Tips on How to Beat Every Dragon Quickly

Let's talk about things you can do to go faster. For the sake of this guide, I'm going to call the exposed points of a dragon "weak spots". Standing and attacking in place is called a "standing slash", and attacking while in midair is called a "spin slash". Attaching your character to a dragon is called "grappling". Wall climbing in this game is just having your character hang off the side of a dragon while grappling, holding up, and then pressing the control key away from the dragon and then back towards it after every time you jump. 




For every level:
-On flat surfaces where you can run, always opt to run and never jump unless you're trying to get somewhere. Jumping is always slower than walking and should be limited to mostly just wall-climbs or jumping over obstacles. But walking in the opposite direction of where the dragon is heading is slower than jumping in the air to your destination, so keep that in mind!
-Making any hits on a weak spot beyond what is necessary is, of course, a very small time loss you should avoid. You can reference how many more hits it will take to destroy a weak spot by looking at the health bar on the bottom right.
-Always hover your cursor over the bottom middle where the "skip" button is usually found. As you're making the final hit, you can prepare to click "skip" and continue to space bar (attack) in order to pass onto the next level.

Level 1: A straightforward dragon meant to teach you the controls of the game. Each weak spot from the one closest to you to those down towards the head take a specific amount of hits to destroy, in this order: 2, 4, 5, 7.

Level 2: Another tutorial dragon. The dragon will have an exposed weak spot that'll take five hits to destroy. The spot behind it will open up and take five hits. The next exposed spot will take about five hits, the next four hits, and the last six hits. Overall, it should take about 39 seconds to beat both levels 1 and 2 efficiently.

Level 3: The dragon will have the second spot closest to your character exposed roughly ten seconds after you land. You can use a spin slash to get rid of the bubbles and simultaneously hit the next spot that opens. After destroying the weak spot closest to the tail, attack the weak spot closest to the dragon's neck first because nothing happens and is basically free, which you can then finish the dragon off afterwards.

Level 4: Just run towards the head and destroy the weak spot ASAP. Getting hit by the slime isn't a huge deal, but mash attack and hold down so you don't drift away from your position if you do happen to get hit. Otherwise, pretty straightforward dragon with weak spots that reveal themselves from the head all the way to the tail.

Level 5: Try to stand as close to the rightmost part of the hitbox for the first two weak spots. It's possible to walk past the horns that pop up instead of jumping over them. After you destroy the second to last weak spot, fall off the dragon and damage boost your way back up onto the dragon. You should be able to get to the head quicker that way instead of any other method.

Level 6: The middle weak spot of the bird dragon will open up first and will take about four hits. There's a fast kill to be had here where, after you destroy the first spot and when the bird dragon curves up into an "n" shape, you can hop from one weak spot to the other and immediately press attack to counter the psychic balls that pop up (I did this in my 9:07 run). I wouldn't recommend it unless you're gunning for a PB because it's a little too risky, the balls travel in weird trajectories, and getting hit spikes you down, losing about three seconds or so if you fail the fast kill. However, it's worth mentioning and is an otherwise safe dragon you won't likely die on.

Level 7: You won't be able to grapple onto this dragon, so, after about five seconds after the first lightning bolt strikes in the background, short hop (or very quickly tap jump) and do two spin slashes onto the weak spot closest to your character after he lands. Same thing for the second spot and make sure to use your spin slash to get rid of the fireballs. If done quickly enough, it's possible to get yet another fast kill on this dragon by destroying the last weak spot before the dragon curls, but it's very tight timing and isn't possible if the weak spot curves underneath the dragon.

Level 8: You can perform a fast kill here as well. Destroy the first weak spot as quickly as possible closest to the neck and travel down towards the tail for the next spot. After destroying the second weak spot, the dragon will curve into something like a horizontally reversed "c". You can destroy the third spot and jump off to just barely land on the tip of the dragon's tail, to which you can then destroy the rest of the spots as usual. Even if you miss the fast kill and fall off, you can use the damage boost to destroy the rest of the spots that way, but you lose out on about three seconds on time save, so consider it the backup method.

Level 9: Run straight to the right and immediately stop once the dragon begins to curve downwards. The dragon will eventually curve back up in a U shape, which from there you can just spam standing slashes until the dragon dies. Be careful because it is possible to mistime the attacks, so spam as fast as you can!

Level 10: Short hop over the horns and do landing spin slashes. Try not to get hit because the horns can throw in some random directions and will make you lose more time compared to other dragons (because of the ice). You can damage boost on the last two spots for faster kills, too.

Level 11: Beware the humoungous windbox after you destroy the first spot. It can really mess you up as you're trying to destroy the second and third spot. If a weak spot is electrified, take a damage boost and destroy it, although it is possible to destroy spots without being electrified. In some rare instances, you can use the windbox to affect your gravity by falling faster, although if the situation doesn't present itself, then it's better not to do it.

Level 12: Walk towards the dragon's head and stop right before the dragon curves upwards. Spam attack as fast as you can and, if done correctly, you can get nearly half of all the spots exposed. You're going to be hit either once (ideally) or twice, which afterwards, let your character fall down to get the damage boost. Do the landing spin slash on the "u" curve and repeat this process (you won't get hit when doing this the second time). Afterwards, simply look for the spots you didn't destroy and finish the level. This strat is a bit tough to manage because dying here on this dragon means, more often than not, a run reset. Take some practice with the method because this is definetly your "run killer". I do this strat on my 9:07 run, even though I sort of slowed down towards the end.

Level 13: Do NOT get hit by the gas. Getting hit slows you down and makes your jump basically useless. When the dragon curves into an "n" shape, you can jump/wall climb jump from spot to spot and repeatedly destroy them without much hassle. Pretty self-explanatory, I know, but it's worth mentioning.

Level 14: You can mash your control keys as well as attack to destroy spots when the dragon turns into a tight horizontally reversed "c" without triggering the explosion when you grapple for too long on one spot. A pretty simple dragon if you don't get hit or accidentally fall off because you mashed too much on the controls.

Level 15: Another simple dragon, although it can trip people up because of the path and obstacles it uses. Make sure you use spin slashes to your advantage to counter the psychic balls and, of course, avoid being gassed. When the dragon curves all the way down, it will speed up and the side of the dragon that you first land on will become the underside instead of the surface, so alternate between sides when you get to that point and damage boost if you really need to.

And that's it! A lot of what I said comes naturally as you speedrun the game, but overall, this is a nice, bite-sized run that should only take about 10 minutes or so. I've liked this game ever since childhood, so excuse my long winded explanations. :p

Happy running!

nodrog

Sky Serpents

Level 13

Level 14

Level 15

Kostecki

- clarified some rules regarding timing, audio, game windows, etc.
- fast level start banned for the beginning of runs and on IL's
- re-timed existing runs