Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Wii) co-op

yoshifan

Edit history:

yoshifan: 2012-02-26 10:15:42 pm

yoshifan: 2012-02-26 10:15:26 pm

yoshifan: 2012-02-26 04:36:29 pm

yoshifan: 2012-02-26 04:34:07 pm

yoshifan: 2012-02-26 04:29:58 pm

2012-02-26 04:28:42 pm

I just thought I'd dump some of my ideas here for KRtDL co-op strategies. I'm not planning to do such a run myself though (unless it's happening at AGDQ '13). I chose not to put this in the main KRtDL thread, since we're already discussing a lot of 1-player strategies there.

- P1 would do most of the movement work because other players are teleported to P1's position if they get left in the dust (i.e. offscreen). Having P2-P4 not get hit while being teleported all over the place could be a challenge though.

- For 100% runs (as opposed to any%), P2-P4 could help with using abilities that are needed for Energy Spheres, but not great for movement. For example, Sword in 1-2, Beam in 2-3 (P1 can keep Hi-Jump in that room), Cutter in 3-2, Stone in 5-2, and maybe even some Super Abilities like in 6-1 (where P1 would have Wing).

- Actually, consider having Meta Knight around for stuff like 1-2 and 3-2. Also, P2-P4 can swap characters in and out to fit the situation. ~~At least two Dededes at bosses is one idea.~~ (Whoops, didn't know MK, Dedede, and Waddle Dee can't have clones. I haven't tested co-op much...)

- For bosses, here's some info from the Rainbow Resort forum thread:

Quote:

*Damage for attacks gets reduced every time you add extra players. The reductions are as follows.

2 Players -10%
3 Players -12.5%
4 Players -15%

Bosses are already quick with 1P, to the point that there is sometimes more waiting than fighting, but multiplayer would do it faster if done right. Especially if the strongest moves have some downtime. For example, have two players alternate Hammer Flips on the final boss, or have two players alternate Rainbow Rains on Mr. Dooter.

- I wonder if it'd be worth it to use the co-op air puff attack. Damage numbers are in the above Rainbow Resort link again (note that each character - Kirby, MK, Dedede, and Waddle Dee - has a different air puff combo attack).

Thread title:

- P1 would do most of the movement work because other players are teleported to P1's position if they get left in the dust (i.e. offscreen).  Having P2-P4 not get hit while being teleported all over the place could be a challenge though.

- For 100% runs (as opposed to any%), P2-P4 could help with using abilities that are needed for Energy Spheres, but not great for movement.  For example, Sword in 1-2, Beam in 2-3 (P1 can keep Hi-Jump in that room), Cutter in 3-2, Stone in 5-2, and maybe even some Super Abilities like in 6-1 (where P1 would have Wing).

- Actually, consider having Meta Knight around for stuff like 1-2 and 3-2.  Also, P2-P4 can swap characters in and out to fit the situation.  [s]At least two Dededes at bosses is one idea.[/s] (Whoops, didn't know MK, Dedede, and Waddle Dee can't have clones.  I haven't tested co-op much...)

- For bosses, here's some info from the [url=http://kirbysrainbowresort.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=241379&sid=578f30fe7f4e930d470a7ae11b7ed6ae]Rainbow Resort forum thread[/url]:
[quote]*Damage for attacks gets reduced every time you add extra players. The reductions are as follows.

2 Players -10%
3 Players -12.5%
4 Players -15%[/quote]
Bosses are already quick with 1P, to the point that there is sometimes more waiting than fighting, but multiplayer would do it faster if done right.  Especially if the strongest moves have some downtime.  For example, have two players alternate Hammer Flips on the final boss, or have two players alternate Rainbow Rains on Mr. Dooter.

- I wonder if it'd be worth it to use the co-op air puff attack.  Damage numbers are in the above Rainbow Resort link again (note that each character - Kirby, MK, Dedede, and Waddle Dee - has a different air puff combo attack).

Reaif

2012-02-26 05:09:27 pm

I just wanted to note that you can only have one of each special character in co-op. So only one Dedede, only one Metaknight, only one Waddle-dee. Only Kirby can have duplicates.

As far as the air puff attacks, I haven't seen a whole lot of benefit from using them in boss battles. This comes primarily from the time it takes to get stacked and the difficulty that lies in dodging attacks so that you don't have to work on getting stacked again after falling off. However, this attack might be good for certain bosses/mini bosses that have very little movement, like the big rock guy.

The 100% co-op run would probably benefit most greatly from good planning depending on what skills are needed when, kind of like you mentioned. Because of the amount of time it takes to enter, you would want to avoid swapping characters as much as possible.

I also have a few notes about camera movement... While it is true that the camera follows P1, it does "try" to keep everyone on screen, so it doesn't always center on P1. That can make being P1 kind of hard because you don't get as advance warning that something is coming on screen. It might be worth the while to just have the alternate chars come in for bosses and those aforementioned situations where their abilities would be useful.

I just wanted to note that you can only have one of each special character in co-op. So only one Dedede, only one Metaknight, only one Waddle-dee. Only Kirby can have duplicates.

As far as the air puff attacks, I haven't seen a whole lot of benefit from using them in boss battles. This comes primarily from the time it takes to get stacked and the difficulty that lies in dodging attacks so that you don't have to work on getting stacked again after falling off. However, this attack might be good for certain bosses/mini bosses that have very little movement, like the big rock guy.

The 100% co-op run would probably benefit most greatly from good planning depending on what skills are needed when, kind of like you mentioned. Because of the amount of time it takes to enter, you would want to avoid swapping characters as much as possible.

I also have a few notes about camera movement... While it is true that the camera follows P1, it does "try" to keep everyone on screen, so it doesn't always center on P1. That can make being P1 kind of hard because you don't get as advance warning that something is coming on screen. It might be worth the while to just have the alternate chars come in for bosses and those aforementioned situations where their abilities would be useful.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2012-02-26 07:11:55 pm

kirbymastah: 2012-02-26 07:11:20 pm

2012-02-26 07:10:27 pm

<(^_^)>

Awesome Thread!

