Kirby's Return to Dream Land/Mechanics

General Movement Tips ^[1]

• If lacking an ability boosting horizontal movement, or if carrying an item, almost always slide attack. Even if you have an ability, sometimes slide-attacking is faster for shoter distances.
  • The main exception is on ice; for moderate and longer distances, start a dash and immediately short-hop to accelerate to full running-on-ice speed, which is faster than sliding
  • Other minor exception is going up 45 degree slopes. You should jump over 45 degree slopes to move horizontally at the same speed as running on flat ground, since sliding on upward slopes slows Kirby down.
• Unlike most Kirby games, jumping (without puffing) is horizontally the same speed as running in KRtDL; Kirby jumping is as fast as how fast Kirby was moving before jumping. Slide attacking should still be used when possible, however.
• Avoid puffing whenever possible, for both vertical and horizontal distances. Use full jumps and jump-through platforms. Jumping Repeatedly is faster than puffing at all.
  • To add on to that, if much horizontal air needs to be covered, then puff a few times, fall, and repeat. Falling is horizontally faster than puffing.
• Jumping up ladders and ropes is just about the fastest forms of upward movement (faster than wing and hi-jump), as it is essentially jumping nonstop. Do it as much as possible.
• In contrast, if you can, avoid climbing down ladders as it is slightly slower than falling at top speed, and there is a slight pause to dismount ladders. But don't go out of your way too much to avoid climbing down, as it isn't that much slower.
• When inhaling a non-ultra enemy, try to suck it in when Kirby is almost touching the enemy, so the enemy will instantly enter Kirby rather than having to wait a half second for Kirby's inhale animation.
• For attacks with hitlag, avoid hitting enemies if possible. This is most apparent with parasol's dash attack.
• Swimming diagonally does not slow you down horizontally nor vertically, compared to swimming strictly horizontally or vertically respectively. As in, swimming right for 3 seconds will achieve the same horizontal distance as swimming diagonally right-up or right-down (or even alternatively) for 3 seconds.
  • Take advantage of the above by avoiding enemies underwater whenever possible, as opposed to killing them, because firing Kirby's water gun (with the Water ability or not) slows him down a little. The exception is with Spear Kirby, where Kirby (or Waddle Dee) doesn't slow down when attacking upwards or sideways underwater.
  • Swimming is horizontally slower than jumping or falling out of the water, so if possible, jump out of the water repeatedly. In general, avoid swimming if you can.
• Kirby can take light or heavy hits. Light hits don't slow Kirby down much, but heavy hits completely knock him over, wasting a few seconds. Sometimes it may be faster to take a light hit so that via invincibility frames, Kirby can move through obstacles that would otherwise deal heavy hits.
• How Kirby drops his ability is unique in this game. He doesn't drop it anytime he takes a hit like in Nightmare in Dreamland, Amazing Mirror, or Squeak Squad, nor is it random like in Super Star and 64. Certain hits will always make kirby drop his ability, whereras others will never do so. This is 100% consistent. Here are some general guidelines on what to know:
  • Touching an obstacle (or gordo) will always make Kirby drop his ability. This includes boulders, spikes, ice+fire bowling pins, spike balls, and so on. Many obstacles also will instantly destroy the dropped ability.
  • Getting hit by an enemy or boss attacking you will always make Kirby drop his ability. Almost every generic enemy has some kind of attack that if it hits, Kirby will drop it, for example, a Sir Kibble throwing his cutter or a Tsukikage throwing a ninja star. This also includes ramming attacks, such as a Sheld ramming into Kirby or Sphere/Grand Doomer flying across the screen.
  • Touching an idling non-gordo enemy or boss will never make Kirby drop his ability.
• The end-goal minigame is fastest if Kirby is launched as low as possible, but directly above the 7 line such that Kirby does not hang on the edge. Thus hitting A as early as possible is not necessarily fastest, but it is generally consistent for a quick goal game. One can use sound-cues as well, since the ideal timing is to press A between two tiny jingles in the third set of jingles.

Hidden Rooms

There are five hidden rooms/secrets scattered throughout the game, two of which are HAL rooms. Unfortunately they are mostly useless for speedrunning, though they can be used as challenge goals and such.

1. In level 1-2, in the third room (where Kirby is climbing up the inside of a tree), there is a hidden door above the maximum tomato at the side. This leads to a small room with an invincible candy. It is extremely unlikely that taking this detour for the candy is faster for completion of the level, because Gigant Edge is taken out quickly anyways with Wing or Fire, but it has yet to be tested.

