Maximo speedrun FAQ

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                      Maximo speedrun FAQ
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Contents:

1.  Basics
2.  Useful Abilities
3.  Drop System
4.  Techniques
5.  Speed Tricks
6.  Bosses
7.  Game Percentage
8.  Oddities
9.  Glitches
10. Version Differences

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****************************** 1. Basics ******************************

A) Double jump:

Maximo can do double jumps right from the start. The small somersault he does on the second jump gives him a micro speed boost, that’s why it’s faster to move with double jumps. The speed gained is even greater when combined with a Ledge Boost (cf techniques section).


B) Abilities:

Abilities are really important. You can find some of them laying in some levels, but unfortunately most of them will be acquired randomly by killing enemies. Inventory management is also important because if you die you’ll loose every abilities that are not into safe slots. Use select button to open inventory and secure your most useful abilities.


C) Sword Magics:

Like abilities, those magics can sometimes be found laying in levels or inside chests. They can also be dropped by enemies. They power up greatly your sword damages and offer different magic effects when used with Magic Bolt or Doom Strike abilities.

Most powerful one is Armageddon, then Pure Blade, then Flame Tongue. Frostbiter is particular because it frozes enemies, allowing you to kill them with one powerful sword slash.


D) Hidden Chests:

Some chests are hidden under the ground. To make them appear you have to jump and land near them. Unfortunately nothing will tell you where there are. The Gold Seeker ability can help you to find them though.


E) Enemy Behavior:

The understanding of enemy patterns is a key to go fast:

- First, every enemy has an area of action, they can’t go outside of it. Knowing them is an advantage.
- Some enemies have a narrow vision cone, especially the halberd skeletons. You can take profit of this and pass near them without being noticed.
- Most important thing: there is a maximum number of enemies that can be on the screen at the same time. This limit is here to prevent the player to be outnumbered by enemies. It’s generally set to 3 or 4, depending on the type of enemies. It’s super useful to know it because you can use this limit to manipulate some enemies and avoid other enemies to spawn, or the opposite. This is also why sometimes you can see strange things like enemies appearing suddenly out of nowhere.


F) Spirit Collectors:

To finish a level you have to break a big stone. It’s always protected by a force barrier that can be broken by killing all enemies around. In fact it’s more complicated than that. You have to know how they work to save time and magic. Every stone have an area of effect, it can be really small or huge. To break the barrier there must be no enemy inside its zone, even those hidden under the ground that have not spawned yet. You have to make all of them to appear, and then kill them or lure them outside of the area. Knowing the maximum number of enemies and their area of action is useful here.


G) Moving elements:

In some levels, some elements are moving (traps, wood logs, boats, etc.). You have to keep in mind that the game loads all the level at once and those elements will always move the same way, with the same timing. You have to come up with strategies to be at the right moment to those places and optimize your route.



************************* 2. Useful Abilities *************************

Abilities are mostly randomly dropped by enemies. Some of them are really useful, or even mandatory, if you want to achieve a good time. Here are the abilities you would like to have during a run:

A) Throw Shield:

It allows you to throw your shield and deal a small amount of damage. Bosses of worlds 1, 2 and 3 can be beaten really fast thanks to it.


B) Magic Bolt:

If you have a sword magic, you can do a frontal magic attack (uses 2 sword energies). It’s mandatory to beat world 5 Dark Knights instantly. Fortunately if you don’t get it by killing enemies, you can find one at the end of stage 9 (Voodoo Village).


C) Doom Strike:

If you have a sword magic, you can do an area of effect magic attack (uses 4 sword energies). It’s useful to speed up boss 2 fight and to save times in stage 23 (Down the Gullet) and 27 (The Great Escape).


D) Mask of Sorrow:

With it you deal great amount of damages by touching enemies when invincible. It happens if you exceed your maximum health when taking an armor. This ability is super useful to kill enemies fast and without any risk. Fortunately, it’s on the way in stage 10 (Dem’ Bones).