I don't think co-op would be helpful much for any% runs, since again, the camera follows P1's position and all that matters is how quickly P1 moves; honestly, I don't see much use for co-op in any% since Wing is the fastest ability in the game, and is comparable with hammer/ninja in terms of boss-slaying. Ideally, again, the fastest route for any% would be for P1 to keep wing the entire time; the only use I can think of for other Kirbys is to also have wing, as a safety net in case P1 loses his Wing, but this is only for racing and marathon runs really, as extra kirbys running around merely makes bosses slower because of the multi-hitting nature of Wing against bosses.

The team attacks are strong, but it's too much of a hassle to set up; they take too much time to set up and charge, and wing's DPS just outright beats out the team attacks. There can be a few exceptions, and if so, we should probably use Metaknight's team attack since it's the strongest. Either way, we're much better off doing alternating strong attack with 2P.

IMO for any% overall, if there's gonna be co-op, it should only be 2P; any more would be a waste of damage, unnecessarily more difficult, and so on. I still disagree with doing co-op at all for 1P, since player 1 is better off using wing and the DPS with wing is just ridiculous to the point that... why would you have any other players?

100% is a completely different story though, and I see tons of potential for co-op, especially since all players are forced to lose their abilities (and yes, i've tested this; ALL KIRBYS lose their abilities in dimensional rifts). It's a great idea for P1 to constantly keep the mobile ability, and P2 to use the secondary ability to grab energy spheres, and even multitask (P2 gets the energy sphere while P1 progresses to save backtracking time). Even better, P2 can jump in and out as different characters to get energy spheres with MK/DDD/Waddle dee. I still don't see reason for more than 2 players, but...

Anyways, my personal stance: co-op is worthless in any% and has amazing potential in 100%. I can start thinking of boss strats right now, but there are so many possibilities for 100% routes @_@

Awesome Thread!

I don't think co-op would be helpful much for any% runs, since again, the camera follows P1's position and all that matters is how quickly P1 moves; honestly, I don't see much use for co-op in any% since Wing is the fastest ability in the game, and is comparable with hammer/ninja in terms of boss-slaying. Ideally, again, the fastest route for any% would be for P1 to keep wing the entire time; the only use I can think of for other Kirbys is to also have wing, as a safety net in case P1 loses his Wing, but this is only for racing and marathon runs really, as extra kirbys running around merely makes bosses slower because of the multi-hitting nature of Wing against bosses.

The team attacks are strong, but it's too much of a hassle to set up; they take too much time to set up and charge, and wing's DPS just outright beats out the team attacks. There can be a few exceptions, and if so, we should probably use Metaknight's team attack since it's the strongest. Either way, we're much better off doing alternating strong attack with 2P.

IMO for any% overall, if there's gonna be co-op, it should only be 2P; any more would be a waste of damage, unnecessarily more difficult, and so on.  I still disagree with doing co-op at all for 1P, since player 1 is better off using wing and the DPS with wing is just ridiculous to the point that... why would you have any other players?

100% is a completely different story though, and I see tons of potential for co-op, especially since all players are forced to lose their abilities (and yes, i've tested this; ALL KIRBYS lose their abilities in dimensional rifts). It's a great idea for P1 to constantly keep the mobile ability, and P2 to use the secondary ability to grab energy spheres, and even multitask (P2 gets the energy sphere while P1 progresses to save backtracking time). Even better, P2 can jump in and out as different characters to get energy spheres with MK/DDD/Waddle dee. I still don't see reason for more than 2 players, but...

Anyways, my personal stance: co-op is worthless in any% and has amazing potential in 100%. I can start thinking of boss strats right now, but there are so many possibilities for 100% routes @_@

Reaif

2012-03-05 03:07:34 am

Tranquilite and I have a couple runs to display today. While they still have plenty of room for improvement and general optimization, they do give a pretty good idea of what strategies are available with co-op. These are Twitch.tv videos recorded from the stream.

Kirby's RtDL 100% Normal Mode 3:06:42 | Part 1 | Part 2
Kirby's RtDL 100% EX Mode 3:30:50 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2012-03-05 08:42:18 am

kirbymastah: 2012-03-05 08:41:46 am

kirbymastah: 2012-03-05 08:40:43 am

2012-03-05 08:20:40 am

<(^_^)>

I watched world 1 so far, and I have a few comments about it:

1. I'm pretty sure it's faster for MK to slide attack then fly, though it's faster to fly over obstacles that prevent spamming slide attacks; you'll have to decide when you can slide attack and when to fly.
2. MK's best damage output in the air is spamming shuttle loop. It's very spammable, and does about 30ish damage; it's very similar to spamming condor head with Wing Kirby, but it's very tiring on your fingers. Basically the gist is, shuttle loop is jump-cancellable, so you shuttle-loop, then jump, then immediately shuttle-loop again, and repeat. The hitbox for it is HUGE, so you can easily start it from near the ground against the sphere doomer (while kirby charges inferno), and instantly force it into the background.
3. Meanwhile, MK's best damage output on ground is spamming spin attack.
4. Whenever you can, jump up ladders instead of flying. It's pretty easy; just time pressing 2 while holding up.
5. Generally, if you're falling and you couldn't run from falling, it's better to fire spin since you don't have to land first (as you do for burning)
6. For the invincibility candy, it's faster to just run. Slide attacking with invincible candy is probably the fastest mode of movement in the game after Snow Bowl (yes, faster than condor head), and don't use condor head (or burning) while invincible since you don't get a speed boost, and just running and jumping is faster.
7. Again, I can't emphasize this enough, if Kirby doesn't have a mobile ability, then spam slide attacks. It's considerably faster than just running.

