Introduction (by AKheon)

Hello and welcome to the big Dynasty Warriors 7 NG+ speedrunning guide. I'm AKheon. As for my credentials, at least in 2019 I held world records in the three main Story-campaign categories of this game. Admittedly, I was basically the only runner, so in that sense getting first place wasn't too impressive. Yeah, the sad fact is that most "musou"-games aren't particularly popular as speedgames. I do think it's a kind of a shame...

And now, my dear nonexistent audience, YOU can also learn how to run this game with this helpful guide!

I did my testing and playing on the unpatched PS3 version of Dynasty Warriors 7 with no DLC. I'm not sure if these glitches and tricks might work in the other versions of the game. Also, since I routed & glitched this game pretty much solo, there may be some blind spots in my tactics. These are not necessarily always the best tactics for running this game; some more perspective wouldn't hurt.

Dynasty Warriors 7 as a speedgame

Pros:

• The glitched any% NG+ categories are roughly 1 hour long each - a pretty comfy length for a speedgame.
• The runs don't contain much downtime since most cutscenes can be skipped.
• Dynasty Warriors 7 is mostly bug-free. Runs may rarely end due to unpredictable softlocks and crashes, but it only happened to me 3 or 4 times during all the months I ran it.
• The glitches are visually impressive.
• The series in general has lot of funny dialogue and badass characters.

Cons:

• The game is more technically challenging and complex than you'd expect. All the main glitches have a precise timing and you're sometimes under a time limit to get them done.
• RNG is a big factor in some levels, especially when you use the so-called Wuxia-glitch. It doesn't help that any mistakes are usually costly.
• To do NG+ runs you need to grind some end game equipment first, which is a drag. Still, the amount of grinding you need to do is more manageable than in most games of the series.

About the design of Dynasty Warriors 7

Dynasty Warriors 7 is a more linear, story-heavy experience than the previous games in the series. You can't freely choose your character during Story-mode and the level design itself is generally pretty railroaded and scripted. The player is kept out of many important locations with gates, boulders or other obstacles until it's the right time to go there. The linear design serves as an interesting contrast to Dynasty Warriors 6, where you could break down the gates of enemy garrisons and generally go wherever you wanted at any time.

Too linear and scripted level design is usually bad for speedrunning. Fortunately the numerous glitches allow a speedrunner to subvert the intended schedule of each level more often than not, so it all works out in the end.

The Dynasty Warriors-series has many tactical elements to spruce up the hack 'n' slash gameplay, as you might guess from the tactical map, allied bases and a morale system, among other things. These elements tend to be more pronounced and important in the older games, though, and they don't almost matter at all during Dynasty Warriors 7 NG+ runs. You do get an escort mission or some character to protect every now and then, but nothing deeper than that.

About glitches

Dynasty Warriors 7 has three main glitch tactics that allow you to subvert the normal rules of the gameplay.

Infinite jump

This is a nearly frame precise trick that allows you to get theoretically infinite height given enough repetition.

The trick is based on the fact that switching weapons from Menu on the first frame (or two) after doing an air attack will grant your character the air attack's positive air momentum without causing him or her to lose idle air state. Since you are still idle after the weapon switch, you can do the trick again, getting even more positive air momentum in the process, and so on.

Needless to say, this only brings decent results with certain weapons. Gloves, Chain & Sickle and Tonfa are the three best weapons to do infinite jumping with. Their attacks have such a good positive air momentum that it almost amounts to doing an extra jump in air.

Instructions

1. have Gloves (or another infinite jump compatible weapon) equipped.
2. jump in air.
3. do an air attack and also open Menu the instant the attack is about to start.
4. switch weapons. Switching to another weapon of the same type is fastest.
5. if your timing was right, your character will "bounce" in air while still remaining idle.
6. repeat steps 3 to 6 until you have enough height or fail.

Troubleshooting

• You gain no height after switching weapons.

You opened Menu too early and the air attack never got the chance to start.

• Your character loses idle state or completes the air attack after switching weapons.

You opened Menu too late and the air attack got a chance to fully start. Since you lose the idle air state, you can't continue doing the infinite jump after that.

Limitations

• You need a weapon of a certain type to successfully do this glitch. On NG+ this doesn't matter, but your usage of this glitch might be limited on NG because of this reason.

• The timing is so precise that it's inconvenient to do really big jumps with it. Fortunately this trick is not used much in the current speedrun routes.

• Cutscene triggers and outer walls of each map may be infinitely high in this game, so there's no realistic chance of jumping over them.

Other notes

• Sometimes your character gets glitched momentum while doing this trick and the next air attack they do gets twice or thrice the normal amount of height. A convenient but also uncommon and random side effect.

• Some areas like Dong Zhuo's palace have ceilings, meaning infinite jump is powerless in there.

• Sometimes it seems like lag in certain levels can make the timing for this trick much harder to predict.

Horse break-out (a.k.a Wuxia-glitch)

This is a powerful as well as very unique multi-purpose glitch that allows you to start riding a horse without your character actually getting on the horse. As a result, you control both the horse and the player character at the same time.

There are two different variations for it: grounded and airborne. The default state during the glitch is grounded, but if you jump or use any attacks that send your character in air, you enter airborne mode and cannot (reliably) switch back to grounded mode any longer after that.

The glitch ends while grounded if you try to run or block at any point. This will teleport your character back on horseback and things return back to normal. Cutscenes will also neutralize the glitched state. Otherwise there is no other way to end the glitch except save & quit.

Instructions

To start the glitch, you have to press X to mount a horse during the first frames of a switch attack. For PS3, the input is R1 and X in a quick succession. If your timing was right, you can see a subtle change in camera altitude as the game thinks you're now riding a horse, even though your character remains on ground.

You can also start the glitch by switching weapons from the Menu around the time you are mounting a horse, but doing it this way is generally slower.

What's the use of a horse break-out?

• Wall clipping. Your character is immune to all walls during a horse break-out. So if there's something tempting behind walls, like an important cutscene trigger, there's nothing stopping you from reaching it if you do a horse break-out.

• Defying gravity. Your character is also immune to gravity during a horse break-out. Some weird looking things can happen if you start airborne horse break-out and do air attacks, since your character will glide around without any inertia or gravity affecting them. You cannot land on ground either in this mode, so any downsmash attacks will continue endlessly at ground level, unable to resolve.

• Fast navigation. During airborne horse break-out, you are able to move at horse speed from point A to point B without being hindered by collision or water. Can be very useful in levels with a convoluted layout.

• Officer sniping. Since you can reach any part of almost every level whenever you want, no officer is safe from you. Often defeating a single important officer will end a level early in Dynasty Warriors 7, so there's a lot of sequence breaking potential here.

You can't run during the grounded version of this glitch, but you can still move around by doing attacks. So if there is a sealed fort with an important officer inside, it can become a worthwhile tactic to move inside there with attacks, defeat the officer and then use L-stick to teleport back out again. It's rather slow to do over longer distances, though.

While airborne, you can move quickly but your options for dealing damage to enemies are more limited. There are only three air attacks that you can use offensively during airborne horse break-out: Staff switch attack, Gloves switch attack and Flying Swords regular attack. Out of these three the Staff switch attack is generally the most potent and useful since you can steer during it and it deals decent damage as well. You can't steer during the Gloves switch attack. Flying Swords is quite nimble and controllable, but it deals the lowest damage of them all.

Whichever attack you use, it can only hit any enemy once before it stops registering. To "reset" your attack, you have to switch weapons and then do another attack to continue attacking enemies. This is the only way to fight stronger enemies, and it can be very slow and arduous against very powerful officers.

One final offensive option during airborne horse break-out for characters that have it is air Musou. You can't do it while in contact with ground, but if your character is knocked into air by an attack you can unleash the power of the Musou. However, make sure that this attack finishes the level because you lose all control of your character afterwards, requiring a save & quit to continue at all.

• Teleportation and skipping triggers. Grounded horse break-out effectively allows you to be in two places at once. You can, for example, leave your character waiting in some location while you ride your horse towards the next area, then teleport on the horse when you're ready to save on travel time. Also, since the horse alone does NOT activate any triggers, you can also use this method to slip past any triggers in the game world unnoticed, skipping fights or similar annoyances on your path.

Troubleshooting

• Your character gets on horse instead of breaking out.

Your timing for pressing X was too fast.

• Your character does the switch attack like normal instead of breaking out.

Your timing for pressing X was too slow.

Limitations

• Needs a horse. This rather obvious requirement can be a big drawback in levels that take place indoors, like Dong Zhuo's Trap.

