Legend of Zelda, The: A Link to the Past

SNES

leislonjose 27 Jun 2023 22:56

Thanks! I lowered my time to 4.18 just to be safe xD

So, the other half of the strat is an old friend of mine: pause-buffering!

As time went on and the inputs got more and more complicated, I wanted to find a way to simplify things. In real-time, I always lost a few frames from switching autofires in every corner, and without slowing down the game, I couldn't tell the difference to find out where I was losing time in each run. After a certain point, they all looked the same, and I got stuck doing 4.80-4.90 runs for a while xD

I hadn't completely discarded my pause-buffering strat (from back when I got my first 5.00 run xD), but I knew that using it again to go faster would introduce more luck based runs. For pausing to work well, I would have to know exactly what inputs were being pressed, both 1 frame before the pause and 1 frame after. But what if I could? What if I could map the autofire to the pause button, while somehow making it sync with the already autofired arrow keys to account for odd and even frames?

I began testing lots of button combinations, and as it turns out, that line of thought made me discover a powerful trick: If you hold AutoSelect + AutoY (in alternating frames), the game will be paused with Select, then unpaused by Y, then resume for exactly 1 frame before being paused again. That's it! With that I could decide what inputs to press at every single frame! It's not just pause-buffering, it's real-time frame-advancing (:

Like always, if I just beat your time with an average run using this newly found tech, you surely would be able to improve it and beat it again in no time xD To prepare for that, after many many tests with savestates and frame-advancing outside of RA, I created a TAS of this maze using every movement trick I know (basing it off of your run). If I'm not mistaken, my TAS' final time is... 4.18 seconds xD That means I replicated every. Single. Input! All with RTA frame-advancing!

leislonjose 27 Jun 2023 22:56

Explaining all those inputs and whatnot via text is getting close to unethical xD So I posted yet another diagram for you to visualize what the heck is going on, along with my new 4.18 run, my 4.18 TAS and the input file for the TAS:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1_Fy_sl23gvSvkABNUZafbGNdU_8FUumL

(Btw I changed the folder to a different account 'cause I was running out of space)

Alrighty! I suppose the waiting paid off (: Technically, I'm in #1 place for in-game time runs, and you're in #1 place for RTA - The same result from when I pause-buffered the DKC2 leaderboard xD And I bet you can still improve the TAS by 1 or 2 frames, the same way I can still improve my pauseless runs by trying out your complicated setup. Good luck on your attempts!

Luissi 28 Jun 2023 01:46

And I was thinking "surely he made some crazy glitch to skip a portion of the maze" hahaha
A TAS-like RTA, I didn't see that coming! That's crazier than I expected xD

In Bizhawk I was holding just one button to have two alternate inputs, like: hold 'A' to activate Left, Left+Right, Left ... and so on. I knew that would be extremely hard for you to keep up if you couldn't make a perfect 2px/f everytime in the corners. That's why I cited it sometimes to see if you could do it consistently with your emulator. Now I see that was not the case. Truth be said, my emulator was giving me advantage in this competition. Well this's not a problem for you anymore.

For some time I also had an idea of "pausing" to control the movement the best: I thought in using medallion, opening menu, using Select and such, but didn't thinked of using turbo to pause, you really did a great job at using all tools available to make a perfect run. Congrats for the creativity!

I did some annotations too when I did the old TAS, like "hold down+left for x frames, down for x frames and then left" but only in the sign section, to try to replicate in a lucky and "perfect" RTA run (before pixelporting). But didn't annotate all inputs and it's outdated now, so your input count will be very useful to save time making it again.

I'll be back if I can make a TAS faster than your run (never thought this sentence would ever make sense xD)

Luissi 28 Jun 2023 20:08

I can't believe I got nervous in the ending, even playing slow xD

Luissi 28 Jun 2023 21:40

Two frames saved, you hit the nail on the head xD The only part where I could save time was in the start of the pixelporting: similarly as what I did in my "no-pause" 4.53 run, I go up alternating between Left + Up and Left + Up + Down. That way, I don't need to stop walking to press Left, since I'm already looking to the side. I didn't know that it was faster until now, since when I discovered this, I always lost time going down in the start, but I used it anyway cause it was easier to do the pixelporting 'pauseless'. So I gained 1 frame per pixelporting.

