text, and lets the run get back to the action much sooner.
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. Sadly, it has very limited use in Ocarina of Time (it can be done anywhere there's a damage source in Majora's Mask), as it can only be started if you enter a body of water at maximum speed and then exit the water before your speed drops. Doing this allows you to do an ISS, but you retain all of the speed you had when you entered the water. Because of its restrictive nature, it's only done twice in the run.
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. This is the closest Ocarina of Time has come to HISSing without water.
A-slides and Z-slides are also far more useful than superslides because of the fact that items can be pulled out while doing them. This means that there is essentially no waiting time when starting another slide after the slide is finished, as the bomb timer will have already ticked down.
Superswim: This is essentially an A-slide/Z-slide while Link is in the water. The only difference is that the movements here do not have to be frame perfect in order to maintain speed. This will also be cancelled if Link performs his resurfacing animation, meaning that in order to do a truly infinite superswim, he must be hit by a damage source with his shield out after he's already resurfaced.
Hoverslide: This is simply the act of putting on the Hover Boots after maximum speed has been achieved. It allows you to clear large gaps at superslide speed. This can be done from either a superslide or an A-slide. If it's done from an A-slide, the A-slide must be continued while hovering or else your speed will drop. It cannot be done with a Z-slide, and doing one in the air causes your speed to drop rapidly.
Hoverboost: This is switching to the Hover Boots after a damage source (usually a bomb) has pushed you just slightly off of a ledge. There are 3 frames after this occurs on which you have maximum speed, so pausing and switching to the boots at this time will cause you to be propelled through the air at maximum speed. This only has one use in this TAS, and it's in the Forest Temple.
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.
Superslide Teleporting: If a superslide is done (with ISG active) using a plant before Link has any kind of strength upgarde (or something else that can be grabbed but not picked up) but the plant isn't actually destroyed by the damage source, then releasing R will cause him to warp back to it, however, he will be at whatever elevation he was at when R was released. This means that if you go up or down a hill while still being relatively close to the grabbable object, and release R, you will be either in the air or below the ground.
Ground Jump: This is where you can perform a jump while standing in place. It allows you to reach some ledges that are otherwise too high to climb onto, and is activated by either rolling into a grabbable object with your shield out and trying to grab it at the end of the roll, and then having the object vanish (usually because of a bomb explosion), but can also be done more quickly by attempting to grab the object then pulling out the shield before he grabs it.
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.
Cutscene Skipping: If you die while entering a cutscene, you will not only skip the entire scene, but will also obtain anything that would be given to you during that scene. For example, dying while entering the scene outside the Forest Temple causes you to skip the scene, and when you respawn, you will already have the Minuet of Forest learned.
Although it's possible to die while entering the blue warp at the end of a dugeon/temple, all this does is cause the entire scene to play and Link to die as soon as he respawns after it. It was previously useful in the days where Mupen didn't have recordable resets and deathwarps were used instead, but it has since been obsoleted by savewarping.
Damage Boosting: If you are hit by a damage source in the air, you gain extra distance. Pressing B to attack with the sword right before the damage source hits you gives you an additional bit of distance on top of that. This is helpful for clearing some gaps that are just out of reach.
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.
Kokiri Forest
- Rupees are collected before and after collecting the sword so that a shield and a stick can be purchased from the shop. It's faster to manipulate the required amount from the plants than to collect the blue rupee inside the shop.
- A Z-slide as a result of entering the water with jumpslash recoil speed is performed to merge Link with the kid blocking the exit. After he's done talking, Link appears at the other side of him, and a well-timed and well-positioned roll lets us get to the loading zone before he catches up.
Hyrule Field
- The owl text is skipped using the stick and the sword.
- An A-slide is done from the peahat to cross the field quickly. This is better than a superslide as it means that the peahat doesn't have to be next to the plants, meaning there is less distance to cover.
- The A-slide is turned into an HISS after going into and then exiting the water. The positioning for this is extremely precise, as most of the time when exiting the water, Link's angle is such that his speed drops instantly due to shooting up the steep riverbank too quickly. The HISS is then changed into a Z-slide to go up the stairs to Kakariko.
Kakariko Village
- ISG is activated on the nearest cucco, which means Link is in a permanent state of attacking it while holding it. As soon as the cucco is released, the cutscene in which the cuccos attack Link begins. This is used to fall through the water in the well, letting us go in there right away and without the Song of Storms.