• Cannot take any damage. If you get knocked down during either variation of horse break-out, you will continue flying into air indefinitely. The only way to continue playing the level is save & quit, which will be a 25+ second time loss at the very least.

• As mentioned, your damage output during airborne horse break-out is relatively low, and it's often not a realistic option in later levels where enemy health is high.

Other notes

• If you save & quit at any point during a horse break-out, your character is returned back to the coordinates of your horse.

• Rarely it's possible that if you fly through your horse in airborne horse break-out mode, your character will return riding the horse like normal. I've had this happen on some run attempts.

• The fastest known way to move by using attacks alone is with Staff C3.

Ladder break-out (a.k.a angled characters glitch)

This glitch is started the same way as the horse break-out, except you use a ladder prompt instead of a horse prompt. In other words, try to climb the ladder right as a switch attack is about to begin and you might get this break-out instead.

As a result of this break-out, your character will become slightly angled, as if they were climbing a ladder. The amount of angle depends on the ladder. While angled, certain attacks will cause your character to sink inside ground. Sink deep enough and you can go under thin walls like some gates. Some attacks sink you deep enough that you can go practically under all other walls too, except the outer boundaries of each level, since those are likely infinite in height.

The glitch is fixed if you now use a horse or a ladder. Certain cutscenes can also fix it, as does save & quitting.

Limitations

• You need a ladder to start this glitch. While ladders are surprisingly plentiful in Dynasty Warriors 7, they are sometimes too out of your way to use.

• You cannot use a horse while the glitch is active. On NG this will slow down your general movement speed whenever you want to keep angled glitch active. On NG+ it doesn't matter as much, but it does prevent some horse Musou boosting tactics.

Other notes

• You can breach thin walls using most weapon types in the game. But the single best weapon for going under walls is Twin Swords. Doing its sprint attack while angled sinks your character very deep!

Other tricks & tactics

Generic high jumps

If you jump in air and use Gloves, Staff or Tonfa air attacks, you naturally gain enough height that you can cross over small fences and such. It works as a minor high jump.

Gloves long jump

This trick doesn't come in handy very often, but you can basically do a longer jump without any glitches by switching weapons to something else and back in the Menu during a Gloves switch attack. This allows you to repeatedly spam the start of Gloves switch attack during which your character moves forward but barely falls down.

Message skipping

All longer dialogue lines can be shortened or outright skipped if you open Pause-menu during them. This is useful for speeding up some events or otherwise controlling level flow. Saves 2 or more seconds per message, depending on the message length.

Moving during loading time

In some levels with an intro where you can wander around and talk to people, holding down L-stick during the preceding cutscene lets you move a little during loading time. However, be careful when doing this or you may get disoriented. Also, don't spam X heedlessly or your character may jump by accident, causing them to get stuck in air and forcing you to quit and reload the game - a big time loss.

Horse Musou-boosting

This is common knowledge, but if you use a Musou while on horse, you get an extreme speed boost for a moment. When I timed this in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, I got the impression that each Musou boost saves around 3 seconds compared to not doing one. It's worth it to equip something with Musou Regen in certain levels just to get more opportunities for Musou boosting.

Walking Speed Up-seals

If you have one equipped on both of your weapons, your character's running speed will exceed that of a horse. Even characters with minimum speed like Xu Zhu will be faster than a horse, so in most cases horses will be obsolete in NG+ speedruns, unless you want to do the aforementioned Musou boosting.

Winged Boots

Enemies or officers can drop an item called Winged Boots that gives increased running speed for 30 seconds. Sometimes it can be worth it to go slightly out of your way to try to manipulate this item to appear. Always keep an eye out for them!

Start + Select shortcut

It's possible to instantly return to main menu by pressing Start + Select at same time. If you need to do save warping, it may be slightly faster to use this shortcut after saving than manually choose "Quit" from the pause-menu.

About weapons

In general

In Dynasty Warriors 7 all characters can wear (almost) all weapons and for NG+ speedrun purposes this is generally a good thing. It means you have maximum versatility in terms of weapon selection during a speedrun.

In speedruns I prefer using physical damage since it's faster and more straightforward, but if you want to experiment with elemental damage or other late game tactics for weapons, I recommend this guide on GameFAQs:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/606303-dynasty-warriors-7/faqs/62415

Halberd

It's Lu Bu's signature weapon! Royal Halberd has the highest possible physical damage in the game, and physical is in my opinion the way to go in these categories since it's more universal and simple to use compared to elemental damage.

Another advantage of Halberd is the fact that if you switch to it from another weapon, you get a temporary boost to attack & running speed. From a timing test in Wei's "Battle of Yan Province" I got the impression that each boost that you can seamlessly use during gameplay saves 1 or 2 seconds. So, if you know you're going to attack some enemies anyway, it's best to finish with a switch attack so that you get an extra boost for free afterwards.

For these two reasons Halberd is my main weapon during speedruns. Its biggest drawbacks are - aside the slow attack speed - the fact that its maximum amount of seal slots is 3. And if you want to use Synergy with Royal Halberd, which you will since Synergy is the best thing in the game for boosting physical damage, you will be stuck with a second non-elemental weapon that ALSO only has 3 slots at best.

One final drawback is the fact that almost no character in the game is any good at wielding the Halberd, so you have to devote one of your 6 slots to "Halberd Master". At least in my opinion this is a more worthwhile thing to have than an extra "Attack +++", but I guess your mileage may vary.

Staff

Staff isn't a great weapon as far as pure damage goes, but it has a few good (unintended?) uses in a speedrun regardless. As mentioned in the above sections, Staff is helpful with both grounded and airborne horse break-outs and you can also do a minor high jump with its attack.

As another thing, Staff has a (aerial) switch attack that gives your character a high momentary speed. It's fun to incorporate in overall navigation. You can for instance cancel out landing animations with it, and navigation-wise it gives you a slight speed edge compared to switch attacks of most other weapons.

It's for these reasons I usually keep Staff as a secondary weapon with all characters, unless there's a need to do ladder break-out, in which case Twin Swords may be necessary.

Gloves

Gloves also have some potential use in a speedrun. The pure physical damage of gloves is among the highest of all the weapons in the game, for one.

Gloves can be used for various jump tactics. The regular air attack of Gloves gives you the best height boost out of all the weapons in the game, making Gloves an invaluable weapon for infinite jumping. The air attack is occasionally useful as a high jump by itself too. And as mentioned above, Gloves can also be helpful in long jumping or for attacking enemies during airborne horse break-out.

All of these features make Gloves a weapon you'll probably use at least occasionally during a glitched speedrun.

Curved Sword

You can do a speed movement tactic using this weapon if your character masters it and you repeatedly spam its air attack and jump cancel out of it after landing. It's not that helpful on NG+, though, since regular running is faster.

This is one of the five weapons you can do infinite jump with. However, unlike most other weapons, Curved Sword's momentum boost is mostly horizontal. Therefore it's difficult to actually gain height with it.

Flying Swords

Flying Swords' air attack is one of only three ways to damage enemies during airborne horse break-out. While you can steer your character with Flying Swords during the glitch, the damage is ultimately quite terrible and you'd rather use the Staff or Gloves for this purpose instead.

Axe

Axe is one of the more damaging weapons in the game with a potentially good amount of seal slots too. If it weren't for the speed boosting weapon switch of Halberd, this would be the melee weapon I would primarily use during a speedrun.

Nunchaku

Nunchaku has a slightly low damage, but it can actually be the optimal weapon in some small skirmishes since its switch attack hits at a range AND generates a speed boost for your character afterwards. The speed boost is much shorter compared to the Halberd's boost, though.

Nunchaku is also one of the five weapons that can be used for infinite jumping, but it's the worst of the lot - almost not worth using for this purpose.

Tonfa

Tonfa is one of the five weapons that can be used for infinite jumping. It's overall 2nd best, right behind Gloves.

Chain & Sickle

Chain & Sickle is one of the five weapons that can be used for infinite jumping, so it can be handy for that purpose. It's overall third best, right behind Gloves and Tonfa.

Seal setups (NG+)

For all the campaigns, I went with a few specific weapon setups that I use with most characters.

Synergy is a must for increasing your immediate damage. Walking Speed Up is a must with any setup that features a lot of navigation. Other damage bonus seals have the priority after that.

In case you're curious, "Officer Assassin" seems to be exactly as powerful as "Attack Up +" as far as attack boost is concerned. So rather go for "Attack Up +++" or "Attack Up ++" if you have the choice.

