Difference between revisions of "Darksiders"

Revision as of 08:47, 18 November 2017

General Information

This guide will cover the Warmastered Edition of the game on PC, using the most current version. Keyboard and mouse are the preferred method for speedrunning, as it allows for more precision and extra keybinds that make the run much faster. The spec requirements are not demanding, but if you notice excess loading hiccups while playing, lowering the Texture Quality in the advanced options settings should alleviate them. Framerate is incredibly important, however, it affects things like attack speed and the physics glitches, so if you're getting under 60-100 it's recommended to play in a lower resolution window so that the tricks work properly.

Timing is done with the in-game timer. It's active anytime the game world, so in-game cutscenes count toward your time, but menus, Vulgrim's shop, and movie cutscenes do not. All movie cutscenes can be skipped by holding RMB. The game's difficulty settings don't have an impact on the time, so everyone plays on Apocalyptic. The only difference is that enemies deal more damage to War, so while learning it's advised to play on Easy for the couple of fights that might be tough.

Glossary:

• Focus: This game's version of Z-targeting, activated by holding Shift or toggled with F. Locks onto the closest enemy and generally behaves as a Zelda Z-target would.
• Q-mode: Aim mode. Gets canceled with weapon attacks, but not Gear usage.
• Gear: Sub-weapon.

General Tricks and Glitches:

Listed in order of appearance, covering what is required on the any% route.

Sword-Dashing:

This is the main form of movement for the first third of the run, it chains the sword uppercut with War’s dash to move much faster than normal. It’s performed by holding Focus (Shift), then dashing (Alt) with A|S|D to go backwards or sideways, then holding LMB to interrupt the end of the animation with the sword uppercut. Continue to hold Shift, a direction, and LMB while tapping Alt to cancel the sword uppercut into as many dashes as you want.

The main limit to this skill, one you’ll see repeatedly anytime Focus is involved, is that you can only move sideways or backwards. Forward uses a different dash that can’t be chained, so it’s important to practice your movements and learn how to use the minimap effectively. The other hindrance is that, since Focus locks on the closest enemy, there are some sections where backdashing isn’t a viable option.

Rebinding dash to your mouse’s scroll wheel is highly recommended, since you’ll be able to spam dash much faster. This guide will assume dash is on Alt and Down Scroll. A free-scroll mouse makes this trick even more effective.

AirBlock:

In the prologue, War is able to gain some additional height in the air by Blocking (Alt). In order to block in the air, you have to let go of all movement keys, most easily done by rocking your hand from W to Alt and back. If you start a sword swing just before, you can get a little additional height, as well. The other benefit to the sword swing is that it pauses you in midair, so you don't have to be as quick when going from W to Alt.

Carglitch:

A physics glitch that causes thrown cars to get stuck partway into the wall, making a platform for War. It’s done by tossing a car at a wall from a short distance and while airborne so that it gets damaged before War’s throw animation completes, forcing the car model to load in with the door on the other side of the wall as the main body. After the throw is complete and as long as your framerate is high enough, it will stay stable due to however the game does physics. There are two instances of this glitch, each with their own setup.

Sword Canceling:

While attacking (LMB), if you tap Block (Alt) and follow with LMB as soon as you release block, War will cancel the first swing and be able to immediately start a second swing. Repeat this Alt-LMB combo as soon as your sword hits the enemy to deal way more damage than the game intended. The maneuver is awkward at first, it helps to start slow and work on consistency before spamming, the key is reducing the block time as much as you can. One trap people get caught in is to alternate between each, which means you either won't have your sword hit or your block time will be much too long. It's best to confirm the hit, then tap Alt and hit LMB as you release it. If you get stuck in the block animation, it's from not releasing Alt fast enough.

Savewarping:

A common speedrun exploit usable in a few areas of Darksiders. Making manual saves and reloading them is first done to move you across a room, but expands to load back in-bounds or skip to the destination when going through warp paths. Autosaves serve similar purposes and are used much more commonly than manual saves.

