Speedrunner Xelna
World Records Held: Any% (1h 23m 19s), 100% (1h 41m 53s), Low% (1h 24m 44s)
Shigeru Miyamoto once estimated that the average player would clear A Link to the Past in approximately 40 hours. Xelna, the current world record holder in multiple categories, can beat it in under two minutes.
While that’s an unusually quick time that makes use of a series of “out of bounds” glitches that send Link straight from his house to the Triforce at the end of the game, the more traditional speedruns are no less fascinating. “I have very fond memories of A Link to the Past from when I was a child,” says Xelna. “18-20 years later, I discovered Speedrunslive.com and Twitch. There was a whole community dedicated to speedrunning old games. On August 12, 2013, I stumbled upon Kryssstal’s stream (she only did one stream, four runs back to back). Back then, she was destroying the competition. I was very fortunate to be there. She broke the world record that day. That gameplay inspired me to pick up the game and speedrun it. I absolutely love execution-heavy games with cool-looking tricks and this is one of them. Little did I know I would still be at it today.”
To get an idea for what each run entails, Xelna helps break down the most common categories before diving into a few specific tricks:
Any%: The most popular category of the game. The player must beat the game as fast as possible, without using major glitches or using the Save and Quit feature. It’s just a good old “play through the game without skipping huge chunks of content” kind of run. I think that’s why it’s so popular, because it’s very accessible.
100% (No Major Glitches, No Save & Quit): Pretty much the same thing as the category explained above except you also have to collect all Heart Pieces, the half magic upgrade, and all inventory items to their maximum level. The bombs and arrows capacity upgrades are not required.
Master Sword (No Major Glitches, with Save and Quit): This technique is a very easy category to pick up and learn. All
you have to do is beat the three Light World pendant dungeons and rush to the Lost Woods to retrieve the Master Sword. It’s pretty straightforward. One run of this usually lasts around 22-26 minutes.
Reverse Boss Order (Everything Allowed): Using a ton of different glitches, it is possible to beat all the bosses in A Link to the Past in reverse order, starting from Ganon and finishing with the Armos Knights. The first 30 minutes of this run are item collection and walking around since you need to equip yourself to fight Ganon first and you can’t get the Pegasus Boots yet. This is a very fun and crazy run to watch.
So what constitutes a “major glitch”? “It’s a glitch that allows you to perform huge sequence breaks in the run thus skipping a lot of content,” explains Xelna. “There are three known major glitches to date.”
Out of Bounds (OoB): This glitch is performed by clipping through walls. Basically, you cheese the game’s collision detection to exit the boundaries. In most cases, they involve frame perfect inputs. To ensure that you move for only one frame, you can tap the D-pad in combination with either the Dash button or sword slashes.
Yuzuhara’s Bottle Adventure (YBA): Corrupting the memory of the game by using a potion in a bottle at the exact same time Link goes through a screen transition or a door. If used on the overworld (with a blue potion), it allows the player to use the Flute to fly around the overworld without even having the Flute in the inventory. If used indoors (dungeons or caves), it lets the player move two screens in the same direction instead of one. Using a Spin Attack while doing an indoor YBA lets you move three screens.
Exploration Glitch (EG): This is a set of glitches that alters the layer Link is standing on (lower layer, upper layer). You can then walk through walls and walk freely to your destination. This glitch allows the player to beat the game in under three minutes.
Basic
Wall Pumping
This is a technique that optimizes Link’s walking pattern. When walking cardinally left or up, Link’s movement begins on the two-pixel speed. Changes to the directional input resets his movement speed back to the beginning of the sequence. Therefore, if walking left or up along a wall, you can mash diagonals into the wall to repeatedly reset Link’s movement to the two-pixel speed and avoid the slower one-pixel speed in the sequence. Optimal wall pumping can get Link to move at a constant rate of two pixels per frame, which is quite the improvement over his usual 1.5 pixel per frame walking speed. However, humans cannot wall pump fast enough to accomplish that, so in real time, this is more of a frame-saving technique.
There is also water pumping, air pumping, and ladder pumping, which are all variants of wall pumping and have the same logic.
Quick Hopping
A quick hop skips the 20-frame countdown that normally occurs when Link tries to hop a ledge. You can only perform quick hops after receiving the Pegasus Boots. You automatically quick hop if you are dashing. To do a quick hop while walking, press A when Link is up against a ledge.
Advanced
Hera Bomb Jump
You can bomb jump across the pit where the Moon Pearl big chest is in the Tower of Hera. To do so, position Link close to the pit within a six-pixel window, and completely on the right side. Make sure to be facing down. You can slash your sword and hold your sword out facing down and slowly back up toward the pit. Or, you can walk up, then start charging a dash. While the dash is still charging (you have a 31-frame window, simply put, half a second) turn around and face down. Release the Dash button once you’re facing down to avoid dashing. Now, place a bomb, then tap Left so Link is facing left. Don’t be too close to the wall. Wait for a tiny bit, around two seconds from the moment you place the bomb, then dash on the left wall and bonk. If done properly, you land above your bomb and the explosion boosts you across the pit. This skips having to go up one floor and drop down.
Eastern BK Room Skip
The boss key room in this dungeon has a switch covered under a pot. That pot/switch is guarded by four anti-fairies. Normally, you would have to kill all the enemies in the room to disperse the anti-fairies. I’ll explain the easy method for this skip. Make sure you have full health which is either four hearts if you picked the extra Heart Container in the chest after rescuing Zelda, or three hearts if you skipped it. Go on the stairs directly above the pot. Then, walk toward the pot, taking damage from the anti-fairies. Use the invulnerability frames granted to you by the hit to grab the pot and step on the switch. The big key chest should spawn. There you go! You have performed the Eastern Boss Key Room skip!
Expert
Hovering
It takes the game two frames to check and realize that Link is over a pit. On the very first frame of that check, you want to initiate a dash charge by pressing A, which you can only hold up to 31 frames. On frame 32, Link actually starts his dash and falls down. After pressing A for up to 31 frames, release it for exactly one frame. Re-press A for up to 31 frames, release for exactly one frame. It’s during that single frame between the A presses that you can advance. Done repeatedly, you can cross any gap where there’s a floor to walk onto on both sides. The most notable application of this is in Ganon’s Tower to skip the Moldorm refight. You could also hover in the Ice Palace and not have to do the bomb jump although that one is not really faster in a speedrun. It saves a bomb and earns you some swag points. Hovering is very, very hard to do. Practice a lot and don’t give up!
