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Forsaken Fortress
For tips and strategies concerning this dungeon's bosses, click here (Phantom Ganon), or here (Helmaroc King)
First Visit - Without Storage
Gossip Stone Text Skip
Warning: This trick should only be done if the route suggests it. This text is the trigger that allows you to get bombs.
By reading the gossip stone text, the state of the pirate ship interior changes from having the spoils bag to having bombs. If you skip this text, the next time you will enter the pirate ship it will contain the spoils bag. If you obtain the spoils bag and leave, you will be back at the Forsaken Fortress 1 map, and if you watched the Barrel Launching cutscene you will also lose your sword. See the Pirate Ship flags for more information._
If you need to get bombs at all, then reading this text is required.
Method 1 - All Versions
Discovered by UYNiko
After the initial FF1 cutscene has ended, turn left so that you are facing the rocks. You want to stand near the edge of the water, and be angled just slightly to the left of the wall. If you are angled correctly, when you roll and jump off of the ledge you will jump right past the wall and grab the very edge of the rock face.
Method 2 - All Versions
Discovered by Unreal
Backwalk and fall into the water then pull yourself up, onto the platform. Hold L, sidehop, then immediately backflip. You should have landed on the wooden boat without triggering the text. Climb to the bow of the boat, then roll/jump to grab the rock face.
Aligning the "flat" side of the R in Return with the meeting point of the two rock faces will help assure that you grab the ledge.
Method 3 - Japanese Only
Discovered by Abahbob
Unlike the English version of the Wind Waker, in the Japanese version, the area of the trigger for the Tetra text is much smaller and can be sidehopped over.
Window Jump
Simply roll at an angle off of the walkway to the window and preform a sidehop directly after landing to prevent a bump into the wall. From here, you can navigate your way to the searchlight. Also, as a quick way to dispose of the bokoblin, you can lure him towards the ledge and use a quickspin to knock him off of it.
Window Grab
You can achieve the same result as Window Jump by backwalking above a window, and holding up once falling to grab it. It is slightly slower than Window Jump, but it is much easier.
Skip the Tower
Discovered by GlitchesandStuff
By going into the corner under the first searchlight, it is possible to trigger the cutscene of the bokoblin spoting you early. This makes it possible to make the bokoblin fall and die from fall damage without having to climb the ladder, saving time. This is however very inconsistent and therefore isn't usually done in runs.
Deku Stick Hover
Discovered by GlitchesandStuff, Improved by Abahbob
After you have climbed the ladder to the first searchlight, lure the bokoblin into attacking you until you health is reduced to 1/4th heart before killing it. With a deku stick in hand, move over to the ledge and stand on the second black splotch from the right. Now your situation will determine you angle. If you are preforming this trick as part of a FF1 IL, you will want to use C-up to align just right of the big door by the hero's sword. If you wish to grab the hero's sword, you will have to align with the heart on the right that is along the sidle ledge.
Note: While you're hovering, you can still be detected by the two remaining searchlights. Although they cannot catch you mid-hover, they can if you land and heal. For the runner who still wishes to collect the hero's sword this means constantly readjusting the height of your hover as to avoid being caught by the searchlights. However timing for an IL of the dungeon ends upon touching the loading zone behind the big door. For this reason, this trick is most likely to be used only in the IL scenario.
Once you have selected you angle, exit out of C-up and wait for the camera to pan out. Jump off of the ledge and at some point once you have cleared the walkway directly below you and Link stops moving forward in his jump do a jumpslash. If you did the jumpslash at the right time Link will either:
- Land on the very front ledge on the side of the wooden boat.
- Land on the very back ledge of the wooden boat and just be knocked off the side after landing by the recoil of the deku stick.
In either case, you want to mash B in order to start a zombie hover. This is because in situation 1, the first slash you take will pull you off of the ledge allowing you to hover OR in situation 2, the recoil from the stick hitting the boat will push you off the ledge allowing you to start the hover. From there, just hover to where you desire.
Skip the Second and Third Searchlights
It is important to note that it is completely unnecessary to disable the second and third searchlights in the process of getting to the hero's sword. These are referred to as the "second" and "third" searchlights based on the assumption that you used the above trick to disable the "first" searchlight.
Barrel Glitch Past Moblins
The barrels in Forsaken Fortress are used to sneak past the moblin guards which you find in some of the rooms. While they are on, they activates a mild invisibility so you are able to get closer to the guards without them noticing you. The invisibility will, nonetheless, stay on you for some time even when the barrel has been removed, which lets you run past them faster.
