General:
The first time I played E24, I ran out of time. It was the only time
ever I
ran out of time. The
design of this stage is terrible. The only purpose of this floor is to
give
you difficulties with time
because it is so damn long. Luckily, there is a shortcut, and I�m sure
the
programmers
deliberately built the level so that you could take this shortcut.
While
the time bonus is easy (or at least doable) on
every other stage, E24 seemed just too long and tricky to finish in
under 30
seconds. Most
people can finish this one with about 27 left, but where should those
extra
few second come
from? Not surprisingly it was Packattack who got the time bonus first.
Sdkess followed a day
later, but both of them could only barely do it, with finishes of about
30.10. Doing this level so
fast is amazing, and if you can get hold of sdkess� 6622 vid, get it,
it�s
truly impressive.
Nobody aside from those two players got the time bonus with this strat,
and
sdkess held the
record. But Packattack fought back, and he broke the record several
times,
and by a large
amount of points. He mentioned once that he finished with over 34
seconds
remaining, but what
exactly he was doing was a mystery. I was sure he was using a different
strat, because it is
impossible to beat sdkess� glory run by 4 seconds. One day I had an
idea
about what
Packattack was doing. I asked him if it that was the way, and he
confirmed.
I knew what to do,
but I couldn�t do it. Now that people knew about the E24
super-shortcut, it
was�no surprise�sdkess who next completed the strat. Recently Gamecube04 followed, and
I
finally made it
shortly after him, partly due to his help. I have done the shortcut 8
times
now, but it is still very
hard. If you want to know more about the super-shortcut, go to the WR
strat
section...
I want a consistent finish!
The only thing you need to know is the normal shortcut, which is easy
and
consistent. After the
5th banana, turn right and jump down to the path below. Now you can
take it
nice and slowly,
and time will be no problem.
I want a good score!
I�ll give you 2 choices, 4000 or 7000. I�ll give a 4000 strat here and
describe the super-shortcut
in some length in the WR strat section. Boost if you want and get the first 4 bananas.
Now you have a choice to make.
Possibility 1: Get the 5th banana, turn right, jump down to the path
below.
Possibility 2: After the 4th banana, roll towards the corner in a
straight
line, hit the edge/side of
the path a bit after the corner, pull back-right quickly to jump down
and
land directly on the
banana.
Possibility 1 gives you an extra banana but it�s slower, and vice
versa. If
you are not interested
in trying the 7000 strat, stick with way 1, if you want to go for 7000+
eventually, choose way 2.
It�s training, you know. :) From here on, you need to get every banana,
and
fast too. The best
way is to roll along the left side of the path, then pull back and
right to
turn around quickly while
getting the banana at each curve. For the finish, I usually roll full
speed
slightly right of the
middle, and shortly before the goal I swirl right and then slow down
and get
into the goal with
back-left. You should have 13/14 bananas and finish with over 27/26
seconds
left to get 4000+.
I want the record!
The super-shortcut in brief: After you do the normal shortcut, bounce
against the edge of the
path that goes up to fly up in the air, land on the path above and
thereby
skip 3 curves. This
saves about 7-8 seconds. If you can do the shortcut, you will always
get the
time bonus easily.
Boost if you want, go full speed and pick up the first 2
bananas
as always. Get the 3rd
banana a bit on the right, and now the important part: After getting
the 3rd
banana, travel on in
a straight line, which leads you to the very left of the path. You
should be
at the very left about
3/4 of the way between the 3rd and the 4th banana. Reduce speed, go
over to
the right, cut the
corner a bit (you�ll miss the 4th banana) or get the 4th banana on the
right
side. You should not
be on the left side of the path after the 4th banana, it�s better to be
right. Go full speed in a
straight line and aim slightly right of the next corner. You want to
hit the
edge of the path about
2 tiles after the corner. This is of course just the normal shortcut,
done a
bit faster.
Historically, I was chumpishly unable to do the normal shortcut fast
like
that, I would always fall
off left of the path below. My mistake was that I wanted to do it much
too
fast, and I was
holding up-right when I hit the edge. When you hit the edge, hold
back-right
very briefly, and
you should be able to jump down. Training helps a lot, and you should
be
able to jump down
fairly fast pretty consistently.
What then after the normal shortcut? Notation: when you fall down, you
land
on the first path.
Then there is a sharp corner up and to the right, and the path that
leads up
there is the second
path. When you fall down, keep full speed. You should bounce up from
the
hard landing, now
pull over to the right, and as you land from this first bounce, you
want to
hit the very right edge
of the first path, about 2-6 tiles away from the corner. Now you will
bounce
up a second time,
and if you�re lucky, you will hit the edge of the second path (again,
about
2-6 tiles away from
the corner) immediately after your bounce on the first path, i.e. as
you are
still going up. This will
cause you to get hit up pretty straight into the air, keep holding
up-right,
and hopefully you will
land cleanly on the platform above directly where there is a sharp turn
and
another banana. The
first time I did the shortcut I hit the edges about 2-3 tiles from the
corner, and there were
exactly 5 frames (0.08 seconds) between the hits, on my PR run I hit
the
edges about 5 tiles
from the corner, and there were 10 frames between the hits. This should
just
give you an
indication of how close the two bounces are together.
After you have made it up, be careful. You land in a sharp turn, the
path
left goes up, the path
right goes down. You have little time to adjust from your jump up, and
about
half the time I
make it up I fall down again immediately between the two paths. It�s
annoying, so be prepared.
Anyway, go up, and from here get all bananas, 5 of them. Time will be
no
problem, the 3 times I
have finished I got 34.08, 34.16 and 34.25.
What about speed? You don�t have to be overly fast to perform the
super-shortcut. When you
pause at the corner where you should fly up, press start and check your
speed. 65 is perfectly
fine, you can probably even do it with 60. What can go wrong with the
bounces? A lot.
Sometimes you are too slow and you you land too early the second time.
Other
times you are
too fast and you fly down to the right of the platform, or you bounce a
bit
early and jump over
the edge you want to hit. What you really should not do it to reduce
your
speed after jumping
down if you see that you can�t get far enough to the right for the jump
up.
Finally, what kind of run was the WR run? The key to a very high score
is
picking up bananas
before the super-shortcut. The 5 afterwards should be standard (though
they
are easy to miss if
you�re nervous), but you can get 5 before too. The first 3 are no
problem.
For the 4th, I suggest
you do not try to pick it up deliberately if you haven�t done the
super-shortcut yet. I think it is
slightly harder when you pick it up, because the danger of getting too
far
to the left is higher.
Finally, it is possible to pick up the banana right after the normal
shortcut and pull off the
super-shortcut. I�ve done it twice (and fell out both times), and I was
stupid enough not to save
the replay. Just wanted you to know that it is actually possible. Good
luck,
and don�t give up!
Current WR: ?
Finish: 34.??
Bananas: 10
Difficulty rating for 4000: 3/5
Difficulty rating for 7000+: 5/5
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