A Guide to Skyward Sword All Dungeons Routing

Skyward Sword All Dungeons Route (October 2022)

Plan:
I) Introduction
1.1) We need Faron BiT
1.2) We need the tunic
1.3) We need Batreaux

II) This category has two route ideas
2.1) The two routes
2.2) Why EBR is slower: mutually exclusive silent realm skips

III) The No EBR Route
3.1) Hook Beetle Skip
3.2) Entering and Beating AC
3.3) The Raising LMF RBM (This is actually the most important RBM in the run). Early Harp vs Late Harp.
3.4) Sand Sea Skip
3.5) Fire Sanctuary
3.6) The Dungeon Order of Late Harp
3.7) Eldin Statues
3.8) Tentalus Skip

IV) Conclusion

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I) Introduction:
1.1) We need Faron BiT

First of all, this category heavily uses Back in Time, and especially Faron BiT. Many big skips rely on it. This means we need to setup Faron BiT in some way. Like in any%, we use the Sky RBW setup because it's fast, and allows skipping the Sealed Grounds.

As you probably know, going to Faron in BiT using the Faron Pillar can be very annoying. We must avoid the statue selection crash. This means that, for any Faron BiT section, we must have either:
 - a file with harp
 - a file that has not watched SG intro

Our Faron BiT enabled file HAS WATCHED the SG intro (it is kind of weird to avoid it, although technically possible. Maybe looking into this would be interesting), and it won't get the harp because it's really slow to stay tunicless until harp (basically we need the tunic, see the next paragraph) and it's fast to get it while placing a tablet. If you don't get the tunic before lanayru, then your main file must skip the loftwing to even reach the lanayru pillar. This gets very weird afterwards so I won't talk about it. Doing a bed trick to bring an early game file to the harp or something like that is quite slow. Thus, at all points in the run, we must have:
- Our run file (the one that beats all the dungeons and Demise).
- A Faron BiT enabled file (with sky layer 3 and diving). It's usually an Eldin file so we have flags to enter Batreaux in BiT.
- Until our main file gets the harp (= after beating LMF), a file to enter the Faron Pillar (at least required for the AC CSWW, the GoT skip and raising LMF without activating nodes).

1.2) We need the tunic

If we skip every Imp fight, we need to get the green tunic in order to set the Skyloft layer to layer 4. This allows us to enter the Goddess Silent Realm on Skyloft. The ideal way to get the tunic is when placing one of the three tablets. However, getting the tunic means that our file is not an "early game file" anymore, which has various Back in Time consequences (can't do night-time crystal RBMs with it for example).

In routes that don't do EBR, we skip all imp fights, thus the tunic is hard required.

In routes that don't skip fireshield earrings and bottles, the pouch is also required, which also needs the tunic (you can technically get the pouch without the tunic but it adds a BiT and it's slow).

Thus tunic is by far better to get on the main file. Getting it on a different file would be enough to enter the Goddess Silent Realm (since we can open Sky Keep in BiT on our main file if another file has the stone of trials), but because we also need the tunic to reach lanayru if we don't skip rescuing the loftwing on the main file + needing the pouch if we get fireshield earrings, it is best to get the tunic on the main file.

1.3) We need Batreaux

Among the many big skips we have to do, we perform the Water Basin Skip RBM, and the Goddess Silent Realm RBM. These rely on having met Batreaux to be fast. It is very difficult to skip Batreaux in this category, as many many RBMs rely on him. You can get away without meeting Batreaux but you lose so much time it really is not worth it.

If you do a Batreaux RBM in Lanayru in order to get the harp early, this means you meet batreaux with a file with tunic, making night-time crystal RBMs impossible.

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II) This category has two route ideas
2.1) The two routes

This category has two main routes that are very similar in time. They revolve around the next question: Do we do EBR or not?

