Theoretical Tricks

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There are a number of number of tricks that either would be particularly useful for speedrunning, or are close to being possible, but are not achievable outcomes with current knowledge. These theoretical skips are detailed below.

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Early Forest Temple

At the beginning of the game, the forest temple is blocked by boulders to prevent Link from getting in early. Getting into the Forest Temple early would not be particularly useful with current knowledge. However, it would be an interesting outcome to achieve and has a lead that could potentially be followed up on.

By getting the wooden sword at the start of the game, it is possible to do a jumpslash damage boost off of the bokoblins to get on top of the rocks' collision. From there it is possible to Look Through Clip into the wall over the rocks. The problem however, is that clipping directly through this wall results in getting crushed due to Link's body being inside a ceiling. This ceiling is also why the clip here works because Link's collision touches the ceiling while looking through the wall, and his position updates to getting pushed by the ceiling.

It is also possible to clip into the rocks themselves (as shown in the video below) and almost get through their janky collision to the loading zone, but so far nobody has managed to get all the way though. The rocks are constantly attempting to push Link upwards, while the ceiling pushes him downwards. This results in very janky collision behavior. Unfortunately, the ceiling gradually gets too low for Link to go far enough forward to get through the rocks completely.

Note: It is possible to perform this sequence break with a Pickup Slide. However, this takes multiple hours to perform, so a faster way of achieving the same result is desirable.

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Early Master Sword

Early Master Sword is a very useful sequence break on the Gamecube and Wii versions of Twilight Princess (page here). It allows for early access to warping as human link, transforming between human and wolf link at will, and a more powerful sword for early game combat. Access to these features earlier than intended allows for faster routing (you can warp instead of having to walk everywhere as human link) and additional sequence breaking (Gorge Skip becomes possible due to being able to transform into human link during Eldin Twilight) that would save a lot of time in most categories.

The developers of Twilight Princess HD made two changes to prevent players from being able to do EMS:

• The shadow beasts in the North Faron Woods only do fast attacks. Shadow Beasts normally have two types of attack animations, a fast one and a slow one. The slow one is necessary to perform the superjump required to get out of bounds in North Faron Woods. By changing the shadow beasts in this fight specifically, the superjump normally used for EMS becomes impossible to perform.
• New invisible walls were added to North Faron Woods. The collision in North Faron Woods on the Gamecube and Wii versions doesn't have any invisible walls around the area where the EMS superjump can be performed. See the two photos below for the collision difference between Gamecube (left) and HD (right). The HD collision was imported into the Gamecube Practice Rom for easier comparison. Red polygons are standable floor. Green polygons are walls. White polygons are standable floor that's perfectly flat.

The Two Problems

One of two problems must be overcome for a useful discovery of Early Master Sword.

1. Getting to the Sacred Grove as Wolf Link

With current knowledge, there is no way of being able to get to the Sacred Grove early as wolf link. If wolf link can get to the Sacred Grove, then that would be enough for Early Master Sword.

2. Getting Past the Howling Stone as Human Link

It is possible to reach the Sacred Grove early as human link. However, in the first room of the Sacred Grove there is a howling stone that you must howl at to make a wall disappear. Doing this allows access to the rest of the Sacred Grove. Human link cannot howl at this stone, meaning that some other way of getting past the first wall must be found. The rest of the Sacred Grove past the first wall is possible to complete as human link.

Note: It is possible to successfully get past the wall with a Pickup Slide. However, this takes multiple hours to perform, so a faster method of achieving the same outcome is desirable.