2. In level 1-4, in the first room, reach the very right end of the room, past the door. Move left and the spot with the stone logs will have collapsed, revealing a hidden door leading to a HAL room with ability stands for Hammer, Fighter, Wing, and Ninja. To note, these are the four rarest standard abilities in the game, as outside of mixing, it is impossible to obtain fighter or ninja before White Wafers, wing before Nutty Noon, and hammer before Egg Engines outside of the Bonkers in level 2-1. There is currently no use for this in any% nor 100%, as Kirby should already have Wing in the former from mixing in 1-1, and for 100% Kirby must discard whatever ability he obtains anyways due to the dimensional rift at the end of the level. However, if one wishes to not use mixing for an any% run, the runner can take this detour to obtain Wing extremely early as a viable alternative (though mixing in 1-1 is much faster).

3. In level 5-5, instead of entering the door into the mini-boss tower, float straight up and enter what looks to be a jailed entrance. This leads to a series of rooms with smaller arenas for minibosses, with every miniboss (Rather than just 4) to fight. There is no advantage to taking this route other than an extra challenge, though every energy sphere can still be obtained in this route.

4. In level 6-5, in the third room with the long conveyer belts, reach the end of the room. Instead of entering the door, take out the enemies falling from above, navigate the conveyer belts above and enter the black square in the top right corner leading to another HAL room. This one has several stars, a few 1ups, and most notably, ability stands for Spear, Water, Leaf, and Whip (interesting to note is that these are all the new abilities in this game). There is currently no use for this in any% nor 100%, as Kirby will have just received Wing before reacing this room, which outclasses all four for speedrunning.

5. In level 7-3, directly above the level exit door is what looks to be a black meteor/moon hybrid. Kirby can enter this as if it was a door, and it leads to a vertical room with many 1ups and stars. There is currently no advantage to entering this room, unless a goal of the run is to end with as many lives as possible.

Mixing Mechanics

As with most Kirby games, you can start the mixing roulette by sucking in multiple enemies with abilities, and obtain almost any ability at random. However, because of the ability to inhale more enemies and larger objects, KRtDL requires Kirby to simultaneously inhale at least three ability enemies (instead of the usual two)

• The roulette is completely randomized, but each individual roulette is a true roulette, meaning the second and third cycles of the wheel will have the same ability order as the first cycle. ^[2]
  • First Cycle: All abilities, but one, show up for 4 frames each.
  • Second Cycle: All abilities show up for 7 frames each.
  • Third Cycle: Ten abilities show up for 10 frames each, followed by a last ability that the roulette ends on.
• The roulette cycles through all 20 standard abilities, along with crash, mike, and sleep.
• Though there is no direct way to pause during mixing, the wii home menu can be accessed. If the home menu is brought up, and the '1' button is held while closing the home menu, then the roulette will stop on the ability that the home menu stopped on. Note that it is near impossible to consistently home menu on every slot.
• The main way to try to get the desired ability through a mix is to repeatedly press the home button until it either stops on the desired ability (which then, the '1' button should be held to obtain it) or the player spots it in between home menu presses. Then the player should try to calculate how many abilities are left before it re-appears, then roughly count and then open the home menu around that time. It is not very reliable, and still luck-dependent, unfortunately.
• Key locations with opportunities to mix include:
  • Level 1-1, the last room, right past the ultra sword knight, with three sir kibbles
  • Level 4-1, the three poppy bros. jr's in the second room
  • Level 4-1, the last room before Gigant Edge, with the waddle doo and two chilly enemies
  • Level 6-2, the third room with the triple flamers
  • Level 6-2, the eighth room with the three searches enemies (you need to jump into one of them towards the other two to be able to inhale all three at once)
  • Level 7-2, the very first room with the descending floor with the triple cutters
  • Level 7-2, the very end with the three Tsukikages

Ability Recycling

Similar to storing an ability via a helper in Kirby Super Star, Kirby can "store" the current ability he has by discarding it and carrying the ability star. This can be done by discarding it with the '-' button and then standing right where the ability will land on the ground. Note that Kirby cannot catch an ability on its first bounce; he can only catch it after it has bounced once.

• If Kirby inhales two abilities, the first ability that kirby inhales will take priority over the second ability. For example, if Sword Kirby is carrying a Fire ability, tosses the Fire ability star, discards sword, inhales both, and fire happens to be closer (in other words he inhales it first), then he will become Fire Kirby.
• Note that when Kirby swallows an ability, any ability that is discarded will start flashing and disappear within a few seconds. However, by picking it up, the timer for disappearing resets.
• Ability stars that touch water, spikes, boulders, or solid ultra-ability obstacles will instantly shatter. One must take particular care to not take heavy hits underwater.
• However, since objects can be carried in water, ability stars can still be carried underwater as well, as long as it isn't dropped while swimming. There is currently no use for this in speedrunning at the moment.
• The main advantage is allowing Kirby to recycle the current ability he has, and briefly use a different one required, then switch back. This is especially handy for 100%, as it allows Kirby to save a mobile ability, use a different less-mobile ability required for an Energy Sphere, then quickly switch back.

