All Achievements (Describing the Achievements) Speedrun Guide

kamiko describing the achievements 1.0.0

08/31/2019
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~"Apprentice Shrine Maiden - Defeated 15 enemies in one stage"
this means exactly what it sounds like, just kill 15 enemies before a stage (Forest, Relics, Labyrinth or Ruins) ends

~"The Beginning - Pressed the switch to open the first door"
press the first switch in Forest of Awakening

~"First Job - Broke a seal to a gate between worlds for the first time"
activate your first shrine (this will also be the first shrine of Forest, since no matter what character you start with, you have to activate a Forest shrine first)

~"To Battle! - Opened 4 gates between worlds"
this is activating the four shrines of Forest of Awakening

~"The Forest of Awakening - Cleared The Forest of Awakening"
happens while the Forest boss is disintegrating from the screen

~"The Sunken Relics - Cleared The Sunken Relics"
happens while the Relics boss is disintegrating from the screen

~"The Scorching Labyrinth - Cleared The Scorching Labyrinth"
happens while the Labyrinth boss is disintegrating from the screen

~"The Ruins of Yamataikoku - Cleared The Ruins of Yamataikoku"
happens while the second Ruins boss is exploding

~"Blade of Kusanagi - Cleared playing Yamato"
beat the game with Yamato

~"Brimming with Power - Have a playable character with max stats of HP12 and SP400"
happens after you receive all the health and sp upgrades with a character

~"Magatama of Yasakani - Cleared playing Uzume"
beat the game with Uzume

~"Fatal Blow - Unleashed all 3 of the playable characters' Special Attacks in one save data"
use specials with all three characters in one save file

~"Burger in the Ruins"
this is a Secret found in the game- it is hidden behind a bush to the right of the key door in Relics

~"All the way - Didn't use Continue to clear the game"
if you die, you can still complete the file, just don't select "Yes" for "Continue?" ever in a game data

~"Yamataikoku Doll"
this is a Secret found in the game- it is hidden in a broken pillar in the northern most kill room of the Ruins

~"Demon slayer - Killed 3000 enemies in one save data"
this is a global counter and counts all of your common enemy kills in one save file

~"Sushi in the Trees"
this is a Secret found in the game- it is hidden in a stone pillar to the east of the Forest boss portal

~"Mirror of Yata - Cleared playing Hinome"
beat the game with Hinome

~"God of Combos - Chained 100 combos"
happens after you get a combo of 100

~"Crow in the Labyrinth"
this is a Secret found in the game- it is hidden behind bars in a pillar to the right of where the treasure chest with the key is in Labyrinth

~"Blessed Shrine Maiden - Cleared within 30mins"
clear a game with a single character with the in-game clock on "30:00" or lesss

~"Explorer - Found all secret items within the same save data"
this means you can collect the Secrets with different characters- so long as the player has got all four Secrets, it doesn't matter (IE: Sushi and Burger with Yamato, Doll with Uzume and Crow with Hinome still counts)

~"Songs to remember - Unlocked Sound mode"
this is done by beating the game with all three characters and getting all four Secrets at least once

~"Destroyer - Destroyed 1500 objects in one save data"
destroy 1500 objects between three characters in a save data (IE: bushes, stones, health pots, etc)

~"Enlightened - Cleared the game within 30mins for each of the 3 playable characters within the same save data"
do what the description says (in-game time)

~"Savior of the Transient World - Unlocked all Achievements"
unlock all other achievements

~"Untouchable - Cleared the game with no damage"
finish a character's game without taking damage (if you get hit after activating a shrine, you can quit and then reload the shrine save and continue your attempt)

Any% (Hinome, Combo Route) Speedrun Guide

**IN-PROGRESS**
*This route is based off RepentMF’s “Any% (any character, Combo Route) Speedrun Guide” as of 05/16/2018

01/20/2019 - Routes for worlds 1 and 2 posted

NOTE AND DISCLAIMER In this guide, I assume you have basic-intermediate knowledge of Kamiko speed-runs already, but I do my best to teach you all that I can without slowing down an already lengthy guide. The things I assume that you already know before reading this guide: good movement, boss fight strats, and bridge skip.
--- Guide references THESE maps: https://imgur.com/a/RNHjq
--- TITLE/ PLACE
--- split (assume all tasks are in order)
--- -- Task
--- (#) SP count when leaving a point where you just used SP
--- (Lvl # - Step #) Footnote, more explained at the end of the guide
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROUTE WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Time start is on selecting "New Game"
-- Text mash through the first cutscene (*0)
Level 1: The Forest of Awakening
-- Hit switch 1
-- Activate shrine 1 (>=100) (1-1)
-- Push the block, north of shrine 1 (1-2)
-- Hit switch 2
-- Open treasure chest 1 (>=75) (1-3)
-- Place sphere on a pedestal
-- Hit switch 3 (1-4)
-- Activate shrine 2 (>=50) (1-5)
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=150) (1-6)
-- Use key on door
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=50) (1-7)
-- Open treasure chest 3 (>=0) (1-8)
-- Place sphere on a pedestal
-- Activate shrine 4 (>=0) (1-9)
-- Hit switch 4
-- Enter the boss portal
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 1 boss (200)
Lvl 1 finish screen