Bottom of the Well
- The goal here is to get to a small chest containing bombchus, but in order to do that, the water has to be drained. We don't have Zelda's Lullaby, so the "actor glitch" is used to unload the water from the main room. This is done by opening the locked door after the crawlspace while the camera is still fixed at the crawlspace. This results in the room beyond the locked door being loaded, while Link is still in the previous room, so going back through the tunnel puts us in the main room with none of the actors (enemies, water, etc.) loaded. This means we can fall right through the water and explore other parts of the area early.
- The Dead Hand has to be killed in order to reload the main room, because after getting to this area, we want the water to be back. Going into his room causes the door to lock behind us, but this isn't a huge deal as we need to get rupees for a Hylian Shield later anyway, so they're taken from a small invisible chest in this room after the dead hand is killed.
- The water in the main room is now reloaded, so a clip through the wall is performed, using the skulltula. If Link grabs the wall right when hit by a damage source, he will fall through to the other side of it. The skulltula has to be stunned in some way to allow Link to get into position, otherwise it will attack him before he begins climbing down the vines. This puts us in the out-of-bounds water, and from here we can swim to the room with the small chest with bombchus in it. After obtaining them, the game is saved and reset to quickly bring us to the entrance of the dungeon.
Kakariko Village
- Since we never actually lowered the water here, we have to wait through a slow swim back to the top of it.
- ISG is activated from the sign and a hover is performed at the gate using bombchus. This lets us get through it without getting Zelda's Letter and showing it to the guard.
Death Mountain Trail
- An A-slide is done from the tektite to quickly reach the entrance to Dodongo's Cavern.
- The chu that blows up the rock blocking the entrance also allows us to do a superslide using one of the nearby little rocks on the ground. This means that during the cutscene where the rock blows up, Link is supersliding towards the loading zone. Although we reach it before the cutscene ends, it's impossible to load the dungeon before the cutscene ends, so we wait in the loading zone until it does.
Dodongo's Cavern
- A chu is used to blow up the wall.
- Navi's text about falling into the lava is skipped using the stick and sword.
- A ground jump is stored using the bombflower and a chu, and this lets us jump up to the switch to skip a large section of the dungeon.
- Another chu is used to lower the staircase surrounded by bombflowers. Forward backflips are done all the way up the stairs. This cost 3 frames to do but it looks far cooler than standard backflips.
- A superflip from the chu (which explodes quickly because we slash it with the sword) is used to clear a large gap and reach the chest with the Bomb Bag in it early. This skips another large section of the dungeon.
- Another superflip is done to land inside of the skull without opening its mouth, which also means that the rooms beyond the skull are unloaded. A longish bomb hover is performed to land in the loading zone for the boss. This skips having to hover up to the block and pushing it onto the switch.
- A power crouchstab with the deku stick (which is far stronger than the Kokiri Sword) is stored after the ground explodes and we jump down to the boss. This allows King Dodongo to be quickly killed in two cycles (it's not possible to kill him in one).
- A heart container is picked up here. 4 hearts are needed in this run in order to survive the Fire Temple and Fire Trial later on in the game without the Goron Tunic.
Death Moutain Trail
- An A-Z-slide is performed to quickly reach Goron City.
Goron City
- Using a bomb, we blow up the rocks blocking the entrance to the Lost Woods. A superflip is done from the bomb explosion to land in the loading zone as quickly as possible. We will later come back through this path as an adult.
Lost Woods
- Bombs are manipulated from all three plants, and an A-slide is done all the way to the stone structure in the next screen. The aquascape is performed here, which consists of a precise jumpslash through the corner of the structure to fall in the water out of bounds. The bomb pulled out during the A-slide isn't required for the clip, but it quickly pushes Link into the loading zone after the clip is performed. If a bomb weren't used here, we would have to wait for Link to complete his resurfacing animation, which takes a while.
Zora's River
- A superflip is used to get behind the waterfall from the side without the need for Zelda's Lullaby. It is not possible to do this from the side closest to where we enter the area, and even if it was, it wouldn't matter since we have to wait for the bomb to explode.
Zora's Domain
- A long slide is done throughout the entire area, during which a second bomb is pulled out and used to do a superhop to clip through a corner in King Zora's room and swim up behind him, skipping his incredibly long moving sequence.
Zora's Fountain
- By jumpslashing at the correct position, we can hit the loading zone for the dungeon without actually feeding him a fish.
Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly
- A bomb explosion is used to hit the switch in the first room. We do not have the slingshot, so this is the fastest way to do it.
- The scene with Ruto cannot be skipped, sadly. What's even worse is that she's actually required to get the boomerang, which is required to kill the boss.
