Neo Star
100% Route
Note: this page was adapted from swordsmankirby's guide. Some strats may be outdated.
4-1
Perhaps the most interesting powerless section of the game. The main technique is described in the first clip: sliding and inhaling. The second clip shows the next segment, where you have to start dodging the Pupa enemies. In the same clip, there is the lone exception to sliding and inhaling. Since the platform after it is too high up, it is necessary to puff here instead of inhale. It is possible to slide off the platform in between the two Pupa, as shown on the right, but the positioning is pretty precise.
The first two clips show strats for dodging the Kapar enemies. The Kapars can be manipulated into jumping or not jumping based on your height when you come within a certain distance from them. I think that for the first section, both strats are of comparable difficulty and speed, but for the second section, the middle clip's strat is significantly easier, though with one fewer slide. Afterwards, you can find Shard 1 in a collapsible pit underneath a Pupa (right). I've managed to reproduce the TAS clip through the fake ground, but I don't know why it happens.
In the second room, Shard 2 can be found below the entrance. Since the drop is large, tap B to inhale momentarily so you don't faceplant. As usual, jumping up the vines is faster. The strat shown on the left for swallowing the Galbo is easier than it looks, but keep in mind that the way you approach him from underneath will cause him to wake up. A safer strat is shown in the middle. I've found that the most consistent way to reach the door is to use fire off of the vines, as shown on the right. Floating up from the leafy platform is probably just as fast.
The two strats shown here are in my opinion the most consistent way of getting two early cycles on the vines. This can be scary, as the death plane is basically right at the bottom of the screen, so if you don't feel confident in your single fire abilities, just take the vines as intended. In the first set of vines, skip the third and fourth vines by using fire underneath, and in the second set, skip the first two. The reason for grabbing onto the third and fourth vines in the second set is to take advantage of the large momentum boost you get from swinging on the vines. A crazy strat involves skipping the whole first set of vines and boosting off of two of the vines in the second set, but this is really precise and I haven't been able to execute it in a run.
The miniboss is straightforward: just hit it with fire. I like to do a small jump at the beginning so that I recover faster for the second fire. This is the same principle as the strat for the 1-1 miniboss. Afterwards, just walk into the loading zone instead of trying to slide. The loading zone slowly becomes unblocked, so if you slide at the wrong time, you'll bounce off of it.
This room has a lot of enemies, and since there's hardly any ground, losing your powerup is definitely a possibility. As in the room with the vines, the fastest strat is to get a boost off of the moving logs (left), saving about half a second over not doing it. If your single fire is consistent, a side benefit of choosing this strat is that the spacing is just right for the three pesky Pupa enemies right before Shard 3 (right). The Pterans are really annoying here, so make sure to avoid them carefully.
Grab the invincibility candy and blast through to the end of the room. I like to do three fires on the ground before jumping up. At the end of the level, make sure to grab the Cairn before exiting. Since it's a long stretch of single fire, your spacing might get messed up, so sometimes I like to just stop at the second to last platform and slide over to the Cairn.
4-2
In the previous level, you should end with stone. Backtrack all the way to 2-4 to get dynamite. If you don't have stone (e.g. if you ran into the enemy at the end of 4-1 with fire), backtrack to 1-2 to get both abilities. Keep in mind that this powerup needs to be kept almost the whole level, so be careful about not losing it.
Shard 1 is in the first room, just right of the waterfall on the left. For some reason, everyone starts throwing dynamites after grabbing it, including me. The next room is a minecart autoscroller, where jumping repeatedly saves a bit of time. Unlike the river autoscroller, sometimes the track splits into two. By always taking the top path, you'll soon find Shard 2 sitting on top of an obstacle. To make sure I don't crash into the rock, my strat is to do a small jump at the kink in the track.
As you're falling, throw a dynamite to avoid faceplanting. Then, run forward to headbutt the dynamite backwards to avoid having it explode on you. The timing for this is really really generous. Afterwards, jump over all the I³ enemies. If timed correctly, there is no need for any puffing. After dodging the two Gloms, puff one of the blocks to get through. It's possible to squeeze in the one-tile gap, but I don't think it's worth trying for. Since the block is on the ground, another possibility is to slide into it, but this is slower. The I³ is surrounded by Gordos, so the fastest way to get past it is to slide underneath and take damage, boosting you to the other side. An alternative that doesn't involve damaging yourself is to wait and then jump over it (shown on the right).
The next room has flowing water, so as usual, jump repeatedly on water moving to the left, and run down water moving to the right, even if it's sloped. Be careful not to jump into any of the enemies on the ceiling. The last section of this room (right) can be done by only running on the water going to the right.
Most of this section involves jumping at the right time to manipulate the Kapar's jump height. At the first cliff, do a medium-sized jump to dodge the Zoos's attack and fall in between the blocks without faceplanting. The next Zoos enemy will often be in a position to hit you, so slow down just slightly (e.g. by turning around twice) to avoid its attack.
Shard 3 is at the bottom of the huge cliff, and throwing a dynamite into the nearest enemy is just close enough to break the barrier (middle). To protect yourself from the blast, use the safety hat by pressing down after the dynamite has been thrown. Note that missing the Squibby enemy will waste a lot of time since you have to wait for the dynamite to explode. If you hit the rightmost point of its hitbox, the dynamite will actually be too far away from the barrier to break it. To combat these difficulties, I came up with a little setup that involves running off the cliff before throwing it (right).
