The basic premise starts with a glitch called incense glitch which I have known for a year or so; if the 'Incense has lost its effectiveness' text box pops up while you would hit a loading zone or other trigger, instead the text box cancels out the trigger, potentially allowing you to walk around through out-of-bounds. I had hoped that some day, this would allow us to walk around through out of bounds and get into Nivora without breaking the ice, and potentially skipping Usha, Uru Mais, and even (some of) Sol. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be possible.
However, during testing, Trance found that it was possible to skip all three dream sequences in Uru Mais, and found RTA-viable setups which I confirmed worked (with minor changes) on a slim PS2 console. It's also possible to skip the Jette fight completely by having a text box pop up when he would show up to fight you, as shown in the video above.
Altogether, this is expected to save about 11:30 in any% and 7:30 in 100% (can't skip Jette because of Master Course glitch, and also because by fiat I decided 100% should include all bosses, including Lapis and other "optional" bosses). There may be other possible skips yet to be determined.
Still holding out for an item cloning trick, but I'll take what I can get. (Being able to easily and quickly clone Power / Miracle Waters would be the holy grail of the run.)
and here is an updated version that starts in the room after the juggernaut cliff cutscene, that also grabs the golden claw
Let us know how everything works out. If there are any version differences, I would be interested to learn of them so that we might account for them.
Gotta get there first. I haven't played the game in ten billion years so I'm taking it casually.
Among other things, PAL and JP both get the more generous EXP curve compared to US version.
