This post was last modified: Feb 5, 2021 at 5:45 AM by Pea.

For this update, I will be covering the rest of world 1, as I'm falling behind when I shouldn't be, for once.

When it comes to understanding a game, you need to play it a lot before you get to dissect its core mechanics to the minute-est of details. I've come to understand this after going through some of the levels over and over again, understanding why so or so trick won't work and why the one that's suggested is the way to go. Sure, you could find your own route, but understanding what routes work comes with knowing all the moves you can do to get to that point. That's why I will stay committed to end this garrison with a satisfying first speedrun of the game, in warpless%.

And so, I've found another aspect of the game that I could study. It has come to my attention that I forgot a very important aspect of this game.

Here is the map.

Zoom in.

What the fuck is this? This is text? You're saying that after 10+ years of me learning how to read, that I STILL can't read everything that comes in front of me? School was a scam and I demand a refund. How am I going to understand this game if it's going to talk to me in text that I have not studied?!

I've come prepared for this. I said I was going to be dedicated to this project and by god I will keep my word on it. If I'm to brave this new ordeal, I will need some outside help. I have a subscription to Wanikani and I am NOT afraid to use it. And so I will.

I have 138 articles to review right now, which means I have to correctly guess 138 ways to read and understand TEXT. This will boost my knowledge of the sacred words residing within the game's code.

The first symbol is 今(ima) and the other is 夜(yoru).

These two symbols together form the vocabulary that is "Tonight". But how do you say it? Based on what you saw in the italics just now, you could just combine them together to make the word BUT NO THAT'S NOT HOW JAPANESE WORKS. There are other ways to say these symbols. Because they're forming a jukugo word, you have kon 今 and ya 夜, which NOW can be formed together. The way you type japanese using a lettered keyboard is that you simply type it as if you were to say the word in romaji, so "konya". That is what we're gonna do.

wait nononononono fuck fuck fuck abort ABORT ABORT ABORT


FUCK

Because of how it's written, the keyboard will recognize your typing as "ko-nya こにゃ" instead of "kon-ya こんや". Because of that, you are going to suffer in hell for your transgressions and I hope you learn your les- ok listen guys, I've been procrastinating this update a bunch cause I fucking HATE the trick I learned to get to this update. I'm so sorry it took this long but I just...

Uuuuughhh.

Well, this... trick, doesn't happen yet. I still have another level to talk about before we get to it. This next level doesn't have much to talk about cause, well...

It's water.

There aren't any tricks to learn when it comes to underwater levels. Just know when to swim up, left, down or right to get to the goal quickly. However, there is still one thing I learned with this level and it doesn't have to do with water at all.

It all comes tumbling down.

Yup, we're back to cartwheels again. I told you, cartwheels/spinnies in this game has a lot of nuance and, if you want to go fast, you have to learn every quirk about the most basic non-movement centric move you have in your arsenal. So what's going on here?

You know how, if you drive a car into a wall, you crash into it, making the car completely stop, right? Worse, you might die if you're in that car crash. Don't ask me, I've never experienced it myself. However, in this game, if you cartwheel/spin into a wall, your kong will crash and lose all horizontal momentum, effectively killing your speedrun. So, yeah, I think it's a bit like crashing into a wall with your car and then dying. Did that make sense?

If that didn't make sense or you just want to know what's going on with that previous gif, here's an explaining on what's going on:

This will all make sense.

Crashing into a wall while in the air works just as much as crashing into a wall while walking towards it. Once your kong touches a wall while dashing through, they WILL stay in a horizontal position until they fall down and finish their circus act.

And so, with this image, I will now reveal that you don't have much leeway in moving around this chasm while cartwheeling while not touching a wall. I have yet found the way to not fuck up the technique, but sometimes, I do get it right and it feels sooooo fucking goood.

And you know what? If you get it right, you get to fuck up that kremling right there for a SPEED BOOST. Oh god, I'm gonna crumb.

That's about it for this level. Alright, next we have the boss to deal with.

Get it? Crow's nest? That's not even a crow.

So first thing's first, the boss here is either ve- ALRIGHT FINE.

