RTA Guide/70 Star

The goal of the 70 Star category is to beat the game as fast as possible without circumventing any castle door or star requirement or using any form of BLJ or MIPS Clip.

Category Rules

All forms of BLJ are banned.
All forms of MIPS Clip are banned.
Circumventing any castle door or star requirement via any other method is banned.

Recommended Routes

It is recommended, regardless of your skill level, to do some variant of the HMC Late route, which involves initially skipping HMC during basement and returning to it later as part of collecting the second MIPS star. The HMC Early routes are those that do HMC on the first (and only) trip to the basement, and so do not collect the second MIPS star.

There are three options that are usually taken in this (HMC Late) route. They are independent, but in practice usually implemented in order of increasing skill level.

Beginner: No TTC100 + CCM18 + No Island Hop
- This is the most basic route, though it is still possible to replace stars with slower and easier ones, as outlined in General Route Variations.

Intermediate: TTC100 + CCM18 + No Island Hop
- This is the de-facto standard route, most similar to 120 Star. It replaces Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins with the 100 coin star in Stomp on the Thwomp (+ 100 Coins), and is worth considering when reaching a level of consistency with the latter. This route is more consistent and typically done in races by advanced-level runners.
Advanced: TTC100 + CCM17 + No Island Hop
- This route moves the CCM 100 coin star into Slip Slidin' Away (+ 100 Coins), and then replaces Big Penguin Race with Pyramid Puzzle. This means it requires doing pillarless twice to save time, making it much more inconsistent. This route entails leaving Cool, Cool Mountain with 17 stars collected rather than 18, hence the name.
Expert: TTC100 + CCM17 + Island Hop
- Shoot to the Island in the Sky typically requires wing cap and so must be done after its unlock in Tower of the Wing Cap. At top level, a hard trick known as Island Hop can be done to finish the level without the wing cap, and so it's moved to the start of the run, with the other Bob-omb Battlefield star. This skips backtracking to Bob-omb Battlefield later on and so saves time on castle movement. Overall, it's about 5–6s faster than the advanced route.

These options will be flagged in the next section, which details the standard (HMC Late) route.

HMC Late (Standard Route)

Route Variations

This route has three standard options, ordered by increasing skill level at which they are typically taken:

No TTC100 vs With TTC100
CCM18 vs CCM17
No Island Hop vs With Island Hop

These are explained in the previous section.

Route

The square brackets "[option]" below show parts of the route that are only done on the specified route option (from the list above).

Basement 2

MIPS (second star)
- Go to HMC after MIPS, and get the Toad star before entering HMC.
HMC Toad
Hazy Maze Cave
- Swimming Beast in the Cavern
- Metal-Head Mario Can Move!
- A-Maze-ing Emergency Exit
- Watch for Rolling Rocks
- Re-enter Hazy Maze Cave and exit via the pause menu. Then, head to tippy.

Tippy

Rainbow Ride
Tippy Toad (near TTC)
Tick Tock Clock
- Stomp on the Thwomp + 100 Coins [With TTC100]
- Stomp on the Thwomp [No TTC100]
- Roll into the Cage
- The Pit and the Pendulums
- Get a Hand
- Timed Jumps on Moving Bars
- Stop Time for Red Coins
Bowser in the Sky
- Bowser in the Sky (No Reds)
- Bowser Battle 3

HMC Early (Alternative)

The HMC Early routes do not make a second trip to the basement in order to get the second MIPS star, and thus do HMC along with the rest of the basement. Optimally, these routes are comparable to the standard HMC late route, however they are generally considered harder to optimize. They may be preferable in some situations, since they allow more flexibility in routing from not being bound as tightly to the 30 star door requirement before DDD.

Differences from HMC Late

The differences between this route and the standard HMC Late route are as follows:

After LLL, go directly to HMC. Get all of the HMC stars, then HMC Toad, and then proceed to DDD as normal.
In SL, you'll have to get Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins to replace the second MIPS star. Once finished with SL, go to Tippy as normal instead of exiting the course.

The route above is the most common HMC early route, but a few modifications can be made to make the route faster and/or more consistent.

Replacing CCM100

Since meeting the 30 star door requirement is not an issue with HMC Early, you are allowed more flexibility in early-game routing. Typically, people will replace Big Penguin Race + 100 Coins and Slip Slidin' Away with Slip Slidin' Away + 100 Coins and one alternative star. Also, since SL Reds already replaces the second MIPS star, you will need to add in another alternative star if you decide to skip TTC100.

Easy/Slowest: Navigating the Toxic Maze without BLJ
Intermediate: Wiggler's Red Coins
Hard/Fastest: Pyramid Puzzle

General Route Variations

The following route variations apply to both the HMC early and HMC late routes.

Star Substitutions

Hard stars can be substituted for easier and slower ones. The most common substitution is Stomp on the Thwomp + 100 Coins, replacing it with Stomp on the Thwomp on its own along with an additional alternative star from the list below. Another common substitution is Cruiser Crossing the Rainbow for another star from the list.

Easy: Shell Shreddin' for Red Coins (if HMC Late, else this is already in the route)
Easy: Navigating the Toxic Maze (no BLJ)
Intermediate: Wiggler's Red Coins
Hard: Pyramid Puzzle

Island Hop

See the expert route for an explanation.