E) Increased Armor:

It gives you an extra gauge of health. You can take more hits and it’s nice to have it for more safety. (advice: don’t put it into a secured slot because if you die you’ll have to grab 3 armors instead of 2 in order to be invincible).


F) Shield of Thunder:

This one is not required but can help you at the end of the game. With it you can kill enemies with your shield and save sword energy for the last boss.


G) Shield of Midas:

Only useful for 100% and low% categories. It attracts money and spirits to you when shielding or throwing it. It also gives a small homing effect towards enemies when throwing.



**************************** 3. Drop System ***************************

There is a kill counter running in the background of the game, every 4 enemy killed an item will be dropped. It can be:

- Money (bag of coins or diamond)
- Healing (green vial)
- Energy refill (sword or shield)
- Sword magic
- Ability

Some enemies doesn’t increase this counter when dying though:

- Enemies dying outside of the game zone (by falling into the void or lava for example)
- Bosses
- Enemies with a regular drop (for example skeletons that always drop a gold key)
- Dark Knights (but they always drop an item by the way)

The counter is global to the whole game. That means that if you quit a run from the pause menu then load a game or start a new game, you will start with that actual counter. That way you can manipulate the first drop for a new game.

Only 2 things can reset the counter:

- Reseting the console
- Watching a gameplay demonstration (by doing nothing in the main menu). If Maximo kills enemies during those videos, it will increase the counter as normal.

There is no known way to manipulate what kind of item is dropped. We only know a few things:

- if you are not at full health, probabilities to have a green vial are higher
- if your shield is damaged, probabilities to have a shield refill are higher
- sword magic type and abilities depends on the stage where you are (for example, in world 1 the ability Throw Shield can be found in any levels except the hub)



**************************** 4. Techniques ****************************

A) Ledge Boost

To prevent the player to die by falling, the game has a strange feature. If you try to move toward a ledge above a deadly zone (void or deep water for example), Maximo will stop before falling and lean a bit while saying “whoa!”. If you keep pushing the joystick forward or push it again before the animation is finished, Maximo will fall. Other non-deadly ledges don’t have this feature and Maximo will fall directly. In both cases, you can do a Ledge Boost, meaning let yourself fall a bit and then do a full double jump. Thanks to that you can get more speed but also do longer jumps than usual, allowing a few skips detailed later.


B) Animation Cancel:

Taking an armor or a sword magic leads Maximo to do a small animation. To avoid loosing time to it, you can grab those items in mid-air. It also works for the end of invincibility period, and the circular saws in stage 22 (The Unkindest Cut): if you touch them during a jump you won’t be knocked away.


C) Prolonged Invincibility:

Invincible period lasts 20 seconds, but you can prolong it by grabbing another piece of armor before the end of the timer. There are also two special cases for it:

- if you already have the Increased Armor, grabbing another one will act the same as grabbing an armor (so it can activate or prolong invincibility).
- if you don’t have the Mask of Sorrow, and grab one during an invincible period, it will prolong it. Any other case of grabbing a Mask of Sorrow won’t do anything special.



*************************** 5. Speed Tricks ***************************

A) Lava Pool skip:

In stage 3 (Dead Heat), from the Gold Key spot you can jump directly to the other side of the lava pool with a Ledge Boost double jump.


B) Collapsing Bridge skip:

In stage 4 (Coffin Canyon), you can skip the last area behind the collapsing bridge. Rather than going across, walk a bit on it and jump back on the safe ground when it starts collapsing. To prevent soft-locking, the game raises a step and you can go directly to the Spirit Collector.


C) Whirlpool ship shortcut:

In stage 16 (Dead in the Water), a ship is spinning above a whirlpool. Normally, you have to use it to go to the other side, take the Gold Key, go back onto the ship, wait for a complete cycle and go to the exit. But it is possible to do 2 tricky jumps around the ice to go directly to the exit.


D) Distant switch activation:

In stage 10 (Dem’ Bones), the switch can be broken faster by throwing your shield on it or using Magic Bolt. Thanks to that you can grab the Mask of Sorrow just in time to have a prolonged invincibility.

