So, if you are new here, then I strongly suggest that you read the guide called "Basics of speed movement and approach to skips in this game" first as it covers the basics of speedruns including skips.

Now, here is where a truly tricky part lies in speedruns of The Incredibles: Rise of The Underminer. During speedruns, there will be many situations when you have to upgrade both Mr. Incredible and Frozone. It is needed so you can complete the game faster since the more powerful your characters become the easier it is to destroy robots, freeze them, having more supermoves etc.. It is not a problem in New Game+ variant of speedrun because it implies that both characters already have all upgrades. But in Any% variant, you might struggle to understand what is a better strategy overall. Which supermove you should upgrade first and when ideally you need it being upgraded.

Before I explain just a bit in-depth and why not everything is as hard as it seems, I will show you two completely different upgrading strategies. I will call them Old Strategy and New Strategy, but not because one of them is bad and another is great. In actuality, both of those strategies seem to be almost equal in speed. It's just Old Strategy is... well, old i.e. it was used originally, but since then I found a better one. And by "better" I mean "easier" since it is now relies more on efficiency through certain upgrades rather than being more technical in your movements to match basically the same speed when those upgrades weren't available (I'm talking about Old Strategy).

Both of these strategies were thought through by me, so now you don't have to worry about finding the most optimal way to upgrade characters. Feel free to use either of them. I think New Strategy is as good as it could possibly be. Although if you want to find a more optimal way perhaps, then by all means do it. May be you will find the most perfect strategy for upgrades in speedruns. So, without any more talks, here are the strategies:

• Old Strategy MR. INCREDIBLE | FROZONE

1. Supermove | Supermove
2. Incredi-slam | Freeze Ray
3. Incredi-slam | Ice Punch
4. Power Punch | Ice Punch
5. Power Punch | Freeze Ray
6. Supermove | Supermove

• New Strategy MR. INCREDIBLE | FROZONE

1. Incredi-slam | Freeze Ray
2. Incredi-slam | Freeze Ray
3. Power Punch | Ice Punch
4. Power Punch | Ice Punch
5. Supermove | Supermove
6. Supermove | Supermove

As you can tell, both strategies are fairly different althouth not quiet. There is some resemblance. It is not obvious difference for a newcomer, so I will tell you in what way these strategies are different. Old Strategy heavily relies on supermoves. And therefore you have to be more technical in your approach of fighting robots. While New Strategy heavily relies on usage of more powerful moves such as Incredi-slam and Freeze Ray. So, it's easier to destroy separate robots, but you also will have to compromise with supermoves. It's always a compromise.

Now, you might ask something along the lines of "But what if I don't get an upgrade when I need it, what do I do?". Actually, upgrades are pretty well stacked up throughout the run. I virtually never struggled to have an update it time. And when I said "stacked up", I meant to say that upgrades become available literally in time when they are needed..... for the most part. Of course there are instances when you might not have earned enough points for an upgrade to appear. But it's not a big deal if you started doing runs just recently.

And remember, never upgrade mid-mission! Because if you do, you are going to lose time from upgrade screen animation. Upgrade screen is pretty slow. Upgrade your characters only at the end because that way you don't lose time on mission ending screen animation showing up. Because mission ending screen has to happen either way and you have to upgrade your characters either way. Make sure you are always aware with which character you ended the mission because you will start upgrading from him. So, for example, you ended mission while being in control of Mr. Incredible. After that, upgrade screen will appear and it wil have you start upgrading from Mr. Incredible's section. So, do it. Because you will lose time if you go to Frozone, upgrade him and then go back to Mr. Incredible and upgrade him. You would lose at least one second from doing that. And it might not seem as a lot of time loss, but trust me, for this game at this point in time, every second is important. I had runs where literally one second decided whether or not I'm going to have a World Record or not. For real.

Your next question could probably be "Why are there only six times you upgrade both characters and why do we never see other characters' abilities being upgraded?". Because at this point in the run, there will be no need for other characters' abilities. In fact, there is no need for such abilities as Mr Incredible's Throw or Frozone's Ice Glide because these are useless from offense perspective during the runs. Upgraded Throw is useful literally only during one place of the game (Note: I'm talking about a moment after you skip bridge in Blizzard Backdoor as Frozone. Then Mr. Incredible has to throw boulders at the giant door. Normal throw let's him destroy the door in three shots, while upgraded Throw, four shots.) and it saves you only few seconds. Overall, you will always lose more time if you upgrade Throw instead of Incredi-slam. Every time. Remember that. As for upgrading of Frozone's Ice Glide, it's just useless. As I said before, but you have to understand that the only thing it gives you, is ability for Frozone to Ice Glide on top of his robots indefinitely! Basically forever.

Now, to each strategy there are neat little elements that play out into a bigger picture. I'm talking about when to do a supermove for example. You have to memorize what part of each level will have a supermove available, so you could use it earlier. That plays out into a bigger, overall strategy respectively. Your ability to think ahead of what you might need in order to save time and when. It's like a chess essentially.

There are so many questions: what move should you do here; what if you upgrade that ability; and if you upgrade that ability then how it will help you save time and where in the level it could save you time; and if you use this upgrade then where do you lose time then and how could you save it; perhaps you could save the time by upgrading something else instead; but if you upgrade that ability instead, then obviously you will lose time in some other place of the level and that's just on the surface, don't forget the overall picture, remember; but now you notice that you might save some seconds by upgrading something else in specific place of the level you skipped and now you have to rethink everything and change your strategy; but you now have to change approach to certain upgrades and adjust your actions accordingly. And now you understand there is way more to it, isn't it.

So many questions. You can't save all possible time in all places of the entire run, no matter what variant you run specifically. Because remember what I told you earlier? It is always a compromise! Think! You have to compromise certain parts of the level in order to save time in some other place. For small details like these, just watch already existing runs and most importantly try to understand why certain upgrades and certain actions happen when they happen. And may be you will even find a better tactic to something. Your goal is to understand why things in the run happen when they happen and how it affects any specific places of each level and the overall game and if some thing can be improved.

More information will be added if needed.