Any% Glitch Compendium

Hey everybody! Pichi here. This is a guide to everything strange going on in Donkey Kong Country during the any% run.  It's a very weird category, and less popular than the "All Stages" run, but is really cool in concept. Most other categories, including All Stages, use some of these glitches as well.

Direct link to the current record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9XPEeqaGsY
The "No Major Glitches" any% record, if you think glitches are lame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwq0LZ5Bn48
My channel: https://twitch.tv/pichi
Leaderboards, tutorials, glitch demonstrations, and more!: http://dkcspeedruns.com

All of this is done on a real Donkey Kong Country cartridge + original Super Nintendo. It's only possible on the 1.0 or 1.1 US/NA version of DKC, however. Some things were patched out in later versions, including the Virtual Console releases and the SNES Classic, as well as the PAL and Japanese versions. This is because the US/NA version of DKC1 was the earliest build of the game, even though Rare is a UK company.

Below is an explanation of all the glitches, starting with the major ones (the warp and flying glitches). It's LONG, so skim as needed.
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===The Wrong Warp===

Before World 3:
The first thing necessary for the warp is creating a glitch state called the Split-Up Glitch. This allows the control of both Donkey and Diddy at the same time whenever you break open the next DK barrel. It is done in this route by beating 1-1, re-entering the stage, tossing the barrel, and pressing start-select to leave while it's in midair. Then, Donkey must be sacrificed over a pit (dying on the ground will lock the game and force a reset). Because the DK barrel was thrown, the game thinks you got Diddy, and because DK just died over a pit, Diddy is supposed to be the only one up. So when Diddy actually appears, you instantly gain control of him, while still also controlling Donkey.

All this is set up immediately at the beginning of the run, and is necessary for reaching World 6.


Getting to World 3:
This is done via a trick called the Map Warp.

When you reach a corner in the path between stages on the map (they only exist in World 1), you stop for 1 frame (1/60th of a second in DKC). If you only have 1 Kong, or you are in Funky's plane, you can press a button (A, B, X, Y or Start) on this frame to warp to a different stage. This happens presumably because the game thinks that you are trying to enter a stage, since you aren't moving at that moment, and you're pressing a button. If you have a Kong behind you, it doesn't work because one Kong will still be moving while the other is at the corner.

This is a very popular glitch that many people discovered just by impatiently mashing B to get to the next stage. 3 of the corners in World 1 send you to Orang-utan Gang. The second corner merely sends you back to Stage 2. In my run, I slide my finger back and forth across the ABXY buttons very quickly, as it's easier than trying to time the input. If you have a North American SNES controller, though, I don't recommend this strategy because of those weird sharp edges on the X and Y buttons.


Getting to World 6/The Wrong Warp:

This is a really complicated trick, but the basic idea is that you can make Donkey "hold air" (usually called an invisible sprite/barrel) by throwing a steel keg, riding on it, then picking it back up and touching a halfway barrel. This creates a glitched sprite that will cause different things to happen when you throw it. To get the warp, Donkey needs to get all the way to the bonus room under the trees, but he can't reach it himself, especially while holding something.

To solve this problem, another glitch is used to allow carrying a barrel with Expresso. This isn't necessary for getting a Wrong Warp in general. It's only needed to get Donkey over there in the first place. However, it has the added benefit of allowing you to bring Expresso into the next stage. Animal buddies can be brought into other stages in the game via the Split-Up Glitch, but only stages that have one in them already (it doesn't matter which one). Because Rambi is in 6-2 normally, Expresso follows you into the stage, making it much faster than the regular route.

Anyway, you take the invisible barrel close to the bonus with Expresso holding it, and with proper movement, and throwing at a specific location on the screen, it will spawn the opening to the bonus. This is the key to getting the Wrong Warp. When opened via the invisible barrel, it changes a value in the game's memory which is used to determine where you end up after leaving the bonus. What it changes to depends on where you are standing when you throw.

Once inside the bonus, you activate the Split-Up glitch by getting Diddy from the DK barrel inside the bonus room. The goal is to walk both Diddy and Donkey through the door at the same time, which is actually really difficult using the fastest method. The "exit" value from the invisible barrel is actually a negative number, and just using that will bring you back to 1-1. But by getting both Kongs into the door at the same time, the value is changed into a signed one, making it positive instead. Strange, but that's how it works out. The new positive value corresponds to Stage 2 in World 6: Manic Mincers.