1:18 - Great idea having MK carry the key and get teleported over! This is the kind of co-op strat I like to see!
1:40 - I think it would be faster to swap out MK for another Kirby, and have that kirby take ultra sword, so Pink Kirby can use burning through the ultra-sword section (burning > MK flying)
2:31 - This is a part where you should definitely slide attack, especially since MK just ran
4:20 - Fire Spin just as you hop off the warp star; it's a bit faster than landing and using burning, since you don't have to land before fire-spinning.
4:46 - You can do two burning attacks before the cannon here, right off the bat instead of having to walk forward a bit
5:30 - This was what I was talking about in the other threads, with co-ops damage scaling being a huge liability in battles. You can't kill Gigant Edge instantly with MK around because of damage scaling, whereas if Fire Kirby was alone, a well-timed inferno would land 4 hits just before Gigant Edge swings his sword and finish him off. It's best to just have MK leave for the fight, then re-enter after Gigant Edge dies.
5:45 - Neat strat for getting the energy sphere; could've been a bit faster but whatever Tongue

6:24 - Drop down on the right of the ladder, hold right to get closer to the wall before you land and fire spin; you'll spin through the cannon and not have to land first to do burning. Then for the second cannon, drop down on the left of the ladder and do a burning as you land (fire spin doesn't give you enough distance to completely bypass that cannon)
8:07 - Oof, I saw what you were doing here... Good strat, too bad it didn't go the way you expected :/
8:52 - Another example where MK should just slide attack instead of fly
9:22 - HAL room? I don't think the detour is worth it for 100%, especially since you have to lose wing in that same level anyways, and you only get to take advantage of condor head in one room (again, condor head is worthless with cinvincible candy, so it's useless in that room); definitely not worth it. I'd keep fire.
10:34 - Same idea here, have MK swap out for another Kirby to take Monster Flame, then Pink Kirby can simply burning over everything.
11:23 - Yeah, this section, you want to suck in the two gray blocks and the giant spider, so you can clear everything really quickly (it doesn't take too much time). It's better than what you're doing, as Kirby can merely spam slide attacks while following the star. With your strat, all Kirby can do is run right behind MK, and MK flying is slower than slide attacks.
11:57 - Spark > Leaf for sure. And with Leaf strats, you're better off using Leaf Rain instead of Leaf Upper (watch my Leaf true arena run), but spark is still faster. I'm not sure if it's faster to just have Kirby go solo Spark, but one strat you can do is, charge up a spark wave, fire it as the Sphere Doomer appears, then while Kirby charges again, MK uses shuttle loop twice. This should make the sphere doomer enter the background, then Kirby can spark wave it as it leaves, then spark wave it one more time as it returns. I'm not sure if this would work, due to damage scaling... Seeing as solo Kirby can instantly force the Sphere Doomer into the background and finish it just as it re-enters the stage (whereas in your strat, it had a change to 'laugh' before entering the background)
12:11 - slide attack here, it's just so much faster.
12:21 - here too

All right whispy woods. This is probably one of few bosses where I do think co-op is faster than solo, but not with the strats you use. At the start, yes, Kirby should breath away and start up inferno while MK attacks. But MK should use his spin attack since it's his best DPS on ground. Then MK should back off when inferno is activated.

2nd phase, GET SOMEONE SUCKED IN. DO NOT DODGE HIS SUCKING ATTACK. He takes half damage while sucking, and in solo, it's literally faster to get sucked in and get spat out, just to cut off his half-damage frames on the spot. The opportunities are even better for co-op. Get someone (I'd say MK) sucked in, keep MK inside whispy woods while Kirby uses inferno; this should deal full damage and finish him off, as he won't do anything else except chew on MK.

I like the overall co-op strats you guys utilize, especially getting the keys & energy spheres! I highly recommend watching my 100% test run, as a lot of it is very applicable to the co-op run. Watch yoshifan's stream as well, he's been following my strats and improving minor route changes as well. Will watch the rest later on!

Edit: I also watched the bosses overall...

Mr. Dooter: Neat use of inferno at the start! At phase 2, though, it's probably best to kick out MK, land one inferno hit as he lands on you, then shoot stars each time he lands (remember, it's stronger to shoot stars while running or jumping out of a run). It's stronger than anything Kirby/MK can do while he hops around (except inferno... but you just lost fire), and ideally, you'd finish him off just as he finishes jumping around.

Fatty Puffer: Kirby should go solo again, and use parasol. Parasol has the best ground damage output in the game, period. It beats even hammer, ninja, and wing. You can see a near perfect parasol fight here:

Goriath: Again, Kirby should go solo again, this time with ninja; Quad Shocks are very mobile, very spammable, incredibly powerful, and leave little room for the partner to help much in the middle, meaning MK wouldn't do much except be a liability because of damage scaling. MK can probably land about 1-2 shuttle loops in the entire fight between quad shocks, but I'm sure it's not worth it.

Grand Doomer: Just watch this, and go solo. Not perfect, but gives a general idea of what kirby should do.

I like the carry wing around strat; I do it against Magolor Soul in my test run (I didn't know about it at the time when I recorded world 5 though, to use it against Grand Doomer). Very convenient to have MK around during the ultra sword sequence.

I watched world 1 so far, and I have a few comments about it:

1. I'm pretty sure it's faster for MK to slide attack then fly, though it's faster to fly over obstacles that prevent spamming slide attacks; you'll have to decide when you can slide attack and when to fly.
2. MK's best damage output in the air is spamming shuttle loop. It's very spammable, and does about 30ish damage; it's very similar to spamming condor head with Wing Kirby, but it's very tiring on your fingers. Basically the gist is, shuttle loop is jump-cancellable, so you shuttle-loop, then jump, then immediately shuttle-loop again, and repeat. The hitbox for it is HUGE, so you can easily start it from near the ground against the sphere doomer (while kirby charges inferno), and instantly force it into the background.
3. Meanwhile, MK's best damage output on ground is spamming spin attack.
4. Whenever you can, jump up ladders instead of flying. It's pretty easy; just time pressing 2 while holding up.
5. Generally, if you're falling and you couldn't run from falling, it's better to fire spin since you don't have to land first (as you do for burning)
6. For the invincibility candy, it's faster to just run. Slide attacking with invincible candy is probably the fastest mode of movement in the game after Snow Bowl (yes, faster than condor head), and don't use condor head (or burning) while invincible since you don't get a speed boost, and just running and jumping is faster.
7. Again, I can't emphasize this enough, if Kirby doesn't have a mobile ability, then spam slide attacks. It's considerably faster than just running.