Level 2: The Sunken Relics
-- Activate shrine 1 (100) (2-1)
-- Open treasure chest 1 (>=50) (2-2)
-- Hit switch 1
-- Hit switch 2
-- Enter portal a
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Enter portal a
-- Hit switch 3 (2-3)
-- Activate shrine 2 (>=25)
-- Pull lever left of shrine 2 and perform bridge skip/ cross the bridge (2-4)
-- Push the block, right of switch 4, twice (2-5)
-- Hit switch 4
-- Hit switch 5
-- Enter portal b
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=100) (2-6)
-- Enter portal b
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=100) (2-7)
-- Hit switch 6
-- Enter portal c
-- Enter portal a
-- Use key on door
-- Activate shrine 4 (>=0) (2-8)
-- Grab the secret (2-9)
-- Enter the boss portal
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 2 boss (>=75) (2-10)
Lvl 2 finish screen


FOOTNOTES, IN-DEPTH ROUTE EXPLANATION
(*0) Mashing ‘Y’ then ‘A’ with two fingers/ hands is the most efficient method I’ve found here. You can mash the text box as soon as the frame after it appears, so you can mash as fast as your own technical limits will let you. Using any language that isn’t English saves you on 2 text boxes the entire game, and since mashing works through text boxes and not the text itself, this helps, too.

(1-1) Hugging the inner-most walls is probably the best way to go on the way to the first shrine. You want to keep your movement as tight as possible while rounding corners, and it’s better to damage boost than use an attack, so run straight through to the shrine, trying to avoid any hits.
(1-2) On the way to the block, you can damage boost if you’re off-cycle with the retracting spikes, but you really want to try to lose as little health as possible for combo-route, so try not to go lower than two health. You can use single attacks to knock enemies out of your way if you don’t need them for your combo. Before you reach the switch, you should use 1 shield toss, and 1 dagger if positions are good. Your combo should be at 7 or 8 around this point.
(1-3) COMBO CONTINUE: With Hinome, you can continue your combo through your orb carry. To do this, throw your shield right before opening the chest. If the shield hits an enemy on the way back and the orb clean is carry, you have the opportunity to extend your combo, as seen here: https://clips.twitch.tv/MistyColdbloodedDugongBudBlast
(1-4) On the way to the third switch, you should hit just enough enemies to keep your combo going. If you failed the combo continue, just make sure you have enough for the shrine, and any combo you start be sure to keep extending. Also, the grass guarding the third switch can be taken care of with one shield toss.
(1-5) Before you activate the second shrine, hit the rest of those pink enemies surrounding it, just to preserve that combo you started before.
(1-6) On your way up to grab the second treasure chest, hit some mushroom and pink enemies (may need bees if you have low SP/combo). They are all pretty clumped together (unless you get a really bad spawn where they’re far apart, which is unlikely in this area) and it’s easy to get your combo up. Before grabbing the chest, you should get to 200 SP (remember that this combo was continued from at shrine 2).
(1-7) Around now you should be at about 150 or so SP, so you need no combo before you reach the shrine. Each clump of grass can be taken out with one shield toss, and those should be the only attacks needed.
(1-8) You should have 50 SP for treasure chest 3. If you’re short, the enemies past the door are the most on the way, and there are clumps in each area if you need a bigger combo. Also, remember you can take out 2 tiles of grass easily with a shield toss or dagger lunge.
(1-9) After placing the second sphere at the pedestal, just run north and kill all the enemies in your path, which should be: a group of 4 (3 purple and 1 red mushroom) and a large group of 7 (1 bird, 5 purple and 1 red mushroom). One shield toss for each group should take all of them out and put the combo at 11. If you need more combo (11 gets you 66 SP, you need 100 SP for shrine 4), 1-health enemies will spawn along the path with the retracting spikes at the very northeastern side of the map, as well as a group of 5 enemies just before the bushes by the shrine. Attack these enemies only if you need the combo or don’t want to take damage.

(2-1) You should already be at or close to 200 SP when you start the stage, so there’s no need to hit enemies unless they’re in your way or unless you’re in danger. Just try to weave around enemies until you reach the first shrine.
(2-2) The tree right after the first shrine makes the movement a bit awkward if you go for the switch first, so you want to avoid that, which you can as Hinome. Go low and throw the shield to take out the grass by the switch and use the dagger to clear out grass by the chest. Then go and hit the switch while holding the orb.
(2-3) You only have about 60-70 SP right now, and you’ll need at least 100 when you get to shrine 2. Hit some of the blue enemies on your way to get some extra SP. On the bridge that heads north to where the boss portal will appear, hug the left wall to keep the 2 spawns of enemies from appearing on the bridge. When you get to shrine 2’s general area, there will be a lot of enemies. The first spawn is a group of 3 ghosts. Take out enough bushes for bridge skip and kill all of them to start a combo and keep them gone for now (ideally do all this in one shield toss). Next, a group of 8 (5 ghosts, 2 orange jellies and 1 frog) will appear. Go down and hit the switch, keeping the combo going. Kill all the enemies that can quickly be killed. This should put you at more than 100 SP.
(2-4) Kill the remaining frogs and green jellies before you pull the lever. This will ensure that you have a clean bridge skip/ bridge crossing (barring any slow-down from the Switch).
(2-5) On your way to the block to the right of switch 4, there are several ghost enemies. Kill around 4-5 of them so you can start your combo and build your way up to what should be close to 200 SP before you reach shrine 3. 
(2-6) Getting the rest of this combo filled up is easy because there’s a group of 3 ghosts be the blocks and 8 (5 ghosts, 2 green jellies and 1 frog) right before portal b. Kill 7 of them so the spawn won’t come back completely and get a good shield toss after the portal so you’ll have around 200 SP for shrine 3 and treasure chest 2.
(2-7) After shrine 3, you should have a 10+ combo and close to 100 SP. You want to get to 150 SP on this combo in 1-2 shield tosses, and the best groups for this are right by the portal. On your way back towards treasure chest 2, you should have a relatively easy time passing by enemies, since you killed that spawn of 8 and some of the ghosts in the northeastern corner of the map. Open treasure chest 2 and continue to switch 6.
(2-8) Open the door with the key and go straight to shrine 4.
(2-9) Secrets are hidden consumables in Kamiko that refill all of your life and SP to max. The secret in this level is located in a pillar to the right of the door you used the key on. Cut the tile of grass in front of the pillar and grab the secret! We don’t always use secrets, because sometimes our combos can be faster and incorporated into our movement better than the secret can.
(2-10) This route is based off of using Hinome’s special attack in the level 2 boss, so make sure you use your special during phase 2 of the fight.