This time around I posted it on Drive, since the built in Windows recorder captured it in low quality and YT dont show in 60 FPS in this case:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DD6HSmSeElejAyRBJj3tvsnGWiP7-A_W?usp=sharing

"10-Minutes Game: Fastest time to beat the race" xD
I think at this point only the .smv is worth watching. My run is 3 times bigger than your, as I didn't memorized the inputs and cannot play while reading it =D. So I did it a different way: I let the emulator on windowed mode to see the input annotations. I didn't used auto-fire in the directionals, only in the Select (and A). Luckily it worked xD

The windowed mode was the reason the capture of my run was low resolution. I posted it anyway (along with the .smv) so you can watch it a bit to understand better how I did if you want.

Good luck!

suspect15 1 Jul 2023 23:56

How much lower do you two think this can go?

Luissi 2 Jul 2023 01:46

Now that Leislon found and shared a way to do perfect IGT runs (and I learned it xD), unless a new time saving trick be found, I think it's not possible to go lower than 4.15 with current strats.

leislonjose 2 Jul 2023 21:40

@Luissi - And yet here we are: 4.10 seconds is possible! I just did it xD

I gotta say, I didn't know if it was possible to beat 4.15 after your latest run. You quickly improved on my work once again, showing me something I overlooked. "Two heads think better than one", heh? xD

I went right back to the drawing board. I watched more ALTTP TASes looking for possible improvements, and I eventually learned that you can pixelport right or left in very specific conditions. Link needs to be coming out of a 1-block wide horizontal corridor while facing the wall, so there's only one application in this maze. Plus, you can only use it once, at the very edge, since it works like a corner-boost that pushes Link away from the wall.

After re-watching the Full Inventory TAS carefully and downloading it to analyze the inputs, I was able to implement it in my little race TAS, saving 3 precious frames xD Combining it with your 4.15 improvements, I got a final time of 4.10 (:

Then I updated the diagram a bit, summarized all the inputs, and could finally do RTA attempts again xD Like you said, memorizing all the inputs isn't necessary, though at this point I'd say I got most of 'em memorized xD And like the last time (in my 4.21 and 4.18 runs), I played the game in windowed mode while looking at the race diagram on the side. I added a screenshot if you're curious to what it looks like xD Also, the only autofires used were Select and Y (held down during the whole maze, except the dropdown) and A (for the quick dropdown input).

As always, you can check out all the new content on my drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1_Fy_sl23gvSvkABNUZafbGNdU_8FUumL

I'm sure you know I will gladly come back to this everytime my record is beaten xD Good luck on breaking it, Luissi!

leislonjose 2 Jul 2023 21:41

@suspect15 - To answer the question, truth is, I don't know xD I'm pretty confident 4.10 can't be lowered with current strats, but Luissi could still find a different time-saving strat, like I did to his 4.15. If that happens, then I'll have to find a 2nd time-save, and so on xD In fact, I already have a couple ridiculous ideas that will probably never work xD

Thanks you two for keeping an eye on this leaderboard for a whole month (:

Luissi 3 Jul 2023 00:45

No problem! It's also been a lotta'fun to me trying to beat your records, so thanks too for the patience of coming over and over =D When you said you have a couple ideas with low probability working, it was like you're describing my current situation hahaha I'll be back again if I find something to be faster, like I always do (and you know it xD)

Luissi 4 Jul 2023 07:16

Yay, 3 more frames saved xD And to do this, I searched all over the maze for an application of your new tech. Luckily I found one near the sign!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DD6HSmSeElejAyRBJj3tvsnGWiP7-A_W?usp=sharing

I also tried to implement some plans I had annotated, but none worked. I'm officially ran out of ideas hahaha So unless some strat come out of nowhere in my head, you just need to break my record once more to be on top of this leaderboard for some years (or maybe for all eternity xD)

Good luck friend!

suspect15 5 Jul 2023 14:19

This has been unbelievable to watch unfold. Iron sharpens irons.

leislonjose 24 Jul 2023 20:43

Hey, small update here: In the past 3 weeks I've been looking for all sorts of glitches to help me break the 4.05 record. I learned a bunch of random stuff about this game during our competition xD And although I haven't been able to save time since that last run, I wanted to post a little playaround TAS I made during testing (20 seconds long, same drive as before). Basically a "Try not to WTF challenge" xD More glitch-hunting is needed, so back to the laboratory I go!

