Small Only switch palace route
Contents
Introduction
The objective of this tutorial is to make Small Only, also known as Low%, more friendly to beginners and to lower the intro skill level for the category, allowing the player to have a starting point from which they can move to more advanced strats as they feel more comfortable. In this tutorial it will be assumed that the reader has little to no knowledge regarding the strats that are used in each level, so we will go into detail about some of the strats and options that are available. In this route the objective is to activate the green and red switch palaces before going to Star World, that way some of the hardest tricks in the more advanced routes are not required. The format we will use is going level by level, describing useful or important information and going through some of the more friendly options available, some strats are required to advance while some are just optimizations over casual gameplay that are not required to finish the run. Some of the Individual Level (IL) pages will be linked to show different videos and options for that level, but it's still highly recommended to check out each of the ILs pages.
The rules for the category are:
- Time begins the frame Mario appears in the opening cutscene. This is 2.2 seconds after selecting 1 player game.
- Time ends on the frame that Peach appears outside of Bowser's Clown Car.
- No Arbitrary Code Execution.
- No Powerups allowed (Mushroom, Midway Points, Fire Flower, Cape).
- No Yoshi.
- Penalties:
- If any power-up is obtained, or Yoshi is ridden, die as soon as possible without utilizing it.
- If a mushroom is gained by taking an item through the goal tape, die as soon as possible.
- If you grab a checkpoint, take damage as soon as possible, finish the level, and then redo that same exit.
Route
- Yoshi's Island 2
- Yoshi's Island 3
- Yoshi's Island 4
- Iggy's Castle
- Donut Plains 1 normal exit
- Donut Plains 2 secret exit
- Green Switch Palace
- Donut Plains 2 normal exit
- Donut Ghost House
- Donut Plains 3
- Donut Plains 4
- Morton's Castle
- Vanilla Dome 1 normal exit
- Vanilla Dome 2 secret exit
- Red Switch Palace
- Vanilla Dome 1 secret exit
- Vanilla Secret 1 secret exit
- Star World 2 secret exit
- Star World 3 secret exit
- Star World 4 secret exit
- Front Door
Levels
Yoshi's Island 2-4
The first 3 levels, Yoshi's Island 2, 3 and 4, are pretty straight forward, with just a couple of optimizations that can save little time, it's still recommended to check each of the IL pages to understand what can be done in them.
Iggy's Castle
For the first cage grab over the lava a regrab should be done to gain as much distance as possible, that is tapping jump (spin jump in this case) and pressing it again while in midair, that way Mario should reach enough distance to be very close to the Podoboo, when near the lower edge of the cage up or down should be pressed to grab the cage again, once the Podoboo starts to go down you can go over it safely.
In the Iggy fight itself you can safely spin jump in front of Iggy to get the first hit, after it aim carefuly to get more hits and push him off the platform. Lower bounces make the fight go faster, but be careful of going to fast since that will make the hit not register.
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Video: Iggy's Castle Small Only no underball Source: Zapplex |
Donut Plains 1 Normal exit
Another pretty straight forward level in this case, we want to get the normal exit since this route goes to Green Switch Palace.
Donut Plains 2 Secret exit
In the fist visit to Donut Plains 2 we want to get the secret exit first to get to the green switch. A vine needs to be released from a block to get to the key on the second room, for this we can bring a Buzzy Bettle from the autoscroller to hit the block. If the beetle is lost or despawned there's a backup, but it's speed dependant and might take a while.
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Video: Donut Plains Secret exit Small Only Source: Zapplex |
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Video: Donut Plains Secret exit Small Only backup Source: Zapplex |
Green Switch Palace
Green Switch Palace is another straight forward level, up throw the shell at the start, run and jump on the switch.
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Video: Green Switch Palace Small Only Source: Zapplex |
Donut Plains 2 Normal exit
The optimal strat for this level is to do a beetle jump to get to the pipe faster, this is not required, but saves a decent amount of time taking into account that it's quite simple to setup, it's also a good practice to get familiar with it in preparation to more advanced strats.
