DS Zelda Speedrun Bounty

Current bounty: $370

	Hello everyone! I'm Mr_Shasta. I've speedrun a lot of games in the past 6+ years or so, but most importantly here I've put a lot of time into speedrunning Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass and I have a desire to learn to run Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks this year too.

	While I think both runs are pretty fun speedgames, especially Phantom Hourglass which has a bit of brokenness in the latter half of the run, I think both of them would benefit greatly from more tricks or glitches found in the run. The only thing that has a significant impact on the Phantom Hourglass run currently is the existence of the Hammer and the fact you can get it before completing the Goron Temple and the Temple of Ice. You can clip the Hammer through walls to hit switches early, over gaps to hit switches early, and destroy enemies faster than with your sword. All of this saves at least 20 minutes if I had to take a guess. However the first half of the run is mostly movement optimizations with potential to be broken. Spirit Tracks has only a handful of timesaves though, with this being the only skip that I could find in the current world record, and I'm not sure how much time this saves personally https://youtu.be/_5VqizfXPP8?t=8140. That's why I'm putting out a $100 bounty on any significant timesave found for either run. Spirit Tracks needs it more IMO, but either of the two would benefit greatly from something big being found for the run. I would define a significant timesave as something that skips an intended part of the game, ideally saving at least a few minutes.

	Here are some ideas for both games as to what to look for and how much is estimated to be skipped if it were to be found:

Phantom Hourglass:

- Temple of the Ocean King Final Door Skip: This would skip the final door in the TotOK right before the bellum fight (the one you need to kill the phantoms to open), allowing us to skip ever needing to get the phantom sword and cutting out almost an hour of the run

- Early Sun Key: In the cave on Molida Island, on the ledge, lives a chest containing the Sun Key. Getting up to the chest would allow us to skip ever getting the Salvage Arm and getting the Sun Key Crest, cutting out 1 trip into the TotOK, in addition to skipping the green plant mini boss fight and saving roughly 14 minutes. Here's a video showing its location https://youtu.be/H4WxFEPwJBQ and a video of SolidifiedGaming almost getting up there https://youtu.be/yMI36m0Bus0

- Boss Key Skips: A method of a boss key skip is already known in Goron Temple, however with what we know there is no way to skip any of the other boss key doors. This specific trick is obsoleted by another trick in Goron Temple that was found later, but it could lead to interesting results elsewhere https://youtu.be/Z4cupNcYcUg

- Anouki Skip: If there was a way to skip the Anouki in front of the cave leading to the Temple of Ice on the Isle of Frost, you could skip doing the Anouki/Yook "Who Done It?" puzzle and all the dialogue there, saving upwards of 3 minutes

- Early Cannon: Behind Edo's shop on Cannon Island, there is a little stretch of land you can walk on. If we found a way to go from the outside left side of the shop onto the ledge behind the shop, this would skip needing to circle around the entire island. While this trick alone would only roughly roughly 2-3 minutes, a trick like this would be necessary if a way to skip beating Fire Temple was found.

- Early TotOK Save Point: In the middle of the Temple of the Ocean King is a crest door. In the any% speedrun, runners draw an hourglass on this door before going to Courage Temple to get the Sun Key Crest. Later on in the run, runners come back to this door a second time, instead drawing the Triforce to progress further into the dungeon, and in the next room after this door lies a save point where runners can warp back to this point later in the run, skipping having to revisit the beginning floors on the temple on the last visit. However, the trigger for being able to draw the triforce on this door is needing to talk to Zauz AFTER defeating the ghost ship. If a way to skip this requirement or this door in some way was found, this would save upwards of 8-9 minutes in the next to last trip to the TotOK.

All of these ideas contributed by Nyanasaur and ppltoast in the DS Zelda Discord.

Spirit Tracks:

- Mega Ice/Freight Car Skip: This one is probably the most realistic to get found. You need to get the Mega Ice to get rid of the lava pillar blocking off Goron Village. However that seems to be the only obstacle stopping you from talking to the Goron Elder and gaining access to Fire Sanctuary. If a way to get around the lava pillar was found, it would skip going to the Ice Realm, going to Anouki Village and getting the ice merchant, bringing him to Wellspring Station, buying ice, and bringing it to Goron Village, saving roughly 10 minutes. Additionally, that would be the only time you'd need the freight car for the Any% run, so it would skip having to talk to Kagoron to initiate that too, saving a few more minutes.

- Faster overworld movement: A way to move faster in the overworld would be pretty massive for both Any% and 100%. If a way to trick the game into thinking we're in the final train section before the last few bosses was found, it would easily save multiple minutes in Any%, for sure over an hour in 100%. That's just an idea, but any way to cut off time in overworld travel in the run would be huge for the game. Idea by Chaoslord in the DS Zelda Discord.

- Accessing floors in the Tower of Spirits early: According to Karaage, a speedrunner and TASer of the game in the DS Zelda Discord, all the doors are loaded in on the first visit to the Tower of Spirits. All you'd need is a moonjump or a way to clip up the tower and you could access later parts of the tower early! You'd still need to get the Ocean Seal because the game crashes if you don't have it, along with the Bow and Light Arrows to beat the game, the Cannon before accessing earlier floors so you don't die on the overworld, and the Sand Rod so you can get to the Light Arrows. In the end, this would ultimately skip most of the Ice Realm at least, and if Mega Ice Skip was found, it would save more time because you wouldn't need to unlock the right half of the map by playing the song in the Ice Sanctuary. Hard to guess how much would be saved in total from this, but I'd have to guess at least 30 minutes alone, and more on top of that if coupled with Mega Ice Skip.

	Of course if anything else is found that's not listed here that saves a good amount of time, that would still be eligible for the bounty! And if anyone else wants to contribute to the bounty, hit me up @MrShasta on Twitter or Shasta#6969 on Discord and I'll add your name here and the amount you're contributing!

Link to the DS Zelda Discord: https://discord.gg/j4RVczQ

Additional contributors:

$100 Macrepay
$50 Hornlitz
$100 Ben Stephens
$10 Heroine of Time
$10 Deesh