First Two Moblins
Discovered by Venick409
In the second room you enter you have to get yourself past two moblins. As soon as the cutscene is over, roll once over to the first barrel and pick it up. Quickly remove it and put it down again to run past the two moblins. If the second moblin turns towards you right before you enter the stairs, simply get behind the wall and he won't notice you.
Last Moblin
Discovered by Pottoww
After you walked out of the door of the room with the two moblins, you run up a bunch of stairs and face the last guard. If you get up quick enough you are often able to get past him with the same barrel glitch as in the room before. But this time you have to walk a little with the barrel first. Pickup the barrel, walk until you are a couple of steps beside the stairs, then take it off and run. Try to cut the corner as close and as fast as possible. If the guard was in the right position, he won't notice you. You can learn this and use it in the majority of your runs.
To make this glitch work 100% of the time, put down the barrel when the Moblin is walking around. If you put down the barrel when the Moblin is stopped, you will most likely fail.
Roll Past Moblin
Instead of have to use a barrel to cloak yourself from the Moblin, before the two sidle ledges, and then slowly make your way past him, you can simply roll past him by hugging the wall. This is much harder than it looks.
Cross Sidle Gaps Quicker
Instead of simply holding the control stick in the direction you wish to sidle, push the control stick lightly and rapidly. This will allow to cross the distance a bit faster.
First Visit - With Storage
Lantern Moblin warp to Forsaken Fortress 1
If Link doesn't have a sword and goes near a moblin that holds a lantern, then the moblin will act just like he is a guard from Forsaken Fortress 1 and will throw Link into jail. This is because the guards in FF1 and the lantern moblin enemies are actually the same exact enemies, and Link having a sword or not is what determines the moblin's behaviour.
On the overworld, the fastest lantern moblins to access are usually in the Northern Fairy Isle submarine.
It is also possible to lose your sword once you got one by leaving any pirate ship after performing the Gossip Stone text skip, and after having watched the barrel launch cutscene in FF1.
Clip out of Jail
Using a bomb roll clip, it is possible to clip out of jail. With the leaf, you can maneuver OoB to escape from jail, without having to crawl. Be careful, as the crawling space can crush Link. Because the wind direction is very bad, it is usually not attempted.
The clip is possible on both sides of the piece of furniture.
Barrel Launching Cutscene Skip
The Barrel Launching cutscene usually sets 3 very important flags. It sets a flag to make the FF1 exterior remove your sword each time you reload that area (which is not the case by default), it removes your sword, and it sets a savewarping flag. This cutscene also gives you the Gossip Stone in your inventory, which is required for 100% speedruns. All these flags are set when the barrel smashes against the wall in FF1. Thus, in some circumstances it will be prefered to skip the cutscene before the barrel smash (if you want to keep your sword for FF1 for exemple), and in others it will be better to skip the cutscene after the barrel smash (if you're doing a 100% speedrun where you need the gossip stone for exemple).
RTA-Viable Method
First off, get storage and activate the cutscene. Because you stored that cutscene, you will be free to move around while it is happening. As soon as you can see Link on screen, go towards the ladder and drop down. Perform 2 blind sidehops to the left, and one dry roll. Then only mash A to go through the cutscene. As soon as the last textbox that requires pressing buttons to advance is gone, hold L and mash A in order to talk to Mako, which will put Link back into the barrel. Wait until the barrel launches into the air. As soon as the camera pans back to show Tetra and Gonzo waving their arms, close the textbox. This will make Link drop and fall into the void, and respawn in FF1, successfully skipping the cutscene.
In order to skip the cutscene after the Barrel Smash, what you can do instead is close Mako's textbox earlier in order to drop into the water instead of into the void, and then wait until Link drowns.
TAS-Only Method
A TAS can perform a difficult blind roll clip to escape the pirate ship while the cutscene is going on, and perform a superswim to go far enough to fall OoB.
Door Cancel Route
Discovered by TrogWW
It is possible to get door cancel with the pirate ship door in FF1 using Wind's Requiem Storage. First, get Storage and store any text. Then climb the ladder and get Dry Storage on the right side of the boat. The text you stored will pop up. Close the textbox and play the wind's requiem right as you land from your wind waker dive. This will allow you to have control of Link before the Wind prompt appears on screen. Get to the door and right before the wind prompt appears open it (this requires perfect movement to the door). Change the wind direction while Link is opening the door. This will grant you Door Cancel.
