How badly can ISG mess things up?

My kids are playing through the entire Zelda series in order. They're currently on Majora's Mask. When they finish a game I tell them about glitches I know and show them speedruns and TAS's etc, so when they finished OoT they got to learn about ISG and bomb hovering and all the silly things like Ocarina Items etc etc.

But of course now, from watching Dad ISG, they figured out how to do it themselves and occasionally ISG for fun when playing MM. And the save system in MM is so fragile it seems to me; when one of them pulls off ISG and then goes and stands in front of e.g. an owl statue, and there are sparks flying like crazy -- is it possible to freeze the game this way? I also worry about them somehow getting stuck on a ledge with ISG on.

Am I just being paranoid? Obviously the game doesn't expect to be in this situation, so it wouldn't surprise me if they crashed it, but if they crash it they might lose a lot, and if they corrupt a save file they might lose everything -- we've only got 2 slots to play with of course, and one slot is Dad's 100% file which they ain't allowed to look at yet :-). Am I worrying about nothing or can they screw themselves up goofing around with ISG? FWIW, they've just finished the 2nd dungeon and are trying to figure out where Romani Ranch is :-)

ISG will never ever ever ever crash the game - the only way you can crash your game under normal circumstances is if you do a HESS while holding Z, which is extremely unlikely unless you're actively trying to do a HESS (or if you screw up a megaflip in a certain way).

Hey ing -- thanks for the reply.

I thought I had *heard* that with ISG activated Link can get stuck on a ledge if he tries to walk off, i.e. he obviously won't fall off but he somehow can't move back either. In OoT I would imagine that you can just save and restart but in MM this might be a disaster, with the save system it has. Is this just nonsense?

Thanks for the HESS comment. My kids are keen to superslide (and my 9-year-old did his first megaflip last week, which caused great excitement) so I guess it's only a matter of time before they're HESSing. In fact it's generally quite scary -- I am a "casual glitcher" but my 9-year-old is very sharp, he's the one who says "aah -- the game is a bit laggy so you must have ISG activated" when watching me play OoT, and that sort of thing.

I guess the really cool thing is -- they're going to try supersliding, but they have only seen about 30% of this game so far! It's a true joy watching kids discover the game for the first time. Last week the bird outside Clock Town stole their sword and they were just all "WTF?? What do we do now???" It's like playing the game for the first time all over again :-) Somehow they're so wise in some ways, and so ignorant in others. It's fascinating really.

Aah, here we go: it was even on this website (but on the OoT pages):

"Normally when ISG is activated, it will not allow you to walk/run off edges; in fact, you can even get stuck at the very end of an edge if you keep pressing against it."

From http://zeldaspeedruns.com/oot/tech/hovering

Can someone clarify (a) what this means, (b) whether it also applies in MM and (c) whether "stuck" means "you can just play the song of time and you're fine" or it means "you have to press reset".

Stuck means you can't move from your current position using the control stick. If that happens, you can just sidehop or backflip to get out of it. The reason it's mentioned there as if it's something bad is usually it will screw up the trick you're trying to do.

I think I softlocked my game once by trying to use the hookshot when I was stuck off a ledge in OoT, but that took some effort. You should be fine in semi-casual play.

Thanks all for the responses. I shall tell my kids to ISG all they want :-)

was it the GC version by any chance? my game crashed like twice when i had ISG active and was going to play a song. i figured it happened since the GC version crashes randomly and ISG increased the chance of it crashing.

i've got the softlock in the gerudo bridge too. however, i've never got softlocked anywhere in MM with ISG.

Enterim wrote

I think I softlocked my game once by trying to use the hookshot when I was stuck off a ledge in OoT, but that took some effort. You should be fine in semi-casual play.

relavent to this: don't use the hookshot in the airvents of stone tower temple, it basically freezes your game, and since it's in a temple there is not cutscenes when the days change that would normally save you.

canard wrote

My kids are playing through the entire Zelda series in order. They're currently on Majora's Mask. When they finish a game I tell them about glitches I know and show them speedruns and TAS's etc, so when they finished OoT they got to learn about ISG and bomb hovering and all the silly things like Ocarina Items etc etc.

But of course now, from watching Dad ISG, they figured out how to do it themselves and occasionally ISG for fun when playing MM. And the save system in MM is so fragile it seems to me; when one of them pulls off ISG and then goes and stands in front of e.g. an owl statue, and there are sparks flying like crazy -- is it possible to freeze the game this way? I also worry about them somehow getting stuck on a ledge with ISG on.

Am I just being paranoid? Obviously the game doesn't expect to be in this situation, so it wouldn't surprise me if they crashed it, but if they crash it they might lose a lot, and if they corrupt a save file they might lose everything -- we've only got 2 slots to play with of course, and one slot is Dad's 100% file which they ain't allowed to look at yet :-). Am I worrying about nothing or can they screw themselves up goofing around with ISG? FWIW, they've just finished the 2nd dungeon and are trying to figure out where Romani Ranch is :-)

I wish you were my dad!