Hello! Welcome to a blisteringly fast speedrun of The Labyrinth of Time. For general information about this run, see the video description.
There are still plenty of mistakes to correct in this playthrough, but I think this is the most optimal route. Enjoy!
We'll open with the first major sequence break: completing the 15-puzzle in the movie theater long before the solution is revealed.
This will allow me to get to a major portion of the mid-late-game content far too early. The most important items to obtain are the Silver Key, Gold Key, Screwdriver, and Can of Paint.
The optimal solution to this puzzle takes 66 moves. It was solved using the 15puzzle Optimal Solver by takaken.
BLAM. Time to grab those items. I skip all the non-essentials.
I wrote the solutions to every maze in advance, which saves significant time for obvious reasons. This is one of only two times I go through the hedge maze.
I need two quarters, so I have to go through this. The sequence break still saves significant time with this cutscene. Re-releases of the game give you two quarters at the start, which would save about 15 seconds.
[UPDATE: There's a way around that! See the comments.]
That's it for the diner and the hedge maze for the rest of the game. Since we've already gotten through the 15-puzzle, there's no reason to come back here.
Since we have the gold key, let's grab key items from the broom closet and tomb.
Another sequence break. You typically have to complete the sidequest from Garret's journal to learn this combination... but I cheated. All's fair!
Oops!
We'll grab the Cretan ornament, but I'm also going to take the pith helmet. This is my favorite optimization strategy.
The pith helmet is a joke item that serves the same necessary function as the helmet in the Medieval maze. By getting this item early, I can skip the Medieval maze entirely. BOOM!
Now let's go to the detective office and Revolver Springs. We'll print the newspaper out of sequence and grab the bronze and iron keys.
(I probably could have waited to wear the pith helmet until I opened the inventory to use the silver key. That would've saved a little time.)
With the newspaper in hand, we have most of the key end-game items in the first 5 minutes! We'll come back to Revolver Springs one more time to grab the lantern.
We need to move the bridge platforms to get the lantern, so we'll head to the museum. Then it's off to the Surreal Maze!
We need to visit the mirror maze and the Cretan palace as few times as possible to save time. So we'll start doing a lot of things all at once to save trips.
I use a combination of keyboard commands and mouse clicks to go as quickly as possible, depending on what makes the most sense. The efficient of that can probably be improved.
...well then, let's get that lantern.
Surreal Maze time! 7 minutes 30 seconds so far, and we're already almost at the end. Time for some puzzle juggling...
Alright, so to beat the game, we need to clean the jacket, drop off the newspaper, steal the talisman, get the labrys and the last can of paint, and get to the Maze Center.
For the best time, we can use the warp from the last ziggurat lever to drop us off right at the Maze Center. Two other levers means two more chances to do everything else.
We'll take care of the shirt/newspaper first so we can steal the talisman on the second time through.
The paint can and labrys are on the way out of the palace. That will only take a second...
I forgot the confusing layout of this section... d'oh. That's an obvious place for improvement.
Blink and you'll miss it! The pith helmet saves me from the falling rocks. Total bypass of the Medieval maze.
Once we deposit the shirt and the newspaper, the talisman will be available to steal from the museum.
Lever #2 is next...
If anything, getting sent back to the jail is a nice little warp. It gets us past the mirror maze and closer to the subway car again for lever #3.
Here we go! This last lever will deposit us right in front of Maze Center. It's straight-forward from there. Paint the mirrors, add the labrys, smash the keystone.
Got too anxious and overshot it...
Clock it! 12:31.095.
