Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Gamecube any% and 100%)

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-15 09:09:12 am

Asco: 2014-06-15 08:19:17 am

Asco: 2014-06-15 08:17:19 am

Asco: 2014-06-15 08:15:07 am

Asco: 2014-06-15 08:12:25 am

Asco: 2014-06-15 08:11:07 am

2014-06-15 08:10:21 am

Alright so I've been playing around with the framerate glitch and have found a HUGE skip. In the ruins at the end of the game (The Tower of Dawn or whatever), where you're chasing Farah, you can get a boost from here:
(I don't have any video since I can't record and get a high framerate at the same time).

To here:

I can also confirm that this doesn't mess anything up, I beat the game after getting the skip*. This is a full minute saved if you can get the boost first time. I have no idea how hard it is to get since I cleared all the enemies except one when I got it. It's possible, indeed probable that you can get even further up.

*Actually I died on the jump to the pole, so it may be that you have to suicide. Luckily the place you end up is a respawn point.

EDIT: Going any higher and suiciding seems to despawn the lower floor where you boost from, so I don't think you can go much higher.

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-15 11:58:43 pm

2014-06-15 11:58:04 pm

I apologise for spamming the board right now but last night I found a skip for the Bridge Collapse cutscene! UCPro already has a skip for this on his channel, but that one requires you to get a bird in the right position and then jump into it.

My way of doing it should be consistent with a bit of practice, but for now I split it into two videos so I can get back to studying instead of getting a clean run.

Part 2 is the tricky part: If you roll too far you trigger the cutscene (and fall to your death). If you roll just a bit to the side you fall. Still, this should be possible to get consistent enough even for a single segment run.

SkeletN

Edit history:

SkeletN: 2014-06-17 04:43:28 am

2014-06-17 04:43:12 am

www.twitch.tv/skeletn

Wow. That's damn good again. Can't wait to try all of this, good job.

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-17 09:16:23 am

Asco: 2014-06-17 09:16:10 am

Asco: 2014-06-17 09:15:58 am

Asco: 2014-06-17 09:15:42 am

Asco: 2014-06-17 09:15:15 am

2014-06-17 09:13:27 am

Quote from SkeletN:

Wow. That's damn good again. Can't wait to try all of this, good job.

Cheers! This game is so much fun to play around with.

Here's a REALLY cool discovery I just made. You know how if you skip the observatory fight the next cutscene will trigger without Farah there and she won't pull the switch? Well who needs her anyway:

Grin

I don't really know the implications for this yet. Do you have to do the Hall of Learning fight to get Farah to follow you? Do you even need for her to follow you? This is clearly segmented only, by the way. That rewind trick is *really* hard to pull off. Also, what happens if you go back upstairs after triggering the next cutscene?

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-17 02:29:01 pm

Asco: 2014-06-17 01:44:11 pm

Asco: 2014-06-17 01:42:44 pm

2014-06-17 01:37:20 pm

New Mess Hall Skip!

Will just paste the video descrition here:

Alright, so this happened...

This was done from *after* the Mess Hall fight. I've tried to do it while Farah fights with the guards, but you get all the usual problems.

While trying this, sometimes the switch to open the door and the next zone wouldn't load. This is why I run around randomly outside, I don't know really know what the trigger is.
I *have* managed to get the skip without jumping down outside...

If you manage to get this combined with a fight skip, I think you have to die and respawn before pulling the first switch. Sometimes Farah won't show up there and I'm not entirely sure what the trigger is.

IF you can skip the fight like this it will save approximately 40-60 seconds (and at least 20 more seconds IGT wise, because of the run to the first loading trigger). Maybe more depending on optimisation possibilities.

I still haven't tested it when leaving Farah outside the Mess Hall, but I will. I'm seriously considering doing a segmented run that includes the FPS boost glitch and a bunch of new things. I have a lot of ideas, but I don't know if I have the time, and if my laptop can handle it.

Edit: On my channel I have a couple of unsuccessful attempts that include the fight skip. I believe this is possible.

New Mess Hall Skip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M7ReKX83Lw

Will just paste the video descrition here:

[i]Alright, so this happened...

This was done from *after* the Mess Hall fight. I've tried to do it while Farah fights with the guards, but you get all the usual problems.

While trying this, sometimes the switch to open the door and the next zone wouldn't load. This is why I run around randomly outside, I don't know really know what the trigger is.
I *have* managed to get the skip without jumping down outside...

If you manage to get this combined with a fight skip, I think you have to die and respawn before pulling the first switch. Sometimes Farah won't show up there and I'm not entirely sure what the trigger is.