Ground-based navigation + combat

Weapon 1 (Staff): Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up) Weapon 2 (Halberd): Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up)

Royal Halberd is the single most damaging weapon in the game with the attack power 50. Unfortunately it's non-elemental, and therefore you need two non-elemental weapons to get the Synergy bonus for it. Since all non-elemental weapons have 3 seal slots at best, this approach limits your number of seals to 6.

I usually keep Staff as the first weapon since it helps whenever you have to move in grounded horse break-out mode. In levels where you have to use ladder break-out instead, the non-elemental Twin Swords is an alright replacement.

Wuxia-glitch setup

You can go with either Ice- or Wind-elemental gear for this one. The Wind-gear is slightly more powerful. But if you already happen to own any Ice-elemental Staffs on your save file, it will make using the Wind-gear less convenient during extended fights in Wuxia-mode because there will be more menuing. So generally, you'll probably go with Ice:

Weapon 1 (Staff): Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++) Weapon 2 (Wheels): Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up)

Divine Hoops is one of the best Ice-elemental weapons for completing the Synergy-bonus with since it has 5 seal slots. Overall, you get to use 8 slots. If you went with Wind-gear, you'd use Fenghuang Wing (War Fan) instead.

Initial weapons setup

Whenever you switch to a new character during the campaign, the game automatically makes the new character's EX weapon their primary weapon. While I'd normally want to use Staff + Halberd, in cases like this it can be optimal to just accept the game's decision and instead plan your route around it. I call a tactic like this "skipping weapon change" and it can save up to 10 seconds each time.

The results vary depending on the character, but what you generally want to do is to get the character a 2nd weapon that allows a Synergy-bonus and also has Walking Speed Up. For instance, Liu Bei from Shu campaign can go with this:

Weapon 1 (Twin Swords): Heaven & Hell Swords (Synergy, Walking Speed Up) Weapon 2 (Halberd): Black Dragon Halberd (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up)

About grinding a NG+ save

The grind in Dynasty Warriors 7 is more manageable than in many of the other games in the series. You don't have to deal with higher difficulties at all, you just need a lot of cash and have to complete large parts of the utter bore that is Conquest-mode to unlock some of the best weapons.

Cash is fortunately fairly simple to acquire. Using the Scholar's services gets you 5000 each time you get the questions right, and you can take as many quizzes as you want after you've visited all the towns on the map. There's a guide on GameFAQs, for instance, listing the correct answers to each question. Alternatively, you can continuously fight a very short level like a duel to unlock some province to get 8000 per minute, or so.

It's also useful to know that simply replaying the Story-mode gets you more cash, so you are successfully grinding your way to the perfect save file already while practicing and doing run attempts.

I guess if you wanted to be super optimal about it, you could save time during menuing in a NG+ run if you never acquired any unused weapon types since all they do is clutter up the weapon list. Never getting any Halberd beyond Royal Halberd might save a bit of menuing time, never getting any Staff beyond Dragonhead Staff would save time if you want to go with Wind-elemental gear for Wuxia-glitch, etc.

You typically don't need to grind perfect stats for your characters, although a higher attack power never hurts. For the most part I didn't bother with grinding for stats when I did my runs.

Level-by-level notes (Wei)

Cast of Characters and Gear setup

• Xiahou Dun: Sword of Heaven (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Officer Assassin, Walking Speed Up), Deathspinner (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Walking Speed Up) (5 stages)

• Cao Cao: Sword of Heaven (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Officer Assassin, Walking Speed Up), Black Dragon Halberd (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Walking Speed Up) (3 stages)

• Xiahou Yuan: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (4 stages)

• Dian Wei: Dragonhead Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Fenghuang Wing (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Attack Up +, Officer Assassin) (2 stages)

• Xu Zhu: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (3 stages)

• Cao Pi: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (2 stages)

• Zhang Liao: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (3 stages)

• Jia Xu: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

• Zhang He: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

Yellow Turban Rebellion 1 (Xiahou Dun)

• Recommended gear: Sword of Heaven and Deathspinner (or another weapon with fire synergy).

Level ends after defeating the two officers on the map.

This is a simple tutorial level without much to say about, except that weapon change skipping is a thing. Not switching weapons here is faster for two reasons: 1, the menuing would be a bit unnecessary since you don't need Halberd that badly in these early levels. And 2, opening menu at the start of the level changes the timing of the dialogue, causing an extra dialogue line to appear at the end of the level.

Yellow Turban Rebellion 2 (Xiahou Dun)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after defeating Zhang Jiao.

Run to the crossroads up north and whistle your horse. Fortunately in this location the horse spawns ahead of you, so you can immediately proceed to do a horse break-out.

Wuxia your way to the very north of the map. There's a cutscene there that will fix the glitched state. Then just defeat Zhang Jiao to end level.

Dong Zhuo's Trap (Cao Cao)

• Recommended gear: Sword of Heaven (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Officer Assassin, Walking Speed Up), Black Dragon Halberd (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends once you manage to reach a certain point on the map to escape. Sadly, this level lacks any skips since you can't summon a horse while indoors and the area also has a roof, preventing escape by infinite jumping.

You can skip the weapon change in this level with some planning. While Sword of Heaven + Black Dragon Halberd seems like a weird combo, especially since you don't get the Synergy bonus this way, you don't need that much damage in these early levels. Also, this level has a bunch of mandatory waiting that you can use to prepare for Halberd boosts, saving some seconds with navigation.

You can save a bit of time before the level starts if you keep holding up on the L-stick. This makes Cao Cao run closer to Dong Zhuo during the intro section.

After clearing the first few rooms, Chen Gong talks to Cao Cao. His lines are long, but they can be shortened by opening menu. Dialoge skipping should save around 4 seconds combined here. Dialogue skip helps later in the level too. Just remember: if there are any long lines, you should probably skip them.

From there journey takes you to main hall. There's an in-game cutscene at the hall. If you time your jump right as it starts, you can keep moving during it. This is something you can do at almost all other in-game cutscenes in the game too to save a little bit of time.

Eventually you reach an useable ballista. You can do continuous fire with a ballista by holding the 'shoot' button down, but I suppose this is common knowledge. After all that is done with, the escape point is right around the corner.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 1 (Xiahou Yuan)

• Recommended gear: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends after you defeat Li Ru and Hu Zhen. Reaching these two officers early can be done with either infinite jump, horse break-out or ladder break-out.

While Xiahou Yuan has an air Musou that helps in defeating the two officers quick in wuxia-mode, you get less dialogue at the end of the level if you defeat the officers on foot instead. So the fastest route (to my knowledge) is ladder break-out or infinite jump.

You have to go slightly out of your way into the middle garrison to start angled glitch. But to me this is still vastly preferable to doing infinite jump, since I think this is one of those levels where its timing is somewhat inconsistent.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 2 (Xiahou Yuan)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear (Excelsior Staff + Divine Wheels, most likely).

Level ends after you defeat Dong Zhuo. There's no easy way to reach him other than using airborne horse break-out. He should take around 2 hits to go down if your gear is correctly setup.

Battle of Yan Province (Dian Wei)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear (Dragonhead Staff + Fenghuang Wing, most likely)

Level ends after you defeat all officers.

Leave Cao Cao to his own devices and instead go roaming around the map in wuxia-mode. If your gear is powerful enough and Dian Wei has a high enough strength, you can one-shot the officers. However, unless you can reach this kind of damage, it may be better to do this level on foot instead.

Defeat all officers counter-clockwise. Sometimes Dian Wei will arbitrarily miss a target, but if that happens, just re-equip the Staff, do another switch attack and try again. After all obvious targets are down, the two officers who should have ambushed Cao Cao but never got around to doing that finally appear at the south-west corner of the map. They have to be defeated as well.

After that, Xu Zhu appears to the center of the map. A cutscene on the way there fixes wuxia-glitch, allowing you to defeat him on foot. Even though not optimal, the Staff will do just fine in this fight.

Battle of Xu Province 1 (Xu Zhu)

• Recommended gear: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends once you defeat Zhang Liao. But to get him to appear, you have to clear the ambush in the middle of the map first.

First just make your way to the middle garrison. Xu Zhu is not a very fast runner, but what can you do? I considered using a horse Musou boost on the way to the ambush, but setting one up in this area isn't too practical. Note that using a horse Musou boost while backtracking isn't helpful since the 2nd half of the level involves some waiting anyway.

