There are three main versions of the arcade game: Japan, old version; World, old version and World, new version. This guide will cover the first one, since that is the most common version and the one upon which the majority of home ports are based. The versions themselves differ in the first four levels only: starting from world 2 onwards the levels are the same across all versions, so the route presented in this guide should be easily adjustable to suit the different level sets.
Things you should know
Since you are planning to speedrun this game, I’ll assume you have played and beaten it before. You don’t have to be able to 1cc it, but you should feel comfortable enough with the gameplay before attempting the speedrun. That being said, you may not be familiar with every mechanic, so in this section I’ll go over the ones we’ll need for this speedrun.
Fluttering
While in free fall, rapidly tapping the jump button will make you flutter, slowing you down and eventually, if you tap fast enough, allowing you to fly.
Ice physics
The last two levels are completely made of ice, and in the last one you’ll need to navigate may narrow ice platforms without falling down. Now, as long as you never stop walking and jumping, you won’t even notice you are on ice: the trouble comes while trying to stop, as you’ll begin sliding. However, if you jump while sliding, the jump won’t be affected by your momentum, but only by the direction you are holding. For instance, if while sliding to the right you jump to the left, you’ll make a full jump to the left; if you are sliding to either direction and do a neutral jump, you’ll actually jump vertically, and resume your sliding motion once you land! Use this to your advantage: if you were moving to the right and come a set of small platforms you need to climb vertically, just let go of the right direction and keep jumping up as soon as you land on each platform.
Fruits and Power-ups
Every time you kill an enemy (except for bats), they’ll drop a fruit or power-up. More precisely, the first seven will drop different fruits, while the eighth one will drop a power-up. The fruit sequence is Strawberry --> Papaya --> Orange --> Apple --> Carrot --> Grapes --> Watermelon while the power-up sequence goes Bomb --> Spring --> Laser gun --> Clock --> Fire staff --> Arcade stick --> Bow and arrows --> Turbo --> … Note that there is some RNG involved with the power-up cycle: sometimes power-ups will be replaced by special items like the invincibility potion or the magic mirror. This however only seems to happen in later cycles, so that the first power-ups will always follow the above sequence.
Portals
Scattered throughout the levels there are many hidden portals, which will warp you to another stage or to another part of the same stage. In order to unveil them, you need to shoot their location until they appear. Portals are critical to the speedrun, as they allow to skip a good amount of stages: while the game has 20 levels, the speedrun route only goes through 11 of them, nearly cutting the game in half!
Heaven Stages
On some stages, losing your last life under certain conditions (see later) won’t result in a game over, rather, you’ll be taken to a secret heaven stage. From here one of three things can happen:
- you die. Losing your last life in a heaven stage will result in a game over.
- If you manage to beat the heaven stage, you’ll get a bad ending and a game over.
- If you find the secret exit, you’ll come back to Earth and will be able to continue playing through the game normally! There are three different heaven stages in the game, and which one you’ll be taken to depends on the level on which you lose your last life (luckily, the speedrun route goes through the easiest of the three).
The route
Now that we are familiar with all the mechanics we need to know in order to speedrun the game, it is time to plan our route. If you are familiar with portals and where they take you, you may be inclined to believe that the fastest way through is 1-1 --> 1-4 --> 2-1 --> 3-4 --> 4-1 --> 4-4 --> 5-1 --> 5-2 --> 5-3 --> 5-4. As it turns out, however, there’s an even faster route, which goes 1-1 --> 1-2 --> 1-3 --> 2-1 --> 3-4 --> 4-1 --> 4-4 --> 5-1 --> 5-2 --> 5-3 --> 5-4 You may have noticed that this allegedly faster route is one level longer since it goes through most of world 1 instead of skipping it and going straight to the boss, but that is precisely why it’s faster. You see, the world 1 boss – the frozen whale – is pretty unique in that you have to wait for it to swallow you before you can hurt it, thus resulting in a slow boss fight. This, coupled with the fact that levels 1-2 and 1-3 are pretty short stages, makes it so that the time required to get to level 2-1 is, within a couple seconds, essentially the same in the two routes. What makes the second route faster, then, is the fact that accessing stage 2-1 through a portal (which you take in the second route) places you right at the end, thereby saving about 40 seconds over the first route (in which you play through the entirety of level 2-1). Let’s now examine the route in detail, stage by stage.
Stage 1-1
A fairly easy stage. Just go through it normally, making sure you kill every enemy in your way. This is very important, as our main objective in the speedrun is to manipulate the power-up cycle in order to get a specific drop later in the run. Note that there is some leniency in doing so, i.e. you don’t need to kill an exact number of enemies, as we’ll see later. If done correctly, you should get the bomb as your last or second-to-last drop.
