Hey, I've been experimenting with this game recently and I just discovered a new fastest route to complete the game with zero bananas and zero percent! For the purposes of a TAS, it requires loading from a save state, but the run itself is from start to finish. Anyway here's how:
- You need a game in which two save slots are complete, but the third one is new. To make things easier, load this new file and save after Squawk has spoken to you outside Donkey's hut.
- Perform the
intro cutscene glitch. When you arrive back at the Mystery menu with no music, load the new file and save and quit immediately.
- You'll notice that the DK Ilses theme is playing during the Game Over cutscene. Keep pressing start until you arrive back at the main menu, which will feature the DK Rap.
- Wait a while, and eventually the intro cutscene will play again. If for some reason the cutscene hasn't started by the time it reaches Lanky's verse, try selecting the Options.
- When you regain control of Donkey, step outside the hut. If a cutscene doesn't start playing, you're golden. You should notice that you still have zero bananas, but all the characters are unlocked and K. Rool's ship is available!
What's happened here is that the game has combined the data from the new file and one of the other two files. It will keep the golden banana count of the new file, but it will copy the characters, keys and blueprints of one of the other files. You'll also notice that you're invincible and the pause menu is disabled, and any golden bananas that were not obtained in the copied file will still be available to collect in the game. Now all you need to beat the game is to get the abilities required to defeat K. Rool. For some reason, Donkey and Diddy already possess the necessary skills, but you still need to buy what's required for Lanky, Tiny and Chunky. With this method, it's possible to beat the game with zero bananas AND zero percent!
Now here's the catch: the game won't save this combined file after you complete the game. It will be as if it never happened. The only way to restore the pause function and save normally is if the game copies data from a save file in which all the blueprints have already been collected. Playing one of Snide's minigames allows you to pause again. But beware! If you save the game, it will not save over the new file, it will save over the file the game copied data from.
Here's an interesting variation: If you play a 101% file and use the intro cutscene glitch to copy data from a blank file, you'll only have 161 golden bananas. Why? Because the blank file doesn't have any blueprints, which totals 40 golden bananas. However, since none of the golden bananas were collected in the blank file, you can still obtain them in the game. As long as you collect all the blueprints and play one of Snide's minigames to make the pause function available, you can save your progress and collect far more than 201 bananas. Just remember that no Kong should have more than seven golden bananas in any particular level, otherwise the counter will roll back to zero after you save. This gives you a total limit of 280 golden bananas in a save file.
I still haven't been able to determine WHICH save file the game copies data from. It appears to be completely random. But here's the thing: instead of waiting for the intro cutscene to interrupt the main menu, highlight the file you want to copy data from, but only go so far as to display the data for that file (i.e. percent and bananas). Don't actually play the file. Now press B twice to go back to the main menu and wait for the intro cutscene to start playing. After it's finished. The save file the game copied data from is guaranteed to be the one you highlighted, but it will also copy all abilities and golden bananas, thus making it worthless for a 0GB/percent run. Still, I just thought I'd point this out.
Anyway, it took me a while to figure this all out and I hope you appreciate it. As far as I know, this method is now the fastest way to complete the game. :)
EDIT: I've just discovered that the reason the game substracts 40 bananas from a 101% game is not because the blueprints are missing, but because all the bananas Lanky obtained are missing - even the ones he got from blueprints! I have no idea why only Lanky's bananas are missing, but this makes it impossible to reach a total of 280 bananas because Lanky can't get more than 5 bananas per level. The new limit is 264 bananas in a save file.
