#sequence breaking

[link-is-a-dork]

[drmajalis]

I have a philosophical gaming question

Mark from gmtk called Zero Mission "linear" because the game tells you where to go at multiple points and there's only one sequence to collect upgrades "unless you sequence break"

But, if sequence breaks are put there intentionally by the developer, or possible with intended gameplay mechanics like the wall jump/shinespark, should those not be considered valid alternative paths to collecting items?

Like, take the wave beam from Super Metroid, the presence of the grapple beam blocks certainly suggests that you should use that upgrade to reach it, but it's also perfectly possible and honestly quite easy to do a running jump and wall jump off the right wall to the wave beam room, no grapple required

And unlike other games in the series (which I think was a mistake to leave out) super Metroid actually teaches you how to use the wall jump and shinespark, so are these not pseudo "upgrades" you can use to get other upgrades out of order?

Like, is "sequence breaking" even a thing if the developers straight up give you the tools to do it?

[rowanthestrange]

So in case you were wondering, sequence breaking by jumping that cliff and avoiding the school means: no Titans spawn, the gyms say ‘Welcome to X Gym’ and then the dialogue box just goes away, and the team fight areas aren’t interactable at all and just make a plink sound when you try to click on the bell that makes the minimap flicker. And I don’t know if picnic areas are super rare, if you spawn them yourself or whatever, but the only picnic tables I’ve found have been with the people who give you ingredients.

Funnily enough, the level 50 terastylized Leafeon I found at the top of the glitch cliff right at the beginning is still the strongest Pokemon I’ve found, and I had to walk all the way to Area 6 to find a Pokemon Center (which has level 40’s).

Can’t be arsed to put this on reddit, loads of people must have done it, it was so obvious and easy, the game practically begs you to go up that cliff and try and fight the Pokemon on the other side of the gap.

There’s no obvious speedrunning applicability. You get to run around where I assume the Titans will be without them there which I guess could be cool, but there’s nothing else to do in those locations. Normal Pokemon spawn so maybe you could do a slightly glitchy Professor Oak’s Challenge - made more difficult because you can’t ride Koraidon yet, make sandwiches (afaik), or whatever. But it’d be super niche, and you could self impose those restrictions anyway.

[annyllel]

A small accomplishment this is, finishing the Maz Koshia fight with the One-Hit Obliterator equipped. It was fun to wrangle such an occurrence!

[astronomyenthusiasist]

Fun fact: If you try sequence breaking Pokemon Gold/Silver by trading Dragon Fang in and trying to skip Dragon’s Den, Clair will fucking call you out on it.

[ruleofrosedecrypted]

After more testing, it turns out that the unused text is activated when Brown is near Joshua. His continuous barking is not a bug; it’s what the cutscene is referring to. Since Joshua will always run away, this never happens in-game.

[usagi-zakura]

Finally, after travelling all over Hyrule I decided it was time to speak to Impa... one of the first quests you get in this game that I purposely avoided just to mess with her. 

What important job do you have for us Impa?

... Yeah about that.

That was a short quest. 

(Also kinda funny how Paya immediately got nervous upon seeing a man outside her house, but no Gerudo ever noticed so long as I’m wearing this outfit...) 

[annyllel]

The Master Cycle, fully powered Master Sword, and the set of the wild, are in clear evidence here, and yet I have not raised the Great Plateau Tower! You know that shenanigans are at work here, namely glitches and exploits within the game.