Finally got my account registered! Thanks mzx!
Anyway, I've been messing around with ILs in this game for the past couple months, with the intention of doing a single segment run eventually. I'm so glad there's actually an interest in this game now. We are a budding community

. I've mostly been trying to recreate ZekonDo's/SDA's ILs, and looking into incorporating the gap skip (or whatever we're calling it) sergi found wherever I can.
Unfortunately, this is my first speed game and I'm kind of a baddy. I did however get a 2-2 time that cut the SDA time by a couple minutes using the sequence break zmaster described. I didn't have a capture card at the time though so it doesn't mean shit >_>. But I just got my cap card working the other day so now I can start recording attempts. I'm sure zmaster will shatter that time though, he seems pretty great at this game.
I've found a few small optimizations in the course of doing ILs. I'll just go over gap skips for now.
For the upwards gap skip (1-1, 2-2), I've found that mashing R+B works, but it's faster to press B then roll a fraction of a second later. I'll try and make a vid when I have time, but I'm sure you can figure it out yourselves. You can usually get red link over there in 1 or two tries of pressing B then R. Probably something to do with removing green links collision detection on sword swings or something, idk. The one problem I have with this skip is that the purple/blue links sometimes push each other into the gap after you drop, which is a big time waster. Not sure how to prevent this really.
In 1-1, the TAS also does a left gap skip in the cave after the waterfall. I've messed around a lot here and haven't found a way to recreate this in game. Does anyone know what inputs the TAS uses to do this? This could save like 5 seconds or so, maybe more.
In 2-1, the beach level, you can do a right gap skip in the cave by the house, but it has kind of tricky timing. My method:
slash pot
hug bottom wall
hold c-left (diamond)
hold right
roll right (mash R)
hover to bat
let go of everything and slash the bat
rehold right, c-left, and mash R again
hover to the right edge
face link to the right
hold right and c-up (long) then press R a fraction of a second after
Mash X as one of the links rolls to land
Red or blue link should roll to land if you do it correctly. It's also possible to hover around the corner and drop your links off to the right of that vertical stretch of blackness, but it's ridiculously hard and very inconsistent. Probably faster though. I forget the exact inputs unfortunately.
I actually died so many times trying to get a consistent method for this that I got a weird glitch where red link was permanently dead and was controllable in the same way that dead links in co-op control. It was really weird, I wish I had recorded it.
Zmaster already went over the 2-2 skip. It's exactly the same as 1-1, really.
2-3 seems like it has a lot of potential to be broken. If you could hover over the large gap at the beginning you could skip arrows, and there are enough force gems after this area that it would be fine to sequence break.
Haven't messed around with the cloud area gap skips sergi found. I'm doing ILs sequentially so it won't be awhile til I get there. That looks really cool though, I didn't know you could do this skip in the non-GBA portions of the game. I'm also really interested to know how you're doing these in co-op too! Also interested in learning how to fly >_>.
Anyway, I took a month long break from this game so I'll be derusting before I start doing new ILs. I left off at 2-3, only routed out like half the level though.