Stage 1-2
The same concept as the previous stage applies here. Beat the level normally while killing as many enemies as you can without going out of your way. Ideally, one of your last drops should be the laser gun. A couple of things to note here:
- when you get to the hot air balloon, the fastest way up is not to take it, but to steal the balloon from the bear which spawns from the “circus” poster in the background.
- You may argue that that taking the warp here is faster, but the loading screens actually end up making you lose a few seconds.
Stage 1-3
When the level starts, go to the left and jump up the platforms while staying on their right side. As soon as you land onto the third one, make a full jump to the right. If done correctly, you should land onto a bear just as it’s spawning, thus stealing his balloon. Make your way to the top left and continue right toward the big open section. Without abandoning your balloon, descend while hugging the left wall and keep shooting to your right. When you are 7/8 blocks from the ground you’ll notice your arrows hit an invisible portal: keep shooting until it appears and you are pulled in. You’ll end up in a bonus level, with the letters “X”, “T” and “E”. Grab them and continue down, then shoot at where the arrow points to unveil another portal.
Stage 2-1
Grab the “N” and “D” letters and fall down the shaft on your left. When you are about halfway through it, start mashing the jump button in order to flutter, while holding right. Your goal is to make it to the 1-block tall tunnel on the right without falling to the ground. Once you land, just go right, fall down next to the cage and climb the blocks on your right. Shoot the bottom left corner of the room you arrive in to unveil a portal. Go through the bonus stage normally, but make sure you don’t collect the bonus “E” and “X” letters (they are out of the way anyway). When you arrive at the ascending platform, jump onto it and hold right so that you’ll dismount as soon as you can without risking hitting the spiked ceiling. Now don’t fall down the chute: rather, shoot 5 arrows to unveil a portal which will take you to another bonus stage. In order to proceed, you have to kill every enemy in this stage: this will make the exit portal spawn at the top of the level. There are a number of ways to clear this level: I’ll tell you the way I do it, which I find to be very consistent. First, turn to the left, shoot an arrow which will kill the bear and walk to the right. After the bear you are approaching shoots once, jump and steal his balloon. Now fly up while hugging the right wall and shoot to the left to kill the two turtles. Land on the flat ground at the top, where the “T” and “E” letters are, and shoot the turtles on the left. When the last one dies, a portal will appear where you are standing and take you to the next level.
Stage 3-4
Jump up and go to the right while ignoring the enemies. Cross the gap over the water and when you land on the flat ground a cat should spawn above you. Kill him by stealing his balloon from below, then immediately land. Two bears with sunglasses should have spawned: steal the balloon from the one closer to you grabbing it from below and follow the arrows in the background. Land as soon as you can and keep moving to the right, while jumping and shooting in order to kill the enemies as they spawn. Jump into the water and swim upwards, until you reach the air pocket at the very top. Now, depending on what the last enemies dropped, you’ll want to do one of two things:
- If you got the fire staff you’ll want to drown yourself, as that weapon won’t allow you to get a quick kill on the boss. Simply keep swimming as far ahead as you make it. Don’t worry, you won’t lose time, since in a later stage you’ll need to lose all your lives anyway.
- If you didn’t get the fire staff, replenish your oxygen (tapping the attack button while at the surface lets you recover oxygen faster by spitting water) and move on. You don’t need to fill your oxygen all the way: 1 breath away from a full gauge should be enough. Next, swim down the four waterfalls on the right and resurface onto the 1-block wide floor on your left. A bear should have spawned and begun following you while you were swimming down the waterfalls: steal his balloon and fly up to the boss room. There is also a more advanced strategy, which saves about 10 seconds over the previous one. When you get to the second waterfall after replenishing your oxygen, rather than swimming down hold right and mash the jump button to flutter in the air and steal the cat’s metal balloon. This allows you to get to the boss right away instead of having to swim all the way down and wait for the bear. Note that you can only do this if you didn’t get the fire staff, as the cat doesn’t spawn if you drown yourself. Land and dismount you balloon, then climb the steps on the right up to the third one. Mash the fire button and, if you were fast enough, you should be able to kill the boss in one cycle. However, it is likely that you’ll need another few shots in order to kill it: jump up or drop down to the right step and finish the boss. It shouldn’t take you more than two cycles to kill the boss.
Stage 4-1
Walk right until you reach the door of the restaurant in the background. A duck-riding enemy should stop above you: jump up in order to steal its vehicle and continue to you right. Head towards the top-right corner of the level and shoot the area above the third spike from below to unveil a portal. In the bonus stage, simply hold left to go through the portal and advance to the next stage.
