How is this speedrun possible? The Legend of Zelda World Record Speedrun Explained

on october 18th 2020 speedrunning history was made the legend of zelda was completed in under 28 minutes for the first time by lack attack yeah this world record speed one is nothing short of incredible let's break it down piece by piece and find out exactly how it was possible and what goes behind one of these runs this is the legend of zelda world record speedrun explained [Music] before we begin there are a few things to address first the stream layout has a lot of important information this is a replay of lag's personal best a 2804 the world record at the time as a reference of how much a head or behind he is this is his total attempt counter it was approximated because of a recent route change requiring a new set of splits but it's in the correct ballpark the splits are grouped by dungeon these are the split times of his personal best for every upcoming split which gets replaced by the currents run split time as he goes through them to the left of it is the differential with his personal best finally the third column is his best time ever to that particular point in the run being ahead of this time means that this is the best run ever to this point in addition to the stream layout there's gonna be a few more things on screen to help understand the run better a map of the current area with the route lack is taking to the next objective in this corner the current objective of whatever room he's in will be at the bottom and counters for both total and consecutive enemies killed without getting hit will be at the top the reason why this is useful will be made clear soon the last thing to clear up is the category the category is any percent no up a pressing both up in a on the second controller from the inventory screen brings up this menu which normally appears on the game over the continue option will bring link back to the start of a dungeon which can save roughly about 30 to 45 seconds over the course of the run however it's generally agreed upon by the zelda speedrunning community that avoiding the use of the up a menu makes for an overall better speed run so this category is about 8 times more popular than regular any percent also because this is the game over menu it would be possible to abuse death to warp so deaths are only tolerated if they don't save any time all right last run [Music] well that didn't quite look like natural movement did it this is called screen scrolling by positioning link exactly 5 pixels from the edge of the screen and pressing a perpendicular direction for a single frame he can magically bypass the edge of the screen and wrap around to the other side even through a solid wall but why the answer lies within the grid system the main screen is divided into blocks of 16 by 16 pixels just like most other nes games this is a feature of the console itself due to color palette limitations background tiles are almost always 16 by 16 pixels enemies move on the screen along this grid so they stay aligned with the blocks at all times because a 16 pixel grid would be a little too constraining for the player an 8 pixel grid is used for link for length to be able to move along a given axis he needs to be aligned with the grid along the other axis first so when he tries to move perpendicularly to his current alignment he first walks to the nearest intersection then turns and walks along his intended axis also collisions with blocks in the edge of the screen are only calculated on these intersections to make this grid system work any movement that would cross over a grid intersection is automatically stopped on it instead the way the game does this however is a bit unnecessarily convoluted and lends itself to be exploited there's a variable ranging from negative 8 to positive 8 that keeps track of links offset to the 8 pixel grid link walks in increments of 1 and a half pixels this half pixel called the subpixel is always rounded down so for the grid's purposes 1 and 1.5 are both equal to 1 and negative 1 and negative 0.5 are both rounded down to negative 1. whichever way link goes if his offset reaches either end he will be snapped back to the grid and that intersection will become the new offset 0. the snap to grid function is only used when link is at an end not at 0 even though it's also an intersection but when you think about it because link can only take up a few discrete points on the line he doesn't need to be snapped to the grid again if he moves back and forth this can change however when link is knocked back a damage knockback moves link by 32 pixels if he started here for example after moving by 32 pixels he can end up at offset negative 0.5 which is treated as negative 1 misaligned with the grid if he presses a perpendicular direction he will first need to walk to the nearest intersection in this case to the right that moves him by one and a half pixels to offset 1 which is again misaligned but in the other direction so on the next frame he moves to the nearest intersection this time to the left and ends up where he started back at negative 0.5 link is stuck in an endless back and forth never quite aligned with the grid this bug most likely showed up in development because the programmers implemented a correction when a perpendicular direction is pressed if the nearest intersection that link is about to move to is the one at offset 0 the grid offset is shifted by 8 so that he would now be moving towards an end allowing the snap to the intersection to happen this corrected the knockback issue but introduced a screen scroll glitch by positioning link exactly here at offset 3.0 and pressing a perpendicular direction for exactly one frame this sequence of events happens link is misaligned with the vertical grid so he needs to move to the nearest intersection which is to the left however that intersection is at offset zero so to make sure that he snapped to it correctly the grid offset is shifted eight pixels to the right until link reaches the intersection now link is at offset negative 5 and he moves to the left by one and a half pixels moving to negative 6.5 note that if he moves for a second frame he will end up at the intersection and everything will behave as normal which is why it's crucial that the direction is pressed for one single frame when link stops at offset negative 6.5 he is now at an irregular offset position and offset 0 is now at the edge of the screen length then moves to the right stopping at positions negative 0.5 and 1 skipping over 0 and 0.5 so he bypasses the grid intersection which in turn