- It's possible to do a hover out of the pit in the middle of the room after throwing Ruto up to the other side, and it is faster (by 3-4 seconds), but we have to save those bombs for later in the dungeon where they save even more time.
- A superslide is done using a worm as the damage source and Ruto as the grabbable object. Because we are still relatively close to her by the time the slide ends, releasing R causes her to warp into Link's hands.
- It was later found that the Navi text when landing on the switch can be skipped with a very precise position when landing on it. Fortunately, it's only about a second long.
- Two bombs are used to kill the enemies here quickly.
- An A-slide from the worm is used to clear the room quickly, and is later turned into a Z-slide to move towards the door.
- An A-slide from the jellyfish is used to clear the room here very quickly.
- A superflip from the centre platform lands Link on the other side of the gap, skipping the miniboss from the dungeon.
- With a precisely timed roll, we can reach the door before it locks again, meaning Ruto is completely useless here.
- A precise rang throw coupled with a well-timed sidehop off the ledge allows the switch to be hit without climbing up the wall. A chu could be used here, but they have to be conserved.
- The first parts of the Barinade battle could be done faster if we had Deku Nuts. The nuts could've been obtained in Zora's Domain, but were avoided as I did not believe they were necessary for anything in the run (it turned out they were needed for exactly one thing in the adult section). However, the time cost by interrupting the slide in Zora's Domain means that barely any time was actually wasted here. Damage is taken during the last cycle of Barinade to force him to recover more quickly.
- At first glance, it may seem more logical to get the heart container from here as opposed to from Dodongo's Cavern, due to the long waiting period after the boss dies here. This however is slower overall, as after the cutscene is over, the game is saved and reset. Doing this causes your health to fill up to at least 3 hearts. If I had taken the heart container here, it would be at 4 hearts. The reason this is bad is because there is a cutscene skip coming up shortly after this section, and I want my hearth to be as low as possible for that so that no time has to be wasted getting it low enough to actually perform the cutscene skip.
Kokiri Forest
- After the reset, we're back at Link's house, so an A-Z-slide is done to quickly reach the forest exit, where the same strategy used the last time is done to bypass the kid.
Hyrule Field
- A long A-Z-slide is done to clear the field, and because I had to skip the owl text at the same time, I thought I had to keep doing the item switching, as stopping it even once causes Link's speed to drop. I later found out that it's possible to simply pull out the shield at the same time as the rang and have him put it away, so I'm sorry that this section is a little annoying to listen to.
Hyrule Castle
- The owl is skipped, and this means the item switching has to be continued for a short while after the vine is climbed too.
- A superflip is done to quickly clear a large section of the area, and then a seamwalk is performed to get onto the hill. An A-Z-slide is then done to quickly reach the moat area, where a damage boost is performed to clear the gap without pushing the block.
Castle Courtyard
- As long as your sidehops are frame perfect, the guards will never actually see you. However, if you enter a guard's line of sight, and then stop doing frame perfect sidehops at all while on the same screen as him, he will catch you as soon as you land.
- After a long cutscene, a bomb is used to kill Link as he enters the cutscene where Impa teaches him Zelda's Lullaby. After respawning, the song is already learned, and talking to Impa again takes us back into the field. This also skips the cutscene in the field where she tells you about Kakariko Village and Death Mountain.
Market
- A Hylian Shield is purchased so that slides can be done as soon as we become an adult.
Temple of Time
- The Door of Time (and therefore the Ocarina of Time and the Song of Time) is skipped with a precise twisty sidehop through the tiny opening between the door and the wall. A jumpslash is used to bring Link back into bounds on the other side of the door. A way was later found to perform the skip without the jumpslash, which saves a second or so.
- After a long cutscene, the game is saved and reset to get back to the other side of the Door of Time. It's still there as an adult if you skipped it as a kid, and cannot be skipped through without resetting or dying unless you already have the Hover Boots.
Market
- A backwalk Z-slide is used to clear the area at maximum speed, and causes Link to do a cool-looking "glide" through the place.
Hyrule Field
- An A-Z-slide is used to quickly reach Kakariko.
Kakariko Village
- Two A-Z-slides are done to navigate the area as quickly as possible. Doing only one slide would cause Link's speed to be incredibly low by the time he was heading towards the graveyard.
Graveyard
- By pulling the gravestone at the very edge, Link will move away from it during the pulling animation which lets us jump into the grave while the stone is still moving.
