The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - Tail Cave and Bottle Grotto (TAS)

Channel:

Swordless Link

Subscribers:

40,000

Published on August 21, 2009 12:10:07 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIJOStYmIBk

Game:

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993)

Duration: 14:43

9,872 views

156

***READ BEFORE WATCHING***

This is more fun than MM, tbh.

I'm looking to obsolete the current all-dungeons run for Link's Awakening DX. This WIP goes until the end of Bottle Grotto.

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Frames saved so far: 2009 (33.48 seconds)
Rerecord count so far: 51954

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Notable differences to the previous run:

1. Better use of damage boosting. This is seen (and will continue to be seen) much more frequently in this run than in the previous one.

2. Better use of Saving & Quitting. This is something that was overlooked in many cases before, and can save a surprising amount of time. For example, it's used after getting the Yoshi Doll because it skips the text when you get it and also transports you back to the door.

3. Cornerboosting. Another thing that's still relatively "new" is the ability to boost off corners if you walk or jump diagonally into them. It can theoretically save up to 2 frames each time it's done, but in most cases, it only saves 1 frame due to the way diagonal walking works (I'm not going to explain this, it's complex and boring).

4. Shield boosting. If you press up and down at the same time and shield, Link will act like he's everywhere on the vertical plane that he's currently on. By that, I mean if you're at the top of a screen, and there's an enemy at the bottom, but vertically in line with Link, and you press up and down and shield, he'll bounce off the enemy as if he was right next to him. This can save quite a number of frames as shield boosting is faster than normal walking. This can be seen in the village after getting the Yoshi Doll.

5. The Piece of Power is now skipped. This was gotten in the previous run as it sped up dungeon two considerably. It's skipped here in favour of a S&Q reset after rescuing Bow Wow. In order to get the PoP to appear, you have to kill (I think) 38 enemies with no resetting in between (as resetting puts this number back to 0). But the time saved by S&Qing after Bow Wow was more than the time saved by getting the PoP, so it was skipped.

6. Ladder boosting. On ladders which are right next to a wall that you can partially be under while climbing the ladder (sort of how Link is "absorbed" into the wall a bit), if you press the direction to move him into the ladder at the right frame, it will boost him up quite considerably in the space of 1 frame. This saves a lot of frames on many ladders throughout the run.

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I should also explain the deal with the Roc's Feather.

It's faster to jump diagonally than it is to walk diagonally. This is why I jump all over the place. It basically works like this: Up, down, left and right walking is the same as up, down, left and right jumping. However, diagonal jumping is 1.5 (I think) times as fast as this, which means that you can cover the same horizontal or vertical distance as you could while going in a straight line, only gaining more height or distance at the same time. Hopefully that makes sense. It should do after you see it in action, anyway.

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This is a tool-assisted speedrun. It is not meant to show skill, but rather the game pushed to its limits. It is purely a form of entertainment.

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Thanks to Tompa for checking my progress almost every day and helping me save a few frames that I might've missed in places, as well as helping me understand how manipulation works for certain enemies (like the dungeon two boss, which was previously giving me a huge headache before he figured it out). Also thanks to duksandfish for giving me (yet another) gorgeous encode to upload.

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