bypasses the collision detection with the edge of the screen this causes link's horizontal position to overflow past 255 and back to zero and so he wraps around and pops out on the other side of the screen note that link's position is on this corner of his sprite therefore the collision detection with the far left wall fails because at this point the wall is at zero and link is at 248 nowhere near the wall remember this is pixel perfect and a single frame button press every time lac does this trick while it can allow link to scroll the screen from inside walls and take major shortcuts it's also often used just to save a couple of seconds of walking you may wonder why lack took so long to enter the dungeon this was no mistake it turns out he was manipulating the dungeon's random enemy patterns by loading it on a specific frame you may be familiar with this concept from the nes mario games while the legend of zelda works the same way the game's random number generation function produces a new number on every frame and it goes through a long sequence that takes about 9 minutes to start repeating but the trick is when powering on the console the sequence always starts at exactly the same point every time so after a fixed number of frames the random number will always be the same between every reset because enemy behavior makes heavy use of this random function entering a screen on the correct frame can set their pattern to a favorable one note that because of another mechanic that we'll get to later there are still two possible enemy patterns on any given frame there's just one tiny problem though the game runs at 60 frames per second can lack attack really enter the dungeon frame perfectly well the answer is no he can't reliably do that but thankfully he doesn't need to because of frame rules a frame rule is a pattern that repeats itself on a fixed cycle of some length greater than one frame again this concept is very important in super mario brothers but it exists here as well this time the frame rule is tied to the animation when entering or exiting one of these caves which makes use of every fourth frame on a global timer that runs from power on this means that whenever link enters or exits a cave like this dungeon and this animation plays the game will always be aligned on a 4-frame rule this effectively reduces the possible outcomes when entering the dungeon from 60 per second to a much more manageable 15 per second to help time it right lac uses the music as an audio cue so for a minor time investment this manipulation makes the first dungeon much more reliable on top of saving upwards of 10 seconds compared to what would otherwise be considered a good enemy pattern [Music] here's the layout of level 3. like any other dungeon level 3 has a key item and a triforce piece typically the goal in every dungeon will be to collect the key item then defeat the boss and acquire the triforce piece in this case the key item is a raft which allows link to cross bodies of water opening up some parts of the overworld in red are rooms where lack will need to kill every enemy to progress or to be rewarded with something the blue rooms are where he will need to open up a wall with a bomb and green rooms have a key he can pick up lack will be taking this route to the raft then he'll make his way to the boss keep an eye on the map to follow along with this route yeah that can happen here are most of the enemies in the legend of zelda they all have unique behaviors and stats but they share this common property of being somewhat harmless in this speedrun they usually damage link through contact and sometimes a simple attack the blue ones are stronger than their red counterparts having more health and dealing more damage more complex enemies will be properly introduced as they are encountered so if any enemy isn't specifically talked about it's a relatively minor threat alright here we go this is a dark nut its main feature is its shield which blocks all incoming damage from the front this makes dark nuts especially challenging to kill although they can be damaged by bombs when a bomb is placed it inherits link's facing angle the bomb then retains that angle no matter if link turns after it's placed if that angle is facing the dark nut's shield when the bomb explodes the dark knot will block the damage so killing these enemies requires strategy when placing the bombs and a bit of luck with their movement pattern [Music] this hit was intentional remember that the enemies on any given screen use the random function to set their behavior this means that entering the dungeon at a specific time is only the first step of the enemy manipulation he also needs to play the dungeon at a metronomic pace entering every new screen on exactly the right frame taking a hit there is part of this setup as it is much more consistent to keep holding left than it is to change directions twice lack carries this perfect pace all the way to getting the raft at which point he will start playing normally and encountering random patterns all good [Music] this is a bubble although bubbles don't deal any damage to link when hit by them link will still recoil and have invincibility frames which is both a blessing and a curse literally the curse prevents him from using his sword for about two and a half seconds which can considerably slow down rooms where other enemies have to be killed to progress [Music] it's four frames how did link walk through the dark nut without getting hit well because the dark nut was taking damage during their invincibility frames enemies also can't damage link by contact but typically enemies also get knocked back when hit which prevents walking through them however because enemies can only move along the 16 pixel grid if they're misaligned with the grid and hit perpendicularly to their current movement axis they don't get knocked back and can be walked through it's four frames four frame because there is a frame rule when entering level three or any level so the level only loads every four frames yeah you gotta be in that four frame window to get any single pattern but you can get two there's two sets of patterns you can get [Music] this is man-handler a fire-spitting four-headed carnivorous plant every time one of its heads is killed it starts moving faster this boss can be quite challenging when fighting it with the sword but a perfectly placed bomb can kill all four heads at once and make quick work of this fight you may wonder what happened to the counters at the top man handle a score is supposed to be invulnerable but it can in fact be damaged