1:18 - Great idea having MK carry the key and get teleported over! This is the kind of co-op strat I like to see!
1:40 - I think it would be faster to swap out MK for another Kirby, and have that kirby take ultra sword, so Pink Kirby can use burning through the ultra-sword section (burning > MK flying)
2:31 - This is a part where you should definitely slide attack, especially since MK just ran
4:20 - Fire Spin just as you hop off the warp star; it's a bit faster than landing and using burning, since you don't have to land before fire-spinning.
4:46 - You can do two burning attacks before the cannon here, right off the bat instead of having to walk forward a bit
5:30 - This was what I was talking about in the other threads, with co-ops damage scaling being a huge liability in battles. You can't kill Gigant Edge instantly with MK around because of damage scaling, whereas if Fire Kirby was alone, a well-timed inferno would land 4 hits just before Gigant Edge swings his sword and finish him off. It's best to just have MK leave for the fight, then re-enter after Gigant Edge dies.
5:45 - Neat strat for getting the energy sphere; could've been a bit faster but whatever :P
6:24 - Drop down on the right of the ladder, hold right to get closer to the wall before you land and fire spin; you'll spin through the cannon and not have to land first to do burning. Then for the second cannon, drop down on the left of the ladder and do a burning as you land (fire spin doesn't give you enough distance to completely bypass that cannon)
8:07 - Oof, I saw what you were doing here... Good strat, too bad it didn't go the way you expected :/
8:52 - Another example where MK should just slide attack instead of fly
9:22 - HAL room? I don't think the detour is worth it for 100%, especially since you have to lose wing in that same level anyways, and you only get to take advantage of condor head in one room (again, condor head is worthless with cinvincible candy, so it's useless in that room); definitely not worth it. I'd keep fire.
10:34 - Same idea here, have MK swap out for another Kirby to take Monster Flame, then Pink Kirby can simply burning over everything.
11:23 - Yeah, this section, you want to suck in the two gray blocks and the giant spider, so you can clear everything really quickly (it doesn't take too much time). It's better than what you're doing, as Kirby can merely spam slide attacks while following the star. With your strat, all Kirby can do is run right behind MK, and MK flying is slower than slide attacks.
11:57 - Spark > Leaf for sure. And with Leaf strats, you're better off using Leaf Rain instead of Leaf Upper (watch my Leaf true arena run), but spark is still faster. I'm not sure if it's faster to just have Kirby go solo Spark, but one strat you can do is, charge up a spark wave, fire it as the Sphere Doomer appears, then while Kirby charges again, MK uses shuttle loop twice. This should make the sphere doomer enter the background, then Kirby can spark wave it as it leaves, then spark wave it one more time as it returns. I'm not sure if this would work, due to damage scaling... Seeing as solo Kirby can instantly force the Sphere Doomer into the background and finish it just as it re-enters the stage (whereas in your strat, it had a change to 'laugh' before entering the background)
12:11 - slide attack here, it's just so much faster.
12:21 - here too

All right whispy woods. This is probably one of few bosses where I do think co-op is faster than solo, but not with the strats you use. At the start, yes, Kirby should breath away and start up inferno while MK attacks. But MK should use his spin attack since it's his best DPS on ground. Then MK should back off when inferno is activated.

2nd phase, GET SOMEONE SUCKED IN. DO NOT DODGE HIS SUCKING ATTACK. He takes half damage while sucking, and in solo, it's literally faster to get sucked in and get spat out, just to cut off his half-damage frames on the spot. The opportunities are even better for co-op. Get someone (I'd say MK) sucked in, [b]keep MK inside whispy woods[/b] while Kirby uses inferno; this should deal full damage and finish him off, as he won't do anything else except chew on MK.

I like the overall co-op strats you guys utilize, especially getting the keys & energy spheres! I highly recommend watching my 100% test run, as a lot of it is very applicable to the co-op run. Watch yoshifan's stream as well, he's been following my strats and improving minor route changes as well. Will watch the rest later on!

Edit: I also watched the bosses overall...

Mr. Dooter: Neat use of inferno at the start! At phase 2, though, it's probably best to kick out MK, land one inferno hit as he lands on you, then shoot stars each time he lands (remember, it's stronger to shoot stars while running or jumping out of a run). It's stronger than anything Kirby/MK can do while he hops around (except inferno... but you just lost fire), and ideally, you'd finish him off just as he finishes jumping around.

Fatty Puffer: Kirby should go solo again, and use parasol. Parasol has the best ground damage output in the game, period. It beats even hammer, ninja, and wing. You can see a near perfect parasol fight here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4ouNmr7JY#t=23m21s

Goriath: Again, Kirby should go solo again, this time with ninja; Quad Shocks are very mobile, very spammable, incredibly powerful, and leave little room for the partner to help much in the middle, meaning MK wouldn't do much except be a liability because of damage scaling. MK can probably land about 1-2 shuttle loops in the entire fight between quad shocks, but I'm sure it's not worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNQnOWYcaEs#t=22m02s

Grand Doomer: Just watch this, and go solo. Not perfect, but gives a general idea of what kirby should do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXJfFBHtr1E#t=20m13s

I like the carry wing around strat; I do it against Magolor Soul in my test run (I didn't know about it at the time when I recorded world 5 though, to use it against Grand Doomer). Very convenient to have MK around during the ultra sword sequence.

