Uploaded March 2020 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago

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This trick saves about 20 seconds in NG, and probably even more time in NG+. This is an alternate method of delivering water via Waterspout to the pool that surrounds the small Guardian Sapling.


The previous method involved entering the pond area via either Cherry Bomb or KT's, then skipping the first empty pond by angling the camera to WS straight from the bottom pond to the second empty pond, then doing the final pond normally. This method involves using a Brush Adventure (see https://okami.speedruns.wiki/Brush_Adventure) to directly WS from the bottom to the top.


The method is pretty intuitive and not that precise, so you should just watch the video to understand. The only weird thing is the brush floor clip we start with, which seems to usually require an extra unbrush compared to some other locations. Sometimes it works normally though, and I'm not sure the why. It only makes a fraction of a second difference, though.


As you can see in the video, if you hit more than one pond with your WS (which is possible to avoid, but not really necessary), you briefly gain control of Ammy during the cutscene of the sapling growing. This cutscene isn't skippable so it makes little difference, but it does look kind of cool. Be aware that you can lose time here by pausing or using the brush, which pauses the cutscene. You can cause the game to crash by using some Brush powers during the cutscene, although I'm not sure exactly what combination would cause it.


If you hit the Guardian fight trigger before losing control (which is pretty hard to do due to the small window to act), then this happens: youtu.be/D_U_g6zYU4E. The graphics get this weird dark shading effect, and if you Bloom the sapling the game softlocks. Not recommended, obviously.

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