by bombs it's actually vulnerable but invincible on every frame it's forced back to life if it took damage during the bomb explosion the core is killed and brought back to life on every frame causing the consecutive counters to increment very quickly the same thing will be done again later on glioc's detached head this sound is also the kill sound but played on every frame [Music] patience at the end of each dungeon link's health is replenished this is very useful but it does take time 43 frames per heart it's not a big deal in this case but in some extreme cases it can take up to 8 precious seconds to refill his health next lac is headed to level 4 which can only be accessed using the raft that he just got [Music] yeah it's like there's a bus [Music] imagine there's a bus no i i don't there is a manipulation for level four i do not do it here's the layout of level 4. in the purple rooms lack will need to kill every enemy then push a specific block to open the door or to reveal a secret staircase the key item in this dungeon is the ladder which allows link to cross one tile wide water obstacles on top of being required to beat this dungeon having the ladder speeds up rooms with water obstacles including a couple of rooms in level 1. after getting the ladder lack will make his way to the boss using a shortcut through bombable walls but taking a small detour to pick up a key for later this is not immediately obvious because the room is dark but link actually went through the block but how could he do that well it's simple it works exactly the same way as screen scrolling by lining up at the right spot and pressing perpendicular link misaligns himself with the grid in such a way that he bypasses the collision detection with the block note that lac used the sword here doing this actually makes the trick easier while slashing his sword link is prevented from moving which has two benefits one the trick actually works from two positions instead of one and two the press doesn't have to be a single frame as long as it's contained within the sword slash the reason this can't be used for a screen scroll is because link can't use his sword while he's near the edge of the screen possibly to prevent weapons from wrapping around to the other side although it can still happen block clips will be used in many similar rooms throughout the game to bypass the need to kill every enemy in the room then push a block to open the weight of the staircase do machu picchu here lack is lucky enough to get a bomb drop or is he nope there was no luck here in zelda enemy drops are not as random as they seem enemies are split in 5 groups all of which have different item drops and probabilities at any given point an enemy can only give a single item which item it is depends on how many enemies have been killed so far for example a red dark nut from group b has a 41 chance of dropping an item and depending on the kill count that item will be a rupee a heart a bomb or clock so by memorizing this table and by counting enemies killed from the beginning of the game lack can plan ahead to maximize his chances of getting bomb drops and other useful items that was a bomb on top of that every 10th enemy killed is guaranteed to drop a blue rupee if that 10th enemy is killed with a bomb the drop will be 4 bombs instead the game actually tells the player about this although some deduction is in order bombs are a crucial resource in this run given that lack's only other weapon for most of the run is the wooden sword throughout the run lack will be saying his enemy count out loud every now and then he needs to keep track of it at all times and plan out which enemy he wishes to be his 10th kill so he can get a guaranteed bomb drop he does sometimes want to get a rupee drop but usually he goes for bombs also there's another separate count going on at the same time but this one counts to 16. any item dropping enemy will drop a fairy if the counter is at 16. from now on these three counters will be called the global enemy counter the bomb counter and the fairy counter of course there are caveats first the forced drops require consecutive kills without taking damage or being knocked back at all this means that every time link is hit both the bomb counter and the fairy counter are reset to zero if the tenth enemy killed cannot drop an item the rupee or bomb will be stored until the next enemy that drops an item is killed however if the 16th enemy doesn't give an item then the fairy drop will be skipped entirely finally the bomb counter is reset every time any guaranteed drop happens even if it was delayed but the fairy counter isn't so after link is hit fairies can be forced only once after 16 enemies not every 16 enemies this also means that a fairy drop resets the bomb counter so after the 10th enemy bomb drop one would have to wait until the 26th to get another one unless with clever routing the fairy drop is skipped that also skips the bomb counter reset and a bomb can be acquired on the 20th enemy instead long story short many rules to remember many strategies possible and multiple counters to keep track of the counters are at the top of the screen if you want to keep track of them it's always nice yeah i kill the gels to add to the count i want to be it i want to force a five rupee in this in this year and the first time through so i need at least four people always look at you weird that's their fault this is gliock a two-headed dragon the heads take ten and six swords hits respectively and when a head is killed it flies around the room trying to hit link so this can be a tricky boss fight you may have noticed that link lost the ability to fire beams with his sword the beam sword has an ability that is automatically available when and only when link is at full health when he takes damage this not only resets the bomb counter but it also takes away the beam sword ability the beam sword speeds up many rooms sometimes significantly so whenever possible lag tries to keep his health full to make use of it next lak goes to level 1 using a straightforward route [Music] do [Music] yes one pirouette i'm paying attention i am locked in here's the layout of level 1. the bow can be found in this corner this weapon is used to defeat certain bosses including ganon so it can't be skipped afterwards the route to the boss is linear as you can see the lather from level 4 will speed up these two rooms but hold on what was that about a pirouette well look at this door here we go one only one it's magically open now how is that possible the answer has to do with how the game manages room