In reply to Mishu, it's impossible to access W4 with a cannon, the only way is to beat W2 boss with a mini mushroom.

I found a solution to the issue with needing a mini mushroom- there is a mini mushroom in 3-A. I'm about to update the route doc.

Re posting the link to the Route here

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17zcuhrOy0r8jRS-gLyqLMuENxh4k5wSsgcqtgPDiIFo/edit

Koffingrockz, if I may, the W2 route could be done completely different. Doing all the levels except 2-A will give you more coins to use in the run later on (there's an auto scroller before the castle, allowing collection of all 3 coins in that specific level). I believe doing this will negate the need to collect the second coin on 2-3 and the first AND third coin on 2-A when you come back to it, also allowing collection of a couple other coins on the way (third coin in 2-4)

The 2-A first coin, however, can be collected without losing any time at all (IL strats, not sure about RTA) so if you are skilled enough, you can still collect it.

Please let me know if I can update this to show my strategy?

There's no reason not to get the 2-A coin it's free. The third coin does cost an RTA second. I'm totally okay with skipping that coin though. I think we should add a coin count to help organize the route. And we will need to go through world 2 twice (overworld wise) due to having to get the entrance to worlds 3 and 4. In conclusion, the secret exit of 2-A must be taken to save a lot of over world movement. So yes, the route should be edited and I'll do that right now. Thank you.

Well guys I just finished documenting worlds 2,3, and 4 and I gotta say I could not be any happier with them. We're going to be totally fine star coin wise. We can probably go back and take out anything that is even minorly out of the way when we're done though. Here is what was accomplished power up wise:

-Shell for 3-1, 3-3, and 4-Ghost house (kills big boo) -mini mario for secret exit in 4-Ghost House, 4-A, and 4-Castle. -Fireballs for the big goomba

I accomplished every single goal I wanted to complete in worlds 1-4.

This route is pretty good, you both did a nice job ʘ‿ʘ

I have added on to the world 3 and world 4 section of the document.

I have tested the Giant Goomba strategy in 4-Castle. Bouncing off the left wall and ground pounding him is faster IRT compared to shooting him down with fire. It still skips the need to activate the P-Switch in the room, and ground pounding him will shoot you back at the left wall at the correct angle.

I also think editing the star coin counter to show the amount of coins you should have after unlocking a gate would be a good idea, because they cost 5 coins per gate, which removes coins, and showing which gates are being opened in the route at what specific point in the run.

My overall thoughts: This is an interesting route, starting at 2-A, I would have never thought of going back to 2-3, and W3 is weird to me, but I'll leave it for now.

I'm going to test W1-W4 within the next 1-2 weeks.

I know that the route is weird but drastic measures had to be taken in order to get all the poweups we need. And as for the Goomba I remember killing him super quickly once with a ground pound without even doing a wall jump and his death animation took soooooo long. But that's only if you finish him off with a ground pound. And I will edit the star coin count when I'm done. For now I just wanted it to be easier for us since we know we need 30 overall. Also are there any mini mushrooms in coin blocks from worlds 5-8? We need a mini mushroom for 5-ghosthouse and the beginning of world 7

Not that I know, are blocks which change powerup ok for routing ?

So we can actually fight big goomba with mini mario and it loses 8 seconds. This seems to be our only place to get a mini mushroom outside of going to 5-castle and taking a long time to beat petey, going to a mushroom house (and an extra warp), or simply getting lucky. Here is my idea for a possible route with time differences:

4-Castle: +8 on boss with mini mario 5-2: 363 (no mini) vs 359 (mini) +4 5-Ghost House: mini mario -10 due to faster elevator 7-1: 338 (no mini) vs 358 (mini) -20 7-Ghosthouse: 365 (normal exit) (no mini) with a good invisible block (no mini) vs 370 (mini) -5 7-2: Autoscroller 7-3: Another Autoscroller 7-Tower: mini mario saves 9 seconds from fast cycles -9 From 7-Tower we will use a fire flower reserve before the boss as the mini mushroom is no longer needed.

Conclusion: Mini Mario saves 37 IGT or 27.75 RTA.

I do not feel comfortable putting in red blocks.

Routing this game with red blocks is not necessary, with worst case scenario, we could be using red houses for every shell / mini that we need.

Petey in 5-Castle: You can kill him with a star power up from the roulette block before the giant piranha on the way to the boss room, negating the need to get him on the ground to pound him or shoot him.

I also think it would not hurt to assume that Red Houses are ok to use if they don't cost any Star Coins (Next to 1-A, above 6-A, etc) if we feel like they're needed.

A giant mushroom is necessary (for speed) to access two different levels in W7, and could be potentialy used to kill Tank Mole in 6-Castle faster.

Hm where does the mega mushroom save time in world 7? By the way, the route looks EXTREMELY sloppy in worlds 5 and 7 right now but I am about to fix it right now. Also we'll only need one toad or we'll have to sacrifice time on Petey and kill him with the shell. The star would still probably be faster though.

For a mega mushroom we should probably just spend an extra 5 stars to get to a mushroom house. There are many star coins anyways. Either that or end a level with x77, x88, or x99.

I believe you could end an assortment of towers with the times to spawn a giant house. This negates the animation of fireworks, and only does the animation to move the screen for a giant house to spawn.

You would need the Giant Mushroom to destroy the blocks in 7-5 on the way to the secret exit. Also, when the giant mushroom is activated at the correct spot, you would get the last star coin with no time loss at all. I would recommend activating it after the area where all the bob-ombs are (the mini pipe) directly after that bullet bill launcher.