Reaif

2012-03-05 04:39:13 pm

Hey thanks for the feedback! I haven't had a chance to go over your videos yet, but I'll try to have a look at them after work. I look forward to improving current times by quite a bit and the strategies you suggested seem quite solid.

kirbymastah

Edit history:

kirbymastah: 2012-03-16 09:49:00 pm

kirbymastah: 2012-03-16 09:45:58 pm

2012-03-16 09:43:59 pm

<(^_^)>

Kinda forgot about watching this, so I watched world 2 and 3... Be ready, there’s a lot I have to say =P

General:
1. This may be a visual illusion, but I’m pretty sure it gives you more overall speed to use burning / wave surf / condor head (or any other horizontal-boosting ability) along a slope on the ground; I notice this because you seem to avoid this intentionally, and instead want to jump up and burning past the slope (rather than hug it). This means if you’re about to go up a slope, you should NOT jump, and just hug the slope. I think this is because horizontal velocity stays at maximum whereas vertical increases, increasing total speed (but not really the cast for juts running up a slope). I think it’s the opposite if you’re hugging a downward-sloping ceiling, where vertical velocity decreases, thus you slow down a bit, so avoid this. Examples of hugging a rising slope is using burning right off the bat when you enter world 2’s map, and at the start of 2-1 (where you jump and burning instead)
2. You don’t ‘lose speed’ for swimming diagonally. As in, if you swim diagonally, you still have full horizontal & vertical velocity, so you should swim diagonally as much as possible; on another note, this means if dodging an enemy requires you to swim diagonally, it’s better to dodge it than kill it.
3. There’s a useful technique in World 3 that I’d like to call ‘Surface-Cancel Tornado’ or whatever. Tornado’s used a lot in World 3, and if it weren’t for the lag, it’s probably the fastest ability horizontally in the game. In world 3, you can cancel this lag by landing in the water before the lagging starts, and immediately start another tornado. You can do this at any time before tornado ends, during the spinning, but it’s ideal to do it as little as possible, so you always want to dip into the surface just before the lag starts. (just like what you did at 36:10) This is also probably obvious, but for very short distances, use tornado dash, don’t use tornado attack. Finally, I can’t think of a single scenario where you don’t want to use hyper tornado at the end of tornado attack; it has about as much lag as tornado attack (meaning it doesn’t cost you anything compared to tornado attack), it’s a very powerful attack, and you can move a little more during hyper tornado (whereas you can’t at the end of a normal tornado attack)
4. Water levels, generally using Waddle Dee is better; spear is fast and kills enemies without stopping your movement at all. Plus there’re hardly any areas where flying with MK is more advantageous than what Pink Kirby has. Finally, it eliminates the need for Kirby to ever get spear in the entire game.

World 2
15:49 – when you enter this room, before even landing, do a fire spin and hold right so you’ll land by the energy sphere. There’s a chance you may just barely miss the land, so be aware of this and be ready to float (so you won’t just fall to your death)
16:24 – unfortunate about losing fire; if you made a mistake and are about to hit a boulder, a last-ditch thing you can do is defend; you won’t lose your ability like this
16:40 – I think it’s worth resetting in this room if you lose fire, since you definitely lose a good chunk of time by losing it. And keeping fire isn’t too difficult either; you can use my strat in my test run, and if anything, you can camp the second set of boulders on the platform above.
16:58 – Another invincible candy section, use slide attack as much as you can! Especially in the net room with the parasol waddle dees; you can squeeze in five insanely fast slide attacks at the start in here!
17:50 – Yeah, this is another reason why keeping fire is so crucial, and IMO worth resetting if you lose it in the boulder section; you can forego hammer and grab the energy sphere with burning, thus allowing you to pwn the first part of the next level with moar burnings
18:35 – Again, faster to use burning than fly with metaknight, but abilityless metaknight would be faster and easier; it’s good you got water =)
18:59 – You can just surf over this gap & cactus
19:51 – You don’t have to kill the first water enemy. You don’t have to kill the second one either; this is a case of general point #2, where you can just dip towards the ground and you won’t lose any speed nor get hit. The third one, you DO have to kill though (or otherwise wait)
20:45 – You can make it past the first fire-breathing statue by jumping up the ladder, like I mentioned in my general tips for world 1; it’s also probably better for MK to carry Kirby for this section
21:10 – Oh… you do jump up the ladders here ^^;
21:35 – Great area for MK to carry Kirby, a good spot where co-op is faster and easier than solo
22:17 – Parasol it, and make MK leave. If MK stays in, at the very least use shuttle loop in the gaps where parasol doesn’t hit (but parasol hits pretty much all the time, so… MK is useless with parasol strats). Parasol is even more important because it significantly speeds up the third screen of 2-3.
23:30 – Just have MK carry Kirby from the very start; it’s easier to do so, and you don’t gain any time by traveling horizontal distance with abilityless Kirby. And just fly straight up and right, diagonally; don’t bother wasting time hovering at the same height
23:42 – Jump up ladders when you can, as usual; faster than flying
23:50 – this room is tough. In this room, since you’re covering lots of horizontal ground, parasol > MK. Parasol lets you make it consistently before that round of moving ground. Watch my test run for this room’s strat. Because you’re doing it co-op, you can make it even faster by subbing MK for another Kirby, and have that Kirby suck that gray block out of the way instead of player 1. Still, I’m sure you can make it with the MK strat since he messed up for half a second, but IMO using the parasol strat leaves more room for error, as you can see in my run since I messed up for about 1.5 seconds.
24:18 – On the other hand, THIS is very nice. I like seeing Kirby on the top with MK getting the energy sphere; and yes, you can definitely make that door before the ground blocks you, especially if you used parasol in the first half =)
24:31 – Kirby can barely outspeed MK and wing vertically with hi-jump. At the very end of every jump, you want to puff up then unpuff; this is faster than the lag from hi-jump and also allows you to do your next jump at the same height (unlike normally, where you lose about two blocks of height each time)
24:46 – This is pretty nice use, using the hi-jumper to get to King Doo really quickly while the other Kirby grabs fire. Here’s a small route change I suggest: with Solo Fire Kirby, you can do inferno to the right of King Doo and finish him before he even attacks (which is what yellow Kirby was trying to do), but you can’t in co-op due to damage scaling. I think what would be faster is, before King Doo spawns, have yellow Kirby face left and ditch his ability; pink Kirby ditch his ability too, but away from the fire ability so they won’t both get sucked in simultaneously. Then Yellow Kirby LEAVE to get rid of damage-scaling, pink Kirby get fire, and finish King Doo with that inferno to his right. After King Doo dies, respawn Yellow Kirby to eat King Doo while Pink Kirby ditches fire and eats the still-bouncing Hi-Jump. I think this is very doable, with some practice, though it’ll be tough.

