Windows Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition "all cells" TAS in 35:48.3 by DevilSquirrel, Hetfield90, Sigmasin, Joka, Smashfully, Terra, and VG_Hydra. Timing is from file select-last input since the tools we used didn't permit starting from power-on. For reference, this TAS is 12 minutes and 55 seconds faster than the RTA record of this category.
EncodeLink to videoAbout the Game
For those who haven't heard of this game, Ori and the Blind Forest is a metroidvania developed by Moon Studios and released for Windows and Xbox One in 2015, with a definitive edition that was released earlier this year.
After being orphaned in the wake of a cataclysmic event causing the forest of Nibel and its food supplies to wither away, Ori must learn new skills while exploring the forest in order to restore the three elements which support the balance of Nibel: water, wind, and warmth. With absolutely beautiful visuals, soundtrack, and a Disney-esque "coming of age" story, along with classic metroidvania gameplay, Ori and the Blind Forest is essentially the illegitimate offspring of The Lion King, Avatar, and Metroid.
About the Run
Ori and the Blind Forest has a large variety of fast-paced movement tech and sequence-breaking glitches which allow for interesting real-time and tool-assisted speedruns.
Branch Choice
"All cells" is kind of the substitute to "100%", since it still has most of the same late game movement tech but doesn't include tedious tasks like getting 100% map-completion and picking up every large spirit light orb, mapstone fragment, etc...
Two other categories for this game which I think would make interesting TASes are "any%", which goes out of bounds from Ginso Tree straight to end of the game, and "Reverse Event Order" which showcases the largest array of sequence breaks and glitches to complete the 6 world events in the reverse order from what is intended before beating the game.
Game Objectives
•Genre: Platformer
•Collects all 12 health cells, 15 energy cells, and 33 ability cells
•Aims for fastest completion
•Abuses programming errors in the game
•Takes damage to save time
•Uses death to save time
•Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs
How the Run Was Made
Since this game doesn't work in Hourglass, DevilSquirrel wrote a program which utilizes the game's innate debug features of saving and loading states while adding frame advance and input-reading features. Since this TAS was worked on simultaneously by several authors and since debug saves don't save certain ram values like crusher/laser/platform cycles or enemy positions, parts of it were unable to sync without debug loads, position hacking, or simply AVI splicing, but some of the other authors believe that a entire run could be synced if it was made in order from start to finish and if each debug load used was generated from a debug save of the previous segment and then taken out to combine input files. Personally, I won't attempt such a feat until the game works in Hourglass Resurrection with proper save states.
Tricks Used
UI Toggle - This is something that wasn't known about until a developer mentioned it at SGDQ 2015(along with the color change code). By pressing alt+U and disabling UI, the player saves time by no longer having to mash through text. RTA runners generally play with UI off for the majority of the run(aside from certain tricks where it needs to be on), but for the purpose of being viewer-friendly, we left it on in this TAS aside from the places it needs to be off to save time.
Animation Stacking - Pickup animations from first-time drops, cells, and other objects can be stacked on top of each other or with other input-locking cutscenes.
Ghost Door - By creating a spirit link and suiciding after inserting keystones into a door, the door will be gone upon respawn, which saves around 4 seconds of waiting for the door to open under optimal conditions.
Timed Level Ups - Leveling up not only gives Ori an additional ability point, but restores all health/energy and sends out a nova dealing significant damage to all enemies in the vicinity. These benefits allow Ori to destroy things he normally couldn't reach or destroy in time, as well as open up energy doors which require more than his maximum energy count.
Neutral Wall Jumping - When doing a wall jump near the top of a climb, holding the directional input towards the wall and jumping will cause Ori to do a different type of wall jump that has a very high minimum height. Having no directional input during the first frame of the jump will bypass this and allow you to get on the ground sooner, which is important since Ori accelerates much faster on the ground than in the air. Prior to attaining double jump, neutral wall jumping is generally only used at the top of walls with awkwardly small heights.
Save Anywhere - After accessing the ability screen from a spirit link or spirit well(the things Ori teleports from), hitting confirm on the spirit light(xp) meter with UI on to bring up the dialogue box, and then pressing exit+confirm on the same frame will clear the dialogue box and allow Ori to move around with the ability screen still active. Since spending an ability point automatically saves the game, this glitch allows Ori to save in places where he normally isn't allowed to create a spirit link: in the air, dangerous zones, cutscene triggers, etc... The ability screen is normally less transparent than this, but we hacked its opacity in this TAS to make things easier to see during save anywheres.
