Hi there!

I just picked up speedrunning Kirby Super Star earlier this month and figured it was time I introduce myself to the community. I've been playing this game for ages, but I've never done a speedrun of any game before this month, so I feel there are some tricks that would be useful to know for improving my time (right now I'm running Any%).

I have a few runs under my belt that I'm hoping to post on the leaderboards soon, but does anyone have any tips for techniques to use for KSS Any% or for just speedrunning in general?

Thanks in advance, and I hope to get to know you all soon!

If you look at the guides section, I have tutorials for any% that are quick, but they go over the most important parts for a beginner route. The video tutorials/time savers playlist goes over some not obvious stuff that really help with the run, and I highly suggest going over those (plasma mash, jet, mixing, sneaky stuff).

There is also a plasma chart in the guide section which is good to go over to figure out optimal plasma combinations attuned to your mashing ability against bosses.

Movement is the most important part of speedrunning and is exposed heavily in KSS. Getting from Point A to Point B as fast as possible saves a ridiculous amount of time over tricks/good luck. If you record your PB and compare it side to side with another runner (I suggest zzzhonki's or my 35:30 because they are on youtube), you should be able to see how you can lose or save time on individual rooms and how that adds up to a lot.

You shouldn't worry too much about advanced stuff/movement until you stop PBing every 5 times you run the game, just use those runs to have fun and get used to the mechanics.

Thanks for the insight. Coincidentally, I used your Any% tutorial as a way to learn some of the tricks for this game for my latest few runs, though I'll need to look at some more of the guides to really get a sense of all of them. Right now I'm PBing fairly regularly, even with silly mistakes, but once that stops being the case I'll look towards more highly optimized techniques. I figure right now it's mainly about getting used to things and trying to improve a little at a time instead of all at once.

By the way, I've been considering doing ILs and more unique runs at some point, such as a run without using copy abilities. Are there ways of submitting these types of runs instead of just the Any% and 100% categories here? I saw that some games have a Category Extensions section that's separate from the main game but I couldn't find one for KSS.

only any% and 100% have boards because they are the most competitive and extra stuff is hard to moderate

Ah okay, I understand. I'll probably still do a no copy ability run for fun at some point and post it to the forums for people to enjoy, though that probably won't be for a while anyway. In the meantime, I'll stick to Any% and try to climb the leaderboards one step at a time.