Walking While Talking

Note: This page describes a glitch, trick, or exploit. To see others, click here.

Explanation

Walking While Talking (aka WWT) is a state where time continues to advance, possibly with the ability to control Ammy, while dialogue is up. WWT is normally activated by triggering dialogue and interrupting it with a cutscene. Only certain combinations of cutscene and dialogue will produce this state -- this, along with the effects of WWT, is not fully understood. There are two distinct kinds of WWT state -- this page will denote WWT that allows full control of Ammy as type one, and the second, which does not allow control of Ammy without "breaking free" via another cutscene, but allows pausing and the use of the brush and allows time to move type two.

With WWT activated, speaking to an NPC will generally replace the existing dialogue while Ammy retains WWT. On most versions of the game, if one has the dialogue of a character with a portrait on the screen and then moves too far from that character, the game will crash. This presumably occurs because character portraits only remain loaded when Ammy is close enough to an NPC. This crash will even occur if it is Issun's dialogue on-screen. The Wii version has more lenient crash behavior -- instead the character's portrait may be replaced by some other graphic, such as the Stray Bead icon, and in many cases it is possible to move far away from the NPC without a crash. What determines crashes and portrait replacement on Wii is not well-understood. Additionally, some NPCs' text appears have a strangely magnetic effect on Ammy -- she will constantly turn and skew toward the NPC in question while in proximity to them -- this even affects the trajectory of dashes.

WWT can be cancelled by simply closing the dialogue box. It is also cancelled when going through loading zones (long or short), meaning WWT must be activated in the same map where it is used.

WWT is not speedrun-applicable, but may become so in future if its current limitations are overcome.

Areas where WWT can be Activated

Ark of Yamato

Before talking to one of the celestials, KT over the dialougue and fight any of the ark bosses. After defeating one of the bosses go back and activate the exiting dialougue and you will have WWT. This happens because the entering dialougue is never played so when you go back after defeating any boss the exiting dialougue is played at the same time as the entering. Currently no use for this.

Demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HCfXHOwioQ

Gale Shrine

After defeating Ninetales, you can fight the Kusa 5 - Fuse's canine warriors, in the room with the first Chimera in Gale Shrine. Before the fight, if you tackle one of the canine warriors, but jump just before they are hit, you can store their dialogue. If you then talk to Fuse, you will have WWT with the battle-start dialogue. There's no known use for this.

Demonstration: https://youtu.be/ndq-ivva89c

Moon Cave Entrance

See https://youtu.be/sU0_HONWo3g. Issun's text on attempts to draw a sun can be combined with the text triggered by letting the Moon Cave barrier hit you. Fairly limited, but still noteworthy. No method to draw a second sun and get free movement without KTs seems to exist as of now, so it is limited to type two for new game.

Kamiki

Unlike most cutscenes in the game, Ammy is not prevented from drowning after Rejuvenating Kushi's waterwheel. By jumping into the river near Kushi and waiting until Ammy is just about to drown before using Rejuvenation, one can respawn before the scroll transition occurs and tackle Kushi. See https://youtu.be/Dl9lI99ih88. If one then allows the cutscenes to play out in the correct sequence, one can exit the dialogue while Kushi's introductory text stays on screen.

If the dialogue is taken to Komuso, you can start his battle from outside the battle barrier, allowing you to effectively flee the battle, though there are no directly interesting consequences of this.

Shinshu + Ryoshima

By entering either of the 2 dojos before activating the cutscene that plays when walking near the dojo via an interior clip, you can get walking while talking. First you want to do ground tackles and jump as soon as possible to get as close to the dojo loading zone without actually activating it. (Demonstration: https://twitter.com/RiftyRTA/status/1547850233811329024 mirror) Then you have to draw a circle around the sensei to have him pet ammy. While he is petting you, you have to interact with him and Ammy will be pushed into the loading zone but it wont activate while you're in the cutscene. Then you want to go to the screen with all the dojo skills and leave the screen, before the sensei tells you do leave, you will hit the loading zone and activate the outside dojo cutscene. Then sensei will then tell you to leave and interrupt the dojo cutscene giving you walking while talking.

This cant be preformed at the kamui dojo because there is no intro cutscene.

Agata

It is possible to delay activation of the cutscene which plays when one of the spherical objects in the area is returned to Sleepy (aka Nemui, the bear). This is done by cutting a torch, then pushing the ball into position so that the torch will push it into Sleepy's trigger when the torch respawns. Before this happens, you can jump down and go into the cave below, then PS the chest by the guardian sapling to collect the Prayer Beads. The associated tutorial cutscene will be interrupted by the Sleepy cutscene. Ammy will then be placed in type two WWT. If one waits for a day-night transition and cancels it by skipping the Sleepy cutscene, type one WWT can be entered. See https://youtu.be/r_3xO4vZSaU.

