Hey all! I've noticed that even though I've begun using Water Skip in All Medals Speedruns, I haven't actually explained it yet; so here we go!

• What is Water Skip? As its name suggests, Water Skip allows you to collect the cat medals that would normally otherwise require the use of the Water Sweeper; a sweeper that's not normally obtainable until Round 6.

• How do you perform Water Skip?

1. Enter 2-1, and play through the level normally until you take out every enemy in the stage (including the Yellow Chronoblob), as if you were wanting to collect all the medals. Note that the 2nd medal can be collected without the Water Sweeper, with good placement of a Red Barrel in conjunction with Full Diagonal Movement.
2. After all enemies are taken out, sweep the Open Fridge that's near where the button to open the final door is.
3. Move to where the water is at the end of the stage.
4. Shoot the Open Fridge left, but make sure it hits the wall that's closest to the the goal gate.
5. On the right wall, move to the middle where two parts of this wall meet. You can sometimes clip through immediately in this condition. If you don't get it immediately, go to step 6. If you do get it immediately, you can skip to step 7.
6. If you're not able to clip through, jump on top of the Open Fridge and use Diagonal Movement while on the open door of this fridge, going up + right until you fall off the fridge, then transitioning to up + left. It may take you several tries, but if the placement of the Open Fridge is good, you will eventually clip through the wall to the chest where the 3rd cat medal lies.
7. Shoot trash to open the chest and collect the cat medal like normal.
8. Head towards the goal gate and finish the stage. Don't worry, you're not softlocked down where that 3rd medal is. The hatch that normally opens when you finish sweeping the water there only has one-way collision. You can jump right through on the under-side of it.

Demonstration of Water Skip:

• What is the impact of Water Skip in All Medals runs? The impact of Water Skip is not immediately apparent to viewers of All Medals Speedruns. However, those that do run the category know the implications of pulling off Water Skip. By collecting every medal in a single visit of the stage, we skip the need to have to revisit the stage much later in the run. Though this means we have to collect the medals much earlier than normal, it saves time later since you don't have to revisit the stage.

• Can you do Water Skip in 2-3 as well? Observant readers would notice that I did not mention 2-3 until now, even though it also has a medal that normally requires the Water Sweeper. 2-3 Water Skip is possible to do; but there's a major caveat to it. The collision to clip through is much smoother in 2-3 than it is in 2-1. Smooth collision is far more difficult to clip through than the jagged collision of the side wall that 2-1 has. Because of this, 2-3 Water Skip doesn't have a reasonable setup for a human to pull off reliably as of the time of this post. As a result, until a discovery like that takes place, 2-3 Water Skip will not be attempted in full game runs because of the crap shoot nature of the glitch. The clip has been done, but its difficulty is much higher than that of the Water Skip in 2-1.

That said, if a consistent setup is found for 2-3 Water Skip that allows for reliable clipping, it would become possible to collect all 4 medals in the stage using the LV3 Sweeper. You would still have to revisit the stage once because of the need to sweep a 16T weight for one of the medals. However, you would not have to go back and revisit 2-3 a 2nd time in the run, after completing Round 7. This would result in another large time gain, just like that of 2-1's version of the skip.

Well, that's all! I hope this post explains Water Skip well. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Happy glitching!

-Lotus

1 day later, and a more reliable setup for 2-3 Water Skip has now been found!

• How do you perform 2-3 Water Skip?

1. Play through normally, as if you were to collect every medal in the stage. Note that you need to have the LV3 Sweeper to do this properly due to there being a 16T weight blocking access to one of the medals.
2. Beyond where the Tom Tom Biker is, there is a wagon. Sweep this wagon, then another trash after. You need to take out a Dust Herder before you attempt this glitch. Note that the Dust Herder is at the waterfall area down below on the Original Release. On Original Release, you would only need to sweep the wagon because the Dust Herder should already be defeated by this point.
3. After taking out the Dust Herder at the top, shoot the wagon towards the wood cabinet (just to the left of the Dust Herder that was previously alive). Make sure you're doing this while very close to the wall. The key is to have the wagon against the wall.
4. If the wagon lands on top of the wood cabinet like it did in this video, sweep the wood cabinet. If it doesn't, skip this step.
5. Run up + right towards the wall such that you're on the edge of the wagon as well, using Full Diagonal Movement. Be warned, the game can get very spazzy during this time period. Jumping on the wagon, then going off towards the left and heading back to the normal up + right can help. Eventually though, you will clip through.
6. Collect the cat medal. As with 2-1 Water Skip, you are not softlocked down in that area. The hatch here also only has one way collision. You can easily get out of there after you have the medal.

Demonstration of 2-3 Water Skip: