Wild 9 Speedrun Guide

Setup/Region Differences

· Avoid PAL at all costs. It is significantly slower than the other regions.

· NTSC-U is optimal for Any% Easy, NTSC-J is optimal for every other category.

· NTSC-U has Crystal Skip, which saves roughly three minutes.

· NTSC-J patches Crystal Skip, but some things are faster, like the grinders in Bombopolis. The biggest change is the Karn boss fight. It is minutes faster than NTSC-U, but not enough to be faster than Crystal Skip. There are also dialog boxes that are not present in NTSC-U that you will have to skip through. In Any% Hard, it is not possible to get red rig on Crystal Mine, making the skip not possible. This makes NTSC-J optimal.

· Fast disc speed does not affect the loads for Wild 9, so don't bother turning it on. Console saves about fourteen seconds on loads, but it usually lags more than emulator.

· Allowed emulators are Duckstation and Bizhawk. Mednafen will possibly be allowed but it has not been looked at.

· The game has a very stupid thing where if analog is turned on, the D-PAD will not work, so be sure to turn off analog or use a classic PSX controller.

· Removing the memory card will prevent the game from saving, this saves several seconds throughout the run. If you are just starting out on runs however, it is recommended to save after beating levels to prevent game overs

· Playing on PAL PS3 is BANNED

Guide

· Wild 9 has fourteen planets/levels that are in a completely linear path with three different kinds of levels. They are the platforming, space bike, and free-falling levels.

· For the platforming levels, you have to usually rescue a member of the Wild 9 somewhere in the level and escort them to the emergency teleporter at the end. These levels consist of using your enemies and/or the Wild 9 members to solve puzzles, with an occasional mini boss here and there.

· The space bike levels involve you chasing down an enemy on your space bike and shooting them down, these are really short levels.

· The free fall levels have you falling with an enemy down an endless transport tube, throwing them into a wall or diving on top of them to make them hit an obstacle.

· USE D-PAD!!!! Using analog is just using D-PAD but on analog, you don't get the advantage of extra control with the rig on analog. It is just using D-PAD directions on analog, making it worse. If you need to exit the level, you have to pause, then press select. It will bring up a prompt to quit the level.

Platforming Movement

· The main method of going fast in Wild 9 is jumping... A LOT of jumping. There is a short jump and a high jump, both are the same speed. Wex jumps a lot faster than he walks. Any time Wex is on the ground is time loss, you can frame perfectly to jump again and avoid ground time. If you don't see a dust cloud when you land, it's a frame perfect jump, do not worry about this unless you are going for WR.

· Throughout the game there are swings Wex can hook onto with the rig. With good timing, you can get a good launch off of them. Press up or down on the d pad to extend/shorten the rig beam on a swing. To get a good swing launch, jump towards the swing and when you are in range use the rig and move the OTHER direction. This will extend the beam even further than normal when you attach, and right when you attach is when you swing to the desired direction. Make sure to also hold down while doing this to extend the beam.

· If you fall from a great height, Wex will fall flat on his face unable to move. Spam X to get him up faster!

· While loading into a level, you can hold X during the load screen and buffer a jump as the level loads.

The Rig

· The Rig is the main weapon/tool you use for the entire game, so it's important to learn how to use it well. You can kill enemies by slamming them on the ground four times while they are tethered to the rig.

· Slamming them three times and letting them go will make them crawl on the ground slowly and die to your touch.

· Avoid slamming them three times, as this can prevent the enemies from being used on certain puzzles.

· Rather than killing the enemies, you will mostly be carrying them with the rig to checkpoints or puzzles.

· Carrying enemies long distances without killing them can be avoided by keeping them in a GROUNDED STATE. This stops the enemy from bouncing up and down dying while you are carrying him and jumping.

· To keep an enemy in a grounded state, grab the enemy with the rig before the rig beam reaches its maximum length.

· You can repeatedly short jump while carrying the enemy in a grounded state to carry them long distances fast.

Checkpoint Animation Skips

· You can skip the checkpoint animation and save time by getting hit by an enemy and running through the checkpoint with invincibility frames. Yes, it is that easy. Do this a lot as it saves a lot of time over the run. You can take six hits before you die on easy.

Level Guides

Bombopolis

· Make your way to the first checkpoint. You can skip this checkpoint by jumping over it from the platform above.

· After the second checkpoint, you will go down a big set of stairs. There will be two missile power-ups. Grab both of them.

· Shoot three at the nearby green guy turret and save the other three for another turret later.

· After the first grinder puzzle, you will ride a fan elevator up. Take the bottom path and use the three missiles you saved on the turret.

· When you get to the end of the level, you will come across your pal Volstaag hanging in the air. Use the rig to free him so he can help you past the obstacle ahead, allowing you both to leave.

Gulag

· At the start of the level, there is a helicopter swing. Use that to get to the path above to avoid the fire wall.

· After the first green guy turret, you will come across the first big spike pit. You can skip using an enemy here. Simply full jump at the very edge across and take damage and you will knock back to the other side. If you are lucky, you can even frame perfectly jump off of the spikes and take no damage.

· For the second green guy turret, instead of waiting for the missiles to spawn, slam the green guys into the turret three times to blow it up. Be careful not to prevent the helicopter from dropping missiles as you will need these later to free Nitro.

· Next up is the first major skip of the game…key dupe. It is a very precise and hard trick so don’t worry if you don't get it. How you do it is you line up the key on the key slot and push and let go of it in a very specific way. If done right, it can save roughly fifteen to twenty seconds.

· After you free Nitro and get through the second blast door, you can throw Nitro on the area above to avoid having to carry him the entire way. Once you get to him, hold him with the rig on your left while you wait for the fire in front of you to go out. When it goes out, just jump and hold right and Nitro should go up onto the area above and blow open the next blast door.

Light Armada/Quagmire Run/Mach 9

· The space bike levels don't have any tech of sorts to go faster, just kill the enemy fast. It takes five missiles to kill them. You can hold square when you pick up a missile to hold it under you, allowing you to carry three at a time.

· The red missiles are homing missiles and you don't need to aim them.

· Avoid hitting any hills, as they can blow up the missile you have under you, or send you in the air unable to shoot for a long period. The most consistent and fast way to kill the enemy is to spam your first two missiles at the very start, since he usually spawns right in front of you. You then grab three missiles while you catch up and line for a straight shot behind him.

· If the path ahead is clear and the enemy won't steer, spam your missiles in a straight shot at him. There are no differences between the three space bike levels other than the speed you and the enemy travel. Mach 9 can be a little difficult because of the speed.

Outpost Anom/Outpost Balor

· The falling levels can be cheesed by grabbing the enemy while he is on the right side of you, bringing them to the left side of the tube, and then holding left and spamming square. You will have them in a combo while you are moving into the wall and they will be unable to escape (except on rare occasions).

· For the parts of the level where you dive onto the enemy from above and drag them to an obstacle, you can feather X to have better control of your approach.

· When you are on top of the enemy and you hit an obstacle with him, you can press and hold X right after you hit it to get right back on top of the enemy. To do this, you must be against the wall fully of where the obstacle is, but not going into the wall. Do not hold a direction when you hit an obstacle and get back on the enemy.

· IN Outpost Anom there is a strategy that can kill all the enemies before the second dive onto the enemy section, saving up to thirty seconds.

· In Outpost Balor, there are electric arcs that you can manipulate the enemy into hitting. Don't worry about taking damage yourself if you are on easy mode. It can be done in hard mode, but be careful as you take way less hits before death over all.

Craterscape

· This level has a skip that saves five minutes at the very start of the level. When you reach the electric wires, there is a swing above that leads to a path on the left above you. Take the swing to that path. You will encounter two yellow enemies that can uppercut Wex. Grab the second one with the rig, jump down and take him back to the start of the level. Bring him to the Karn "OBEY" sign and drop him, stand there for a moment and once he walks towards you, climb up onto the ledge to the right. He should be standing about where the right side of the OBEY sign is.

· Walk off, holding up and left on the D-PAD and square using the rig. You should be uppercut by the enemy and rig him at the same time, causing the camera to follow Wex as he is launched up. If done right, you will trigger a warp spot high in the air and skip about 80% of the level.

· After you warp, you will have to knock down a electric sign with a enemy. Jump over and make the enemy go off screen for about 3 or 4 seconds. Turn around and he should be re spawned and not dead. Grab him with the rig and slam the taxi with him twice to put out the burning fire

· When you reach the level boss and knock his arm off, he will start using a green breath attack that can be slow. You can prevent him from doing this by standing under his head with the dud bomb and holding it above you. After you beat the mini boss, you pick up Pokkit to use his machine gun, hold triangle.

Drench

· You will need to pick up plenty of missiles throughout the level, you need at least 6 for the boss Filbert at the end to do a strat called "fast Filbert".

· At the start of the level, there is a swing. Use it to get to the path above and grab the two missiles.

· Use the enemy from the pod to distract the man-eating tree. You can take damage abuse off of the tree while it is eating to skip the nearby checkpoint.

