Thanks for watching this video! Well, this is it. There is a lot of work here. After discovering the water rise animation time saver, I started video frame by frame analysis of the old technique (swimming directly into the rising animation), vs the new technique (rising at the intersection). What I discovered was interesting. Lara's wade speed is directly dependent on her origin swimming velocity. When Lara swims full speed into the rising animation, her wade velocity carries over. When Lara rises at intersection, (the new and much faster technique), her wade speed is slower, thus slowing down the run. This was proven by swimming right until the underwater animation would play, stopping, and pressing forward once to start the rising animation. Once Lara started to Wade, she did not reach the final rope wall in the same frame count. After realizing this, I started improving my approach to the rope wall and learning more efficient flare throw timing to compensate for wade velocity. This is the result. I performed 75 1031s going for this, and had a great time with the challenge. I have no idea why more speedrunners do not play this. This level is so rewarding and fun to play and analyze. What next? Well, 1029 and 1028 are technically possible by performing a frame perfect rise intersection, but timing the x and y position of Lara in a twitchy frame perfect intersection is not a good time. As always, no TAS and no cheats were used in this run. In the end, Lara takes a bow. As for me, I'm going to crack open a drink.
