Some cutscenes, when done at the wrong time, cause Fox to void out. For example, doing Cape Claw before obtaining Tricky = void out and a soft-lock. I noticed however that Fox doesn't necessarily fall forever. Using zooms, it is possible to lock Fox's Y position in place.

The game is in a glitched state where it is impossible to save, use abilities, or collide with terrain/water. But it is possible to recover from this state!

Here is an example of this glitch in Cape Claw before rescuing Tricky:

Here is how I was able to somewhat recover from this state by collecting a Fuel Cell:

The exciting part is that there are 2 Fuel Cells in the K4 cage, and we can void out on the cutscene for killing the 3x SharpClaw nearby!

Here is my K4 attempt: I can't seem to keep enough height to get into the cage. I tried using hacks to get the Fuel cell, but it didn't work the same way it did in Cape Claw:

Maybe we need a different cutscene to void out on, or a different setup?

=========================

How I was able to recover:
- Finding a Fuel Cell in the Cape Claw Well.
- Activating Slippy's cold water dialog (used hacks). This also triggered the Tricky dialog that was supposed to play after the 3x SharpClaw die. After the cutscenes played, I regained control.

=========================

How to lock Fox's Y position using zooms after a cutscene void out:
- If Fox is above ground, the zoom will do nothing
- If Fox is below the terrain, the zoom might freeze Fox's Y position. I haven't figured this part out entirely. The lower Fox is, the better the odds.
- You must also be moving for it to work. Zooming while movement is neutral does not seem to freeze the position.
- Moving to new parts of the map might make Fox fall again. You will need to zoom again.

=========================

KNOWN CUTSCENE VOID-OUTS
- Cape Claw Early before getting Tricky.
- Ice mountain (From a DIM setup) before getting Tricky.
- Attempt DIME without Tricky. Talking to Garunde Te = void out. This can be canceled with a cutscene overlap of collecting a mana crystal if you can get a SharpClaw to load, but then hitting the FrostWeed tree will crash the game.
- Perform a DIME setup, but backtrack to Thorntail Hallow. Open the gate that normally gets opened after finding Tricky.
- Do a DIME setup with a low swim -- swim directly for SnowHorn wastes, no need to hit sewer loading triggers. Move the camera into SnowHorn wastes. Swim back to ThornTail, and the Queen will be in the GrubTub dialog introduction state causing a void out. (No need to activate the gate cutscene first for this to work)
- LightFoot Village -- I forgot the setup for this.
- ESW cutscene void outs aren't well documented.

=========================

K4 ATTEMPTS I'VE TRIED:
- Normal navigation with void walking. I can't ever keep enough height.
- Talking to mammoth before voidout
- Item discovery prompts before voidout
- Moving the iceblock (required ESW to setup) before voidout
- Lifting boulders before voidout
- Dying when killing last SharpClaw (It didn't seem to save the last kill)

I found another way to do this in DIM with a very basic ESW setup.

- Progress to DIM
- RESW to overwrite another file, then continue DIM (using a gate load bypass to skip that mammoth)
- Progress until Tricky gets kidnaped / imprisoned
- ESW back to the start of DIM
- Talking to that mammoth voids out

I have no idea if there is any sequence of events that could cause us to void walk and skip the 2nd half of DIM. We need Tricky for the final boss sadly.

===================

During some testing, I also found that it is not possible to ESW to leave the first part of Ice Mountain. It only works if Tricky is being chased by the SharpClaw.

I tried this route:
- <Setup ESW file at DIM>
- <New file, progress until the SharpClaw chase him around the ice>
- Die and ESW to DIM
- Fly back to Dinosaur planet
- Perform a DIME setup, but stop early to open the gate
- Lose Tricky
- Perform another DIME setup. Will have to swim against the currents, but its OK to clip inbounds once we get passed them
- SnowHorn wastes will be unloaded. Just get close and save/quit to reload it
- Hike up the mountain -- The Ice Block has spawned, even though we didn't unlock it!

Killing the SharpClaws still voids out. Ice block does not seem to be useful, you still fall if you try to push it before the cutscene void-out.

Voidouts can be canceled with a cutscene overlap. Here I attempt DIME without Tricky:

Unfortunately hitting the Frost Weed Tree = crash (still crashes after a Save/Quit, for those who are curious)

From Discord:
My hope was that it would be possible to skip Ice Mountain by doing a DIME setup, then running back and opening the gate, then talking to Queen EarthWalker to regain Tricky (without ever getting him the first time)
Unfortunately, there are no items to pick up by the gate coming back into ThornTail to recover from the void-out.