Once you enter 6-2, the game notices that Donkey is supposed to be dead, and you end up with solo Diddy, riding on Expresso.
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===The Massive Flying Glitch in Misty Mine (6-3)===

This is called a Super Jumproll, and is actually a combination of two separate glitches: the Jumproll and the Super Jump.

The Jumproll is an infinite rolling glitch caused by starting a roll (pressing Y) on the same frame you land on an enemy. Since you can't roll while jumping, this is usually only possible if there's an enemy next to an edge, as you'll bounce on them if you run straight off. In the speedrun, this is achieved by taking damage and running towards the snake on the edge during invulnerability. When you roll on the correct frame, the game combines the bounce and roll, and you end up flying non-stop in the air, as if you were shot out of a barrel. It continues until you touch the ground. Additionally, enemies that you can normally roll through will not hurt you in this state.

(This seems weird, but not too weird if you're familiar with a lot of speedrun glitches. It's common in many games, when doing multiple actions on the same frame, to combine them all with very weird results. Ocarina of Time's bomb sliding is a well-known example.)

A regular Jumproll can be seen during 6-5, Platform Perils, near the end of a run.


The Super Jump is a jump with infinite height, and is actually a normal result when you lose a Kong, but you're not usually able to control it. After getting hit, Donkey or Diddy will run forward off-screen, but if there's a wall in the way, they'll climb the wall and jump to the sky instead. If you sacrifice a Kong this way, get them back with a DK barrel, then sacrifice your other Kong (to get control of the first one again), you'll still have the jump "stored." So if you hold B as you get hit and bounce on something during the automatic jump (you always jump after taking damage), or fall onto something afterwards, you will go back into the same off-screen jump! During the Super Jump, you continue to gain height for as long as you hold B. It can be used in many places to skip entire stages, but is often slower than playing normally, since you only move at normal running/jumping speed.

However, a couple years ago, it was discovered that these two glitches can be done at the same time! It's possible to set up a Super Jump, and perform a Jumproll without letting go of B. When you do this, the normal Jumproll transforms into a roll that looks like a roll on the ground, and you still gain height while you do it. So now you're rising up while rolling, and you can even gain speed like a regular roll by going through enemies! So when these two glitches are combined, the result is massively faster than playing normally. (20 seconds faster in this stage alone, even after spending some time setting it up!)

Getting the Super Jumproll in a run with all the other glitches, and doing so without any other mistakes, can take hundreds of attempts. Although many of these attempts end in resets within the first minute or two, the high amount of difficult tricks in a small amount of time make any% a very unforgiving category to speedrun.
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===Misc Glitches===

Fanfare Skip:
It's possible to press buttons (same ones as the Map Warp) to speed up the victory dance that the Kongs do after each stage by about 2 seconds. This is one of the main reasons why the US/NA 1.0 + 1.1 versions are faster, especially in other categories, where it saves nearly a minute.

Shadow Kong:
This can only be seen for a few frames in the video, when throwing the invisible barrel, but it always happens if you pick up a steel keg with an animal (by riding it into them and pressing B in front of them). If you let go of Y afterwards, the animal transforms into a dark-colored version of your Kong. Useless by itself, but really funny, especially when showing it to anybody who hasn't seen it before.

Expresso flying to the top of the screen at the end of 6-2:
Just a weird thing that happens sometimes. I jumped off Expresso while in front of a wall, so she couldn't be placed on the ground in front, and was pushed upwards out of the wall instead. Purposely clipping into a wall so that it pushes you out in order to save time in a speedrun is called a "zip." In this case, the zip is just a funny side-effect.

That one Klap Trap at the beginning of Loopy Lights (6-4):
Another 1.0/1.1 (U) anomaly. In these versions, this enemy can be rolled through. He's the only Klap Trap in the game that doesn't walk, so I guess it messed up the code a bit. If you run into him or jump into his face, he'll hit you, but unlike his brethren, he's vulnerable to rolling primates.
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Hopefully that answered all of your questions! If you have any questions about certain movement inside the stages, the answer is probably either "that's the only way it works" or "because it's faster" (with the exception of Platform Perils, which has a few minor potential improvements). Feel free to pop in my stream at any time and I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. Thanks for checking out my run!

~Pichi