Steps to setup the beetle jump:
- Up throw the beetle, make sure it goes only up and not to the sides for this setup.
- Jump to catch it while it's falling, ideally when it has the faster downward velocity possible.
- When it starts shaking do a full jump and keep jump held the whole time, the beetle should wake up when Mario just starts to go down and Mario will jump, remember to press diagonal right up so you enter the pipe.
Donut Ghost House Normal exit
Intended route: The intended route for this level is to take the door in the second room, you'll end up in a copy of the same room, enter "the same door" again, that will lead again to room 2 (it's a bit confusing), but under the stairs, hit the block, release the vine, climb and enter the door above. The reason to mention this is because much people have only seen speedruns and are not very familiar with casual gameplay and taking the intended route it's around 7 to 8 seconds slower.
Speedstrat: The speed strat skips the intended route and goes directly from room 2 to the exit. The direction the boos go when you are spin jumping it's determined the moment they spawn, for them to go the direction needed you should spin jump at the bottom of the stairs entering room 2, perform a second spin jump to be on the stairs a little as possible to regain p speed, run under the boo and spin jump on top of it, going left on every bounce so you can lure the boo and land on the upper floor. If the first spin jump on the boo is not done with p speed the camera won't scroll up and you won't be able to see the door on top, backups for this are either getting p speed and jumping once or trying to guess where the door is, both methods are done with Mario offscreen and there's a risk to fall.
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Video: Donut Ghost House Small back boo spin Source: Zapplex |
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Video: Donut Ghost House Small no p speed backup Source: Zapplex |
Donut Plains 3
To get p speed of the rotating platform tap spin jump to get on the left side of it, run without holding jump to the end of the second platform and jump at the edge of it, it's a bit trickier than it looks, if there's issues getting p speed doing a left right at the beginning is also an option, scrolling near the beginning makes the level line up consistently.
Just like in YI3 you can take advantage of the platforms that move to the right to get a boost and save some time. Going to the clouds strat is speed dependant and you might not get there every time, going under can be used as an alternative.
This is a very tricky level and it's easily one of the hardest ones on the run, doing it casual it's heavily advised if you are having troubles with the speedstrats here.
Donut Plains 4
The safest strat for this level is to grab the star from the roulette block, waiting for the star under the berry and timing the grab gives enough space to regain p speed for the rest of the level.
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Video: Donut Plains 4 small only star grab Source: Zapplex |
Morton's Castle
Morton's castle consist on 3 rooms + the Morton fight.
For the first room you can enter the level pressing right and pressing run at a visual cue on the background, that ensures that you'll get p speed and avoid the Thwimps on the way. Jumping on the stairs can save some frames, but beware to not do full spin jumps or you might clip under the stairs.
The second room goes to the left, to jump above the Thwomps do a full jump against the wall under them while pressing left before touching the wall, that way Mario should have enough speed to get the height to clear them.
The third and final room before the boss fight it's a vertical room, the amount of sprites in the room will produce variable amounts of lag, making some of the jumps hard to time.
One of the better options is to grab the spring in the middle of the room and use it at the end of the section to get to the boss door allowing you to skip half a cycle. If that's the strat chosen beware that there's a chance that you either miss the spring and fall into the spikes or that the spring clips Mario into the cement blocks.
There's a way to manipulate the 2 Dry Bones before the door to get them out of the way by doing a wide jump before reaching them, it might make the climb a bit more comfortable.
If the spring is lost or if it's chosen to not go for the spring strat the ledge that allows you to jump to where the boss door is will come out when the first yellow spike touches the wall, allowing you to get there as soon as possible.
The Morton fight it's very straight forward, jump on him as soon as possible then stand on his left side, a couple of frames after you see him "unsquish" do a full jump, if timed correctly Mario should land on Morton again as soon as possible.
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Video: Morton's Castle small only Source: Zapplex |
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Video: Morton's Castle no spring backup Source: Zapplex |