In stage 23 (Down the Gullet)  you can broke the first switch from the previous platform with your shield. It’s pretty rare to do it because it requires 2 extra abilities: Mighty Throw (to throw it far enough) and Shield of Thunder (to break it from above).

Still in stage 23, the second switch can be activated from far away with an Armageddon Doom Strike attack. The position is precise but it will allow you to get back on the moving platform without waiting.


E) Dark Knight quick kill:

Dark Knights only appear in the last world. They block the way and require a long time to be beaten. The fastest way to kill them is to use Armageddon Magic Bolt. The wave will last long enough to do a double hit on the head.

The second fastest way is to do a down-stab attack near them with Ring of Pain and Wider Shockwave abilities. Swords coming out of the floor will last long enough to knock them down and leaving their head defenseless.

If you are invincible with the Mask of Sorrow you can also directly go through their force shield without killing them.


F) Drawbridge skip:

In stage 25 (The Siege), the last drawbridge don’t need to be lowered to go to the other side. A regular Ledge Boost is not enough to clear the gap but with a damage boost while leaning above the void you can make it barely. There is no collision on the drawbridge if it’s still standing up, you can just go through it and finish the level.


G) Gold Key skip:

In stage 28 (Dungeon of Despair), you can skip the first Gold Key if you do the Drawbridge skip while taking the Gold Key before. It will be kept by Maximo and you can use it anywhere to unlock a Gold Lock (Gold Keys doesn’t stash for information).



****************************** 6. Bosses ******************************

A) Boss 1: Ghastly Gus the Gravedigger

This boss can be beaten really fast with the Throw Shield ability. Just throw your shield at him, hit his toe (a down-stab attack is the easiest way), then attack his foot with a powerful slash. Repeat until he dies.


B) Boss 2: Bokor Labas

This boss is really troublesome. Its movements are random and the damages you deal to him seem also random. But there is a logic behind this mysterious life bar.

When the boss divides himself into several clones, one of them is the boss himself and he will take more damage than the others if you it him last. The problem is that there is no way to differentiate them visually, they all look exactly the same. You can only guess it when they split up: there are always 2 clones spawning closer than the others. On 3 and 4 clones divisions it’s really hard to see but on the 5 clones one it’s easier, you can pause the game to freeze the action if needed. If you put yourself into those 2 clones, it’s always the right one who is the true one. Try to figure him out and to hit him last to deal maximum damages. But honestly it’s a really hard task to do, even with pause buffer. Especially because you have to be really quick, otherwise the cycle will reset.

Fortunately, the Pure Blade magic is super strong on him and you can have an easy 2 cycles kill. The key is to manipulate the boss to know easily which clone is the right one and inflict him maximum damage on the first cycle. If you do so, you won’t need to bother about false clones on the second cycle, just hit every of them with you sword/shield/magic and he will die.

To success the first cycle, wait for the boss to come at you (4-5 footsteps), then go to the right hanging the border of the arena. You want the boss to split close to the boundary, and you have to be in front of him at this moment. If done correctly 2 clones will spawn together to your left, kill them with a spinning attack and use your powerful slash on the right one. He will lose 4/5 of his life instantaneously.

If you have Doom Strike you can also use it on those left clones, the magic will touch the true clone last and deal the same amount of damage.

The fastest way to get rid of his voodoo dolls is to throw your shield above its hat when they come out. Then rush onto the remaining ones, you don’t need to use your sword to make them disappear (you’ll take a few hits though).


C) Boss 3: Captain Cadaver

Same as the first boss, throw your shield on the boss to knock him back into a grid. Crouch with L2 and hit its wooden leg. Lure him again above the same grid and redo the operation until he dies. If the wooden leg is clearly on the grid you can throw your shield right away, if it’s a bit behind, you can throw it as soon as he raises it to step forward.


D) Boss 4: Lord Glutterscum

The only way to save time here is to take damage. When he starts to spit in the air, get hit as soon as possible to interrupt his pattern. He will first laugh then spit fire at you, this way you can have a faster access to his weak point: his butt. Every damage taken this way will save you around 2.5 seconds.


E) Boss 5: Achille

Achille can be a pain if you don’t have all required abilities. First phase is easy: do a strong attack on him, go back to avoid his force barrier and attack again.

Then he enters his second phase, you have to hit him with the ability shown on his barrier. If you don’t have it you have to wait during 10 seconds before he removes this barrier, and he will do that 3 times in a row. You definitely want to skip this phase and it’s only doable with the Armageddon magic. With it 2 slashes will deal enough damage to enter directly the third phase, but you have to be quick to end this phase because Achille recovers life during it. Run around without being hit and knock down all 4 generators to stop this phase. Achille can only do that twice then he will enter his last phase, just attack him with your sword and he will die quickly.


F) Boss 6: Demon Queen

This combat too can last forever if you don’t have the Armageddon magic. Always use a strong slash or a down-stab attack to deal more damage, it’s harder because you have to anticipate a bit its movement in the dark but you can use the windows to know where she is and her sounds to know when she is sneaking towards you. Her behavior is random past her 2 first attacks so it’s a difficult fight, requiring a lot of training and luck. It’s almost impossible to hit her when she is moving, it’s only doable with the Armageddon Magic Bolt but it’s random.



************************** 7. Game Percentage *************************

The percentage system is a bit complex but it’s necessary to understand it if you want to run 100% or low% categories. You’ll see that it’s not mandatory to take everything in a level to get a 100% and the opposite: some actions or object doesn’t count.

A) Basics:

There are three different percentages in the game, you can see them when you finish a level:

- Level Mastery: it’s the completion percentage of this level. Every level has its own percentage rate.
- Game complete: this one is not useful at all, it’s only to give the player an idea where he is in the game. It's only increased by clearing a new stage, regardless of its completion rate.
- Game Mastery: it’s the global completion percentage of the game. It’s calculated from all the Level Mastery percentages. This global score is also visible in the game select menu and is the reference for 100% and low%.

One mastered level (meaning finished at 100%) gives you 4 global %.
Beating a boss is considered the same as mastering a regular stage. So every boss increase the global percentage by 4%.
The hub levels don’t count, you can do everything you want in them, it won’t affect any percentages.
4 first worlds have 4 levels (4 x 4% = 16%) and 1 boss (+ 4% = 20%).
Last world have only 3 levels (3 x 4% = 12%) but 2 bosses (+ 2 x 4% = 20%).
So each world gives you 20% which leads to 5 x 20% = 100% for the global score.


B) Individual Level Percentage System:

The first to understand is that there are not exactly 100 actions to do in order to gain 1%. Every level have a different total number of actions and they exceed 100. The game keep track of all those actions and do some calculations to give you a score in percent at the end of the stage. The game have to round down sometimes, that’s why 2 actions can only add 1% occasionally.

To master a level, here are the 4 rules:

- Pick up every visible items
- Open every chests and doors
- Kill every enemies
- Break all destructible stuff


Let’s have a closer look to every of those rules:

1/ Pick up every visible items

Only items laying by default in the level count. Items dropped by enemies don’t count for example.


2/ Open every chests and doors

Concerning chests, only the action of opening them count, taking their content doesn’t.
Using a key (on a door or on a mechanism) count as an action. Opening a locked chest only count for one action though.


3/ Kill all enemies

Pretty simple to understand, and if an enemy falls into the void or lava don’t panic, they will count as dead.

There is only one enemy that can disappear and give you troubles: the green ghosts. If one of them touches you they won't reappear and you won’t have the percent. You will have to redo the level to kill it.

For magicians, there is no worry. You can kill them directly, or if they hit you and curse you, you don’t even need to bother about them anymore because they will automatically disappear after a short amount of time.

Enemies created by a floor generator doesn’t count, but the generator itself counts. You can either break it directly or wait for it to disappear after it created all its enemies.


4/ Break all destructible stuff

All breakable things count as an action (wall, coffin lid, switch, etc.).

Stalagmites and Achille heads poping up from the ground are breakable things, not enemies (meaning they don’t consume sword energy when destroyed and they don’t prevent spirit collector’s shield to break).