- The fastest route through the Dampe race was taken. A time of 0:43 was achieved here (the previous record was 0:45 in Bloob's run). Dampe's AI is not rubberband, it has a cap, and doing any kind of slide will actually cause him to slow down significantly, so navigating this area with "natural" moves is optimal.
- After the Hookshot is obtained, Link is crushed by the door leading to the windmill in order to respawn at the grave's entrance.
- A superslide teleport is done from the plant after refilling the bombs, and we hop onto the boundary of the area and go all the way to the Shadow Temple. The loading point for the Shadow Temple door is sidehopped over, meaning the door isn't loaded, so we can go right in.
Shadow Temple
- The Hover Boots are obtained immediately, as they would be on a regular playthrough.
- Next comes the most ridiculous and precise trick in the game, the Shadow Temple boss key skip. This is so incredibly precise that it requires all 20 bombs and 1 bombchu to perform. It's done by first activating ISG while bringing the redead close to the wall, and then using the hookshot to wedge Link between the redead and the wall (forcing him out of bounds), and having a bomb explode right as this happens so that he will stick in the air instead of falling to his death. From there, the redead has to be close enough to Link that he can Z-target him, which allows Link to turn around freely during hovers. 19 hovers then have to be done with bombs, during which Link's angle is changed several times. Eventually, we are close enough to the boss loading zone to reach it with a superflip, which means that we have to have Link positioned directly under a room, high enough that the chu can reach it (if the chu explodes out of bounds, the game will freeze, but if it explodes in an unloaded room, it won't), but low enough that when doing the superflip, Link himself doesn't appear in the unloaded room above. The superflip lands Link directly in the boss loading zone. The entire boss key skip was TASed for me by MrGrunz, who very kindly offered to do it for me to save me some time (as he had already TASed it once before when he discovered it, and therefore knew all the specifics about it).
- Bongo Bongo's eye can be hit while he's still in the air if you use the hookshot, which gets him on the ground faster. He's then defeated in one cycle with a jumpslash and power crouchstabs.
Graveyard
- An A-Z-slide is done from the poe, and the bombs are completely refilled from the plants.
Kakariko Village
- Two A-Z-slides are done to quickly clear this entire area.
Death Mountain Trail
- An A-slide is done from the tektite to both save a bomb and avoid waiting for the bomb timer to tick down.
- Two bombs are used to blow up the rock in the way. This is the fastest way to go about this area, as the first bomb explodes the second as it's in the air, which explodes the rock. The alternative would be to throw the first bomb after climbing on the first ledge, which would've meant a long waiting period before the rock was gone.
- A seamwalk is performed, followed by a Z-slide and a backflip onto another seam, to skip the long climb up the wall.
- Magic is obtained, as it's needed to fire Light Arrows and Fire Arrows later in the game.
Death Mountain Crater
- A superflip is performed to completely skip the Bolero of Fire cutscene.
Fire Temple
- A trick frequently used (although never actually required, but done anyway because it looks cool) is pressing the button for the ocarina during a sidehop, as it pauses the heat timer until you land from that sidehop.
- The first three keys are all obtained normally. Hearts are taken from the bat because later on in the dungeon, we need full health.
- In the room with the switch which deactivates the fire circle around the vine, a precise bomb boost is used to push Link between the wall and the block, forcing him into the cell of the Goron below. If the switch wasn't hit before pulling out the bomb, then the cutscene which plays would interrupt the momentum Link obtains from the bomb explosion, making the trick impossible to do with that same bomb.
- After taking the key and A-Z-sliding around the corner, we climb up the long vine, and because you are not supposed to be down here without having first blown up the ground above you, you can simply go through it from this side.
- In the room with lots of fire walls, An A-Z-slide is done to clear it quickly, followed by a superflip through the flames, which skips pressing the switch to deactivate them. Unlike in Bloob's run, no damage is taken when going through the flames, due to a precise position before the superflip.
- A bomb drop is manipulated from the flare dancer after he's killed, and the platform is grabbed onto as soon as the game allows (it begins moving upwards as soon as you grab onto it).
- In the room with the Megaton Hammer, the bat is killed to drop 3 hearts. The chest is then opened, a bomb is thrown down to the area below, the hearts are collected, and then Link drops down to where the bomb lands, just in time to A-slide into it and clip through the corner. A long fall with a jumpslash in the middle lands him right in the boss loading zone.
