PR2 Speedrunning Guide

[Master Raiden]

Optimizing Movement - Advanced Timesavers

You will often be able to discover ways to optimize your speedrun simply by observing the layout of a level. However, there are usually some additional opportunities hidden in plain sight. These are ones that are either very hard to discover or difficult to execute. In this section, I am going to share some advanced tricks you can use to set yourself apart in speedrunning.

Alignment
Alignment refers to placing yourself in a position from which you can consistently perform certain maneuvers without fail. Aligning yourself is common when pulling off glitches, but it also has its benefits in speedrunning.

There are many ways to align yourself:

• Standing against a wall – Running into a wall will result in you standing in the exact same horizontal position every time.
  
• Hitting a Safety Net – The Safety Net will reset you to the center of the last safe block you touched.
  
• Bumping the corner of a block – Hitting your head on the corner of a block will always result in you being in the same vertical position. This must be combined with a form of horizontal alignment to give you a reproducible result.
  
• Snapping onto blocks – Similar to bumping the corner of a block, snapping onto a block also aligns you vertically and requires a form of horizontal alignment.
  
• Moving for a fixed duration – Holding down Left or Right for a certain number of frames will always result in you moving the exact same amount in that direction. This must be combined with another form of horizontal alignment to remain consistent.
  

With alignment, you can uncover ways to consistently pull off difficult and precise moves which can shave off time with minimal effort.

Alignment - Examples 1

1. Salad by makie98 (5880537)
This high gravity, high speed level has a section with many small traps that require you to super jump to escape. I align myself on the second highest block of the staircase leading up to this tricky part, sacrificing some time, but positioning myself perfectly to avoid all the traps. With this powerful alignment, all I had to do was hold Up and Left to speed past all the blocks.

2. Catacombs by look (1524183)
I run into the Safety Net to place myself in the perfect position so that holding Left + Right at the fourth rope enables me to make it onto the platform consistently.

 

Alignment - Examples 2

1. Misty Mountains by TRUC (6049716)
I align myself with the wall on the right as I fall down, allowing me to consistently land and jump from the perfect position to climb the staircase of blocks with a single jump.

2. razor blade by zerostar(oO) (102573)
The player climbs up the Up Arrow Blocks, performing the first horizontal alignment. As they move left briefly before slowly accelerating to the right, they align themselves horizontally again. This crucial second alignment is what sets them up for the perfectly-timed jump that follows which allows them to glitch through the blocks seamlessly.

 

Making alignment work depends on the stats you are using, so experimenting with different things in-game is really the only way such setups are discovered.

Super Jumping in Crawl Spaces
Performing a super jump in a crawl space allows you to lift yourself into the air for a brief moment. This can allow you to speed up your crawl or launch yourself upwards as you exit a crawl space.

Super Jumping in Crawl Spaces - Examples

1. Brave the Storm by nincel (6492613)
The player performs a super jump in the icy crawl space to lift them up temporarily, allowing them to accelerate much more quickly.

2. Ocaso by Ezmeralda (6490387)
I charge up a super jump on the Arrows and release it at the very end, allowing me to boost myself up and skip a few jumps. Despite releasing my super jump in the crawl space, my high speed meant that I was already out of the crawl space by the time my super jump began. Super jumping in crawl spaces also give you one frame of upwards movement before you bump your head, so this trick is still possible although more difficult with slower speed crawls.