25:29 – Awww, I saw what you were trying to do X_X good idea, too bad it failed =/
26:09 – NICE. This section is tough with solo Kirby, but much easier with co-op as you’ve shown =)
27:50 – Water Galboros was very good, probably one of the few times I would not suggesting going solo in a fight. Again, definitely better for MK to do shuttle loop instead of normal slashes after Kirby gets hit, but whatever, still a good fight
28:25 – Whoever’s carrying the crystal (MK in this case) can make the jump from the pillar to the higher platform; faster than dropping to the ground, but it’s a tough jump to make. Also, lol at the bat XD
29:07 – It’s faster to just float underneath than cut down the platform. Yes, cutting stuff with Ultra Sword actually only uses up about 2-3 seconds each, since you always have to go through the long initial animation anyways, but in this section, it’s faster to never cut anything down besides unlocking the rift
29:22 – You don’t need to actually kill those gray spheres. Kirby damages things by just jumping from underneath, so he can safely just jump to the ledge above without getting hurt =)
29:35 – Don’t need to cut this either. I thought it was faster to cut it, and yoshifan suggested defending the cannon; I thought my method was faster, but after trying out defending the fireball, it’s definitely a smidge faster to just go down and block it.
29:40 – Cut this before you down the ladder
29:54 – MKing this section makes it so much easier; very solid run of this. You can try to be balls-y and try to fly BETWEEN cannonballs, and it’s pretty fast and flashy, but again it’s really difficult…
30:45 – good, you’re not actually using sword/cutter. Solo Kirby can kill this sphere doomer by whenhe flies from the background with merely shooting stars, but I’m sure an ideal co-op run can make this a bit faster.

World 3
36:58 – SNOW BOWL. BEST ULTRA ABILITY IN THE GAME. You seem to get the general gist of using it, and made some good jumps =) Like you probably tried to do, you want to jump over enemies as much as possible while rolling. Also, I’m pretty sure if you don’t break your snowball after a dash, your next dash will be slower, so it’s usually probably better to break the snowball after each dash. This doesn’t seem like the case when you dashed into the sand castle with the rift though…
38:25 – Very solid rift run, and MK was quite useful here
39:00 – You definitely want to use Hyper Tornado (the waggle attack) since that’s where Tornado gets MAJOR DPS from against the sphere doomer. You can also tornado STRAIGHT INTO the portal after finishing the sphere doomer, with some sexy bouncing-off-walls, but it’s very hard to do; at least you have flying MK to back you up
40:02 – Tornado dash into the next level
40:06 – Just drop down from where you start and hold right; this is faster than pretty much anything else you can do
40:56 – MK, get outta here. Tornado Kirby can do a well-timed tornado-attack -> hyper tornado combo on Kibble Blade, leaving it with just enough HP to finish it off with a tornado dash. Obviously you can’t do this co-op.
41:18 – Clutch here; very good
41:50 – Watch my strat in my test run (at 7:30) with spear to get the energy sphere pretty quickly without getting hit; I’m sure it applies to waddle dee too
42:37 – You can skip jumping on one of the enemies here by just jumping REALLY far; it’s probably very risky and clutch, but I’ve never missed it before, so… worth a try
43:26 – Use waddle dee to poke the stone blocks through the walls on the left side. It’s faster and safer, especially since Kirby can maneuver towards it at the same time.
44:50 – If you get the switch really quickly at the start of this room, you can BARELY make the first spike trap, saving quite a bit of time. Again, it’s probably quite risky and clutch, but out of the times I’ve tried, I never missed… it’s probably easier in co-op since you can have the partner get the switch more quickly than in solo
46:18 – Yeah, I wonder if a second Kirby would be faster. Chances are, it probably is since pink Kirby can use fire to get to the door in the same room, but it really wouldn’t save much time at all since, like you said while playing, it’s mostly sea.
46:50 – You can just slide-attack under this squid, since it’ll always hop over you
48:14 – Actually, yeah, if another Kirby had normal fire, he’d be able to grab monster flame while Pink Kirby uses normal fire to burn through half of these statues. You can’t burning through the ones on the upwards/downwards stairs though… And don’t bother with using monster flame to destroy statues, you’re better off just tanking them and running
49:30 – Waddle Dee would be super helpful here =) But yeah, I hate this rift area
50:18 – Parasol please. It’s even more useful since it significantly speeds up the vertical water areas in the next level
51:35 – Parasol drill this underwater section all the way
52:02 – Parasol drill this underwater section all the way
52:20 – Yep, it probably is faster for Waddle Dee to tank the spikes and skip waiting for it to rotate (especially since Waddle Dee loses no speed while attacking, and has much more range)
52:50 – With parasol, you can start drilling right here and drill through all of the spikes here
53:40 – I’m not sure if it’s faster to get the invincible candy solo, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be faster co-op, since you don’t have to waste time leaving the room with the candy, due to co-op epicness. With solo, I can’t make the next room without the candy running out, but I’m sure you guys can with co-op because of the seconds you save by skipping going back to the doors for both the candy and energy sphere rooms; as a result, you can just tank through the spike balls in the next room while still invincible. I haven’t tested this yet though, but definitely try it out!
54:50 – Yep, I’m sure it’s faster to use king dedede =)
55:15 – Ideally you’d still have parasol at this point, IMO; parasol would speed up the horizontal sections of this room

All right, links to worlds 2 & 3 for my test run are below =)
World 2:

World 3:

From what I've seen, it's a pretty decent run. There are lots of general things you don't use (slide-attack, sloping, etc), but the actual routes that take advantage of co-op (the important part) are overall pretty solid, and I'm very impressed with them :); I especially liked the co-op strat for using hi-jump and the strat for the energy spheres in 2-3! I will watch the rest later!

