The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

This game has a run page on SDA!

Welcome and thanks for clicking this link! Feel free to put more pedagogy in this page, as I'm not an expert with HTML codes or simply create a page. Also, you may or may not notice it, but I'm not native english. This page contains a lot of faults and whatnot.

This section will have an overview of the techniques used in every runs of The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past. This includes the any% run segmented, the Single Segment as well as the 100% Single Segment.

Save Warp (segmented)

This is a strategy in order to skip part of the travelling, but only can be used in segmented runs because it requires to save and quit.

When you save and quit in light world, you have the opportunity to restart in 3 different places, as long as you visited those yet. Those are:

1. Link's House
2. The Sanctuary
3. Death Mountain

You can teleport there at any moment during the game except if:

1. You didn't find Zelda yet, at the very beginning. You'll warp in your house automatically as it's the only place you visited yet.
2. You found zelda bout you didn't escape to the sanctuary with her yet. You'll be teleported in the cell where you found her.

In Dark World. No matter where you save quit in Dark World, you'll be teleported at the top of the pyramid.

Luck Manipulation

Luck manipulation requires luck 90% of the time. It is used mostly in the segmented run in order to lose the least time possible. The most evident part is when you fight aghanim, when he throws his balls. One of them is useless and waste time. In a segmented run, you can afford to restart until Aghanim gives you 0 or 1 useless ball, unlike his usual 4-5 uselss balls per fight.

Overall, luck can be manipulated but it's really hard to achieve in real-time. TASers can manipulate it as much as they want though.

Dash Attack: In Depth

How to travel with it efficiently

Using the dash attack is simple. Press A once you have the pegasus boots. But there's a way you can save frames from point A to point B, a subtle way that you may think it's longer but it's not.

Since it's really hard to explain, I'll let a video talk for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CBnIKIMbFQ

As you can see, I used two path to travel in the room. One of them used as much diagonal walking as possible, the other one did not. This is the key.

Diagonal walking is slower than straight walking. And even if it looks like I started the dash attack at the same time, I started earlier in path B. The next second I was ahead of my other self from path A... Not by much, but I really was.

It's also better to stop the dash attack when you're at a straight line from point B. Yet again, it is to prevent from diagonal walking.

Hitting a wall

When hitting a wall, link jumps 3 cases backward. This can be used to travel over holes of 2 cases or less, as long as you have a wall around to dash into.

Edge Cancel

When you want to jump off an edge, there is a second you are against it, uncapable of jumping immediately down. The edge cancel is a way to cut this second of waiting.

Edge cancel can be pulled off only when you have the pegasus boots. It simply consists of pressing A once you are against an edge.

Damage Boost

With bombs

A bomb, when placed at the right distance of link, can throw him 3 cases further. This can be used to travel over a gap of 2 cases or less. It is difficult, but with practice it can be done efficiently.

With enemies

When getting hit by an enemy,you are thrown away from them at a greater speed than normal walking, you are invincible for a second as well as "invisible". Many of these characteristics can be used in order to save time.

Two easy examples are in the eastern dungeon (the first one), where you're supposed to kill every ennemy to get the big key. You can also get hit by an ennemy to approach the protected bottle and remove it from there using invincibility. You get hit again, but you get on the switch that was under the bottle, get hit again but what's there? the chest for the big key! And no one got killed.

Another one is in the Ganon castle, the part with many teleports. The last one can be skipped by getting hit by an ennemy. You can walk over it without teleporting when you are invincible.

Mirror Shield Skip

If you completed the game, you probably had all the best equipement when facing Ganon. But you probably noticed that the blue and red mail were skippable. Okay, without these you die in 3 hits from any ennemy in Turtle's Rock, and you die in 2 Ganon hits, but it's still feasible.

The red round shield has really no purpose for anyone who played, but the huge mirror shield was, some time ago, a necessity to finish the game because of one room in Turtle's Rock. But it has been discovered that you can skip the mirror shield to!

There's a room in Turtle's Rock that you usually need the mirror shield to advance against the will of an eye on the wall shooting lasers. Going there gets you the last needed key to finish Turtle's Rock. However, the lasers have a really thin hitbox. It hits you only if you're totally in front of them.

To get the key despite the eye in the room, you have to be near the edge (not right in front of the eye) until you can't really go further. There's a wall that makes you have no choice but to face the eye, but the wall is very thin. If your timing is good, you can pass this spot without even get hit by the eye and get the key, but it's really hard.

Once you have the key, wait for the eye to stop shooting, and go pass the spot the eye can hit you and go one pixel above the range of the laser to not get hit while going back from this place of doom. If you did everything correctly, Congratulation! You just skipped the mirror shield!

Getting The Flute Sequence Skip (100%)

In the 100% run, after you get the flute, you need to go to the digging game which is right beside, but in the dark world.

When you catch the flute, the're usually this sequence when all the animals are escaping and the flute boy disappear. There's a way to skip this sequence.

When in the dark world, once you got the shovel, you have to teleport back in light world to dig the flute, but don't teleport anywhere! Teleport yourself exactly where you will cath the flute. Once in the light world, you have to undig the flute in order so it will be exactly in your warp, while still being invincible (otherwise you will teleport before you catch the flute). If done correctly, the message "you got the flute!" will appear and you'll warp back in dark world, skipping the flute boy sequence.

In Depth on bosses and some enemies

Coming soon