Stage 4-4
Your goal in this stage is to lose all your remaining lives in order to go to the heaven stage. The fastest way to do so is to hold left as soon as the level starts, which will make you land onto the spikes. Repeat this until you are down to you last life, at which point simply wait on the small block on which you would land if you didn’t move at the start of the level. The bear with sunglasses should shoot you with an arrow, taking you to the heaven stage. Note that it is very important that you get hit by a projectile, since losing your last life to the spikes will result in a game over, killing the run. In the heaven stage make your way to the top, where the spikes are. Keep moving to the right, watching out for the bat that spawns near the Goddess: if you jump and shoot it you should be able to continue without slowing down. In order to take the secret exit, land between the spikes and the first step, and simply hold right: you’ll go through the steps and fall down a shaft which will take you back to Earth and to level 5-1: we have skipped stage 4-4!
Stage 5-1
Beware of the two spiked enemies which spawn atop the stairs on the right: you might want to jump in place and shoot them before moving. Proceed along the bottom path across three platforms, then jump up and take the top path. When on the last platform jump to the right and climb up to the flat ground above. Walk to the left watching out for the rocks and take the fourth path (the one before the path with the carrots). Climb the steps and walk to the left timing your movement with the rocks. From here just proceed along the only path killing the enemies in your way and fall down the shaft which vertically spans the whole level. Climb the stairs and jump right from the edge of the platform: you should steal a UFO from an alien which spawns just as you land on him. Fly upwards and to your right and ascend between the two sets of tiny square platforms, then land onto the uppermost platform on the left. Jump up and fall down the chute; walk left while shooting in order to kill the enemies and jump up to the cage. Note: you may argue that taking the warp which makes you skip a part of this level is faster, but it is actually slower, since you have to sit through two loading screens.
Stage 5-2
This is probably the hardest level of the run. It is a 2-minute-long maze with few enemies: it’s all a matter of knowing your way to the end. I won’t explain the route in detail (you should already know it anyway): what I’ll focus on is the strategy. Since, as I said, this level is a very long walk, it would be ideal to have the turbo power-up, and that is exactly where the drop manipulation comes into play. You should be somewhere around the bow and arrow in the drop cycle at this point: watch what drops from the first enemy that you kill, and that should tell you how many drops away you are from the turbo. For example, if you drop a watermelon, you’ll know the next drop will be the bow and arrows, meaning you are 9 drops away from the turbo. Keep this number in mind, and when you get to the right edge of the level (above the enclosed lava pool) drop down and fall down the fourth shaft from the right (it’s the last one before the long flat floor). If you shoot an arrow to the left just before falling down, you’ll kill an enemy, thus advancing in the drop cycle. Proceed into the room with the painting on the background, and you’ll see a group of germs on your left. You can make six of them spawn every cycle: knowing how many drops you need to get the turbo, kill the right number of germs until you get it. If you need to respawn them, jump around. Once you get the turbo, the hardest part of the run begins: you have to go through the rest of the stage while moving at a higher speed than you are used to, and if you die you’ll lose your power-up. There are no particular tricks here: the route through the level is the same you already know; the only thing which you may not be aware of is that while you have the turbo you’ll walk over 1-block wide gaps, without the need of jumping. This actually only seems to work sometimes, I still haven’t figured out how it works exactly, so if you solve this apparent mystery please message me.
Stage 5-3
After the hardest level in the run comes one of the easiest stages: just walk to the right, kill the sheep and steal the duck. Now just fly to the end killing every enemy on the way: if you do it right you won’t ever need to slow down and the level will be over in about 30 seconds.
Stage 5-4
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the final stage! Start making your way to the right, and while navigating the small platforms look at the bottom-right part of the screen: a cannon-shooting sheep should fire a projectile as soon as it appears on screen. Look at the projectile: if it is solid black, then you can ignore it and continue right, but if it has orange notches it will explode in multiple fragments. In that case you’ll need to adjust your jumps so as not to get hit. Go through the rest of the level normally, until you get to the far left of the screen and to your right will be three sets of stairs made of bouncing blocks. Climb the second set and when you are on the last step jump back to the left. If done correctly, a duck-riding enemy should come to you: steal its vehicle and fly upwards, right below Phee-Phee. Keep holding jump in order to stick to the ceiling and wait for the bear to come flying beside you and shoot you. When the arrow is about to hit you, let go of the jump button: you’ll be hit and, during the death animation, touch Phee-Phee, thus ending the run without going through the second half of the level, or even beating the final boss! It may take some getting used to this final trick, as letting go of the jump button too early means you get hit but don’t trigger the ending, and letting go of it too late means your vehicle gets hit instead of you, making you fall down and forcing you to respawn the enemies and retry.