IF you can skip the fight like this it will save approximately 40-60 seconds (and at least 20 more seconds IGT wise, because of the run to the first loading trigger). Maybe more depending on optimisation possibilities.[/i]

I still haven't tested it when leaving Farah outside the Mess Hall, but I will. I'm seriously considering doing a segmented run that includes the FPS boost glitch and a bunch of new things. I have a lot of ideas, but I don't know if I have the time, and if my laptop can handle it.

Edit: On my channel I have a couple of unsuccessful attempts that include the fight skip. I believe this is possible.

Solarplex

2014-06-18 12:20:30 am

Hi yall! I'm currently attempting to TAS this game over at TASVideos in the gamecube section,

if any runners love watching TAS videos and are willing to help critique my progress please feel free to drop me a PM on that site and I'll give you my skype.

I am slowly working and reworking my way through the game but very slowly due to not knowing skips (and of course real life events).

Reaver

2014-06-18 03:30:06 am

Really nice finds there Asco. Would really like to see a full run with these new timesavers being used.

Hi Solarplex. Would love to see a TAS of this game. There is a lot of material in this thread with a lot of skips and small timesavers that might help you out or give you some new ideas. Good luck with it.

Asco

2014-06-18 09:15:24 am

Hi Solarplex. Like Reaver I would love to see a TAS of the game, it has a lot of potential. I would also welcome what we could learn about the nature of the rewind glitch. For instance:
- Is a 100% consistent setup possible?
- If so, is the setup different between areas, and between actions (jump, wallrun etc.)?

We may also learn something about Farah's failstates, you never know.

Are you aware of the framerate glitch that only works on PC? A run on GC would still be incredible, just making sure you're informed.

Reaver: I really want to see a run of it too. I think trying a segmented run fits better with my schedule anyway. I will probably make a test run over the summer to see what route I need to take, what enemies to kill and so on. I may end up skipping so much that I won't have Haste ready for the elevator battle, but in that case I will have to deal with just one use of haste. We'll see what's fastest.

Solarplex

Edit history:

Solarplex: 2014-06-18 09:58:10 am

2014-06-18 09:57:36 am

Start @ :50

These are my first two TAS tests. I was trying to compare rolling vs walking. (both seem about same speed, rolling may be a few frames faster if were looking at straight-aways). One of the positive sides to TASing is that I can get the roll into the cutscenes perfect each time which is helpful. Dolphin Emulator has an issue though at the very end where you can see slow motion take over for the majority of that jump off the wall(to counteract part of it, I have to switch into landscape view).

Asco

2014-06-18 10:34:37 am

Great stuff. I don't think that's a problem with the emulator by the way, mine does that too. As you said you have to change view.

This would probably be a good time to test movement, before you get too far in your run. Long Wallrun vs. short wallruns vs. rolling vs. running.

It looks to me like after maybe 3 seconds of running, the prince picks up his pace. In places where you can get this I think running is faster than rolling.

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-18 12:34:51 pm

Asco: 2014-06-18 12:34:41 pm

Asco: 2014-06-18 12:34:36 pm

2014-06-18 11:55:39 am

I finally confirmed that you can skip the fight with my mess hall skip!

I figured out that the load trigger for the next zone is "on the bridge" which means that you have to do another jump and reload.

For fun, I also set up the second mirror puzzle in Hall of Learning before doing the first one, just to see what happens:

Pretty funny. By skipping the second part of the first cutscene you actually save around 8 or 9 seconds. All in all this is a lot of work for very little reward.

Reaver

2014-06-18 01:29:29 pm

Nice solarplex. I think you can negate that slow motion effect at the end by switching to landscape view then switching back to normal view.

In terms of movement I think roll is slower if I recall correctly as the Prince gets back to his feet after each roll. You keep more speed just by ordinary running. When I tested originally I felt that wallrunning was the fastest method of travel, but my tests perhaps weren't that accurate. It is definitely worth testing and should be more accurate on TAS to get a measure of what is fastest.

Looking forward to seeing more.

Solarplex

2014-06-18 03:38:41 pm

It seems very situational. Rolling is faster into cutscenes/short distances, Walking is faster than rolling for most distances, Wallrunning does seem faster than walking.

Note for all: This is a Tool-Assisted Video.

Start @ 3:00 if you've seen the other video.

Seeing that wallrunning is faster, I will go back and test areas to see if where I walk into of wallrun speeds up by a few frames, most of the time im cancelling the wallrun early so I can get more height on the next wallrun(for ladders).

Past 3:00 (in terms of UCPro's video this is segment 2), I mimic his wallrun to walljump to wallrun because that definitely is faster than rolling or walking. However I walk to the next wallrun where I should have went straight into a wallrun since I end up cancelling my wallrun to land just barely on the other side to put my foot down.