Cutscene Glitching - By saving after starting a cutscene via rekindling a Soul Link or using a save anywhere and exiting then reloading the file, cutscenes can either be skipped or at least let Ori retain movement during them(depending on the type of cutscene). If a cutscene is skipped, it generally leaves the trigger zone which causes to walk slowly in that area for the remainder of the game, but the slow movement areas can be circumvented by means of movement that requires no directional inputs to be held in most cases.
Cycle Manipulation - Since saving and reloading the game will reset cycles of platforms, crushers, and lasers, sometimes it is faster to save and reload in a specific spot rather than waiting out the current cycle.
Dash Gliding - By starting a dash with the forward facing directional input held and jumping out of it within the first 14 frames while holding no directional inputs will cause Ori to glide through the air at a constant 15 units per second until touching the ground or pressing a directional input, which is approximately 28.5% faster than Ori's standard ~11.67 unit per second airborne speed. Note that one "unit" is equal to the width of Ori's hitbox.
Hyperspeed - By saving during a dash(or charge dash) and respawning at the save via death-abuse, reloading the file, or voiding out(being too far out of bounds for a certain amount of time) you can activate the hyper speed glitch. This works because saving will retain your current speed at the time of the save but not the drastic deceleration rate that is normally associated with dashes, causing Ori's speed to decay back to normal at a significantly slower rate, and allow him to retain that speed while jumping.
Glide Cancelling - Hitting the Glide button while dashing will cause it to stop short, even before attaining the Glide skill. This is very useful for getting more dashes in on shorter platforms or more charge dashes in a shorter period of time. Glide canceling does not reset the 25-frame cooldown for normal dash, but does for charge dashes.
Ninja Jumping - After obtaining the Double Jump skill, there is normally a 15f delay before a double jump can be performed after a wall jump if the forward-facing directional input is being held at the time of the wall jump. Named after how awesome it looks when Ori is doing random neutral wall jump animations like back flipping and such, doing a neutral wall jump will bypass this 15f delay and allow for a much quicker movement pattern up walls.
Terrain Ramping - Sometimes the terrain will cause Ori to ramp off the ground after starting a dash at certain positions, allowing him to jump from midair and make jumps that are otherwise impossible, or give him a downwards zip after going off a ledge. Terrain ramping also restores Ori's double/triple jumps mid-dash.
Double Bashing - By re-bashing an enemy or projectile the first frame after releasing it from the first bash, you can pick a new direction for Ori to fly in while the enemy's trajectory will still retain the angle of the first Bash. Bashes have a minimum animation time of 21 frames, so this only used when the Ori's trajectory needs to be 91-180° apart his original trajectory of the first Bash.
Trash Bashing - Named after being done accidentally by controller players when the analog snaps slightly past neutral position when being let go of for a bash glide after determining the bash angle, trash bashing is actually quite useful when executed with TAS precision. By changing the bash angle on the final frame of a bash animation, you can cause Ori to fly in a different direction independent of the angle he flings the enemy/projectile at. This saves 21f over double bashing, but can only alter Ori's trajectory by up to 90° instead of the full 180°.
Cell-pickup Animation Skipping - After picking up a cell, there is a certain period of time where Ori will hold up the cell in the air if he touches the ground. This animation can be waited out if you are able to stay airborne long enough, or is erased by certain things like going through teleporters.
Bash Gliding - Like Dash Gliding, holding no directional inputs out of a Bash will cause Ori to fly through the air at a faster speed than normal until pressing a directional input. The maximum initial speed you can attain with a bash glide without Air Dash is between 18-19 units per second, and around 21 units per second with air dash. The angle of the bash effects the horizontal speed of a bash glide without Air Dash(90° is ideal), but not the speed of one after Air Dash is used. The starting speed of a 90° bash glide is 18.26 units per second, 20 with air dash, and accelerates at a rate of about 0.0096666 units per frame²(presumably indefinitely).
Key Duping - By placing a spirit link far enough out of a keystone door, placing an amount of keystones in the door that is at least 1 less than the requirement to open it, and dying while still close enough for the keys to remain in the door will not only refund the keys you placed in the door, but put them back in the game in the spots where you obtained them to be collected again.