- The "normal" route, is what you would expect: go to each dungeon asap and beat them asap. This route goes straight to the point. Because Early Boss Rush (EBR) is not performed, this route needs to either open the Gate of Time (by beating Imp 2) or skip it with Cutscene Wrong Warping (CSWW) (the second of which is significantly faster).

- The EBR route: in this route, you do a massive detour to go to lanayru gorge early, perform minecart escort skip and early boss rush. This allows you to skip Imp 2 (by doing the Imp 2 refight), as well as going into Bokoblin Base early. Early Bokobase saves time as it allows you to get items early quicker (mainly clawshots to skip the lanayru silent realm, the gust bellows which skips a RBM in LMF, and the whip). Because Bokobase shares its scene flag space with the Volcano Summit, a RBM can also be performed to set the FS statue as visited, which also skips the Fireshield Earrings (and thus the eldin silent realm, the longest silent realm in the game).

2.2) Why EBR is slower: mutually exclusive silent realm skips

For a while, the EBR route was faster, mostly thanks to the fireshield earrings skip. But with the discovery of CSWW, the first route became faster. The main reason is quite complex and is related to the requirements to enter the Ancient Cistern.

To enter AC, one must normally obtain the water dragon scale (and thus do the faron silent realm). Entering that silent realm normally requires obtaining Farore's Courage in order to set the correct faron layer for the trial gate to appear. However, EBR can also set that layer (by doing the Imp 1 rematch), and thus, for a while, the EBR route could skip farore's courage but not the "normal" route.

However, it was discovered that one could enter AC with CSWW and skip the water scale, which saves a massive amount of time by skipping the faron trial. For the "classic" route, that also skips farore's courage! However, this is a big problem for the EBR route. See, to skip the fireshield earrings, the EBR route needs to RBM the statue in front of Fire Sanctuary during Bokoblin Base. The corresponding flag for that RBM that is easily accessible is set in lake floria by the entering AC cutscene. But this RBM is only possible by completing the faron silent realm! This makes skipping the water scale and the fireshield earrings mutually exclusive for the EBR route, and thus most of the timesave from the EBR route is gone.

(Note that it's actually possible to skip the fireshield earrings anyway without the scale using bed tricks and by completing bokobase, but that is even slower than doing the eldin silent realm so you can forget about it. There's also another corresponding flag to set the FS statue but it requires going to Hylia's Temple in BiT and having obtained the True Master Sword, which requires opening the GoT and beating Sky Keep early for a good Sealed Temple layer. But we need the bow before skykeep, and we need clawshots before sandship. So this means that RBM can't be done in our first Bokobase trip so... it's very messy and just very bad).

Thus the route doesn't do EBR anymore. Let's now see the important routing aspects of the "normal" route, which I shall call the No EBR Route.

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III) The No EBR Route
3.1) Hook Beetle Skip

The entire discussion that follows will assume that the hook beetle gets skipped. We probably haven't thought enough about what the route would look like if we got the hook beetle.

To skip the hook beetle, we want the whip in LMF (to whip the lever in the first room), and we also want the bow before LMF (to shoot the last timesfhit stone). A fast Sky Keep requires bow, gust bellows and whip. Thus the route order is locked to be AC/Sandship -> LMF -> Sky Keep. FS needs to be at least after AC/Sandship, otherwise Ghirahim 2 must be beaten with the Goddess Sword which is really slow, but right now we can't say when that dungeon is best placed. The current route does FS after Sky Keep, in order to use the sealed temple bottle to water the frogs quickly.

3.2) Entering and Beating AC

We are not performing EBR, and must skip the water scale to justify it. This means we are doing the AC CSWW. There are not too many requirements for it: we need to be saved at entrance 4, but that can be obtained in many places. However, beating AC without the scale can only be done 3 ways:
- performing the boss door RBM (it's a crystal RBM which requires Batreaux met on an early game file)
- having clawshots (to clip into the basement early) + lilypad skip
- or perform a RBW into AC (which is quite slow because it adds a Faron BiT). This third option is usually done with a Sealed Grounds Skip that is combined with the AC CSWW. But really, it is not that fast.