transitions in dungeons when you think about it if link goes through a door in one room that same door needs to be open on the other side so whenever link enters one of the four doorways in a room the door on the opposite side of the next room where link will be coming out from is automatically opened in the case of a shutter door it will close behind link afterwards in this case when link enters the bottom doorway the game remembers to open the top door in the next room here however the doorway leads back to the overworld through the dungeon stairs which isn't the same as a screen transition so the door interaction doesn't take place and its state is preserved when link re-enters the dungeon the top door is opened saving one key note that this is the only place in the game where this can be done because nearly every other first room of a dungeon has no locked doors one only one i did do two earlier and then kept the run going [Music] turn that okay it should be 10. [Music] here the style focus is holding a key normally you would have to kill it to obtain the key but with a well-timed strike link can walk through it and grab the key on the way saving time you may also have noticed that link keeps moving during the sword animation this is because of the way the latter allows link to walk on water collision works by setting link's movement angle to zero essentially preventing him to move the latter restores that angle to allow him to walk anyway now using an item like the sword also roots link in place by setting his movement angle to zero during the animation as a result the latter also overrides that and link can move while slashing his sword when the ladder is deployed but there's another layer to this usually when link reaches the center of the ladder it stops over writing normal collision checks to ensure that he doesn't walk further than he should so the sword slash stops link at the intersection until the end of the animation but if link is moving up he can keep going anyway why the reason has to do with the 3d effect to achieve this effect even though link's sprite is by 16x16 pixels his collision box is only in the lower half of his body this allows him to partially overlap walls so long as his feet are on the ground but it posed a problem for the ladder to ensure that link doesn't walk too far out the ladder explicitly checks for collision 8 pixels further up than link would on to the next style if the tile is non-solid the latter overrides link's movement angle again to allow him to move so while link can move during a sword slash on a ladder in any direction he will keep going past the center of the ladder if and only if he's moving upwards one pirouette [Music] link slashes his sword while picking up the bow here because lack pressed a at the exact same time that he touched the bow this trick called the crotch sword for obvious reasons is a frame perfect button press all right i think most people watching are cheering for me to pb i would hope that i would hope that everybody is but you never know see counts five zero [Music] this is aquamantis it's a fairly easy boss taking only six hits or one bomb and two sword hits so lack makes quick work of it now that lack has beaten level 1 he goes to level 2 next he does take a detour to a secret cave for a bonus heart container this route picks up the magical sword later on which requires 12 hearts to wield and quadruples links sword damage so hard containers are not only a safety measure but also help drastically speed up the last few dungeons [Music] this pace means nothing just uh put your excitement down until you get through two and get through uh five then you can get excited after you get the recorder with two bombs this is just part of the cut scene to get to the part that matters here's the layout of level 2. the key item of level 2 the magical boomerang is not required to beat the game so it's skipped lack instead goes straight for the boss only slowing down to collect three keys by clearing some rooms yeah when it's over one percent that be the day okay it's not expecting that pattern these are mold dorms two worms with five segments that need to be killed individually thankfully bombs are amazing against them and lack dispatches them pretty much instantly it's actually okay this is dodongo this dinosaur eats bombs for breakfast but it hates smoke to kill it lack needs to neutralize it with a bomb explosion so he needs to place the bomb such that the dongo doesn't get a chance to eat it before it explodes yet close enough so that the smoke neutralizes the dongo after that a simple sword slash does the job oh my goodness i can't believe that that worked how nervous i was when i saw i had five bombs next lakh goes to level five but first he takes a quick trip to this secret cave to get a bonus 100 rupees later in this run lak needs to spend a total of 142 rupees 60 to buy the food an item used to get past a hungry gorilla at level 7 and 80 to buy arrows for his bow what about the last two rupees while there is a separate ammo count for bombs there isn't one for arrows instead arrows are shared with rupees one arrow costing one rupee the bone needs to be used a bare minimum of two times during the run but additional rupees might come in handy in a few spots when firing arrows is faster or safer than using the sword to get those 142 rupees black needs this secret 100 bonus and he gets 10 in this room in level 4. the remaining 32 have to come from killing enemies this is why he forces a blue rupee drop instead of a bomb drop in level 4 and why he sometimes goes out of his way to grab rupees generally speaking money isn't much of a problem in this run there are other route variations with more financial responsibility but not the route lack is using right now actually i'm glad i got hit by the koreas because i probably would have gotten fairies and then would have been sol on tadonga [Music] no use that shield [Music] [Music] the entrance to level 5 is normally accessible through this path and this map repeats itself until you go up 4 times so it's much faster to go to the right of it and to use a screen scroll to reach it from there instead note that it's impossible to screen scroll through walls from left to right and through walls that are thicker than one tile on each screen in both of those cases link would end up stuck in the wall instead if that wall had been any thicker lack would have had to take the long way around here's the layout of level 5. this dungeon holds the recorder the way the recorder works will be explained in a bit but it's definitely going to be a