[ESA Winter 2022] A Link Between Worlds Any% run notes

Trick/skip notes: https://pastebin.com/nDxLDR33

Any% has to beat every dungeon in both Hyrule and Lorule, since we don’t have a way to enter a Lorule portal without getting the Master Sword and entering Hyrule Castle, and we have no way to enter Lorule Castle without obtaining all Sages.

At the start of the run, instead of following the sequence to obtain the sword, we use a damage boost to enter Death Mountain and skip the need for Power Gloves (refer to: Power Glove Skip). Entering the mountain unlocks Ravio’s Shop early. We want to activate the Weather Vane here to warp to it later, get at least 10 rupees, and deathwarp to go back to our house.

We get the Fire Rod for free since we don’t have enough money for it, and then also buy the Bow for 10 rupees. We continue the normal sequence to go to Sanctuary, get the Sword and Lamp (which unlocks equipping items). After finishing Sanctuary, we buy the Tornado Rod for 50 rupees, and go to Eastern Palace.

In Eastern Palace, we can skip getting the Boss Key by going out of bounds with the Tornado Rod and an Armos (refer to: Tornado Rod Lifting). The boss, Yuga, can only be hit with ranged weapons, so we use the Bow and carefully manipulate where he goes. Beating him unlocks merging into walls. This dungeon has a lot of rupees on the way out,, so we want to leave it with at least 280.

After Eastern Palace, we stop by the shop and get the Bombs and the Hammer. We cross the bridge to obtain Irene’s Bell, and walk all the way to Zora’s Domain to trigger a cutscene. After this cutscene, we can warp to Kakariko to buy the Smooth Gem for 200 rupees, and obtain the Pegasus Boots by merging behind Shady Guy. We also get a 100 rupee chest in the Kakariko prison. We warp back to Zora’s Domain and get the Flippers. The Flippers are not required right now, but they are 100% required to enter Swamp Palace later, so it’s important that we get them at some point. Starting now, I need random rupee drops all the way to 150 before Master Sword, or else I’ll need to specifically farm them later.

The second Hyrule dungeon is House of Gales in Lake Hylia. The Tornado Rod can be used here in many different ways, but the most important one is Skip Skip Skip (please call it this, it’s important) (refer to: Skip Skip Skip). The boss, Margomill, is fought by knocking every floor with a spin and a bomb, and then throwing bombs at the eye. Voiding out to regain all stamina is also important.

The third and final Hyrule dungeon is Tower of Hera, and on the way there you can run against a railing diagonally to skip a small cave section. Tower of Hera is a dungeon where the floor you’re on is determined by Link’s height, so we use Bombrods (see: Bombrod) to go up the tower very fast from out of bounds. Moldorm is the returning boss from ALttP, we use 3 arrows and a slash to its tail. Falling down the platform and going back up skips having to get the Heart Container.

To get the Master Sword, you need to go through 3 rounds of ghosts in Lost Woods. The way you have to go is not predetermined, but the way the ghosts move is always the same, so we just need to pay attention to some of them. On round 1, the ghost on the right goes to the correct way. On round 2, the ghosts in the upper and lower extremes go to the incorrect paths, so we take the remaining one. On round 3, it’s always south, no matter what.

After obtaining the Master Sword, visiting Ravio’s Shop unlocks Quick Equip, very important (refer to: Quick Equip Cancel), so we go there to also get Hookshot and Ice Rod. We need to visit Hyrule Castle but it’s in a weird mixed state, we still need to wait and talk to “Zelda” to advance. In the ascent to Hyrule Castle Tower, there’s an Out of Bounds using an Armos, similar to Eastern Palace. Yuga 2 splits into 3 copies, so you need to pay attention to the real one. After beating him, we take the first portal to Lorule, which unlocks the rest of the portals.

The dungeon order in Lorule is very open, as long as some dungeons that are close to each other are finished in succession, and as long as Thieves Hideout is last. We go to the Vacant House to get easy access to a portal from a warp point first. I’ll explain things in the order I play, but it’s important to note that it’s just my preference.

First is Swamp Palace. We skip escorting the Big Bomb by using the Ice Rod to clip into the dungeon (see: Ice Rod Clip). After that, we clip again to access the south-east room early, raise the water level, and use it to go out of bounds again. If successful, we can navigate out of bounds water, land halfway into the boss arena, and slowly walk to the stairs leading to the end of the dungeon. If not, we may have to fight Arrghus (refer to: Arrghus Skips). This entire sequence is the hardest trick in the run, hope I can make it look easy!

