Speedrunner Stupca
World Records Held: Any% (35M 30S)
Speedrunning hopefuls should get very familiar with Jet. This single Copy Ability allows players to blast through or outright circumvent entire sections of the game, including bosses! There are two categories of runs, 100% and Any%, though both exclude the Megaton Punch and Samurai Kirby mini-games. To illustrate the difference between the two categories, every treasure in The Great Cave Offensive can be collected in roughly 22 minutes for 100%, or that game can simply be beat in under five minutes for Any%.
Kirby Super Star world record holder Stupca started running the game in July of 2015. “I was looking for a game similar to Mega Man X that wasn’t part of the X series but still had a dash-like mechanic. I saw [another speedrunner] using the Jet ability to dash around the game in a lot of cool ways. Immediately I wanted to try it myself.” Stupca started practicing by watching the top runs at the time and trying to mimic them, using online tutorials to figure out tricky mechanics. When there was no tutorial, he would reach out to his fellow Super Star runners for help. Now he’s at the top of the leaderboards, doling out his expertise to future Kirby Super Stars!
Basic
Jet Movement
Maneuvering with and keeping Jet is tricky. In Kirby Super Star, anything that is not open air can completely ruin a player. Anytime a wall is hit with Jet, Kirby recoils and is unable to move for a period of time, and the positioning of the room is thrown off, which can lead to more mistakes later on. Enemies have a chance to knock your ability out every time they hit you, and sometimes they can knock your ability into an unrecoverable location, which loses a lot of time.
Miniboss Skipping
Each miniboss in the game is contained inside an invisible box, which, upon entrance, spawns the miniboss and locks the screen to the box until the boss is defeated. This box only reaches as far as what you can see on screen, so by going above and past the box, you can avoid a miniboss entirely. In speedruns, this is done in most places by fully charging Jet, dashing, then jumping to go above the screen. Then, with correctly timed Y presses to perform a Jet string above the screen, the miniboss is skipped.
Miniboss Quick Killing
There are some minibosses in the game whose box you cannot avoid, so for these bosses, you perform a one-shot quick kill. Each miniboss which cannot be skipped has a weak point at the very bottom of their hitbox. These minibosses spawn in the air, so with a well-timed partner jump or full Jet charge jump, you can kill them immediately as they spawn.
Death Wheel
With the Wheel ability, if you start rolling then hold B until you hit a wall, Kirby stops but is still in a wheel state. Releasing B at this point creates the “death wheel,” an invincible wheel which damages anything upon contact. The death wheel is used in Milky Way Wishes against Heavy Lobster, and by most people against Fatty Whale.
Advanced
Mixing
In this game, there are many different Copy Abilities one can get. If you inhale an enemy, you get their ability. However, if you inhale two enemies, what’s known as the Mix Roulette starts. The roulette spins so that every ability is available for selection for 1/15 of a second before moving on to the next ability, and so on. There is no randomness involved in this process, as the roulette starts at a specific point depending on the two enemies inhaled. Learning the timings to get desired abilities takes some time, and missing a mix can end a run immediately at the highest level of play.
Dyna Blade 2 Clip
By creating an Ice or Mirror partner, you can manipulate them to hold onto Kirby, putting you in a state where you are able to go through walls. This is used to skip an autoscroller, saving a good amount of time. However, it requires a difficult mix afterward so people may choose to avoid clipping.
Expert
Pool Skip
In 100%, there is a room in Old Tower where you are supposed to create a partner, have that partner ignite a fuse to a cannon, and get into the cannon to get a treasure chest. However, also in this room, there is a Bomb Block three tiles below ground level which is intended to be used to exit the room after getting the chest. With the Mirror ability, you can perform a dashed jump, and 1/60 of a second before hitting the ground press Y to break the Block and open the way to the chest. This trick is difficult enough that the current World Record doesn’t even attempt it.
Redlining
The definition of “redlining” is to go faster than the game engine can handle, which I think is a perfect definition for this Jet technique. To redline, you must line yourself horizontally with a surface, and tap Y to get a short, quick jet out. This short movement normally wouldn’t go far, however, if you are lined up correctly, you can jump as you touch the surface and transfer the speed to the jump. This is very valuable because while you are jumping, you can still charge Jet, allowing you to get a max charge and speed through the stage. This is a relatively new technique, and currently I am the only person I know of who uses it.