Fast Bomb:

Hitting a tossable sticky bomb with War’s sword before throwing it, so that it explodes almost instantly. Done by canceling out of sword swing with the Action (E) button, entering Q-mode, then throwing the bomb as soon as possible.

Infinite Jump:

The main method of breaking the game, the refinement of this trick over the years has completely transformed the run. While in mid-air, using a Gear with MMB (also recommended to bind to Up Scroll), then swapping Gears and jumping on the same frame will make War do a fresh ground jump. This requires 2 Gears and some rebinding to perform. The action “Next Gear” can be pressed at the same time as jump to easily perform the IJ on keyboard. Some runners have used F for Next Gear and Space for jump, two of us use 4 and 5 for Next Gear and the second Jump binding, respectively.

However you bind it, the instructions are pretty simple: Start on your first Gear (Horn or Gun), Double Jump in the air, use the Gear with Scroll Up, then press Jump and Next Gear 3 times and you should see War double jump again. The subweapon will get canceled with Jump and Next Gear, giving you the IJ, the next 2 presses of those keys rotate the Gear selection back to the first slot, letting you repeat the whole process. With the recommended bindings, the inputs are Space, Space, Up Scroll, F + Space, F + Space, F + Space, which you then repeat with Up Scroll, F + Space, F + Space, F + Space as much as you need.

From there, adding movement and midair dashing are the next steps. The skips in this guide will first teach the game forward, once you get a feel for the geometry of each area and can do the technique consistently, it’s not too difficult to transition to more advanced infinite jump movement.

Note: To gain the maximum height it is not helpful to spam the buttons. If you use the weapon when War begins his flip you should get the optimal height bonus. A lot of time in the run depends on how efficient one can Infinite Jump. Learning how to correct screw ups and how to be consistent are key to a good run!

Gundash

Another trick that’s fairly easy to pick up and enables very fast and fluid ground movement. Once you get the gun after clearing the second dungeon, it’s performed by holding Focus, moving backwards or sideways, then jumping, dashing, and shooting, all in quick succession. The gun will preserve your aerial momentum for a couple of seconds, so once you land, repeat the jump, dash, shoot process again to continue. This trick uses Focus, but is free from the normal limitation of needing an empty area since the gun won’t cancel the Q-mode. In areas with enemies, activate Q-mode and follow the normal steps for gundashing.

It's best to go sideways with the gundash, if you're going uphill backwards, sometimes the ground will interrupt the midair dash before the gunshot. One alternate method for fast, reliable gundashes is to hold Alt after the first dash, you won't get a second dash on the ground, but as soon as you jump you'll dash as soon as possible. Doing this saves time and eliminates a lot of the movement errors present with tapping Alt each time. Another thing to note is that it's possible to cancel dash too early with the gun, you'll always want to allow about .1 seconds between starting the dash and using the gun.

Horse Height Boost:

If War summons his horse while pressing against certain walls or in certain areas, he’ll get teleported into the air and jump off the horse. This is useful in one area so far, getting to the final boss without needing to go into the shadow realm.

Prologue

First Fight:

The goal of this fight is to kill the Car Thrower on top of the bus. Normally, he won't jump down until the first wave of minions is killed, but damaging him directly will force him to jump at you. During the intro cutscenes, hold D and tap Alt to dash to the right and end up near a lightpost. Grab the lamppost with the Action button and strafe back to the left until you're standing on the far left crack in the asphalt. The Car Thrower will still be in a roar, wait for his hands to go back in front of him, then throw the lamppost with Q-mode.

Once he recoils, stand still and hit Block (Alt) just as he's landing to counter, then spam V to go into Chaos form. This position should get a hit as you land from the Chaos Form, after which you can do the fast combo of LMB RMB LMB to kill him. Untransform with V and dash forward to the right side of the bus in front and wait for the cutscene.

