HotReason3183 VOD reivew (Dec 2025)

VOD reviewed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOF-vo982CM

Overall I feel like you are building a good foundation.  I didn't see any egregious routing (some checks were skipped maybe?  but perhaps I missed them), you knew for example to prioritize clearable crystal dungeons.  There are clearly some screens or check routes where you know the right thing to do, either via practice or via having seen other runners, but then there are other times when I feel like you don't have that so you just figure something out from scratch which is slower or involves a lot of backtracking.

High level takeaways:

- IMHO I feel like you can still learn a lot by simply watching a good runner and copying what they do.  You definitely don't have to replicate all of their fancy room strats, but just simple things like the way they sequence checks or route through Kakariko.  Knowing how to efficiently path through the world and string checks together in the "correct" (fastest) order, seemed to be a gap in your knowledge that I'd like to see you focus on.
- Count your dungeon items, either via a manual tracker or an auto-tracker.  A tracker will also help you notate dungeon prizes so you don't have to keep on checking your in-game map all the time.
- Start getting in the habit of quickswapping.  It saves a lot of time, but takes a while to get down -- you should start early.
- Some high value and/or low-hanging fruit glitches may start to help you out.  Things like silverless ganon, icebreaker/IPBJ, specky clip / herapot, etc.

Timestamped comments:

1:43 - There are two bushes that give you a 50% chance of a bomb drop, why not check both of them?  See http://alttp.mymm1.com/wiki/Bomb_Farming
3:20 - Kak routing, you did a lot of back and forth.  You are starting from the south end and after this you go north, so you want to do tavern and chicken hut before well and blind's hut
4:22 - Learn this once then you will never have to fail it again
6:32 - Pathing -- why are we going up and to the left when our goal is to go up and to the right?
7:28 - Pathing -- Go straight to lumberjack cave (north through the right-hand log), it's one screen to the east.  You went south, east, north, why?
8:08 - You spend 43 seconds walking from lumberjack cave to sanctuary.  But you can save and quit and start at sanctuary, which takes 10 seconds.
9:09 - Why walk the long way around the north?  Lift the light rock near where you screen transitioned.
10:12 - You are walking right past the dam which has two item checks.  Why not check it now?
11:11 - Should be faster to scout the item on desert ledge first, then S+Q out of agina's cave.  It takes too long to walk out of the cave.
18:00 - Count your items, or use a tracker that will do this for you.  You already collected all 6 items out of hyrule castle escape -- the only two things that remain are the map and the small key, so you're wasting a minute going to Zelda's cell.
23:10 - I don't like going to Hera here.  The big key could be in the basement locked by fire (like it was this seed) and you have no weapon to kill Moldorm.  I would prefer checking checkerboard cave/front of Desert Palace first.  Or going into Eastern.
27:30 - You already checked this earlier.
28:00 - Oops.
34:17 - Don't forget to look at the item on floating island first.  Also, check Spiral Cave now rather than jumping down.  It avoids an extra trip up Paradox Cave.
34:40 - Sucks.  There are some bombs in hera, or you could check your stun prize, but sometimes it's hard to think that far ahead.  At least you knew about the DW shop!
41:50 - If you had just checked these 4 chests first you wouldn't have had to get the rupees on floating island...
42:19 - Worth scouting the TR medallion requirement since you're already here.
42:58 - This was a waste of time right?
1:02:36 - Check your pathing.  After opening the second chest it's fastest to stay on that screen and then go east, then south.  You instead went south, north, east, which is an extra screen transition
1:07:18 - You had plenty of health here, but if you are trying to be safe, just use byrna (and turn it off during the times when blind is not vulnerable), it makes the fight very easy and you get your magic refilled afterwards anyways
1:09:52 - Rather than walk through the front half of Desert Palace again it's faster to just flute to 6 and take the portal and mirror straight to the back.  You still need to check Mire Shed too, right?
1:13:41 - See, you were literally right here...
1:18:58 - Your first hit here was with the sword poking (does half damage) instead of what you wanted, which was hitting with the sword spin (does double damage).
1:24:49 - Just go beat helmasaur first.  You're right there at the big key door anyways and you need to do it.  Afterwards you just walk in again for the rest of the items.
1:29:54 - Each arrow only does half the damage of a tempered sword slash (see https://alttp-wiki.net/index.php/Helmasaur).  Just use your sword.
1:32:45 - We didn't check pyramid ledge?
1:33:34 - Wasted like a minute since we should have known this was a small key
1:34:02 - If you're going to start at sanctuary you can check king's tomb before bonk rocks.
1:35:10 - On the other hand, if you're going to the dark world and going east, you should just wait on bonk rocks and do everything in one go.  You can check bonk rocks simply by mirroring.
1:36:15 - See, you can just mirror right here....
1:37:49 - I would strongly consider going to Catfish here.  It's the closest you're ever going to be.  Also, we still need to do old man rescue, right?
1:39:09 - Don't we still need to check mire shed?
1:44:00 - Just hookshot across to the statues
1:46:22 - There are only two items in mire and it's a really slow dungeon.  I'd strongly suggest doing ice palace instead.  But if your spidey sense is tingling or something that's fine
1:51:11 - Okay eff.  That woulda screwed me over on this seed haha
2:04:46 - Again, make sure you're counting items!
2:13:09 - Kill mothula first.  You have to anyways and moth might have your last item then you get to skip this entirely.
2:15:54 - It's faster to hookshot across the broken bridge then climb up through paradox cave
2:20:25 - Taking this bottom pipe is slower than going back the way you came
2:22:51 - You can dashbonk this wall instead of bombing it
2:28:02 - It's faster to mirror here, see https://alttpr.ddrkirby.com/dungeons/ganons-tower/#Mirror%20from%20Hope%20Room
2:30:39 - You only need the big key and two small keys to climb up to Aga2, and there's a small key on the way if you kill the mini-helma after the second torches room.  You don't need to continue searching the basement, that's 2 minutes of extra time spent for nothing
2:37:16 - Here's where you get your small key from the mini-helma