Any% (Yamato) Death Route Guide

WARNING: This will be a a fairly in-depth guide in some sections. Erring on the side of too much information as opposed to too little.
This is a guide, not a route outline. I don't recommend trying to read through this while doing a run.
I recommend watching runs as a way of learning the route.
 
This is one of two routes. The other one manages combo throughout FoA to avoid doing the death abuse and is faster RTA but has slower IGT.
 
This route will be much easier to understand if you either have one of Bemels's maps open (in #resources in the discord) or play along.
It's very hard to detail the exact locations of the secrets in text, so if you don't know where they are, watch a run that follows this route.
 
Forest of Awakening:
    Gate 1: Hit the first switch. Go up, right, and down through the spikes. Watch your health: you don't want to be at 2hp at this gate.
    Gate 2: Go back to the spikes and go up-right. There's a nice piece of diagonal movement here from the spikes up to a block you have to push that's really rewarding to do with the dpad. Push the block, kill any wasps that spawned to the immediate left of your current position, and hit the switch. Go left, kill most or all of the wasps, and open the chest. Ideally, you're now at either 95 or 100+ SP after getting this orb (this is why to kill the wasps). Carry the orb back to the central area and place it in the right pedestal. Go left, down-left, and up to find the second gate -- DON'T ACTIVATE IT YET. Go north through the line of bushes and hit the switch. Then go activate the gate.
            Throughout this whole section, you need to manage your health. You need to activate the second gate with only 1hp remaining. I typically take two damage on the way to gate 1 and take the third from the enemies that spawn around gate 2 on my way north to the switch. If the bushes on the way to the switch drop health, take an extra damage before activating the switch so that the invincibility frames have some time to blink while you're moving to/from the gate.
    Gate 3: IMMEDIATELY DIE. This is to refill hp and SP. Then go down, right, and up to the chest. Open it and carry the key left, up, up-right, up to the door. This section's easier if you know how the enemies will all react to you:
            The green ones initially run away from you the first time you get close to them. If you're close enough for enough time, they will shoot at you, but this should never happen in a speedrun.
            The block guys just don't care about you and move randomly.
            The wasps move in short bursts, targeting you if you're close.
            After opening the door, go up through the bushes and up-left through the bushes to the gate.
    Gate 4: Go down-right, down, left back to the door you opened with the switch above the second gate. Go up through the bushes here and then left, down, right to a chest. Note: there are two enemies that spawn during the segment of left movement -- I tend to kill them because you'll have to carry an orb back through here. Open the chest and go left, up, right, down, right back to the orb pedestals and place the orb. Go up. Just before the boss teleporter, there's a narrow gap where four mushroom enemies spawn -- kill at least the three blue ones just to make movement easier. Get the secret (watch a run for the specific block it's hidden in) and go up, right, down-right, down, left through the bushes to the gate.
    Exit: Go down-left to the switch. Go left, up to the teleporter. This part of movement is why to kill the mushroom guys earlier: hp can get tight here.
Boss: If you're really scared of this boss, you can get the hp upgrade. I don't recommend it, but it is a safety strat if you're looking for safeties.
        You want to minimize this boss's movement. I recommend watching Repent's analysis of this boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cklh54t6IpU for a full guide. I'm not going to describe all the movement because it's in that tutorial.
    Orb 1: Boss shoots five orbs -- last one is real. Kill enemies while waiting to fill SP.
    Orb 2: Boss shoots seven orbs -- last one is real. Kill enemies while waiting to fill SP.
    Orb 3: Boss shoots nine orbs -- last one is real. Kill enemies while waiting to fill SP. You want to end the level with 200 SP.
 
