Zelda Runners – Back in the Game

Hello and welcome to back to (me?) Zelda Runners! It’s been a while, and during my absence you’ll be happy to know I set a new Personal Best in Procastinating over your Dissertation%, and tied the World Record for the University’s Go Home and Cry category. Of course, the speedrunning community didn’t just twiddle its thumbs while I stressed over my work, oh no… But, on the plus side, that does mean that there’s no shortage of news to cover today. So, without further ado…

 

Now Playing

The games list and schedule for AGDQ 2020 has been released! The huge speedrunning marathon runs the first of its bi-annual events from 5th – 11th January, and this time features 6 Zelda titles.

  • Monday 6th, 5:00 AM. Skyward Sword (Any%) – gymnast86
  • Tuesday 7th, 3:33 PM. Zelda Relay Race – Multiple Runners
  • Wednesday 8th, 1:04 PM. Ocarina of Time (100% NSR) – zfg
  • Wednesday 8th, 4:24 PM. Cadence of Hyrule (Story Mode) – SpootyBiscuit, Goof
  • Thursday 9th, 1:06 PM. Wind Waker (Any%) – Linkus7
  • Friday 10th, 6:24 AM. A Link to the Past (Open Mode, Crowd Control) – Andy, WarpWorld

All times are listed in Pacific Time. To find them in your own time zone, you can check the event’s schedule here.

Non-Zelda highlights in the event include A Hat in Time (9:24 AM, Sun) opening the event, a Fire Emblem: Three Houses (4:15PM, Thurs) with a bid war to decide the path chosen, and a huge Super Mario Maker 2 (10:07 AM, Sat) blind relay race towards the end of the week! Of course, there’s far more to the event than what I have space to talk about here, and you’re bound to find something new and exciting every time you tune in!

A documentary called “Break the Game” is being created, which covers the speedrunning career of runner Narcissa Wright. The documentary will look at her original 18:10 record breaking time in Ocarina of Time, to the more recent comeback in Breath of the Wild. The Kickstarter offered rewards such as Pixel Art, a Korok Figurine, Poster sets, Master Sword earrings, and even a signed Ocarina of Time carriage, and raised over $50,000 from 760 backers. There’s no date set for the release of the documentary, but rest assured you’ll be the first to know when it does. You can also stay up to date with the film’s development on their Social Media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).

After last month’s release, the Link’s Awakening remake has finally had boards released on speedrun.com. The original game’s community held back on verifying any runs for a short time while they finalized the rulesets. In the Any% category, the rules remain the same as the original title, where timing starts from starting a file to the screen fading to black after the final staircase. The 100% category requires players to complete their inventory with all permanent items, as well as placing the Bow Wow figurine. Both categories require the player to start each run from the HOME screen. Additional categories may be added in the future should the need arise. You can check out the current boards here.

Finally, the Zelda II community have started their annual 100% All Keys tournament. This ruleset requires runners to obtain all keys, spells, life and magic containers, sword techniques, and all other permanent items, as well as having a key for each door they pass through. The tournament is split into two phases, a 5 round swiss format qualification round, and a Single Elimination bracket. You can see how the tournament is going on the game’s Discord server.

 

Glitch Exhibition

If you’ve seen a Breath of the Wild speedrun recently (or even just happened upon a runner’s Twitter) then you might have noticed a somewhat unusual method of entering Shrines. Yes, having deemed entering through the front door too mainstream, the community has developed a method of entering through the Shrine walls.

To explain exactly how this works, you’ll first need a basic understanding of the tech behind it. Scientists (in relation to the game, not real life physicists) discovered that, if Links shield jumps from neutral ground (ground on which he can stand normally) and ends the jump immediately on a sloped surface, the resulting ragdoll effect (the state where Link’s model is thrown around after an explosion or fall) will store some unusual qualities. (Again this is only in-game please do not try this in real life)

If executed properly, any subsequent shield jumps will result in Link’s model skewing mid-jump. In other words, the model will snap to an unusual position briefly, before returning to normal. You can see an example of both the setup and skew itself in this clip.

