#The Bounty

35 dollar bounty? What 35 dollar bounty, you might ask? Well, if you can beat the current Normal Mode Katana record for Psychboss Individual Level (standing at 2:31.00 currently) I will pay you 35 dollars when your run is verified! Now, on to the guide.

#Introduction

Hello and welcome to a beginner-level guide to running the Psychotherapist Boss individual level categories!

Please note that this guide is primarily for PC, keyboard & mouse runners - most of it also applies to controller runs, but some parts may not work.

If you have any issues with any part of this guide, you can @ me in the Speedrunning Discord: https://discord.gg/4vcjw4tCR2 or DM me (I'm Quinn#5645).

We'll only cover normal mode with the Katana/Prism Sword in this guide and the Advanced Guide. Hard mode and Labswords will be covered in a separate guide in the future.

In this guide, you'll get to know the basic strategies and must-knows for a Psych IL speedrun, so you'll be ready to tackle the more difficult strategies in the Advanced Guide.

#Preparation

To be ready for the speedrun, you need to have your settings configured for it! This is fortunately already covered in Baroti's excellent guide here: https://www.speedrun.com/katana_zero/guide/kgwz8

However, you'll need to change one more setting after that: go to Options > Keyboard Controls and set your Interact and Confirm keys to be Right Click.

You'll now want to download AutoClicker here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/orphamielautoclicker/

The reason we're using AutoClicker is because the Psych IL category, unlike every other category, allows you to use it to automatically skip through the dialogue before the boss fight.

You'll probably also want some kind of recording software if you don't already have one. I recommend OBS: https://obsproject.com/download

When you're ready to start a run, launch AutoClicker and follow these steps:

Set Mouse Button (under Click options) to Right, set the Click interval to all zeroes except for milliseconds, which should be set to 1. Set Click repeat to "Repeat until stopped" and set Cursor position to "Current location". Then minimize the AutoClicker window.

Then you can launch Katana Zero, make sure your settings are correct, check you're recording, and then you can begin!

#Starting & The Intro Cutscene

As soon as you press Begin Run, you should hold right so that your character will instantly begin walking toward the Therapist.

As you hold right, press the F6 button once, which will start the AutoClicker. Once the dialogue starts (at which point you can stop holding right) you should see it advance automatically, since the AutoClicker is constantly pressing the interact/confirm buttons.

Keep in mind that you can pause the game at any time - pausing the game will not invalidate your speedrun. If you want to pause the game and check this guide in the middle of a run, you can.

Personally, I tend to use the 40 second cutscene at the start of each attempt to stretch, check my messages, maybe take a bite of a snack or grab some water. It works well as a rest time between runs.

After the cutscene ends (the final dialogue line is "I will suffer you no more!"), press F6 once to disable the AutoClicker. You'll now be at the first battle phase: the Hands.

#Hands Phase

Now, for Hands, you’ll want to start with this basic strategy - more optimal stuff gets covered in the advanced guide.

The pattern of hands is two from the left, then one from each side, then two from the left again, then two from the right, then one from each side - and at that point, you should have ended the phase - missing any hands is generally just going to mean your run is dead. You should memorize this pattern since it’s pretty easy to remember.

As far as hitting the hands, you’ll at this point just want to stay in the middle and hit the hands from there - as a beginner, you should focus on making sure you hit every hand rather than hitting them super fast.

#Orbs Phase

As soon as you hit the last hands and you see the floating Psych start to glitch out and vanish, press your Restart button, which will skip the intro animation for Orbs and save a second.

Roll into the right corner and reflect each orb from there by deflecting, then rolling back into the corner again and again til the next part of Orbs starts.

In the next part, where they fire vertically downward, you’ll want to deflect two of the orbs if possible, but if you can’t, just do one for now. Then you’ll get to the next part.

In this part where they arrange themselves randomly, you’ll want to sit in the right corner and pray - hopefully, you’ll get a pattern where you can just deflect all of the orbs in a row, but it’s okay if you don’t. Just make sure not to die here!

#Eyes Phase

This phase is pretty much straightforward - just hit the eyes. Practice is vital here, make sure your reactions and movement are good so you can hit them quickly.

#Final Phase

When the transformation sequence ends, you’ll want to press your Restart button as soon as you regain control of your character. You can do this by either using a cue in the music (you can use custom music in Katana Zero, so you can also get a better cue with that) or by spamming roll or attack and reacting to the animation of that by pressing Restart.

Then, all you need to do is survive, kill the minions, and hit the boss tentacles as fast as you can - the pattern is:

Cross of syringes, downward syringes going right to left, minions, following stabbing tentacle, vulnerable boss tentacle, minions, downward syringes going left to right, circle of syringes, downward syringes going right to left, vulnerable boss tentacle, following stabbing tentacle, minions, following stabbing tentacle, circle of syringes, following stabbing tentacle, random downward syringes, vulnerable boss tentacle.

You should really just practice this phase so you get used to the attack patterns - ideally you want to be able to survive this phase without dying and while hitting all three tentacles every time.

#Exit

After you return to the therapy room, simply hold left - do not press the interact button because you don’t want to accidentally search the Therapist’s body. Wait until you’re halfway to the door, then start spamming interact while holding left - since you’re holding left, it’ll automatically select the “Go Home” option, and the run will end.

#Goals

Once you’ve done all of the steps in this guide, you should hopefully be able to get a time under 3 minutes and 30 seconds as long as you don’t die. You’ll want to aim for a time under 3:10 before you move on to the Advanced Guide (unless you just wanna skip ahead, of course).

#Advanced Strategies

Once you feel you’re ready, you can move on to the Advanced Guide here: https://www.speedrun.com/katana_zero/guide/3rbd5