Catwalk Skip
Note: This page describes a glitch, trick, or exploit. To see others, click here.
New Game
The majority of uses of Catwalk in Okami are skipped by the typical speedrun route. Completing the game without Catwalk involves 3 notable skips.
Shinshu Plateau Early
A consistent method of NG Plateau Early was demonstrated by Auride with an explanation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZIVF9aGou0). This trick requires you to use both an unskew boost and FPG in order to gain the necessary height and trajectory to make it up the ledge. It is important to maximize the height you gain from the unskew boost, and to avoid losing any height when timing the double jump and air tackle.
Wawku Catwalk Skip
The required use of Catwalk in Wawku Shrine was theorized to be skippable by LegoerofEggos, and demonstrated by Auride (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5hu-vo7mr0). The trick was initially done using an item bounce into a Defrost Boost off of a melting icicle, which is suboptimal due to needing to acquire the key from the scale room. The faster method involves drawing a Fireburst between the two icicles, and doing two sequential D-Boosts off each one (https://youtu.be/p1GrglwwlW0?t=5232). This trick requires two frame perfect inputs to successfully tackle out of the freeze animation, and you must double jump - not wall jump - in order to input both D-Boosts prior to the Fireburst expiring.
Watcher's Cape Early
During a normal run, you must get onto Watcher's Cape in North Ryoshima twice. The first time must be done at night to draw a shooting star for the Watcher, then rotate the Whirlpool Galaxy. The second time is done during the sequence to enter Oni Island, during which you are on a timer before sunset.
In order to reach the top of the cape without Catwalk, the easiest method is via Demon Boosting.
- Run directly into one of the Demon Scrolls closest to the upper end of the broken staircase up to Watcher's Cape.
- Break open the crack in the battle barrier closest to those broken stairs.
- With gold dash, run through the crack and, with some delay, jump and double jump for maximum height.
- At the peak of your jump (judge via timing, since the barrier will obscure your view) press the attack button to cause Ammy to do an aerial Reflector attack to stall herself in mid-air.
- As the battle actually ends, Ammy will change from her in-battle moveset to her normal overworld moveset. This gives you a single frame to input a ground tackle. This should appear as though the air attack cancels immediately into a mid-air ground tackle. If you get an air tackle, your tackle input was too late. You can mash for this input, though you will be relying on luck to hit the frame-perfect tackle.
- Let Ammy begin to move forward with the tackle to gain some distance.
- Hold forward and jump, double jump for distance.
- Air tackle onto the grass collision next to the broken stairs.
Demonstration: https://youtu.be/yYj2yXQulAY
Do this new movement to easily skip the blue cyclops fight - https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6O1U05cfi0umN7yX-bDZmTG3q4jBEWjl
If you fail to get the D Boost or reach the cape collision, you should immediately begin holding back towards the Demon Scroll. As Ammy lands, mash or immediately press jump so that Ammy doesn't turn around on the ground and lose dash.
During the Oni Island sequence, due to the sunset timer, you have about 6 tries to succeed the trick, assuming you re-enter the Demon Scroll fight as soon as possible after failing. Keep in mind that daytime does not pass while in a fight, so you can spend as much time in the fight as you like without adding risk of missing sunset cycle. Thus, if you lose Gold Dash, you should try to build it within the fight before retrying. If sunset does occur, you will be reset to the entrance of North Ryo and can try again. On this and later cycles, you will have 10 attempts at the trick before sunset occurs again.
NG+2017
Shinshu Plateau Early
Plateau Early can be done using a similar method to the New Game FPG strat, however with a slope KT instead (https://youtu.be/p1GrglwwlW0?t=4777). You can also jump directly up to the entrance to Kamui using a single BKT.
Wawku Catwalk Skip
The use of Catwalk in Wawku Shrine can be skipped by doing the same method as in New Game, or by doing Ark Early.
Watcher's Cape Early
Auride demonstrated an efficient method of climbing Watcher's Cape using a series of 2 slope KTs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By-jT-BamOs).
NG+
By using Orca as "movable ground" you can KT up to the Watcher's Cape without needing Catwalk. This can also be done during the Oni Island segment from the ground. In NG+ Any% it is used to skip Catwalk all together, in NG+ All Brushes it is mainly used to change the sequence to get a better Mermaid Spring warp from Catwalk.
Demonstrations: https://youtu.be/xQJmnMdIIww?t=2503 https://youtu.be/xQJmnMdIIww?t=3207