RTA Guide/70 Star

The goal of 70 star is to beat the game without any sequence breaking (skipping star door requirements) or using any of the tech which allows the sequence breaking (e.g. BLJ or MIPS clip).

Category Rules

  • Circumventing star door requirements (e.g. MIPS Clip) is banned.
  • All forms of BLJ are banned.

Suggested Routes

It is recommended that regardless of your skill level that you do some variation of the HMC late route for your PB attempts. The "HMC late" routes are based around getting the second MIPS star and doing HMC on your second trip to the basement. The HMC Early routes refer to any route which does HMC on the first (and only) trip to the basement and does not get the second MIPS star.

HMC Late

Standard Route (CCM 18)

Lobby

  1. Lakitu Skip
  2. Bob-omb Battlefield
  3. 1st Slide
  4. Whomp's Fortress (every star)
  5. Castle Stars
  6. Bowser in the Dark World
  7. Bob-omb Battlefield
  8. Cool, Cool Mountain
  9. Big Boo's Haunt

Basement

  1. MIPS
  2. Shifting Sand Land
  3. Lethal Lava Land
  4. Dire, Dire Docks
  5. Bowser in the Fire Sea

Upstairs

  1. Wet-Dry World
  2. Tiny-Huge Island
  3. Upstairs Toad (near TTM)
  4. Tall, Tall Mountain
  5. Snowman's Land

Basement 2

  1. MIPS
    • Go to HMC after MIPS, and get the Toad star before entering HMC
  2. HMC Toad
  3. Hazy Maze Cave

Tippy

  1. Rainbow Ride
  2. Tippy Toad (near TTC)
  3. Tick Tock Clock (every star)
  4. Bowser in the Sky

Advanced (CCM 17)

In CCM, rather than doing 100 coin with the penguin race, do Slip Slidin' Away + 100 Coins. Then replace the penguin race star with Pyramid Puzzle . This way you'll have 30 stars when finishing LLL, which allows you to enter DDD past the 30 star door. Additionally, one can opt for Island Hop to skip visiting BOB twice.

HMC Early

The HMC Early routes do not make a second trip to basement in order to get the second MIPS star and consequently they do HMC on the first (and only) trip to 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 since you are not 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 MIPS2. Once finished with SL, go to tippy as normal instead of exiting 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 CCM 100c

Since meeting the 30 star door requirement is not an issue with HMC Early, you are allowed more flexibility in early game routing. Most commonly, 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 is already replacing MIPS 2, if you decide to skip TTC 100c you will need to add in another alternative star.

General Route Variations

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

TTC 100c

Instead of Stomp on the Thwomp + 100 Coins, you can do Stomp on the Thwomp on it's own along with an additional alternative star:

Note: if you do HMC Early, SL Reds is already in the route and you will have to choose one of the other stars to replace TTC 100c.

Island Hop

Rather than doing Shoot to the Island in the Sky after Dark World Reds, you can save time by getting this star without the wingcap in the first split by doing Island Hop. This saves approximately 5-6 seconds in castle movement as you only have to enter Bob-omb Battlefield once.