Charge Dash Energy Refund - We're still not quite sure if this is a glitch or an intended mechanic, but the 1 energy that it costs to use a charge dash will be refunded if charge dash is cut short via certain methods: stomping, bashing, picking up a cell, entering a cutscene zone, submerging in water, or taking damage from spikes. Stomp canceling is the method which is used by far the most often, since it can be done anywhere as long as Ori is not on the ground. Stomp has a long animation, however, that can only be canceled by a double or triple jump. This allows you to do 2 charge dashes in rapid succession at the cost of only 1 energy and 3 after obtaining triple jump.
Rocket Jumping - Rocket jumping is achieved via essentially the same concept as hyperspeed, only along the Y axis instead of X. Since charge dash will automatically target the nearest enemy, jumping to cancel a vertical charge dash will cause Ori to fly upwards at a up to a whopping 100 units per second(over 10x the normal initial jumping speed) while bypassing the rapid deceleration associated with charge dashes. Since only your Y-speed is retained, Rocket Jumps are more potent the closer the targeted enemy is to 0° above Ori.
Charge Jump Property Conservation - Certain barriers in the game can only be destroyed with charge jumps or specific enemy projectiles if they are too horizontal to be stomped. By charge dashing within a certain number of frames of starting a charge jump, you can retain the barrier-destroying properties of the charge jump while quickly moving horizontally into the wall while charge dashing.
Bash Hyperspeed - Since bash gliding normally has a slight acceleration over the course of its duration, doing a charge dash hyperspeed immediately after a bash will cause the will cause the hyperspeed to accelerate instead of decelerate.
Terra Jump - For lack of a better term, this trick was named after the player who discovered it. Since charge jumps can be performed 1 frame earlier than normal jumps upon landing, doing a first frame charge jump will make the game think Ori never touched the ground and allow him to retain whatever glide/hyperspeed momentum he had into the next jump. Terra jumping also does not reset double/triple jumps.
Multiple-Save Out of Bounds - Being too far out of bounds will cause Ori to void out and respawn at the last place he saved after a certain period of time. Using a save anywhere will allow Ori to circumvent this restriction by saving immediately before each void-out.
The only time-saving glitch forgone in this run is the teleport anywhere glitch. Similarly to a save anywhere, teleport anywhere allows move while the spirit well teleport screen is still up and teleport to any active spirit well from anywhere in the game. This could be used twice during the revisit phase to save an estimated ~20 seconds at the cost that entire section of the run being covered by a completely opaque screen, which isn't exactly interesting for the viewer.
Individual Area Comments
For those curious, here is a general breakdown of who worked on which segments.
Sunken Glades
Since Ori moves at the same maximum speed while running regardless of the gradient of the terrain, his X-axis movement is slower the steeper the slope he's on is. Because of this, it is generally faster to jump the first frame you hit the ground unless the ground is completely horizontal. When starting to move or changing directions, X-axis acceleration is quicker on the ground than in the air, so you typically want to wait until he his close to his max speed before starting to jump.
Single spirit flames have a cooldown of 19 frames. Two spirit flames can be fired within this 19f period, but the 2nd of those spirit flames will put spirit flame on a 30f cooldown. As such, prior to obtaining the Quick Flame ability, the fastest method of DPSing with quick flame involves shooting two shots at a time and waiting out the 30f cooldown unless it takes an odd number of shots to kill an enemy, in which any shot but the last should be a single 19f-cooldown shot.
Ori has to stand still and hold up each type of drop the first time he gets them(health, energy, small spirit light, large spirit light). Since this animation can only take place on the ground, manipulating a health drop from the spores on top of the first bounce flower and grabbing it along with the small spirit light in the air, both animations will be stacked on top of each other. For some reason, the energy pickup animation can get stacked with the 2nd energy cell pickup animation but not the first, so you just have to make sure you don't get any energy drops in between.
The first keystone door cutscene can be skipped simply by placing the keys into the door before touching the ground. The damage boost through the spore wall is done in order to set up the ghost door since uncleansed waters only deal 1 DPS to Ori.
Since the first quill-shooter after dropping through the log on the left side of Sunken Glades takes some time to move out of the way, it doesn't waste any frames to pick up the spirit light from the spore directly above.
We pick up the keystone near the mapstone even though we aren't opening the door that it's intended for since it allows to skip a miniboss fight later on.
In Vanilla Ori, the Wall Jump cutscene was skipped via save glitching by learning an ability after Ori's first level up. Since we now need this ability point to skip a much longer cutscene at the start of the new area, Black Root Burrows, the Wall Jump cutscene simply has to be waited out.
