A Thousand Tiny Optimisations

Summary

A Thousand Tiny Optimisations June 08, 2025 ( Prev / Next ) Zelda is back in people’s minds again with the recent release of “Tears of the Kingdom” - the fastest selling Zelda game of all time. I haven’t started playing that one yet as I have only just started the previous game, “Breath of the Wild”. Not just that, I have been playing a much older Zelda game a lot. By “a lot” I mean over and over and over… … And Over And Over Again I used to occasionally watch speed runs of games on YouTube, those where the players attempt to complete the game as quickly as possible. This is more out of curiosity than any sort of appreciation of the skill, such as absurd examples like a player completing Final Fantasy VII in less time than the sum of the requisite unskippable content. Inevitably the algorithm started throwing videos at me, but it was all the same type of content in which a player had spent hundreds of hours optimising their execution of the game controls to a point it’s almost subconcious. This kind of stuff, while impressive, is tedious. However, the algorithm did throw one particular suggestion at me that I found interesting: “A Link to the Past by Andy in 1:14:58”. This one showcased all sorts of ways the game could be broken by inputting specific movements and/or frame-perfect timing. I had fond memories of this game from my childhood, and because I watched that video in its entirety the algorithm started throwing more at me that piqued my interest further. A Link to the Past The third game in the Zelda series, “A Link to the Past” was released in Europe in late 1992. I saved up many weeks of paper round money to eventually purchase a SNES and the game in the summer of 1993. I then spent the rest of the summer completing it, which requires the following steps: Storm the castle to rescue Zelda Collect the three pendants Get the master sword to defeat Aga Get transported into the dark world Where you collect seven crystals Which frees seven maidens To break the se...