- Volvagia was easily the scariest part of the run. Before I TASed it, I felt there was a good chance the run would simply end here, due to not being able to hit him enough times in the air with the hookshot (when Bloob TASed this category, he had the bow, which is much faster at hitting him than the hookshot is) in order to kill him in two cycles (the minimum possible). It takes 6 arial hits to be able to do this. I was just barely able to land the 6th hit before he went back underground, meaning I was able to kill him. By targetting the skull and talking to Navi, the heat timer is paused, so Link won't die from it. However, it's not possible to do this immediately, as there is a small waiting period before you are able to talk to Navi. This means that the 4 hearts ARE required, as if we only had 3, then Link would die during this waiting period.
Death Mountain Crater
- A bomb hover is used to clear the bridge. This is done to avoid hitting the cutscene trigger for the Bolero of Fire scene. We make it out of this area by a matter of frames.
Goron City
- After sidehopping after hookshotting up to the ledge, Z is pressed while Link is against the wall while falling. This causes his momentum to be shifted in the direction he is now facing, meaning he moves forward at sidehop speed. This saves some time.
Lost Woods
- The bombs are once again refilled, and a superflip is performed to skip Mido (which skips Saria's Song). After this, an A-Z-slide is done all the way to the loading zone.
Sacred Forest Meadow
- A ground jump is done to both skip the Navi text about the guards in the maze and to jump up to the top of the maze. After this, an A-slide is performed, after which we equip the hover boots to be able to A-slide the entire distance. Once we are behind the guard at the end, it's changed into a Z-slide to reach the cutscene loading point, at which point the bomb we are holding kills us and we die as we enter the cutscene, skipping it and learning the Minuet of Forest.
- The Minuet is played to quickly warp back there. This is about 3 seconds faster than going back using the same method as before.
Forest Temple
- Although you can reach the first small key chest with the hookshot after climbing up there, it's faster to just sidehop to it.
- The stalfos have to be killed in order for the stalfos in the bow room later on to appear. It's unfortunate that it's set up like this, as it would be faster otherwise to get a different small key than this one.
- Back in the main room, we clip out of bounds using a jumpslash, and sidehop through the unloaded garden to the back of the door which is behind the Song of Time block. This puts us back in the main room again, but we are now inside the Song of Time block, so we can simply turn around and open the door to load the garden area. This is required because, since we never got the Ocarina of Time, we also do not have the Song of Time to make that block disappear.
- A hoverboost is used to clear the large gap here, which skips having to use a key in the main room.
- A ground jump is stored, and some very precise rolls allow us to do the ground jump at the end of them and reach the ledge. From here, two more ground jumps are performed to get on top of each of the blocks, skipping the Navi text and all of the block pushing in this section.
- The Navi text about the twisty corridor is skipped using the same technique that lets us skip the owl's text.
- The stalfos in the battle are killed quickly and in such a way that at the end of the battle, Link is directly in front of the chest as it appears.
- A bomb is pulled out and used to A-slide through an acute angle at one end of the room, after which a jumpslash is done, which puts us right in the boss loading zone.
- Although you're "supposed" to use the bow to fight Phanton Ganon, the hookshot works just as well, so there's no need to pause and switch to the bow just yet.
- Once he comes out of the paintings, a new technique is employed to kill him without ever "playing tennis" with him. If you fire the hookshot (or bow) at him, he will immediately try to block it, and during this, there is a very small window in which is vulnerable, so a jumpslash here will bring him to the ground, after which he can be power crouchstabbed until he dies. It takes two cycles of this to kill him optimally.
Kokiri Forest
- There's an acute angle at the side of the Deku Tree which can be clipped through, so an A-slide into the seam followed by a switch to the hover boots allows us to move into the loading zone even though the tree's mouth is closed.
Inside the Deku Tree
- It's significantly faster to do this dungeon as an adult, as the game puts us there after the Forest Temple anyway, and it also skips a long cutscene which plays when you enter this area as a child. The dungeon itself is also significantly faster as an adult.
- Another really precise trick is done here to skip essentially the entire dungeon. Deku Nuts are obtained from the nearby Deku Baba while the bomb timer ticks down, and after they're obtained, an A-slide is performed from the bomb, heading towards the acute angle at the back of the room. The hover boots are equipped and Link is pulled around out of bounds, after which a jumpslash is done and the regular boots are re-equipped so that the recoil from hitting the wall can propell Link back at enough speed to hit the boss loading zone. The angle for this trick is incredibly precise, far more precise than any other acute angle clip in the game.
- Deku Nuts are required for Gohma. The only way to avoid using them is to wait for her to go onto the ceiling, which takes forever.