At least we know it's possible to recover from even more cutscene void-outs.

The concept is viable (in theory), just not from the 3x SharpClaw cutscene. I voided out on the Garunde cutscene and used hacks to get to the Fuel Cell, and was able to recover the game's state.

This means if we can void out at the speeder race (via a memory leak maybe), it could be possible to fall into the K4 shrine, assuming we can hit the loading triggers on the way down.

EDIT: What I wrote below is not valid. It is possible! See BvqRzxi5's post below!
~~A few other problems, I did some additional testing, and Tricky stays outside the cage when leaving the K4 shrine anyways. We'd have to find a way to die in that small room without Tricky. Or ESW out without dying (which probably isn't possible). We can't re-enter the warp either.

Rough roads ahead for K4 early.~~

I attempted to open the SnowHorn sewer gate and trigger the "return to Thorntail" cutscene without getting Tricky. This route failed, but I learned a few cool things.
1) We can recover from cutscene void outs in ThornTail Hallow via Moon Mountain Pass (sorta)
2) I found a very useful method for controlling height. If you can clip the camera into a different area or OOB, Fox will start falling. Keep zooming! Eventually Fox will stop moving when he reaches a valid Y position.
3) Fox can collide with wind during a cutscene void (this does not restore his collision with ground)
4) Fox can fall to his death during a cutscene void

Route:
- Blow up WarpStone door
- Perform a low swim
- Move the camera into SnowHorn wastes. This is the trigger for the Queen Earthwalker GrubTub dialogue, not sure if it's also the trigger for the "Tricky running to his mother" dialogue.
- Save/Quit, otherwise MM Pass won't load.
- Void out and navigate to MM Pass, and clip into the wind. This requires optimal height/positioning.
- Collect the Fuel Cell to recover
- Void out anyways when coming back, gg

Pay very close attention at ~1:34 for the height control technique (ignore the swim bug at 0:23, this was from a hack, as well as any camera jumps from loading save states):

Also "void out" is a bit overloaded. We now have cutscene voids, OOB voids, missed loading trigger voids, fall to death voids. Technically these are all quite different.

EDIT: Also I forgot, if you hit that fuel cell from far back, you can clip Fox into the wall! It's just useless because it doesn't connect to MM pass, so we can't do OOB navigation Otherwise this could be a way to skip the door.

EDIT 2: Also tried directly going to Queen EarthWalker and hitting the GrubTub dialogue trigger and voiding out. Same result.

EDIT 3: It is not possible to use the wind to get back OOB on the other side of the MM Pass link. Once you exit the wind, Fox changes to a falling animation, and you can no longer zoom.

EDIT 4: It's also possible to enter the portal for the Fire Blast upgrade room, but only with hacks. Fox still collides with automatic warps it seems. Still voids out when you leave though.

I don't know how to get into Krazoa Shrine 4, but it seems that can escape from it. Because Tricky warps out of sight.

Intersting, I knew that you can hit Tricky from the other side of the fence but I had no idea that there's a TrickyWarp inside the chamber itself. Also the void out recovery at the transition map could possibly lead to MMP early with ESW?

There is a way to enter Krazoa Shrine 4 without coordinate cheat, but it needs magic cheat instead...

@BvqRzxi5BvqRzxi5 actually there is a staff swap glitch that allows to not waste magic at using the groundquake/supergroundquake

@josejavier1158josejavier1158 the problem with this is that you have to wait until Wall City 1 to get this which would eliminate the time save that K4 Early would have. K4E, if done as early as possible, would skip either half of DIM or the entirety of Wall City 1 (can't do both due to softlock with IceBlast), and DIME would be used in Any%.

The glitch is impossible because can't prepare Fire Blaster in the air, in my memory.

I was able to glitch the speeder cutscene (some hacks required, but real strats may exist) to see if it was possible to fly to K4 on a speeder. Didn't end up working, but I'll share it here anyways.

This was very tedious to set up:
- Make a new game, and open the speeder gate, but do not trigger the cutscene inside. If we do not open the gate early, it will stay closed forever.
- Hit a major progression point. Not sure what qualifies. I used hacks to get to DIM #2 (I did NOT need to collect the SpellStone)
- Return, and the speeder will be rideable! No cutscene event triggered.