Luissi 25 Jul 2023 01:16

LMAO what did I just watch??? I never saw such crazyness in ALTTP hahahaha watched it about ten times and the more I see it, the less I understand what a heck is happening in this video xD But this isn't enough to keep my brain from creating clever explanations, like "Link traveled through dimensions to meet with Mario and learned jumping" xD

Luissi 2 Aug 2023 03:32

"I'm about to end this .05's whole career"

Luissi 2 Aug 2023 06:20

This is it... 3 frames saved by us for the third time in a row xD I don't know how this trick works very, but here goes the story: once again, I saw it in a TAS, but this time around there was no explanation of how to do it in the submission page. I was messing with inputs trying to do it in slow motion when I had the impression that I did a small "pixelport", like I saw in the video, but I wasn't recording since I just wanted to test. Then I tried many times again and I discovered how to do this in only a section of the maze: holding 🡠🡣🡢 by 3 frames, pressing 🡡 to proceed and 🡣 to try to go back, voilà! The game 'eject' you to the other side, similar to pixelporting!

I put my new run in the Drive (along with the screenshot of the inputs). The only part that matter starts at 0:48 and ends in 1:15. The trick saves just 1 frame but I did it 3 times. I tried to do it all along the course using similar inputs but I didn't find any more use, although I don't know if I missed something.

Luissi 2 Aug 2023 06:40

I found it first in a GBA run, but here's it done in the SNES version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLSBPKLvgUs
At 0:54 he does it a few times: near the rightmost bushes, and then from the south-east tip of the castle. I don't remember ever seeing it before, maybe because I only watched older TAS. The movements are different from mine except for the last inputs, but it's basically you need to enter a pixel (or close) in the wall, press directional to go forward for 1 frame and try to go back for 1 frame.

I was trying to find something to break your record in the GBA leaderboard when I found this, but luckily the two versions share similar mechanics so I could save more frames here xD

You must be aware that after the first second, the centesimals 00, 01 and 03 loops one more time in this race (also in the GBA version), so this time can't be lowered if we save just 3 frames or less.

That means 4 more frames to another sub. Although there's no way to know if there's something to gain time we didn't found yet, if you're still searching for something, I wish you good luck!

leislonjose 7 Aug 2023 16:55

Woah! I didn't expect this at all! I've been searching for about a month on another save, and you found it first! Congrats, friend! Stellar work xD

Btw, this game is so broken xD There are so many glitches to choose from that we can continue testing them for months! And for the first time in a while, I'm really close to making another major breakthrough (: I gotta keep looking on how to solve the last piece of the puzzle. I only found one pixel that works, and positioning Link there is so unpredictable that it's borderline impossible. If it does happen, then sub-4 has to be real xD And I'm telling you now that, if I do beat your time with this strat, I'm gonna hold posting the video until I'm absolutely certain you can't simply save a frame on it - That would beat the whole purpose of developing a brand new strat to claim #1 place xD

Also, I did notice there was something weird with the timer near the 4.00 mark, where it repeats some of the numbers. It's part of the reason I started looking for a big time-save. The full reason is that I didn't want to break your 4.05 record by only a single frame, because then I would be vulnerable to this sort of madness xD A stunning 3-frame save out of nowhere! You made it harder for me, but I won't give up!

Luissi 8 Aug 2023 21:32

This's very cool! If you found something, then I can see the sub-4 being possible xD I understand you holding your video in case you beat my record again, since I broke your 4.10 using the same tech you found (horizontal pixelporting). Even though I can say that I was destined to lower that time, now that I found this new tech hehehe

But seeing how hard it is to save a frame now, in case something go unnoticed by you again, I won't break your record using your own tech, unless I find another trick and only then I'll add your strat to lower the time, like we're doing at this point xD I like to be fair, so you can rest assured your hard work won't be in vain.

@suspect15 - Thanks for the compliment! In fact, everytime Leislon and me fight in a individual-level leaderboard, we end up doing records never seen before! But it's because he always find many many tricks to crush my times in every possible way, where I have in my side the extreme persistence to try to keep up xD Truth be said, he could have leaved when he broke my record one month ago and there wouldn't be much hope for me if he doesn't had shared his strats. Lucky me that he also likes competition xD

suspect15 9 Aug 2023 11:49

Iron sharpens iron.