very useful item from now on it's all the way back in this corner but it can be reached quickly with this underground shortcut that connects these two rooms this room is an absolute nightmare though and we'll talk about it more when we get there after picking up the recorder lack will take this path to the boss let's get this bread stick this is a gibdo gibdos are slow but durable enemies so the main challenge when fighting them is to deal a lot of damage as quickly as possible like stalfos some of them hold bombs or keys and will drop them when they die this is a blue dark nut as usual blue dark nuts are stronger than their red counterparts but otherwise functionally the same they have double the hp they deal double the damage and they move faster blue dark nuts are some of the toughest enemies to kill especially in large numbers or when running low on bombs luckily lack doesn't need to kill these ones since he can clip through the block instead but next time he won't be so lucky [Music] come on and here's the room that for obvious reasons is called the recorder room it's one of the most crucial points in the run due to having to defeat six blue dark nuts with only the wooden sword and bombs they take eight hits or two bombs to kill each and they can kill link in only four hits at this point so it's difficult to survive and even harder to complete the room quickly this is why a few minutes earlier lack said this after you get the recorder with two bombs now's a good moment to talk about another important mechanic the movement pattern of zelda enemies there are a few different movement patterns but the most interesting enemies are aggressive but what does that mean it means that if they're lined up with their target every so often they have a chance to turn directly towards it they can also turn 90 degrees towards their target at any intersection based on a random timer as well even if they're not directly aligned in short aggressive enemies will generally go towards their target now the enemies can only have one target link right of course not that would be too simple enemies actually switch at random between two different targets link and the point directly opposite to link's position link and his mirror image called anti-link are therefore the two different targets enemies can choose the targets are switched at random every second or so but this can be delayed during screen transitions this is why even when entering a room on the same frame enemies can still have two different patterns one if they initially target link and one if they choose anti-link first you can see this in action here when link is on one side of the room sometimes dark nuts seem to be targeting the other side lack purposely positions himself near the middle of the room so that link and anti-link are close to each other which brings all the dark nuts together okay the room went well overall sure he could have done it faster but by completing it in under 20 seconds with full health and three bombs lack could continue the run still ahead of the world record lost all my time oh that's okay you get lucky that was not lucky this room however did not go too well lax slashed the gypto slightly too early and hit it before it was aligned with the grid which caused it to not get knocked back and allowed it to damage him this set him up for a series of small time losses first he lost the ability to use the beam sword this in turn forces him through a slower path in an incoming room losing about half a second also losing health means that he's going to lose time on the refill at the end of the dungeon to top it all off he tried going back for the heart to mitigate the time loss but missed it only wasting more time but wait there's more taking damage also reset his bomb counter from 8 back to zero he was trying to get a forced bomb drop from the gyptos but after taking damage and resetting his count he had to resort to killing a dodongo in the next room instead because the dongos can also target anti-link lack would subject to a small chance that dodongo would turn away from the bomb luckily the dongle ran into the bomb and black got his bomb drop but that could have spelled disaster in total the mistake ended up costing him about three seconds but it goes to show just how quickly the whole run can go south with just one tiny mistake it's really bad okay we're fine [Music] really annoying [Music] this is dig dogger it's invulnerable to link's attacks until he placed a recorder at which point it shrinks and starts moving faster it needs 8 hits to kill but remember that bombs do 4 damage [Music] the strategy is pretty clever since slack comes into the room with bombs equipped he can put down a bomb then switch to the recorder and make the boss vulnerable the bomb timer keeps running during the recorder song so it's a surefire immediate hit when it ends instead of using a second bomb to finish it off lack uses the sword for the remaining hits this is because he will need the recorder again just after leaving the dungeon switching between items on b takes a little over two seconds each time so avoiding the item menu can be faster than using the best item at all times all right what can go wrong [Music] yeah this run sucks lack will be going to level 7 next now that he has the recorder he can take a shortcut playing the recorder summons a whirlwind that warps link to the entrance of a dungeon that he's already completed it's possible to navigate between the dungeons by facing a direction when playing the recorder the game keeps a list of every completed dungeon in ascending order and a pointer at the last position link was sent to facing up or right moves the pointer to the following dungeon in the list and facing down or left moves it back one spot the pointer starts at level 1 so facing upper right brings link to level 2 and facing down or left brings him to the highest level he's completed so far in this case the closest dungeon to his next destination is level 4. so lack plays the recorder twice while facing down which brings the pointer to 5 then four remember this when he uses the recorder again later the pointer will still be on four yeah this run sucks next he needs to buy the meat and arrows from these two caves before making his way to level seven two full insurance here lack plays the recorder it's not relevant to the secret stairs and he doesn't actually want to warp here but he does it for three reasons first it increments the warp destination back to level 5 which will be useful later second for the same interaction with the bomb timer but this time with the