The game seems to void out at a certain point with a speeder though. At first, I thought it was because we didn't get Tricky, but then I tried getting Tricky in DIM #2 with hacks (Remember, we rescue him again! So you can actually still get him if you skip him in Ice Mountain).

To be 100% sure, I killed the 3x SharpClaw, and solved all the puzzles backwards. Then I went ALL the way back to Ice Mountain, and the speeder still soft-locks.

(Skip to 0:30, bad editing on my part)

==========

I have a file that I can test out the Super Quake spell swap on. I just need to get the ability and try it out.

Edit: I tried it, because you have to start from aim-mode with FireBlast, you cannot gain any forward speed to move. At least I couldn't.

==========

Unfortunately, we can't unlock the Volcano Point doors with SS3 unless we did it with SS1 earlier. This means skipping SS1 is still not viable or we will soft-lock when we try to return to get Freeze Blast.

The only way we can skip SS1, SS3, and Freeze Blast is to:
- Find K4 early so that we don't need SS3
- Figure out how to get through K5 without Freeze Blast
- Figure out how to get access to Cape Claw cannon without Freeze Blast

My Cape Claw OOB discovery eliminates the Fire Gem Freeze Blast, so there are only 2 left. If we find K4 early and eliminate all Freeze Blasts from the route, then we can finally skip half of DIM and skip Walled City #1 (assuming the K4 early solution doesn't use SGQ)

Inspired by return from Void Walking, the underwater walking glitch can enter Krazoa Shrine 4, but there still seem to be problems. Fox needs so many hearts, it can't get Fuel Cell before.

Edit: The darkness in the second half is a mistake when making a video.

Impressive! I've never seen this underwater walking glitch before.

So that means K4 early is possible if we buy all Fuel Cells from the ThornTail Store, and use multiple Bafomdads?

Edit: Did some quick math on this: Hypothermia deals 1/4 heart damage every 5 seconds (1 heart per 20 seconds) = 7.5 hearts required for this trick, 8+ to be safe. That plus any hearts required to get OOB in the first place.

@zcanannzcanann yeah if you're able to get frame perfect swings in lol

Yikes, just tried it out. Spamming the A button I was able to get in like 4 swings before I failed. Maintaining this for 2.5 minutes would be brutal.

So it's TAS viable (May still be slower unless we also figure out Freeze Blast skip). Unless Turbo controllers aren't banned lmao, but it would be cruel to make speedrunners buy that.

Also another thing to note is that Ice Blast skip would be impossible with the ESW/RESW route due to the Cape Claw ESW where you'd need Ice Blast in order to get to the cannon to break the barrier.

It's worth thinking about ways to bypass that (and the K5 shrine flames). It may not be possible, but if a RTA viable K4 early was discovered, I think Freeze Blast becomes the next bottleneck.

Edit: Alternatively, a way to bypass the first 2 doors in Volcano pass would be sufficient. Picking up Freeze Blast isn't so much the issue, getting SS1 is.

I've actually seen that Fox with 3 hearts can do that with 3 Bafomdads.
I didn't know that buying Fuel Cell from the ThornTail Store would keep the Fuel Cell acquisition cutscene. However, the Fuel Cell cutscene seems to be forcibly disabled on the way down to the ancient well of ThornTail Hollow.

Edit: If get off or jump off the first ladder of the ancient well, Fuel Cell cutscene will never occur after.

Edit: The ancient well can be skipped by DIME, TAS can both enter and escape Krazoa Shrine 4.

Entering GrubTub Well disables the Fuel Cell cutscene? Weird. I'll have to test this out later.

What about obtaining Rocket Boost? We need it 3 times in Dark Ice Mines, so we can't postpone obtaining it I think.

TAS route might have to be:
Get Tricky > Get Bofomdad in SnowHorn Wastes > Buy Bafomdad bag > Get Bofomdad outside Thorntail Shop > Warp back to Ice Mountain > Cannon Clip > K4 with underwater walking > Get Rocket Boost > DIME

Not sure if it's faster, but at least it's possible. Also I'm not sure if Cannon clip is required, is it possible to get OOB with the same strategy as DIME?

Edit: We need 1 more Bofomdad, since Fox takes damage getting OOB.
Edit 2: My route is bad, since Tricky needs Flame for us to death ESW warp. See the rest of this thread for details.