Kinda forgot about watching this, so I watched world 2 and 3... Be ready, there’s a lot I have to say =P

General:
1. This may be a visual illusion, but I’m pretty sure it gives you more overall speed to use burning / wave surf / condor head (or any other horizontal-boosting ability) along a slope on the ground; I notice this because you seem to avoid this intentionally, and instead want to jump up and burning past the slope (rather than hug it). This means if you’re about to go up a slope, you should NOT jump, and just hug the slope. I think this is because horizontal velocity stays at maximum whereas vertical increases, increasing total speed (but not really the cast for juts running up a slope). I think it’s the opposite if you’re hugging a downward-sloping ceiling, where vertical velocity decreases, thus you slow down a bit, so avoid this. Examples of hugging a rising slope is using burning right off the bat when you enter world 2’s map, and at the start of 2-1 (where you jump and burning instead)
2. You don’t ‘lose speed’ for swimming diagonally. As in, if you swim diagonally, you still have full horizontal & vertical velocity, so you should swim diagonally as much as possible; on another note, this means if dodging an enemy requires you to swim diagonally, it’s better to dodge it than kill it.
3. There’s a useful technique in World 3 that I’d like to call ‘Surface-Cancel Tornado’ or whatever. Tornado’s used a lot in World 3, and if it weren’t for the lag, it’s probably the fastest ability horizontally in the game. In world 3, you can cancel this lag by landing in the water before the lagging starts, and immediately start another tornado. You can do this at any time before tornado ends, during the spinning, but it’s ideal to do it as little as possible, so you always want to dip into the surface just before the lag starts. (just like what you did at 36:10) This is also probably obvious, but for very short distances, use tornado dash, don’t use tornado attack. Finally, I can’t think of a single scenario where you don’t want to use hyper tornado at the end of tornado attack; it has about as much lag as tornado attack (meaning it doesn’t cost you anything compared to tornado attack), it’s a very powerful attack, and you can move a little more during hyper tornado (whereas you can’t at the end of a normal tornado attack)
4. Water levels, generally using Waddle Dee is better; spear is fast and kills enemies without stopping your movement at all. Plus there’re hardly any areas where flying with MK is more advantageous than what Pink Kirby has. Finally, it eliminates the need for Kirby to ever get spear in the entire game.

World 2
15:49 – when you enter this room, before even landing, do a fire spin and hold right so you’ll land by the energy sphere. There’s a chance you may just barely miss the land, so be aware of this and be ready to float (so you won’t just fall to your death)
16:24 – unfortunate about losing fire; if you made a mistake and are about to hit a boulder, a last-ditch thing you can do is defend; you won’t lose your ability like this
16:40 – I think it’s worth resetting in this room if you lose fire, since you definitely lose a good chunk of time by losing it. And keeping fire isn’t too difficult either; you can use my strat in my test run, and  if anything, you can camp the second set of boulders on the platform above.
16:58 – Another invincible candy section, use slide attack as much as you can! Especially in the net room with the parasol waddle dees; you can squeeze in five insanely fast slide attacks at the start in here! 
17:50 – Yeah, this is another reason why keeping fire is so crucial, and IMO worth resetting if you lose it in the boulder section; you can forego hammer and grab the energy sphere with burning, thus allowing you to pwn the first part of the next level with moar burnings
18:35 – Again, faster to use burning than fly with metaknight, but abilityless metaknight would be faster and easier; it’s good you got water =)
18:59 – You can just surf over this gap & cactus
19:51 – You don’t have to kill the first water enemy. You don’t have to kill the second one either; this is a case of general point #2, where you can just dip towards the ground and you won’t lose any speed nor get hit. The third one, you DO have to kill though (or otherwise wait)
20:45 – You can make it past the first fire-breathing statue by jumping up the ladder, like I mentioned in my general tips for world 1; it’s also probably better for MK to carry Kirby for this section
21:10 – Oh… you do jump up the ladders here ^^;
21:35 – Great area for MK to carry Kirby, a good spot where co-op is faster and easier than solo
22:17 – Parasol it, and make MK leave. If MK stays in, at the very least use shuttle loop in the gaps where parasol doesn’t hit (but parasol hits pretty much all the time, so… MK is useless with parasol strats). Parasol is even more important because it significantly speeds up the third screen of 2-3.
23:30 – Just have MK carry Kirby from the very start; it’s easier to do so, and you don’t gain any time by traveling horizontal distance with abilityless Kirby. And just fly straight up and right, diagonally; don’t bother wasting time hovering at the same height
23:42 – Jump up ladders when you can, as usual; faster than flying
23:50 – this room is tough. In this room, since you’re covering lots of horizontal ground, parasol > MK. Parasol lets you make it consistently before that round of moving ground. Watch my test run for this room’s strat. Because you’re doing it co-op, you can make it even faster by subbing MK for another Kirby, and have that Kirby suck that gray block out of the way instead of player 1. Still, I’m sure you can make it with the MK strat since he messed up for half a second, but IMO using the parasol strat leaves more room for error, as you can see in my run since I messed up for about 1.5 seconds.
 24:18 – On the other hand, THIS is very nice. I like seeing Kirby on the top with MK getting the energy sphere; and yes, you can definitely make that door before the ground blocks you, especially if you used parasol in the first half =)
24:31 – Kirby can barely outspeed MK and wing vertically with hi-jump. At the very end of every jump, you want to puff up then unpuff; this is faster than the lag from hi-jump and also allows you to do your next jump at the same height (unlike normally, where you lose about two blocks of height each time)
24:46 – This is pretty nice use, using the hi-jumper to get to King Doo really quickly while the other Kirby grabs fire. [b]Here’s a small route change I suggest:[/b] with Solo Fire Kirby, you can do inferno to the right of King Doo and finish him before he even attacks (which is what yellow Kirby was trying to do), but you can’t in co-op due to damage scaling. I think what would be faster is, before King Doo spawns, have yellow Kirby face left and ditch his ability; pink Kirby ditch his ability too, but away from the fire ability so they won’t both get sucked in simultaneously. Then Yellow Kirby LEAVE to get rid of damage-scaling, pink Kirby get fire, and finish King Doo with that inferno to his right. After King Doo dies, respawn Yellow Kirby to eat King Doo while Pink Kirby ditches fire and eats the still-bouncing Hi-Jump. I think this is very doable, with some practice, though it’ll be tough.