Sunken Relics: Safety strat: if you're at 1hp after FoA, immediately go down-left to the pot and get 1hp for safety.
    Gate 1: Go left, up, left (slash through the enemies), down (dodge or slash through the enemies), right to the gate.
    Gate 2: Go right, hit the switch. Open the chest. Carry the orb up to the start of the level and go right, down, down-left to the switch. Go up through the teleporter, place the orb. After the cutscene, go back through the teleporter and go back to the start of the level. Kill some enemies here and go up -- stay on the leftmost side of this walkway to avoid causing enemies to spawn. Go left and then up: break all the bushes on the way to where the bridge will spawn. Go down, right, down to the switch. Go back up, left, up and kill the enemies in the bottom area (this is for SP and so they'll be out of your way during bridge skip). Go up to the gate.
    Gate 3: Go left, up to the switch. Perform bridge skip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJRERmj7ncY . Repent uses an audio cue for this, I use muscle memory. Find a way that works for you. Note that it's faster to just do the bridge normally than to fail bridge skip. After the skip, go right, down (kill enemies that are directly in your way but nothing else). Push the block once, kill the blue enemies, push the block again. Hit the switch, kill most of the enemies (killing the frog is slow -- only kill it if you need the SP), go up to the other switch, come back down to the teleporter.
            After going through the teleporter, go up-right, up to the gate. If you're low on SP, you should be at a high combo now, so just kill the three weak enemies right by the gate. You want to be at 150 SP before hitting the gate (or 50 SP after hitting the gate).
    Gate 4: Go back down, down-left to the teleporter. Go back up-right, up, left to the chest and open it. Carry the key down to the teleporter, right to the other teleporter, and down-right to the key door. Note: there is a group of enemies that spawns right around the key door. Don't let them make you drop the key. After opening the door, get the secret and go right to the gate.
    Exit: Go back left, up, left, up to the exit. Remember to stay on the far left on the long stretch of vertical movement to avoid the enemy spawn.
Boss:
    Orb 1: Immediately move to the top right area. The boss will move diagonally down-right; the orb will be in a random segment.
    Orb 2: Stay on the right side and kite the boss head to stall time. The orb will move to the left teleporter after a certain amount of time -- once it's close enough to the teleporter to hit, take the teleporter and mash Y/A (facing up).
    Orb 3: Stay on the left side and kite the boss head to stall time. The orb will move diagonally down-left after a certain amount of time. Once you learn the timing, you can find a time to just stand to the immediate left of where the orb will appear and mash Y/A (facing right).
 
Scorching Labyrinth: This level introduces fence cutscene skips (as seen in this video: https://youtu.be/O6sfz9t9QQU). Basically, pause right after killing the last enemy in a cage fight and you'll still be able to move during the cutscene. Assume that you're supposed to do this for every cage fight in the run going forwards.
    Gate 1: This first section is fairly linear -- you physically can't go the wrong way until the first chest. Open the chest, go left to the orb pedestals. Go up-right through the cage fight. Go right, open the SP door (50 SP), and open the chest. IMMEDIATELY DROP THE KEY. The chest is opened now for SP management -- you'll come back for the key later. Go down, right to the switch (through the blocks). Go up to the gate. There is a way to do movement to dodge the fireballs, but it's faster just to run through and take damage. If you need health before going up through them, get it from the pots above the switch.
 
    Safety strat: if you're REALLY concerned about getting back to the chest without dying, die right after activating the gate. Then skip the secret in the next section (dying will give you the same refill the secret would).
 
    Gate 2: Go down, left, up to the secret. Go up to the chest, get the key. Go down, right, down, left to the key door. Go left to the gate.
    Gate 3: Manage your health during this section: you want to activate this gate at 1hp. Go back right, up-right. Go up-left, up to the four pots and break them (DON'T COLLECT THE HEALTH -- it's for refilling your health on the way to the boss). Go left to the block, push it. Go around, break all the small blocks, then come back and push the block down and the other block left. Go left to the switch, left to the gate.
    Gate 4: Go down (past the chest), hit the switch. Safety strat: kill the enemies. Open the chest, carry the orb down to the other orb pedestal. Go down and around to the gate (I recommend killing the group of 3 green enemies that spawn to make the next section's movement safer).
    Exit: Go back straight up to gate 3, right to the health you got out of the pots earlier (so you don't need to worry about health in this section), and then down to the exit.
Boss: In my opinion, this boss fight gets easier as it goes on.
    Orb 1: The boss will drop five enemies: kill them all and then dodge the flying particles. Repeat twice: the boss will drop the orb after the enemies the third time.
    Orb 2: Almost exactly the same as last phase -- you need to kill all the enemies to progress the fight. The third time, one of the two will drop the orb (it's random).
    Orb 3: Move to the far left and charge a spin. Once either four or five enemies have dropped (watch your combo!), release it and spin through to kill them all. Repeat twice, making sure to watch for the orb on the third time. MAKE SURE TO END WITH 200 SP.
 
