Movement

Movement is very important in A Link to the Past speedrunning. Learn how to move your elf~

The Basics

Walking

Generally Link's movement follows a different pattern or sequence according to where and how you move.

When moving in cardinal directions, Link moves at an average speed of 1.5 pixels per frame, where he alternates every frame between a 2 pixel speed and a 1 pixel speed (2px,1px,2px,1px,2px,etc. frame-by-frame). This movement is slowed to 1.25 pixels per frame (with a pattern of 2,1,1,1 instead of 2,1,2,1) when charging his sword, carrying an object, or walking through tall grass or shallow water. Link's patterns of cardinal walking always start on the 2 pixel speed when he's walking north or west, and on the 1 pixel speed when walking south or east, which is important to note in order to understand techniques used to optimize Link's walking speed.

When moving diagonally, Link moves 1 pixel along both the x- and y-axes. For example, if he is walking northwest, he is moving 1 pixel upward and 1 pixel to the left per frame. Diagonal movement is slowed to .8 pixels/frame when charging his sword, carrying an object, or walking through tall grass/shallow water (1-1-1-1-1-0 pattern).

Dashing

When dashing cardinally, Link moves 4 pixels per frame. This is slowed to 3px per frame if dashing through shallow water or in tall grass. If dashing along a diagonal slope or wall, Link's movement can be quite random (at least for real time play), but it will average around 2px per frame along both axes.

It takes link 32 frames to start a dash, which makes dashing slower than walking within a distance of around 4 and a half tiles cardinally. During the dash-charging animation link can change the direction of his dash by pressing a different direction than the one he is facing while starting the dash, important for executing certain types of dashes.

Corner Nudging

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Stair Mechanics

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Pumping

Wallpumping

This is a technique that optimizes Link's walking pattern. When walking cardinally to the west or north, Link's movement begins on the 2 pixel speed, and changes to the directional input will reset his movement speed back to the beginning of the sequence. Therefore, if walking north or west along a wall, you can mash diagonals into the wall to repeatedly reset Link's movement to the 2 pixel speed and avoid the slower 1 pixel speed in the sequence. Perfectly optimal wallpumping can get Link to move at a constant rate of 2 pixels per frame, which is quite the improvement over his usual 1.5 pixel per frame walking speed. However, humans cannot wallpump fast enough to accomplish that, so for real time play, this is more of a frame-saving technique.

Airpumping

Another technique to optimize Link's walking patterns. When walking diagonally to the north or west and at an angle of less than 45 degrees, you can mash diagonals into the air to boost pixels. Like wallpumping, this is a frame-saving technique in most instances, due to human limitations on mashing.

It is important to note that if you need to move at a perfect 45 degree angle, just holding diagonal is faster than airpumping. Remember to only use it if the angle between Link and your desired location is less than 45 degrees.

Stairpumping

While walking on a staircase or ladder in which you still retain control of Link's movement, you can pump diagonals when walking north on them. The normal animation for climbing stairs/ladders contains a lot of 0 pixel per frame movement, so pumping these ladders to avoid such frames is very important. Even if you do no other pumping, you should incorporate stairpumping into your movement, since it saves more than just a handful of frames in the areas it's used in. It's easy because you can hold up and spam both left and right instead of just one direction.

Antipumping

When walking east or south, Link's movement begins on the 1 pixel per frame speed of his animation. This means you do not want to reset his walking speed by wallpumping, airpumping, or stairpumping. But this even has more implications than that: you always want to avoid altering your input while moving south or east, as any alteration can slow Link down by resetting the movement sequence. Generally speaking, if you're moving south or east, you want to minimize the number of inputs you use to do so.

Door Mechanics

Corner Nudging in Doorways

When walking through a door, you should try to enter it with perfect alignment. Entering a door off-center requires the game to autocorrect your movement into the door, and said autocorrection is very slow, it's move you at 1 pixel per frame on the axis of the door and 0 for the other axis, unsterdand if you are too far left entering a door, the game will move you right for 1 pixel per frame. This is especially noticeable while dashing, as the 0 pixel per frame movement of the game correcting you through the door contrasts strongly with the 4 pixel per frame movement you should be getting.

Doorpumping

While in a doorway, you can wallpump against the walls inside. This works the exact same way as wallpumping, and note that you should only do it in doors that you walk through facing north or west. Also note that you can pump on both sides of a doorway, unless the door locks behind you, in which case you can only pump when entering.

An exception should be made for this when walking through west-facing locked doors. About a third of the pixels in the doorway will antipump you rather than boost pixels, so it's not recommended to pump in them.

Diagonals and Doors

When moving alongside the walls just outside of a doorway, using diagonals will slow Link down from his usual 1.5 pixels per frame to 1 pixel per frame. This should always be avoided by using perpendicular inputs when entering doorways.

Bastard Doors

Bastard Doors are east and west-facing doors that will slow Link down to 1 pixel per frame if a certain direction is held out of them. Bastard doors vary in what their bastard condition (input that gets the speed reduction) is, but the bastard condition can always be avoided, even if it sometimes requires seemingly counter-intuitive inputs. Every east/west facing door will give slowdown on the cardinal up and down directions. Some of these doors will also give slowdown on diagonal directions. For more information, including a list of all these doors found in the NMG category, visit the Bastard Doors page.

Stairlag

When coming into a room out of a spiral staircase, Link's first movement needs to be to the right or the left. If it's down, then Link will do a stutter for about 7-8 frames, called stairlag, before gaining his full movement speed. This should always be avoided by holding right or left, at least until Link faces either of those directions, before transitioning to an input that has down in it.

Note that this does not apply to straight staircases, such as the one coming into the throne room of Hyrule Castle, and it also does not apply if you want to dash south out of the stairwell, as the lag frames only apply to walking movement.

Anti Rails

The ends of railings will slow Link down to 1px/frame if a diagonal input is used against them. So of course don't hold diagonals around them, and also don't try to wallpump them.

Statue Movement

Statues have some weird mechanics to them.

First of all, you should know that pushing (cardinal px/frame pattern of 1,1,1,0) a statue is much, much faster than pulling it (pattern of 1,0,0,0), so obviously avoid that whenever you can. Also, you can (and should) push a statue with a diagonal input held to completely eliminate the 0px frames. A lot of players may assume this is pumping, but it works very differently. Spamming input isn't necessary to get the speed increase. All you have to do is hold diagonals while pushing and you'll get a constant 1px/frame speed along both axes.

Pushing a statue is even faster if you have a sword charge held, however, this has limited use since it doesn't gain enough frames to make it worth slashing and releasing a spin.

Ledge Mechanics

Normal Hops

If Link approaches a ledge normally, it will take 20 frames of holding a direction against the ledge before Link will jump. It's important to know that changing the direction you're holding during this 20 frame countdown will completely reset the countdown, so be sure you stick with whatever direction you're holding until Link has jumped.

Quick Hop

A Quick Hop skips the 20 frame countdown that normally occurs when Link tries to hop a ledge and can be performed after receiving the Pegasus Boots. You will automatically quick hop if you are dashing or if Link is in the superspeed glitched state (whether he has superspeed or not). To do a quick hop while walking, press A when Link is up against a ledge in which he can jump down.

There are a few caveats to quick hopping, it cannot be done off of a north facing ledge when Link is facing north. To do a quick hop here you can use a diagonal to get Link lined up on the north facing ledge while still facing east or west. Also there a few places where this same thing applies to a south facing ledge, such as the first area in Thieves' Town. The way to tell is if Link grabs the ledge instead of jumping off when pressing A.