Knights Contract - skips in Episode 5
4I found two skips near the start of the level which save some tens of seconds.
0:00 - first of all: the loading screen into Episode 5 is unique and kind of glitchy. Heinrich is able to move during it, and much like in the original God of War, the playable character can pass through cutscene triggers without a problem inside loading screens. So rolling forward-right at a precise angle during the loading time allows you to skip the first snake fight, and this can be done on New Game-runs too.
(Note: the glitched loading screen also creates a few other odd side effects, but more about them in later videos.)
0:20 - then a second skip that is very much NG+ only. Like usual, we start by "phasing" through a nearby wall...
0:30 - this part requires the use of our shiny new Spirit Cannon. It's the only attack in the game that allows you to blow yourself up, which on the other hand opens up some new long jumping possibilities because Heinrich is knocked really quite far away while doing this!
After being blown to bits, there is some RNG on how fast Gretchen returns back to your side. Thankfully Gretchen can run through the corridor and its fight gauntlet without activating any triggers and thus avoiding any fuss... Overall this trick skips around 4 short fights, but it costs some time to setup as well - read more below - so the overall time save isn't that big. At least it looks cool.
(Note: in a NG+ speedrun the player won't have any special gauge at the start of Episode 5 because of the glitched Episode 4 completion, so this skip is mutually exclusive with the Episode 4 skip. The player COULD restart the level from Episode select to start over with full special meter, but that might not make sense rules-wise. After all, you can't restart the Episode from beginning in same conditions during a NG speedrun because the game doesn't create a new auto-save in Episode 5 after a glitched Episode 4 completion... according to the game, you've never reached that level yet. So what special justification would a NG+ run have to enter a level technically not reached yet? Or if it IS allowed in this case, why not directly go to Episode 20 while at it? It's just all kinds of iffy...)
0:59 - my suggest fight tactic for this part.
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