· After the second checkpoint, WALK off of the ledge holding right and you will fall and grab the ledge on the bottom path below, and fall down another level to the swing. Swing across and grab the missile. While you are doing this shoot a missile to kill the enemy in front of you to avoid dying. After this jump up and take the top path. When you swing across the water just missile the enemy in front.

· When you skip the upcoming checkpoint, there will be a flying enemy off screen that will charge you. Shoot two missiles after you skip the checkpoint to kill it.

· The next checkpoint, after you skip the animation, bring the enemy you used with you to skip waiting for the pod to spawn one for the upcoming tree. Make sure to grab the missile above the tree, but don't take the path above. Shoot the next two enemies in your way with missiles to dispose of them quickly.

· Upcoming is a green guy turret that is blocking your path with a swing right above it. If it is possible to swing through it taking damage, climb up and skip the checkpoint. The less risky option is to just swing under it with a max extended swing, or if you really wanna play it safe, just shoot it with some missiles

· Once you reach Henry, your sentient water friend, throw him in the water and jump on him, and jump across the water on him as he moves slightly faster while jumping.

· DON'T PRESS LEFT AND RIGHT AT THE SAME TIME ON THE D-PAD WHILE RIDING HENRY! THIS WILL CRASH THE GAME!

· Avoid taking too much damage from the enemies’ shots, you can jump into them with Henry to brutally split them in half.

· Up next is another major skip, the Drench gate clip. When you reach the gate, throw Henry a little further past the checkpoint. Get up to the path above and to the left from the swing. Bring the enemy there back to the checkpoint, and use him to skip the checkpoint animation. Throw the enemy in the water against the gate. Make sure to wait for the camera to pan to Wex when you skip the checkpoint, or else the enemy de-spawns off screen.

· Throw Henry over the gate. He will start swimming against the gate, jump on the enemy in the water and hold up so the camera pans up. Wait for the enemy to be sinking down when he is bobbing up and down in the water, then do a full jump when he is going down while holding up. You should clip through the gate and land on Henry.

· A faster way of doing this is to just jump on the enemy, jump back onto land, and them instantly jump back on the enemy. If you’re fast enough you'll clip.

· For the boss Filbert, you should have at least six missiles by now. Get under him while he is on his stilts. Wait for him to throw three bombs, then hit him with two. Run to the right and wait by the key slot. When he gets to you and stops, run under him as he throws three bombs to the RIGHT.

· When he throws the third, grab it right away and hit him with it. He will fall on the ground off his stilts with the two bombs in front of him. Shoot one missile at him, knocking him back into his own bomb, dealing a lot of damage, then shoot another missile to knock him into the second bomb. The bombs he throws do significantly more damage than the missiles. After he hits all the bombs, shoot the rest of your missiles at him. It should be just enough damage to finish him off.

· When you kill him, be ready to catch the key that he throws up. There is a small chance it can FLOAT AWAY IN THE SKY FOREVER, soft-locking you.

Beast Engine

· In order to complete the level, you will need to locate the three parts of your friend Mac Sheen that have been imprisoned in flesh cages. To get the parts, you will find and ride a beast to eat up the parts. Bring all three parts to the end of the level in order to leave.

· Every checkpoint in the level is optional and not in the main path, meaning you can skip all of them. If you are just starting out on runs, I would recommend getting some checkpoints for safety.

· Shoot the missiles you get at the start of the level at the enemies in your way. You will be using grenades for this level, so you don't need missiles.

· Pick up three grenades and avoid picking up missiles.

· When you find the beast, get on it and start jumping a lot. The beast's jump speed is a lot faster than its walking speed. Be careful to not take any damage while riding the beast, as you take double the damage while riding it.

· You can bite close up enemies and/or the Mac Sheen parts by pressing square. Pressing triangle uses a ranged scream attack that makes the enemies... piss themselves to death... yeah.

· Right after you get the beast there is a path down below that leads to the first Mac Sheen part. Be careful, there are four enemies packed down there. A safe option is to get off of the beast and throw a grenade down there first to kill the enemies. A faster, but riskier option is to jump down on the beast, land on the first enemy, and scream into the next two.

· Eventually you will come across another electric field that needs to be disabled via a lever. You can skip having to go up and around to get to the lever. Park the beast by the electric field and just walk through the electric field blocking the lever. After you get past this, you will drop down and go left. There will be two branching paths, go up and right to get the second Mac Sheen part. After you pass the next electric field, you will find more branching paths. Jump up on the red bridge where the arrow is pointing. Right when you get to where the arrow is pointing, there will be a path below. Get down to the path and grab the last Mac Sheen part.