Reaver

2014-06-18 05:33:54 pm

I think the rolling into cutscenes is faster because when you roll you dive forward at a faster speed than walking and activate the cutscene a few frames quicker. Same if you a rolling over a short distance towards something requiring one roll. However over distances you are using multiple, successive rolls and there appears to be a tiny delay or slow down between each roll animation that would eventually add up to a more noticeable time loss. Nice work. Looking forward to seeing more.

Nice finds Asco. Especially the mess hall fight skip. I had tried that to get outside before but never took it that far or thought of doing what you've done.

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-19 04:53:42 pm

Asco: 2014-06-19 04:52:33 pm

Asco: 2014-06-19 03:51:44 pm

Asco: 2014-06-19 02:10:50 pm

Asco: 2014-06-19 02:00:41 pm

2014-06-19 01:58:17 pm

Thanks Reaver. I got a lot of inspiration from watching yours and UCPro's videos on how to use rewind tricks to find new stuff.

And an update! I figured out how to make Farah go through the door in Hall of Learning without finishing the fight. I don't know if this was known already, but there it is. This was necessary for the observatory fight skip to be viable - otherwise you'd just have to do the HoL fight instead. Now you just have to do the first wave, and considering you kill all but 1 from the first wave anyway, that's basically nothing. Still need to optimize this, can probably be quite a bit faster.
Here's the video, also shows that you can get through the observatory without Farah dying. After this you'd obviously do the rewind trick to the switch and continue. That segment is going to be pretty damn tough.

Oh, and I'm considering trying to see if I can do a Farah-less run of the game (that is, a challenge run where you're not allowed to let Farah help you get through the levels). I don't think it's possible with current strategies, here's the parts I believe you still can't do without her help:

- Sultans Zoo (Here I'm thinking a damage boost to the top might be possible, but I have yet to confirm)
- The bridge section before the mess hall (might also be possible with some load trigger manipulation and invisible ledge glitch.
- Turning bridge section after mess hall. (seriously doubt this is possible. Perhaps you can lure an enemy inside and boost off him. You'd still have to get through the door up top).
- Opening the door before hall of learning (almost certainly impossible).

If you could get it down to just the one before hall of learning, that'd be really cool. Might also find some new skips in the process.

Edit: After discovering the rewind trick to the switch after observatory, I've been curious about Farahs path. So I looked at it a bit and found something fun, another new skip! This doesn't really save enough time to be worthwile (especially since you don't have enough rewinds, you'd have to go back and kill 2 enemies), but I stil think it's pretty cool. Video also includes some fun tricks in the courtyard, especially a way to get back down without a rewind trick!

Thanks Reaver. I got a lot of inspiration from watching yours and UCPro's videos on how to use rewind tricks to find new stuff.

And an update! I figured out how to make Farah go through the door in Hall of Learning without finishing the fight. I don't know if this was known already, but there it is. This was necessary for the observatory fight skip to be viable - otherwise you'd just have to do the  HoL fight instead. Now you just have to do the first wave, and considering you kill all but 1 from the first wave anyway, that's basically nothing. Still need to optimize this, can probably be quite a bit faster.
Here's the video, also shows that you can get through the observatory without Farah dying. After this you'd obviously do the rewind trick to the switch and continue. That segment is going to be pretty damn tough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9rH5KL9ulI

Oh, and I'm considering trying to see if I can do a Farah-less run of the game (that is, a challenge run where you're not allowed to let Farah help you get through the levels). I don't think it's possible with current strategies, here's the parts I believe you still can't do without her help:

- Sultans Zoo (Here I'm thinking a damage boost to the top might be possible, but I have yet to confirm)
- The bridge section before the mess hall (might also be possible with some load trigger manipulation and invisible ledge glitch.
- Turning bridge section after mess hall. (seriously doubt this is possible. Perhaps you can lure an enemy inside and boost off him. You'd still have to get through the door up top).
- Opening the door before hall of learning (almost certainly impossible).

If you could get it down to just the one before hall of learning, that'd be really cool. Might also find some new skips in the process.

Edit: After discovering the rewind trick to the switch after observatory, I've been curious about Farahs path. So I looked at it a bit and found something fun, another new skip! This doesn't really save enough time to be worthwile (especially since you don't have enough rewinds, you'd have to go back and kill 2 enemies), but I stil think it's pretty cool. Video also includes some fun tricks in the courtyard, especially a way to get back down without a rewind trick!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d527tcylAhk

SkeletN

2014-06-21 12:15:59 pm

www.twitch.tv/skeletn

Wow. wow wow . I didn't see all of this and I started a run. Amazing, can't wait to play with that :p Maybe i'll be less salty in single segment lol.

