TLF Hero Mode Any% Guide

Ok so this a guide of what to do in Jak TLF Hero Mode Any% if you're just starting out with it.

While learning I recommend watching a run alongside reading this document so you can see what I’m talking about and not rely entirely on this guide.

You're going to need to have a save file already prepared because Hero Mode runs are started from loading a save at the first mission in Hero Mode.

Use headstrong1290’s save from the Jak TLF resources page: https://www.speedrun.com/jaktlf/resources

So at the start you do the skip where you go over the rock and wall area, swing across the poles, and then go over to the door. To perform the wall climb you need to punch while against the wall (facing the wall) several times while the stick is in the neutral position. From there you jump after a punch late enough that it doesn't perform an uppercut, and use the wall climb height to go over the rock that is blocking a door. Whie oob you have to move around a little and get the camera to move so the game thinks you have gone into the airlock. After the game as you loaded into the airlock, jump toward the poles to get inbounds.

In Any% you would save and load after the door opens, but you don't want to do this, just walk through the door. From there you just follow the path and do the robot mission normally. After that you get access to your plane and you have to do a 1-2 minute easy plane fight. Once aboard the Phantom Blade you exit the plane and go into the main room the do a u-turn to go up to where you level select for a cutscene. Then go bavk down and get into the green plane in the middle of the semicircle (because it's the fastest and has the most mod slots) and fly back down to the place you were and go into the volcano level.

So, in the Volcano level, there's a couple of strats to learn. The "Triple Jump" as we'll call it pretty much only works in Volcano (and a level that you skip in Hero Mode). For a beginner this strat probably isn't worth using but you might want to try it out. Basically you do a double jump for the most distance you can, then groundpound while still holding forward. For some reason Jak's ledgegrab hitbox extends upwards in the groundpound here, not sure why, but failing it means dying and some of these are pretty tight jumps. Another thing to learn, pretty easy, is where to stand to activate the Eco Rocket power (yellow). With typical controls you would use Dpad Down to activate the Eco Power and Dpad left and right to cycle through them. If you use the Rocket Jump on the edge of the place where you're supposed to use it when it's active, you get an effect similar to using the Blue Eco jump pads in Jak 1 in Boggy with the rock still on it. The only other real trick in that level is doing one of those jumps where you use the slowdown from camera rotation to get extra distance on an uppercut, and I don't recommend attempting it.

Next level is Far Drop and there's a difficult jump which saves about a minute to do, but it's another one of those camera rotating jumps and is in my opinion the hardest jump in any of the runs, so I don't recommend it. For this level the regular path is the best option. To see what I recommend for this you should look at an Any% run for Far Drop.

At Research Rig there's a big skip to learn, research rig skip. This skip is used in almost every category. It involves punching to clip out of bounds, climbing around and up some geometry, and then using Eco Rocket to get over a wall back in bounds. This Dark Daxter segment can be beaten faster in Hero Mode than Any% because with invincibility Daxter can force his way through the lasers.

Old Aeropan Barracks is where the big Scene Player Skip comes into play. When you go through the door after the first cutscene you just have to go into the Scene Player and play the scene which triggers the Dark Daxter level. The Scene you want to watch in the Scene Player is “The Raid” (you don’t need to watch the whole scene, just activate it in the menu, then skip it when it’s playing). That skips around 50 minutes of gameplay. The Dark Daxter level has no special strats, just gotta play it normally.

From there onward you're pretty much just finishing the game on the intended route, last platforming level, cyborg monkey boss, Dark Skyheed, Chase Skyheed (plane), Final battle against The Behemoth.

The Skyheed boss fight can be made faster by interrupting his attacks, luring him into jumping into statues, and hitting missiles that are on the ground so they fly into him. The Skyheed chase is almost like an autoscroller. Be careful not to get timed out for being too far in front of him at chase sections, and inside the big room with the portals, try to keep him spawned in when you can. The first part of the Behemoth fight have 7 phases that alternate between breaking crystals and defeating enemies. Enemies can get stuck inside the Behemoth’s shield, which is really annoying to try to fix, but possible. Getting right up against the shield and firing armageddons you can sometimes get planes that are stuck in there. If you leave the plane inside for last, you can Daxterjack the plane to destroy it. In the second part of the Behemoth fight, you use the plane from the start of the game but with just a laser. There are many yellow rectangles indicating mission objectives but only the 4 remaining crystals on the Behemoth actually matter, the planes don't matter.

GAMEPLAY NOTES

Aside from routing and tricks, here's some general info about gameplay. The Eco Rocket Jump deals massive damage so when fighting bosses, using the Rocket jump is recommended (aside from Skyheed). You can use this ability faster by doing a spin immediately after jumping because spins cancel your vertical momentum. (So while you have Eco Rocket equipped as your Eco Power, press dpad down to activate it, X to jump, Circle to spin, repeat).

It is recommended to use this to defeat the first 4 enemies in Ruined Aeropa because you don't have access to your guns for the first part of the mission.

Using the Eco Reflexes (slow time eco power) makes your Eco Powers and Guns deal more damage so using that against the Cyborg monkey boss is recommended. Also with regard to guns, using the Lobber (green) is almost always your best gun option because you have infinite ammo.

The fastest way to move as Jak is usually punching.

Plane Gameplay notes:

For the first plane mission the Machine Guns hit anything while the aiming reticle is a bold red colour, and the lock on missiles hit whatever you lock onto with them. Lock on missiles can be fired faster by holding the button for a long enough time to fire them, and then releasing and holding the button again. It cuts out some of the time between firing missiles. You should always hold the button to fire the machine guns because there's no downside.

For the last 2 plane missions you have the Laser, Armageddon, and Ground Attack Rocket (not really useful). The Laser weapon hits anything while the reticle is a very dark red or black colour, so it can hit stuff the fastest at the furthest distance away from you. The Armageddon and Ground Attack Rocket hit anything that has a little red target around it. Armageddon does “Infinity” damage, so the Ground attack rocket outclasses. For Armageddon I recommend firing 3 or so shots and then waiting, because the Armageddon rockets split up into more rockets before hitting their targets, and if you fire Armageddons constantly then they don't hit stuff (probably because there's too many rockets and it starts despawning them or something, I’m not exactly sure).

An important piece of info is there’s a guaranteed crash spot during one of the phases of the final fight, but this can be avoided by flying under the Behemoth instead of over it. (This is the phase where the two crystals to destroy are on the front of the two farthest left and right parts of the Behemoth).

(Google docs version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11CDgOk8U6e4nVnA6xgUYf1r35uyScXIJwPU_c0P8dCY/edit?usp=sharing )