So, defeat the ambush, then return to your camp. Zhang Liao should ride in there soon after. Note that he cannot be damaged before he has entered the camp, so don't try attacking him until then.

Battle of Xu Province 2 (Xu Zhu)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear (Excelsior Staff + Divine Wheels, most likely).

Level ends once you defeat Tao Qian. However, he is on the other side of the map and the most straightforward way to reach there is using wuxia-glitch. Although he takes 2 hits to go down, doing this level with wuxia should still be slightly faster than going on foot.

Also note that you're on a timer during this level. Cao Cao will get beaten up by Lu Bu if you take too long, causing a mission failure. But this shouldn't happen unless you have very bad luck starting wuxia-glitch.

Battle of Wan Castle 1 (Dian Wei)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends once you can get Cao Cao and friends to the south-east zone of the map and then defeat Zhang Xiu to activate exit cutscene at the gates leading out. Overall, this is a rather complicated level that is mostly dictated by Cao Cao's behavior and movement.

After the level starts, activate the first ambush and then wait for Cao Cao to reach north-east room where another ambush will begin. To save a few seconds, you can do grounded horse break-out into the 2nd ambush room, defeat Huche'er once he spawns and then teleport outside.

Path leads south. Destroy one cauldron and then wait for Zhang Xian to spawn. Defeating him opens up gates to west.

In the west courtyard, there are a lot of enemies, two in-game cutscenes and some traps. But the only important thing is defeating the two officers Li Yue and Han Xian. This starts some dialogue and eventually gates to south open up.

After running through the maze to the south, you got to defeat another important officer Zuo Ling. This allows Cao Cao and Cao Ang to reunite. If you get to Cao Ang very early, he will then backtrack to Cao Cao who is still in the maze. I'm not entirely sure if this is a time waste, but I'm also not sure how one would mitigate it in a run. Waiting a little before facing Zuo Ling? Some tests wouldn't hurt.

The end level involves defeating more officers who are in the south-west area and then waiting for Cao Cao and Cao Ang to come there. Their presence causes Zhang Xiu to appear, defeating whom is necessary to activate the exit trigger at the exit gates.

Battle of Wan Castle 2 (Cao Cao)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Jia Xu and friends. Some unknown factors during the level may slow you down, though.

Jia Xu and cohorts are inside the north-west fort. There are two reasonable alternatives to reaching them and defeating them early: either grounded horse break-out or ladder break-out. Sadly, the closest ladder is rather out of the way in this level, so I think horse break-out is overall better.

Defeat a bunch of enemies to lower a drawbridge. Summon a horse when indoors - one should appear right next to the wall, allowing you to immediately follow up with horse break-out. Use Staff C3 to move into the fort, then defeat all officers there.

Now, I'm not sure if it's a timing- or RNG-related thing, but sometimes the level won't end now. Sometimes you may get some unnecessary dialogue with Xiahou Dun before the level ends, wasting some time. Worst case scenario is that Jia Xu himself respawns and teleports outside the fort, as he is normally scripted to do in this level, forcing you to go and defeat him again.

Battle of Xiapi (Xiahou Dun)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Lu Bu. To reach Lu Bu early, either infinite jump or ladder break-out is recommended. Ladder break-out is easier and optimally faster too.

You can go through the fort walls with Twin Swords to cut some extra corners on the way to Lu Bu.

Once the game softlocked after I defeated Lu Bu after dialogue skipping. Not sure if dialogue skip was related to the softlock, or if it was bad luck. If you're feeling unsure, don't use dialogue skip on Lu Bu's line.

Battle of Guandu 1 (Cao Pi)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends once Cao Cao returns to the fort. Yes, this is another escort level that is heavily dictated by Cao Cao's movement and doesn't really have skips in it.

March out through western gates. Liu Bei appears on the way north - you could probably ignore him, but I tend to defeat him just in case.

After that, there are plenty of officers in the northern area. After defeating the closest ones, Zhen Ji says a line and unleashes even more officers from the garrisons up north. One particularly important officer is Wen Chou whose defeat activates a lot of extra dialogue. You have to defeat all approaching officers and also sit through all of this dialogue until Cao Cao wisens up and returns back to the camp. Skip dialogue whenever you can.

You can speed up Cao Cao's movement a little bit by pushing him either on horse or on foot. There are also two ambushes on the way. Defeating all officers during an ambush will cause Cao Cao to resume moving again.

Battle of Guandu 2 (Cao Pi)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear

Level ends after defeating Yuan Shao. He is to the very north and there is no easy way to reach him early other than using airborne horse break-out. There is a bit of RNG element to this since there are stray arrows flying around near your camp - if those hit you during wuxia-mode, you have to reset level.

Otherwise, it's not too difficult to fly up to the north and then defeat Yuan Shao with three hits from the Staff switch attack.

Battle of Changban (Zhang Liao)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Guan Yu. There is actually more than one way to get him to spawn. First way is to wait for Liu Bei to escape and then reach the shore to south-west. Another is to beat up Liu Bei - this will spawn Guan Yu at the shore immediately. The latter way is faster, and fortunately there is a fairly easy way to pull it off in runs too.

You can ignore the first half of the level completely by starting airborne horse break-out and flying to the bridge. A cutscene with Zhang Fei there fixes the glitch and starts the fight.

After defeating Zhang Fei, a winding path leads east and then south and then west. Using horse break-out to shortcut through the mountains would be impractical - Guan Yu is too hardy for airborne variation and there's too much ground to cover for the ground variation. So you need to run this part on foot.

However, skipping the ambush at the next garrison is still worth it since not only does this skip a short fight and some dialogue, and it also enables the faster way to get Guan Yu to spawn. I originally skipped the ambush using horse teleportation. But a faster way is to use ladder break-out. Conveniently, there's a ladder soon after crossing over the bridge.

So, after escaping the ambush garrison early, Liu Bei will be outside escaping on horse. Beat him up to cause Guan Yu to spawn early, then continue up to Guan Yu and beat him up as well.

Battle of Chibi 1 (Xu Zhu)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after Cao Cao reaches a certain point on the map and escapes. You guessed it, it's another scripted escort level with no real skips.

At the start of the level, you have to head west a bit and defeat Zhou Yu. Then you have to return to Cao Cao. I recommend that while you're going towards Zhou Yu, summon a horse on the small patch of land that is to the east of Zhou Yu's location. You can then use horse Musou boosting during the backtrack. This will also quickly clear out some enemies from the path, which is helpful since Cao Cao can get damaged to the point of death if you ignore all enemies completely and leave him alone during the escape.

Defeat Huang Gai and another officer near Cao Cao to get him to start his escape. Now you have to run west as far as the path allows to reach an escape ship. Defeat officers along the way at your own discretion; as mentioned, this will help Cao Cao survive better. Taishi Ci one of the few officers that are mandatory to beat since his defeat will complete the path to west.

After reaching the boat, you get some new dialogue. At some point in near future, two more officers will spawn to the south. If you were fast, they will spawn before Cao Cao reaches the escape ship and you can defeat them while waiting for him. This is the best possible scenario. Realistically, though, you will get a ton of dialogue as almost all Wei officers vanish from the map and Cao Cao also reaches the escape ship before the officers can spawn. Regardless, defeating these two guys is necessary for the escape sequence to continue, so be ready for it. Alternatively, you could try pushing Cao Cao during this part, but a part of me thinks it would be impractical with all the enemies crowding the area.

After that, you and Cao Cao have to board the ship. There is an autoscroller as you wait for the ship to reach the north shore. Gan Ning attacks but is easily thwarted. Zhou Yu is the final important officer of the level, waiting on the north shore as the drawbridge is lowered.

After that, nothing is standing in the way of you finishing the level except the whims of Cao Cao's A.I. Sometimes he refuses to exit the ship until all nearby enemies are down, which is an annoying time loss.

Battle of Chibi 2 (Cao Cao)

• Recommended gear: anything

Level ends after reaching escape point. This is one of the simplest levels, just wuxia to north-west.

Battle of Tong Gate (Jia Xu)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Ma Chao. You can reach him early with either infinite jumping, ladder break-out or horse break-out. Of course, ladder break-out is preferable, however in this level there are some horseback enemies near the closest ladder and it can be chaotic to try to start the glitch.

The old route involved climbing the tower near the fort and simply high jumping inside with Gauntlet attacks, but overall ladder break-out should be faster.

Battle of Yangping Gate (Xiahou Yuan)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Zhang Lu to the very north. To reach him early, you can either use infinite jump, ladder break-out or horse break-out. From my tests, I'd say ladder break-out is the easiest and fastest approach.