25:29 – Awww, I saw what you were trying to do X_X good idea, too bad it failed =/
26:09 – NICE. This section is tough with solo Kirby, but much easier with co-op as you’ve shown =)
27:50 – Water Galboros was very good, probably one of the few times I would not suggesting going solo in a fight. Again, definitely better for MK to do shuttle loop instead of normal slashes after Kirby gets hit, but whatever, still a good fight
28:25 – Whoever’s carrying the crystal (MK in this case) can make the jump from the pillar to the higher platform; faster than dropping to the ground, but it’s a tough jump to make. Also, lol at the bat XD
29:07 – It’s faster to just float underneath than cut down the platform. Yes, cutting stuff with Ultra Sword actually only uses up about 2-3 seconds each, since you always have to go through the long initial animation anyways, but in this section, it’s faster to never cut anything down besides unlocking the rift
29:22 – You don’t need to actually kill those gray spheres. Kirby damages things by just jumping from underneath, so he can safely just jump to the ledge above without getting hurt =)
29:35 – Don’t need to cut this either. I thought it was faster to cut it, and yoshifan suggested defending the cannon; I thought my method was faster, but after trying out defending the fireball, it’s definitely a smidge faster to just go down and block it.
29:40 – Cut this before you down the ladder
29:54 – MKing this section makes it so much easier; very solid run of this. You can try to be balls-y and try to fly BETWEEN cannonballs, and it’s pretty fast and flashy, but again it’s really difficult…
30:45 – good, you’re not actually using sword/cutter. Solo Kirby can kill this sphere doomer by whenhe flies from the background with merely shooting stars, but I’m sure an ideal co-op run can make this a bit faster.

World 3
36:58 – SNOW BOWL. BEST ULTRA ABILITY IN THE GAME. You seem to get the general gist of using it, and made some good jumps =) Like you probably tried to do, you want to jump over enemies as much as possible while rolling. Also, I’m pretty sure if you don’t break your snowball after a dash, your next dash will be slower, so it’s usually probably better to break the snowball after each dash. This doesn’t seem like the case when you dashed into the sand castle with the rift though…
38:25 – Very solid rift run, and MK was quite useful here
39:00 – You definitely want to use Hyper Tornado (the waggle attack) since that’s where Tornado gets MAJOR DPS from against the sphere doomer. You can also tornado STRAIGHT INTO the portal after finishing the sphere doomer, with some sexy bouncing-off-walls, but it’s very hard to do; at least you have flying MK to back you up
40:02 – Tornado dash into the next level
40:06 – Just drop down from where you start and hold right; this is faster than pretty much anything else you can do
40:56 – MK, get outta here. Tornado Kirby can do a well-timed tornado-attack -> hyper tornado combo on Kibble Blade, leaving it with just enough HP to finish it off with a tornado dash. Obviously you can’t do this co-op.
41:18 – Clutch here; very good
41:50 – Watch my strat in my test run (at 7:30) with spear to get the energy sphere pretty quickly without getting hit; I’m sure it applies to waddle dee too
42:37 – You can skip jumping on one of the enemies here by just jumping REALLY far; it’s probably very risky and clutch, but I’ve never missed it before, so… worth a try
43:26 – Use waddle dee to poke the stone blocks through the walls on the left side. It’s faster and safer, especially since Kirby can maneuver towards it at the same time.
44:50 – If you get the switch really quickly at the start of this room, you can BARELY make the first spike trap, saving quite a bit of time. Again, it’s probably quite risky and clutch, but out of the times I’ve tried, I never missed… it’s probably easier in co-op since you can have the partner get the switch more quickly than in solo
46:18 – Yeah, I wonder if a second Kirby would be faster. Chances are, it probably is since pink Kirby can use fire to get to the door in the same room, but it really wouldn’t save much time at all since, like you said while playing, it’s mostly sea.
46:50 – You can just slide-attack under this squid, since it’ll always hop over you
48:14 – Actually, yeah, if another Kirby had normal fire, he’d be able to grab monster flame while Pink Kirby uses normal fire to burn through half of these statues. You can’t burning through the ones on the upwards/downwards stairs though… And don’t bother with using monster flame to destroy statues, you’re better off just tanking them and running
49:30 – Waddle Dee would be super helpful here =) But yeah, I hate this rift area
50:18 – Parasol please. It’s even more useful since it significantly speeds up the vertical water areas in the next level 
51:35 – Parasol drill this underwater section all the way
52:02 – Parasol drill this underwater section all the way
52:20 – Yep, it probably is faster for Waddle Dee to tank the spikes and skip waiting for it to rotate (especially since Waddle Dee loses no speed while attacking, and has much more range)
52:50 – With parasol, you can start drilling right here and drill through all of the spikes here
53:40 – [b]I’m not sure if it’s faster to get the invincible candy solo, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be faster co-op, since you don’t have to waste time leaving the room with the candy, due to co-op epicness[/b]. With solo, I can’t make the next room without the candy running out, but I’m sure you guys can with co-op because of the seconds you save by skipping going back to the doors for both the candy and energy sphere rooms; as a result, you can just tank through the spike balls in the next room while still invincible. I haven’t tested this yet though, but definitely try it out! 
54:50 – Yep, I’m sure it’s faster to use king dedede =)
55:15 – Ideally you’d still have parasol at this point, IMO; parasol would speed up the horizontal sections of this room

All right, links to worlds 2 & 3 for my test run are below =)
World 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSr8h79rr4

World 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4ouNmr7JY

From what I've seen, it's a pretty decent run. There are lots of general things you don't use (slide-attack, sloping, etc), but the actual routes that take advantage of co-op (the important part) are overall pretty solid, and I'm very impressed with them :); I especially liked the co-op strat for using hi-jump and the strat for the energy spheres in 2-3! I will watch the rest later!

SDA Forum Index -> Planning -> Newer Consoles -> Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Wii) co-op