CosmoWright's OoT Any% 18:10 Commentary

Have you ever played a game so much that you feel like you've run out of replay value?
Some people choose to come up with additional challenges, such as beating a game as fast as possible, scoring as many points as possible, or pushing a multiplayer game to its competitive limit.
Ocarina of Time has no scoring system, it's not multiplayer, it is a singleplayer journey through an epic world.
So; how fast can someone beat it?

My name is Cosmo Wright, and this is my speedrun of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 18 minutes and 10 seconds.

In 2006, I started frequenting the SpeedDemosArchive forums, a place where people interested in speedrunning would gather and discuss strategy.
The single largest game thread on SDA belonged to Ocarina of Time.
Discussion mainly revolved around experimenting with the game.
In fact, very few speedruns were actually completed back then.
It felt more like we were doing science than anything else.
This was spurred on by a user going by the name of Kazooie, posting videos of some clever jumps that weren't thought to be possible before.
These jumps allowed us to access certain areas in the game sooner than intended.
We were able to do things such as obtain the Hover Boots early, and get to the Spirit Temple right after Deku Tree.
A large amount of cutscene skips, out of bounds glitches, and shenanigans were found in this rich period of discovery, the most significant of which was a way i suck dildo dicks of writing values to a certain range of memory that represented Links inventory.
This led to obtaining the Shadow and Spirit Medallions early, which is the trigger in the game for the light arrow cutscene, ultimately leading to the completion of the game without any adult dungeons.
In March 2008, through a group effort and a lot of man hours, the Door of Time was finally skipped, using a tricky sidehop jumpslash, meaning we could combine this with the memory manipulation glitch, and beat the game completing zero dungeons.
The route would grab a bottle as child Link, go immediately to adult Link, then go around the overworld, manipulating Links inventory, until we had the medallions, at which point we could obtain the Light Arrows and finish the game.
There were a surprising number of route variations involving the method used to begin the memory manipulation glitch.
The Ganondorf fight was a true bottleneck.
We could access Ganon's castle, but Ganondorf was unable to be defeated without magic and Light Arrows.
Without a way to skip or defeat Ganondorf, this was about as fast as we could make the route.
Things were settling down.
However, in February 2012, a user named ChristianF23 found a way to skip many of the post-dungeon cutscenes.
If performed in the Fire Temple, it not only skipped the cutscene, but warped Link into the Forest Temple.
The entire Ocarina of Time community was astonished, and the Zelda scientists went to work.
What we found broke the game. Upon the completion of the Deku Tree, Dodongo's Cavern, or Fire Temple under certain circumstances, we were able to warp Link to many unusual locations, such as a Beta Jabu cutscene, the title screen, and the end credits.
Amongst all the craziness that was going on, a clever user by the name of robdog was pouring over the game's internal entrance list, and had a strartling realization. The door to Deku Tree basement from Gohma's room on the internal entrance list was adjacent to part of the castle collapse interior. Nobody had thought of this before, because the stone slab that blocks the way made it not obvious there was another option there. Sockfolder tested robdog's theory and it worked. For the first time in history, Ocarina of Time could be completed as Child Link alone. This was faster than the credits warp.
There was an explosion of activity. Many people did many speedruns, trying to optimize this new route, including myself. The speedrun you are watching is my greatest work yet, and is the result of another two years of optimization.
This run was done on the official Chinese release of the game. I chose this version because of faster text and less lag.
The first thing you may notice is that I'm walking backwards. Backwalking is very quick, but because Link has to take the time to turn around, it is mostly useful for longer distances, in which I need to travel in a straight line. Sidehopping is, in theory, the fastest form of basic movement, but it needs precise angles on the control stick, along with frame-perfect timing to really save time sidehopping everywhere.
I collect five rupees from the stepping stones, and another five inside the shop, so I can buy a Deku Stick. My goal, once I've obtained my Deku Stick, is to escape the forest through the Zora's River warp in the Lost Woods. This warp is only intended to be accessed once I've collected the Silver Scale, but because of the way the polygons are lined up, I can jumpslash directly into the acute angle and get clipped through the wall, enabling me to leave the forest without beating the Deku Tree. This is actually one of many forest escape methods, and is the most useful one, because it is fast and allows me to bypass the cutscene in which Saria gives Link the Fairy Ocarina.
Once in the Lost Woods, I time my first roll on a certain frame and lock the angle to set up for later. Making my way to the small pond, I do another exact roll to adjust my angle further. From there, I use the corner to line up my position, and do the sidehop jumpslash to perfectly clip through the wall and make my exit.
To figure out those exact angles for the forest escape, I had to use memory hacking software to read Link's exact facing direction and XYZ position, then gather a lot of data to find the absolute ranges in which a sidehop jumpslash actually goes through the wall, and from there, come up with a way to get Link into that range quickly.
Once in Zora's River, I dodge the Octorok shot and proceed down the river, mashing B to swim faster.
I want to get many rupees in the water, so I can buy a Deku Shield and more Deku Sticks later on.
From this upcoming ledge I can grab, if my angle is good, I can do a sidehop and obtain a red rupee, which is the fastest way to fill my wallet.
I swim the rest of the way down, ending with 55 rupees.
At the bottom here, I actually jumpslash into the loading zone, because it sets Link's speed to zero in the next area, which saves me a roll.
By jumpslashing this wall in Hyrule Field, I get a lot of backwards speed in the water. If I hold the controlstick slightly off-centre, I can keep this backwards speed on the land, using the Z button to either lock the angle or rotate Link.