As for a good ladder, you can start the angled glitch either at the very start of the level or once you get closer to the north fortress. The ladder is a few steps out of the way at the start of the level, but you can also skip one extra fight if you start the glitch early, so I usually do just that.

Battle of Hefei 1 (Zhang Liao)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Ding Feng. To reach him early, you can once again use a number of different means. I prefer using ladder break-out nowadays since there's a ladder right near the fort.

Battle of Hefei 2 (Zhang Liao)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after defeating several waves of enemies, then waiting for Sun Quan to escape, then hitting a certain point on the map near the bridge where Sun Quan escaped to.

The first wave of enemies consists of four officers to south. Once first wave is dealt with, the second wave starts approaching from both west and north and they move towards the north-west corner. You don't have to run after them as much if you focus on defeating the first wave first and only then start moving to north-west yourself. Overall, the first wave should be a priority. Starting angled glitch using one of several ladders while or after fighting the 1st wave is also recommended.

Sometimes an officer of the second wave can end up out of bounds at the north garrison. If this happens, well... if you have angled glitch, you can go out of bounds to defeat him, then return back in bounds. But it's a random time loss if it happens.

After defeating both waves, you got to return back to the central-eastern garrison. If you have angled glitch active, you can do a few shortcuts by burrowing under the walls on the way back. You have to defeat Taishi Ci and then go wait at the bridge to the east. Once Sun Quan has finished his escape sequence, a cutscene ends the level.

This is a rather complex level, but so far this is the fastest route I've found for it. Simply defeating Sun Quan or otherwise messing with Taishi Ci, etc. early doesn't seem to be worth it.

Battle of Mt. Dingjun 1 (Xiahou Yuan)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear

Level ends after defeating Huang Zhong. However, to be able to defeat him, you first have to hit a trigger in the north-west summit. The fastest way to reach the north-west summit is of course horse break-out. Fly to north-west and then save & quit to return back to your horse near the middle of the map.

Huang Zhong starts escaping, but you can pretty easily catch up to him from your position. Switch weapons to Staff + Halberd. A Staff air attack can knock Huang Zhong off his horse, cutting his escape short.

Battle of Mt. Dingjun 2 (Zhang He)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Zhuge Liang.

There are two obstacles on your path. First is a small barricade near some ballistae. You can either do a natural high jump over it with Staff or Gauntlet air attacks. Or, if you start ladder break-out at the nearby ladder, you can just go under it too.

Zhuge Liang is in the north-west fort. To reach there, either horse break-out or ladder break-out will do just fine.

Battle of Fan Castle 1 (Xiahou Dun)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Guan Suo and Guan Ping. To reach them early, either ladder break-out or horse break-out and enter the fort they are huddled in. You can also use a shortcut through the middle fort if you use ladder break-out, so that's probably faster overall.

Battle of Fan Castle 2 (Xiahou Dun)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends once you defeat Guan Yu, but only after he has completed his escape to Mai Castle. And to get him to escape to Mai Castle, you have to help Sima Yi to get catapults working first. Overall, this is a pretty complex level where time can be lost or gained for seemingly no reason.

Start going south via the east gate. Defeat officers on the way. Run south until you see the message "Shu forces are on the defensive", after which backtrack north. Start angled glitch at a ladder a bit to the north while waiting for Sima Yi to arrive. Once he is near, some catapults appear and the catapult quest can begin in earnest.

Now, you have to go capture two signal towers to allow the catapults to approach the south castle. The towers are normally sealed off until later, but of course you can enter and capture them early with either ladder- or horse break-out. The former method is more convenient.

After that, enter the east side of the south fort and defeat the officers there. I think this, too, is a necessary step in getting Guan Yu to escape.

Eventually - after some waiting and dialogue - you'll see Guan Yu's blip on the map start moving away. If you are angled, you can just run after him and even push him on the way a little to speed up his escape. Otherwise, use horse break-out and wuxia fly to the Mai castle entrance. Once Guan Yu arrives, a cutscene will end the wuxia-mode, allowing the final fight to begin properly.

Word of warning: if you defeat Guan Yu too quickly after skipping his intro cutscene, the game will crash. So wait 8 seconds or so just in case before dealing the final blow.

Level-by-level notes (Wu)

Cast of Characters and Gear setup

• Sun Jian: Sword of Heaven (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Officer Assassin, Walking Speed Up), Royal Hoops (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Walking Speed Up) (4 stages)

• Sun Ce: Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up) (4 stages)

• Sun Quan: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (5 stages)

• Zhou Yu: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (2 stages)

• Sun Shang Xiang: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

• Huang Gai: Soul Scepter (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Fenghuang Wing (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Musou Regen Up, Musou + 1, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

• Gan Ning: Azure Swords (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (2 stages)

• Ling Tong: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

• Lu Xun: Heaven & Hell Swords (Walking Speed Up, Synergy) + Black Dragon Halberd (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up) (3 stages)

• Lu Meng: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

Yellow Turban Rebellion 1 (Sun Jian)

• Recommended gear: Sword of Heaven (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Officer Assassin, Walking Speed Up), Royal Hoops (Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Synergy, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends after defeating the officers on the map. It's just a simple tutorial level. Once again you can skip weapon change by going with Sword of Heaven.

Yellow Turban Rebellion 2 (Sun Jian)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

This is exactly the same level as in the Wei campaign. Run up to the crossroads, wuxia glitch up to Zhang Jiao, defeat Zhang Jiao.

Conquest of Liang Province (Sun Ce)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear (most likely Excelsior Staff and Divine Hoops).

Level ends after defeating Bian Zhang to the south-west. Fastest way to get there is with wuxia-glitch. He can be one-shot, so it's a pretty fast and simple level.

Ou Xing's Rebellion (Sun Quan)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after fulfilling a number of objectives: your allies have to enter two pre-scripted ambushes, you have to rescue Sun Ce during the second one AND also defeat Ou Xing as well as Guo Shi to the north.

There is some downtime at the start of the level while waiting for your allies to enter the first ambush. I recommend multi-tasking and using this time to defeat Ou Xing in the north fort. I thought whether a ladder- or a horse break-out would work better in this level, but in the end a horse break-out is more straightforward. Just park your horse near north fort, then use Staff C3 to move around and beat up Guo Shi and Ou Xing. Teleport back, then go help your allies.

After clearing first ambush, Sun Ce will slowly make his way to north-west fort. He may get stuck on obstacles on the way, so RNG may make this part faster or slower. Another ambush takes place once he arrives. You have to defeat two officers Huang Shao and Quan Hai, then the level ends.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 1 (Sun Jian)

• Recommended gear: Sword + Spinner

This is exactly the same level as in the Wei campaign, except you start from the middle garrison. Once again you can reach Li Ru and Hu Zhen early using either infinite jump, horse break-out or ladder break-out.

You don't really need to switch any gear in this level since Sword and Spinner both have conveniently fast switch attacks and you don't need Twin Swords to breach the gates either. So just get past the gates however you want and then defeat Li Ru and Hu Zhen as usual to end the level.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 2 (Sun Jian)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

This is exactly the same level as in the Wei campaign. Once again, best way to reach Dong Zhuo early is wuxia-glitch. Once again, he takes two hits to go down.

Battle of Jing Province (Sun Ce)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

The level ends after completing a bunch of objectives and then defeating Liu Biao. It's a scripted level where skipping any prior objectives prevents the final Liu Biao from appearing, so you can't do any major skips here.

You have to complete the catapult set piece first, so just get on the catapult and destroy the gate. Three shots are required. Starting ladder break-out is also recommended before leaving the catapult area.

You have to run on top of the stairs and defeat two officers there. After this, head to the north-east room. You'll be ambushed by a bunch of officers. Defeat everyone, then escape the area using angled glitch. This finally makes the real Liu Biao appear in the north-west room of the fort. Beat him up to end the level.

Battle of Wujun 1 (Zhou Yu)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after defeating Taishi Ci and other officers in the three highlighted garrisons.

Taishi Ci is the closest target, so you might as well start from him. Run up to the middle garrison, breach wall using horse break-out and beat him up.

After that, the rest of the targets are scattered around a fairly convoluted level layout. The fastest way to reach them is to use wuxia glitch. All the targets take 2 hits to defeat, except the last one, who is a bit tougher. The last target also has some dialogue that is worth it to try to skip if you can.

Since the last target is so tough, it's an option to let Zhou Yu get hit in wuxia-mode and then use air Musou on him.