The miniboss fight has six sets of four Drop enemies. For each set, you have to kill them one by one, so optimally it will look like four waves of six enemies. Luckily, the dynamite powerup is great for this fight. I try to hit an enemy closer to the middle to ensure that it hits all six at once. Depending on the health situation, I might jump up and anticipate the spawn for a slightly quicker kill. Since you can't use the hard hat in the air, the dynamite can damage boost you towards the door on the right. The next room has a Maxim Tomato at the beginning so ending the fight with low health is not a problem.
Most of this final room is straightforward, since a lot of the time you'll be waiting for these blue platform cycles. While waiting, you can discard your powerup. For one set of platforms, the timing is a bit tight, but sliding off ledges makes it a lot easier. There is one Gabon in the way while waiting for a platform (right), so swallow his skull hat. If done quickly enough, he'll run into the platforms himself. Otherwise, he'll rush at you and you'll have to spit his hat back out at him. The last blue platform isn't on a timer. Instead you have to approach it to get it to move.
4-3
In the beginning of the level, combine for drill and avoid enemies along the way to the needle barrier. The best way of taking care of these Rockies is to headbutt them, but for the one next to the barrier, you can use a kind of damage boost off of one of them while using drill. When using the drill horizontally, normally it won't hit something below it, except in situations like this where the tip of the drill is above the side of the barrier. While using the drill, the Rocky will fall on you and cancel the drill animation, allowing you to start falling faster to obtain Shard 1. Since there's a maxim tomato towards the end of the previous level, there should be no risk, but shooting the drill downward is an alternative.
The Bouncys are kind of annoying in how they're spaced apart. A simple strat is to just drill through them (bottom-left), but you can avoid that by some careful movement (bottom-right). At the end, hold the Propeller enemy in your mouth.
Combine for curling stone on the Cairn. Fluent curling stone movement boils down to following a route. While I'm not going to show my whole route here (and besides, everyone's route is different), I decided to show what I thought were the crucial parts. When you're just starting out, it's probably not a good idea to use curling stone unless you're doing it over a long and flat region. As seen in the middle, narrow spaces with enemies are usually too risky to use curling stone on. Later on in the same room, there will be four thin columns. It's possible to squeeze in a precise curling stone in this region.
The Adeleine painting has three possible patterns: parasol (top), pizza (bottom-left), and top hat (bottom-right). The parasol one is kind of tricky because you need to break three blocks in the top row, and Kirby's puff can only reach two blocks from one spot. For top hat, you complete the block puzzle far away from Shard 2, but luckily it can be reached fairly easily using curling stone. One optimization that can be done for all three patterns, but is especially useful for top hat, is puffing two blocks in succession by positioning yourself in between the heights of the two blocks.
After the puzzle is an easier curling stone section. As shown in the top-left, I like to jump starting from the space just left of the Cairn to make the subsequent platforms easier. It's really easy to headbutt the Fishbone's head and fall to your death, so wait a little bit while it passes over you before jumping into a curling stone. Once you reach some collapsing platforms, start floating up after jumping off the second one and land on the highest block (top-right). After this flat area, drop down for Shard 3 and float back up. The ending doesn't really have a nice route for curling stone (bottom-right), so you'll have to float a bit.
4-4
As with the previous level, not all the details for the curling stone route is shown here, but only what I consider to be the most crucial areas. In this level, you need to hold curling stone fairly deep into the level, and the lava will instantly break your powerup. As a result, avoid taking damage twice in quick succession.
In the second room, there are some curling stone jumps that just manage to clear some gaps. There is a really wide gap, and it seems that the best way of dealing with this is to jump with curling stone, and then float towards the platform.
In the Dedede section, there are thick columns that require either two uncharged hits or one charged hit. The charged hit is faster, but for the column guarded by a Gordo, it's significantly easier to swing twice. Shard 1 is hidden at the top of the column, and you can reveal it by jumping over a pit of lava with a charged hammer.
Towards the end of the room, there are three enemies that block the exit. Either swing at each of them (middle), hoping that the last two enemies are close enough to take out with one hammer, or damage boost off the Bronto Burt (right), allowing you to just walk through the middle enemy.
The next room is mostly flat, but there are two key areas. There are three enemies in a row stuck in a pit with a block on top. It's best to use the curling stone and bonk on the bottom of each block to avoid both falling into the pits and bonking off the sides of the blocks. In the section with lots of lava, I don't have anything better than puffing after each curling stone.
Finally, we reach the barrier blocking Shard 2. Underneath the barrier is a pool of lava, so if you have enough health, you can jump right into the barrier with curling stone and grab the shard. If you're at 1HP, you can still break the block without taking damage. In my opinion, the safest way of doing so uses the "ice shavings" generated by the tail end of the curling stone.
In the next room, combine for double fire off of any of the three fire enemies towards the beginning. The rest of the room follows a standard route. At the end, you can optionally get single fire, making the Magman fight safer.
Float up and grab Shard 3. Once you reach the three rows of blocks, the strategies diverge a little. If you have double fire, throw it away into the blocks and float up. Grab cutter from the Fishbone and exit out. If you have single fire, headbutt the rows of blocks and combine carefully for fire sword. One safe thing to do is to put your fire powerup in your mouth. That way, if you accidentally climb a platform underneath, it won't break.
Overall, double fire is faster: no need to pick up single fire, breaking the blocks is quicker with the double powerup throw, grabbing the Fishbone is quicker, and there is little to no timeloss for getting fire sword during the Magman fight.