Desert Palace is close to Swamp, so it’s the next stop. The boss and sage painting are located in Lorule, while the dungeon is in Hyrule. However, we can go directly to the painting (refer to: Desert Skip). We use all three rods in succession: the Ice Rod to Clip in shallow water, the Tornado Rod to reach the upper platforms, and the Fire Rod (see: Fire Rod Boost) to go out of bounds in the area. From here, we can use the Boots to skip the boss entirely (see: Dash Slide), rescuing the best sage, Irene.

Skull Woods is next. This is a very long dungeon after all the skips before it, we have theorized that it could be skipped for years, but haven’t found any way to do it. Around the middle of it there’s a room we call “Party Room”, where I’ll try to make a wall appear from the wall and Tornado Rod up to it, skipping part of the puzzle. To get the boss key at the end of the dungeon, you need to escort 2 eyeballs to place near it, but you can do it with only 1, skipping an entire outdoors section (see: Eyeball Duplication). The boss, Knucklemaster, would be very long and annoying, but we can skip it (refer to: Knucklemaster Skip).

After that is Ice Ruins. Normally, you would need to go up Death Mountain in Hyrule and go through a lot of autoscrollers, but we can enter it from Lorule directly (refer to: . Ice Ruins has a central elevator that can be used to clip out of bounds, and then fall into the boss arena (refer to: Ice Ruins Skip).

Next is Dark Palace. There’s a long stealth section before entering it it, but we can skip a good part of it (refer to: Dark Maze Skip). Dark Palace is very dark, but also entirely glitchless, I won’t be using the Lamp but I swear there’s gameplay there. After going around the dungeon opening beams of light, a key and a midboss can be skipped by hitting the final switch with the Ice Rod, which is probably intended, thanks Nintendo. Gemasaur King has a mask that needs 4 bombs to break, so you can preplace 3 bombs before he spawns. He enrages after a few hits, and we need to light both torches in the room to make it vulnerable.

From the Dark Palace area, the area containing Turtle Rock is actually loaded, so we can go to it without returning to Hyrule (refer to: Turtle Rock Portal Skip). Normally you would need to rescue 3 turtles in the lake to enter the dungeon, but it can be skipped (refer to: Animation Storage, Turtles Skip). The majority of the dungeon is skipped, by going to B1F and clipping into the platform leading into the boss (refer to: Turtle Rock Boss Key Skip). Grinexx has a lot of RNG to it, in the first phase he can swim where we can’t hit him, and in the second phase we lose time and possibly health for every attack that isn’t the normal bite.

Thieves Hideout is the last normal dungeon, and it’s very long and mostly impossible to skip. After solving the first room with the statues, we use them again to clip through the floor and navigate to the midboss (refer to: Thieves Hideout Statue Clip). After that begins a long escort mission to take Thief Girl to the end of the dungeon, which is 100% required to both fight the boss, and reach the painting. Stalblind takes double damage from the Hammer, and it also double hits on phase 2, defeating him extremely quickly. Beating this dungeon last skips the cutscene of Link obtaining the Triforce, as it gets overwritten by the cutscene of receiving the Sand Rod.

After this, Lorule Castle is near the dungeon, so we dash to it directly. There are 4 trials in this final dungeon, but we skip all of them, of course, by going out of bounds in the Bomb Trial (see: Recoil Jump, Trials Skip).

Yuganon (or Yuga Ganon) is a scary boss that can deal 5 hearts of damage with a single attack, but it has no contact damage, so I want to stay as close as possible. It takes 64 sword hits and/or arrows to defeat phase 1. The first half is about adapting to attacks, but in the second half we can force him to do the trident throw attack over and over by shooting an arrow to where he reappears.

Phase 2 of Yuganon is tennis, for every hit you get pushed back so to make it fast I’ll be walking forwards to return the ball as soon as possible. After every round, we merge and hit Yuganon’s back with the Bow of Light, then get a few hits in to advance to the next round. After 3 rounds, I shoot an arrow to finish him off while standing next to Zelda, to trigger the next cutscene faster. After a small walk forwards, the run ends when interacting with the Triforce.