Ruins of Yamataikoku: This is the hardest level. Don't give up! As of the time of writing, even the 2nd place run drops a key in this level. Also, I'm going to detail less of the SP route in this level -- just notice that there are a lot of enemies so it shouldn't be too hard to refill if you find yourself short. SP is particularly easy during the Gate 2 segment because of the cage fight.
    Safety strat: if you're at 1hp, feel free to go immediately down-left to the pots for a refill. If you ever feel low on hp during this level, there are pots everywhere. Don't feel like it's wasting time to get health -- going out of your way for a refill is usually much faster than dying.
    Gate 1: Go up, left. Go up and left to the bushes: break a path through (you'll have to carry a key through here later). Note: you can also try to kill exactly one of the green enemies (if you kill both they'll respawn when you come back). Go back right, down to the switch and hit it. Kill most of the enemies here (to make it safe to carry something through). Go down to the switch. Go down, left, up to the chest. Carry the orb back to the orb pedestals (down, right, up, right). After placing the orb, go back left and hit the first switch again. Go right, down, up-left to the teleporter. Carry the key to the key door: down (from the teleporter), up, left, up (through the spikes -- watch out), left, up. This key carrying is possibly the hardest part of the game. After opening the door, go up to the gate.
    Gate 2: Go back down, right, down through the spikes and go back right to the central area (with the bus). Go right through here, taking the bottom route through the bushes (this is to clear the way for carrying an orb through here later). Go up, right, down to the cage fight. Go down from the fight, open the chest, and immediately drop the orb. Go right to the switch (hit it) and back up to the cage fight. Go up-right through the block puzzle to the second gate.
        There's an enemy spawn you can avoid when going through the area immediately up-right of the cage fight (the part with the stairs). In my experience, just hugging a wall works.
    Gate 3: Go all the way back down to the fight and then go back down to the switch (hit it). Go left to the chest (get the orb) and down-left to the switch. Go left, up, and around the bus to the second orb pedestal. Go up, left, up-left to the door and then up to the gate.
    Gate 4: Go back down to just before the exit panel, but instead go down farther to the switch. Go to and through the teleporter this switch activates (up, right, down, down-left) to another switch. This switch allows you to go north from the exit panel. Hit it, go back through the teleporter, and go up-right, up to another cage fight. Charge an attack going into this fight so that you can just sweep through all the enemies. Grab the secret (preferably while the fence cutscene is still playing so that you can move during the secret collection) and go down-right, up to the door and then up to the gate.
    Exit: Go back down, left, up to the cage fight. After the fight, go back down to the exit panel.
Boss: THIS BOSS HAS TEXT BOXES AT THE START OF THE FIGHT. Also, all the orbs on this boss take 3 SEPARATE hits -- you can't hit an orb more than once at a time.
    Orb 1: Go up-right and sit in the corner next to the boss. The orb will appear here all 3 times, so mash/wait for it (facing left or up, both work) and avoid the slow attacks.
    Orb 2: There's no trick to this orb. Run around and avoid the spike attacks and wait for the orb to appear. The orb will stay still for a short amount of time before moving again and can move to an unreachable position (causing you to have to wait).
    Orb 3: This orb is easiest to hit from the corners closest to the boss. It alternates from appearing at the right and left corners (starting at the right corner) and if you miss it it starts to spin around and is really hard to hit. Alternate between being at the right corner by the boss mashing/waiting for the orb and the left corner by the boss mashing/waiting for the orb. If you stay in the corners while the boss's attacks are going, you will pretty much never get hit.
 
Final Boss: The "orb" for this boss is located in its chest and is behind a shield that takes a combo attack to bring down. What this means for you is that whenever the shield isn't exposed for you to attack, you need to be building SP off the enemies here so that you're ready to combo attack it when it does pop up.
    Orb 1: Immediately combo the shield and hit the orb 3 times.
    Orb 2: The boss will do an attack resembling the first boss. It's easy enough to avoid. After a certain amount of time, the shielded orb will reappear.
    Orb 3: The boss will do an attack resembling the second boss. Right up in front of where the orb will be is a safe spot. After a certain amount of time, the shielded orb will reappear.
    Orb 4: The boss will do an attack inspired by the third boss. Dodge it, build SP, and wait for the shielded orb.
    Orb 5: There are three main attacks the boss cycles through in this phase: a giant spreading laser, swords that come up from the bottom of the screen (between the swords is safe), fire, more swords from the bottom of the screen, giant crusher things from the side of the screen (the very middle is safe), and back to the laser. The shielded orb will reappear just before the second laser. THERE ARE TEXT BOXES AFTER KILLING THE BOSS.
 
Mash through that text, wait, and run up to the final gate. Timing ends on activation of this gate.

Yamato Any% (Combo Route) Speedrun Guide

kamiko yamato any% combo route 1.0.2 Yamato
(various grammar changes from 1.0.0 -> 1.0.1)
(fixed optimization in labyrinth; various grammar changes from 1.0.1 -> 1.0.2)

05/16/2018
*NOTE AND DISCLAIMER* In this guide, I assume you have basic-intermediate knowledge of Kamiko speed-runs already, but I do my best to teach you all that I can without slowing down an already lengthy guide. The things I assume that you already know before reading this guide: good movement, boss fight strats, and bridge skip.
--- Guide references THESE maps: https://imgur.com/a/RNHjq
--- *TITLE/ PLACE*
--- *split (assume all tasks are in order)
--- -- Task
--- (#) SP count when leaving a point where you just used SP
--- (Lvl # - Step #) Footnote, more explained at the end of the guide
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*ROUTE WITHOUT EXPLANATION*
*Time start is on selecting "New Game"
-- Text mash through the first cutscene (*0)

*Level 1: The Forest of Awakening*
-- Hit switch 1
-- Activate shrine 1 (>=100) (*1-1)
-- Push the block, north of shrine 1 (*1-2)
-- Hit switch 2
-- Open treasure chest 1 (>=150) (*1-3)
-- Place sphere on a pedestal
-- Hit switch 3 (*1-4)
-- Activate shrine 2 (>=50) (*1-5)
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=50) (*1-6)
-- Use key on door
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=0) (*1-7)
-- Open treasure chest 3 (>=0) (*1-8)
-- Place sphere on a pedestal
-- Activate shrine 4 (>=0) (*1-9)
-- Hit switch 4
-- Enter the boss portal
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 1 boss (200)
*Lvl 1 finish screen