A simpler method of activating WWT in Agata is to use any method of Agata Bridge Skip to skip the first session of fishing with Kokari (for the Giant Salmon), then defeat Tei in Kusa Village and return to start the second session. When this is done, the cutscenes before and after fishing behave as though fishing 2 is being done, but the actual fishing map behaves as though fishing 1 is being done (including the Giant Salmon being the final fish, instead of the Whopper). If, instead of completing the fishing, you simply quit out, you will be given WWT with Kokari's textbox upon loading back into Agata. See https://youtu.be/BlhlAJfxpt4

This WWT has a unique use: if one begins the dialogue for fishing with Kokari, then feeds an animal as the transition to fishing occurs, the minigame will immediately end after the introductory dialogue. When loading completes, all NPCs will T-pose, and Ammy will have Height Lock No Clip.

During this no-clip, Ammy isn't affected by gravity. If she jumps, she gains no height and will get stuck airborne. By ending a dialogue will Ammy snap back to the ground. One can also air tackle into a slope to regain a grounded state, which also allows you to gain height. Otherwise, Ammy is height-locked. This no-clip state is retained even across loading zones, unlike WWT itself. Enemy encounters are also affected -- the battle begins, but no barrier appears and Ammy is invincible and can move freely.

Hypothetically, this could allow for major sequence breaks, but the long, precise setup and under-explored mechanics have prevented its implementation into speedruns. A shorter or more generally-applicable setup would be a large step forward.

Tsuta

In the poison pot room, it is possible to perform a Brush Adventure up to the ledge where the poison pots, but before all 3 devil gates have been defeated. Though the pots are invisible and cannot be attacked or PS'd, their hitboxes can still be hit by CB's. If all of the pots are destroyed using CB's, then the mushroom growing cutscene is triggered and allowed to play out, you will have WWT. See https://youtu.be/5Wjfv3Bg0-o. This also has the effect of removing the loading zone to the Vine room.

Kusa

In cursed Kusa (i.e. before talking to Fuse), whenever Ammy attempts to use the brush, Issun will talk as soon as the brush closes. You can interrupt Issun's dialogue by talking to the merchant at the entrance of the village, then tackle his shop and talk a few times to bring up the shopping yes-no menu. This menu can be taken through the village without crashing. Because the only way to progress in cursed Kusa is to completely talk to Fuse, cancelling WWT, this has no use. It is, however, likely the easiest and fastest way to demonstrate WWT. Note that the merchant in Kusa is a slightly different type of NPC -- his dialogue may be triggered while airborne. There are several other NPCs of this "type", including the innkeeper in Kusa and the merchant in City Checkpoint. This property may facilitate other ways to trigger WWT, but so far has not.

There is also another variant on the cursed Kusa WWT that uses Susano's text combined with Issun's brush text; it can be found here.

Sei-an Aristocratic

Exiting the Eastern treasure room in Himiko's Palace just after opening Rao's secret tunnel from Ryoshima Coast for the first time with a day-night cutscene queued will interrupt Issun's text and allow WWT to be triggered. A day/night cutscene can be queued by entering an interior after drawing a sun or moon, or drawing one OOB from an interior. This can be done via an interior clip out of the treasure room and into Rao's tunnel. See https://streamable.com/zrsch. This WWT is particularly interesting and flexible -- a portion of the day/night cutscene will play before Issun's text comes up, and if this is instantly canceled, Issun's text will be "stored", and expended on the next cutscene. This means it is possible to jump out of the treasure room again and get out of the palace while avoiding the guards and other sources of text and cutscenes. Day/night cutscenes may be used to enter type one or two WWT anywhere outside on the same map.

Unfortunately, while Benkei does have a fishing minigame here in restored Sei-an Aristocratic, due to the lack of animals on the map to feed, known methods of no-clip are impossible here.

Oni Island Upper Interior

Through a variety of methods, it's possible to get behind the Blockhead on this map without triggering its introductory dialog. Then, by jumping on top of it, tackling at a precise position and angle, and bouncing into the trigger for said introductory dialog, you can overlay it with the weak point display cutscene, causing type one WWT.

Demonstration: https://youtu.be/-ZX4OQY2ytc

History

This video demonstrates the earliest known recorded instance of WWT: https://youtu.be/ndq-ivva89c