rmos the armos normally takes one second to wake up so overlapping this timer with the recorder nullifies that weight finally it also saves time when spawning the shopkeeper in this screen levers use a timer that gets set to different values based on their current cycle the longest of which being just over 4 seconds when they're out and about when link enters the stairs these timers do not get re-initialized they just keep running until they expire but the thing is the shopkeeper appears in a puff of smoke and this animation reuses the timer of the first lever so depending on where the lever is in its cycle this can cause a time loss of up to three and a half seconds at worst but usually around a second or two playing the recorder gives time for the lever's long timer to expire which in turn speeds up the shopkeeper's appearance because it saves time in three different ways this is called the tricorder [Music] four six that's seven arrows too [Music] here's the layout of level seven to reach the back half of the dungeon black will need to get past this room by giving a hungry gorilla the food that he just bought the key item is the red candle and it can be found here it can be used to light up dark rooms but that's optional in the speedrun setting its real use will be to burn a bush blocking the entrance to level 8. the red candle is an upgrade to the blue candle but any of them can be used in this speedrun there's another route that opts to get the blue candle from a merchant in the overworld and skip the red candle both routes have their advantages and their drawbacks and neither of them comes out clearly on top in general the blue candle route is more money reliant and has a slightly different level order which in turn makes the early parts of the run less forgiving money isn't a problem in the red candle route but it can be harder in levels 5 and 7. after getting the candle the only way to the boss is through this underground passage [Music] well it was my aqua bomb still out still in [Music] foreign dig dogger is back with a vengeance this time it's a mini boss and it splits into three instead of only getting smaller so lack use a second bomb to dispatch it [Music] efficiently [Music] here's aquamantis again this time however it's much much stronger oops turns out it wasn't any stronger it's the same easy fight as level 1. alright good 7. next up is level 6 but before that lack will pick up a much needed attack upgrade the magical sword to wield it though he needs to have 12 hearts and he only has 10 so he picks up two bonus heart containers in the overworld here and here but wait he's all the way on the other side of the map well that's not a problem for lack this is called the world wrap the screen scroll glitch allows link to get out of the map's boundaries at which point link wraps around to the other side the overworld screens are ordered from left or right top to bottom in memory going to the left of this screen simply brings link to the end of the previous row so he goes one screen up and 15 to the right here lack is crossing the water like it's nothing normally the ladder only lets link cross a single tile of water but water tiles behave essentially the same as normal walls so positioning link at the right spot and pressing perpendicular for a frame lets him bypass the collision from touching water which allows him to cross more tiles remember that because link came from a screen scroll he doesn't collide with the first water block [Music] after picking up these two hard containers lack finally has 12 hearts and he can go to the magical sword all the way back on the other side of the map what just happened here this is the rook order named after its discoverer ruslux it looks fancy but it's actually pretty simple lac used the block clip to step onto the water then plate the recorder while facing up because the pointer was moved to level 5 earlier and because level 6 hasn't been beaten yet the pointer is moved to level 7 which is here now the whirlwind has a specific mechanic when it takes link to his destination it actually moves him horizontally and triggers a screen scroll to the right to make it so the next screen is the correct destination it sets lake's position to be whatever screen is to the left of that destination just before the screen scrolls meanwhile because link was to the left of the dock the whirlwind moved him to that square activating the raft which takes link up so the whirlwind moves link to the right and the raft moves him up both at the same time as a result link moves diagonally upright and he ends up reaching the edge of the screen facing up the scroll direction is based on link's facing angle so the screen is scrolled up instead of right remember that the recorder sets link's current screen to be one screen to the left of his destination but because he goes up instead of right he ends up one screen diagonally up left off of his intended destination since that destination was level 7 he ends up in the graveyard instead right next to the magical sword cave [Applause] got the sword now black is right next to level 6 so he can just walk there [Music] here's the layout of level 6. this dungeon contains the magical rod a powerful weapon that fires waves of magic and that is completely optional so it will be skipped the weight of the boss is pretty straightforward only requiring to clear a few rooms and reveal a secret staircase these are whiz robes the red and blue ones differ a bit more than most enemies so let's talk about them separately red wiz robes appear attack link with the spell and vanish to reappear somewhere else this makes them quite tricky to chase down and kill when necessary on top of that their spells deal 4 full hearts of damage so they can be extremely deadly instead of appearing periodically blue wiz robes walk around phasing through obstacles and occasionally phase diagonally as well they also attack link on sight with spells although blue whiz ropes have two and a half times the health and twice the contact damage as their red counterparts their spells only deal half the damage at two hearts each their durability makes them especially difficult to defeat quickly [Music] lack waited in the doorway for a fraction of a second the whiz robes were trying to spawn a line to link either horizontally or vertically by staying in the doorway the vertical alignment is unavailable forcing them to all line up in front of link this is a like-like they are very durable worm-like creatures that suck link in if they touch him damaging him in the process [Music] or like that [Music] so [Music] that's nice this is that was goma it can be one shot with an arrow alright let's go now lack placed a recorder twice while facing up so the counter goes back to level one then level two from here level 8 is very close to enter it he needs a red candle if he got from level 7 to burn a tree and reveal the staircase here's the layout of level 8. this dungeon has two key items the first one is the book of magic which improves the magical rod spell needless to say that's not going to be very useful the second one is literally a key item the magical key is a dungeon key with unlimited uses however with clever route planning lack already collects the exact amount of keys that he needs to beat the game and the detour needed to get the magical key simply isn't worth the two keys it would save on the way to the boss these two rooms are very challenging the first one contains five blue dark nuts and four fire breathing statues and the second one contains six blue dark nuts and two fire breathing statues clearing both rooms quickly is one of the most challenging parts of the run after that this underground passage leads to the boss and the triforce piece [Music] do it's worth noting that considering how difficult these rooms are and how easily one can lose 10 seconds or even more in each one of them this was a rather amazing outcome that was a bomb this is gliock from level four back with four heads instead of two this time aside from that the fight is functionally the same [Music] all right here we go it's time for level 9 which is here to get to it faster lack uses the recorder while facing down to go to level 1 and simply walks and screen scrolls his way to the final dungeon in the game [Music] the final level has the most daunting layout it's full of the most powerful enemies and riddled with secret passages linking otherwise isolated parts of the dungeon it's a nerve-wracking gauntlet that can end the run at the slightest mistake there are two key items here the first one is the red ring which cuts all incoming damage to one quarter effectively quadrupling link's health as useful as that is though it's not required and lag attack beats the game without any defense upgrades the other key item is the only one that can deal the final blow to ganon the silver arrow found in this corner to reach it black will need to go through this tunnel then go to this secret room behind a bombable wall which holds a secret tunnel that leads to another tunnel to a room with another secret staircase once the silver arrow is acquired it's go mode a secret staircase leads to these upper two rooms and one final tunnel brings link to a mini boss encounter and finally to gannon [Music] so [Music] got a clock coming this is patra for now this enemy can be bypassed with a combination of perfect positioning in a well-timed sword slash lack is able to leave the room without a fight the final petra will have to be defeated to open the door to ganon come on clock come on clock oh that was that was the last one it's fine [Music] seven o'clock [Music] i am not looking i have no idea [Music] all right would like a heart here lac needs one heart because when fighting the final petra having seven hearts allows him to be able to survive three hits instead of only two there was [Music] this is patra again this one has to be defeated to open the door to gannon it can almost exclusively be damaged with the sword on top of that the core is invulnerable until every orbiting eye is killed the outer eyes will spin in two different patterns at random so recognizing which pattern they're doing is key to clearing them as fast as [Music] possible [Music] all right this is it finally this is ganon he goes invisible and shoots fireballs at link but he always moves four blocks turning back if he hits a wall then turn 90 degrees towards link this typically results in ganon moving along one of these two squares once he's hit he teleports to one of two positions either here or here the location is random but it can be predicted when invisible ganon actually cycles through six different poses on every frame this cycle stops when he's hit so he shows one single pose while he's stunned for exactly 63 frames also ganon's next location depends on the parity of the global timer to the right on odd frames and to the left on even frames using this information it's possible to deduce where ganon will be after hitting him since the post cycle and the stun duration are both fixed the cycle can be divided into set a and set b in any given fight each of these sets will always go to each side of the room runners can use the first hit to find out which set goes to which side and predict gannon's next location for the rest of the fight this strategy is great on paper but in reality it's extremely difficult to process all of this information in a fraction of a second also going to the right side involves the risk of running into ganon which remember deals 4 hearts of contact damage so runners typically focus on survival and aim for the left side every time if that misses they have to wait for ganon to move to the center to hit him again also if the sword slash is timed bright and ganon is hit on the first possible frame he will stay on the same side and essentially be stun locked basically it boils down to this after the initial hit lack flips a coin if he wins the coin toss he gets to stun luck gannon if he doesn't he loses 2 seconds and flips the coin again with the magical sword ganon takes 4 hits let's see how that went as you can see black was quite unlucky and he guessed wrong all three times fortunately he was far enough ahead to still achieve the first ever 27. [Music] yes [Applause] [Music] oh man holy crap oh my god 25 i was 16 seconds ahead i can't even i lost so much time at the end but it doesn't matter i did it i did it 27. usually in these videos this is when i go through the possible improvements in the run but this one's a bit different the legend of zelda is a very unique speedrun even at the top level there isn't one clear-cut strategy to execute perfectly a large portion of the run is coming up with the fastest way to clear all the enemies reacting to their random patterns on the spot and using your limited toolset to its fullest extent all while juggling with internal counters and pulling off pixel-perfect tricks dozens of times there is no understating just how incredibly skillful this world record is and yet there's so much room left for improvement this minute break was an absolutely amazing achievement but as crazy as it sounds it might not even be the last one [Music] you