*Level 2: The Sunken Relics*
-- Activate shrine 1 (100) (*2-1)
-- Hit switch 1
-- Open treasure chest 1 (>=50) (*2-2)
-- Hit switch 2
-- Enter portal a
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Enter portal a
-- Hit switch 3 (*2-3)
-- Activate shrine 2 (>=50)
-- Pull lever left of shrine 2 and perform bridge skip/ cross the bridge (*2-4)
-- Push the block, right of switch 4, twice (*2-5)
-- Hit switch 4
-- Hit switch 5
-- Enter portal b
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=50) (*2-6)
-- Enter portal b
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=0) (*2-7)
-- Hit switch 6
-- Enter portal c
-- Enter portal a
-- Use key on door
-- Grab the secret (*2-8)
-- Activate shrine 4 (100) (*2-9)
-- Enter the boss portal
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 2 boss (>=100)
*Lvl 2 finish screen

*Level 3: The Scorching Labyrinth*
-- Open SP door 1 (>=150) (*3-1)
-- Do kill room 1 and perform cutscene skip (*3-2)
-- Open treasure chest 1 (>=150) (*3-3)
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Do kill room 2 and perform cutscene skip (*3-4)
-- Activate shrine 1 (100) (*3-5)
-- Hit switch 1 
-- Open SP door 2 (>=120) (*3-6)
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=70)
-- Use key on door
-- Activate shrine 2 (>=0) (*3-7)
-- Push 3 blocks, east of shrine 3 (*3-8)
-- Hit switch 2 
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=0)
-- Hit switch 3
-- Open treasure chest 3 (>=0) (*3-9)
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Activate shrine 4 (>=0) (*3-10)
-- Enter the boss portal (*3-11)
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 3 boss (200)
*Lvl 3 finish screen

*Level 4: Ruins of Yamataikoku*
-- Clear out a path in the grass in the far northwest (*4-1)
-- Flip switch 1
-- Hit switch 2
-- Open treasure chest 1 (150) (*4-2)
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Flip switch 1
-- Enter portal a (*4-3)
-- Open treasure chest 2 (>=100) (*4-4)
-- Enter portal a
-- Use key on door
-- Activate shrine 1 (>=0)
 -- Do kill room 1 and perform cutscene skip; exit south (*4-5)
-- Flip switch 3 (*4-6)
-- Do kill room 1 and perform cutscene skip; exit northeast 
-- Push blocks, south of shrine 2 (*4-7)
-- Activate shrine 2 (100)
-- Do kill room 1 and perform cutscene skip; exit south (*4-8)
-- Flip switch 3
-- Open treasure chest 3 (>=150)
-- Hit switch 4 (*4-9)
-- Place sphere on pedestal
-- Hit switch 5
-- Open SP door 1 (>=100)
-- Activate shrine 3 (>=0)
-- Enter portal b
-- Pull lever (*4-10)
-- Enter portal b
-- Do kill room 2 and perform cutscene skip; grab the secret, exit southeast (*4-11)
-- Open SP door 2 (150)
-- Activate shrine 4 (>=50)
-- Do kill room 2 and perform cutscene skip; exit south (*4-12)
-- Enter the boss portal
-- Enter the boss room
-- Kill lvl 4 boss
-- Kill final boss
-- Run north and activate final shrine
*Time end is on activation of final shrine

*FOOTNOTES, IN-DEPTH ROUTE EXPLANATION*
(*0) Mashing ‘Y’ then ‘A’ with two fingers/ hands is the most efficient method I’ve found here. You can mash the text box as soon as the frame after it appears, so you can mash as fast as your own technical limits will let you. Using any language that isn’t English saves you on 2 text boxes the entire game, and since mashing works through text boxes and not the text itself, this helps, too.

(*1-1) Hugging the inner-most walls is probably the best way to go on the way to the first shrine. You want to keep your movement as tight as possible while rounding corners, and it’s important to conserve most of your health here, since you may need it to damage boost later. I recommend killing the purple mushrooms near the shrine only if absolutely necessary, but if you think you have any chance of making it without attacking OR getting hit, run straight through.
(*1-2) On the way to the block, you can damage boost if you’re off-cycle with the retracting spikes, but you really want to try to lose as little health as possible for combo-route, so try not to go lower than two health. You can use single attacks to knock enemies out of your way if you don’t need them for your combo. Before you reach the switch, you should start your combo by killing some bee and pink enemies, since they’re the lowest health enemy in that part of the map. Your combo should be at 7 or 8 around this point.
(*1-3) Before you grab the chest, you want to hit more bee enemies. There are a lot of them and will give you a good amount of SP since your combo should still be going. Getting your combo to 14 before grabbing the chest will ensure you don’t have to grind for SP later on, since all of these bee enemies are in one place. Also, if you don’t clear them out, they’re tricky to get around when you’re delivering the sphere to the pedestal.
(*1-4) On the way to the third switch, you should hit at least one pink enemy by the second shrine to start up a combo. It won’t waste a lot of your time to throw out one attack, you start to lose time if you attack and have no kind of profit. Also, the grass guarding the third switch can be taken care of with: two of Yamato’s swings (have to be dashing), one full arrow combo with Uzume (need to be centered and standing slightly back at the first bush) and one shield toss with Hinome. These methods will save you about a second rather than take care of each bush individually.
(*1-5) Before you activate the second shrine, hit the rest of those pink enemies surrounding it, just to preserve that combo you started before. Your combo should be at 3 now.
(*1-6) On your way up to grab the second treasure chest, hit some bee, orange mushroom and pink enemies. They are all pretty clumped together (unless you get a really bad spawn where they’re far apart, which is unlikely in this area) and it’s easy to get your combo up. Before grabbing the chest, you should net a 9 or more combo (remember that this combo was continued from the pink enemies at shrine 2).
(*1-7) Around now you should be at about 50 or so SP, so you need to get a 10 or 11 combo before you reach the shrine. In the pocket area below the shrine and in the area that the shrine is located, there are clumps of 1 health enemies that are guaranteed to have spawns that make comboing easy. If you are low on SP after you activate shrine 3, don’t worry.
(*1-8) Your combo should still be going! Your combo before you activated shrine 3 was 10 or 11, assuming all went well. So, now you need to go back to that narrow area where there are still some 1 health enemies left. Because your combo is already so high, reaching 50 SP for treasure chest 3 should be easy. Also, remember you can take out 2 tiles of grass easily with any character. Yamato needs just one dash swing, Uzume needs a two-arrow combo and Hinome just needs a shield toss.
(*1-9) After placing the second sphere at the pedestal, just run north and kill all the enemies in your path, which should be: a group of 4 (3 purple and 1 red mushroom) and a large group of 7 (1 bird, 5 purple and 1 red mushroom). This might seem slow, but Uzume is the only character that might perform better by getting the secret here (we’ll talk more in-depth about secrets later). Yamato and Himome both can get an 11 combo here very easily, putting you at your 100 SP for shrine 4. There are some retracting spikes at the very northeastern side of the map you’ll run into if you’re not careful, by the way. Weave up and around the second tile of spikes and go down between the third and fourth tiles. Only hit enemies here if they’re absolutely in your way.

