I actually just found an even faster cycle for 4-castle. It allows a 59 at the door. Getting the star is slower. Trust me.

Also I will fix the 7-2 thing. We already had a mini mushroom anyways because we did have one already since we go

• 4-castle
• 5-1
• 5-2
• 5-Ghosthouse
• 7-1
• 7-2

To be honest most all of the things you said seem to go with my route. I think we should keep it the way it is. We need a mini mushroom for world 7 anyways.

We could keep mini mario for 4-Tower but that is slow because it loses 10 IGT seconds from floaty jumping/slow jumps and who wants to fight Bowser Jr with mini mario when we don't have to... It's the anti-fun.

And I did make a typo before, I was referring to the shell for 4-Ghosthouse, my apologies. Yes, we don't need it but it speeds up 3-1 so it's a good idea to hold on to the shell.

To be honest, I really do like my route a lot. I will edit things as I proofread and play along with the route but as of now I think we should keep it as it is. Unless I missed something or you have any other concerns that is.

Thank you so much for thoroughly looking over my work and offering new ideas. I'll start on the 7-2 thing now.

You can get at least 341 on 7-2 with the skip and about 210 without the skip.

I guess it just seems sketchy to use a mini through 4-Castle, on top of all of W4 because of death chances. I guess that's why I offered the hidden star in the castle. And it's an extremely safe bet to grab a backup mini incase something goes wrong. The document could be edited to throw that hidden star in there then as a backup strategy in case a death happens any time through that level / world.

We have 3 red houses that could be used within the entire run with no extra cost to star coins, and it would probably be smart to use those in the awkward places, instead of relying purely on levels to get some of those items. A lot of the reason is for safety though.

Those red houses are: To the left of 1-A Above 3-A Above 6-A

I will write those houses into the document later on.

I'm really happy to look through this document. Honestly I can say the only problem I find is the amount of mapping in this specific route. However, if it makes the run faster overall, then I'm ok with it.

I know a majority of the best IL strategies in this game (still learning some), and I am honored to help out.

Here is my version of the 7-2 autoscroller skip. The only hard jump is the one off that red koopa near the middle. Please excuse the 2 mistakes I make after the final koopas. And I totally agree red mushroom houses are a good backup. This run is going to be pretty hard with the current route.

That's pretty accurate on 7-2. I would wait to use the flower backup until after going through the end pipe OR on the next level where it's safer to use it.

I haven't opened the document in a while. I'm being distracted by AGDQ haha

Well that section at the end without a mushroom/flower is basically death. There is probably an altetnate mushroom we could grab near the end for backup though if we had to get a mini mushroom.

Cycles trigger when koopas appear on screen, so it could be possible, even quite safely, as long as you don't trigger all the three layers of koopas at the same time.

I have accidentally gotten a good pattern but when I did I had a 42 so I was slower making it there. We will definitely find better strats though.

That's my version of the elevator skip, faster but a lot less safe (version with the reserve flower).

I found a consistent way to trigger part of the koopas but I seem to always miss the cycle for a little, ending with a 343.

It doesn't hurt to wait a little bit so you don't die. I guess using that flower where you used it the first time is safe @Koffingrockz.

Besides, now that I think about it, you could easily refill to a flower in the next level which is an autoscroller anyways.

Mishu, I believe that's an IL World Record (If that's not already posted). It was very nice to see it optimized.

Ok so I'm looking over W5 right now. A lot of it is just a proofread.

It's out of logical order. You can't access 5-Ghost House without beating 5-3, so that needs to be moved. I will leave that to you Koffingrockz. It's very convenient because you wrote to use the secret exit in 5-2, which takes you to 5-3 anyways.

I'm also adding a coin from 5-1 which costs no time at all to grab, and making the 5-4 autoscroller grab all three coins instead of just the two you mentioned.. It will bump up the star coin count by 1, and by 2 after the autoscroller level. (I have edited the coin count in this way, but with 5-3 needing to be moved in the doc, you will need to edit the coin count again.)

In 5-Castle, I choose to wait for the star to bounce until it reaches the first (one block wide) gap to grab it, that way it gives enough time to actually kill Petey. It allows room for one very small mistake after grabbing the star. I will edit that part.

That's all I have for now <3

@LightOfEon Probably, IL WRs are kinda free since there isn't much competition and the fact that we keep times IGT and not RTA w/ ms doesn't really help. But yes, it's a fun level to execute, I believe there's still room for improvement.

I guess someday we'll have to make some recoveries/alt strats/a different route because for now, getting a run with all the right things seems insane, I like it tho.

I agree Mishu. You're bound to make mistakes in this specific mario game. The execution needs to be comparable to TAS to get that good.

I would write a document with the best strategies only, just as Koffingrockz is doing with this route, and as I did with the 100% route, and recovery should really be a personal thing because this game gets so many different people who have different ways of executing the game in a speedrun.

Wow I'm so silly I absolutely messed up on 5-3... Should be an easy fix though. I was writing world 5 in 2 segments and I accidentally interwtined them in the wrong way. Anyways 6-2 is a stupid level, a stupid level that has a mini mushroom in it. I don't think it's useful but it's there. I found a solution for mini Mario on 6-3. We have to take the top route at the end. It wastes

Skip in 6-2: Not sure if I was the first to discover this.

@LightOfEon I got surprised more than once on how much this game can be optimized. And yes, I tend to agree with the recoveries thing, I mean, some recoveries can be "universal" but still.

@koffingrockz Never seen that start before, nice. Also, are we gonna use the mini for 6-3?

The IL TAS of 6-3 does the pipe skip with normal mario so I'd say there's no need for mini. Mini would help a ton on the end of 6-2 though. I'll have to do lots of testing

I just finished routing 6-2 and we will definitely not be getting a mini mushroom there. The level is very cycle based and things just work way too well with normal mario.

Well guys, the route is complete!!! I'm going to edit coin counts as I play through the game while looking at the route.

Yeah it would make for a fun category, but we would need to take the time to route world 4 and practice it, but yes it would be a great category though. Good thinking

World 4 has already been routed. And the category would be fun. It would probably be the most challenging category though because there are a lot of levels that revolve around taking no damage in order to keep either the shell or mini mario.