There’s an extra consideration to this glitch, which is what makes it especially handy for speedrunning. Performing this skew against a surface which faces parallel to the original surface on which Link gained the skew, runners can clip straight through. This works with most walls and surfaces in the game, provided the skew is strong enough and the surface is parallel, including the outer walls of Shrines.

As such, with the correct setup and positioning, runners can clip themselves into Shrines without having to open the main door (most Shrines will then require some more movement to actually activate the elevator). So, with that in mind, why should we bother even activating the Shrines in the first place? The answer to this question leads to an even wilder development, at least in the Any% category.

Activating the Great Plateau Tower in turn activates (and opens) all Shrines in the overworld. This is the only reason to activate the Tower. As such, runners can now skip this sequence entirely, choosing instead to head straight to one of the four Shrines to clip into. Aside from some very entertaining cutscenes, this has no adverse affect on the game, meaning runners are free to claim the Paraglider from the King, and fly away as if everything was normal. This saves roughly 4 minutes in the Any% category.

Obviously clipping into all 120 Shrines would negate any timesave from skipping the Tower activation, and some Shrines will be hard to clip into due to their geography, so the glitch isn’t quite as useful in the All Shrines category. It does, however, allow runners to skip some Shrine quests, notably the Perfect Drink sidequest in Gerudo Valley, saving about 6 minutes.

Runners can also use the glitch inside Shrines to skip certain sections, and Tests of Strength can be entirely skipped by clipping through the back wall and running straight to the Monk to claim your reward (not that you deserve it).

Shield skews will last through saves, and will only disappear if Link lands a shield surf or bonks into a wall. Want to see more Shield Skews? Check out these clips. 1 2 3

 

 

Round Up

This section is going to go under a little renovation soon. As of next article, I’ll only be including major category records, skipping out on some smaller or meme-ier cateogries. This isn’t to say they aren’t as important or interesting, it’s simply to save me a bundle of work. As of next article I’ll also be including the Link’s Awakening remake records too.

 

A Link to the Past

NMG, Master Sword. eddeQQ – 21:37

 

Link’s Awakening DX

All Instruments. aulos – 16:15

 

Ocarina of Time

100%, NSR. zfg – 2:44:33

 

The Wind Waker

100%. Demon – 6:26:56

 

Twilight Princess

New Game+, All Fused Shadows, No Portals. Taka – 38:57
Any%, Wii. Simikins – 3:40:28

 

Skyward Sword

All Dungeons. gymnast86 – 3:21:29

 

The Wind Waker HD

Early Master Sword. mralberto23 – 23:41

 

Breath of the Wild

Great Plateau, Any%, Bug Limit. LouLouCore – 21:15.530
Any%. rasenurns – 27:57.360
Great Plateau, Any%. rasenurns – 14:34.060

 

The Final Split

SpeedGaming Live 2019 – 24th ~ 27th Oct – A large scale marathon/tournament event. Featured are Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, as well as Shovel Knight and, rather bizarrely, a SpongeBob SquarePants block. Alongside the regular marathon event, there are also multiple tournaments going on, including an A Link to the Past Randomizer tournament with a minimum prize pool of $3000.

 

Bingothon – 29th Nov ~ 2nd Dec – Bingothon returns for a winter event later next month. Applications to take part in the event are open until 2nd November, and you can be sure I’ll keep you updated when the event’s schedule is released. Bingothon supports Pure Earth, a non-profit organisation dedicated to pollution issues in middle and low income countries.

 

And, just before I go, here’s your long awaited installment of Breath of the What Just Happened? This week, I thought we’d try something similar to “slow radio”. So sit back, relax, and just… glide at 0.1m per second.

Euan is the host of Zelda Dungeon’s Speedrunning series, Zelda Runners. He can be found on Twitter and he lied to you in the last article – he can’t be writing his dissertation at 1 word a day because he hasn’t written 1 word yet.

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