(*2-1) You should already be at or close to 200 SP when you start the stage, so there’s no need to hit enemies unless they’re in your way or unless you’re in danger. Just try to weave around enemies until you reach the first shrine.
(*2-2) You probably will have to kill a couple of enemies here, because they’re so clumped together and you need room to carry the sphere. That’s alright, because you’re a little low on SP, so killing one or two enemies isn’t so bad. Also, all treasure chests can be opened while you’re standing diagonally from the treasure chest. This only saves a small bit of time but it means you have to walk less and that saves time!
(*2-3) You only have about 60-70 SP right now, and you’ll need at least 100 when you get to shrine 2. Hit some of the green jellies and blue enemies on your way to get some extra SP if you’re Yamato. On the bridge that heads north to where the boss portal will appear, hug the left wall to keep the 2 spawns of enemies from appearing on the bridge. When you get to shrine 2’s general area, there will be a lot of enemies. The first spawn is a group of 3 ghosts. Killing all of them should start a combo and keep them gone for now. Next, a group of 8 (5 ghosts, 2 orange jellies and 1 frog) will appear. Kill all but 2 of them. Usually it’s good to kill the tankier enemies first in these situations, so leave some ghosts or jellies. This should put you to 100 or more SP. Now go hit the third switch! (As an aside, if you don’t know how to do bridge skip, you should probably knock out the tiles of grass leading to the eastern bridge before continuing.)
(*2-4) Kill the remaining frogs and green jellies before you pull the lever. This will ensure that you have a clean bridge skip/ bridge crossing (barring any slow-down from the Switch).
(*2-5) On your way to the block to the right of switch 4, there are several ghost enemies. Kill around 4-5 of them so you can start your combo and build your way up to, what should be, 150 SP before you reach shrine 3. 
(*2-6) Getting the rest of this combo filled up is easy because there’s a group of 8 (5 ghosts, 2 green jellies and 1 frog) right before portal b. Kill 7 of them so the spawn won’t come back completely and so you’ll have around 150 SP for shrine 3 and treasure chest 2.
(*2-7) On your way back towards treasure chest 2, you should have a relatively easy time passing by enemies, since you killed that spawn of 8 and some of the ghosts in the northeastern corner of the map. Open treasure chest 2 and continue to switch 6.
(*2-8) Secrets are hidden consumables in Kamiko that refill all of your life and SP to max. The secret in this level is located in a pillar to the right of the door you used the key on. Cut the tile of grass in front of the pillar and grab the secret! We don’t always use secrets, because sometimes our combos can be faster and incorporated into our movement better than the secret can.
(*2-9) Weave around the enemies that spawn in front of the shrine. There are relatively few of them and shouldn’t have clumped spawns.

