To the Top of the Fortress

To the Top of the Fortress
Star Info
Course	WF
Height Above Ground	225
Course Records
TAS World Record	10.30
RTA World Record	12.11 (12.00 IGT)
ABC Minimum	0
ABZ Minimum	2

For a tutorial on speedrunning this star, see the RTA Guide

To the Top of the Fortress is the second mission of Whomp's Fortress. To complete it, Mario must travel up the level and climb up the moving platforms around the tower to reach the Power Star located at the top of the tower. The tower will replace King Whomp in every star except the first star.

A Button Challenge

The star can be done TAS in 0 A presses. The TAS WR does this star with the 100 coin star. The difficult part was getting onto the first tower platform, which was too high for an easy method. The original method of getting onto the bottom platform was rather complex.

The reason for collecting the 100 coin star with this star is because a huge time save which involves getting on top of the bullet bill blaster requires a star dance clip. Before entering the course, Mario uses the penguin in CCM to set a HOLP. Mario begins by going around the course, collecting coins. Because the rotating bridge is in a bad position when Mario approaches it, the coins there can't be collected as it is too slow. Instead, Mario collects the coin ring above the Shoot Into the Wild Blue star and bounces down with a slide kick onto the blue coin block.

After reaching 99 coins, he dives from the rotating islands to the bottom of the course. This fall is just high enough to give him large fall damage. While performing a pause buffered hitstun, Mario throws a cork box remotely, utilizing the preset HOLP. In an ideal situation, Mario would be able to get on the elevator by using a misalignment, but the misalignment only appears on one elevator, which is unfortunately in the air at the time Mario arrives. This makes the situation very tricky as there is a limited amount of time before the coin despawns. When Mario reaches the top of the elevator, he heads to the bullet bill blaster, and creates a 100 coin star from the Cork Box's coins, and does a star dance clip onto the top. Mario dive grinds to build speed, and does a dive recover to get onto the tower platforms. From here, he climbs up the tower and collects the star.

Original Strategy

Mario first enters Bob Omb Battlefield, and constructs a goomba staircase off the side of the mountain in order to set a HOLP at a precise spot. Mario then enters Whomp's Fortress, and collects 99 coins. He then throws a cork box using the hat in hand glitch. The box is released mid air and it lands on the base of the tower. Mario then can spawn a 100 coin star in a specific spot.

Mario takes a second cork box onto the top of the level. He then remotely releases it, and stores vertical speed on the elevator as it flips around. The box then pushes mario off, which activates his vertical speed, while at the same time giving Mario horizontal speed. Combined with a star dance clip, this is enough to bring mario to the top of the platform. From here, Mario can climb the tower and collect the star.

TAS History

To the Top of the Fortress History

Date	Time	Improvement (Frames)	Improvement Author(s)	Save Description/Notes
Nov 16, 2005	15.67		spezzafer
Summer 2006	15.36	9	Rikku
May 5, 2007	14.93	13	Rikku
Jan 2, 2009	13.07	56	MrRobertZ
Before Jun 16, 2010	12.57	15	MrRobertZ, 24BrianRulez24	(Run has been lost)
May 15, 2009	12.50	2	Kymario514	(Run has been lost)
Jun 16, 2010	12.47	1	Nahoc
Aug 28, 2010	12.13	10	mickeys11189	(Run has been lost)
Aug 28, 2010	12.10	1	mickeys11189	(Run has been lost)
Sep 6, 2010	10.97	34	snark, mamunine
Jun 18, 2011	10.67	9	Nahoc
Sep 13, 2012	10.57	3	Efrain, snark
Nov 19, 2012	10.33	7	Nothing693, snark
Jul 17, 2020	10.30	1	Manama
Jan 30, 2023	10.27	1	Crackhex
May 5, 2023	10.13	4	Krithalith

TAS Strategy

This star was one of the earliest to be TASsed. Mario began by heading up the ramp onto the bricks and triple jumping off the slope to reach the tower. A large portion of the tower can be skipped by side flipping and wall kicking directly onto the elevator platform. The sideflip evolved into a triple jump, getting onto the elevator platform in one jump without any ledge grab. Overtime, more movent optimisations were made.

The current strategy starts with mario performing a Glitchy Wall Kick to get onto the ramp. He then performs a jump dive and slides down the side of the ramp, and jumps to the brick ramp infront of him. He kicks to maintain speed and then jumps to the falling blocks and wall kicks to the top. Mario then does a triple jump, starting with a kick to maintain more speed, off of the first platform, followed by a wall kick to get directly onto the top of the tower.