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In computer and video games, sequence breaking is the act of performing actions or obtaining items out of the intended linear order, or of skipping “required” actions or items entirely. Sequence breaking is often used to beat a game unusually quickly, to beat it while only completing a few objectives or obtaining a few items, to obtain useful items early in the game, to make the game more difficult, or to help push a game as far as possible in some other way.

History of the term

Though sequence breaking as a concept has existed almost since the inception of computer games complex enough to have sequential storylines, apparently the first documented action in a video game to be called a sequence break occurred in the Nintendo GameCube game Metroid Prime, in a thread called “Gravity Suit and Ice Beam before Thardus”.

The rock monster Thardus was designed to be a required boss before the Gravity Suit and the Ice Beam could be obtained, hence the novelty of bypassing the boss while still obtaining the items. When a gamer named Steven Banks achieved this feat on January 18, 2003, he posted his discovery on the Metroid Prime message board on GameFAQs. The thread attracted a number of interested gamers, and the term sequence breaking was incidentally coined. The term has since grown in popularity and is now often applied to unintended shortcuts in any game.

The term has become so pervasive that it has begun appearing in video games itself.

Examples

There are many examples of sequence breaking in computer and video games, of which the Metroid series of games are perhaps the most famous example. In Super Metroid, by using techniques like the Wall Jump, Bomb Jump and Mockball to jump and run into places normally not accessible, players can skip bosses, acquire items before intended, take shortcuts, etc. This is usually done to cut down on backtracking and allow for 100% speedruns.

Some other notable examples are:

• Baldur's Gate — Using the spell Dimension Door to enter Baldur's Gate and Candlekeep and then repeatedly exploiting the Chapter 7 introduction trigger to place the game into the final chapter.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - By jumping as wolf form on the stairs in the Clock Tower, you can jump to the high platform without the double jump, and essentially do the entire rest of the area backwards.
• Deus Ex — Using gas grenades, you can manipulate the AI to do unintended things, such as opening a door that lets you skip the entire first level, making a boss open the exit door for you, and attaching the grenades to walls to scale entire buildings.
• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction for PC — Completing the Eve of Destruction quest by proxy in a group allows the player to get a level 1 character into Hell despite not being a high enough level to enter the Worldstone Keep.
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind — Using various items in game, a level 1 character can collect two of the three items in the Kagrenac's Tools set, reach the final boss, and defeat him. Use of Kagrenac's hammer without Kagrenac's brace is intended to kill the player, however the Hammer can be quickly used before its damage over time effect kills the player.
• Fallout 3 - After leaving Vault 101, the player can head directly to Vault 112, bypassing 3 quest of the main mission.
• Half-Life 2 - Using several glitches in the physics engine, huge amounts of content can be skipped. For instance, the infamous bridge battle on Highway 17 can be entirely skipped using a flying glitch.
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask — It is possible to warp freely between areas that are connected by "Fairy fountains" using a glitch called "bomb hovering". This allows the player to obtain all vital items needed in the dungeons and their prerequisites in the beginning of the game. This in conjunction with several skips that allows entire dungeons to be skipped is enough to complete the game from beginning to end in less than two hours.
• Metroid Prime - In the beginning of the game, it's possible for the player to move Samus Aran over a tall cliff by doing a "scan dash" to obtain the Space Jump Boots, which are usually acquired much later, as the first item, opening up the ability to perform many tricks and obtain other items early.
• Myst — By immediately retrieving the white page from the dock switch, the primary puzzle (and thus the entire game) can be completed without ever leaving the main island.
• Pokémon Red and Green (Japanese) — It is possible to swap items with Pokémon since the 'select' button doesn't wear off when cancelling the item screen. When swapping an item with a Pokémon a part of the game memory is changed. Using the aforementioned glitch with the Oak's Parcel will let you warp to the map with the number of steps you've walked until the door you walk in. Using this glitch, it is possible to complete the game within 5 minutes by directly warping to the Hall of Fame. This glitch is called the 'Dokokashira Door Glitch'.
• Pokémon Red and Blue (International) — Buying a Poké Doll to be used instead of the Silph Scope, thus skipping all of the Game Corner. Also, the ability to trade Pokémon between games makes the S.S. Anne skippable by allowing the player to use a Pokémon's Cut ability before they should be able to. Unusually, neither of these sequence breaks were fixed in rereleases, though a separate one involving Pokémon Stadium 2 and the Fresh Water item being used to skip Cerulean Gym was fixed in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.
• Portal — The early levels in Portal teach techniques you'll need later. At the start of level 14, the player must learn to fling themselves vertically to reach a tower. The same technique will immediately reach the exit. The game designer chose to allow the shortcut in the final game because it does teach the technique.
• Super Mario Bros. — The "minus world" warp zone glitch can be used to skip from World 1-2 to World 5-1, possibly the earliest major sequence break in a video game. The warp zone in World 1-2 is intended to go to World 2-1, World 3-1 or World 4-1.

See also

• Emergent gameplay
• Speedrun

References

1. Carless, Simon (2004). Gaming Hacks. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 0-596-00714-0.
2. "Ice Beam + Gravity Suit before Thardus using Triple Jump". metroid2002.com. 2003-01-27. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
3. "Metroid Prime Sequence Breaking (v. 4.0) [Previously Ice+Grav before Thardus]". metroid2002.com. 2003-02-11. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDN1TWmlXpk

Notes

1. Intelligent Systems. Super Paper Mario. Over the Flagpole: Surely you are cheating! You are exploiting a glitch! You are a sequence breaker!

External links

• Tool-assisted console game movies - Speedruns through various classic console games, made with emulators and utilizing slow-motion and savestates.
• Speed Demos Archive - Speedruns through various games, made without the use of tools such as slow-motion and savestates.

• Misplaced Pages articles needing factual verification from July 2007
• Emergent gameplay
• Competitive video gaming techniques