UUUUGHHHHHHH

Topsail Trouble is considered to be one of those levels that makes speedrunner pull their hair out. No joke. You're five levels in and you're being told that you will hate this game because of this level. You know what? They're right.

In this level, you gain control of a snake companion at the very beginning. This snake companion can do big bounces to fuck anyone who dares to challenge you to a high jumping competition. Even if you can outjump anyone with the snake, you can go above and beyond. Literally. A snake isn't supposed to jump while in the air already, yet the game lets you do that. This is what we call a "Bug". A "Bug" can be used to your own advantage to complete a level faster. This "Bug" in particular can be executed like so:

You have three frames to hold A+B for this trick to work.

This trick is called the "True Double Jump" and it's the most efficient way to gain height... If you have the snake with you. What's the snake's name? I don't fucking care, I'm not here to gain knowledge of an animal's name, I just want to beat video game fast. You can use the true double jump to get up that platform that I completely missed because I don't know how to dismount an animal in this game yet.

This trick is the basis of how you can optimally finish Topsail Trouble, which has been deemed a soul crusher by many. Here's what I mean.

How to beat topsail trouble quickly: Show

It calls for you to do that "True Double Jump", plus a couple of other jumps you can do with the snake, like 5 times for this level. This is way too much for my baby muscle memory, so I will have to make do with my own strategy, although it could be faster still.

One more thing to look at this level before I go die in a fire is the way you can get to the goal.

Over and under.

You can hit the goal from under and it'll count as a low height hit, which means you don't have to worry about your monkey singing a song! Notice how the platform doesn't really have any place to land other than the target, so this was supposed to be a free high-jump landing for the bonus whatever item you get from the contraption. This is a speedrun, however, the only thing we want is time saving.

Alright, now for the bird boss. For real this time.

Crow's Nest is either the easiest boss fight ever or the hardest one, according to the speedrunners. It's the easiest cause you have a safe method of doing the fight that loses maybe a second or two OR you can do the badass way and jump on the bird while it loses its damaging propreties as you hit it with an egg, letting you hop on the platform without having to rely on the team up technique, which pauses the game for a moment.

Of course, I'm doing this the safe way. I want to finish a speedrun, god damnit.

Phase 1 of the fight.

Phase 1 is easy. Wait for the egg to fall from the talons of the bird, then jump on it at a safe height so as you don't bounce into the bird. You really want to keep Dixie for this fight, as she plays the guitar for far less time than Diddy's boombox. Pick up the egg and make it touch the bird. Do this two times and you proceed to phase two.

Phase 2 of the fight.

Phase 2 is a bit tougher, but not by much. Team up to the tower in the middle and time your jump to when the crow bumps into the pillar so that you hit the egg right as it spawns. If you're lucky, the egg won't fall through the map. That kind of egg is called a fake egg. We don't like fake eggs. Drop down and pick up the egg and deliver it to its rightful owner. Do this twice (again) and you'll have defeated the boss! Very easy and a good way to end off the first world.

Yup! That's the first world! We're on update 4! Fuck! Well, this has been decomposed into very short segments of gifs. Perhaps you want the bigger picture of my run. Here's a video to end it all.

Hope you enjoyed this journey into hell! It's not over, how do you like it so far?

Until next time!

kek the japanese part of this got me good

good writeups on the level and technique breakdowns. that cartwheel momentum thing is fucking annoying even playing the game normally and i had vivid flashbacks from it. i feel your pain on the tricky rattly (ラトリ lmao) jumps, that seems rough as fuck. your run on that level is particularly messy atm but im sure you can refine that shit a bit better eventually. also understand not going the full timesave on the boss since a somewhat minimal timesave that's really dicey sounds a bit silly for a run you're not exactly going for the WR on

everything i know about DKC2 speedrunning says that every trick is super fucking difficult and precise and you have to do dozens of tricks like that every level for optimal speed. thank you for continuing to share your suffering

dkcspeedruns, the website i use to get all the tips and tricks to do this speedrun, seems to be fucked? don't know how long it'll last but i'll have to postpone the next update until the website's back to normal.

dkc2 speedrunning is so hard that even the website is cursed....

Sounds like someone didn't have a backup strat..........................