C) Global Percentage System:

The game has a total of 2500% (19 levels + 6 boss = 25 x 100%). But to avoid confusion between individual level percents and global percents, let’s speak about them as points.

So the game has a total of 2500 points, logically every 25 points you should gain 1 global %. But no, strangely the game round up the global percentage. Here are the first steps to show you:

- from 0 to 12 points: 0%
- from 13 to 37 points: 1%
- from 38 to 62 points: 2%
- etc.

This system is not cool for low% runners because they have a clear disadvantage, and 100% runners will have to collect everything anyway.


D) Useful Tips:

The things you done in levels are saved. If you finish a level at 99% for example, you don’t need to redo everything. Just do the action you missed and you’ll get a 100%.

Same way, if you die in a level the actions you have done are also saved, even after a checkpoint. Items won’t show up again but enemies do, so don’t bother with those you have already killed them. And be careful with the chests, if you try to open them a second time they will be Mimics!



***************************** 8. Oddities *****************************

Magicians are not considered as enemies: hitting them doesn’t use any sword magic and they don’t prevent a Spirit Collector’s shield to be broken.

More surprising: some magicians don’t count for individual level percents. It’s the case for Shiver me Timber’s one and all magicians in the last world.

The super ghouls have 2 states: standing up and crawling on the floor. Note that cutting their legs directly count as an action. Killing them as they are crawling doesn’t.

Element containing spirits are the opposite (grave stone in world 1, snowman in world 2, etc.). Breaking the first half doesn’t count, you have to break them completely with a down-stab attack to get the action done.



***************************** 9. Glitches *****************************

Maximo is rellay well coded and tested, only a few bugs have been discovered for now:

A) Invisible Achille:

If you hit all 4 generators with a single Armageddon Doom Strike attack, there is a chance that Achille become invisible. It’s not useful at all but fun to see.


B) Useless Lives:

In the hub level of the second world, 2 lives are hidden just under water near stage 11 (Quick and the Dead). If you drop down correctly into the water between the 2 lasts wooden trunks, you can hear Maximo grabbing those 2 lives but… in best case scenario you’ll reappear without loosing any life, and in worst case you’ll end up loosing a life… real scam.



*********************** 10. Version Differences ***********************

A) Gameplay differences

Actually, only one real difference is known between versions :

- on Japanese version, the last halberd skeleton of stage 9 (Voodoo Village) and the enemy generator have a slightly different position than in the other versions. You can’t go the Spirit Collector without being noticed by them, leading to a few seconds time loss in low% category.


B) Time Differences

Different language voice acting lead to different cut-scenes lengths. Tests have been done on emulator with same settings and item select time removed to estimate the difference:

- PAL English is the fastest one
- PAL Spanish and French are 0,383 second longer
- US is 1,552 second longer
- PAL German is 3,402 seconds longer
- JP is 4,449 seconds longer
- PAL Italian is 4,734 seconds longer

At first glance it seems that running on PAL English version is the best choice. But PAL is 50hz, and even if the conversion is really great, there is a risk of small time loss everywhere. It’s really hard to test, and sometimes PAL is a bit slower, but at other places it’s a bit faster… loading screens also seems to be affected.
We don’t know for sure which versions is really the fastest one, but at least we know that if you play on PAL version you want to use English dubs, and if you play on NTSC console you want the US version.

Hardware is also responsible of time differences. Indeed, different hardware means different loading screens times. And since there are around 50 loading screens in a run it can lead to a big time difference in the end.

PlayStation 2 is vicious because it can have different loading speed, even on the same version of the game. We have seen an overall differences up to 6 seconds on some PlayStation 2 consoles. Maybe the lens age and condition is responsible for that.

PlayStation 3 loading speed is a lot more consistent and fast. Compared to the fastest PlayStation 2, loading screens all put together are around 18 seconds faster (but we also have seen runs around 1m34 faster, that's really weird).

And finally emulator is the fastest way to play the game, around 1m52 faster than the fastest PlayStation 2.