Wall running is a bit faster than wall jumping and decays at a much slower rate but only has its greatest potency when it is initiated from the ground. Whether or not you want to wall run at the start of a climb is generally dependent on the gradient of the ground leading up to the wall.
The first timed level up is used to destroy the amalgamation of spores next to the lowest mushroom after Wall Jump without slowing down.
Black Root Burrows
When Definitive Edition first came out, it was up in the air whether it would be faster to enter Black Root Burrows to obtain Dash immediately after Wall Jump and solve the platform puzzles as intended, or to come back and get it later on after obtaining charge jump to bypass all of the puzzles. After the discovery of a number of different tricks involving Dash as well as an out of bounds from Black Root Burrows to Moon Grotto, it became clear that an early Black Root Burrows visit was much faster.
Picking up the orb on the first frame Ori lands near it will stack the pickup animation with the short cutscene of Sein examining it.
Unfortunately, a TAS is only about 20f away from being able to make a quicker cycle than RTA on the platforms after the lasers. Rather than waiting out an entire ~8 second cycle, it is much quicker to save and reload at a specific time to reset the cycles.
Lever Glitching - Similar to cutscene skipping and Ghost Doors, rekindling a spirit link after starting to pull a lever that opens a door and suiciding will cause the door to open the rest of the way automatically and stay open for the remainder of the game. This is especially useful in Black Root Burrows since you have to pass through here again on the revisit. Taking damage from the spikes immediately after Dash will delay Ori's ability to create a spirit link for a number of frames until after landing next to the lever. Since this allows him to get killed immediately by the falling slime while is still on the ceiling, this strategy ended up being a few frames faster than hitting the spikes below and waiting for the slime to fall on top of Ori.
Boulder Clip - By crouching in a certain spot when the giant boulder in Black Root Burrows knocks down the pillar, you get clipped into the ground if you have enough health to survive it. But crouching while doing seven consecutive dashes from this position, you can make it to Moon Grotto. This saves a significant amount of time over the next fastest strat, which entails going in through the back door by baiting a Fronkey over to it do a timed level up in order to meet the doors 4-energy requirement while only having 2 energy cells.
Moon Grotto
Since we picked up the extra keystone by the mapstone in Sunken Glades, we're able to skip one of the keys intended for the keystone door in Moon Grotto. The second keystone happens to be after a miniboss fight that takes forever to kill without charge flame, which we skipped via the Black Root Burrows out of bounds.
Since Ghost Doors and Hyperspeeds both require saving the game, both tricks can be performed simultaneously with the same spirit link.
We only have one ability point to skip either the Double Jump cutscene or Ginso Tree unlocking cutscene, and it happens to be faster to skip Double Jump's.
Grotto Skip - There is an entire left half of Moon Grotto that you are supposed to go through to climb back out after Double Jump that can simply be skipped by doing a somewhat precise jump up the right side off the swinging log.
Save glitching the cutscene at the bottom of the falling rock climb saves time by not having to watch the cutscene in addition to not having to dodge falling rocks during the climb.
We have to go a little bit out of the way to pick up a the 100xp orb at the top of the falling rock climb in order to route our fifth level up to occur at the very top of Ginso Tree in order pull off a sequence break.
Skipping the cutscene where Ori pulls Gumo out from underneath the rock causes you to have to wait out the spirit link cooldown before the next cutscene skip, but this is still several seconds faster than watching the cutscene.
By initiating a save anywhere before the falling bridge cutscene(this is how you're supposed to first enter the lower part of Moon Grotto, which we skipped via the OoB), you can retain movement during the cutscene where you would initially have locked-input and fall all the way back down to the bottom of Moon Grotto. You can skip the cutscene immediately via simply rekindling, but that leaves the bridge closed, so we wait for it to open before saving so that it's open, allowing us to pass through on the revisit.
By starting a dash from a specific location, Ori moves so fast during the early frames of the dash that he is able to pass through enemies and damage boost on the other side of them.
The ability cell on top of the tree to the left Ginso Tree can be grabbed later on during the revisit, but it is well worth taking now so that we can learn the charge dash ability at a specific time later on.
After obtaining Quick Flame from one of the earlier cutscene skips, optimal spirit flame DPS changes slightly. The 30f cooldown now only occurs if 3 spirit flames are fired within a timespan of 19 frames, so it's faster to shoot volleys of 2 with 19 frames in between. If an enemy requires an even number of hits to kill, it is faster to fire a triple-shot volley on the final volley as well as one additional volley prior.