Kokiri Forest
- Our next destination is Lake Hylia, and the fastest way there is to go through the Lost Woods (only because of all the cool tricks we'll do along the way, though. A console run would get there via the field, but that's too boring and easy for us). Hookshotting onto the fence from the top of the shop gives us a direct path to the Lost Woods.
Lost Woods
- The aquascape method used as a kid does not work as an adult because he's too big to actually stay inside the stone structure after clipping into it, so a triple staircase hover is used to get on top of the area and enter the screen with the stone structure while it's unloaded. This lets us fall through the invisible water and simply walk into the loading zone for Zora's River.
Zora's River
- With the hover boots on, we can simply walk behind the waterfall and reach the ledge to grab onto.
Zora's Domain
- A precise backwalk into the ladder forces Link to grab on the ledge while being merged with it, so dropping from this puts him out of bounds. From there, we sidehop to behind the underwater warp, and swim into it to reach the lake.
Lake Hylia
- A slide is done to the water, and after getting out on the other side, we sidehop up to the top of the area. A superslide teleport is done from the nearby plant in order to get under the ground, and from there we can sidehop and get into the Water Temple from behind the gate.
Water Temple
- An A-slide allows us to clear the gap after switching to the hover boots.
- A triple staircase followed by an additional two hovers lets us clip through the boss door with a jumpslash. Note: The only boss doors like this in the game are this one and the one in the Spirit Temple. It will not work on any others.
- Morpha is manipulated to appear as close to Link as possible. She's pulled over with the hookshot and hit so that she will move towards the spikes, where Link kills her quickly.
Lake Hylia
- An arrow is fired at the sun after refilling the bombs again to cause the Fire Arrows to appear. After this, a superswim is done to reach them, and a second superswim is done to reach the land on the other side of the lake. As we are leaving water at max speed here, a HISS can be done all the way to the exit of the lake.
Hyrule Field
- Hookshotting up the ladder skips some climbing, and two A-Z-slides get us to Gerudo Valley extremely quickly.
Gerudo Valley
- An incredibly precise superflip is done to land on the post at the other side of the bridge.
Gerudo Fortress
- Getting captured is the first priority here, and the closest guard is actually the one at the far end by the gate (provided you do a slide to her).
- Once in jail, we hookshot out of it and perform a clip with the plank above us to land in the upper area. Here, a precise backflip is done to clip the railing and grab onto the higher part of the ledge. A superhop is then performed from a bomb to bypass the gate.
Haunted Wasteland
- Several slides (the last of which is done from a leever to save a bomb) are done here to get across the sand river and clear the area quickly. This is the optimal path through the area, and had Link been slightly more to the side on any one of the slides, he would've hit the loading zone for getting sent back to the start.
Desert Collosus
- A bomb drop is manipulated from the circle of rocks by the temple entrance. A bomb is used to blow up the rock so there's no waiting for Link to pick it up himself. From here, an A-Z-slide is done to reach the platform outside the temple.
- A lengthy hover is done here, featuring guay hovers, to reach the Silver Gauntlets chest from outside. After the hover, Link lands on a seam, and has to navigate up that before hookshotting to the chest. He then hoverslides across the gap and gets the Mirror Shield.
Spirit Temple
- The first attack on the Iron Knuckle doesn't actually damage him (it just causes him to stand up), so it was faster to stab him instead of jumpslashing him.
- A sidehop after shining light on the sun puts us close enough to reach the next door with one roll.
- The anubis enemies are killed using fire arrows. There is a mandatory delay between firing these arrows. After you shoot one, the game makes you wait a short while before you can use anything that requires magic again. Still, this was significantly faster than killing them the "intended" way, with the switch and fire circle.
- The statue is climbed using some precise rolls and jumpslashes, and Link ends up wedged with part of it, enough that the hookshot can actually reach the grate inside the statue's head from behind.
- A triple staircase hover is performed here, after which the green arrow in the air is targeted so that Link can turn around and jumpslash into the door, skipping the boss key.
- Twinrova was a real nightmare. Manipulating one of them to stay on the outer platform was incredibly difficult. Using the hookshot on the other one causes her to spin around and stay in place, and change her path afterwards, which was sometimes helpful. On the final hit, they switch places before firing, and this doesn't actually cost any time, for some reason.
- On the second phase of the battle, she is manipulated to go to the platform closest to her first, and then to the closest platform to her each time after that. When she fires the magic at Link, it saves some frames to backflip while shielding so that he catches it in the air.
- After giving Twinrova the business, we go to the warp, which we reach before it's even active.
- The game is saved and reset after the battle to appear in the Temple of Time.
