Speedrun:A Link to the Past/Any% (NMG, No S+Q)/Tower of Hera
Tower of Hera Overworld
Hera is the first significant difficulty spike of the game. This segment features two of the more notable tricks in the route and much more difficult random enemy patterns than we have seen up to this point.
Pick up the rock on the right and dash off the ledge, then get as far right as possible before dashing down. It's important to get as far over as you can so you don't hit a cactus on the way down.
Start dashing Right when you get to the Eye of the octorock. This is about a 2 tile wide gap. Alternatively you can aim for the lower gap which is a bit bigger.
Start dashes while facing slopes indicated in yellow. Dash cancels are indicated in blue.
Fake Flipper Skip
The Fake Flippers glitch is a staple of the JP 1.0 route for A Link to the Past. This trick only saves 8 seconds, however and tends to be a common Reset Point for newer players. I recommend trying both routes to see which you like better.
To skip fake flippers, dash up when you get past the slope then Walk up and lift up this rock before dashing. It IS faster to dash here but only if you dash very close to the rock, so the risk of bonking is not worth the very minimal time save.
Walk up to this opening and dash up, then move to the next opening and dash up again.
Slash this bush and dash just under the tall grass. It's not a big deal if you dash higher but this grass will slow down your movement a little.
Follow this route for the rest of the screen. Make sure to exit in the middle of the gap to avoid some obstacles on the next screen.
Dash about halfway up this screen being careful not to bonk anything so you don't get swarmed by guards. At this point just hold Up+Left until you get through.
Dash along the slope until you reach this gap then walk the rest of the way. This screen transition is where we meet up with the other route.
Fake Flippers Tutorial
Fake Flippers is the second JP 1.0 glitch that we encounter in this game in the standard Any% route. Skip this part and do the alternate route in the previous section if you're playing on any other language.
Dash down at the corner of the slope, then dash right through this lower strip of grass.
Hold Up+Right until you get to the opening in the ledge. Normally the game will prevent you from falling off ledges by forcing you to press a direction against it for at least 20 Frames. We can get around this by holding a direction and tapping the A button to jump instantly. This is known as a Quickhop and we'll be using it quite a bit throughout the run.
Move Down+Right until you are below the grass texture. It's ok to nudge the slope here. You want to be lined up with the mountain ledge on vertical position FA8 for the next part but it's ok if you get nudged up a Pixel or two higher.
The vertical position is worth mentioning here because you'll hit the Buzz Blob in the first example if you are any higher. You may still need to move down if you get a bad RNG like in the second example.
Continue dashing and turn back when you get close to this last bush on the right side of the screen. The only thing we're really concerned about here is turning around before you hit this bush. We need it for the next part of the glitch setup. You may have to go around this last buzzblob if it moves down. The Sand Crab sometimes lurks over in this area and you'll have to slash it if it gets too close.
When you get to this point you need to still be aligned with the mountain slope on the vertical axis on coordinate F98. If you had to adjust your movement at all to avoid enemies you'll need to go back and nudge the slope again, then walk back over to the bush. You can tell you did it right if the bottom of Link's shadow is touching the grass texture below. If there's a small gap you need to go back and set up again. When you're all the way up against the bush you'll get the horizontal coordinate DC0 and we're ready to attempt the fake flippers glitch.
From this position, slash the bush and continue holding the B button, and Buffer an Up+Right input during the sword animation. This buffered input will let you move perfectly to the next coordinate DE7 F70.
When you get to this point you can choose to tap A to Quickhop, or just wait the 20 Frames until Link naturally jumps off the ledge into the water. During the falling animation you want to buffer a Right input to move to the screen transition. If you did everything correctly you will scroll to the next screen.
This glitch works because in this version of the game Link is able to move for 1 frame before it checks your inventory for flippers. If you hit a screen transition during that 1 frame the game never bothers to check again on the next screen and assumes you already have the flippers. The reason for this whole setup is for Normalized movement that gets you to an exact position every time.
Swim directly to the right until you hit the wall, then swim straight up into the warp.
If the path is clear of enemies like in this first example you'll get through without any problems. Sometimes a Zora will Spawn directly on top of the warp though and you won't be able to make it through without taking damage. In this case you'll want to dodge the fireball and get in when the path is clear again. If you take damage while in the glitched fake flippers state, the game will attempt to put you back on land on the wrong screen and it will just scroll infinitely in a glitchy mess.
If this happens you'll have to start from the beginning of the run because save and quit is banned in this Category. This is the reason many newer players opt to skip fake flippers.
If you made it this far you successfully used fake flippers. Hold Up+Left and mash A to swim to this ladder, then move to the top-left area of the screen.