My thoughts on W4 route, this might also effect W3:

I would think doing every level in W4 in one run would be more effective. You could skip the 4-Ghost House secret exit until you complete W3 the way you have it written (with 3-A last, then warping to W4 to finish off the Ghost House secret exit). This will allow an unlock to W5 earlier.

The other alternative method is to go directly to the cannon in W4, unlock W7, and complete W7 to unlock W8 before returning to W3 / W4. This make a later World unlock early, allowing the animation skip of when Bowser JR is taking princess to the towers / castles in some other worlds.

Lets remember that unlocking W8 right away will allow us to skip that animation of Bowser JR taking Princess to towers / castles in every other world until we reach W8.

I just tested 7-5. We will not be getting a mega mushroom. The mega mushroom only saves 4 IGT seconds at most. This is equivalent to only 3 RTA seconds. It would take A LOT longer than 3 seconds to get a mega mushroom

No mega: Mega:

I used a tiny safe in no mega because the IL strat saves little time and is pretty risky for RTA. But regardless of that I think this still proves my point.

Oh wow that Bowser Jr thing is huge thank you so much! And the only problem I have with your route is that we wouldn't have mini mario for 4 castle. Mini mario saves a TON of time there because he saves multiple cycles. Also 4-A is much more RTA safe with mini mario... You can technically go just as fast with normal mario but it's stupidly difficult.

As for the Bowser thing we'll take the 5-Ghost House secret exit. I tested for a long time today and the secret exit is faster anyways. The only place we can get a mini mario in worlds 1-4 outside of red blocks is 1-4, 2-Castle, (Both super slow) and 3-A. 3-A is on the path so it is the best place to get it. We also need a shell in 4-4 to speed up world 3.

And we reeaaally want that shell for the normal exit in 5-Ghosthouse. That stupid big boo can troll very badly.

Warning --- Lots of Information --- This post is BIG -- It may reroute --- Please read carefully <3

Having mini mario in 4-Castle would only save about 5 IRT seconds. I don't think it's enough to be worth the small amount of time in that level. Also, getting the hidden star in that level saves almost that much time anyways, when done correctly. Personally I would rather just lose two more seconds in one level over having to walk through W4 three different times. The mapping in W4 is a pretty big deal and it does kill a lot of time.

Also, using the R button to scroll the screen to the right will allow you to see ahead of you a little bit, and the cycle of the swinging platforms at the end happens a little earlier with the R button. With a slightly precise jump (it's not too hard as long as you can trust the long jump) you could still make it in the same cycle going all in at full speed.

Atleast with my personal observation then, going all the way through W4 to the boss, and skipping the Ghost House secret exit until the second time through would be a safe bet.

Also, keeping the mini mushroom you get from 3-A is pretty vital in 7-1, 7-Ghost house, and 7-2 if you are very skilled.

The 7-1 Route should be that you are able to bounce across koopas / platforms with mini mario, taking the pipe on the bottom at the end of the first screen. (that pipe is faster IRT by about 15 seconds, and it's much easier).

7-Ghost House will give you a switch skip if you jump on the spring with the mini mario (it saves about 5 seconds or so IRT).

7-2 gives a HUGE autoscroller skip if you are extremely skilled. Jumping up on the correct flying koopa's and the occasional wall jump will save you atleast 1 minute IRT (I think it saves more).

If I did a personal run, I would rather grab a giant mushroom on the way to 7-5 and use it there instead of going through the pain of getting bombs to blow up the blocks. We do need to do both exits in this level as part of getting access to everything in W7. It's definitely not required to use a giant mushroom, but it's much easier, and it's gonna grab a coin anyways.

And uh... 5-Ghost House? The fastest strategy is using mini mushroom to climb up the walls. You don't need a shell in 5-Ghost House, and there are no big boo's in that level.

If you're talking about 4-Ghost House, the red switch is needed to activate the platform to enter the pipe on the way to the normal exit anyways, so to avoid that big boo, you could easily run towards the left wall after activating the switch, wall jump off it right away, and it will give enough space to jump over the big boo. A shell isn't needed to complete that level, but the shell is still a good idea to grab to be used in 3-1.

Back on the subject of 5-Ghost House: Taking the secret exit in that level is a good idea if you decide to use the cannon from there to W8 if you think it would save enough time over the animations. This should be tested very extensively though. (I think the cannon in this world would only be useful enough if it's done early enough into the entire run.) Otherwise I would just suggest taking the normal exit because you don't have to wait to go through any door.

Using the mini mushroom in 5-Ghost house also allows you to pass some of the "boxing ghosts" faster (mini mario's hit box is a little smaller than he is.) by jumping over his head right when the enemy opens the path. It also allows you to ground pound those same enemies to get higher in the level faster, because you're practically just climbing up the entire level anyways.

I very highly doubt taking the cannon in W5 is a plausible choice.

So here's my question: With all this information, would it be better to do 3-A before defeating W2 pokey boss as mini mario? It would allow you to grab a backup mini for safety, which will allow upgrading to a flower immediately in W4 without losing the mini later on.

Thank you for those videos. I always seem to have trouble getting those bombs in the right place on time.

I'm really bad at routing and I still have to get into this stuff. At least I tested the 7-2 skip (w/ minimushroom) and it saves around 120 IGT seconds compared using the elevator for the entire level, (could potentially save more); goind to do an IL within the next 2 days. It just requires a good amount of practice and right timing.

EDIT: 7-2 skip'd be really hard using the mini for the first star coin too. Quite sure the second one is not really time consuming and the third is free.