Ginso Tree
Teleporter Hop - A number of different things in this game will cause Ori's double jump to reset mid-air, teleporters being one of them. This allows Ori to quickly double jump back and fourth through the teleporter walls in Ginso Tree's Geemur room and skip most of the platforms.
Reload Clipping - Rekindling a spirit link after pushing a solid object on top of it can cause Ori to clip out of bounds upon reloading the file. This saves a number of seconds in Ginso Tree by bypassing one of the fireball puzzles.
Duping 3 keys here costs a bit of time, but allows us to skip a very long underwater segment later on.
The 30xp from the 2nd Ginso miniboss is the second portion of xp we have to go out of our way in order to set up the next level up. The only other alternative would have been 30xp from the frog coming out of Moon Grotto, which simply takes too long to kill.
Core Skip - When cleansing the spores surrounding the Element of Water at the top of Ginso Tree, the spores on the other side can be hit with the nova from a timed level up, skipping the right puzzle room entirely.
We have to touch the spirit well at the top of Ginso so we can teleport to it later on near the end of the game. Since it takes so long for the door to open after killing the 2nd miniboss, it's faster to go cleanse the corruption surrounding the Element of Water first and grab the teleporter after. Unlike keystone doors, this type of door(along with energy doors) cannot be skipped in any way.
Thornfelt Swamp
Since there isn't any way to quickly suicide after placing the keystones in Thornfelt Swamp's keystone door, the next best alternative to ghost door+hyperspeed is to simply reload the file, which still saves time over waiting out the door opening.
You're normally supposed to get the energy cell near stomp after releasing the Element of Wind, but the nearby fish proves quite useful in eliminating the large amount of backtracking this would require later on.
Drainless - Since you're supposed to already have charge flame at this point in the game, which we skipped, we can't get out of Thornfelt Swamp via the normal method of destroying a charge flame barrier and draining the top part of the lake covering the stomp barrier. Thankfully, in addition to skipping cutscenes, save glitching also puts Ori on the nearest ground directly below him upon reloading. By saving via spending an ability point in the air directly above the submerged stomp barrier, Ori will be directly on top of the barrier and still in stomp animation when he loads back in, allowing him to stomp underwater which is otherwise impossible.
Hollow Grove
Kuro Cutscene Skip - The post-Ginso Kuro cutscene has to be skipped in a way that is different from every other cutscene skip. It can be skipped via save-glitching, but it is faster to skip it with Bash. Since the trigger for the cutscene is very thin and Ori does not have collision detection with enemies and triggers during the first few frames of a Bash, bashing the frog into a precise position will allow Ori to Bash Glide through the cutscene trigger area with just enough time before he regains collision to trigger it.
Spider Sac Cutscene Skip - By double bashing a a spider shot over to the nearby charge Flame door, we can skip the cutscene where ori looks by using the spider shot to avoid touching the ground in the trigger area.
Baiting the Fronkey down near Charge Flame allows us to take a shortcut out by bashing off him instead of breaking the charge flame barrier and going the long way around.
Charge flame actually isn't required to obtain all of the cells or beat the game(every charge flame barrier in the game can be destroyed with either stomp or light burst), but it is required learn charge flame Efficiency which allows us to progress deeper into the teal branch of the ability tree, making it well worth the time it takes to pick up.
Valley of the Wind
It's impractical to stay airborne long enough to skip the pickup animation of the first ability cell in Valley of the Wind, but it can be stacked on top of the bash animation of the nearest enemy.
The 2nd ability cell is intended to be inaccessible without both charge jump and climb, but we can use stomp's large area of effect to break it by stomping on top of an owl.
Thanks to our ability cell/experience route, we are able to learn charge dash right before going into sorrow pass. The intended route is to grab Kuro's Feather, go through Misty Woods and Forlorn ruins to release the wind and ride the wind up into sorrow pass. RTA speedrunners take the time to grab Kuro's feather before sequence breaking into Sorrow Pass, but a TAS doesn't even need to do that.
Sorrow Pass
All of the cell pickup animations in this area are skipped by avoiding the ground. Wall jumping after the energy cell, avoiding the branch on the way down past charge jump, delaying the landing on the wooden beam after the 2nd last ability cell, and stomping the middle of the rocks above Kuro rather than the edge are all slight delays incurred to avoid cell pickup animations.
The tumbleweed has to be directly up against the wall in order for Ori to bash through the crack above it; the quickest way to accomplish this is by double bashing it.
When I think of ridiculous strats that are the furthest thing from being possible to do in real-time, featherless Sorrow is one of the first that comes to mind. Simply bash canceling charge dashes on the frog will cause it to take damage from the charge dashes and die too quickly, so the charge dashes must be stomp canceled immediately before bashing him. Normally you would just ride the wind through this part of the game using Kuro's feather.
Sunstone, the key to Mount Horu atop Sorrow Pass, is skipped since it's faster to out of bounds our way into Horu anyway.
Normally, stomping a breakable floor will stop Ori's downward speed, but there are particular parts on some floors which allow you to go straight through.
Misty Woods
By doing a bash glide hyperspeed and sustaining the momentum via Terra jumps, the entrance into Misty Woods reaches the fastest movement speed of the entire run.
The topography of Misty Woods changes drastically each time you grab one of a keystones in the area or watch certain cutscenes, which is why we're picking up the keystones despite not needing them to open any more keystone doors for the rest of the run.
After grabbing the ability cell in Misty, we've gotten all we came for in this category and can peace without grabbing the Gumon Seal.
After entering the airspace of the cutscene where Ori first notices the orb that reveals the Gumon Seal, the cutscene does not trigger and change the topography of Misty until the next time Ori touches the ground. By landing in a place that ends up being covered by new terrain, we can easily get out of bounds. Since Ori is too far away to examine the orb from this location, our input stays locked indefinitely unless we save and reload, which was the point of placing the spirit link there earlier since you can rekindle spirit links during locked input but not create them.
Forlorn Ruins
All we need from Forlorn Ruins is the one health cell in the laser section, so we can skip the rest of the area.
Just like normal wall running, wall running after a charge jump causes vertical movement to decay much more slowly than charge jumping in the air.
Save glitching the starting cutscene of the Forlorn escape sequence not only skips the entire escape sequence altogether and puts us closer to a teleporter so we can get to Black Root Burrows more quickly, but it even unlocks the Wind Element for us in the process.
Black Root Burrows Revisit
It was technically possible to get the ability cell and health cell in Black Root Burrows on the first visit, but the ability cell would have taken too long without charge jump, and getting the health cell would require us to miss out on the only opportunity to boulder clip. The next zone happens to be right nearby, so it's much faster to revisit Black Root for these two cells.
Lost Grove
We have to go to Lost Grove to get the Light Burst ability before revisiting any of the earlier parts of the game since Light Burst is required to access a number of the cells in those areas.
It is quite a bit faster to continuously double bash fishes through the water than it is to swim normally. The bash animation also delays the crushers, allowing us to make an earlier cycle.
Valley of the Wind Revisit
The first ability cell in the Valley of the Wind revisit is normally attained via a horizontal charge jump from a wall climb, but since we skipped the Climb skill in Misty Woods, we have to use a frog projectile instead to break the barrier.
Since we learned Triple Jump during the cutscene skip lead out of Lost Grove we can now immediately jump out of two consecutive stomp canceled charge dashes instead of only one. Since we we have more energy capacity at this point in the game and are refilling our energy more more often from picking up energy cells more frequently, we are able to be much more liberal with are charge dash usage. Energy cells alone don't provide enough energy for all the charge dashes, so we still have to manipulate energy drops from any enemies we can pick them up from without slowing down.
There is a rather large cutscene slow zone left around the spirit well in front of the Spirit Tree, which is why we do a dash glide Terra jump to charge dash over the top of it. All 3 of those charge dashes are refunded since the 3rd hits the cutscene slow zone.
Sunken Glades Revisit
More of the same stuff from the previous couple of areas; just Ori going even further beyond while picking up the remaining cells.
It's impossible to dodge the pickup animation of the final ability cell in Sunken Glades while landing on the ground below even after getting the 200xp orb without waiting in the wind current for a while. We use opportunity to blow all our energy on charge dashes and pick up the 200xp orb above to recharge our energy before having to spend 8 of it on the next two energy doors.
Moon Grotto Revisit
The crushers at the bottom of the Moon Grotto despawn when you go left to get the health cell. By doing this, you will still make the same crusher cycle if you were to get the energy cell first, only you have to wait less time. You also want to sit out the health cell pickup animation after respawning the crushers since you'll be waiting there anyway.
