Speedrun Tech/Glitches

[Catastrophe]

I don't plan on speedrunning this game. But I found some neat things that might help anyone who wants to try.

1. The "shotgun fly" glitch from the demo is still in the game. I don't know what Inti tried to do to patch it, but now it simply needs double jump. Or more exactly: you can gain infinite height with the shotgun as long as you still have a mid-air jump to use. The timing on repeated climbs is somewhat precise.

2. The shortcut after the first boss that leads back to the room with the lever and the demonglyph can be broken from the front. This requires a charged attack with Masha's whip. (And a yellow seed,) I have tested a lot of other breakable walls with various weapons and I haven't yet found a second location where this is possible. Thanks to this you can enter the boss fight from the right side. (And get Sophis' soul.) This is not only faster, but it saves two whole demonglyphs that can be used elsewhere!

3. If you're playing on casual mode then the bonus maximum HP does not seem to be accounted for in various calculations. For example the Perfection "badge" gives you a huge +15 ATK while you're at full HP. But "Full HP" for level 2 should be 100. So if casual mode has you boosted to 300 HP, even if you take damage down to 200, then the Perfection bonus will still be active. Related, health pickups may fail on casual mode for this reason too.

By combining glitches 1 and 2 you can go to the desert, the ice world, and even the fire world whenever you want. I reached them all immediately after defeating the first boss while I was still level 2. And if had I brought an ice seed into the fire world then I may have even reached the Dead Sea. The only place I needed a +1 Ammo subweapon was while crossing the large water/spike/water/spike/water area just before the hot springs. Every other skip I performed with 60 ammo.

The two demonglyphs saved by glitch #2 are probably best spent on the door that leads to the ice world. There, in a chest off to the left side in a long vertical drop, is a Cerebus subweapon. This can break stone walls. Now you can sequence break into the desert and caves from the wrong side. Yay!

I think the speedrun will be very dynamic. The only thing that seems to be required to beat the game is PURPLE PUNCH. And PURPLE PUNCH is learned by leveling up. I respect the bold decision by the devs to put key progression items in level ups instead of on the map. Usually in a metroidvania you'll find a new area of the map, get double jump, use that to find a new biome, get super missiles, then behind a super missile door is soul of bat, etc whatever. But in this game the player is control of the direction and the pacing. Everything is optional yet most of it is required?

Of course now that I've talked about sequence breaks I'm sure Inti is going to patch them out. The demo taught me that they hate fun. Given the mid review scores this game seems to be getting a launch, I think they should embrace it all: low level / speedrun / weird subweapon challenge / and reverse boss order. This game may be more fun to play in unintended ways than in the intended way.

[Catastrophe]

Tip for everyone: Switch your difficulty level often. Hard mode increases item drops, including bones! (Seems to be a fixed luck modifier?) So switch to hard mode while farming, then switch back to either easy or medium for exploring. There are no achievements or endings tied to the difficulty setting.

Don't even think of it as a difficulty setting. Imagine finding a devil power that said "-50% DEF, +25% LUCK". That's really what it is.

[glass]

Might as well drop this here too:

You can alternate shotgun and spear toss as long as you've dp/ammo to keep gaining height.

[Catastrophe]

^ That's a good find.

You can level up to 31 to unlock Devil Straight ("Purple Punch") with small bones only, no sequence breaks. I did it while skipping every boss and castle. (I may have killed 1 of 3 sandworms, but I don't think it was required.)

You can then trigger the barrier cutscene without meeting Zuzu. Kind of funny, but nothing really breaks or changes. Getting through the barrier still requires giving Zuzu the Demon Fruit. Which requires finding Zuzu's soul. And Zuzu's soul won't appear in the dead sea until you defeat Zuzu.

The forest boss won't fight you until you have the quest to obtain the Demon Fruit. So you can actually go through the whole puzzle, pass through the boss room, unlock the boss, leave, and save. Now when you get the quest it will be very easy.

[kailomonkey]

Originally posted by Catastrophe:

Which requires finding Zuzu's soul. And Zuzu's soul won't appear in the dead sea until you defeat Zuzu.

That's a shame. I was hoping for a different cutscene if you kept Zuzu alive. I guess killing and reviving her counts toward the reason she helps you...

Originally posted by Catastrophe:

You can level up to 31 to unlock Devil Straight ("Purple Punch") with small bones only.

Nice I was going to test this myself. That's great! Can save all the bosses ready to battle in one save.

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I haven't managed to repeat it but I accidentally stunlocked Lysa with bullets when she should have been exiting her pole dance routine. It was during her second fight but it might be possible later too and worth looking into? I had a lot of ammo+ so the small damage was still enough to tear through her while still trapped.

[ZerowingX]

That a guy host this game speedrun skip 3 worms , demon hunters and lysa boss .
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1yUdWYXEzQ/?spm_id_from=333.1387.homepage.video_card.click&vd_source=23270e0ab6c53f7107c5069f5c321b0c

[MissZay]

possible sequence break https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wbkfFjRCBw

using demon dash against the wall you can clip out, having the minimap open made it 100% consistent for me but even without it I was still able to get out by repeatedly doing short jumps
once you go through the wall you want to keep moving left or you will end up in the demon hunter boss room, after that you want to move right after you see the glitchy blue textures on the right, when you hear the area music play again and you see a blue bar on the right it means you're right next to the big vertical shaft, you want to stay far enough away from it so that you don't enter the screen transition, if you do it correctly you will keep moving through the horizontal corridor below without it loading, then you move to the right again and you will see a blue texture, at that point double jump/dash to the right and you'll be able to clip in that room below the corridor that has 3 chests in it
you can get to many different rooms using this but the game still considers you as being in the room you clipped out of so any screen transition will send you back to that room's exits

e/ seems like there are more places where you can do this

[Svintoo]

The barriers can be jumped over. Purple punch is not needed.
Jump up outside the screen and you can get to the other side of a barrier.

I found this out by accident. I reached the castle boss without disabling the barriers first.

[Catastrophe]

Can you describe what you did to jump over the barrier? I definitely tried a few times with multiple jumps and a bit of shotgun flying. I wanted that skip to work most of all but maybe I gave up too early?

[Svintoo]

Not sure how to describe it better. I just did normal jumps until the character got high enough so they disappeared above the screen (I may have switched character in the air to get more jumps). At that point I could just move the character to the other side of the barrier and fall down.

Take note that I only did this with the barrier just before the castle fight. I then just assumed it could be done for any barrier.

[My Desulator Can't Be This Cute!]

The Demon Dash instan kills the last maid boss

[Rocket2049]

Originally posted by My Desulator Can't Be This Cute!:

The Demon Dash instan kills the last maid boss

LOL what? seriously?
i love this thread, i knew sequence breaks could happen but all i focused on was the 2 players jumping off each other (infinitely if you practice it enough)
but jesus i went to desert way too early and died in 2 hits, on casual lol.