(*3-1) You should enter the level 3 with about 100 or so SP, so reaching 200 before the first SP door shouldn’t be difficult. There are green fire and red enemies that are 1 health that can make for a good combo.
(*3-2) In level 3, kill rooms are introduced. The name explains the concept, so it shouldn’t be difficult to understand. The kill rooms go pretty fast, and for this one the trick is just to kill all of the enemies with running swings (for Yamato) or special attacks (for Uzume and Hinome; in this case, make you’re your combo is up high, or you won’t get your SP you used for your special attack back). There is a cutscene at the end of these kill rooms, however, that takes around 1.5 seconds. To skip this cutscene, you can pause the game while the last enemy is dying and then un-pause about 12-15 frames later. 
(*3-3) Before you open treasure chest 1, kill the four fire enemies. This will make navigating to the pedestal easier and will refill your SP if you still have your combo from the first kill room.
(*3-4) For this kill room, every character will want to use their special attack. Charge it up before entering the room so you can have better positioning and don’t have to wait until it’s done charging once you’re in the room to use it.
(*3-5) Leaving kill room 2, you can keep your SP up by hitting a single enemy before it runs out. You can do this all the way to the first shrine. (IF you weren't able to keep your combo, grab the secret instead of doing step 3-6. This only loses you a little bit of time and will be faster than having to build a combo from scratch) This way, you can keep up a combo for when you’re leaving the first shrine and crossing back over the bridge (it’s imperative that you can cross the northern bridge to shrine 1 without taking damage, so practice running through the fire balls; there’s an audial cue you can use to get better at not getting hit, but there are other cues, too).
(*3-6) Now that you’re on your way to the second SP door, you should have about 120 SP. That is, if you were able to keep up your combo on the way to/ on the way back from shrine 1. When you reach SP door 2, you want to have a little upwards of 170 SP.
(*3-7) You should be able to kill some 1 health enemies in this area to fill up the rest of your SP meter. You need 100 and should have had around 70 when you brought the key to the door. You’ll have to start a new combo here, but that shouldn’t mean much because there should be a total of 6-7 red enemies near shrine 3. 
(*3-8) There are plenty of enemies for you to gain combo from on the way to the 3 blocks at the top of the map. A combo of 14 should do the trick. Pushing the blocks should go: top block, destroy the breakable blocks, right block, left block. This will ensure your movement stays clean and your time spent in this section stays low.
(*3-9) In the northeastern side of the map, there are around 11 1 health enemies, which should be enough to net you your 50 SP needed for treasure chest 3.
(*3-10) To reach the hundred you need, depending on how much you have at this point (between 0 and 40 probably), you need anywhere from a 11 to a 14 combo. Usually, we try to kill low health enemies for quick SP gathering, but since there are a lot of enemies and because the blue fire enemies are the only ones in plenty with more than 1 health, any enemy goes! So long as you make it to 100 SP, you can include any enemy in your combo here.
(*3-11) Heading from shrine 4 back to the boss portal, you should take the northern path, where you came from. It may be tempting to try and use the path that contains kill room 2, but because you likely don’t have your special attack, it can be a gamble to go that route. It would likely be the faster of the two if you can consistently clear the kill room quickly, but in general it is faster to go the northern route.

(*4-1) The Ruins are all about preparation and being careful. You should clear out some of the spawn in between switch 1 and where portal b should be. It’s best to clear out all but 2-3 of the white enemies. There’s some grass south of the first shrine that needs clearing out because we won’t get the chance to later on in the level. You also want to kill one of each of the blue and green enemies if you can. If you kill all 4 enemies, that’s okay, too. It just means they’ll respawn later and you’ll need to look out for them during later steps.
(*4-2) You already should have 200 SP from level 3 boss, so you don’t need to worry about comboing correctly right now. Kill the tall horned enemy and the blue ninja enemy in the southwestern corner, south of the first treasure chest. This way you’ll have less to deal with when you’re bringing the first sphere to the pedestal.
(*4-3) On the way to this portal, you’ll want to do some more clearing just to be safe. Optimally, a spawn should be cut down to 1 enemy each. However, this is inefficient and will take forever. So instead, just kill 1 health enemies that are in a spawn with 2 or more enemies left. This will ensure that all the enemies don’t respawn later as well as give you more room to move and dodge potential threats when carrying the key to the door.
(*4-4) You can input down immediately after inputting the button to open a treasure chest. This will save you a small amount of time by positioning you closer to portal a before the cutscene for opening the treasure chest is over. You can do this with any treasure chest, but it’s easiest and most useful when it’s a straight shot back to wherever you are running (ie: running in a straight line back to portal a).
(*4-5) For this area and pre-shrine preparation, you should be keeping up your combo by killing all enemies in a kill room closely together and picking off single enemies outside of kill rooms.
(*4-6) Like before, you’ll want to clear out unwanted or dangerous enemies in a spawn. Right before switch 3, there is a spawn of 3 enemies (3 white enemies and 1 tall horned enemy). Make sure you kill either the tall horned enemy, as they’re the most likely to stop you in your tracks or make you drop an item, or the 3 white enemies, since there are a lot of them in a concentrated area.
(*4-7) Right after the barrier controlled by switch 3 (the northeast exit of kill room 1) you can hug the left-most wall to avoid a spawn of 2 green ninja enemies. SP gathering is unimportant right now since you should have 200 SP from the kill room fights.
(*4-8) You should be starting up a new combo during this last kill room fight, to carry on all the way to treasure chest 3.
(*4-9) On the way to switch 4, you need to watch out for the spawn of 2 blue and 1 red ninja enemies. You can walk straight through their positioning, so long as you know that they will circle around you and you need to circle around them in the same path (ie: if they move counter-clockwise, you should move counter-clockwise to avoid them).
(*4-10) Step 4 of this section can also be applied to the lever after entering portal b. This will save about a quarter of a second but it is more of just a move to look cool.
(*4-11) In kill room 2, you can use your special attack to kill most of the enemies. On the last enemy’s death, use the cutscene skip like normal, but while the skip is occurring you can grab the secret (found in this level in the third pillar from the left in the kill room) and move while holding the secret, to save even more time.
(*4-12) On the way from shrine 4 and during kill room 2 this time, you should be extra careful and conserve as much health as possible. The final boss isn’t very hard, but too many runs have been lost in kill room 2 and level 4 boss. Good luck! Congrats for making it this far!

Nome	Autore
All Achievements (Describing the Achievements) Speedrun Guide	RepentMF 5 years ago
Any% (Hinome, Combo Route) Speedrun Guide	mdmason85 6 years ago
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