Channel: Bismuth

Views: 477,391

Rating: 4.934227 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: ACuk2TXoNhc

Length: 68min 52sec (4132 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/gabriel_sub0]

The amount of work in this video is astonishing, Bismuth's videos have helped me understand how a lot of speedruns go. My personal favorite so far has to be the DK 64 one.

[u/ChillOtter]

Awesome I love his videos

[u/wheniswhy]

A new Bismuth video?

And it’s an hour long?

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

[u/Drjasonkimball]

What a great video bismuth. I used to speedrun Zelda casually several years ago with Lack and crew (mostly randomizer runs, but a some vanilla as well) and I learned several new things from this video -- anti-link, tricorder, roocorder. Also loved the technical explanation about how screen scrolling works and why you can move while stabbing up with the ladder.

Congrats again to Lack on the great run as well!

[u/spoonguy123]

God DAMN I want the sheet music for that piano interpretation of the main theme. Sounds so gooooood baby

[u/srblan]

I love everything about his videos. Can't wait to settle in with some coffee.

[u/Stexen]

Me and my homies all love the bus metaphor

[u/Xemuth]

Thanks for this fresh gem !

[u/Pholhis]

Wow. I did not think I was going to finish this. I kid you not that this is exactly what I want from every speedrunning video. Super informative, concise, and great pacing. A+ content.