During my one-year time running My Little Pony Crystal Princess: The Runaway Rainbow, both on and off, I have amassed quite a lot of knowledge about this game. Here are some tips and tricks you may use when running this game.

Note: This is purely based on my experience and theory, none of the tricks I will mention here unless specified, is indeed the actual reasoning. So, you can take my word with a grain of salt. And this is mainly describe the Any% run, where the minigame is not required as it can be skipped. However, some of the trick I will mention can also be apply to Any% Minigame and 100%

Tips & Trick:

1. Turn Back Strat (TBS)

• Whenever you approach an NPC, you can initiate their dialogue while you look at the opposite direction. For example, in the first chapter, after you collect all three ribbon, you can perform the TBS onto Brightly Bright.

After you enter the load zone to the bridge, press both Up and Right on the D-Pad so Rarity would move diagonally toward the bridge. After Rarity's bottom half is obstructed by the pole, immediately press Left on the D-Pad while simultaneously press the 'A' button to initiate the dialogue. If done correctly, Rarity looks to the left while the dialogue is initiated. A good way to indicate if it is working is via the pixel. If Rarity's mane is touching the line of the back pole, you're good. This may because there is an invisible zone surrounding Brightly. Whenever you're entering this zone, the dialogue can be initiated. This zone is mainly is a bit bigger than the character itself, so knowing the size and position of "The Dialogue Zone" is essential for the trick. The Brightly TBS is quite easy to do with the setup I'm using. However, most of the TBS is required to have precise timing and position. So, practice those timing. A great way to learn is through my WR of 24:46. However, this trick is used rather sparingly due to some area are impossible to perform TBS.

• One thing to mention is that the NPC will glitch out by looking to the other direction that they normally face. In some cases, the NPC will snap back to the original position.

2. Dialogue Box Optimization.

• One of the way to optimize the game is the dialogue. In the game where optimized movement is necessary, the closing of the dialogue box itself can determine between WR or PB.
• This game has a lot of dialogue box and text box, either spoken by NPC or to skip the minigame. A well-optimized run must have most of the dialogue box be skipped by pressing the 'B' button before it even appears on the screen or only appears briefly.
• If the dialogue is skipped but the dialogue box appears in a larger size or even have a pixel of a word, it loses a few frames every time it occurs.
• There are four types of dialogue box state:

1. Zero Box - the dialogue box never appears on the screen when skipped.
2. Quick Box- the dialogue box only appear briefly before skipped. Usually appears in a smaller size.
3. No Text Box - similar to Quick Box but much larger.
4. Text Box - where a letter appears in the dialogue box before it was skipped. It doesn't necessarily have to be a full letter, as long as a pixel of the letter appeared, it counts. Although how to differentiate them is rather subjective.

• A good way to start is the first task given to you by Brightly, which is o collect three ribbons for the bridge. After collecting a ribbon, quickly spam the 'B' button to skip the dialogue. Refer to the definition above. The best state you can get is three Zero Box in a row, while the worst are three Text Box in a row.
• There are a lot of long cutscenes that required to spam the 'B' button. The worst offender is the Rainbow cutscene at the end of Chapter 4. This cutscene is notorious for being the longest cutscene in the game, so prepared for a sore thumb.

3. NPC Movement RNG

• When I first run this game, one thing that infuriated me is the NPC movement in Chapter 1 & 2. In the game, some NPC will walk in 'random' direction within the area is allowed to go. For example, the yellow unicorn in the hallway will always never go below the screen.
• The good news is it only happen in Chapter 1 and 2, so you don't have to worry about it in the later part of the game. The bad news is that, particularly in Chapter 2, it can kill the run in the blink of the eye. This is crucially as not only you have to optimize the movement but also react to whatever the RNG it gave you. -However, there is be a way to manipulate their movement. By restarting the game rahter than exiting the game through menu, you will always have the same pattern in Chapter 1, although it wasn't desireble.

4. Visual Cue and A Simple Memorization

In the first second of the first cutscene, spam the 'B' button when the camera scrolled down. This will guarantee you to have at least a consistent pattern of dialogue box state. In Chapter 3, there are two fetch quest, one for Sweet Berries and one for Rainbow Dash. There is a simple way to memorize the location of the five Rainbow Berries, and five items for Sweet Berries and Rainbow Dash respectively (which luckily, it is always in the same place). ~ Right, Right, Left, Left, Right - Sweet Berries ~ Middle, Left, Right, Left, Left - Rainbow Dash In Chapter 4, when you see Minty and/or the waterfall, it's a good indicator that you're a screen away from Zipee, so, when you're about to exit the next scene, press both Down and Right on the D-Pad.

5. The Route in Chapter 5

• In the final chapter, Rarity is tasked to invite all of her friend for the Rainbow Festival. Start with Pinkie Pie because she's the nearest to the player. Then, head up into the hallway and press 'A' on Minty and then Sunny Blaze. Enter Princess Cherilee's room, and then press 'A' on Princess Cherilee because she is out of the way and then turn around to press 'A' on Rainbow Dash on the way out. Head back to the courtyard and to the brigde. Press 'A' on Zipee, which is a bit harder to do due to the small size of the 'Dialogue Box Zone'. Head left to the second to last screen. There, press 'A' onto Wishes and then go to the last screen on the left for the last two NPC. First, Brightly because she is nearer to the player once enter the screen, and lastly Sweet Berries.

Hopefully this guide is helpful when you decides to run this game.