Temple of Time
- This is the best cutscene in the game. Everyone loves it in the Zelda speedrunning community because it's so quick.
Ganon's Castle (Outside)
- The trigger for the cutscene here is really weird. At certain angles, you will just go right through it, so finding the optimal angle to slide into it at and still actually get it to play was a little annoying. After that, sidehopping across the rainbow bridge was fastest.
Inside Ganon's Castle
- A Z-slide is done to quickly clear this room. If a slide wasn't done here, then backwalking would be the fastest. Some people like to sidehop this room in real time, presumably because they think it makes them look more skilled or something, so I find it hilarious that backwalking, which is far easier than sidehopping, is also far faster than it.
- The trials are done in the opposite order that Bloob did them in. This was found to be faster due to less required pauses.
Spirit Trial
- The first room is completed in such a way that Link is right in front of the door as it unlocks.
- At long last, we get more bombchus. Those things completely obsoleted bombs now that we have A-slides and Z-slides. One is used to activate the switch, but the rest will be used to speed the rest of the game up.
- After firing the Light Arrow, there is a 3 frame window in which you can pull out the ocarina if you have it equipped, and this lets you play it during the cutscene (without costing any time at all), so I play the Minuet of Forest.
Light Trial
- It's possible to enter this trial by clipping in between the large rock and the wall. This is what lets us do the trials in this order, because ordinarily, you would need the Golden Gauntlets (which you get in the Shadow Trial) to access this one.
- Three bombchus are used in the first room to kill all of the enemies as quickly as possible.
- In the room with the silver rupees, a ground jump is used to get on top of the middle platform. This was to avoid having the hookshot equipped, and therefore saves a pause.
- As this is the last time in the run where the ocarina is equipped, I do something very special with it here. :)
Shadow Trial
- Although the Fire Trial comes before the Shadow Trial on this route, we do still need the Golden Gauntlets to compelte it, so we bypass it for now to go to the Shadow Trial. This is still faster than doing the trials in the opposite order.
- A long A-slide is done to cover the entire room extremely quickly, followed by a well-timed backflip onto the switch which activates the chest.
- The first magic jar in the game is obtained here.
Fire Trial
- The silver rupees are collected in the traditional order, but with some new techniques employed, such as backflipping while moving forward with the hover boots on to avoid having to grab several ledges.
- An A-slide is performed from the torch slug to clear the long gap at the end of the trial without the need for the longshot.
Water Trial
- The freezard here can be used to clip through the red ice using the hookshot. Since both of them have to die in order for the door to unlock, one of them is killed immediately, and the other's health is lowered so that he will die when attacked with the hookshot, so he dies as soon as the clip is performed.
- Pushing the block against the wall lets us reach the ledge with a well-alligned jump.
- A jumpslash with the hammer from a precise position will hit the switch behind the ice, completely eliminating the need for a bottle in this category at all.
Forest Trial
- Fire arrows are used to light all the torches in the first room while avoiding the wolfos.
- The rupees are collected in the optimal order and a chu is send to the beamos so it won't hurt Link. After getting blown back by the final fan (unavoidable), a sidehop is done and the hover boots are unequipped so that Link doesn't get blown back as much.
Main Tower
- A superflip is done after the Forest Trial which lands Link right in the loading zone which, for some reason, extends right to the corner of the middle structure. This is much faster than going to the loading zone normally.
- The dinolfos are killed very quickly by attacking both of them with the same attack each time.
- The second stalfos is manipulated to jump towards Link as soon as possible to save time.
- The iron knuckles are each damaged by the same attack for every hit. I did not think this was possible at first but I managed to do it.
- The long set of slides up the final staircase is the fastest way to clear it. It costs too much time to reduce the speed of a Z-slide at all.
Ganondorf
- What a joke of a final boss.
Castle Escape
- All was done that could be to reduce lag. This includes camera angles and firing light arrows so that Zelda's magic wouldn't display (this only actually saves time in the outside areas).
- I got ~The Kiss~ on every set of bars that it was possible to do so on, except for one of the outside ones where it was slower because there wasn't enough time to do both that and fire the light arrow.
- I send one of my remaining chus towards the stalfos I don't go for first in order to significantly speed up that battle.
- Although to saves no time, I A-slide from the last chu I have up to the final set of bars, just cause it looks cool.
Ganon
- It's faster to just crouchstab him with the hammer (having stored the attack of the Master Sword jumpslash before the cutscene starts) than to superslide into the cutscene and keep the sword.