Ultra Sword Finishing Blow Animation Skip ^[3]

Against both Grand Doomer and Magolor, after finishing off their ultra barrier, the game intends for you to finish off both bosses with an ultra sword attack, resulting in a lengthy animation of Kirby finishing off the boss (and a lengthy sequence to shake the wiimote against Magolor). However, this animation can be skipped, as the final hit can be dealt with any attack. The problem is, typically there are no enemies directly available to either copy or shoot at the boss. This can be circumvented, however, and requires Kirby to have some sort of standard offensive ability before the ultra-barrier phase.

1. When starting the boss's ultra-barrier phase, before eating an ultra enemy, recycle the current ability you have, and carry it.
2. When the ultra enemy appears, slide attack the enemy and touch the dropped ultra ability. This is faster and safer than tossing your current ability, inhaling the ultra enemy, and trying to pick it up again.
3. When attacking the boss, drop the ability, attack, and pick up the discarded ability. Due to how the ability-star-timer works, it will not disappear for a while so there is no panic to pick it up again (though still pick it up quickly).
4. For Magolor, after 2 hits, discard the ultra ability and pick up the original ability. When picking up a new ultra ability, repeat step 2.
5. When the barrier is gone, quickly discard the current ultra ability, eat the ability you've been carrying this entire phase, and attack Grand Doomer / Magolor with it when they come to the center. This will finish off the boss and skip the animation.

This may seem minor, but this trick is extremely useful because:

• Grand Doomer: In both the current any% and 100% routes, the player should be fighting it with Wing (especially since it is conveniently available in the pre-boss lobby). This allows Kirby to keep Wing after defeating Grand Doomer, and use it for level 6-1 and on without having to backtrack to fetch wing or resort to using Fire provided at the start of level 6-1.
• Magolor: The developers intended the player to start the final fight against Magolor's Soul without any abilities. Normally, after Magolor's Soul flies across the screen, he will toss objects and enemies at Kirby which one of which, if inhaled, will always give Kirby the ability he had when facing Magolor (for example, if you fought Magolor with Ninja, one of the first enemies Magolor's Soul throws at you is a Tsukikage). As a result, ability-less Kirby must wait before the ability is given back. But using the trick above, Kirby can start the fight with whatever ability he finished the previous phase with, and will not have to wait for Magolor's Soul to give him an ability. This makes it possible to finish the first phase of Magolor's soul before he disappears into the background for a time-wasting attack.

Wing-Swim Glitch ^[4]

Video with demonstration, explanation, and applications: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcbud9T3J8

This glitch allows Wing Kirby to fly underwater, as if he were in the air. Simply Condor Head into the side of a body of water, and press 2 at the right time. The time-frame to hit 2 is very lenient, and mashing 2 while condor heading is enough to practically guarantee activating the glitch.

In theory, this is very useful as hover-flapping is horizontally as fast as running, and running is faster than swimming for horizontal movement. Furthermore, hover-flapping upward is far faster than swimming upwards, and Wing Kirby can dive bomb underwater as well for downward movement. While flying underwater, Wing Kirby can do the following:

• Hover Flap
• Dive Bomb (and cancel those with hover flap)
• Feather Gun (but feathers disappear in water so this is useless)

Furthermore, if Wing Kirby dive bombs out of the side of water, the dive bomb will end when he exits the water, and will be flung out at high speeds. The closer Kirby is to the edge of water before dive bombing, the higher and more horizontal the momentum.

Unfortunately this doesn't have many applications, as there are only three rooms in the game (outside of dimensional rifts, which in those cases, kirby must be ability-less) that have bodies of water that can be entered from the side (world 3 map, levels 4-3 and 6-4). Furthermore, in the current 100% route, the player will not have wing for any of those rooms, so it is useless for 100%. But for any%, though, the glitch does save time, whether several seconds or less than a second. Be sure to practice glitch, as it's very easy to do.

References

1. ↑ General Movement Tips are supported by frame data tested by yoshifan28; more details can be found in the Ability Info page at tp://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Kirby%27s_Return_to_Dream_Land/Ability_Info#Kirby
2. ↑ Mixing testing and data by yoshifan28 at http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/kirbys_return_to_dreamland_speedrunning_discussion__wii_51.html
3. ↑ Animation Skip first documented by gsk6930 at http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/935607-kirbys-return-to-dream-land/61821094
4. ↑ Wing Swim Glitch discovered by KirbyMastah at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkJ2ujhOJG8