The current route settles with the first option.

3.3) The Raising LMF RBM (This is actually the most important RBM in the run). Early Harp vs Late Harp

An important skip which really makes the entire route is the RBM to raise LMF without activating the nodes. This RBM is always a huge pain to route because all of the methods have a lot of requirements to even perform. Whatever method you pick really locks your route into a specific order.

One method is to perform the RBM by charging a skyward strike in front of the closed GoT. This can also be combined with opening the GoT (which is the choice the EBR route settled with for a while). It's definitely the fastest version of this RBM as well. Unfortunately, this can only be done if we have the Master Sword from Fire Sanctuary, and if the GoT is already raised. Having the GoT already raised before this RBM requires grabbing the harp early with another file (otherwise the main file can't enter LMF, because the loading zone to LMF disappears if it already has the harp). Grabbing the harp early is not ideal : it means our Batreaux RBM is delayed until lanayru, thus Batreaux is not met on an early game file (remember, we assume we have the tunic in lanayru). This means we can't do AC until our first lanayru trip (beating AC fast after entering with the CSWW requires clawshots or batreaux met, both would be after getting to lanayru), and it prevents us from doing the crystal sand sea skip (we will talk about this later). Doing FS early for this can also be a bit painful (we will talk about this later). Choosing to do this version of the LMF RBM is what we refer as an Early Harp Route.

The second method is to perform the RBM with the skyview entering cutscene. This is also a difficult RBM because it requires deep woods layer 1 (file after SG intro but before beating skyview). We usually can't keep a deep woods layer 1 file long enough for this, so the best method we have is to steal the SG intro cutscene flag with an early game file (before SG Intro), and go to deep woods without reselecting any file. Maneuvering around faron woods in BiT without reselecting files can be done thanks to a file saved with faron woods scene flags, which we can get by bitsaving a file in Faron Woods during an earlier BiT. In the current route we use the AC CSWW for that BiTSave, and later we load that file and save it properly to get faron woods scene flags. We will call a route that chooses this RBM a Late Harp Route.

The current route is a Late Harp Route.

3.4) Sand Sea Skip

Sand Sea Skip is another RBM with annoying requirements. Once again, there are two methods.

The first method is to do the RBM with the loftwing prison crystal. This requires an early game file to meet Batreaux. This is what the current route does, by meeting Batreaux in Eldin, before getting the tunic. If we were to meet Batreaux in lanayru instead (in order to get the harp early), we would not have Batreaux on an early game file and this sand sea skip would not be possible. Thus, this RBM is only viable in a Late Harp Route.

The second method is to talk to the Goron at Behind the Temple before beating Earth Temple in BiT. This does not require Batreaux on an early game file, but it requires us to keep a file saved back in Eldin before beating ET. This actually causes a lot of trouble, and pretty much forces a very specific file setup onto us shall we choose to do an Early Harp Route. We must then have:
- an early game eldin file before beating ET for both sand sea skip and the flags required to meet Batreaux in BiT
- another file that obtained the harp early in order to raise the GoT for the LMF RBM
Since our third file slot is our run file, we're now out of file slots. This means for example that we can't get past the Gate at Behind the Temple because none of our files still have BtT layer 0, and every file skipped meeting Impa. This makes any Faron Woods BiT impossible. As a consequence, the AC CSWW must be performed before getting the harp early, but after getting clawshots (remember, can't do crystal RBMs in early harp), thus splitting Lanayru in at least two trips.

3.5) Fire Sanctuary

When to do FS ? It depends if we're doing Early Harp or Late Harp.

If you do Early Harp, then remember that you must get the Master Sword before the Raising LMF RBM. It is best done after AC or Sandship in order to have a good sword for Ghirahim 2. We would probably only have one bottle to enter FS which is a bit slow (but beating Sky Keep early, without gust bellows, is not much better as that adds a RBM as well).