Battle of Wujun 2 (Sun Ce)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

The level ends after defeating Liu Yao. The fastest way to reach him early is with angled glitch. Sadly the closest ladder is slightly out of the way, a bit to the west from the starting location.

A number of shortcuts are available when moving to east thanks to angled glitch. For instance, you can cut through the middle garrison instead of going via north like usual.

Battle of Shouchun (Sun Shang Xiang)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

This level ends after completing a number of minor objectives and then defeating Liu Biao as he spawns on the map. It's another scripted level with no major skips.

Approach south-west and defeat the two highlighted targets. The order in which you fight them influences dialogue and cutscene timing slightly, but I usually start from Chen Lan before moving to Lei Bo.

After this, you'd normally start a ballista fight vs some archers on top of the wall of the fort. However, the fastest way to do things is to infinite jump on top of the wall and defeat the archers on foot instead. This isn't very easy to do since infinite jump by itself is a pretty tough trick... and it only becomes worse while you're being bombarded by arrows. Overall, this part is where a lot of runs end.

Once you're on top of the wall and defeat the archers, just stay on top and wait. Another wave of enemies spawns soon after. After that, you're free to go inside the fort early and complete the objectives inside there while Sun Quan is still working on breaking the front gate.

The main quest inside the fort is beating up a bunch of enemies and then discovering some more enemies who are hiding inside the side rooms. You can do all this while waiting for Sun Quan. However, the doors to side rooms are closed, so you have to use horse break-out to break into the rooms early. One hidden officer is in the south-west room. Another is to north-east room. However, make sure not to stray too far from the west entrance of the castle until the gates are broken or else the sequence may become delayed indefinitely, slowing you down in the long run.

Once the gates are open, you have to wait for a lot of dialogue to pass by as Sun Quan figures out you've already saved the day for them. You also can't leave the castle area or the very final trigger that spawns Liu Biao will not be hit. In lieu of physically leaving the area, you can do grounded horse break-out and already move towards Liu Biao's spawn point using your horse while waiting for the sequence to progress. This allows you to teleport outside a bit earlier than intended and immediately reach Liu Biao as he spawns.

Battle of Xuchang 1 (Sun Ce)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

This is a slow-paced and scripted level where you just have to endure illusions. Start angled glitch before progressing too deep into the level to do a few small shortcuts between fights. Also, use dialogue skip liberally since this level has a lot of dialogue.

After reaching past first gates, three officers spawn in a row. Optimally you can defeat them before they get a chance to say their line. After that, some hostile peasants appear. You have to defeat every single one until you can progress. Breaching the gates after doing this saves a few seconds.

In next area, three more officers. After defeating Yan Baihu, path continues north. After some dialogue, two more phantoms and Taishi Ci appear. Wait for Taishi Ci to turn hostile, then defeat him. Breach gates to north to save a few seconds.

In next room Sun Jian appears. After defeating him, breach wall instead of using ladder to save a bit of time. Don't go too north-west early or else you'll miss Yu Ji's triggers, though.

Two Yu Ji appear north-west. Then path goes back to south. After defeating the real Yu Ji, the level ends at last.

Battle of Xuchang 2 (Sun Quan)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Xiahou Dun. But you have to complete a few small objectives to get him to appear.

I recommend getting ladder break-out at the start of the level. Avoid the main gate since the cutscene there can end the glitch. Instead, breach into the fort through a wall on either side.

You have to defeat the three officers in the large courtyard to hit some story triggers, then head north. Continue breaching gates until you reach the area at north-east with the stairs leading up. Breach one more wall to north. There is some weird collision under the map there that allows you to double jump infinitely, allowing you to get to the top of Xuchang very fast. Xiahou Dun should be there, so just defeat him to end the level.

Battle of Xiakou (Sun Quan)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after defeating Huang Zu. You can breach into his garrison early with either horse- or ladder break-out. Either option is good, but I prefer ladder break-out.

Battle of Chibi 1 (Zhou Yu)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating three waves of important Wei officers.

Horse Musou boosting is an option in this level, so it might be worth it to create a custom setup on some Twin Swords that features Musou Regen Boost or Musou +1 for some extra Musou possibilities.

The "first wave" of enemies is basically Zhang Liao. He spawns on the large platform a bit to the north from where the level starts, but his spawning is rather inconsistent. I think he sometimes appears with a big delay if there are too many enemies in the vicinity. So if you don't see him, attack other enemies in the until he pops up.

After defeating Zhang Liao, some new dialogue begins. Eventually the 2nd wave of enemies will start flooding in from the west with the intention of pestering Zhuge Liang at the altar to south-west. You can fight them pre-emptively using either ladder- or horse break-out. There are three officers in total in the garrison to the west. After defeating them, you can use 2 - 3 horse Musou boost on the way back.

The third wave of enemies will now start approaching from three locations highlighted on the map. While defeating them, you can probably use additional horse Musou boost on the way to east. Zhang He at the very east will probably be the final target, and defeating him ends the level.

Battle of Chibi 2 (Huang Gai)

• Recommended gear: Soul Scepter (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Fenghuang Wing (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Musou Regen Up, Musou + 1, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends after defeating Cao Cao, but it takes jumping through a few hoops to get him to spawn.

This is another level where you can skip weapon change by going with Soul Scepter and Fenghuang Wing for Synergy. Personally I also set some Musou bonus seals on Fenghuang Wing so that horse Musou boosting will become easier.

Start running west at the start of the level. You need to go to the westmost ship and then head north. After you get a message about Cao Cao's boat starting to move, backtrack to the land area a bit to south-east. Summon a horse and also defeat enemies to build up a full Musou gauge.

Once the boats align and the path forward is clear, Musou boost your way to west. After using all your Musou, you can either stay on horse and keep hitting enemies in the hopes of getting even more Musou boosts, or start running on foot - I'm not sure which is faster. Regardless, the path is twisting, taking you first west and then north towards the other shore.

You have to defeat Xu Zhu. Afterwards, Cao Cao himself spawns on the shore. Defeating him ends the level.

Battle of Nanjun (Gan Ning)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Cao Ren. You can reach him early with either ladder- or horse break-out. The usual! I recommend ladder break-out since there's a ladder right on your path.

At the end, it saves a little bit of time from dialogue boxes if you only defeat Cao Ren at the end and no one else.

Battle of Hefei 1 (Gan Ning)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after escorting Sun Quan for a while and then defeating Zhang Liao in the middle garrison.

The start of the level is tied to Sun Quan's movement, so support him the best you can. Defeat the officers on his way and push him forward when possible. Eventually there's an ambush at the crossroads near the middle garrison. Defeat Zhang Hu as he appears, then enter the garrison to north.

Have Twin Swords active so that you can switch to Halberd and get a bonus to your damage immediately as Zhang Liao appears. Then just beat him up, it should only take a second or two. If you were fast enough, you skip the dramatic in-game scene where Taishi Ci sacrifices himself, saving extra time and also sparing the life of an ally! (But everyone still thinks he died, so his career in the Wu army is over.)

Battle of Hefei 2 (Ling Tong)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after escorting Sun Quan and Gan Ning to safety. The level is largely tied to their movement.

Go south and get ready for an ambush by Zhang Liao. After that, continue even deeper south and defeat more enemy officers that are approaching.

After this, new enemies spawn to north-west. From what I timed, it's fastest to go and intercept them early, even though this means a lot of extra running. Doing things in this order will enable Gan Ning to follow you to the exit faster and you skip one Zhang Liao encounter too. So, defeat the reinforcements and then backtrack to where you came from and help out Sun Quan who is in the middle of an ambush. Then just wait for allies to reach exit.

Battle of Fan Castle 1 (Lu Xun)

• Recommended gear: Heaven & Hell Swords (Walking Speed Up, Synergy) + Black Dragon Halberd (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up)

You can skip weapon switch by going with this gear selection.

The level ends after defeating Guan Suo and Guan Xing. You can reach them early quite easily by doing either horse- or ladder break-out. There's a ladder right on the way to the garrison, so that makes starting ladder break-out very convenient.

Battle of Fan Castle 2 (Lu Meng)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Guan Yu after he has completed escaping to Mai Castle. But to get him to escape to Mai Castle, you have to defeat a bunch of important officers first.

First enter the fort a bit to north-west of where you start. Defeat officers there. Then head a bit to south-west and breach inside the gate there using horse break-out. Start defeating enemies beyond the gate. You'll usually get a message about Guan Yu appearing even before you defeat any important officers - that's your cue to switch over to airborne horse break-out mode and fly to Mai Castle entrance.

