Zelda Runners – Water You Talking About?

Welcome back to another installment of Zelda Runners, our report of everything Zelda speedrunning! With runners returning from Awesome Games Done Quick, you might expect things to be a little quieter. Not the case! This week we’re covering a brand new Boss Key skip found in Wind Waker HD, taking an in-depth look at Twilight Princess‘ Water Temple, and chatting to a Majora’s Mask 3D runner and router. Let’s get started!

 

Now Playing

Of course the big news over the last two weeks was the conclusion of Awesome Games Done Quick 2019. This year, the week long marathon raised over $2.4 million for the chosen charity, the Prevent Cancer Foundation. That’s over $100,000 more than last year’s winter event. To catch up on any runs you missed, check out the event’s Youtube Channel, or watch on the Twitch Channel.

Personal highlights of the event were obviously the four Zelda runs which took place over the week, but also the Super Mario Odyssey Darker Side run, during which a massive donation train took place — well worth a watch if you’re looking for some hype!

A new Boss Key skip has been found in The Wind Waker HD! By using the speed increasing glitch known as Item Sliding, runners can clip Link out of the final room of the Forest Temple. From here, we can use the Deku Leaf to hop across some ledges that extend out of bounds, then fly into the loading zone behind the locked Boss Door. This will save approximately 3 minutes in a standard run. You can see the clip in action in this video.

Also this week:

• The ZeldaSpeedRuns 3D Relay Race is approaching! The event starts on the 26th of January, and features the six original 3D Zelda titles. 4 teams are competing for the ultimate prize (glory, obviously), including some names you might recognize from the Spotlight sections of these very articles! Over 16 hours, the estimated time for each team differs by only 44 seconds, so this promises to be an exciting event! You can catch the Relay Race on the ZeldaSpeedRuns Twitch Channel.
• A new version of the Ocarina of Time Randomizer has been released. Known as “Better OoT”, the release includes faster cutscenes (such as song collection cutscenes and the blue warp at the end of dungeons), faster text scrolling, and a variety of luck elements have been removed. You can find out more about this version here.

 

Glitch Exhibition

Just the mere mention of “The Water Temple” gives some people shivers down their spine. The Ocarina of Time version of the dungeon seems to have scarred people for life, and you might imagine its successor would do the same. From a casual stand point, Twilight Princess‘take on the Water Temple is a long winding dungeon, albeit nowhere near as complicated as the original. Thankfully, we don’t really need to worry about any of that as speedrunners, thanks to a handful of handy tricks.

As you’ll know, the key to any dungeon is making an entrance. Normally the game wants the player to collect the Zora Armor by saving Prince Ralis, involving a lengthy escort section and some generally boring gameplay. This is a touching storyline, but not one we’re particularly interested in, so we’re going to skip it.

We can do this thanks to a trick known as Early Lakebed. The entrance to the dungeon is underwater, and would normally require the player to sink down and blow up the rocks blocking the path, requiring the Zora Armor to provide air. However, by using the Iron Boots, we can sink Link down behind a pillar near the entrance. Un-equipping the boots and pushing Link forward as he floats to the surface will result in him clipping behind this pillar. From here, we can swim into the visible loading zone into the dungeon. The air leeway is fairly tight for this trick — a single failed attempt can lead to the player drowning.

Perfect, now we’re in the dungeon without ever having to collect the Zora Armor. “But Euan, what about the rest of the dungeon? It’s called the Water Temple, not the Water Entrance.” And you’d be right, there is quite a lot of dungeon between us and the Fused Shadow waiting for us at the end. But dungeons are long, and take time. So we’re going to skip it.

We can do this thanks to the Water Temple Boss Key Skip (shoutout to the Twilight Princess community for these fantastically imaginative names). Upon entering the main room of the dungeon, we can use the Clawshot to make our way on top of the large chandelier above the room. From here, we can sidehop to the right, down onto the banister of one of the staircases. Slash Link’s sword slowly (not fast enough to initiate a combo attack) until he slips and slides down, clipping into the banister. Backflip once, then charge a spin attack. In this position, Link will slowly be pushed out of the clip. Hold this until he has been pushed out slightly, then backflip three more times and walk slightly to the right. If done correctly, Link should fall through the staircase and into the chamber containing the entrance to the Boss Room.

So we’ve managed to enter both the dungeon and the boss fight without the need for Zora Armor. Unfortunately, things become a little trickier once the boss battle begins. You see, the boss of the Water Temple is Morpheel, a huge eel trapped in a chamber full to the brim with… water. Which, without the Armor, we can’t survive in for any longer than 20 seconds.

Or can we? Of course we can, I wouldn’t have taken you this far if we couldn’t! Cue another imaginative trick title!

By using Water Bombs, we can execute a trick known as Replenishing Air Meter (I don’t make the titles, I just explain them, ok?). Sink to the bottom of the arena using the Iron Boots (we have enough air to make it down), then take out a Water Bomb. Before the animation of taking the bomb out fully plays, open the Item Select menu and equip something over the Iron Boots, which will force them off Link. Hold the joystick in any direction, and close the menu. Keep Link moving and, should you need to refill your air at any point, simply drop the bomb to do so. This trick works in any body of water, not just in this boss fight!

And of course no speedrun would be complete without some tips and strategies for defeating a boss in record quick time. The first phase of this fight can be completed in one cycle, using a quickspin or jump attack on the eyeball. Once this has been done, use the above trick before the cutscene activates, but hold no direction on the joystick. Link will float up as the cutscene plays, leaving you in a much better position for the start of the next phase.