· When you pull the upcoming lever to disable the electric field, throw a grenade to the right after you get off the lever to kill the one of the two enemies below. After Mac Sheen uses his amazing ability to disable the last electric field. throw your last grenade at the enemies. You don't have to wait for them to blow up. The enemies do not hurt the beast on touch and they will run scared in reaction of the grenade.

· AVOID PRESSING LEFT AND RIGHT ON THE D-PAD AT THE SAME TIME WHILE RIDING THE BEAST! THIS WILL CRASH THE GAME!

Beast Ride

· Beast ride is different from the space bike levels. Rather than shooting missiles, you catch up to the enemy and bite him.

· There is a way to manipulate the enemy to slow down making it much easier to catch up to him. This is called zig zagging. How it works is at the start of the level, run left, making the enemy run off screen to the right. When he is off screen and his icon disappears, start running towards him to the right. He will run back on-screen running left. The idea is to get him running off screen and then back going left and right, making him not run in a straight line.

· Try not to run the other direction while he is crossing, as it will screw up his pathing. Only let go of the direction to avoid a cactus if you can help it.

Crystal Mine

· At the beginning of the level, there is a lever normally used to splatter the big enemy. You can skip doing this, there is a missile power up you can use instead to kill him.

· You will be obtaining the red rig to perform Crystal Skip. To do this, you will need to kill eleven enemies and collect the three energy orbs from them (don't farm the pods). There are crushers that you normally use an enemy to disable temporarily to get past, it is possible to very quickly spam jump and get through it unharmed. On easy mode, you can get squished and live with almost no health. You can skip the first crusher, and use the enemy after to stall the next crusher. There is a heal all power up right after the second crusher, above you on the pipes. Grab this if you took damage from the crusher.

· You will eventually run into Crystal and have to escort her by shining light on her when you skip a checkpoint animation, Crystal will keep moving. After you get Crystal across the gap with the moving platform, you can leave her behind from this point, as we will be skipping the final door. You do not have to worry about Crystal dying, unless you move the platforms or leave an enemy behind. Kill and farm all the enemies’ energy from here.

· You should have red rig by the time you come across a big enemy near the end of the level. You can now pick him up with the red rig's upgrade in strength. Pick him up and drag him all the way to the end of the level, being mindful not to slam him on the ground too much. I recommend throwing the enemy to the left of the lever at the end, leaving him stunned while you raise the elevator, then jump over to the door carrying him. He will often walk off the elevator and die if you choose to lift him up on the platform.

· You can either jump off the top off of the enemy while he is stunned by the door (the hit box is in the middle of him) or let him uppercut you over the door. You can now leave the level.

Palace Karn

· This is a long level with few checkpoints and many puzzles that can lose a lot of time if you mess up and need another enemy. When you get to the second "impalevator", go to the right path before you go up it and grab the two missile power-ups. Save these missiles for the two green guy turrets that block your path. Be sure to also try and kill the enemy guarding them and grab his energy, as it can be very useful to have this small extra rig time throughout the level.

· There are swings on a conveyor belt that move slowly. You can "Super Launch" off these to skip having to slowly ride your way up them. A Super Launch is when you grab the swing with the rig, and the moment you grab the swing, let go of square. Wex should be launched high in the air.

· There is a long section of gears you have to use an enemy to ride across. After you pick up the second "rig energy" power up, you can swing and launch off to the right and land on the platform below.

· Eventually you will face the level boss "Big Green Man". To defeat him, slam the little green guys he shoots into him. When he shoots three of them at a time, he will start running and flailing around. You can pick him up and slam him with the Rig during this. It is possible to one-cycle him and kill him before he turns into a ball and repositions if you hit him with four little green men and slam him twice.

Wex VS Karn

· This is the last level and final boss. Karn himself is a cakewalk (except on hard mode) but what attacks he uses is entirely random.

· There are three attacks he can use, The little green men cannons (29 seconds) the laser eyes (29 seconds) and the most important one, the stomp (8 seconds). The stomp is the fastest attack by far and you can lose upwards of minutes depending on how many stomps you do or don't get.

· When Karn does do the stomp, always make sure he stomps with the left foot, as it is faster than the right. You must pick him up with the rig and slam him 4 times when he reaches for you with his arm after every three attack phases. Do this five times and you will defeat Karn and beat the game.

· AVOID PRESSING LEFT AND RIGHT ON THE D-PAD AT THE SAME TIME! THIS WILL CRASH THE GAME

Congratulations, you beat the game. Now go outside and get some fresh air!