Once Guan Yu arrives, a cutscene fixes the glitch mode. Then just beat up Guan Yu to end the level. Unlike in the Wei campaign, here you don't have to wait before defeating Guan Yu out of some fear for the game crashing.

Battle of Yiling 1 (Lu Xun)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after you defeat Zhau Yun. To get him to appear, you have to complete other objectives first.

You can skip the early level by breaching into the second most northern garrison and defeating superpowered Guan Suo there while he is still passive. To reach Guan Suo early, you can use either ladder- or horse break-out. I use ladder break-out since there is a ladder pretty close to where the level begins.

After defeating Guan Suo, head to the bridge to south-west to complete the fire trap event. An ambush at the north side of the bridge. After defeating the ambush officers, go inside the 3rd most northern garrison to get ambushed again. Wait inside a short while to get Liu Bei and Zhao Yun to spawn. Escape ambush with angled glitch. Defeat Zhao Yun to end level.

Battle of Yiling 2 (Lu Xun)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after you defeat Liu Bei. He is in the north-west corner inside the Stone Sentinel Maze.

The maze is an annoying place that can't really be fully skipped. Fighting Liu Bei during airborne horse break-out is out of the question since he has so much health.

However, you can still do small skips in the maze if you start ladder break-out before entering. There's a shortcut through a trap wall at the third turn to south. You can also skip all the fights before Liu Bei. While the closest ladder is slightly out of the way (a bit south to where the level starts from), I still think using it is overall faster.

Battle of Dongkou 1 (Sun Quan)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

Level ends after you defeat Zhang Liao after riding on the boat. Trying to defeat him any earlier with wuxia-glitch yields no results, sadly.

Basically, there's an enemy vanguard of around 5-6 officers scattered on the south shore. While fighting them, some enemy boats are approaching. You don't really have time to fire at them with catapults for the most part. You can only sink one or two of the boats if you time it right.

My route goes from west to east and from there back to east again. After returning east, I use the eastmost catapult to sink the other of the two approaching boats, then defeat the officer of the other boat on foot, then head into the boat that's ready to leave. However, I'm not sure if this is the best possible route overall. Perhaps it would be faster to leave the officer to the very west alive at the start of the level and only beat him up upon returning? Some more testing wouldn't hurt.

The boat ride is a small autoscroller. Eventually Zhang Liao leaps inside and has to be fought. Level ends after defeating him.

Battle of Dongkou 2 (Sun Quan)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

Level ends after you defeat Cao Pi. You can reach him early by taking the east - north-east path to avoid obstacles and also using either horse- or ladder-break out to get inside the garrison early. There's a ladder right on the way, so using ladder break-out is probably the most convenient and fast option.

Level-by-level notes (Shu)

Cast of Characters and Gear setup

• Liu Bei: Heaven & Hell Swords (Synergy, Walking Speed Up), Black Dragon Halberd (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up) (2 stages)

• Guan Yu: Green Dragon (Synergy, Attack +++, Walking Speed Up), Dragon Breath (Synergy, Walking Speed Up, Musou Regen Up, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++) (5 stages)

• Zhang Fei: Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up) (3 stages)

• Zhao Yun: Silver Stallion (Walking Speed Up, Attack Up +++, Synergy), Dragon Breath (Synergy, Walking Speed Up, Musou Regen Up, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++) (4 stages)

• Pang Tong: Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up) (1 stage)

• Zhuge Liang: Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up) (3 stages)

• Huang Zhong: Excelsior Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++), Divine Hoops (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++, Officer Assassin, Musou Regen Up) (1 stage)

• Guan Suo: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (1 stage)

• Jiang Wei: Bronze-Studded Staff (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up), Royal Halberd (Synergy, Halberd Master, Walking Speed Up) (2 stages)

Yellow Turban Rebellion 1 (Liu Bei)

• Recommended gear: Heaven & Hell Swords (Synergy, Walking Speed Up), Black Dragon Halberd (Synergy, Attack Up +++, Walking Speed Up)

Level ends after defeating all officers on the map. Again, it's a simple tutorial level. Skipping weapon change is possible if you go with this setup.

Yellow Turban Rebellion 2 (Liu Bei)

• Recommended gear: same as before.

This is the same level as in the other two campaigns, except you start from the east instead of south. As usual, get to the crossroads, horse break-out, jump, get north, defeat Zhang Jiao.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 1 (Guan Yu)

• Recommended gear: Green Dragon (Synergy, Attack +++, Walking Speed Up), Dragon Breath (Synergy, Walking Speed Up, Musou Regen Up, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++)

Interestingly, this is NOT the exact same level as in Wei and Wu campaigns. In the Shu version you also have to go and defeat Hua Xiong before you can end the level properly, which means the usual sequence break does not work this time around.

Run south to catch up to Hua Xiong. Beat him up and then use horse Musou boosting while returning back north. You have to visit the middle garrison to activate some dialogue about your next objective. Get to north-west and defeat two officers there. Dialogue skip any longer lines by Yuan Shu. Then horse Musou boost south until you reach the gates. Defeat Li Ru and Hu Zhen. After that Hua Xiong spawns one more time - defeating him ends the level for once and for all.

Elimination of Dong Zhuo 2 (Guan Yu)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

This is mostly the same level as before. The level ends after defeating Dong Zhuo, and reaching him early is once again most convenient by using horse break-out. However, he has much more health this time around compared to Wei and Wu campaigns, requiring 6 (!) hits to go down in wuxia-mode.

If you feel confident doing the wuxia-glitch, this shouldn't be too big of a problem, although it is risky and annoying for sure. In hindsight, I wonder if it would be better to do grounded horse break-out here instead. It takes a while to reach Dong Zhuo only using Staff C3, but the fight would be much less risky, potentially faster too. Should test that out some time.

Battle of Xu Province (Zhang Fei)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

Level ends after you defeat Cao Cao to north-west. Wuxia-glitch is the easiest way to reach him and he only takes 2 hits to go down. Sounds pretty simple.

However, there is another wrinkle you got to deal with before you can deal with Cao Cao: your ally Tao Qian is also under attack by two officers to the east. If you ignore him, he will (usually?) die before you can reach Cao Cao.

So start the level by heading to Tao Qian. This part is risky since the NPCs who are already fighting each other may hit you with a blind swipe, forcing you to reset the level. In truth, quite a few of my runs ended here!

You only have to defeat one of the two officers to keep Tao Qian safe. So do that, then get to Cao Cao and knock him out to end the level. It may be worth it to skip two dialogue lines from Cao Cao and Zhang Fei before dealing the finishing blow to save a few extra seconds.

Battle of Xiapi (Guan Yu)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

This level is very similar to the Wei version of Battle of Xiapi. Level ends after defeating Lu Bu, and it's quite easy to reach him early by using ladder break-out. The castle is flooded and there is one extra gate on the way, but other than that, pretty simple stuff.

Battle of Guandu (Zhao Yun)

• Recommended gear: Silver Stallion (Walking Speed Up, Attack Up +++, Synergy), Dragon Breath (Synergy, Walking Speed Up, Musou Regen Up, Attack Up +++, Attack Up ++)

Level ends after you view some story scenes and then escort Liu Bei to an escape point. It's a fairly scripted level without big skips.

From the start of the level, head west and south. Defeat two enemy officers in the area to activate a story trigger. Try to push Liu Bei on the way too since most of the level is timed according to his movement.

Eventually Liu Bei will move east and from there north over a river. There's a cutscene with Guan Yu at the river. After watching it and listening to some dialogue, Yuan Shao becomes hostile.

Continue pushing Liu Bei to the north-east fort, but be careful near water since sometimes pushing Liu Bei will prompt him to jump into the water, forcing you to reset the level. Defeat a few enemies inside the fort to open up gates south. Continue moving south while handling two ambushes on the way too.

The escape point is south-east. Yuan Shao appears once more near the exit. Defeat him and wait a few seconds for the level to end.

Battle of Xinye (Zhang Fei)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

Level ends after defeating Cao Hong.

Ladder break-out is the most convenient approach since there are multiple walls to breach before you can reach Cao Hong early. Your primary weapon can be anything since you only have to clip through thin walls in this level.

Battle of Changban 1 (Zhao Yun)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after doing a bunch of scripted stuff. At the minimum, it seems you have to visit the garrison to the north of where you start from to pick up Adou, then go to north-east garrison to defeat Zhang He, then defeat a bunch of enemies near the central bridge to end the level.