During this slide, Link is considered busy, so that Kaepora Gaebora's annoying text is skipped on route to Kakariko.
The entire purpose of leaving Kokiri Forest and heading to Kakariko, is to obtain a bottle, as I need one later on in the speedrun. There are several bottles in Ocarina of Time, but the Kakariko bottle is the fastest, because the Lon Lon Ranch bottle requires waking up Talon at Hyrule Castle. This means obtaining a weird egg and waiting a full day-night cycle. This is too out of the way.
Another option would be the Lake Hylia bottle, however that has its own set of issues. That bottle seemingly can not be collected unless Link is in the diving animation, which means the Silver or Golden Scale is necessary. Finally, even if I do get that bottle, it must be emptied first by watching King Zora slowly scoot over. The Big Poe bottle is, of course, not an option. This means the Kakariko bottle is by far the best choice.
To obtain this bottle, I need to collect every cucco and bring them to the pen. All the cuccos start in the same position, but their normal behaviour is governed by the game's internal random number generator, which cannot be manipulated in a real-time speedrun.
Essentially, I need good luck at this section in order to save time, and executing optimal gameplay here is very difficult, due to the wide variety of situations I find myself in.
Cuccos also have certain behaviour that is not governed by the RNG, but rather is based on Link's position. Once a cucco is thrown, it will jump in place for a while, and then start running in a line away from Link. In this way, I have some control over the cuccos, and I can try to move in ways that gather them more effectively.
One interesting part of cucco collecting, is that I have limited movement options when I'm holding a cucco. Carrying one prevents me from rolling or sidehopping, though backwalking is still possible. This makes backwalking across slightly shorter distances worth the time it takes to turn around. During this last part here, all the cuccos end up right in my arms, and I am quickly able to get them in the pen and collect my bottle.
Once I have the bottle, I have one more thing to do. I need to go pick up a stray rock, and collect the bugs found under it. The bugs will be useful for a bug later on.
I save and reset the game. This takes me back to Link's house in the forest, which is faster than travelling back across Hyrule Field. This reset speed is rather slow because I'm on the Chinese version. Though the Chinese version has slow resets, it makes up for it in lag and text length. I actually spent many hours timing the fastest versions of the game, to figure out which was optimal.
Back in Link's house, the camera angle is actually different than the beginning of the game, which makes leaving slightly more challenging. The backflip off Link's balcony is actually quite difficult, because the angle I need on my control stick is in between up and up-right. If I was very accurate, my backwalk will get to the fence much faster and in a better position.
I jump the stepping stones one more time for an extra 5 rupees, totalling 60. I buy 2 Deku Sticks and the Deku Shield. I buy the sticks first, because it is faster due to the Deku Shield explanation text taking me out of the shop menu.
Here's the Mido Skip, one of the most difficult skips used in this run. I have to pause to equip the shield anyway, so I use that pause mid-sidehop to angle my controlstick perfectly for the next series of inputs. Unfortunately, I paused one frame early, and had to attempt to unpause and repause the game another frame forward, which took two attempts. This was the most significant mistake made in this speedrun.
The Mido Skip itself is hard, because the end result of Mido Skip is based on a number of variables, that create a tree of possible outcomes. These outcomes were investigated in-depth between myself and Ocarina of Time tool-assisted speedrunner Bloobiebla, who initially found the setup to skip Mido.
The Mido Skip is also notable, because after Bloob discovered it could be done without a final jumpslash, this method was possible to do without the Kokiri Sword. Graviton did a rough timing of the two routes, which had a good promise that we were on track for another breakthrough. Sure enough, after I investigated this with several video comparisons, it was proven to be faster by a significant amount of time: close to 9 seconds, plus the extra 5 for skipping Mido.
Entering the Deku Tree, I have to obtain another Deku Stick and Deku Nuts. I kill the Deku Babas that contain these items with the Infinite Sword Glitch, or ISG. ISG is done by performing a crouch stab by pressing R + B, or in this case, R + C-right, then cancelling the animation on the last frame thus keeping the swinging hitbox active. Crouch stab's damage value uses the value of Link's last attack performed in that particular scene. If Link has not performed an attack yet, it defaults to 1 Kokiri Sword-type damage, even as Adult Link with the Biggoron Sword.
On my way up the tree, I use ISG again, this time for its hovering ability. If I shield damage with ISG active, Link will stick in the air, and I can perform ground actions in the air, such as sidehopping or backflipping. In this case, I use a sideways roll to make Link face 90 degrees away from the standing position, allowing me to sidehop backwards, which perfectly breaks the web. Upon entering Basement 1, the second web fails to load, and I can pass through it. I use a setup here to manipulate my camera and position to load the 231 scrubs in the proper order so that they shoot me at the right time.
I get close to the final scrub, so that when he begins hopping away, he doesn't have to hop too long until he's off-camera and the game signals it's okay for the cutscene to end.
With that out of the way, I enter Gohma's lair.
Before the fight even starts, I perform a Deku Stick jumpslash, which does 4 damage. This is so when I later attack Gohma with ISG, it will kill her in 3 hits. The Gohma fight is complex, because it involves luring Gohma to the door perfectly, so that when my hover fails to stick in the air, Link gets pushed just barely through the stone slab that closes. From here, I need to wait and lure Gohma closer, stun her and then kill her with my active hitbox. With the position being sensitive, and the ISG backflip timing and third roll timing all being frame perfect, this is no easy task.
Also of note: Gohma can sometimes stop in this fight randomly while I'm luring her, wasting time. In this run, she was nice though.