The two rocks you have to push inside the crusher area are quite possibly the worst sync nightmare of the entire run. No matter what you do, the rocks' movement will differ drastically each time you play the input file from a consistent debug load. To get around this, we had to put in a debug load while pushing the second rock and avoid all unnecessary contact with the rocks otherwise. The crushers at the start of the area stay spawned the entire time you're inside, so it's highly unlikely that avoiding contact with the rocks because of sync issues wastes any time since it wasn't even really close to making an earlier cycle on the way out.
Riding wind currents has a slightly faster maximum velocity(10 units per second) than triple jump ninja climbing(~9.5 units per second), but a very slow acceleration. It ended up being faster to ninja jump up the wall leading up to the ability cell next to the back door of Black Root Burrows since there was a small lip on the wall that allowed for a wall run charge jump, but faster to just do one continuous glide after the ability cell, especially since that strategy skipped the cell pickup animation.
Thornfelt Swamp Revisit
Learning Ultra Magnet and Energy Efficiency as we enter swamp allows us to take advantage of the large amount of swarm enemies present, each of which can give multiple energy drops. Killing each swarm is necessary to be able to charge dash immediately without locking on to it, and Ultra Magnet causes the drops to follow Ori regardless of distance. This allows us to get a cloud of energy drops to recharge after dumping our energy, getting an energy cell, and dumping our energy again.
There is large cutscene slow zone waiting to the right of Ginso Tree since we didn't enter Moon Grotto through the intended route, so it is faster to rocket jump off the slugs below the first ability cell in the area and charge dash over the top of the slow zone than it is to ride the wind current and walk through it.
The series of charge dashes in front of the ginso tree are done with minimal energy expenditure by using multiple terrain ramps to refund our double/triple jump mid-dash and repeatedly stomp cancel.
Hollow Grove Revisit
The post-Ginso Tree Kuro cutscene is still active from skipping it with bash earlier in the game, so we have to skip it by going over the top of the ability cell tree. Incidentally, it's faster to go over top of it anyway since we can just rocket jump off the fronkey and charge dash over.
Even though we also skipped the spider sac cutscene without a save glitch, unlike the Kuro cutscene, the trigger for this cutscene is deactivated simply reloading the game once after skipping it.
Since the spikes below the spider sac are always insta-kill regardless of Ori's health, it would be possible to quickly activate a hyperspeed after grabbing the nearby energy cell. Unfortunately the wall to the right is too high and Ori is moving too fast to clear it with a Terra jump.
Jump pads give additional height if you stomp into them. Conveniently, by stomping 1 frame before you would normally hit a jump pad, you can cancel the stomp animation and still gain the extra height.
Older "all cells" routes would use the Sunstone to enter Mount Horu through the front door after picking up all of the Hollow Grove cells, but there's a much faster route to the 1 remaining energy cell in Horu via an out of bounds from Ginso Tree. The Ginso>Horu out of bounds is significantly faster than going in the front door since it allows us to completely skip getting Suntone, the entire climb to the top of Mount Horu, a long cutscene that plays upon entering the top-right puzzle room, and the puzzle room where the energy cell is located.
Ginso Tree Revisit
As you may have gleaned from the Misty Woods to Forlorn Ruins out of bounds, the entire map of Nibel is connected, including all 3 dungeons, the escape sequences, and even the prologue. You can actually out of bounds from Ginso Tree straight to the end of the final escape via multiple save anywheres, which is what "any%" does, but we still have to collect the final energy cell inside Mount Horu.
Mount Horu
By doing a save anywhere during the lava lowering cutscene after plugging the hole in the top-right room, Ori will end up just inside the entrance to Mount Horu upon reloading. There is an out of bounds from the top-right Horu room to the end of the escape sequence, but as far as we know this can only be done with a horizontal charge jump from a wall climb, and it saves much more time to skip climb than it does to perform this out of bounds.
Door Warp - Entering a door on the first frame after a reload will cause Ori to end up in an unintended location after passing through the door. Most doors lead to useless areas, but the one at the bottom of Mount Horu allows us to skip a miniboss and a long door-opening animation. If not for this door warp, we would still be able to skip the remaining 7 puzzle rooms anyway by doing a save anywhere above the lava to reload on the ground below it.
There's a pretty hefty load time that has to be waited out before you can enter the door leading to the final escape.
There are a bunch of slugs in the falling zig zag section before the water in the escape which are periodically being targeted for charge dash, which is the reason for stomping into the fire before doing the last charge dash over the water.
Since it's impossible to bash enemies that are offscreen, you have to wait for the screen to transition before bashing the fish into position to rocket jump off of in the last part of the escape.