Asco

2014-06-21 12:31:23 pm

Haha, most of this would be crazy to try in a SS run. The things I would include are bridge collapse skip and then I would try the drawbridge skip in the mess hall, if it fails pick up the sand cloud and try again, and only after that go for the scaffolding method. Even if you fail it twice you hardly waste any time. Doesn't matter if you skip the fight or not, you should still try it. My success rate on that rewind trick is around 50%, it's actually one of the easier ones, so you might as well go for it.

Asco

Edit history:

Asco: 2014-06-22 04:13:41 am

2014-06-21 04:13:21 pm

Ok, so big news here. I can't believe how much this game is getting broken at the moment but there it is. So what happened is that Satvara, the guy who originally found a lot of the speed tricks in this game, saw my Mess Hall/Drawbridge skip and remembered that he found a way to do it back in the day that he hadn't shared. It's faster and much more elegant than mine and the best part is that you don't have to lock Farah out of the mess hall!

A few extra comments on this: The fact that you only use 2 sands tanks means that you have 1 try to get the rewind glitch from the ledge in the next room while you wait for Farah to climb the steps to the switch.
It might even be possible to find a way to cross the bridge without using the rewind glitch.

And on the way to the mess hall, he found a new way to do Warehouse that skips all switches! Here it is:

When trying this I managed to hit the button before Farah died, which saves even more time. With all this new stuff I believe we might see sub 1:30 Single Segment at some point.

Ok, so big news here. I can't believe how much this game is getting broken at the moment but there it is. So what happened is that Satvara, the guy who originally found a lot of the speed tricks in this game, saw my Mess Hall/Drawbridge skip and remembered that he found a way to do it back in the day that he hadn't shared. It's faster and much more elegant than mine and the best part is that you don't have to lock Farah out of the mess hall!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXUXqA7s1AM&list=UUY_09BgeDcpYzLNCF8FC5-Q

A few extra comments on this: The fact that you only use 2 sands tanks means that you have 1 try to get the rewind glitch from the ledge in the next room while you wait for Farah to climb the steps to the switch.
It might even be possible to find a way to cross the bridge without using the rewind glitch.

And on the way to the mess hall, he found a new way to do Warehouse that skips all switches! Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGKlONotyJk&list=UUY_09BgeDcpYzLNCF8FC5-Q

When trying this I managed to hit the button before Farah died, which saves even more time. With all this new stuff I believe we might see sub 1:30 Single Segment at some point.

Solarplex

Edit history:

Solarplex: 2014-06-26 11:22:03 pm

2014-06-26 10:55:02 pm

Had a tiny bit of time to work on my TAS, only got a few more seconds into UCPro's Segment 3 which is the first time using the rewind tricks. At the moment, I am looking to figure out how early the load trigger can be hit that he sets up in his video. (Segment 3 new run video @ 1:15).

So far with very few tests to just attempt to see if I could get the rewind glitch successfully, I was able to start rewinding one swinging jump earlier than he does in his segment video. Saves a bit more than a second since you dont have to go through the extra swing animation.

~~I'll have a video up soon on it~~ and continue to see if the load trigger can be activated even earlier!

Asco

2014-06-27 02:21:50 pm

That looks really good. Not really much to comment on, it's clearly pretty much optimized. I assume the little turn at 1:00 is to rewind to the right place? Looks like you could maybe do the last jump a little further away from the wall? Would put you closer to where you need to go.

Solarplex

2014-06-29 12:55:25 am

Tried as close to the corner as possible before jumping over, but its just barely enough to make you miss the bars.

Here is the earliest frame for load trigger and farthest position from the wall(before jump)

Per

2014-06-30 12:11:58 pm

Not sure if you need this, but you can see from the balcony whether you hit the trigger or not: there's a brazier beyond the hole that only spawns when you load the next area. So you can swing on the bars, rewind, look, repeat etc. When I tested it a little while back I concluded I had to land on the far balcony to trigger, but that wasn't very rigorous.

Reaver

2014-06-30 01:15:11 pm

Nice stuff guys. I think the load trigger for the next section is much further away in the PC version compared to the GCN version. No idea why.

Asco

2014-07-01 02:55:21 am

Good tip Per.

Agreed Reaver. I just tested it and needed to go almost all the way to the balcony to hit the trigger. A guy on the TAS forum pointed out that you can do a jump off the wall to land on the ledge and wallrun instead of rewind tricking there. I've been messing around with that and will definitely incorporate it in my SS runs, it's not really that hard to do.

I've just spent a couple of hours in that section trying to skip the rubble walls etc. no luck so far though I felt like I got really close a couple of times.

Reaver

2014-07-01 03:00:22 am

I've tried skipping the rubble walls. Made it through a lot of the time, but the load triggers are often someplace in the middle of the route you were supposed to take. There are certain walls with ledges on that you can do the rewind trick on and get around the rubble. Tried that jumping off the wall too but I never seem to control it that well and always fly off to the side. Didn't think it was possible to actually do that.