So, in THAW there is a glitch early on in the game that allows you to go to Beverly Hills early. This glitch is performed by doing some flip tricks in the corner of the gate blocking the way to Beverly Hills. The main downside to this, though is that you can't warp to Beverly Hills using the bus or Iggy's truck. However, we don't very often warp to Beverly Hills as much as some people think. As for the times we need a warp to BH (such as to return to the ranch), there will be some route modifications using the ranch piece warp to go back to the ranch. This skip would be very optimal in easy. It maybe optimal on Normal. However, Sick mode can't optimize this skip well, due to the requirements of getting all the skate ranch pieces in certain areas, which leaves limited opportunities to warp back to the ranch when needed. This guide will be done on the easy mode
So the route would go like this :
- Do Hollywood as normal until you get the manual.
- Then take one of 2 paths. Either go straight to the gate or go to Muton and do his tag missions first.
- Head to the corner of the fence and do Mindy skip.
- Do BH as normal
- Do Sanchez as normal
- Do Bert Slide as normal
- Get Dino head and warp to Ranch Here comes our first slight modification, since we can't use the truck to go to BH, we are going to have to skate in the loading tunnel, then quit and re open the game.
- Depending on which route you took on your way to Mindy skip may differ your route after unlocking Downtown. If you cleared Muton, just head to Downtown like you normally would in a run. If you had ignore Muton in Hollywood 1, do all 3 of his missions now.
- Do DT as normal
- Do Vans as normal Upon exiting Vans is our first major run modification, since we can't warp back to BH to get to the ranch, we will need to utilize a Skate Ranch part mission to warp back to the ranch. Ideally either the bell or the piece of road will do fine.
- Do BH 2 as normal
- Do SM as normal
- Do Oil Rig as normal Instead of using the bus to go back to BH, just go thru the parking garage and use quit game when necessary en route to the ranch.
- Do DT2 as normal
- Do East LA as normal
- Save Mega as usual Just skate thru to BH and quit and reload
-- At this point in the run, there are no more route modifications, so there really is no point in discussing this further.
Overall, this skip could save about 20 seconds to a minute in the run overall, and I think it is worth trying out.
UPDATE: This skip overall seems to save about 7-10 seconds overall, not really worth it unless you really want to get WR. As Mindy Skip is hard to get consistently.