Closing Remarks
Hetfield90's Remarks: This definitely been my most anticipated TAS to make ever since I started speedrunning the game after seeing it for the first time at AGDQ 2016. I honestly thought it would never be possible until Hourglass Resurrection supported it, so to be able to TAS the game the very same year it came came out is pretty surreal to me, and I can't thank DevilSquirrel enough for making the tools that allowed us to pull it off. It was also great to see a number of other Ori RTAers express interest in working on the TAS, most of whom this was their very first TAS project, and do such a fantastic job on it. If this game does in fact become compatible with Hourglass Resurrection in the future, I would definitely love to make a submissible "all cells" TAS that properly syncs from start to finish, and probably even other categories as well.
Sigmasin's Remarks: When DevilSquirrel released the first version of the Ori TAS tools, my first thought was "I wonder if featherless Sorrow is possible." With the original intention of just answering that question, I put together the cdash-cancel frog juggle, then a few other parts of Sorrow. Before I was done with Sorrow, I had doubled my knowledge of movement mechanics, found ninja jumping, and we had plans to do the full all cells run. I'd like to thank everyone who worked on the TAS and everyone who came into TAS streams to suggest possible frame-savers. In particular, I have to thank Devil for making all of this possible and making countless improvements to the tools throughout the process, and Hetfield for showing me how to climb walls, dash, jump, run, and tie my shoes without dropping frames.
This was a thoroughly excellent run. I was amazed by just how fast you can go in DE, and the continuous bashes and OOB were really cool as well. I so wish this run could be submitted to the workbench, because it would be my Windows TAS of 2016.
So basicly it's similar to the SSBM TASes that had been made using Action Replay (using the game's debug functionality of frame-advancing).
I have yet to play this game so I can't watch the run right now. But I will check it once I played it. I have purchased it but never got around to playing it yet.
To explain what's going on at the end there, the way the teleporters work in Ori(if I understand it correctly) is that they don't actually teleport Ori to a specific coordinate on the map, but rather a fixed distance away(the distance from the current teleporter to the destination) in a specific direction. As it turns out, rotating Ori actually allows you to change the trajectory of the teleport while still maintaining the same distance(a trick called warp displacement).
To take advantage of this, we used the teleport anywhere trick, which was forgone in the "all cells" TAS, to teleport from Thornfelt Swamp to Sunken Glades while standing on top of the swinging platforms inside Ginso Tree to change the trajectory so it would put us at the end of the game.
Getting the required angle on the swinging platforms was done by nudging them and exiting/re-entering Ginso, causing the hitboxes of the platforms and the spores attached to them to overlap(the spore spawns in a fixed position, but the platform spawns wherever you left it) and constantly push eachother out of the way. This was by far the trickiest part of the TAS, and took Sigma a lot of testing over the course of several months to pull it off.
There was also another TAS made by DevilSquirrel a few months ago with the help of input by various authors from the all cells TAS--this one being an "all skills, in-bounds" TAS.
Link to video
"All skills, in-bounds" is the most popular category for real-time speedrunning, and is much less of a full-completion type of category than "all cells". The teleport anywhere trick is also omitted in this category for entertainment purposes(you would do all of Misty Woods and half of Moon Grotto at least behind an opaque screen), but the big trick in this category not seen in any of the other current TASes is grenade jumps.
Grenade jumping requires Climb, Charge Jump, and Light Burst to pull off, and is executed by clinging to a wall, throwing a grenade, and charge jumping on the very next frame. It has the same principal as hyperspeeds and rocket jumps where you start a move with a high initial velocity followed by rapid decay(in this case Charge Jump) and ending it before the rapid decay sets in, only is much more widely applicable to a variety of situations than any of the Dash/Charge Dash variants. The trick also lets you catapult over a large portion of the cutscene following the final escape.
Another new trick in this run, one which could be applied to an "all cells" v2 TAS, is infinite stomp canceling. Even after you run out of air jumps you can still do more stomp cancels, but you have to let the initial stomp animation play out before you can cancel it with a fake jump. Still, this is often faster than falling to the ground to reset your double/triple jumps.
New 'all skills, in-bounds' TAS by Smashfully in 24:46.
Link to video
The bulk of the time save comes from major routing changes in the mid game, namely skipping Ginso Tree escape entirely, going through the back door of Thornfelt Swamp to get Stomp, and just dealing with poisonous water later on(this route would also save time in all cells).