- Three crouchstabs on his tail with the hammer end the first cycle of this battle quickly.
- The Master Sword lets us jumpslash him in the air to attack him. This saves a little time on each hit because we don't have to wait for his tail to be almost fully lowered like we did with the hammer.
- The final hit on Ganon is delivered at frame 438081 (2 hours 1 minute 41.35 seconds).
- The final input required for the ending to play occurs at frame 449113 (2 hours 4 minutes 45.217 seconds).
With thanks to...
- Aktan: He was nice enough to produce a beautiful HD encode of my run prior to its submission, which was awesome because I know what a pain encoding a run like this must be (especially since it has resets).
- aleckermit: He constantly watched my new WIPs and his dry, emotionless responses were funny cause I knew he actually really loved them.
- Bloobiebla: He was the author of the original TAS of this category, which is what made me want to run it myself in the first place. He was a constant source of inspiration and motivation for me while him and I were talking a lot for the first half of the run. He also watched a lot of my early WIPs and TASed a few small parts for me when I wasn't feeling up to it, including the riverbank HISS in the field and some parts of Jabu-Jabu's Belly (including the boss fight). He's also been a great friend to me over the years and I'm honoured to be the one to improve his iconic run.
- bluemarth: He's a pretty cool guy who watched my WIPs a lot and says funny things sometimes.
- Cosmo: He's the world record holder for this category in real time and I've been watching him stream OoT almost daily for a long time now. I feel like by working on this TAS I've helped him optimise his gameplay better and by watching him run the game so much in real time I've learned more about the game and have therefore been able to optimise my TAS better.
- maxx: Definitely one of the biggest supporters of the run as I was doing it - I don't think he missed a single WIP, and he always offered great constructive criticism and had many funny conversation with me while I was working on the run.
- MrGrunz: He was extremely nice and helpful to me throughout the entire run, watching everything I showed him and offering helpful criticism that only a skilled TASer could, which was great to have because most of the people who were watching my WIPs were console runners. He also TASed the entire Shadow Temple boss key skip for me, which was without a doubt the worst part of the run.
- pokey & petrie911: They both helped me with the Deku Tree "BK skip". pokey TASed it once before, so he gave me his m64 of that, and petrie gave me a value to use in MHS to check Link's exact angle, so I checked the angle pokey got and after many tedious hours, I was able to replicate it in my own m64. I would've been at that skip for weeks if it wasn't for their help.
- Satyrium: He was the one who transcribed the song for me that I played in the Light Trial near the end of the run. He's an extremely talented musician and it felt good to honour him in some way in the run.
- Slowi: He was pretty much my advisor for the entire run, telling me what to do next and offering ways in which to do it. He told me the route and would always try to keep me motivated so that I would stick to schedule and not go too long without making any progress. I think I must've given him about 150 separate m64s throughout the making of the run. The run would've taken way longer without his support.
- ZFG: He watched all of my WIPs religiously and provided the most useful and constructive criticism out of anyone, coming up with new ideas all the time (several of which turned out to save time) and telling me all sorts of little tricks and timesavers in the game that I had no idea about. He also had a fantastic attitude towards the run and was very excited whenever I mentioned progressing further in it.
- I'd also like to thank the following people for helping out the run in some way, either by watching my WIPs, discovering tricks, or just being supportive of me and the run in general: Adarax, AKA, batts, Brian, Burnedgoat, cafde, Cerpin, Chabo, CloudMax, DJS, Enterim, Fatal_Error, Fenrikaz, Ferathon, GhostNinja, GlitchesAndStuff, Goldenboy, Gragledump, Greg, guhungamanga, ingx24, jape, Jiano, Kazooie, keeta, Kirkq, Librari, LinksDarkArrows, MajoraMIM, mzxrules, Nahoc, Pheenoh, Quirkee, RattleMan, RingRush, Runnerguy2489, Sam, Samura1man, sleepmode, Soap, sockfolder, Soulrivers, stonenot, SwordlessArmy, Synx, Tompa, Toothache, TylerArtrip, zero, zodiac, everyone who's subscribed to me on YouTube, everyone from Cosmo's stream who supported me.
A lot of people have helped this run in some way, so there's a fairly good chance I've forgotten to list some people. If I've forgotten you, please just send me a PM on YouTube or a message on IRC to let me know. Similarly, if you're in the list and want out of it for whatever reason, let me know.
adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvement to the
published U version. It should also be noted that there is an overdue
Movie Rules update regarding U vs J versions relevant to the acceptance of this movie.
Aktan: Processing...may take a while...