This is where we get a problem related to file management. One big skip we want to perform in the route is the GoT skip (or alternatively the Credits Warp, but both require the same saved entrance anyway). It skips the Imp 2 fight and everything revolving around the opening of the Gate of Time (or the end gauntlet for the credits warp). This requires a savefile saved in room 2 entrance 5. The best way (and only way without EBR for Early Bokoblin Base) to get that is by copying a file after doing the eldin trial (which we are not skipping in the No EBR route). Hence we need to make a copy there. But over what file? Not over our Eldin Faron BiT enabled file (otherwise RIP going to the Sky in BiT), so it has to be over our early harp file/No SG intro file that we use to enter Faron in BiT. But then, how can we raise the GoT in BiT for the Raising LMF RBM without a harp file? This problem seems unsolvable. This route idea was quite messy to begin with. One thing we have tried to fix this was to bed trick our early game eldin file into lanayru to grab the harp early, but it is... not fast.

Thus our route does Late Harp. We choose to do Sky Keep before FS so we can enter FS quickly thanks to the bottle in Sealed Temple that we can grab after beating the dungeon. FS being last helps with file management, because the required copy for the GoT skip only occurs towards the end of the run.

3.6) The Dungeon Order of Late Harp

AC is done before Sandship because entering AC with CSWW works well from Skyloft after placing the Amber Tablet, and because doing all of lanayru in one sweep is pretty fast (we can fly from sandship to LMF quite quickly). From everything we gathered, we can conclude our dungeon order:

AC -> Sandship -> LMF -> Sky Keep -> FS

3.7) Eldin Statues

This is one small issue that also needs to be addressed to any router of this category. It is unrelated to the entire discussion before. To be able to select Eldin Statues, one MUST watch the Eldin Intro Cutscene. This is especially important in EBR routes since they want to skip fireshield earrings by flying to the statue in front of FS. It is closer to skippable otherwise. The current route watches that cutscene in order to fly to ascent later to do the eldin trial, but skipping that cutscene could be interesting, we would have to run to the trial from the entrance which is honestly not too bad with bombs.

3.8) Tentalus Skip

I know you like it, but routing-wise you can't always do it. This RBM requires a specific flag (Bx08) set on one of your files to spawn the Cursed Medal Chest early. This flag can only really be acquired in Eldin (shooting crystal in Thrill Digger Cave) or Ancient Cistern (Checking Rope Bird Statue, needs clawshot vine clip route or RBW route for AC). Tentalus Skip saves 1m50s, but getting the required flag always costs at least 50s, so the timesave is not much.

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IV) Conclusion

There are limits to the reasoning behind this long walkthrough of the route. First of all, I assumed we have to get the tunic before lanayru. I also assumed that we were skipping the hook beetle. It would be interesting to learn more about the consequences of getting the hook beetle to do LMF earlier, or the effects of RBMing the tunic later on. I also assumed our early game file has watched SG Intro. It's very weird to skip it but that's one thing you could think about.

The EBR Route actually prefers Early Harp. This is mostly due to the fact that EBR skips Imp 2 for free, without needing to do the GoT skip. Entering FS is also easier for EBR thanks to the FS Statue RBM which skips fireshield earrings and bottles. The Raising LMF RBM can thus be combined with opening the GoT quite easily.

Can we do the Credits Warp in EBR Routes then? Well, not really. Since we skip the eldin trial, we can't use that entrance for the Credits Warp, and we must use the eldin grotto entrance instead. This requires lava hops or beating bokobase (beating bokobase is slow, but it does allow another fireshield earrings skip using a guardian potion, but as I said earlier, it is not faster than doing the eldin trial anyway). Since we must copy the file saved at that entrance to another slot for the Credits Warp, we have to lose our harp file, and we end up with the same problem as Early Harp had. We have tried to fix this problem by bed tricking our early game eldin file to the harp but it's slow.