So, from the start of the level, you have to clip an invisible wall and keep going north to reach a garrison there. After reaching it, an officer appears and you have to fight him. I recommend a horse break-out to accomplish all this. Note that you should wait in place after defeating the officer for the Adou cutscenes to start - if you miss them, the level can't progress.

After you have Adou, the horse break-out glitch is fixed and you can continue on your way to the north-east garrison by either running or (optimally) using a few horse Musou boosts on the way. The north-east garrison is inaccessible because you did things in wrong order, so you need to do a ladder break-out here to continue onwards. Conveniently, there's a ladder right in front of the north-eastern garrison.

Zhang He appears inside the garrison. Beat him up, then run or use horse boosting to get to the central bridge. Meet up with Zhang Fei and then defeat the officers who are nearby to end the level.

Note: I'm not sure, but there's a chance that first defeating the officers and then meeting with Zhang Fei won't end the level? But this is another thing that deserves some more tests...

Battle of Changban 2 (Zhang Fei)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after Zhao Yun escapes OR you defeat Cao Cao. Naturally, the latter is the faster option.

To spawn Cao Cao quickly, you have to go to south from your starting position at the central bridge. I use a horse break-out to clip through the wall and move a bit to the south with Staff attacks to accomplish this. Feel free to teleport back on horse after you see the message about Cao Cao's engineers, because that's when you know Cao Cao is about to spawn.

Cao Cao will soon appear from north-east. There's no easy way to reach him with all the invisible walls, so another horse break-out is in order. Do Staff C3 until you get to Cao Cao and then beat him up to end the level.

The biggest difficulty in this level is having to do two horse break-outs while enemies are actively trying to attack Zhang Fei. Even a single stray hit during horse break-out will force you to reset the level, so be careful. This is another level where some runs have ended...

Battle of Chibi 1 (Zhao Yun)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

The level ends after you defeat Xu Zhu after his and Cao Cao's scripted boat ride is over.

You'd normally spend most of this level inside a boat autoscroller, but it saves 10-15 seconds to escape the autoscroller early by using angled glitch. So start angled glitch at the start of the level before entering boat. It might also save time to try and push Liu Qi closer to the boat - he moves pretty slow if you leave him alone - but I'm not entirely sure.

Once on the boat, you have to use the ballista to sink the three closest ships. Then, when your ship is about to turn and you see a line about changing winds, use the Twin Swords sprint attack to fall off the boat and swim back to the shore. Then use the path to west to run up to the other shore. There are many in-game cutscenes on the way, so try to learn their timing and either jump or do a Twin Swords sprint attack to keep moving during them.

After you pass the west garrison, you no longer need angled glitch and can start doing horse Musou boosts instead. It might be worth it to equip a custom Twin Swords setup with Musou regen in this level just so you can use boosts more frequently here.

Go south on the wooden path and defeat the two officers who are approaching. Then return back north, once again Musou boosting if you can. Xu Huang appears, defeat him too. Finally, you should be able to catch up to Xu Zhu while he is running to the other shore before he even gets a health bar. Strike him down as soon as he becomes vulnerable to end the level.

Battle of Chibi 2 (Guan Yu)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after you defeat Cao Cao. You can reach him quickly by using wuxia glitch to fly over the mountains. There's a cutscene after passing a certain point to north-west - this also ends the wuxia-glitch just in time for the final battle vs Cao Cao.

Battle of Luo Castle (Pang Tong)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

The level ends after you defeat Liu Xun. He is to the south-west and quite trivial to reach using wuxia-glitch. He takes 3 hits to go down.

The enemies near Liu Xun will usually be surprised and completely passive when you get there, which helps of course. However, there's still an element of RNG to this level since sometimes stray arrows can hit Pang Tong out of nowhere, forcing you to reset the level.

Battle of Chengdu (Zhuge Liang)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

The level ends after defeating Liu Zhang at north-west. You can easily defeat him in wuxia-mode using Zhuge Liang's air Musou, so get attacked by him in wuxia-mode and then unleash Musou! Zhuge Liang's powerful and reliable air Musou makes him one of the best characters for doing wuxia-glitch with.

Battle of Mt. Dingjun (Huang Zhong)

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

The level ends after defeating Cao Cao to south-east. It's a similar deal as the previous levels. However, this level has an element of RNG to it since Huang Zhong's air Musou does a variable number of hits and sometimes this is NOT enough to defeat Cao Cao in one shot. Not sure if it can really be helped.

Battle of Fan Castle 1 (Guan Yu)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

The level ends after defeating two officers inside the west side of the Fan Castle. You can reach them early with either a horse- or a ladder break-out, either is good. The closest ladder is behind the fort, though, so it's slightly out of the way. It's hard to say which approach is really the fastest one here.

Battle of Fan Castle 2 (Guan Suo)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after escorting Guan Yu to escape point. It's a scripted escort level that features no real skips.

Guan Yu is quite good at moving independently for the first minute or so in the level, allowing you to go ahead and defeat Yu Fan and Lu Meng near the east path that leads south. Other than that, it's helpful to stay close to Guan Yu and try to push him as much as possible to get him move quicker.

There's an ambush when going south and you reach the more cramped point with a hill to both east and west. Defeat the ambush officers, then wait a moment and also defeat Xu Huang before straying too far south. Once you're done with those ambushes, feel free to go south and defeat Mi Fang and Fu Shiren before Guan Yu even reaches the area.

Guan Yu will start moving to west and from there to north. There's an ambush on the way somewhere in the south-west part of the map. Soon the gates of the Fan Castle will also open up and a few more ambush troops start approaching from there. Go and defeat all of them as fast as you can.

There's one ambush at the gates to Mai Castle, after which there are two (!) more ambushes inside the Castle itself. After those are dealt with, Guan Yu is finally free to run to the exit.

Battle of Yiling 1 (Zhao Yun)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after you defeat Gan Ning. To get Gan Ning to spawn, you have to visit all the highlighted garrisons while moving north and then rescue Chen Zhen who is in the most northern garrison, then head south on the east path.

It's possible to use horse Musou boosting when leaving the garrison. Other than that, it's a pretty straightforward level.

If you don't visit all the garrisons, Chen Zhen may not reliably appear at the most northern garrison. I think the contents of the garrisons change depending on which order you visit them.

Battle of Yiling 2 (Zhuge Liang)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after you allow most friendly units to retreat from the map and then defeat Lu Xun. In practice, doing this isn't possible without defeating all enemy officers on the map as well.

To defeat the enemy officers in the 1st wave, I methodically move from north to south-west. For the 2nd wave, the enemy formation is much looser, but you should still refrain from going to south-east corner of the map until you've defeated the entire 2nd wave since doing things out of order will only slow down the retreat of friendly units.

The 3rd wave means the enemies near the south-east corner. Defeat them and wait for most friendly units to retreat. Afterwards, Lu Xun will appear in the south-east garrison. Defeating him ends the level.

It's a fairly slow-paced level, but I can't really see how you could speed it up much since it's tied to the movement of so many allied units.

Battle of Tianshui

• Recommended gear: Wuxia-gear.

The level ends after you defeat Jiang Wei who is in the north-east corner of the map. Since this is Zhuge Liang, using air Musou in wuxia-mode can be used to end the fight instantly.

Battle of Wuzhang Plains 1 (Jiang Wei)

• Recommended gear: Staff + Halberd

The level ends after doing some scripted events and then defeating Sima Shi.

You have to defeat a highlighted enemy officer either far east or far west. Personally, I think west is a bit faster. After doing that, return to where you started the level from. Musou boosting may be an option too.

There is some dialogue about ambush troops on the nearby cliff. Use grounded horse break-out to ambush the ambush troops and get them to attack your base early. Defeat the ambush troops as well as Xiahou Ba who is also highlighted on the map.

After doing this, Sima Shi should spawn to the north / north-east part of the lit area of the map once a lot of dialogue plays out. Get there and strike him down once he arrives.

Battle of Wuzhang Plains 2 (Jiang Wei)

• Recommended gear: Twin Swords + Halberd

The level ends after defeating Sima Yi to the north. It's not too hard to reach him early - once again ladder break-out or horse break-out are both viable options. There's a ladder pretty close to where the level starts, so I prefer using ladder break-out.

Using ladder break-out you can break into the final fort from the side from wherever there are wooden "bars" instead of solid wall, so this speeds navigation up a bit more.

Level-by-level notes (Jin)

I haven't actually finished routing Jin yet. Maybe some day...

Credits

Written by AKheon, (add own name if you edit to this guide!).