All Major Upgrades
The current best-known route for All Major Upgrades can be summarized as follows:
- Grab Varia Suit immediately after Bombs
- Regular Kraid-First style any% path to get speedbooster early
- Use Speed Booster to grab Crateria Supers
- Use Speed Booster to go down into Norfair to collect Hi Jump, Screw Attack, and Wave Beam on the way to Ridley
- After exiting Ridley, take the ball cannon up to Ice Beam and open the Super door to leave Ice the way you came in
- Grab Long Beam on the way to Tourian
- Don't forget to grab Power Bombs before Mecha Ridley
There are 2 notable route divergences:
- Grabbing Varia Suit late, just before Tourian, similarly to Late Brinstar in 100%. If done optimally, this loses about 10 seconds over early Varia Suit.
- After entering Kraid you can opt to kill the Acid Worm, or skip it entirely with horizontal bomb jumps
Grabbing Varia Suit late loses about 10 seconds if done optimally, and fighting Acid Worm loses about 100 seconds if done optimally.
Brinstar
Like other categories, Brinstar is all about quick platforming. You follow the same route as Any% up until you get Bombs.
After grabbing bombs, you can opt for grabbing Varia Suit immediately or grab it on your way to Tourian. The latter is a few seconds slower but recommended if you're not confident with infinite bomb jumps; however, this means you will need to do a hell run in Norfair, so consider picking up some extra energy tanks.
Whichever route you choose, make your way to Kraid's lair.
Kraid
After entering Kraid, you can opt to kill the Acid Worm or skip the fight entirely. The detour to fight the acid worm is ultimately slower but recommended if you cannot do horizontal bomb jumps. Since we don't have Power Grip, infinite bomb jumps are required to get to Acid Worm. Fighting Acid Worm also gives you the opportunity to grab an additional energy tank and 1 or 2 missile tanks.
Skipping Acid Worm requires horizontal bomb jumps since we don't have Power Grip. From there, make your way down to fight Kraid as you would in any other category.
After fighting Kraid, if you did Acid Worm skip, you will need to make a quick detour to charge a shinespark to get across the room. This shinespark is somewhat difficult since we don't have Power Grip.
If you did not do Acid Worm skip, make sure you have at least 10 missiles to kill the Reos that chase you across the room when you take the zipline.
Crateria
After leaving Kraid, make your way through Brinstar, enter Norfair, then head to Crateria, where you will grab your first Super Missile pack.
Norfair
Be mindful of your missile count as you go through Norfair; you will need at least 3 missiles for each of the major item doors, and an additional 4 to get to Screw Attack. In addition, if you want to skip all refills, you will need at least 18 missiles to defeat Imago coccoon.
Use speed booster to make your way down to Hi-Jump, then make your way to Screw Attack. In the second heated room, you will need to do infinite bomb jumps or General_Movement#Diagonal_Bomb_Jumps_.28DBJ.29 to make your way up the ledge on the left.
If you opted to do Late Varia Suit, you will be making a hell run after grabbing Hi-Jump. You want to have at least two energy tanks to survive; if you're not at full health when you grab Hi-Jump, refill if you're at less than ~170 energy. If your movement is great, you can get by with ~150-160 energy. If you opted to do early Varia Suit, this is not an issue.
After getting Screw Attack, grab the missile tank in the ripper room, make your way to Wave Beam, fight the Imago larvae, grab the missile tank at the bottom of Norfair, then fight the Imago coccoon and enter Ridley's lair.
Ridley
The path you'll follow in Ridley is similar to that of Any%, but once you reach pillar room you go straight down to fight Ridley.
Norfair/Brinstar
After leaving Ridley's lair, grab Ice Beam, then return to Brinstar, grabbing Long Beam before heading into Tourian. If you opted to grab Varia Suit late, now is the time to grab it.
If desired, you can opt to grab Brinstar Super on your way to Tourian.
Mothership
Chozodia
Mothership
The only difference from Any% is a quick stop to grab Power Bombs before fighting Mecha Ridley.
Ammo Summary