Once the cutscene is finished, dash forward and slightly towards the building on the right, then hold focus. Doing this sets you up to always target an enemy in the starting zone, otherwise you have a risk of getting a bad camera angle. Since you're facing backwards, hold S and Sword-Dash to the end of the block, then hold A to go left into the cutscene.

Golem Skip:

The next section normally has a cutscene that weakens War by taking a bunch of his health tanks, but using the AirBlock you can skip over it and keep extra HP into the main game. After the cutscene, dash forward twice and grab the van on the left. Turn back toward the Golem, activate Q-mode, and throw the car below the Golem's feet and aimed within the median. The goal is that the car stops just in front of the foot, creating a platform to get onto it.

Once the angel cutscene is over, dash forward and jump onto your van. Double jump at the foot, then use the AirBlock to get on top. Double jump forward onto the Golem's hip and turn slightly left and double jump to the back. The platform here extends up pretty far, but is pretty thin, so stick towards the right side. Take note of the Golem's movement up and down as it struggles and look to the left at the JUNK poster where it's on fire. A leap of faith when the Golem's back is high and coupled with an AirBlock will get you onto an invisible platform here. Look forward again and doublejump up and AirBlock one last time to get on another invisible platform that lets you fall into the next zone.

Carglitch

Once you land, dash straight ahead to the second van and pick it up. The brick wall on the right has the vines needed to climb to the next section, but the bricks won't allow War to grab on, so you'll have to build yourself some platforms. Jump and throw the van a bit in front of the wall (similar to what you did on the Golem) then move forward to the white sedan, pick it up, and walk left into the cutscene. War will move slightly faster if he jumps while holding a car, but you don't want to try bunnyhopping, wait for him to get to normal walking speed, then jump. There's only enough space to do one jump before the cutscene, but after it's finished, you can do two more forward until you reach the brick wall. If you face it head on, you'll notice a small recessed area on the right, this is the perfect distance for performing the carglitch. Position War's body using the line where the main wall goes back to the recessed area, lining it up anywhere between War's shoulder and elbow. You also need to be pressed against the wall and have your camera perpendicular to the wall or very slightly to the right. Then, jump and throw the car. It's not necessary to throw it at the peak of your jump, about 60-80% of your jump height is ideal.

There are a few outcomes. The best outcome is that the car gets thrown forward, goes into its damaged state, then gets stuck in the wall as a stable platform. This means you did everything correctly. If War didn't throw the car, you were too far to the left or way too far to the right. If you throw it and it blows up, you weren't close enough to the wall. The other thing that can happen is that it stays, but bounces around a lot or slips out. This is a result of framerate, you'll want to lower the game resolution or textures to make sure you're maintaining a high framerate.

From here you should have the van nearby, jump on it and onto the car and look at the brick wall. There's a rather obvious ledge, but you can only stand on a small part of it next to the pillar to the right. Jump onto this and push forward and right to stand. Then double jump to the left and move into the wall, War should grab the vines and you can move up.

The next couple of sections play out normally, climb the vines, use the wire to cross the chasm, climb up the next set of vines and get to the next roof for the last skip in the prologue.

Fourth Fight Skip

Head to the far back left of the roof and look to the North. The intersection below is the next goal, but it requires using an invisible platform to get to. If you stand on the edge of the building, you'll see a big hole in the wall, our platform is near the bottom on the far side. Jumping out requires delaying your second jump until the first has nearly hit terminal velocity, then doing an AirBlock from the second to reset your falling speed.

There is a visual marker for when to do the second jump in the form of a window on the building. Two floors down, the second window out, where the hole in the building starts, the base of the window is the perfect point to double jump for distance. Then, about halfway to the other side of the hole, use AirBlock to reset your speed. You don't have to hug the wall, the platform extends out a little more than a body length to the left. If things went well, you should land next to the broken pillar and be standing midair. Jump straight forward to the intersection below and keep running forward.

Keep to the Easy half of the intersection, it contains the loading trigger for Straga, so if you wander too far West it may not load. Keep moving forward and enter the cutscene for the Prologue boss.