With door cancel, you can not climb ladders. To get to FF1 with door cancel, perform a Zombie Hover to the top of the mast to trigger the Barrel Launching cutscene. Heal with the Tingle Tuner before triggering the cutscene.
After you've watched the cutscene, you can climb up walls thanks to door cancel and get to the loading zone at the top of FF1 in record time.
Go back to the Pirate Ship from FF1
See the Early Bombs page.
Storing the Gossip Stone Text Cutscene
In most routes, you will want to obtain bombs and so you will have to trigger that event since it is required to change the pirate ship state. However, with storage, you can interrupt that cutscene while still setting the event, saving some time.
Chest Storage Route
Discovered by TrogWW
First, get dry storage and open the chest containing 10 rupees to get chest storage. Then roll over to the mobin room. With chest storage, it is possible to climb onto one of the piece of furniture and sidehop onto one of the pillars, that you can then climb to get to the top of the room. This skips a few slow loading zones, as well as giving you a few extra rupees, saving a few seconds.
Skip the First Searchlight with Deku Leaf
If you don't defeat the bokoblin that guards the first searchlight, then there will be a light preventing you from crossing the second sidle gap. If you have the leaf however, then you can simply leaf under the light and skip the searchlights completely.
Skip the Spike Rising Cutscene
Method 1 - With a ranged weapon
You can skip the spike raising cutscene by interacting with the bokoblin before the cutscene starts. The easiest and fastest way to do so is by grappling the bokoblin when you don't have the spoils bag, and by throwing a bomb and leafing it when you do have the spoils bag. You can also use a tingle bomb if you have your tingle tuner activated, or throw a deku stick to the bokoblin if you did the deku stick hover.
Method 2 - Storage Strat
By storing the spike rising cutscene, one can grab the hero's sword during the cutscene and start hitting the bokoblin, saving about 2s. You need to make sure to remove storage after the cutscene ends though. If you don't close the sword textbox before the cutscene ends, you do not get the sword and you cannot defeat the bokoblin. This makes this strat extremely risky and because it saves so little time, this is only used in a TAS.
The strat above is always prefered if you have any item able to hit the bokoblin from afar. The storage strat is only to be used if you only have the wind waker.
Second Visit
Wind Waker Dive into Forsaken Fortress
Discovered by Cerpin
When sailing to Forsaken Fortress, sail to the right side of the fortress (opposite from the wall you would normally have to bomb) and locate a small rock in the water. Get out of the King of Red Lions, and swim along side the rock until you pull yourself up onto it. Move to the rock's ridge and pull out the wind waker to perform a wind waker dive. From here, swim under and into the fortress before you pop back up. From here you can swim underneath the Phantom Ganon trigger to start the battle and be teleported to it, out of the water. This not only skips blowing up the wall, but also the cutscene with the KoRL that would normally play as you enter.
Bug Limit FF2 Route
Fastest Route
This is the fastest route through FF2 in a bug-limit setting. The best wind direction for this is NW or N. After the first set of pegs and stairs, get on the ledge and leaf over with very good leaf pumps to reach a ledge. Then climb the searchlight and leaf to the ladder on the other side to get to the sidle gaps.
While this is the fastest bug-limit route for FF2, this is not used in runs because of requiring an extra wind change, turning it slower than the route below.
Glide to ledge to skip Moblin Room
This method is the 2nd fastest for Bug Limit speedruns. Climb the ladder to the searchlight then jump and leaf to the ledge past the Moblin Room.
Glide to Ladder After Phantom Ganon
This is the 3rd fastest route for Bug Limit Speedruns. After you equipped the Skull Hammer, walk up the first two stairs. Stand on the wall facing the ladder on the other side of the area and use your leaf to glide over and grab it.
FF2 Glitchless without the Deku Leaf
It is possible to cross the Bed Room without the Deku Leaf, by performing a tricky jump. This skips the Deku Leaf requirement in FF2 in glitchless.
Another way to skip the deku leaf requirement is also possible while going through the Forsaken Fortress the other way around, by jumping on top of the door frame and to the upper ledge.
Shared Peg Hammering
Hammer any of the right pegs in FF2 and the other will also get hammered down.
Skip Phantom Ganon Battle
The Phantom Ganon Cutscene Trigger goes infinitely high, making him tricky to skip. Here are a few ways to do so.
Find more details on the Early Master Sword page.