During this second phase it’s possible to re-grab Morpheel after dealing one round of damage by force un-equipping the Iron Boots (using the same method as above), and quickly using the Clawshot to grab back on. This is a very tricky technique, and won’t work at all under certain circumstances, such as when Morpheel is swimming upwards, or if she decides to turn sharply.

With the boss out of the way, all that’s left is to grab the Fused Shadow and get out of here! Oh and, pat yourself on the back. You’ve just completed a dungeon that takes most well over an hour to finish in approximately 15 minutes. Go have a cup of tea on me.

Spotlight

This week we’re chatting with Majora’s Mask 3D runner and router, TheWayfaringFox. I spoke to him about what makes the game so special, and about his routing process.

EC: Tell us a bit about yourself!

Fox: I am TheWayfaringFox (though people just call me Fox for short). I’ve currently been running Majora’s Mask 3D, although I have also run several other games in the past. These are most notably Super Mario 64 DS, Mario Party Advance (lol) and Ocarina of Time 3D. I currently have records in Super Mario 64 DS 150 Star (2:49;49) and Majora’s Mask 3D Glitchless Any% (2:55::11).

EC: How did you first get into speedrunning?

Fox: I had found several different speedruns that I wanted to try myself! These were the first few times I wanted to try to actually do speedruns online. Then, I stumbled on ZeldaSpeedRuns. The first people I met there were nice enough to help me out and really got me to stick around in that community.

EC: How do you go about routing the game? Is there a specific process you go through, or do you just take ideas and test them out, and go from there?

Fox: Routing is a process to me of trying new things and testing if the idea is faster than the previous one. Sometimes there might be ideas that literally do not work, and sometimes the idea is really good or even incredibly good. Normally before actually testing an idea I go about seeing if the idea works first, because timing an idea that does not work is entirely pointless. To do this effectively I like to have quite a bit of knowledge about the game I’m trying to route. This means I like to know where specific things are (in a Zelda game that means rupees, hearts, etc.), what glitches are the best to use (if the category isn’t a glitchless category), and so on. After testing an idea, my process generally repeats after finding another idea.

EC: You’ve mentioned having a good amount of knowledge of a game before routing helps. Does this knowledge help you in run situations too?

Fox: For the most part, the knowledge generally helps me if there’s an instance where I’m low on item supplies such as rupees. It can help in some other cases as well.

EC: All of your work currently is based on the 3D remake of the game. What draws you to the remake over the original? Would you ever consider running the older game?

Fox: I really like playing on handhelds! I chose Majora’s Mask 3D over its N64 counterpart mostly for this reason more than anything. I have considered running the older game for a few categories, but not all of them.

EC: What are your plans for the future? Do you plan on continuing with Majora’s Mask 3D for a while? Would you ever consider branching out to other Zelda titles?

Fox: For the future I plan to branch out to other games. I’m not entirely sure what I want to run yet. In regards to other Zelda titles, I’d most likely branch out to either the original Legend of Zelda game or the Oracle Series and give those a shot.

EC: If you could only run one category of one game for the rest of time, what would it be, and why?

Fox: When it really comes down to it, that goes to the Glitchless 100% category in Majora’s Mask 3D for me. That’s the category I enjoy running the most out of all of them.

You can catch TheWayfaringFox on Twitter and on their Twitch Channel.

 

Round Up

Adventure of Link

Reverse Boss Order. EnchantressOfNumbers – 51:09

 

A Link to the Past

Major Glitches, Reverse Boss Order. g3rdo – 1:08:36

Major Glitches, 100%, All HP. Lui – 1:15:18

No Major Glitches, 100%. Xelna – 1:41:32

 

Faces of Evil

All Cutscenes. Grumpmeister – 57:24

 

Wand of Gamelon

All Cutscenes. Grumpmeister – 59:24

 

Ocarina of Time

Blue%. Mr_ZG – 1:43:37

Glitchless, 100%, Unrestricted. realtimeattack64 – 5:39:02

Child Dungeons, Glitchless, Unrestricted. realtimeattack64 – 58:47

 

Majora’s Mask

Any%, New File, No ISG. gel – 3:07:10

Giant’s Mask. Pflaap – 35:10

 

Oracle of Ages + Seasons

100%. Drenn – 10:37:12

 

Oracle of Seasons

Any%. Drenn – 1:39:09

 

Twilight Princess

No Save + Quit. kejs – 3:13:10

100%. Adam – 6:35:49

 

Twilight Princess HD

All Dungeons. Jacquaid – 4:16:49

 

Breath of the Wild

All Main Quests, Original, No amiibo. Zdi – 3:21:19.160

Any%, Great Plateau, amiibo, Bug Limit. GrunkleDoc – 33:27

 

The Final Split

Not much to mention this week, as most are still coming off the high of Awesome Games Done Quick.

 

 

Majora’s Mask TAS Competition Task 2 – February 11th – The second task in the Majora’s Mask Tool Assisted Speedrun competition has been released, after the first ended on January 1st. You can see the results of the first task here, and the specifications for the second task can be seen adjacent. Good luck!

 

 

That’s all from me this week! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m away to set up the “Direct” ritual I perform at this time every year. It’s a bit like a rain dance, except instead of water, Reggie falls from the sky. It’s quite the sight.

Euan is the host of Zelda Dungeon’s Speedrunning series, Zelda Runners. He can be found on Twitter and Discord (Euan Crombie#9657), and he won’t be sleeping until we find out more about Animal Crossing for Switch. It’s gonna be a long month…