Strategy is essentially the same as my prior Garuda run, which I outline here: . A few minor differences or thoughts are below.

It's about a five second timesave entering the tower with the controller speedup and the camera already prepared to be zoomed in. Floors appear to load faster zoomed in, the 2f especially with the Ghosh cutscene, so I like to be zoomed in for that before I move up; it could maybe add up to a non-insignificant timesave if you were fast and did it every floor but that's too much for me to do. Trolls and Cyclones are the best way to get to level 2, both die in two shots and give you enough experience, so I kill the first one that's easily available for the extra survivability.

I've just tried to play faster and riskier than in my previous attempts when I last got this record: That means faster menuing, no camera spinning unless absolutely necessary and not stutter stepping over any items to try to find good stuff. I try to only pick up Eggs, Bells, Scrolls and Oleems - so if I get into a pinch hopefully when I open my inventory something good is there. These are all small time saves but they really do add up. I still think that trying to explore and then porting when in trouble or when you are nowhere close to a room is the best approach.