With Grappling Hook
Discovered by Cerpin
By going through the fortress normally, you can maneuver all the way until the last sidle gap without triggering the Phantom Ganon fight. By using the grappling hook from outside the cutscene trigger in order to cross the last sidle gap, you will trigger the cutscene which will make Link go back to the bottom of the fortress. However, because Link is still in his grappling state, he will snap back to the top during the cutscene. Once the fight starts, you can turn around and jump past the sidle gap.
With Chest Storage
With chest storage, you can climb up the wall before the first sidle gap to reach the door leading to the Helmaroc fight faster, while avoiding the Phantom Ganon fight completely. Since you have chest storage, you can even proceed by skipping the hammer peg and entering Helmaroc early.
With Zombie Hovering
Discovered by Klydestorm
Sail to the left side of the entrance to Forsaken Fortress. Climb up onto the rocks and walk over towards the blocked entrance where the rocks dip down. Now walk towards the edge and pull out the Wind Waker to Wind Waker Dive. Wait about until the first count on the Wind Waker's scale and swim over behind the large wooden door. This skips obtaining the Skull Hammer and battling Phantom Ganon.
After getting to the pictured searchlight, call Tingle and make sure that the wind is blowing southeast. Align yourself with the appropriate angle and zombie hover. After starting the hover equip a red ting to B on the Tingle Tuner. Once you have passed through the wall above the door to the Helmaroc King battle, press B on the Tingle Tuner. Right before Link is given the ting, tap the Deku Leaf button and leaf into the loading zone.
Enter the Helmaroc Fight without Skull Hammer
See the Early Master Sword page.
Early Master Sword Cutscene Skip
Discovered by LegendOfLinkk
Skipping the cutscene after the Helmaroc fight prevents you from going to Hyrule 2, and savewarping in the cutscene room will warp you back to Windfall.
To perform this cutscene skip, first perform Helmaroc skip using one of the out-of-bounds methods. Go around the arena counter-clockwise, and obtain storage on one of the crenels. Stay on the crenellations, leaf to a specific spot and jumpslash to clip out-of-bounds again. Leaf and grab the top of the door frame. From there you can perform a cutscene skip. To cancel a cutscene past a loading zone, you must trigger the cutscene with storage and then void-out during the loading process. To do so, pull a bomb, and at the right timing jump over the loading zone and pull the deku leaf. The bomb should hit you right as you pull the deku leaf, and while the loading process happens you should fall far enough to void-out. This cancels the cutscene.
Notes:
- A common misconception among runners is that you need to die to perform this cutscene skip. That is not the case.
- If you've already watched this cutscene and then re-entered the Helmaroc fight, then this cutscene skip is unecessary. This cutscene can only play once per playthrough, so if you've already watched this cutscene, you can simply enter the room normally and the cutscene won't play again.
Third Visit
Re-enter the Helmaroc Fight
Discovered by dragonbane
Normally, the Helmaroc cutscene sets a very important flag that prevents endgame cutscenes from crashing, and makes early game cutscenes crash (see animation sets). To beat the game, watching that cutscene in order to get animation set 2 is required, so it is not reasonable to skip that cutscene the first time when beating FF2 (it is possible, but results in a dead-end). Furthermore, once you've watched that cutscene once, the game will crash if you try to re-enter the room where the fight takes place because the cutscene past the loading zone requires animation set 1 to start, which you don't have anymore at that point. There is however a trick to skip that cutscene and avoid the crash.
First, get chest storage and then get storage. Maneuver up the Forsaken Fortress and get on top of the door frame inside the wall. There are now a few different setups to get crushed by the door frame at the same time as activating the loading zone. Getting crushed with storage after a loading starts cancels cutscenes that are past the loading. This allows you to re-enter the room where the Helmaroc fight took place without crashing. Note that both of the following setups are for NW wind, and will likely need some adjustment or not work at all for other wind directions.
Method 1 - Sword slash
Get a good position and angle as the video shows, then press B with an item in hand to slash your sword, and then pull out leaf in a 4 frame window immediately after the slash.
Method 2 - Backflip
Get a good position and angle, then backflip and pull out the leaf with the correct timing.
This is useful if you skipped Helmaroc the first time, as doing this then restarts the Helmaroc fight and you can then get the heart container that you missed. Once you've obtained the heart container, enter Ganon's room. Because you've already watched that cutscene, and because the cutscene in there can only play once, you will have control of Link in that room (which is normally not possible). Then simply savewarp, and you will be put back at Windfall.
